"Romans Made Simple" by David Bercot

Lesson Transcript

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Welcome to Strength to Strength. Our mission here is to advance Jesus' kingdom by assisting the Church in earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. So one way we're doing that, and today, is a talk by David Brusseau on Romans Made Simple. David's going to explore Paul's most theological, foundational, but often divisive book of Romans. Romans can be a difficult book to navigate.

As a result, people have used Romans to teach wrong doctrines, like salvation by faith alone. However, Brusseau explains, if we keep in mind just three simple principles, Romans becomes a book that any Christian can easily and properly understand. So yeah, looking forward to this. I want to also announce that we have a sale going on right now, a limited-time sale, I think it's till the end of May, of 20% off the Historic Faith Commentary series commentary on Romans by Brusseau.

So I actually realized today that I don't have this one, and so I just ordered it. So Glenn probably saw that show up. Yeah, like usual, there will be a time for question and answer at the end of this. And I don't know if I need to introduce David, but David Brusseau is an author. Here's the little blurb here on our website. David Brusseau is an author, church historian, and founder of Scroll Publishing, a ministry that distributes material on the subjects of early Christianity and radical Christian discipleship.

David and his wife, Deborah, worship with Chambersburg Christian Fellowship in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. So yeah, without much further ado, I think why don't we have a prayer, and then I will turn it over to David. Let's pray. Father, I just thank you for today. Thank you for this opportunity to meet together in this way and to explore and to think about the book of Romans. I just pray for your wisdom.

For David, thank you for all that he has invested throughout his lifetime in studying Scripture, studying church history, and I just pray that you would bless him as he shares today. Thank you for this, and I pray that you would open our eyes to see this book as you want us to. May you be glorified. May your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so we're going to be talking about Romans Made Simple.

Originally, I gave this message at a it was a sermon I gave at a Beechy Amish church, and I've given it to several different Mennonite churches. So a little bit of it is geared towards an Anabaptist audience, but what I'm sharing is obviously going to apply to all Kingdom Christians, and we welcome anyone, no matter what your Christian persuasion is, or if you're not even a Christian at all, yeah, to share in this message.

It's not limited to one particular group, but just so you'll understand when I do talk about the Anabaptist. Now, I think all conservative Anabaptist groups and all other Kingdom Christian groups, we all believe that how you live as a Christian will affect your eternal destiny. In other words, after you've been saved, you can't live in serious, unrepentant sin and still expect to inherit eternal life. I think we all believe that.

The problem is we teach that, but then our evangelical Protestant friends hit us with Romans 4:2-5. Let me read that to you. It says, "For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now, to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt.

But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." So that passage leaves our people confused. I mean, it sounds like Paul is saying that works, obedience to God's commandments, don't really matter that much to God, and that they play no role in our salvation. And that's precisely what evangelical Protestants believe. At least they believe our works play no role in our salvation. So are we Kingdom Christians mistaken on what we teach?

Is it true that our works don't particularly matter that much to God? Are the evangelicals the ones who are right, and are we the ones who are wrong on this question? Well, the answer is no. We're not the ones who are wrong, but it's important that we understand Romans in the manner in which it was originally understood, or else we are going to get tripped up.

So what I'm going to be explaining this afternoon is how Romans was originally understood, not how David Brusseau understands it, how this letter was originally understood by the Christians who came after Paul. Now, in a way, it's strange that I should give a message entitled Romans Made Simple because Romans is easily the most difficult of Paul's letters to understand. I mean, arguably, it's the most difficult book of the New Testament with the exception of Revelation.

Origen, who is one of the early Christian writers, he used this illustration to describe Romans. Now, he loved this letter. He was a big admirer of Paul, and I'd say Romans was his favorite letter of Paul's. But he used this illustration to describe Paul's writing method. He said, "Imagine that you're a visitor and you're being given a tour of a king's palace, this magnificent palace with maybe 100 different rooms or whatever.

And you've got this tour guide who takes you into the door of one of the rooms, and you look around and it's just magnificent. And you see all these different treasures, and your eyes are just looking in wonder. And then he leads you out a different door than the one you just came in. And then you go down a hallway, and then he opens another door and you enter into another room. And it's just as magnificent as that first room, but it's a different room. And it's got all kinds of wonders in it.

And you're just sitting there amazed by it. You want to spend the whole day there, but no, he leads you on out another door still. And you're now in another hallway and you enter into a third room. And this is also magnificent, but it's a different room and it's got different treasures in it. And then you go out through some other door out of that room. And at some point, you're back in the first room again for a little while, but then he takes you back out of that.

And so it's this maze of all these wonderful rooms. Well, Romans is kind of like that. Paul doesn't go in A, B, C, D kind of sequence. He shares a wonderful, life-giving message in this chapter. Now, he didn't write in chapters, so we can say in this section. And then he moves to a different treasure and talks about it, but then he moves back to another one and then another one, but then he's back to the first one again.

And you're just going down all of these different wonderful into these wonderful rooms, but it can be a little bit confusing. So it's not surprising that people have tried to make Romans Simple. It's a worthy goal. And the version that most people make or most people are familiar with, the simple version, is the one that Luther gave, Martin Luther, in the 1500s. Now, Luther said that we are saved by faith alone. This is how he summed up Romans, okay? He said, "We are saved by faith alone.

Works play no role in our salvation." So trying to be good, trying to obey a list of commandments is the worst thing you can do. Now, once you relinquish all thoughts of personal righteousness or trying to please God with your works, once you accept the fact that Jesus did it all, there's nothing you need to do. Only then can you experience real salvation and you find a real joy and a real freedom.

But if you've been striving to be obedient, if you think your works play a role in your salvation, then you aren't even saved. You're not a Christian. And that's why you have struggles in your life. But once you acknowledge you can do nothing good and that your works add nothing to your salvation, then and only then can you be saved.

Now, once you are truly saved, you will have so much appreciation for Christ that you will want to obey His commandments purely out of the love you have for Him, for what He's done for you. Now, I'm sure almost everyone listening to that has heard that presentation of Romans before, that presentation of the Gospel. I mean, it's literally been shared in millions of sermons, in tracts, in books, in pamphlets, over and over and over. We've all heard that many times. I mean, it sounds wonderful.

It's probably the most appealing version of the Gospel that anyone has ever come up with. And much of what I just said, much of what Luther taught is true, but it's not the whole truth. And half-truths are just as misleading, just as dangerous as complete falsehoods. Because what Luther taught is not the true Gospel. That is, it's not the complete Gospel. And that's why from the very start, it was an utter failure. I mean, we know what Reformation Germany was like. There's enough historic record.

If nothing else, we have Luther's letters, his writings. I mean, he wanted to tear his hair out. He really believed what he was saying. He thought once people quit trying to do works and they just accept that they're saved by faith alone, then yeah, they're going to have this real love for Jesus Christ. They'll be obeying His teachings because they want to, not because these are works that please God, but just because they love God. That didn't happen, not with most people.

In fact, Reformation Germany was far more ungodly than Catholic Germany had been. I mean, Luther got so frustrated with it. If I've got my facts right, towards the end of his life, he himself moved out of Wittenberg, Germany, where the Reformation had started, where he nailed the 99 theses on the door of the church. He moved out of there because it was so ungodly he couldn't stand it. And yeah, he makes it clear in his letters that, yeah, this didn't work. Now, he doesn't ever say, "Oh, my message was wrong.

