Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Announcer: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Choir: The word is good for naught we came.

To teach, rebuke, correct, and train.

Equips mighty we can best do the word God has for us to do.

God's word is all the Christian needs to grow in grace and to good deeds.

Announcer: Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation.

He started the radio ministry, which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled, Established and Strengthened.

Near the end of his first epistle, the Apostle Peter wrote that the God of grace, who called us to eternal glory in Jesus Christ, will make us strong, firm, and steadfast. In a similar vein, Paul concludes his epistle to the Romans by declaring that God is able to establish and strengthen us by the Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. Are you being firmly established and strengthened in the Lord?

The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 16, we're looking at verse 25. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, Established and Strengthened.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come to thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We thank Thee for the word that Thou hast given to us, and for the Holy Spirit, who takes it to our hearts and ministers it to us for our growth and strengthening.

Bless us as we study it together and do Thy work in us, that the knowledge we gain may not go to our heads to make us proud, but rather go to our hearts to make us more like Thee, Lord Jesus. So that men may see Thee in us and glorify Thee, our Father, who art in heaven.

We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the last paragraph in the epistle to the Romans, in Romans 16:25, we have the phrase, "Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ."

Paul commends the believers to God, to God who is able to establish them, or as it is in a modern version, He is able to strengthen them. Phillip's paraphrase reads, "Now to Him who is able to set you on your feet as His own sons."

It is the word that is used to describe Jesus Christ in that memorable moment of His life when He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem to die. It is the word that Christ used to describe the great gulf that was fixed between paradise and torment. Christ told Peter that when he was turned around again, he should strengthen the brethren.

Nine times this Greek word is used in the epistles by Paul, James and Peter, and it is always translated, "establish, establish, or strengthen." Once it is used to the angel of the Church of Sardis to command the strengthening of the things that remain and that are ready to die.

Now we can take both meanings and look at them together as something that is greatly desirable for all believers. We are to be established, and we are to be strengthened. Webster defines "established," to make stable or firm, to fix immovably or firmly, to settle, confirm, and surely our Christian life needs this solid foundation, which makes it impossible for us to be shaken.

Plutarch, in his life of Sulla, uses this same Greek word to describe a man who was so strong that he leaned against the sky, while the epic poet Hesiod used the Greek word to describe a strong point which was consolidated by columns which reached to the sky.

Now we do not know if Paul had ever read this historian or this poet, but if we can take the secular usage of the word, we may see our faith as buttressed to high heaven. I pity the young Christian who leans upon some pastor, some teacher, some other Christian. Oftentimes it's necessary for some great crisis to take place, which removes the individual who has become the foundation, so that the believer may find himself with no human resource. Then he is forced to lean upon God, and thus he becomes established, firm on the rock.

Do we detect this in Isaiah's experience? "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." Did he have his eyes on the king, rather than on the Lord? Then God removed the king, and the prophet could see past his ideal, his earthly ideal, and let his gaze come to rest upon the Lord Himself.

This must be the experience of everyone who is to grow mightily in the Lord. If anyone is leaning upon you, point them away from yourself and to the Lord alone. If you are leaning on some human leader, ask the Lord to turn your eyes above and beyond the one who may have been the means of bringing you rich blessing, on to the source of all blessing.

Then, when we are firmly established on the Lord our rock, we can come to the second meaning of this word and be strengthened.

There is a great figure of speech in Peter's epistle, which shows us ourselves as living stones, fashioned into the framework of Christ. Now if the passage in Peter had said living timbers, we could have understood it naturally. I have seen fence posts that took root and developed into trees.

There have been log cabins where the first timbers took root and sprouted, and branches began to grow from the foundation of the house. But Peter gives us something more wonderful. We are living stones. Christ is the great and sure foundation, and we are fixed firmly into Him, grounded upon Him, established.

But then, even though we are quarried stones, taken out of the old pit, we are transformed by being joined to Christ, and His life comes into us, so that we become a very part of the fabric of the temple, which is to be the scene of His indwelling.

The Scotch understood this, and adopted the idea to the point where "living stone" became a family name. David Livingstone, an example. Every believer is a living stone, and Christ's life is in us from our being joined to Him, and through us, He desires to pass on His life to those whom we bring into knowledge of Him as Savior and Lord.

Now this assurance to the believers that God is able to establish them, to strengthen them, is a part of this great and concluding doxology which ends the epistle to the Romans. There has been much discussion of this paragraph. For in various manuscripts, it has been inserted in different places.

There have been some critics who have wished to cut it out altogether on the ground that it seems irrelevant to the theme of the epistle. We reject these criticisms with steadfastness. Dean Alford has given expression to the conclusions of all conservative scholars when he writes, "Its genuineness as a part of this epistle is placed beyond all reasonable doubt."

Some have compared it with other doxologies which end other epistles, and think that this is too elaborate. But Alford says, "This objection is completely answered by the supposition that the doxology was the effusion of the fervent mind of the Apostle on taking a general survey of the epistle." Paul writes in a fervid and impassioned manner, a general ascription of praise for the mercies of redemption detailed in the epistle.

