Romans 1:1, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures) 3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh:
The author of this epistle is Paul the apostle. The word, "servant' in the next phrase of the sentence is doulos, which means bondservant, or bondslave. It is a reference back to Exodus 21:1-6, wherein it is written that after six years of service, if a slave loves his wife, family, and master more than the idea of freedom, he can have his ear pierced to the door with an awl and he will be the slave of that master for ever. A parallel passage is John 6:66-71, wherein (interestingly enough), John 6:66 speaks of how many disciples who followed Jesus went back and followed Him no more. By my calculations the number of the Beast means rejecting Jesus Christ completely after having been a Christian for many years. If anyone tells you that chapter and verse aren't inspired, show them this verse and then tell them (verbally) to go and read Proverbs 32 (Proverbs 30:2). Now Peter in the passage I am referring to said to the Lord, "To whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life." We come to a place in our walk where we are faced with a decision to either become surrendered to Him for the rest of our lives (eternity) or to follow Him no more forever; and this is an eternal decision.
Paul was called to be an apostle and separated unto the gospel of God. He wrote in Galatians 1 that he was called from his mother's womb; a similar testimony that the prophet Jeremiah also had. Predestination is a huge subject in modern theological doctrine; and I happen to believe in it. When I first heard of Calvin in my history book in elementary school, it was said that Calvin's primary contribution was concerning the subject of predestination. Now predestination is not only concerning salvation; but concerning a number of other things. In Jude 1:3-4 it is shown that certain false teachers, who preach grace as a license for sin (NIV), turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness and deny the only Lord God even our Lord Jesus Christ (kjv), their condemnation was marked out long ago (forordained, kjv). Predestination is also a basic truth in the nature of God's transcendence; He is outside of time, and therefore when He intervenes in human affairs, it is done from the perspective of eternity: both from before the foundation of the world and at the end of all things and everything in between; except from the perspective of not being bound to finite means of accomplishment. Now the word separated means holy; and to be separated unto the gospel of God means being called to the ministry, even of holiness, if you get my drift.
Now this good news (the gospel of God) was promised before Jesus ever came to earth through the writings of the Old Testament prophets. Scripture passages in particular that stand out are Psalms 22 and Isaiah 53, which are specific prophecies that bear witness to the crucifixion. In Psalms 22, the very first line was spoken by Jesus, only in the Aramaic language, while he was dying on the Cross. Also the bodily suffering of crucifixion is described very adequately in verses throughout the chapter. Jesus spoke from the Cross, "I thirst" in fulfillment of a prophecy in that chapter. Isaiah 53 is considered to be a prophecy about the suffering of the Jewish people for other nations by most Jewish scholars (if they will handle it correctly this is the conclusion they should make if they are going to deny that it is about our Lord); the suffering servant of Isaiah dies for the sins of the world and if this refers to the Jewish people then anti-semitism has validity in that the Jews are supposed to die for the rest of the world. However I do not believe that this is the case, as I was circumcised the eighth day myself although my mother never told me specifically that I was Jewish (perhaps in order to keep me from being persecuted for my lineage); she did however tell me that there were parts of my nationality that were unknown (other than 1/2 Italian, some Norweigian, and 1/16 Cherokee) and therefore I identify with the Jewish people at the very least as a kind of Samaritan halfbreed according to what in the days of the New Testament was considered to be true of those who were only part Jewish. But I have digressed. What is the gospel of God? It is that Jew and Gentile alike can be redeemed by the sacrifice of a lamb that was completely innocent in the place of them for their sake as their sins are transferred to the lamb and the innocence of the lamb is applied to their account (see John chapter 1).
Now this gospel is concerning God's Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who came and died on a Cross approximately 2,000 years ago (at the time of this writing) and also was risen from the dead by God the Father. Jesus also claimed that He had power to lay down His life and power to take it up again and that He had received that commandment from the Father.
