The Bible is the most misunderstood book of all time. When understood correctly: The Bible has the answers to all we need. So how do we effective study and understand it?
Philosophy and Science have tried to no avail to answer the deeper questions of life:
What is man? What is the difference between man and animals?What happens to us when we die?
Another system: False Religion has tried but come up way short because they too have been misled.
INTRO: Unrighteousness of Gentiles, Unrighteousness of Jews
So far we have looked at what justification means and showed that the root of just, justified, justification, was the same and often is used interchangeably in the Bible with right, righteous, righteousness
We defined Justification = made righteous; Only God can justify us; It is a gift that has been made available because of the sacrifice of Christ. We cannot make ourselves righteous by keeping the law – this does not undo the unrighteous acts that we have committed BUT the last scripture that we read says Romans 2:13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;
We saw in Psalms and 1 John that God’s commandments are righteousness and we have to practice righteousness to be righteous, just as God is righteous. [Psalm 119:172; 1 John 3:7]
…Realizing that as Galatians and Philippians puts it that it is not our own righteousness but Christ living in us by faith
Continuing now, Paul is still in the middle of showing the Jews their unrighteousness even though they had been given the law:
One of the perennial problems that the Christian faces is that of trying to remain motivated, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and even decade after decade. Many of us have
It is an epistle of Paul as clearly indicated in several verses within the book and is one of the so called “prison epistles” written during his incarceration at Rome.
It is Paul’s shortest letter and we are often left wondering why God saw it fit to include it in the Holy Scripture