Shielded Day 7 Heart Armor: Digging Deeper

Digging Deeper Days
Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
The Questions
1) What is the “it” in, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed…”?
2) What is meant by “first to the Jew, and also to the Greek?”
3) Where is it written, “The righteous will live by faith”? Why bring in this quote?
Romans 1:16-17
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
Original Intent
1) What is the “it” in, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed…”?
“It” in verse 17 is a continuation of the “it” in the middle of verse 16 where we have the definition of “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…”. This definition points back to Paul’s first words in verse 16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel”. The gospel is the incredible, shocking news of the holy God entering into a human, sin-wrecked world, humbly clothing Himself in human flesh, living a faultless, perfect life only to die a shameful, torturous death He did not deserve, and then rising from the dead 3 days later just as He Himself predicted….all to rescue sinful mankind who would forever be stuck in their own sin, hating and spurning the God who made them because they loved their sin more than the Savior. THIS IS THE GOSPEL!!! Paul practically shouts that he refuses to be ashamed of this radical declaration of love for him and the world. He refuses to back away from preaching it with eagerness because it is so powerfully effective in buying back a soul previously dead in sin! (verse 15) In it, in this gospel, the very righteousness of God is on display for the world to see. God is perfect and blameless. What better way to see His righteous holiness than in His intentional, sacrificial love for us? Because He is perfectly just, the debt of sin required blood sacrifice. A righteous, just God could not “look the other way”, shrug His shoulders and make excuses on our behalf. Sin demands payment. That payment has always been, and will always be one thing, death. Specifically in this case, because God is a holy God, incapable of being in the presence of sin, death is a spiritual removal from God forever. In radical, generous love, He sacrificed Himself to pay the penalty, heaping death upon Jesus Christ and separation from God the Father as Jesus took our sin upon Himself at the cross. (which is why Jesus cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?! –Matthew 27:46) His righteousness is on display in with loud, vibrant colors as Jesus Christ conquers death once and for all for everyone who believes in Him as He rose from His own grave, visited eyewitnesses, and ascended back into Heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father. THIS is the righteousness of God, on display for the world to see, through the precious truth of the gospel!
2) What is meant by “first to the Jew, and also to the Greek?”
God does not show favoritism. Period. In fact, Paul, the author of Romans, uses that exact phrase in Romans 2:10-11 where he also connects the idea of God not showing favoritism to how He engages with people “…first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For there is no favoritism with God.” The phrase “first to the Jew” goes all the way back to Abraham! God called Abraham out of his homeland, away from his idol worship, to follow Him in obedience, promising to bless him if he would follow. Abraham took God at His word, chose to trust Him and followed Him. God took Abraham’s faith and credited it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6) Yes, righteousness, just like the righteousness of God on display in the gospel which we read of in our passage! (verse 17) Abraham didn’t do any work or put on good behavior to become righteous, he simply trusted God at His word. This has always been true for every person from Old Testament to New Testament to right now in the 21st century. This is how God doesn’t show favoritism, because the same offer of faith being credited as righteousness is extended to all people. It was first made known through Abraham and his physical offspring, who were the Jews. Later, when Jesus came, He made it clear that salvation was for everyone regardless of race, gender, or nationality. (Acts 10:34-35)
3) Where is it written, “The righteous will live by faith”? Why bring in this quote?If this phrase was translated word-for-word in its original language we would read, “The one who is righteous by faith will live”. Paul is quoting Habakkuk’s words which came directly from the Lord as He compared the person who relied on himself to be righteous against the person who had faith, which was credited to him as righteousness, “Look, his ego is inflated; he is without integrity. But the righteous one will live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4) To have integrity, in the case of Habakkuk’s quote, was to recognize oneself as a sinner hopelessly separated from God. With a true view of oneself as a sinner, unable to attain righteousness by one’s own merit, one is in a position where they are able to accept Christ’s work of righteousness on their behalf. Covered by God’s own righteousness, the sinner, now made whole, can stand before God clean and forgiven, able to live for eternity in God’s presence! Without complete righteousness, Death rules, keeping us forever separated from God and His presence.
