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Elmer G. White 10-25-2016 04:33 AM

Day 321: Romans 1-3
 
Introduction to the Pauline Epistles

While touring the Eastern Mediterranean, Apostle Paul was extremely successful at establishing True Christian™ Faith among the Gentiles of the Greek Culture. However, Satan did not remain idle. He constantly entered the minds and rectums of the newborn believers and corrupted them into false Christianity. To fight this, Paul wrote letters that are called Epistles in the Spiritual Realm of Believers.

In brief, the Gospels help us to believe that Jesus is our Savior and that He is God (John 1:1-4). The Epistles tell us how to be a good believer. While Faith is required to enter Heaven (John 3:16-18), and Paul is high on Faith, he also meticulously explains us how a True Christian™ should behave and, even more importantly, how to recognize false Christians. If we had only the Gospels, we would not have any idea who's gonna be in Heaven with us.

The Epistle to the Romans is the showcase of Pauline thought: It explains the repulsive state of everyone who is not of Christ. Some of these signs would be obvious for everyone, some of them are only discernible by the false opinions and ideas of these corrupted souls. If Paul had not transmitted Jesus's Will in his Epistles, we would be visually impaired in a land of atheist discovery. But, because Jesus used Paul to document these things, we know what secular things to accept and what to discard.


Now we're ready to enter the exciting realm of Epistles. For today's reading, the most significant issues to consider are as follows (again, easily color coded for your convenience):
  • Credentials: How do we know Paul is who he claims to be?
  • Homosexuality, its etiology, symptomatology, spread, practice by non-practicing homosexuals, and some potential for a cure.
  • The nature of the Law and its paradoxical nature in the Bible.
  • The repulsive state of mankind.
Romans 1 starts off with Paul giving us a short summary of his CV and the credentials are good, so we'd better believe him!

Romans 1:1
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,


He also gives a memo of Jesus's Credentials just in case.

Romans 1:3-4
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:


This seems reliable. With this powerful Testimony we know that what follows is going to be the Truth™ and the Whole Truth™ and Nothing But The Truth™. Next, Paul tells us that he really wants to preach the Whole Truth™ in Rome and that we should all proclaim our Faith® loudly without any inhibitions.

Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.


Now we get to one of the main points of the Bible. Homosexuality, why, how, who and so what!

Why? Because of ungodliness!

Romans 1:18
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;


How? Paul explains us that unbelievers are fools, that they worship animals. We have seen this: it is the mainstay of Darwinism, ecology, vegetarianism, and the renewable energy cult. They revere God's Creations more than God Himself. They protect soulless animals more than the Commandments of God (Ecclesiastes 12:13). If we did not have Paul's words we might take these manifestations as life-preserving. Because of Paul we know that they lead to the Wrath of God (Romans 1:18). How is the ungodliness visible in its victims?

Romans 1:24
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:


How can we tell that? What are the symptoms?

Romans 1:25-27
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.


If we did not have these verses we would have to rely on the thousands of scientific studies claiming that homosexuality is a complex phenomenon with genetic, epigenetic, and intrauterine influences leading to a phenotype compatible with a beneficial life if it weren't for social stigma. We thank Paul and Jesus for falsifying all that research in advance. It can never be True™ because it was declared false two thousand years ago. But wait, there is MORE. Who is the homosexual? What happens if you support the homosexual agenda while living in a perfectly normal and healthy heterosexual marriage yourself?

Romans 1:32
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.


These things are - as we can see above - not compatible with Eternal Life and there are people who have pleasure in others doing the stuff. You can celebrate the LGBT rights while being an apparently normal person yourself. That's OK, isn't it? No, it isn't. It makes you gay. Paul takes us into Chapter 2 with this staggering piece of news!

Romans 2:1
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.


Condoning this sin is as bad as doing it yourself. No wonder 99.9% of people everywhere are now homosexual with compulsory gay marriage, etc. So what? Well, bad things will happen to these people.

Romans 2:8-9
But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;


Take note, sinner, God is angry at you. This is irrefutable proof by a man with an exemplary CV (Romans 1:1).

Now Paul explains us complex stuff about the Law and its significance. This is difficult stuff but important, as here we can see the start point of many heresies. It is by the Miracle of Jesus that Man is Saved by Faith alone (we'll read more about that in this Epistle) and that He is still judged by his deeds (James 2:14; Revelation 20:13). These aspects of God's Master Plan are mutually exclusive for the twisted theological mind of the Lutheran, the Catholic, the Calvinist; but by accepting God's Glorious indifference to mundane logic (Exodus 3:14), the True Christian™ embraces this all and gets his Salvation through Faith while obeying God (Ecclesiastes 12:13). The Jew is incapable of this. Paul explains all this in a readily comprehensible manner with his crystal clear logic:

Romans 2:25-26
For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?


And, furthermore, he elaborates this on gentiles:

Romans 2:29
But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.


Confused?
You won't be after Romans 3. Despite all the confusion about law, foreskin removal, spiritual foreskin removal and much ado about Jews, God is Faithful to His Master plan and, as a consequence, to His Believers©. Paul uses beautiful cross-referencing by explaining the Bible with the Bible. His main source at this points is the Book of Psalms.

Romans 3:4
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.


Now, this is a citation from Psalms 51:4
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

You may wonder why Paul fails to use the proper KJV form of the Psalms, but we must remember that this is no contradiction but a reminder of God's Omnipotence (Revelation 19:6). After all this complex but rewarding logical struggle, Paul reaches a conclusion:

Romans 3:9
What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;


Ergo, no-one (who is not a True Christian™) is righteous. Paul is a man learned in Bible Study so he refers, once again, to Psalms thus gaining irrefutable proof that everyone is corrupt.

Romans 3:13
Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:


Psalms 5:9
For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.


Again, you may wonder why Paul seemingly dismisses this important Biblical Command:

Galatians 1:9
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.


Now, many will notice that Paul preaches not the same Psalms as the Psalms that we are used to. However, his situation is different, as it is God who dictated the Epistles to us through Paul, and if God saw that it was necessary to paraphrase, it is of no business of ours (Exodus 3:14). Paul continues by making more citations of Psalms that are not verbatim because being verbatim is not in God's interest here.

Romans 3:14
Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

Psalms 10:7
His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.


The message is still clear. Men are corrupt Creatures who cannot fill the commands of the Law. Thus. Everything seems to be lost!

Romans 3:20
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.


How, then, can there be hope for homosexuals and other sinners?

Romans 3:24-25
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;


With the Law and with the detailed instructions that Paul will reveal to us in his later Epistles, we know what is sinful. As Paul explained to us earlier today, one of the manifestations, and probably the vilest one, one caused by this sin of unbelieving is homosexual behavior and the condoning of homosexual behavior that leads to the Wrath of God and the Law won't save you because it's impossible to fulfill anyway also regarding that some parts of the Law as written by the Prophet were willful exaggeration and wanton trickery by God (Ezekiel 20:25) but Hope entered in the form of Jesus! Of course, Jesus did not come to destroy the Law (Matthew 5:17). The paradox of Law and Faith is gracefully re-iterated by Paul as Chapter 3 closes.

Romans 3:31
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.




Next Time: Abraham and Adam revisited.


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