My Gospel was wrong." He just blasted the German people for whatever. He never acknowledged that, "Hey, maybe there's something wrong with my Gospel. Maybe this isn't what Paul said in Romans." Now, to be honest and be fair, there are and have always been a certain percentage of individuals who hold on to Luther's theology, who adopt the modern evangelical Protestant Gospel, who do go on to live godly, holy lives. But they are a decided minority.

Most Christians who hear this Gospel and embrace it, at best, at best, they have a pick-and-choose obedience. They'll obey some of Christ's commandments, some of the New Testament commandments, but then they reject others. The ones that are difficult for them, they tend to reject. And yeah, they pick and choose what they like. That's at best. I mean, so many. They adopt this Gospel and soon after they stray from Christ and live very ungodly lives. It doesn't work at all.

But at the same time, what we're going to be looking at this afternoon is that the basic teaching of Romans about salvation can't be expressed rather simply. It's not the book is difficult, but once you because of what Origen said, you're going from room to room in no particular logical order. But once you sort through that, put everything in its proper room, its proper bunks, Romans can be very understandable, but it isn't the version of Romans that Luther invented.

And when I said he invented it, it's because no one preached his version before him. I mean, either nobody understood the Gospel until the 1500s when Martin Luther appeared on the scene, or Martin Luther was very mistaken. As I said at the beginning, we're going to look at the original understanding of Romans, which is not hard to grasp, and it harmonizes. And this is the key thing. It harmonizes with all the rest of Scripture. Luther's Gospel didn't.

And that's why he told people, "Look, you can ignore Matthew, Mark, and Luke. You can ignore this book. You can ignore that book. Romans," he said, "is the chief book." When you start playing those kind of games, it should be a telltale sign that, "Wait a minute, this isn't the Gospel." If it's the Gospel, the whole New Testament is going to harmonize. All right. So here's a basic outline of today's message. Three things.

We're going to look at the two phases of salvation, two different kinds of law, and then three kinds of works. It's that simple. Those three things, two phases of salvation, two different laws, and three kinds of works. These are all there in the letter to the Romans. So we'll start with the two phases of salvation. The Scriptures talk about salvation in two phases or in two tenses. Various verses say that we were saved, past tense, or we have been saved, past perfect tense.

When it talks in those tenses, it's almost always talking about our initial phase of salvation, when we first got saved. Yet other verses say that we must endure faithfully to the end, and then we will be saved, future tense. Okay, so you have both tenses, something that happened in our past if we are a Christian and something that still lies ahead. Now, to be technical, we could say there's three tenses.

There's the past, there's the present where we're living now, and then there's the future of what is going to be decided once we die. And I'm kind of combining those last two together. We're in the present phase moving to the future. So we have been saved. If we're a real Christian, we have been saved, yet we need to endure in order to be saved. Both of those things are exact truths. They're both taught all throughout the New Testament, and we have to embrace them both.

When we just take one of them, we're going to have half of a Gospel. Okay, so let's talk about this first phase, which is usually spoken of in the past tense. Not always, but usually. Okay, so our initial salvation, and I'm probably right now talking to people who have been saved. Okay, so your initial salvation was through faith in Christ. It's totally made possible by God's grace. And God does not require any prior godly works from us. It's a free gift.

Okay, so there is a sense that we can say we have been saved by faith alone. The Scriptures never use that exact phrase, but in a limited sense, it's true if you include repentance as part of that initial faith. Okay, so that initial phase again, this is only through faith and repentance. We're redeemed through the blood of Christ. That's what makes it possible. I mean, we cannot possibly save ourselves. And in fact, when we talk about the second phase, all that is also based on the blood of Christ.

It's all through grace. We don't ever accomplish our own salvation. But at the beginning, all God requires from us is faith and repentance to receive this free gift of salvation. All right. So what happens at our initial salvation? What does it mean that we have been saved? Well, it means all of our past sins have been washed away. We get to start with a clean slate. If we die immediately after we've been saved, we'll go straight to paradise like the thief on the cross.

When we have been saved, it means we're born again. We're a new creature in Christ. And now that we're a child of God, we're adopted into His family. And as a new creature in Christ, we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I mean, all of these things happen at our initial salvation. Our salvation is complete. We're not half saved like, "Okay, now we've done half and now we need to add the second half." No, our salvation is final.

I mean, our salvation is complete, but it is not final unless we die immediately like the thief on the cross. Okay, so let's look at some of the Scriptures that talk about our initial salvation. Now, evangelical Protestants like to pray these verses, and these verses are all absolutely true. They're just not the whole picture, okay? But let's look at some of these verses that are so often quoted in evangelical Protestant tracts and in their sermons, okay? Now, I've already read to you Romans 4, verses 2 through 5.

I'll read to you just one sentence, the one from verse 5, where Paul says, "But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." Okay, it's quoted many, many times by evangelicals. Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved." And notice the tense there. By grace you have been saved, past perfect tense, through faith and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast.

Okay, so again, our initial phase of salvation, works play no role in it. 2 Timothy 1:9, Paul talking about Christ says, "Who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal." All right. So again, past tense there, who saved us, okay, but it wasn't according to our works. If it was according to our works, no one would be saved ever. All right.

Another one that's often quoted, Titus 3:4-5, "When the kindness and the love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us," again, past tense, "through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." Okay, so like I say, normally that initial salvation is spoken of in the past tense because the Bible writer is talking to Christians who have already been saved.

Now, sometimes they are there's a whole topic about our initial salvation, and it will sometimes be spoken of in the present tense. But when you look at the context, it's talking about how does a person initially get saved? Okay, now all those verses are wonderful. They're all correct. The problem is that Protestants stop there as if that's the totality of what the New Testament teaches about salvation. But that's playing game with Scriptures. We can't do that. We have to look at the entirety of the New Testament.

Now, unfortunately, this Gospel of Martin Luther, it's not Paul's Gospel, and it's not the Gospel of Christ. It's the Gospel of Martin Luther. It has seeped into the Anabaptist world. It's seeped into the Kingdom world. And so it's affected or infected, you might say, so many of our people such that often you can't give a sermon on the whole Gospel of the New Testament because somebody is going to call you out on it. It's happened to me many times. I've experienced it.

I could talk the rest of the afternoon just on my experiences. I'll give you just one brief one. I was speaking at a Bible school. There's young people. My topic was actually discipleship. I wasn't even talking about how to get saved or anything specifically about salvation. I was talking about being a disciple, how we can grow in our discipleship. But I shared Scriptures and talked about the need for obedience and how we can grow in our obedience to Jesus Christ, etc. I talked about faith. I talked about prayer.

I talked about obedience. Should have been nothing objectionable at all. Well, to my shock, the speaker who got up after me, he announced, "Well, I was going to be talking about such and such, but I decided to change my sermon topic because I forget how he phrased it, but yeah, he needed to correct what I had said." And so he went through those four verses that I just read to you, plus a few other ones, and said, "See, works don't play any role in our salvation. No, it's good.

