A FIVE STAR CHAPTER

Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

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See Topic: Law and Grace

Romans 5

• The law is to sinful man like kryptonite is to Superman. For those who have the law, they are weakened by the law. In a Superman Comic Book, the only substance in the universe that kryptonite radiation cannot penetrate is lead. Using it as imagery for salvation, the blood of Jesus is the only substance that the law cannot penetrate.

Faith Triumphs in Trouble

Romans 5:¹ Therefore, having been justified by faith, we (Some ancient mss. read “let us”) have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

• For which Jesus is called “the Prince of Peace”

Romans 5:² through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:³ And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces (endurance) perseverance;

• Troubles and tribulation produces endurance.

Romans 5:⁴ and perseverance, character (approved character); and character, hope.

• endurance produces character,
• character produces hope.

Romans 5:⁵ Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

• AND HOPE WILL NOT RESULT IN DISAPPOINTMENT!

Christ in Our Place

Romans 5:⁶ For when we were still without strength, in due time (at the right time) Christ died for the ungodly.

Romans 5:⁷ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

• Maximilian Maria Kolbe (born Raymund Kolbe) a Polish Catholic priest and Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German death camp of Auschwitz. When the Germans took Poland, the monastary of Kolbe acted as a publishing house, issuing a number of anti-Nazi German publications.
  
  

• During World War II, Kolbe’s monastery at Niepokalanów sheltered Jewish refugees. According to the testimony of a local, “When Jews came to me asking for a piece of bread, I asked Father Maximilian if I could give it to them in good conscience, and he answered me, ‘Yes, it is necessary to do this because all men are our brothers.’”
• On 17 February 1941, the monastery was shut down by the German authorities. That day Kolbe and four others were arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670.
• Continuing to act as a priest, Kolbe was subjected to violent harassment, including beatings and lashings. Once he was smuggled to a prison hospital by friendly inmates. At the end of July 1941, one prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting SS–Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, “My wife! My children!” Kolbe volunteered to take his place.
  
• Gajowniczek, a Polish army sergeant, had been sent to Auschwitz concentration camp from a Gestapo prison in Tarnów. He was captured while crossing the border into Slovakia after the defeat of the Modlin Fortress during the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. Gajowniczek survived the war and afterward became a lay missionary, dedicating his life to spreading the story of Kolbe’s sacrifice.
  

• According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe remained alive.
• The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection. He died on 14 August 1941. His remains were cremated on 15 August.

• The question is, would Kolbe have died for the guards?

Romans 5:⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners (enemies), Christ died for us.

Romans 5:⁹ Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

• The wrath of God appears at the Seven Year time of Tribulation.

Romans 5:¹⁰ For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

• God vs. sinful man TO God and justified man vs. sin

Romans 5:¹¹ And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

• Reconciliation: Reunited in friendship after enmity.

Death in Adam, Life in Christ

Romans 5:¹² Therefore, just as through one man (Adam) sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—

• Sin is a viral pandemic in which no one escapes until finally, a vaccination appears, Jesus’ blood, in which men have the choice to accept or reject that vaccine.

Romans 5:¹³ ((For until the law sin was in the world,

Romans 5:¹⁴ Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

• A Virus can appear in many forms on different places on a body, likewise; even though men do not sin in the same way as Adam, the virus is still there appearing in many forms always spreading to the next generations.
• The virus of sin is identified by the lack of empathy for others and the lack of gratefulness to God. This is why the two greatest commandments are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and spirit (in totality) and to love others, with the same priority, as you would love yourself.

Romans 5:¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the (trespass or false step) offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

Romans 5:¹⁶ And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many (trespasses) offenses resulted in justification.

• The vaccination if free. It doesn’t have to be earned.
• Upon receiving the vaccination of the blood of Jesus against the sin which blinds men to the fact that they are sinners brings about reconciliation to God.

Romans 5:¹⁷ For if by the one man’s (Adam’s) offense (trespass) death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.))

• The vaccination brings new life. While a literal vaccination can save one’s physical life temporarily, The blood of Jesus also brings a new type of life physically and temporarily, but it provides spiritual life eternally.

Romans 5:¹⁸ Therefore, as through one man’s offense (Or one trespass) judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one (Or one righteous act) Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

• Sin = condemnation. Jesus’ blood for sin = justification neutralizing condemnation.
• Definition for Justification: a person or persons believed to be worthy, redeemed, or absolved.

Romans 5:¹⁹ For as by one man’s disobedience (Adam) many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience (Jesus) many will be made righteous.

Romans 5:²⁰ Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,

• God gave the Jews the law resulting in more condemnation because those who know what to do and do it not, have a greater condemnation than those who are not aware they are doing wrong.

Romans 5:²¹ so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

• Sin, Law, and Blood.
  • Sin, metaphorical Kryptonite that weakens and kills.
  • Law, metaphorically, lead which sin cannot penetrate but will protect the obedient; however, sinful men are not prone to obedience but to rebellion.
  • Blood, the cure.
• Conclusion:
  • In a sinful world, the normal is weird, and the weird is normal.
  • Only the blood is the cure.