“NEW FOCUS June/July 2009 Review”
“Ian Potts has provided us with an excellent new commentary on the gospel of God as it is revealed in Paul’s epistle to the Romans. The book is not a verse by verse exposition of the text but touches upon the major themes in the epistle, drawing out Paul’s clear purpose of honouring the Lord Jesus Christ and establishing the sovereign nature and purpose of the gospel.

Those familiar with Ian’s other books will know his style of writing is clear, precise and easy to read. Throughout, the Lord Jesus is ‘evidently set forth’ and readers will be blessed to encounter sovereign grace and the power of faith repeatedly referred to as central themes in the message.

Yet, this message is not theoretical but practical and full of application. The reader is confronted constantly by the challenge to personally address the implications of the gospel of God in all its living, glorious power.

The book covers all sixteen chapters of Romans and is divided into seven sections supplying a nice structure and memorable overview for the book.”

Peter L. Meney
NEW FOCUS Magazine, June/July 2009
http://www.new-focus.co.uk

THE GOSPEL MAGAZINE November/December 2009 Review

“In the Dedication the author states that “this work is dedicated to all of God’s elect, chosen in Christ unto salvation ready to be revealed in these last days, through the preaching of Christ”. It is the Gospel, and the Gospel as taught in Romans, that is presented to us. Much of what passes as “gospel” is spurious, and we are here given a clear and timely warning.

In the Introduction we are given a realistic assessment of the state of affairs now in place in the modern church, where “activity, plenty of singing, plenty of meetings, plenty of entertainment, plenty to “keep people happy”, are judged to be of value, but where there is an “absolute famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord”. This is not an “in depth” or line-by-line commentary, but is exactly what it is intended to be, and lovingly and powerfully presented!

The need for mankind to hear and believe the gospel and the urgency for its true presentation is the constant theme. “…Much of religion today is seeking to convince people to become Christians, to show them a ‘better way’. But those sent of God to preach the gospel are not sent to ‘twist people’s arms’ or to educate them about religion through ‘courses’, but to seek out the lost, to preach a message of salvation to them, to find those who are desperate, hungry for the truth, those whom the Spirit has convinced of sin, of righteousness and of the judgment to come – those who know that death and eternity await them – those who need to hear of the Saviour and the gospel of their salvation. Until God shows us our need of salvation the message of a Saviour is meaningless. Sinners first need to hear that they are sinners!”

The A.V. is used and brief quotations given from such as J. Calvin and B.B. Warfield. Print is clear and easy to read and the book very attractively produced.”

D.L.J. The Gospel Magazine, November/December 2009 http://www.gospelmagazine.org.uk

Thank you for visiting http://www.thegospelofgod.wordpress.com and for the comments you left, to which I would like to response briefly.

In 1 Timothy 1:5-7 Paul instructs Timothy that “the end of the commandment is charity [love] out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.”

But why does Paul write that? For the simple reason that those who would teach believers to turn from the gospel back to the law are those who ‘turn aside unto vain jangling’. They desire to teach the law, but they don’t understand what they are saying! For the law only brings in death, whereas the gospel, and the gospel alone, brings life. To turn back from that which brings life unto that which only ever brought in death is foolishness indeed. Yet, there are many who turn from the commandment of God, to believe and rest in Christ, back to the old yoke of the law from which Christ delivered us… and in so doing they bring condemnation back upon their heads.

You clearly believe that God calls us to obedience… and you are quite right, He does. But the New Testament calls us to obedience to Christ and His gospel, not to obedience to the letter of the law from which the gospel delivered us. That is not to say that the gospel brings disobedience to the law, but simply that the law is only ever fulfilled by obedience in the gospel, by following Christ, not by following the law.

This is made plain in very many passages in the New Testament, and it takes no ‘theorising’ to render their plain meaning. Paul teaches plainly in Romans 7 that we are “become dead to the law by the body of Christ… that we should bring forth fruit unto God”. There is no other way to bring forth fruit unto God. The law can’t do that, for the law “did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death”. Paul reaffirms this truth in Galatians 2:19 where he writes “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God”. Now, is that not plain language? Where is the ‘theorising’ here? We are dead to the law that we might live unto God. That means what it says, surely?