It's good to have works, but it has nothing to do with your salvation." And each time he'd read it, he'd say, "See, this is what the Bible says. This isn't me saying this. It's what the Bible says." Well, yes, those verses are what the Bible says, but they're not the totality of what the Bible says. And again, the key when you read those verses that are so often quoted, that are in so many tracts, is that they are talking about our initial salvation, the first phase. Okay, and it's wonderful.

It's so wonderful that we are saved by grace, that it is a gift given to us because we can't save ourselves. And we don't want to neglect those verses or push them and try to hide them in the corner. They're something we can proudly embrace as Kingdom Christians. Okay, but there is a second phase. I still clearly remember February 1st, 2003. I doubt that date means anything to most of you. It was a Saturday morning. I remember that well.

I was working in my office, either answering correspondence, working on a sermon, or a book, something like that. Now, we lived way out in the country. This was in Texas. We were at the dead end of a little country road that had hardly any traffic on it. And we were at the very end. It dead-ended right past our driveway. And then our driveway sat literally a quarter of a mile off of that little country lane.

And so as you can imagine, we didn't normally have any big trucks coming down our driveway or even down the road near our house. Very quiet location. But this morning, that Saturday morning, I was sitting there working, and suddenly I hear this big truck coming down our driveway. I mean, a heavy truck. It was so heavy. It was shaking my office. And I mean, I could feel it in my seat.

And from what I could tell, this heavy truck, whatever it was, it pulled up right in front of my office, which had been our carport that we had a carpenter convert into an office. So I thought, "What is this? We're not expecting any kind of delivery. Why would a truck be here? And why did it if it made a wrong turn, why did it just stop in front of my office?" So I got up and went out the door to see what this was. And when I got outside, everything was quiet, and the truck was gone. I mean, I looked around.

It just disappeared into thin air. No truck was there. I mean, I had heard it. I had felt it. It was so loud and such a heavy vibration. Then I walked around my office and looked. Nothing. I walked around our house. Nothing. I looked up our driveway, which you could see all the way to the road, like say, a long driveway, but no trucks there, no trucks going down the road. It's like, how can a truck just disappear in the thin air? So I went into the house, and I asked my wife, Deborah.

I said, "Did you hear that truck?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "It's gone. There's no truck out there." And she said, "What?" I said, "Go look for yourself. There's no truck. It just disappeared." And she looked out. Nothing. I mean, we both shook our heads. It's like, wow. I went back to work thinking, "Okay, I guess some explanation will come up at some point." Well, later that day, around lunchtime, I went in the house, and she had heard what had happened. It wasn't a truck that we heard.

It was actually the Space Shuttle Columbia that was reentering the Earth's atmosphere right about over our part of Texas where we were, East Texas. And when it entered the atmosphere, it disintegrated in a loud explosion. Even though it was something like 30 miles up in space, you could feel it that loud and that heavy there at our house. And pieces of it scattered all over all the counties around where we lived. Many fell right in our county, some of them not that far from our house.

A large chunk of it landed in the parking lot of the college where our daughter was going to, which was just in the, I think, neighboring county, adjoining county to ours. And yeah, like I say, they were looking for pieces for months thereafter. So the Space Shuttle had successfully launched. It got into space. It accomplished. It had some tasks it was doing, I think, at the space station and all of that. It got off fine. But the conclusion was not successful. It came apart on reentry.

So the same thing can happen to our salvation. Just because we have our initial salvation, just because we start this journey with Christ, does not mean that we are going to successfully conclude it. We maintain our safe condition. This is the phase two of our salvation. We must maintain our safe condition by holding fast to our faith and living faithfully in obedience to Christ's commandments. As Hebrews says, we must endure to the end of our earthly life.

Jesus tells us we must bear godly fruit, or we will be lopped off of His vine. Now, in the words of the Garden City statement of faith, this was in the early 1900s. It's an Anabaptist statement of faith. So if you're not Anabaptist, that's fine. But I'm reading it to demonstrate this is what Anabaptists taught at one time. Now, I'm not a particular fan of the Garden City, Missouri statement of faith. I actually prefer the historic Doortrek Confession from the 1600s.

I think it better expresses what Anabaptists originally believed. I think it better fits Scripture. Okay, anyway, but this is what the Garden City statement says. We believe that it is the privilege of all believers to know that they have passed from death unto life. In other words, there is an initial phase of our salvation. We should know we have been born again. We have been saved. Okay, very good. But it continues that God is able to keep them from falling. God, if we're faithful to Him, He will not fail us.

We will have His help. But it continues. But that the obedience of faith is essential to the maintenance of one's salvation and growth in grace. So even there, now, by the early 1900s, the Mennonites and other Anabaptists had been heavily influenced by evangelical Protestantism. But even then, they recognized that we have to maintain our saved condition. It's not once saved, always saved. We can't live any way that we want. Okay, so as we said earlier, no prior works are required for us in our initial salvation.

No works are required to be born again. But that's just the beginning of a long journey. Paul likens it to a race of endurance, not a race, not a sprint, but a race of endurance. We have to endure to the end. Jesus said, "He who endures to the end is the one who is saved." Okay, now, like the first phase of salvation, the second phase is not apart from grace. Don't think we're talking about somebody saving themselves by their works. And without Christ's empowerment, we could never walk faithfully with Him.

He said that specifically in John 15, "Without Him, we can do nothing." So the second phase requires an obedient, love-faith relationship with Jesus Christ, utter dependence on Christ. And our salvation is always a gift. It will never be something we deserve, no matter how godly of a life we live. And we don't earn our salvation through our obedience. Instead, through obedience, we prove our love for Christ by being obedient. All right. And that's what Jesus said.

We're going to be looking at that a little bit later. So where do we find these two phases of salvation in Romans? Well, actually, they're throughout the whole book. But it's like Origen explained. Paul takes the reader on a winding journey from room to room, from phase two to phase one, and then phase one again, and then back to phase two, and so on. And so it can make things rather confusing. So that's why when Luther came on, "Oh, here's a simplified understanding of Romans.

This is what it really means." You don't have to pay attention to all the details there. This is what Paul is saying. Well, yeah, everyone latched on to Luther's words, and then he had some proof text here and there to bolster it. And sure, people are going to latch on to that because, like I say, the book itself can be a bit confusing.

And one of the things that makes it confusing, at least if you've been exposed to Luther's teaching now, at the beginning, people saw that this was a difficult book, but the church wasn't all confused about it. And no one came up with Luther's explanation of Romans until he appeared on the scene. But Paul, I've been talking about phase one, our initial salvation, and then our continuing salvation, phase two. But Paul starts off with phase two. Okay, in Romans 2, verses 6 through 9.

Now, this is the part of Romans most people don't even know is there, not because anything is hidden. It's right there in front of them. They're not used to hearing sermons about this. It's not quoted in tracts. It's not dwelt on in books. Okay, but this is what Paul says towards the very beginning of his letter. He says, "God will render to every man according to His works." Now, right away, you might say, "Oh, well, he's just talking.

He's talking about rewards that we'll have beyond salvation." No, Paul makes this clear because he continues. He says, "Eternal life to those who by perseverance and doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality." So according to works is tied to eternal life, not to just rewards. Okay, and then he continues. This is Romans 2:6-9 that I'm reading. But to those who are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, there will be future tense. What lies ahead of us? Ending nation and wrath.