The crucifixion and resurrection is a historical fact and the world has never been the same since this occurence happened. Some say that Jesus was the greatest moral teacher who ever lived. C.S. Lewis set forth the proposition that since Jesus claimed to be God (John 8:24, John 8:58) and the Pharisees understood His claim well enough to pick up stones to stone Him for blasphemy (John 8:59, John 10:31-33), that this idea of Him being a great moral teacher cannot be unless He is indeed who He claimed to be (Now please read Matthew 5-7). Either He was a lunatic on the level of someone who thinks he is a poached egg, or He is a liar on the level of the devil of hell; or else He is the Lord and the God who created all of us as it is at the very least implied in John 1:1-3 and John 1:14.
Now Jesus was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. This means his lineage was of David. In Matthew chapter 1, and in Luke chapter 4, two different genealogies are given of Jesus' ancestry and one of them is only concerning Jesus' true stepfather Joseph; for His Father was the God who created all of us. In the concept of the Trinity, the Father descends to take on human form and this Person that comes into being who is wholly God and wholly man is called the Son of God, identified as the 2nd Person of the Trinity. When Jesus releases His Spirit back to the Father, the person of Jesus' Spirit is given the title the Holy Ghost. See John 4:23-24 and John 14:7-11 for details. Also Ephesians 4:4.
Now the fact that Jesus is made according to the seed of David is to the Jehovah's Witness an evidence that Jesus is not the Lord God. However Isaiah 45:11 indicates that Jehovah God indeed has a Maker and I perceive this to mean that in the flesh Jesus had a created body. The Holy Spirit became one with the egg in the womb of the virgin Mary in the conception of Jesus. Now it is said in certain circles that sin is carried down DNA-wise through the father 's seed and not the mother's egg. Therefore since Jesus' Father was not human but the only Divine Creator, Jesus was sinless as a human being. Now since I believe in the entire sanctification of the believer (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, Hebrews 10:14, 1 John 3:9, Romans 6:6, Colossians 2:11), it is possible that there was an immaculate conception in my view (except that Mary lived before the Cross). However, I believe that sounder doctrine indicates to us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; and also that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Therefore the only One who can accurately claim to be without sin is God.
The author of this epistle is Paul the apostle. The word, "servant' in the next phrase of the sentence is doulos, which means bondservant, or bondslave. It is a reference back to Exodus 21:1-6, wherein it is written that after six years of service, if a slave loves his wife, family, and master more than the idea of freedom, he can have his ear pierced to the door with an awl and he will be the slave of that master for ever. A parallel passage is John 6:66-71, wherein (interestingly enough), John 6:66 speaks of how many disciples who followed Jesus went back and followed Him no more. By my calculations the number of the Beast means rejecting Jesus Christ completely after having been a Christian for many years. If anyone tells you that chapter and verse aren't inspired, show them this verse and then tell them (verbally) to go and read Proverbs 32 (Proverbs 30:2). Now Peter in the passage I am referring to said to the Lord, "To whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life." We come to a place in our walk where we are faced with a decision to either become surrendered to Him for the rest of our lives (eternity) or to follow Him no more forever; and this is an eternal decision.
Paul was called to be an apostle and separated unto the gospel of God. He wrote in Galatians 1 that he was called from his mother's womb; a similar testimony that the prophet Jeremiah also had. Predestination is a huge subject in modern theological doctrine; and I happen to believe in it. When I first heard of Calvin in my history book in elementary school, it was said that Calvin's primary contribution was concerning the subject of predestination. Now predestination is not only concerning salvation; but concerning a number of other things. In Jude 1:3-4 it is shown that certain false teachers, who preach grace as a license for sin (NIV), turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness and deny the only Lord God even our Lord Jesus Christ (kjv), their condemnation was marked out long ago (forordained, kjv). Predestination is also a basic truth in the nature of God's transcendence; He is outside of time, and therefore when He intervenes in human affairs, it is done from the perspective of eternity: both from before the foundation of the world and at the end of all things and everything in between; except from the perspective of not being bound to finite means of accomplishment. Now the word separated means holy; and to be separated unto the gospel of God means being called to the ministry, even of holiness, if you get my drift.