Yes, God calls us to obedience, but it is obedience to the gospel. If God has delivered us from the law in Christ, which He has, then He clearly is not instructing us to return to the commandments of the law, for if we did, we would be found to be adulterers, for we would be turning from our new husband, Christ, back to our former husband, as plainly set forth in Romans 7. God firmly instructs us in Galatians 5:1 to “stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage”. How can we be obedient to God’s instruction here if we seek to return to the law, the yoke of bondage?

You have made an allusion to the garden of Eden in your second comment. Very well, but it would do us good to understand just what occurred in the garden of Eden, and the spiritual realities of what was set forth there.

When Adam disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil he sinned and he died. Death was the result. God had instructed him that he was free to eat of all of the trees in the garden, even the Tree of Life, but not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There were two trees named, you see, both with great symbolic meaning, but it is the latter of which Adam ate.

Later, God gave unto Israel the law to show them that they were sinners and were dead, and were in need of life – life which could only come through the sacrifice of the Redeemer who was yet to come. God gave the law to remind them of their state by nature as a consequence of the fall of Adam in the garden. He was reminding them of the tree from which they once ate, and of the consequences of eating the fruit of that tree. When Adam ate of that tree he died. It was no tree of life, despite the knowledge of good and evil which it brought. Likewise, the law, though it brings a knowledge of good and evil, only condemns. When we seek to keep it, we fail miserably, and it condemns us. It kills, it exposes our sin. And that is the law’s purpose. “For by the law is the knowledge of sin” Romans 3:20. The law does not bring life, nor was it given to instruct those who have life in how they should live. No, the law brings the knowledge of sin. It condemns. It kills. And that is why God gave it.

If Adam had eaten of the Tree of Life, however, he would have had eternal life. But instead he ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and as a consequence he brought sin and death upon all his posterity. So, God gave the law, and applies the judgment of the law to us, in order to teach us this fact in our own experience. To teach us, that like Adam, we too are sinners. To show us that fact, not as a mere statement upon paper, but as a bitter reality within our own soul’s experience. That the knowledge of good and evil will never bring life, never give the ability to walk uprightly in accordance, and never bring us to heaven, or into God’s glory. The law exposes us as sinners, and shuts us up as condemned, unto the only hope we can have, which is in Christ and Him alone. We must be delivered from the law by Christ, that we might be married to Him to bring forth fruit unto God. See Romans 7.

When God uses the law in this way, He doesn’t send us back to it to instruct us in our walk as believers. Its work is done. Its purpose is fulfilled. It is a “schoolmaster unto Christ”. But when faith is come “we are no longer under a schoolmaster” Galatians 3:25. For Christ is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth”. Then how can we return to that old schoolmaster, that old husband, that old tree, that which brought in only sin, death and rebellion? How can we?

So it is true, and you are right, that we are called to child-like obedience unto God… but not to the law from which we have been delivered, but to Christ in His gospel. We are not under the old covenant, but in the new. This is plainly set before us in Hebrews 8, where we read “In that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away”. But was not that old covenant of God? Yes it was. Was it not commanded of God? Yes it was. Then are we not to obey those commands of God? Well, clearly there has been a change, for that old covenant has ‘waxed old’. We have been delivered from it. Is not that plain from the scriptures? Surely it is impossible to maintain with any degree of truthfulness, in the light of all that is taught in the New Testament, that the Old Covenant remains in force upon believers? If we claim that we are placing ourselves in direct disobedience to the commands of God in the New Testament. So which are we going to follow? What God said of old to His particular nation of Israel, or what God has commanded in the gospel, in the New Covenant, to all His own in Christ? If God, today, says that we have been delivered from the law and are now married to Christ, are we to make Him a liar and return to our old husband, to that from which we have been delivered?

But it would appear, that you are of the persuasion that believers are still bound to the commands of the Old Covenant. If that be the case, may I ask you a few simple questions in the light of some very plain passages of scripture?

1. Firstly, how, if we are “become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that [we] should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (Romans 7:4), can we then return to our former husband – the law? Are we not then found to be adulterers, turning from our husband Christ, to another? And how can we then bring forth fruit unto God, if we needed to become dead to the law in order to do that?

2. If Christ is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10) then how can we return to that law for righteousness, when Christ is the end of it?

3. How if “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God”, can I now be alive again unto the law? Surely I would then cease to live unto God, if the purpose of my dying to the law is that I might live unto God. Does not ‘dead’ mean dead? Either I am dead to the law or alive to the law, and does not Paul teach plainly that I am dead to it, that I might live unto God?

