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Enjoying God Blog

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When Paul, in Romans 16:27, refers to God as “the only wise God” (cf. 1 Tim. 1:17) he doesn’t mean that there are a bunch of other gods that are foolish and only our God is wise. No. There is only one God, and he is infinitely wise. He knows precisely what to do in every situation. He is never caught scratching his head, trying to decipher which of multiple options is the most effective way to achieve some goal he has in mind. When you think back over Romans and the multitude of things God has done to achieve our salvation, you can rest assured that the process he chose was the wisest and best way to secure our forgiveness and to exalt his own glory. There was no better way to save us than how he has saved us through Jesus.

So, then, what does it mean when Paul says, “to the only wise God be glory forevermore”? The interesting thing is that there is no verb here in the original text. Literally Paul is saying, “To him, glory!” Of course, Paul is appealing to us that all glory be ascribed to God alone. But let’s be careful here. When we glorify God or when we give him glory, we are not adding to his majesty or making him more beautiful and honorable than he was before we decided to glorify him. We glorify God by declaring that he is glorious. We acknowledge it. We prize it. We treasure his glory. God’s glory cannot increase or decrease. It is eternally infinite, and our task is to make this known to the world by means of the person and work of Jesus Christ whom we preach.

Why is God worthy of our praise? Romans contains countless answers to that question, and even then it is only a scratching of the surface of the many things about who God is and what he does that ought to elicit our adoration and exultation.

 Jesus is the Christ who came in human flesh and was raised from the dead (Rom. 1:1-4).
 God calls us into relationship with Jesus such that we truly belong to him (Rom. 1:6).
 God loves us and called us to be saints (1:7).
 The gospel is the power of God for salvation / no other power, no other means, no education or earthly accomplishment can save / only God’s power in Christ (1:16).
 God has revealed himself in nature, thereby rendering all without excuse (1:19-21). In this way we see that he is eminently fair and just in holding all accountable.
 Any and all may be saved, without regard for ethnicity, by faith in Jesus (3:21-24).
 God has provided Jesus as the propitiation for our sins, thereby satisfying the demands of his own justice and appeasing his wrath against sin (3:25).
 God declares us righteous by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (3:23-24).
 God justifies the ungodly (4:5).
 We now have peace with God by faith in Christ (5:1).
 We rejoice in hope of the glory of God (5:2).
 We can now rejoice in our suffering because God has assured us that it will ultimately produce in us a transformed character that endures (5:3-4).
 Our hope in God will never put us to shame (5:5).
 God has poured out his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (5:5).
 Christ died for ungodly people (5:6).
 God’s love for us is seen preeminently in the gift of Jesus to die for us (5:7-8).
 The fact that Jesus died for us when we were his enemies is the guarantee that he will live for us now that we are his friends (5:8-11).
 Jesus, the last Adam, has overcome and triumphed through righteousness the first Adam who plunged the race into sin and corruption (5:12-21).
 God has united us with Jesus, as seen and testified to in baptism (6:1-4).
 Because we died with Jesus, we now live with him and are no longer slaves to sin (6:5-11).
 We are no longer under law but under grace (6:14).
 We have been given the free gift of eternal life in Christ (6:23).
 God has enabled us to bear fruit for him (7:4).
 God is in the process and will ultimately bring to consummation our deliverance from the body of death in which we now live (7:24-25).
 There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ (8:1).
 The Holy Spirit now indwells us (8:11).
 We are the adopted sons and daughters of God (8:12-17).
 The Spirit bears witness to us that we belong to God as our Father (8:16).
 God has promised us that we will be fully redeemed and glorified in our bodies (8:18-25).
 The Spirit helps us when we don’t know what to pray for (8:26-27).
 God assures us that he is orchestrating all events to make us look more like Jesus (8:28).
 God loved and foreknew us before the foundation of the world (8:29).
 God predestined us to be conformed to the image of Jesus (8:29).
 God called us and justified us and is so certain to glorify us that he speaks of it as an accomplished fact (8:30).
 God did not spare his own Son but delivered him up for us to guarantee that he will gladly provide us with all lesser blessings (8:32).
 Jesus intercedes for us with God and overcomes every accusation or objection (8:33-34).
 Nothing can separate us from God’s love (8:35-39).
 God elected us to inherit eternal life based on nothing other than his sovereign and gracious good pleasure (9:6-22).
 God has assured us and all mankind that if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe God raised him from the dead you will be saved (10:9-11).
 God has determined to save both believing Jews and believing Gentiles, uniting them as one people who will inherit all the promises (11:1-32).
 No matter what may come our way, we can rest assured that all things are from him and through him and to him (11:33-36).
 God has given us guidance on what it means to walk in obedience to him, how to live righteously in a fallen and corrupt world (12:1-13).
 God has assured us that we need not seek vengeance on those who mistreat us as he will bring justice to bear on all (12:14-21).
 God has provided human government as a deterrent to human wickedness and a source of reward and praise for human obedience (13:1-7).
 God has granted us freedom on secondary matters and has urged us not to judge or condemn those who may differ with us on such issues (14).
 God supplies us with endurance and encouragement through the power of the Scriptures (15:1-7).
 God promises to fill us with all joy and peace and hope as we trust what he has revealed in the Scriptures (15:13).
 God has invited us to join him in changing history through prayer (15:30-33).
 God has assured us that we have the authority to resist Satan now and will one day be his instruments by which the Devil is fully and finally crushed (16:20).
 God has promised to strengthen us through the gospel (16:25-27).

All glory and praise be to him who loved us and saved us from our sins!

1 Comment

Good News indeed.

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