Now this good news (the gospel of God) was promised before Jesus ever came to earth through the writings of the Old Testament prophets. Scripture passages in particular that stand out are Psalms 22 and Isaiah 53, which are specific prophecies that bear witness to the crucifixion. In Psalms 22, the very first line was spoken by Jesus, only in the Aramaic language, while he was dying on the Cross. Also the bodily suffering of crucifixion is described very adequately in verses throughout the chapter. Jesus spoke from the Cross, "I thirst" in fulfillment of a prophecy in that chapter. Isaiah 53 is considered to be a prophecy about the suffering of the Jewish people for other nations by most Jewish scholars (if they will handle it correctly this is the conclusion they should make if they are going to deny that it is about our Lord); the suffering servant of Isaiah dies for the sins of the world and if this refers to the Jewish people then anti-semitism has validity in that the Jews are supposed to die for the rest of the world. However I do not believe that this is the case, as I was circumcised the eighth day myself although my mother never told me specifically that I was Jewish (perhaps in order to keep me from being persecuted for my lineage); she did however tell me that there were parts of my nationality that were unknown (other than 1/2 Italian, some Norweigian, and 1/16 Cherokee) and therefore I identify with the Jewish people at the very least as a kind of Samaritan halfbreed according to what in the days of the New Testament was considered to be true of those who were only part Jewish. But I have digressed. What is the gospel of God? It is that Jew and Gentile alike can be redeemed by the sacrifice of a lamb that was completely innocent in the place of them for their sake as their sins are transferred to the lamb and the innocence of the lamb is applied to their account (see John chapter 1).
Now this gospel is concerning God's Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who came and died on a Cross approximately 2,000 years ago (at the time of this writing) and also was risen from the dead by God the Father. Jesus also claimed that He had power to lay down His life and power to take it up again and that He had received that commandment from the Father.
The crucifixion and resurrection is a historical fact and the world has never been the same since this occurence happened. Some say that Jesus was the greatest moral teacher who ever lived. C.S. Lewis set forth the proposition that since Jesus claimed to be God (John 8:24, John 8:58) and the Pharisees understood His claim well enough to pick up stones to stone Him for blasphemy (John 8:59, John 10:31-33), that this idea of Him being a great moral teacher cannot be unless He is indeed who He claimed to be (Now please read Matthew 5-7). Either He was a lunatic on the level of someone who thinks he is a poached egg, or He is a liar on the level of the devil of hell; or else He is the Lord and the God who created all of us as it is at the very least implied in John 1:1-3 and John 1:14.
Now Jesus was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. This means his lineage was of David. In Matthew chapter 1, and in Luke chapter 4, two different genealogies are given of Jesus' ancestry and one of them is only concerning Jesus' true stepfather Joseph; for His Father was the God who created all of us. In the concept of the Trinity, the Father descends to take on human form and this Person that comes into being who is wholly God and wholly man is called the Son of God, identified as the 2nd Person of the Trinity. When Jesus releases His Spirit back to the Father, the person of Jesus' Spirit is given the title the Holy Ghost. See John 4:23-24 and John 14:7-11 for details. Also Ephesians 4:4.
Now the fact that Jesus is made according to the seed of David is to the Jehovah's Witness an evidence that Jesus is not the Lord God. However Isaiah 45:11 indicates that Jehovah God indeed has a Maker and I perceive this to mean that in the flesh Jesus had a created body. The Holy Spirit became one with the egg in the womb of the virgin Mary in the conception of Jesus. Now it is said in certain circles that sin is carried down DNA-wise through the father 's seed and not the mother's egg. Therefore since Jesus' Father was not human but the only Divine Creator, Jesus was sinless as a human being. Now since I believe in the entire sanctification of the believer (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, Hebrews 10:14, 1 John 3:9, Romans 6:6, Colossians 2:11), it is possible that there was an immaculate conception in my view (except that Mary lived before the Cross). However, I believe that sounder doctrine indicates to us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; and also that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Therefore the only One who can accurately claim to be without sin is God.
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