It is as though Paul looks out to Rome and sees their conflicts, knows their struggles, and falls back on God alone. He can't do anything for them. Only God can do this, but God is able. This is the thought. God is able, and to Him be all the praise. When it is seen in this light, it's most natural. And what is it that God is able to do?

Here it is set forth that God is able to establish them, to strengthen them. And the method that God uses is then set forth, this establishing, this strengthening is according to what Paul calls, "my Gospel."

Near the beginning of the epistle, Paul used the same phrase. He announced to unbelievers that God would judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel. I believe that I know more about the meaning of this phrase now than when I was commenting on the second chapter. I repeat one sentence that I wrote then. "This shall be according to Paul's Gospel."

It is an amazing phrase because it is such a bold phrase, but it's true. God can take men and so identify them with His truth that the truth becomes in no small way their own truth. In the Old Testament it was God's law, and yet it was the law of Moses. In the New Testament, it's the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet it's Paul's Gospel.

I followed this with a list of names showing that it was Augustine's Gospel, and that of a host of others. It was the Gospel of Luther and Calvin, and of men down through today. It is my Gospel, and I hope, yours.

But I think that there's something more here. Paul's Gospel was something that was revealed through him for the first time in this world's history. He wrote to the Galatians, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ, and turning to a different gospel, not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ."

"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed." Here is evidence that the content of the Gospel is a most important thing, and that if anyone is announcing any gospel which is not in accordance with the terms of the Gospel which was given through Paul, he is to be accursed.

This cannot be understood as a sentence laid down by Paul on the human level, but the divine verdict that God pronounces a most solemn curse on anyone who perverts the simplicity of the Gospel as it was announced by divine revelation through Paul.

The Apostle then continues to the Galatians, telling him how he had received this particular truth. "For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ."

In passing, let me mention one of the great evangelical books of the last generation, "The Origin of Paul's Religion," by Dr. J. Gresham Machen. This book, a work of one of the greatest biblical scholars that America has ever produced, demonstrates that the roots of all that Paul preached were in the teachings of Christ and embedded in the Old Testament. The Gospel is the same in all ages.

When John saw the angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to all who dwell on earth at that prophetic time, we may be sure that it is the same Gospel which has been preached in all ages. The idea of some Bible teachers that this everlasting Gospel is neither the Gospel of the kingdom nor of grace cannot be substantiated by sound exegesis and must be rejected out of hand.

In all ages, the one Gospel has always been and always will be, that God, because of Jesus Christ, is not dealing with men in accordance with justice, but that He is dealing with them in accordance with love and grace. This same Gospel was preached in the Old Testament times. We read, once more in Galatians, that the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In thee shall all the nations be blessed." This was the Gospel of grace, even though it was preached in Old Testament times.

We must not forget that there is no promise ever made to any human being that was not already made to Abraham. So it is we're told that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham, and those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith. What was new in Paul's preaching was that the redemption from the curse was accomplished when the Savior died on the cross, and that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Now if this teaching is properly understood, it bridges the gap between two different schools of interpretation and harmonizes the teachings of those who are called dispensationalists and those who attack the dispensationalist position. Let the one party realize definitely that we of this age who were Gentiles have been brought into the covenant of Abraham by faith, and that all that we have and are, comes to us by the free grace of God in accordance with promises made to Abraham.

Let them abandon the position that grace comes to us first, and that it spills over to the Jews, and realize on the contrary that the promises were theirs first, and that we, like the Gentile woman, must be willing to take the crumbs that fall from the children's table. It's when we adopt that position that we are invited to sit at the table with Abraham.

It was when the Gentile centurion came to Christ for the healing of his servant, and was willing to believe that Christ had the power to heal at a distance, that the Lord said, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." And He continued, "And I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven."

Now this teaching is the death of all that is obnoxious in dispensationalism. On the other hand, those who accept this great truth of the continuity of God's covenant must be willing to admit that a new thing began at Pentecost, something that had been hidden from all those who had lived before Christ. The fact that the Gentiles were to become fellow heirs does not destroy the distinctive promises that were made to Israel.

When the Gentiles are brought into the family of God, a new thing has begun. A new phase of the kingdom of God is on the earth, and that new thing is the church. When God has completed this phase of His kingdom, He will remove the church to our heavenly place, where we shall be, along with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Israel which was here before Christ. But He will continue a special phase of His work with the physical remnant of Abraham, and fulfill His promises to the ancient people in the Israel that shall be living upon the earth at that time.

I believe that Paul had all this in mind when he ascribed all glory to God, to the God who is able to establish and strengthen His people then in Rome, and establish and strengthen us, who succeed them as the body of Christ. This establishing and strengthening is in accordance with four things. Paul says that it is according to my Gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages, but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God to bring about obedience to the faith.

