Romans Chapters 3-7

Chapter 3 of Romans teaches all people groups of all ages outside of Christ are equal in their guilt. All have sinned but all can be set free from sin and guilt through Christ.

Romans 4 teaches, he that receives Christ and the work that He finished is justified, cleared of all sins, guilt, and condemnation. Also accepting the fact that the old man (the old "I") was crucified and buried with Christ and done away with by faith, based upon absolute dependence upon the facts that God has declared. All was and is accomplished by Christ alone, through His grace alone, by faith alone in Him.

Romans 5:1-21 teaches that all those in Christ have His peace as theirs and that when they received Him as their Savior, they did so in the condition they were in.

Romans 6 teaches that God never gives us grace to continue in sin. It teaches us that we must continually yield ourselves in continual dependence on Christ.

Romans 7 teaches as we go forward in Christ, we must go down to come back up and learn experimentally, to learn experientially, that we have already died unto sin. It is here where we learn the positional truths in Romans. chapters 3,4,5, and 6 in our experiential growth in the grace of Christ.

It can be a long time for many before they arrive at this point. Many spend months and years trying to improve until they feel there is no hope, all is vain, empty.

Not until then, and then only, comes the agonizing cry, "O wretched man that I am!" When they, finally come to a true sense of the self-life, just like the prodigal, our confession is "in me (that is in my flesh) dwells no good thing."

Finally, they, turn to God and after this experiential learning of the positional fact that Christ has really and truly finished everything, we say, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Please know that these chapters teach so much more (as in chap. 5) and that this a brief outline to explain certain experiences of believers).

The Law (not in its types, but its proper character) appeals to the individual's obedience but knows nothing of a Substitute. Grace always supposes the intervention of God Himself in His Son, who in the cross establishes the right of God to bless those that believe in Jesus Christ as their Substitute, their Savior, their Deliverer.

It is not simply His prerogative of mercy; it is His righteousness. The righteousness of the ONLY ACCEPTABLE VICTIM. The Father HAS accepted it all. This then is the new sort of righteousness; NOT man's, which, if it existed, must be according to the law, not the sinner's, of course. Why? Because he, being a sinner, has none which can avail.

According to the types of the law and the declarations of the prophets, where would they all have been? BUT GOD'S righteousness is now no longer hidden or even promised BUT MANIFESTED (Heb. 1:1-3). Outside of Christ all stand inexcusable in their guilt before God; and this because law-works CANNOT justify, CANNOT clear away sins and guilt. Still less of course the works that man's mind suggests, or that the will of others may extort.

If any works could justify anybody, those of God's law must be the surest benefit to the Jew. BUT the truth is that no flesh will be justified from ANY such source in His sight. Why?, because the truth is the law NEVER produces holiness, but is only the means of arriving at a full knowledge of sin. (Please see Ex.19:8; 24:3; Num. 2 3:19-23; Rom. 7:12-13; Gal. 2:16-21).