Yes, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who what? Doesn't believe, know who does evil. All right. So Paul starts off his letters, his letter to Romans, by making it clear, "Look, no matter what I say next, don't misunderstand me. I'm telling you right now up front that God is going to render to everyone according to their works. Eternal life to those who persevere in doing good. Wrath, tribulation, and anguish to those who persevere in disobedience and unrighteousness." All right.

So he gets that out of the way at the beginning. And why does he do it at the beginning? Because he was writing to Christians who were already saved. The first phase, the initial phase, was already behind them. He didn't have to tell them, "This is how you get saved." They were already saved. Okay, so he emphasizes the second phase, and he makes it clear that this phase, the second phase, does involve works. And works is not a bad word to Paul. He doesn't hesitate or try to get around it.

Now, when he talks about works, he's talking about obedience. He's talking about righteous conduct, just so there's no misunderstanding there. Now, Paul didn't have a brain transplant after writing chapter two between there and writing chapter three. Of course, there weren't any chapters when he wrote it. It's still the same Paul. But when he goes to what's chapter three in our Bibles, chapters three and four of Romans, Paul begins talking about initial salvation.

He says in Romans 4:3-5, and we already read this, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now, to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." Now, Protestants love to quote that verse or that passage. They love to quote from Romans 3, from Romans 4. But somehow they ignore chapter two.

Now, Paul has already said that, "Look, the ungodly are not going to inherit eternal life, that God is going to render to us on judgment day according to our works." Okay, so he's obviously talking about something different here. And Paul's plan of argument was basically this. All right. He starts off making it crystal clear that after our initial salvation, godly works are absolutely essential for our final or ultimate salvation, the part of our salvation still in the future.

Now, that part was easy because no one was disputing it. Paul wasn't having to go into a lot of detail because, yeah, when he said that, what he said in chapter two, everyone would have said, "Yeah, that's understood." Okay, then in chapters three and four, actually at the beginning, at the bottom of what is chapter two in our Bibles, then he moves into the controversy that he wants to discuss.

The controversy was this: the Jews were claiming that you couldn't be initially saved unless you were circumcised and kept the law, and that the ungodly, yeah, they first had to become Jews, amend their lives before they could be initially saved. The part we're calling phase one. So in chapters three and four, Paul clarifies that isn't true. You don't have to obey the law. You don't have to be circumcised. You don't even have to have any prior works.

God can take an ungodly person, and he can save them if they have faith and repentance right then and there. Okay, but Paul doesn't just stop there. Once he talks about that, he returns to phase two, and he focuses again on this second phase of salvation and emphasizes it to the Roman Christians. In chapter six, he says, "Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves as slaves to obey, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?

Not the slave of the one you believe in, but the one you obey, whether of sin?" Now, notice this: leading to death. He doesn't mean ordinary death. Everybody dies, you know, a natural death. He's talking about eternal death, eternal punishment, eternity apart from Christ, a Christless eternity. Okay, he continues, or of obedience leading to righteousness. So there is a righteousness that is given to us when we're initially saved, we're justified, even though we might be totally ungodly.

But there is a righteousness accorded to us out of our obedience. Paul says that in this same letter to the Romans. That's Romans chapter six, verse 16. Again, chapter eight, he talks about this quite a bit. He returns to it over and over throughout Romans. Okay, chapter eight, he says, "If you live after the flesh, you will die." He's talking to saved Christians. And he says, "If you return to living after the flesh, you will die again, eternal death.

But if through the Spirit you put to death the works of the flesh, you will live," talking about eternal life. That's Romans 8:13. Nomero Simons, one of the leading Anabaptist teachers in the 1500s, he said this because he was continually arguing with the Lutherans, saying, "No, it's by faith alone. Works don't matter," etc. And so he made this statement: no matter how much we may talk or argue about the scriptures, this rule will remain firm and can never be broken.

If you live after the flesh, you will die, quoting from Paul. Okay, now it's not just in Romans that it talks about this second phase of salvation. Let me share some other scriptures with you. First Corinthians 15:1 and 2. Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel by which also you are saved if you hold fast that word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. Okay, so Paul is writing again, the Corinthians, these are saved Christians. That's clear at the beginning of his letter.

He's talking to people who have already been saved. But he says, "If you hold fast to that word, that your salvation is dependent on that, holding fast to it, maintaining your salvation, unless you believed in vain." So you can believe, you can be saved, but you can end up in vain if you don't maintain an obedient, love, faith relationship with Jesus Christ. First Timothy 4:16, writing to Timothy, a saved Christian, an apostolic man, he said, "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine or to the teaching.

Continue in them, for in doing this, you will save, will save future, both yourself and those who hear you." So Timothy had already been saved, but he says, "You will save yourself if you take heed and maintain steadfastly the teaching of Christ. You remain in it." Okay, so he was saved, and yet he will be saved. Paul is telling him. Okay, just two more. Hebrews 10:26-29.

For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there is no longer, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Okay, so we have been saved after we receive the knowledge of the truth.

He says, "If you sin willfully, this is what happens." He says, "Of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot?" And don't think he's talking about the unsaved because he said, he says, "Counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified." So we're talking about a person who has been sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ.

He says, "How much worse punishment is he going to receive?" Treated it as a common thing and insulted the spirit of grace. Finally, Second Peter 2, verses 20 through 22. For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Okay, in other words, after they're saved, he says, "If they are again entangled in them and overcome, that is, by sin, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them." So we can turn back once we're saved, and our situation is going to be much worse. Again, unless we've sinned against the Holy Spirit, there still is repentance, but we are in a precarious situation. All right, so the two phases, there's all those verses evangelicals like to quote that we read at first, and they're all truthful.

They're all part of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we are saved by grace. We are saved by faith. But then there's all of those verses, the rest of the New Testament that tells us we have to maintain our salvation by walking faithfully with Jesus Christ. Again, it's like the flight of the Columbia. You can have a successful launch and have utter ruin at the end. Okay, I'm going to move on. We said we'd talk about two different kinds of law. So if you're going to understand Romans, you know, make it simple.

Okay, two phases of salvation. If you got that part down, that's the big key. Okay, and then you can read chapter two of Romans and then read chapter three and four. You're not confused. You realize, okay, you realize Paul's talking about two phases. Yes, the ungodly can be saved without any works. That's our initial salvation. And yet God will render to us according to our works eternal life or eternal punishment. All right, now the part two is there are two kinds of law. Illustration. This is the case.

This is a legal case. As most of you know, my background is I was an attorney. I practiced title law for quite a number of years, about 20 years. It's a case from the 1960. It was entitled BNS, that International Sales Corporation. That was the name of this company. It was a company in New York, I believe, or maybe BNS was a company in Switzerland. Anyway, they entered into a contract with this company in New York City to buy umpting tum tons. We're talking tons, not pounds, of chicken. That's what they ordered.

Their purchase order was, "We want so many tons of USDA chicken." Okay, and BNS, I believe that's the New York company, it gave them a quote, a very good quote. All right, the price was very good. So the Switzerland company said, "Okay, we will take you on your quote." And they entered into the contract, and the chicken was shipped to them. Now, BNS did not own their own chicken or poultry farms. They were an accumulator.

