GENERAL CONFERENCE.
BATTLE CREEK, MICH., 1891.
BIBLE STUDY.
LETTER TO THE ROMANS
BY ELDER E. J. WAGGONER
The basis of the lesson of the evening is the latter half of the third chapter of Romans, beginning with the 19th verse. "Now we know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God."
Verses 21-23 contain in condensed form all that is
treated of in the remaining verses of the chapter. The remainder of the
chapter is an amplification of that which has gone before. In this
chapter also occurs the climax of the thought of the epistle. ...Again: the just shall live by faith.
Q: How much of a man's life must be
just?
A: All, every moment; for the just shall live by faith.
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." It is well
understood that no act of ours can make right that which is past, but it
is just as true that we cannot be justified in any present act any more
than we can render the past perfect. We need the righteousness of
Christ to justify the present just as much as to make perfect the
imperfect deeds of the past.
The heart unrenewed is desperately wicked.
Only evil can come from a
wicked heart.
To bring forth good deeds there must be a good heart, and
only a good man can have a good heart.
---But, as all have sinned and come
short, therefore all the deeds of humanity are vitiated.
"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus."
Q: What is "redemption"?
A: It is repurchasing. Righteousness
is an infinite gift, and bought with an infinite price. It is a free
gift to us, but it has been paid for. The blood of Christ has paid for
it.
"To declare His righteousness" for the putting away of our sins. It is
He that puts away our sins, and if we but yield ourselves to Him, they
will be remitted utterly. Christ grants no indulgences, but His
righteousness remits the sins that are past, keeps the heart free from
sin in the present, so long as his righteousness fills that heart.
-*-I love to think that He is the Creator of all things,
for He who created
the worlds out of nothing,
and who upholds all things by the word of His power,
-*-can by that same word create in me a clean heart,
and
preserve that which He has created.
To Him is all power, and also all
glory.
When a man seeks to justify himself by his deeds, he only heaps
imperfection upon imperfection, until, like Paul, he counts them all as
loss, knowing that there is no righteousness but that which is of Christ
by faith.
