Rabbi Schneider - Are You Fully Saved?

TOPICS: Journeying Through the Book of Romans Season 2, Salvation

If you've never been convicted of sin, beloved, your relationship with the Lord needs to go much deeper. All our relationships need to go much deeper. But if there's not a conviction of sin in your life, if you don't have an awareness of your own selfishness, of your wrong motives for doing things, of the things in your life that are out of whack or crooked, if you're not dealing with those things, and if God's not making you aware of those things by His Holy Spirit, how can you be cleansed? Because the Bible says, "We're cleansed from sin as we examine ourselves". And Jesus came to deliver us from our sin. And so up to this point in the book of Romans, Paul has gone through a lengthy exposition teaching both Jew and non-Jew that you're guilty of sin before God.

So with that said, I'm going to pick up in chapter 3, verse number 9. He's first of all speaking of a Jew, and he says, "What then? Are we," speaking of the Jew, "Better than they"? Meaning better than the Gentile. He says, "Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks", Greeks is another way of saying Gentiles, "both Jews and Greeks are all under sin". And so I've been saying it over and over again, the Gospel that needs to be preached today is repentance from sin. Not that God is going to fulfill us by giving us everything in the world, and that's what we're supposed to be looking to Him, first of all, for.

You know, Jesus said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then everything else should be added unto you". Paul goes on to say in verse 10, remember we're going verse by verse here, "There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one". He's convicting the whole world of their need for a savior, of their need to fall on their knees and cry out, "God save me, have mercy on me". He goes on to verse 18, "There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law".

Again, he's referring to Jewish people, because he's bringing conviction about Jew and Gentile. "...so that every mouth may be closed and all the world". In other words, if Jewish people think that they're better than Gentiles- he's going back to the first century here-if Jewish people think they're better than Gentiles because they've got the Law, Paul said, "No, you might have the Law but you didn't keep the Law". So he says, "It speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight. For through the Law comes the knowledge of sin".

So Paul was just going back to the Jewish people of his time, who thought the Gentiles were unclean. And he was communicating to them, "Listen, just because you have the Law doesn't make you clean. And by the way, there's Gentiles that even though they don't have the Law, they're keeping it more than you are. But the truth," Paul said, "Is that we're all guilty before God, every single one of us, there is none that does good no, not one; and by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified". This should reveal to us the deep truth, that we can't attain eternal life by our own righteousness. You may be a Gentile and say, "Well, I'm not a Jew, so that's not really relevant to me". But beloved Gentile, it's relevant to you because the truth of the spirit is that you cannot earn God's favor by being a good person.

This is the whole point. "There is none that do good," Paul just got done saying. No one shall be justified by the works of the Law. No one's a good enough person to earn salvation. He's preparing us to cry for mercy, and to not depend on ourselves, or to be puffed up or to have pride. And some of us really need to hear that message because we have pride. We think we're better than other people. We think we're righteous, we think we're religious, we think we're spiritual, that has nothing to do with anything. Remember, Jesus told the parable about the two people that went to pray. One was was a Pharisee and the other was a simple person. He was a sinner and he knew he was a sinner. And the two men went to pray next to each other, and first, the Pharisee prayed.

Now the Pharisee really thought he was a good person, he was trying to do good deeds, trying to walk in righteousness. So the Pharisee, we all know the story, begins to pray and he says, "Thank you Lord that I'm not like this sinner, this guy next to me". And then the sinner prays, he said, "Lord, have mercy on me, forgive me, save me". Yeshua said, "The sinner went home justified". So I just want to speak to you right now, if you in any way think you're a good person through your own merit, you are totally separated from the Lord in that attitude. Because we are all completely dependent on God for salvation as a free gift of righteousness. The Bible says, "It's not by deeds of righteousness," in the book of Titus, "that we do, but according to His mercy does He save us, through the washing and regenerating power of the Holy Spirit"?

Let's continue on here. Paul says this, "Through the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified". And now he takes us down a brand new path. Verse number 21, "But now", it's a brand new thing, he's already convicted everybody. None of you are doing right, none of you are going to heaven where you're at. "But now", it's a brand new word Paul's got. Now he's getting ready to deliver the good news. He's given us the bad news: you're all guilty, none of you are good. But now is the gospel. "But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus".

Let's take this apart again. Paul begins in verse 21 by saying. "But now apart from the Law". What does this mean? Salvation doesn't come by keeping the Law, but salvation comes, get it now, church, apart from the Law. It's a brand new way. It's a brand new way. We don't earn salvation through keeping the Law, through our own righteousness, through being good enough. It's apart from that, that salvation comes. It comes through Yeshua alone, and it's based not on our righteousness but His righteousness, and us receiving His righteousness imputed unto us as a free gift.

That's why Paul said that he had lost everything in his life, in order that he would be standing before God. Not having a righteousness of his own derived from the law, "But the righteousness that comes," Paul said, "through Christ Jesus". He knew that his own righteousness by keeping the Law would never get him to heaven. He came to that understanding. And so he gave all that up. Not that he's stopped relating to the Law in a healthy way, but he stopped looking at the Law as a way to salvation. He said he gave all that up and now he put his entire confidence in the righteousness of Jesus, and received Jesus' righteousness as a gift through which he'd be able to stand before the Lord truly being blameless. So listen again, "For now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets".