So they would have contracts with different chicken growers, the ones who raise chickens, and then they would contract with them to buy, you know, so much chicken, and then they would process it and sell the frozen chicken, you know, abroad or wherever. Okay, so this wasn't theirs. I mean, they had to go out and buy this on the free market. All right, but they were buying in big quantities so they could get a good price. All right, so then when the Swiss company got the shipment, they're all excited.

They're expecting all these tons of fryers and broilers. And they did get some fryers and broilers in the mix, but they mainly got stewing hens. They were pretty upset. It's like, "Wait a minute, this isn't what we wanted. We wanted fryers and broilers." Now, I don't know a lot about poultry, but I assume stewing hens are what maybe go into McNuggets or things like that. It's not what, you know, when you're getting fried chicken or roast chicken, it's not normally what you're getting.

All right, so this Swiss company sued them and said, "You broke the contract. We ordered USDA chicken." Well, the court ruled the word chicken can mean a lot of different things. And they went to the USDA regulations. They said, "Look, you ordered USDA chicken." And according to the government regulations of the United States Department of Agriculture, that's the USDA, chicken, it defines it as a fryer, a broiler, a roaster, a stewing hen, on and on. All of these qualify as USDA chicken.

All right, so the Swiss company lost. They weren't cheated. And as it turned out, the price they were quoted, the company in New York could not have gone out and bought fryers and broilers at that price. They would have gone in the hole. And the court pointed this out, that, look, I mean, you could look at the price they quoted and been able to tell that this wasn't going to be fryers and broilers. Okay, so the word chicken can mean a lot of different things when you're talking about food.

Law can also mean different things. And Paul uses law in at least two different ways. And we're going to just be looking at two of them. Luther said that there's an irreconcilable conflict between gospel and law. And that is absolutely false. The conflict is between the gospel of Christ and the law of Moses. And that was the setting for Paul's letter to the Romans and to most of his other letters. Acts 13, verse 39. This is Paul preaching.

And he says, "Tell us the Jews, everyone who believes is justified from all things which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." So that's the controversy, that to be justified, it's through faith in Jesus Christ. It's not going to be through the law of Moses. And Paul makes it clear that that's his setting. As I said, towards the end of chapter two, he sets forth what the controversy is. He says, "Indeed, this is Romans 2, verse 17.

Indeed, you are called a Jew and rest on the law and make your boast in God." So he's talking to Jewish Christians, and they're resting on the law, and they're wanting the Gentiles to embrace the law. In fact, the historical background to the whole letter of Romans and to, like I say, most of Paul's letters is described in Acts chapter 15. That should be a passage, a chapter of the Bible that all Christians know.

I don't mean that you can necessarily quote it, but you should know it very well because it's the setting of so much of the New Testament. Acts 15, verse 1, it says, "And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.'" Okay, and then he continued. I mean, the passage continues. Some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.

So when Paul is talking in a negative fashion about the law, he's talking about the law of Moses. And the reason isn't because the law of Moses was something bad. It's because these Jewish Christians were trying to tell the Gentiles that they could not be saved unless they got circumcised and unless they lived by the law of Moses.

And so Peter there in Acts 15, where they had a council to settle this, he said, "Now, therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they." So even if you're a Jewish Christian, you get saved in the same way the Gentiles do through faith in Christ.

So we're not saved by the law of Moses, neither in the first phase of salvation or in the second phase. But Paul also in Romans talks about another law. He doesn't say law is bad and the gospel is different. No, he says the law of Moses doesn't give salvation. But then he talks about the law of Christ and the law of God. Romans 8, verse 2.

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." So there is a law of Christ, a law of life in Christ Jesus that frees us from the law of sin and death. All right, so now he's talking about law, not just faith. This is still Romans, Romans 8, verse 7. He says, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." Okay, so there's the law of Moses, no salvation there.

Then there's the law of Christ and the law of God. It is intrinsically tied into our salvation, particularly the second phase of our salvation. And the original Anabaptists, they understood this. So did the early Christians. Mauritiu from Dirk Phillips, he was a contemporary of Menno Simons, one of the early Anabaptists of the 1500s. And he explains this.

He says, "It is false exegesis, false analysis of scripture, of Paul's words to compare the ordinances and institutions of the Lord with circumcision or uncircumcision of the flesh. But what our Lord taught and commanded in the New Testament remains eternal, unchanging truth." So see, the first Anabaptists, they didn't get tripped up by what Luther was saying. They said, "Look, Paul is mainly talking about circumcision and uncircumcision. And don't compare that to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The law is no longer in effect, but the teachings of Christ, the commandments of Christ, they remain eternal. We are still under them." Okay, all right, now I want to talk about the three kinds of works. The first kind of work is unnecessary, and it can even be a stumbling block. The second kind of work is good, but it's not essential. The third kind of work is absolutely essential. Okay, so what are these three kinds of works? Okay, one, the first kind are the works of the law of Moses.

We were just talking about, you know, the law. Okay, when Paul talks about works in a sense that's not commendatory, he's almost always talking about the works of the law. Now, there are some exceptions, but most of the time, I'd say easily 95%, he's talking about the works of the law of Moses. Okay, no salvation there. Okay, but the second kind are godly works prior to our initial salvation. All right, so people do godly and good things before they get saved. Okay, there's those kind of works.

And then three, there are the works of faithful obedience to Christ after our initial salvation. The important thing is that we don't confuse these three different kinds of works. If you do, you're going to come away from Romans or from the New Testament totally mixed up, and you're going to be preaching and practicing a false gospel. All right, so let's talk about that first kind, works of the Mosaic Law. In both Galatians and Romans, Paul primarily speaks against the works of the Mosaic Law.

These works are of no avail in either our initial salvation or our final salvation. It doesn't matter if you're circumcised. It doesn't matter if you keep the dietary requirements of Moses, if you do all of these other things. Paul writes in Galatians 2, verse 16. He says, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. For by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified." Okay, the works of the law.

And even though in the past, in the early translations in the 20th century, like the New American Standard, when it's talking about the Mosaic Law, they would always put a capital L there. Now, in original Greek, you either wrote it in all capital letters or all lowercase letters. And so you can't tell if it's talking about law in general or the law of Moses other than by the context. But yeah, from the context, you can normally tell. And since the Mosaic Law is a proper noun, just like the U.S.

Constitution, it should be capitalized. And like I say, the better translations put a capital L there so you don't think he's talking about just law in general. Okay, so the works of the law, the Mosaic Law, no justification there. All right, so we can kind of dismiss those works. Then there's the godly works a person might do prior to his or her initial salvation. Now, these are not required. They're pleasing to God. For example, we have Cornelius. He was a Gentile. He was not saved, but he was a godly man.

He gave alms. He prayed regularly. He fasted. God was pleased with him. And that's why God selected him to become the first uncircumcised Gentile to be admitted into the church, to receive salvation. But those godly things he did, they didn't save him. They just were pleasing to God. All right, if he hadn't done them but had believed, he still would have been saved.

