Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 3 Study # 2
September 4, 2016
Humble, Texas
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• I. A Return to the Bottom Line.
  • A. As we have said, all of Romans 6 is designed to set forth the proper response of the "believer" to the fact of "grace".
  • B. And Paul's "thanks be to God" (NASB) is intended to set the stage for the "believer's" realization that "grace" has far more in mind than simply "deliverance from Justice".
    • 1. The word translated "thanks" is the New Testament word for "grace".
    • 2. A very literal translation of the phrase is "Now grace to The God...".
      • a. It is a call to gratitude, but without demand (there is no verb).
      • b. It is, far more importantly, a summons to subscribe "grace" to its real origin: The God.
    • 3. The utterance follows hard upon the heels of Paul's declaration that there is a great deal more to "Life" than deliverance from "Justice".
      • a. The large issue is "Life".
      • b. The lesser issues are the things involved in bringing it into a fully developed experience.
        • 1) One of those "lesser issues" is the problem of the Major Barrier: the Justice of God.
        • 2) The next most crucial of those "lesser issues" is the problem of the law of creation that compels a legitimate response of "effect" to all "causes".
        • 3) Thus, for "Life" to be one's experience, all of the lesser issues have to be included in the problem of bringing "Life" into experience.
      • c. Paul's summons to ascribe "grace" to "The God" is a redundant, but necessary, return to the bottommost consideration.
  • C. Thus, we have to conclude that "Life" will not be and can not be a developed experience unless one keeps "grace" clearly in view.
    • 1. Keeping "grace" clearly in view means taking Jeremiah 51:17 seriously: "All men are stupid..." (NASB).
    • 2. But keeping "grace" clearly in view also means taking "grace" seriously as to its most fundamental issue: God does for us what He requires of us when we trust Him.
• II. The Illustration.
  • A. "Grace" first addressed the actual status of humanity: "...you were slaves to The Sin...".
  • B. Then "grace" addressed the procedural issues of the process of "deliverance by the hand of God".
    • 1. The are two "forms of doctrine" involved.
      • a. The issue of "form" is the issue of the "whence" of the doctrine [a "form" is the impression made by a stamp; thus, the "stamp" is the original and the "form" is the consequence].
      • b. The original "form" is the creation by God of a universe of a myriads of details and processes, with the emphasis upon God's initiative and goodness.
      • c. The consequent distortion of that "form" is the creation by "The Spirit of The Disbelief" of a shadow creation underwritten by the "notion" that creatures have "free will".
    • 2. There is one "response" issue involved.
      • a. Everywhere, the issue (translated "obey") is "yielding" to the impact of a host of values/ beliefs that are compounded as an avalanche designed to sweep the "hearer" into its path.
      • b. Thus, the issue is not a matter of "free will"; it is a matter of "believing", i.e., "yielding" to the marshaled evidence.
    • 3. There is one "arena" involved.
      • a. Paul is not interested in the mental aspect at this point; the mind simply applies thought to a problem.
      • b. Paul is fundamentally interested in the "values" that will prejudice the mind to yield to its insistence: the heart.
      • c. This is the crux of "grace".
        • 1) The word of God describes this "heart" as "deceitful and desperately wicked".
        • 2) The word of God declares that the only thing that will transform a fallen man is the generation of a "new heart" by God in the man.
        • 3) The only way to describe this intention and action by God is to root it in "grace": His action upon "stupid" men.
    • 4. There are two "delivery systems" involved.
      • a. In the shadow creation, the "delivery system" is through "The Sin" and its obvious arguments of "setting" (surrounding realities).
      • b. In the original creation, the "delivery system" is "grace empowered deliverers" called elsewhere "preachers of the Gospel" [Note Romans 10:14].
    • 5. There is a promised "result" involved.
      • a. The "problem" is being a slave of The Sin in a cause/effect universe.
      • b. The "promise" is a transformative "slavery" to The Righteousness in that universe.
    • 6. There is one major issue involved.
      • a. The verb in 6:18 translated "became" (NASB) is a passive voice verb.
      • b. This "passive" retains the focus upon "grace to God".
• III. The Bottom Line.
  • A. God intends a fully developed "salvation" that moves through Justice and Creation Reality to the experience of "The Joy of Life".
  • B. The Romans are to rely upon what God has already done as they focus upon what to expect in the future.
    • 1. He has already moved them from the bondage to The Sin into the bondage to The Righteousness.
    • 2. Now He is calling for "further yielding" consistent with "the form of doctrine delivered".