Everyday Application
1) What is the “it” in, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed…”?
Has this “power of God” wrapped up in salvation been embraced by your heart?! Do you know for certain that there was a time when you took Him at His word for all He accomplished for you, a sinner spurning God, and surrendered the whole of yourself to Him for eternity? This singular decision is the biggest one of your entire life and deserves your honest wrestling. As you read the description of the gospel in the first question, what portion stirred deeply in you and awakened your heart to love and worship towards God? Praise Him for that incredible gospel and for the way He continues to work in and through you! For every single person who says a true “YES!” to Jesus, welcoming His powerful salvation into their heart and life, God’s righteousness continues to work through that now-redeemed person! Everything about their life is affected as it is open to the new work of God unleashed in that heart. God is righteous and holy, and His salvation demonstrates it with awesome strokes of beauty, as a further demonstration of His righteousness, the entirety of a believer’s life is remade! No sinner is left the same once Christ’s righteousness clothes them. Relationships will change, purpose in life will shift, priorities will reset, fullness, peace, and love will rule where brokenness and shame once held chains fast over heart territory. Look for that righteousness being worked out in your own life, and praise God for doing it! Look for that righteousness being worked out in the lives of other brothers and sisters around you, encourage them by telling them what you see, and praise God for His righteousness on display!
2) What is meant by “first to the Jew, and also to the Greek?”
The main point of Paul’s passionate statement in these verses is to point to the supreme power of the gospel to transform lives, any life. Period. We are left to sit with this reality and wrestle through it in our own lives. Though we might verbally give assent to the truth that the gospel is for everyone, do we offer it willingly to all? Are there some we deem “too far gone” to be reached by the hope of Jesus? Or maybe, because of our own sense of justice, or a result from wounds we have experienced at another’s hand, we decide someone is unworthy of receiving the salvation Christ designed for all. Or maybe, sometimes the person we decide is unworthy of salvation is ourselves. Shame. Guilt that hits us like waves or gnaws on the edges of our hearts little by little. Fear of who we envision God to be. What if He can’t stand us? What if He is angry? And we know He would have the right to be angry at us for our sin, don’t we? We know we possess zero righteousness on our own. If this is you, whether you’ve already crossed the line of faith but still carry the weight of heavy shame, or you’ve never fallen headlong into the grace of God, He doesn’t stand in condemnation of you. He died to rescue you, offering His flawless righteousness in exchange for your putrid sin. Hold out your heart to Him, Sister, seek His face, He will overwhelm you with His loving rescue from yourself!
3) Where is it written, “The righteous will live by faith”? Why bring in this quote?
While we live here on earth in our physical bodies, God is extending us grace, which equals time to listen to His voice and respond to His offer of giving us His righteousness in exchange for our heavy burden of sin. We have the chance now to be given life for eternity in God’s presence and stand whole and forgiven because of Christ’s righteousness given as a free gift to us. This is a gift we could never possibly hope to earn by our own hard work to become good. This is His righteousness, and by it we live! God is pursuing every heart that beats in the here and now, revealing Himself to them by declaration of the gospel, of which Paul says he was unashamed to boldly preach. Time on earth will not last forever, as we all know. Our lives are like a mist that vanishes as quickly as it comes, and it’s impossible to know when our last opportunity will be to choose eternal life over eternal death. Choose Now! What is holding you back?! If you’ve already given Christ lordship over your heart, and you stand whole and righteous before the God of the universe, are you living as Paul did with the bold proclamation of the gospel ready on your lips?! Who are you praying fervently over for their heart to be unveiled and understand how rich the Father’s love is towards them as He offers out His righteousness? Wherever you are, believer or not, the time is short!
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Digging Deeper is for Everyone!
1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
5) Check your applications with other trusted Christians that you are in community with and embrace the fullness of God
in your everyday!
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Why Dig Deeper?
Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.
In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!
Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.
Study Tools
We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.
Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!
Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))
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