All right, but now when you go through the book of Acts, in contrast to Cornelius, there were some people who heard the gospel who had no works prior to their initial salvation. A perfect example is the Philippian jailer. Okay, jailers back then, and often today, but back then were rough characters, usually very ungodly people. This man was apparently a Gentile. He may have offered sacrifices that day to false idols. He probably used all kinds of blasphemous, ungodly language, shouting at his prisoners, etc.

Maybe he'd beat a couple of people up, mistreated them. I mean, just an ungodly man. And then a miracle happens. Paul preaches the gospel to him that very night before he did any works at all. He believed, was baptized, and saved. He had no works to bring to his initial salvation, just to save just Cornelius. Okay, so when Paul talks about in chapter four of Romans about God can justify the ungodly, he's talking about people like the Philippian jailer.

The jailer didn't have to get his act together, live a godly life first, and then he could get saved. Nope, right there on the spot, he got saved. All right, so godly works prior to salvation are pleasing to God, but they don't save us. Okay, the third kind of work are faithful works of obedience to Christ after our salvation. And when we say works, we mean obedience or righteous conduct. And these works are essential after our initial salvation.

Now, we don't earn our salvation through these works, as we've already said. It's still a gift. But through these works. Demonstrate our love for Christ as our Lord. Jesus said, John 14, verses 21 through 24, "He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father." Okay, so he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. When we obey Christ, we demonstrate that we love him. If we don't keep his commandments, it shows we don't love him.

He says again in that passage, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word." So these are works that demonstrate we love Jesus Christ because God wants to spend eternity with those who love him. He's not going to spend eternity with people who don't love him. First Corinthians 2:9, "Eye is not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man." What? The things which God has prepared for those who love him. He didn't prepare heaven for those who don't love him. He prepared heaven for those who love him.

James 1, verse 2, "Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life." We're talking about the second phase of his salvation. But now notice this last part, the crown of life which the Lord has promised to whom? To those who love him. And Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." See, so these are works of love. We obey him because we love him. But likewise, if we're not obeying him, it shows we don't love him.

And these kind of works are essential after our initial salvation. So we read earlier all of the verses that talk about the need for obedience once we have been saved in our second phase of salvation. So these are godly works. These are the works James is talking about when he says, "You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." He's talking about after our initial salvation. He's writing to saved Christians, encouraging them to live a godly life. You're justified by your works.

Now, he wouldn't tell that to a Gentile, an unsaved Gentile or an unsaved Jew, "Oh, you're justified by your works." No, he'd say, "You need to have faith. You're justified by faith." But when you're talking about somebody in phase two of salvation who have already been saved, then it is correct that we are justified by our works. God looks at our works. And as Paul said in Romans 2, he will render to each one according to his works.

So just in a quick conclusion, a quick summary to understand Romans, Romans isn't that difficult once you work through all, going through all these different rooms. When you boil it all down to the essentials, there's two phases of salvation. There are two kinds of law, the law of Moses, the law of Christ. There's three kinds of works. And if you keep those three things in mind, Romans can actually be a simple book. So I'll stop there, Wendell, and let you take it from here. Hey, thanks a lot, David.

That is very helpful. I have to admit that Romans is a book that has scared me a bit because it is complicated. I have, yeah, I've taught from some, I've done some expository teaching from several books of the Bible, but I have not tackled Romans yet. So that's something for the future. Yeah, you mentioned early on, just to point this out for all of you who are listening that we'll be taking some time for some questions here. So yeah, you can be thinking of that.

And David, you mentioned earlier on about how the belief, the Luther's, especially Luther's interpretation of Romans worked out tends to bring people to the point where obedience doesn't matter. Obedience to Jesus doesn't matter. And I've noticed even, like you said, even Anabaptist teaching, some of Luther's teachings. But then kind of realizing you do need to obey or at least, I don't know, in a practical way, requiring in their lives obedience.

And I've wondered if sometimes maybe we see then the people tend to really, I don't know, feel like they need a lot of cultural things to help reinforce that obedience over when they don't have that teaching from Romans. I mean, from, I don't know, do you agree with that? Is that? Yeah, absolutely. So that's what the Anabaptists tried to do in the 1800s. They saw they needed spiritual renewal.

And they saw there was a lot of spiritual life, a lot of excitement, a lot of people getting saved, initial phase of salvation among the evangelicals. So they thought, maybe Luther was right. Maybe our forefathers didn't have it exactly right. So they basically embraced Luther's theology. But then they added to that, melded that with non-resistance, separation from the world. And they really emphasized, like Daniel Kaufman, his theology is very Protestant.

But he was very strong on standards, church standards, and living this very restricted godly life. And I'm not knocking living a strict life. But it was a dependence then on external standards to accomplish everything. And I'm not an opponent of external standards. Our church that I go to, we have written standards. So I'm not opposed to that. But it doesn't work to take Protestant theology and then think, well, as long as you keep your standards strict enough, you're going to keep everyone in.

We have lost the majority of our people to the Protestants. I mean, you can only tell that they were one time Mennonite or Amish by their last names. But yeah, so many people who have left and our churches keep thinking, well, if we just hatch down our standards, just stick with these standards. And again, I'm not knocking standards. It's just that first get your theology correct. And I do find that my fellow Anabaptists, they're usually very confused on Romans and that. And yeah, it does get confusing.

I have to admit, I was like you. I tried to shy away from Romans. And it took me two years working on the early Christian commentary because it's like Origen said, going through all these rooms and trying to put all of this in logical order, I was about ready to pull my hair out. But finally, it all kind of fell into place. And then I could see it. Yeah, yeah, okay. And I think once our people get this nailed down, there's those two phases.

Yes, it is true what the Protestants are saying, that all you need is faith and repentance. If you're talking about real repentance, you can get saved. You don't have to change your life first. It's maybe good to see some evidence of genuine faith there, but it doesn't have to be there. But see, they want to just stop there. Like, oh, if you got saved, now you're going to live this godly life. And then when you don't live a godly life, they say, well, you weren't really saved.

But wait a minute, you did all the same things everyone else. You really did believe. In fact, you believed maybe too much that, oh, now that I believe it's going to all happen, I'll be a changed person. And they don't want to acknowledge phase two. And they try to explain away most of the New Testament and stick to like four or five verses and say, that's the New Testament, all these other verses, all of Jesus' teaching just about. You have to ignore all of that.

So yeah, I think if our people can get that straight, we don't have to be afraid of Romans. We don't have to be afraid of these other passages where Paul talks about salvation apart from works. But then on the other hand, we embrace everything else Jesus said and that Paul said and the other New Testament writers. Yeah. Thank you, David. So yeah, let's open. I want to open this up to any of you who have been listening. We have a nice number of participants on here this afternoon.

So I'm sure you have some questions for David. Here's your chance. Hey, David, thank you so much for your talk. I really appreciated it. I guess one question that I would have that came to my mind is the fact of how Paul wrote about uncircumcision, the fact that it really doesn't matter as much.

And I guess what is your answer to somebody that would suggest that for the, how could I say it, the head covering, for sure the head covering, the way Anabaptists dress and everything, just kind of saying it's a cultural thing, it really doesn't matter. How do you answer that question? Okay, so you've mentioned two things. And I'm kind of glad you did because one of the problems our people have is we tend to confuse or mix up biblical commandments with church standards.