4. How can I obey God’s instruction to “stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1) if I seek to return to the law and attempt to obey the commands of that law which Paul calls the yoke of bondage?

5. If we are still to walk by the law are we then bound to keep all of its commands? Including all the dietary commands, the commands concerning strange marriages, tithes, clean and unclean beasts, and all the instruction regarding the priesthood and the offerings? Were not all these things commanded of God, and if so are we to be obedient to them? If we are to keep the law are we not to keep all the law, as James teaches “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”? Surely there is but one way, and one way only, to keep ALL of the law and that is in Christ and Him alone.

6. If the scriptures teach that the believer in Christ remains bound to the law, then where does it also teach that the same law has been amended, to change the seventh day into the first? If the first day be now the Sabbath, where is but one passage which refers to it as such?

7. If the believer remains bound to the law of the Sabbath, why then does Paul find fault with the Colossians in their being bound to the Sabbath? (Colossians 2:16) Is it not because they looked to a physical day, rather than to its fulfilment in Christ, who is Himself our Sabbath?

In closing may I just ask whether you have read the other articles on http://www.thegospelofgod.wordpress.com ? Clearly the article on chapter 14 stands in the context of the whole book and it should be read as such. I’d especially draw your attention to some of the earlier chapters, including the exposition of chapter 7 of Romans, which considers the plain teaching of God regarding the place of the law in respect of the gospel.

SO IF THE LAW IS TO GUIDE YOU, ARE YOU SUPPOSE TO OBSERVE IT OR IS IT JUST A MERE ABSTRACT SET OF ‘RULES’ THAT YOU KNOW BUT DO NOT FOLLOW?

YOUR THEORY AND ARGUMENT THAT THE LAW IS “THERE” BUT WE ARE NOT TO OBSERVE IT IS AKIN TO A DOG RUNNING AROUND TRYING TO BITE IT’S TAIL. IT JUST GOES AROUND IN CIRCLES.

HOWEVER IT IS GOOD TO KNOW THAT SOME PEOPLE STILL TRY TO USE COLOURFUL WORDS TO THEORIZE, EXPLAIN AND CONJURE UP EXCUSES FOR THE LORD’S WORD. ONLY ONE DID THAT IN EDEN AND WE ALL KNOW WHERE HE WILL END UP.

MAY GOD BLESS YOU IAN.

I have never read anywhere in the bible where God, nor Jesus Christ, nor the early Christians not observing the Sabbath.

All arguments for not observing the Lord’s Sabbath that I have read are all interpretations and justifications of men. I believe if God knew that Christ would come to do away with HIS “commandments” and especially HIS Sabbath, HE would have specifically told us so and would not leave us doubting and arguing about it. Dont you think?

IT IS AS SIMPLE AS SAYING, “YES FATHER I LOVE YOU, I BELIEVE YOUR WORDS. I WILL DO AS YOU COMMAND.”

END OF STORY. NO MORE TROUBLE TRYING TO THEORIZE THE LORD’S WORD.

VINAKA VAKALEVU

I want to apply to Gospel of God Church.

If faith is a gift from God (Father and/or Son), isn’t our gift of faith from Him traceable to the same faith of the Father and/or of the Son – Jesus the Christ?

God can give us gifts from all things that He has, including faith. We don’t generate faith, but faith is a gift from God; any measure of our faith is the measure of faith we receive from Him.

We really need to know what this “faith” of God and/or Jesus Christ is, which faith imputes righteousness.

Thanks for your explanation of “from faith to faith”. In the manifestation/revelation of righteousness from faith to faith, won’t it correspondingly mean that the same righteousness revealed in the faith of Jesus Christ is manifested/revealed in His faith we receive from Him?

I believe it is; it is that righteousness of the faith of God/Son that is imputed unto us.

The gospel of faith reveals the righteousness of faith because both (gospel and righteousness) render the same tangible thing.

The gospel is the good news declaring a certain tangible thing, just like a tangible child is the good news declaring the tangible union between a husband and wife.

That tangible child, who is the good news declaring that union, is the righteousness (doing of right thing made manifest) of that union.

That tangible child, who is the gospel and righteousness of the union, is the power unto the salvation of that union – see 1 Tim. 2:15.

So, merely speaking about the good news is not sufficient, but declaring by tangibly showing the righteousness of faith is the power of the gospel of faith.

Thank you and God bless all of you!