Now the Greek word that's used for preaching is kerygma. It comes from the noun kerux, for a herald. In secular literature, one who proclaims an official message. The Lord Jesus used the word to describe the proclamation which Jonah made to Nineveh. "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, because they repented at the kerygma, of the preaching of Jonah, and behold, there is more than Jonah here."

When we have this word applied to the proclamation of Jesus Christ, it takes on an infinitely greater force. Christ Himself said that when He was here, there was more than Jonah and more than Solomon. His preaching was greater than that of Jonah, His wisdom was greater than that of Solomon. He Himself was the creator of Jonah and Solomon, and He was the object of His own preaching.

You see, it's necessary to look at this word a little more closely because a British theologian, C.S. Dodd, recently put forth a study which divided the New Testament into two parts, the kerygma and the didache. Two Greek words that are used in the New Testament, and he divided the New Testament on this basis that there was the proclamation and the teaching.

Well, while this idea has been picked up by many theologians and bandied about as though some marvelous new thing had been discovered, I agree with certain Roman Catholic critics, who classify it as little more than nitpicking. When our text speaks of the kerygma, the preaching of Jesus Christ, it is telling us not what Jesus Himself preached, but the preaching about Jesus Christ. Christ is the message.

Paul said, "For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake." But Christ's preaching might be expressed in a paraphrase of this, "For what I preach is myself as Lord, and myself as your servant and Savior."

And so, the establishing and strengthening of the believer, which gives him his life, his steadfastness, and his hope, arise from the word of God as found in the Gospel, the living word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul declares that the heart of this had been a secret, hidden through long ages, but that it was now a command to all nations. Our steadfastness then rests on Christ.

I saw recently an account of building in London that was taking place not too far from the banks of the Thames. The engineers had driven down into the ground, and had brought up cores of sand, dirt, and rock, and had learned that they had to sink their piles a hundred feet down in order to reach the bedrock.

Well, let us perceive in our text that Paul is sinking just such cores in order to establish the basis of our foundation. We rest not on anything that's to be found in ourselves. One corner of our life goes down to the bedrock of Paul's Gospel, the simple good news that God has done all things for us, and that we can rest quietly in divine grace.

The second corner goes down to the proclamation of Jesus Christ. This is not so much the proclamation which He Himself made, though the seed of all truth is there, but the proclamation of Himself. Christ Jesus, the answer to our need. Christ Jesus, the expiation of our sin. Christ Jesus, the source of our life.

The third corner of our life goes down to the revelation of the mystery which had been kept secret for long ages, but which is now disclosed and made known to all nations. And the fourth corner of our life goes down to the command of the eternal God to bring about our obedience to the faith. On such a fourfold foundation we are securely anchored.

There is no disturbance of doubt, no storm of skepticism, no rage of rationalism that can weaken such a structure. When the earth shakes, and all of man's buildings are seen to be built over the epicenter of great faults, so that nothing can stand secure, then that which is built on Christ remains, and it is seen that it cannot be shaken.

Alexander Maclaren in a sermon on steadfastness gives us this wonderful advice. "Dear friends, while the world is full of wise words about steadfastness, and exalts determination of character and fixity of purpose, rightly, as the basis of much good. Our Gospel comes to us, poor, light, thistledown creatures, and lets us see how we can be steadfast and settled by being fastened to a steadfast and settled Christ. When storms are raging, the sailors lash light articles on deck to holdfasts. Let us lash ourselves to the abiding Christ, and we too shall abide."

To the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. And our Father, we pray Thee that we may know what it is so to be fixed on Christ, established, strengthened, settled, that we may grow in Thee, that Thou mayest take Thy life and make it become our very life. So that the life we now live in the flesh, we shall live by Thy faith, O Son of God. And through Thee, Lord Jesus, to Thee, Father, Son and Spirit, we give all the praise and the glory, now and forever. Amen.

Announcer: As our study in the book of Romans comes to a close, we pray that these messages have helped you become established and strengthened in the Lord Jesus Christ. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled Established and Strengthened. To listen to additional teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll free, 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled Established and Strengthened, or simply request message number R16-8. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled, 101 Difficult Questions Answered. What is the unpardonable sin? Can Satan read your thoughts? Difficult questions often arise from Bible study and theological reflection. What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? How does evolution conflict with the Bible? This free booklet will give you scriptural answers to these and other questions about God and His word. Ask for your free copy of 101 Difficult Questions Answered when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview, drawing upon the insight and wisdom of reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by. We seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching, which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast, The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. Would you like to build your own audio library of Dr. Barnhouse's timeless messages so you can listen to them anytime, anywhere? Then you will be interested in our Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible Audio Commentary Series. Visit our website at alliancenet.org or call us at 1-800-488-1888. Find out how you can sign up for the Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible Audio Commentary Series. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling 1-800-488-1888. Again, that toll-free number, 1-800-488-1888. Write Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at alliancenet.org. Be sure to request a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reform teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martin Lloyd Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

Choir: The Bible does come and teaches who to the saving word comfort us.

He draws our souls from death to life and rescues us from the nest right.

Amazing gift wonder so hot, the life imparting word of God.