And it should always be really clear in our mind, okay, this is a law in the New Testament and this is a church standard. It may be an application of a biblical principle. I mean, hopefully it is. But the standard in itself is not a commandment. So the head covering is a commandment given. That's not a church standard. Okay? Now, I'm assuming you know all this. So I'm not lecturing you, but just for the rest of the audience. Okay. So the head covering is something all Christians obeyed until the 1800s.

I mean, when you look at pictures of women, paintings we have of women through the ages, I mean, paintings that were done in the Middle Ages, paintings that were done at the time of the Reformation, paintings done in the 1600s, in the 1700s, nearly all Christian women are wearing a head covering. All right. That wasn't anything that was identified with Anabaptists in particular at all. But then in the 1800s, churches began to drop that. And now Anabaptists are about the only ones who still obey that.

And so sometimes we think it's an Anabaptist cultural thing. And it's, yeah, a commandment that's been there from the beginning. Now, what is cultural would be, well, it has to be this particular kind of covering. It has to be white or it has to be a cap or something like that. Now, culture can help bind us together. I'm not against Anabaptist culture because I've seen it's helped us to stick together for 500 years. But we should understand in our minds, okay, this is cultural, this is commandment.

It doesn't mean we ridicule culture. It doesn't mean we disobey if it's part of the church that we belong to. But it should be clear in our mind what is a commandment and what is a cultural application. Same with dress. Okay. So modest dress is a commandment in the New Testament. Living that out, there's a lot of ways to dress modestly today. As Anabaptists, and I know all of you aren't Anabaptists, but as Anabaptists, we have come up with a cultural application that has worked very well for us.

And our church, we allow a little bit of leeway, a few choices, but we limit it to that just because we have seen it has worked for the Anabaptists. Now, in the 1800s, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Congregationalists, they would have all taught modest dress and they would have all practiced it. You look at pictures. I mean, one of my, I don't know if it's one of my wife's relatives, a great-grandmother, I think she was Methodist. I'm not even sure.

But I mean, she is dressed far more modestly than we Anabaptists. I mean, it is a really, it's a cape dress, but much, much more than what we have. But all of those people lost it because they had no standards to tie to it. Plus, they had this teaching that God doesn't really care. That's works. And so don't get too concerned about it. So between the wrong theology and not having a culture that helped keep it together, yeah, they totally lost it. So I do see the advantage of culture, but we don't have to have it.

If someone says, no, I'm going to just obey the scripture, they're free to do that if they haven't made a covenant with a church otherwise. So yeah, I hope that answers your question. Yeah. So just to verify, I meant like a culture. That was a culture back then, was a head covering. And I'm not, just to be clear, I'm not trying to dissuade it away or anything like that. I am simply trying to decide what is a good way to look at it? What is a safe way to look at it?

Because I do know of a lot of godly people that the women are, I know of a lot of godly women that wear pants. I know of a lot of godly women that don't wear head covering, that cut their hair. And they call it a cultural thing. And I see so many, I see so many Anabaptist people drifting that way. That was the reason I'm posing this question. Would you agree that was a cultural thing back then? Okay. No, that is not correct. Not correct at all. So that is what is put out as an excuse for being disobedient.

When Christians decided they did not want to obey that any longer, and this is in the 1800s, then they came up, they invented all kinds of fake things that, oh, well, in Corinth, only prostitutes didn't cover their heads and things like that. It's total nonsense. They have no primary sources to back that up. More importantly, the early Christians who lived in that time period, they say nothing about that. And they disprove that that was the case.

The only thing that would have been cultural, but this would have been true in my lifetime through the 1960s, would have been that it would not have been unusual for a woman to cover her head in those times. Even in 1960, if you saw a woman with a scarf on her head or a bandana or something like that, that didn't look unusual. Now, the Mennonite kind of covering would have stood out, but not a covering on the head.

Nowadays, it's very, you're going to see a woman with a baseball cap a lot more often than you're going to see a woman with a scarf on her head or something like that, if she's American or Western European. Okay. So that is something that has been lost very, very recently. But we have a lot of sculptures of Greek and Roman women, a lot of paintings. And those paintings and sculptures show that most of them did not cover their head. No, it was not a cultural thing.

But if you covered your head, I mean, it wouldn't have been shocking or anything. Tertullian mentions that Jewish women could be recognized by the fact that they covered their heads, okay, which tells you that most Gentiles didn't cover their heads, but Jewish women did. So again, it didn't necessarily identify you as a Christian. You didn't stand out as extremely unusual, but it wasn't the normal practice of Gentile women to cover their heads in public. That's interesting. Yeah, I could see that.

And I always took it kind of as an excuse or as something just to excuse themselves for, but I wasn't, but I couldn't, I never could argue the fact that it wasn't culture. But I just always wondered how that really, how that really actually was back then. So I appreciate the answer. Yeah. Very, very good question. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for that. Hey, we have someone who raised Neil, who raised his hand here. Hello, David. This is Neil, head key out in LA. Hi, Neil. Hi, Neil. Good to hear from you. Yeah.

Great, great message, brother. I have to admit, I stole some of it from the church website you have and shared it with the LA Christian Fellowship a while back. But I do have a question. You look really good, by the way, David. You look like you've been keeping yourself in shape. That's wonderful. Well, thank you. I turned 76, what, 10 days ago, 12 days ago, whatever. So I'm glad I'm still around, still able to do some teaching. Yeah, you do. You and Dean Wilson here are doing something right, I think, maybe.

But my question is this, when we first, when I first started listening to some of your CDs back in the mid-2000s, coming from a Church of Christ background, we tried to associate with some of the conservative churches in the area. And one of the issues that came up, we met with them and we really love the people. And we tried to resolve, like, are they comfortable taking communion with us? Was kind of where we got to.

And so the issue of having TVs came up, which is something that they had a brother's agreement not to have TVs, but then the fellowship I'm with, we don't require that. And so then they were uncomfortable taking communion with us. But we still, it was very discreetly shared with us. It wasn't done in an unloving way.

But I shared with the elder of the church there, the conservative church, that coming from a Church of Christ background, I can understand having these extra standards because Church of Christ that I was part of, we believed that unless you were baptized into our church, your baptism was not effective. And I used to believe that and teach that coming from the Church of Christ. But that's not something I'd let go of. And so I shared with the elder there. And maybe a year and a half later, we talked again.

We saw each other at another event. And he shared that he and his wife had gotten baptized maybe a month before. And then you can imagine this might have created a little bit of controversy within their fellowship, him being an elder position and then getting baptized. And so I say all that with just the question of, you mentioned that Romans and initial salvation involves faith and repentance, but how seriously is baptism required?

Is it something where you have to be baptized in a Mennonite church in order for it to be effective? In this elder's case, who later resigned from being an elder because of getting baptized, he did that because when he was 15 as a Mennonite background, I think, he looked back on that and said, "Well, I just did it because the church he was with said, 'Well, you're 15.

It's time for you to get baptized.'" And then when he went through the scriptures, he realized, you know, I don't, he really doubted that he was converted at that time. At least that's his understanding that he shared with me. So is it faith and repentance and baptism? And do we just baptize people when they get to be 15 or is there, you know, Jesus talks about counting the cost unless, you know, before you build the tower, you sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it.