So hear me now, it came apart from the Law, because salvation doesn't come through the Law, it comes through Jesus. But Paul also said here in verse number 21, that this salvation, "this righteousness was witnessed by the Law and the Prophets". What does it mean it was apart from the Law but witnessed by the Law and the Prophets? What Paul is saying is that the Law and the Prophets spoke about, prophesied about that God was going to send forth the Messiah, and that the Messiah would take our sin, Isaiah 53, in His own body on the tree. Moses said, once again, "The Lord's going to rise up for you a deliverer like me, and whoever does not listen to him will be cut off".

And so, again, the Hebrew Bible spoke about the coming of Messiah and the work and redemption that He'd bring. But when Messiah came, he doesn't bring us into salvation by our own good works, through obedience to the law. He brings us into salvation through His own body, by dying and then rising from the dead as a gift that would be imparted to us. And this salvation, he said is ".even," in verse number 22, "the righteousness of God himself". Not our own righteousness which is as filthy rags, but it's the righteousness of God Himself, who clothed Himself in humanity and died in our place. "And through faith in Jesus Christ," verse 22, "all those who believe will receive this gift. For all have sinned", so no one can come to God apart from Jesus. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," but through Jesus, in verse 24, "we're justified as a gift by His grace. Through the redemption," He takes us and He makes us whole. "Which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed".

In other words, Jesus didn't just announce salvation from the sky, but God literally came to earth, physically, so that people saw Him. So Paul says, "Whom God publicly displayed, or whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be the just and the justifier of one who has faith in Jesus".

So what Paul is saying here, is that God has been patient in the past. He's overlooked humanity's sin. He had for the Jewish people the holy day of Yom Kippur every year, it's spoken about in the book of Hebrews, where the high priest would bring into the tabernacle and then into the temple a special room called the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was. And inside the Ark of the Covenant were the Ten Commandments. And once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Covering or the Day of Atonement, the high priest would bring in, as many of you know, the blood of the bull and the blood of the goat and pour it on top of that Ark of the Covenant. The New Testament calls that the Mercy Seat. And the Lord would see the blood on top of the Ark of the Covenant, and He would forgive Israel's sins that year. Because He said, "The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I've given it to you on the altar to make an atonement for your soul".

But we know that the blood of the bulls and the goats could never really take away sin. But God allowed it because it was a type and a shadow of what He would ultimately do with Yeshua. When He Himself came to earth, clothed Himself, once again, as a descendant of David, as a Jew, in humanity, sinless, perfect dying in our place. And this is what Paul is saying here, that it was demonstrated in space, and in time. Some religions of the world have no physical demonstration of their salvation. It's just a theory. It's just a belief system. But our God broke into time and space and it's real history. Then Paul says that this one, this Yeshua of Nazareth, this descendent of David, who was wounded for our transgressions, was pierced through for our iniquities, Paul said that "He has become now," in verse 26, "both the just and the justifier of one who has faith in Him". In verse number 26, "For this demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of one who has faith in Him". Meaning that Jesus Yeshua is the Just One.

In other words, I couldn't die for you, for your sin because I'm not just. I have to die for my own sin. And you could say, "Well, I'm going to die for this person". But your death for that person wouldn't be sufficient because you're evil yourself, you're a sinner yourself. You've got to die for your own sins. But Jesus is just. He can die for someone else. He can give His death as a gift to someone else because He's just. So He is both the just and the justifier. Because He's just He can die in our place, and because He's given His death, the innocent one dying in the place of the guilty, because He's imputing that to us, He has justified us, He is both the just and the justifier. So because, beloved ones, this is all about Jesus, Paul says in verse 27, "Where then is the boasting"? How can we boast? We were saved by grace through faith as the free gift of God. "For we maintain," Paul said, "that a man is justified by the free gift of Jesus". In verse 27, "Where then is boasting? It is excluded. It's excluded".

So Father we worship you today. We worship you today. Father God, help us to fall deeper in love with Jesus. Help us to become more humble, Father, than we've ever been before. Help us to realize, Lord, that we're nothing without You. Father, we're nothing and we stand by Your grace. Father, that we didn't deserve anything, that we're no different than anybody else. But You in Your sovereignty and in Your election, chose us out of the world and elected, Lord, to be graceful to us. And we of all people should be the most merciful and the most humble.

So Father, God, help us to receive this message in such a way that it tenderizes our hearts to be champions for Jesus, to be trumpeters for the true message of salvation. In this world today that is walking away from Jesus, in this world today who oftentimes think they know the truth, think they've heard the gospel, think they've heard it before, heard it, been there, done that, and yet really don't know the truth. Help us, Father God, to carry the true message of Jesus. And for those amongst us that think that Jesus is one of many paths, Father, may they be rebuked, and recognize, no, Jesus, You're not one of many paths, You're the only path. You're the sinless one that died for the sinner and there is no way unto redemption, but through Your blood, through Your death, burial, and resurrection.

Father, we just hail You today in the name of King Jesus. We worship You King Jesus. We declare that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, Yeshua, that you are Lord. Help us to redeem the life You've given us in the sense that we use it for Your glory. Help us to make our lives count for You. You said that "You would build Your church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it". Father, we declare that we are Your flesh and blood in the world right now. Help us, Lord, to carry this message of salvation, this gospel that has the power to save, here now, and forever.