Chapter # 14 Paragraph # 1 Study # 8
April 4, 2021
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: God has already declared a coming event which argues strongly for a cessation of activities which have self-promotion at their roots: The Judgment Seat of The God.
Introduction: As we have worked our way through Paul's confrontation of the believers in Rome for their interpersonal conflicts over things that do not matter, we have seen that there is a faulty basis on both sides of these conflicts. It is the absence of "the humility of Love". There are those who understand "The Faith" in terms of its foundations in "Grace", but have no patience with those whose understanding is flawed and are willing to ostracize them from the fellowship of the Church in spite of a strong indication of "spiritual health" even though their grasp of The Faith is "diseased". And there are those whose understanding of "The Faith" is diseased (though they do not see it that way) so that they have become "judges" of their brethren over non-issues of behavior and are willing to sacrifice them because they seem to be simply self-indulgent abusers of "Grace".
These two problems are readily seen in later developments as the letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3 reveal. The letter to the Ephesians indicates a deep commitment to doctrinal purity that is flawed at its roots: they have abandoned "Love". Alternatively, the letter to the church in Smyrna addresses the arrogance and "judgmentalism" of those who "call themselves Jews and are not", whose downline development has turned into an active and vicious persecution: this is also an abandonment of "Love" (though it is not called that by an actual, verbal characterization). The rest of the letters follow along with variations of this theme of "the absence of Love for one another".
Paul's words at the end of this opening paragraph of Romans 14 bring us to a kind of "absolute bottom line". These words are that God has already firmly revealed that all such love-less activities will be confronted by Him in judgment: "we shall all stand before the judgment seat of The God".
In this study we are going to see how Paul establishes this "bottom line".
- I. His Opening Words Of Explanation.
- A. "For": the opening word of "explanation" so that we might have an understanding that "standing before The Judgment Seat of The God" is not merely a downline "assumption" by the apostle.
- B. "It Stands Written": a consistently used argument throughout the New Testament that a certain "truth" has been revealed in the writing of the ancient prophets that must be taken into account.
- C. In this case, the words are from Isaiah 45:23, a prophecy made sometime between 740 and 680 B.C., more than 700 years before Paul called upon them to make his case.
- II. The Divine Declaration.
- A. "I Am Living".
- 1. This is translated, "As I live" as if it is an introduction to a "As...then" declaration.
- a. This is a legitimate general description of what is going on.
- b. But it fails to communicate the emphasis that Paul created by his words.
- 2. The pronoun "I" is emphatic because it is, technically, grammatically unnecessary.
- 3. The verb is "I am living".
- a. This means many things by implication, but its most potent meaning is that we are dealing with "a Living God" as opposed to some false god whose existence has been generated by the actions of men who cannot make the product of their actions "to live" and, thus, to have any significant impact (this is a recurring thesis in Isaiah, and a basis for mocking false prophets).
- b. It posits an "always living" God as in John 8:58 where the "infinity of God" is applied to the characteristic of "Being".
- B. "Says Yahweh".
- 1. Here the perfect tense of "written" is wedded to the present tense of "saying": once uttered, a word from God "is continually saying" through every generation.
- 2. The word Paul used ("Lord") is a Greek translation of the Hebrew tetragrammaton given by God to Moses in Exodus 3:15 as "My name forever...My memorial name to all generations".
- 3. The import of Paul's words is that "The Always Existing God" speaks as "The Everliving God" so that His activities in the moments of the millennia are present and purposeful.
- C. "That": the word in Greek is sometimes used to identify a quotation, and it seems best to see it here in that sense.
- D. "To Me shall bow every knee".
- 1. Paul used this same text in Philippians 2:10 to refer to the bowing of every knee "of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth", making it all-inclusive though Paul's meaning is limited in Romans 14 to the members of the Church.
- 2. The "bowing of the knee" signifies "the recognition of a god as God" (Romans 11:4) [Note 2 Kings 5:17-18 particularly].
- E. "And every tongue shall confess to The God".
- 1. Again, Philippians 2:11 tells us specifically what is "to be confessed": "Jesus, the Christ, is Lord".
- 2. This is in specific harmony with Peter's words in Acts 2:36 where it was God's "goal" to make known that He had made Jesus "both Lord and Christ" so that such confession was "to the glory of God".
- 3. But Paul brings into this "Overriding Confession" the detail of "confessing to God" as a matter of "giving an answer for the deeds done in the body both good and bad" (2 Corinthians 5:10 and 1 Corinthians 3:12-15).
- III. The "Connections" Between Isaiah 45 And Paul's Use in Romans 14.
- A. There is a double pronged "T"heological foundation in the minds/hearts of those who are "saved" (45:24-25).
- 1. The first "prong" is "Only in the Lord [is] righteousness" (45:24a) and "In the Lord all the offspring of Israel will be justified" (45:25a).
- 2. The second "prong" is "Only in the Lord [is] strength" (45:24b) and "In the Lord all the offspring of Israel will glory" (45:25b).
- 3. It is the second "prong" which forms the roots of Paul's declaration regarding the coming, and outcome, of the "bema" of The God (the first "prong" is the root of the presence of those before that "bema").
- B. Paul's use of this truth includes his greater understanding of its application to the "mystery" of the Church.
- 1. The call of Isaiah 45:22, at a minimum, opens the range of "salvation" to "the ends of the earth", which makes the inclusion of "Gentiles" at least "possible".
- 2. The clarity of "only in the Lord are righteousness and strength" is greatly enlarged by the New Testament record of the death of Jesus so as to provide for "the righteousness" (1 Corinthians 1:30) and the gift of the Spirit so as to provide for "the strength" (1 Peter 4:11).
- 3. The reaffirmation in Isaiah 45:25 that "In the Lord all will be justified and will glory" is emphatic: men only stand in the day of the "bema" by means of the righteousness of God granted to them by grace through faith, and men are only able to glory after the conclusion of that "bema" by means of the workings of the Spirit of God in and through their bodies so as to possess unburned gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).