Do we need to do that with our young adults or anyone that wants to become a Christian? So sorry for the long question, but thank you. Okay. So if I can summarize your question, so yeah, where does baptism fit into all of this? And should we do what we see so much in the book of Acts that, you know, Paul would go out and preach or the day of Pentecost, and they would immediately baptize people on faith and repentance? Should we require more?

And this has been a really tough knot because we all have seen too many times people who seem to have believed, who did repent at the moment, and either got baptized or in other churches, you know, they would say the sinner's prayer, but then normally get, you know, they got baptized sometime later. And then they fall away, often very quickly, within a week, a month, something like that. So the early Christians saw that this was a problem, that they didn't make it a law that you can't baptize people on the spot.

But they did establish a custom that we're going to have people go through instruction before they're baptized. We want to make sure they understand the commitment required. We want to make sure they understand the basics of the faith before they're baptized. They called it catechism based on instruction or teaching. So that became a practice very early. And I don't see it as something wrong. I see it as something very wise because we're not apostles.

I mean, Paul and them could read people's hearts and that we can't. Now, it doesn't mean it's invalid. I mean, people have been genuinely saved hearing a gospel message preach what's called a gospel message, a message of repentance and faith. They come forward and it lasts the rest of their lives. They walk faithfully with Jesus Christ, at least to a measure, you know? And so I'm not going to say that's not effective or that no one should do that. But it does come with dangers, particularly when there's baptism.

Because see, one of the things the early church felt very strongly on was you don't rebaptize someone. There is one baptism. And so they wanted to make sure when you got baptized, you couldn't later say it was a mistake. And this became a big issue also for the Anabaptists.

And you'll find in their writings, they might baptize somebody, you know, after just a day or two of preaching, but they wanted to make certain the person really understood the commitment required, which at that time, it required quite a commitment because you were laying your life literally on the line when you got baptized by an Anabaptist.

They wanted to make sure you were ready to make that commitment and that you had turned your life around, that there was a change, even if it was for only a week or something like that. And so they emphasized that a lot in their writings. And I do endorse myself, the wisdom of that. And like in our church, we don't baptize somebody just because they say, "I'm 15. I want to get baptized. All my friends are." We go through class with them. We talk to them personally.

We want to make certain that they have surrendered their life to Jesus Christ and that they have a personal faith, that they've repented of their past life, usually in a church like ours, that they've been raised in a godly home. So it's not like they have horrible sins or that. But we all have sins to repent of and of a life that was not putting Jesus Christ first. So we would ourselves, I'm just telling you, our church practice, we would not rebaptize someone in that situation that you talked about. Oh, I was 15.

I did it because of the others, unless that person really had no faith at all and had no repentance. That's abnormal at 15 if you've been raised in a godly home. Normally, you've had faith in Jesus Christ for a long time. And you have repented from an ungodly, wicked life. You have been living a fairly life. So yeah, we would not normally ourselves rebaptize someone there.

But on the other hand, we are very careful that someone we baptize will not later come back and say, "Oh, I didn't know what I was doing." If they say that, they're being untruthful because we don't baptize them unless they truly know what they are doing when they get baptized. Okay. I hope that answers your question. Okay. Yes. So yeah, that. Thank you, Neil. Just want to give an opportunity here. Anyone else that's got a question for David before we wrap this up? I don't exactly have a question for you, David.

I mean, I would if there was time, but I just wanted to leave this comment. Thank you for sharing this. Thank you for all your hard work you've done in the book of Romans and for publishing the early Christian commentary on Romans. That is very helpful and a very good book to have on my shelf. So thank you, brother. Thank you. All your hard work. Thank you for the words of encouragement. I appreciate that. If I could share quickly. Go ahead, Dean. Yes. Thank you, David. So good to see you. It's been a while.

It has been a while. Yes. Yes. And I'm with the same fellowship as Brother Neil Hegg. He just spoke, as you know, and for everyone else's sake. I think something, a takeaway I have, and Brother Neil's actually given some great messages from Romans based on your commentary. It's been wonderful for the fellowship. I actually just spoke from Romans 16 just recently. So thanks to you, we're not afraid to look at the book of Romans. And I think we're getting it. I think we're getting it.

I think one thing, a takeaway I get from today, I don't know if it's a question, but maybe more of a takeaway is that I think what we have to all do as kingdom-minded Christians when we share the gospel with people, yes, there's that initial phase of salvation. And a person could come to Christ rather quickly. We have to really emphasize it is a lifelong commitment. And it's not a matter because I think that even pervades the evangelical world. It's a matter of you just got saved.

And there's no necessarily this emphasis, you've got to keep living a godly, righteous life. But we have to stress that. Somebody could literally become a Christian one day as long as they understand this is what I've got to do from now on. If not, it's of no lasting effect. And you're going to be worse off than before. And I think we need to stress that as well. Amen. Yeah. I agree. And that's what discipleship's all about. And I think that's the thing, you know, we're learning too.

And somebody becomes a Christian. Fellowship, they're going to continue being taught and helped along. In fact, I'm giving a message in a couple of weeks. And two of the guys who are going to share in the message have both been Christians a year or just over a year. And we're going to all share the pulpit together. It's training them up in godliness. And I think that's what we have to keep doing. Yeah. Thank you, Dean. Appreciate that. No problem. It's good to see you. Say hi to Deb too.

We're praying for Luis too, our fellowship. We're really praying for Luis that he'll just relax and heal. Thank you. And Debra's right here next to me, so she heard you. Yeah. Thank you. Debbie says hi to Debra. Okay. And to David. She's been listening the whole time too. Okay. Well, very good. Thank you, everyone, for your contributions and comments and questions here. That's an important part of this way of teaching and sharing.

I just want to remind you that, yeah, the sale on Strength of Strength books for David's early Christian commentary on the book of Romans. I say David's. David compiled it, but it's from the work of the early Christians. And that's why it can be helpful for us to be able to see their perspective rather than the evangelical perspective we often are exposed to. So yeah, that book is on sale on Strength of Strength books currently.

So if you would like to get that, help yourself over there at Strength of Strength books. David, would you lead us in a closing prayer yet before we close this down? Okay. Father, thank you. We could have this discussion this afternoon. Help all of us to understand your word and to teach it correctly to others. We appreciate so much the gift of salvation, the blood of your Son given for our redemption. We also appreciate the need to walk faithfully with you, but that we need your strength to do that.

And so we pray for that, Father. I pray for this Strength to Strength channel and the ministry that they have, that you continue to bless it and all of your true followers around the world. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you again, David. And thank you to everyone who joined us today and for those of you who are listening later. And just a reminder, May 9th will be our next scheduled Zoom or Strength to Strength meeting here on Zoom. And that is on the testimony or life story by Grant Bontrager.

We just had a chat come in. What does that say? Thank you, David Brusseau. Still praying for the completion of the Matthew comment. I believe he's talking about the Matthew commentary. When's that coming, David? I don't know. You don't know. Hopefully, it is coming, but I can't give a date. Okay. Well, we can pray that you can get that completed. So thankful for the teaching you've blessed us with. Anyhow, thank you all. And God bless the rest of your day. See you another time.

As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.