GIFTS YOU WON’T RETURN—THE GIFT OF PEACE
Peace with God in our relationship with Him through Christ, and the peace of God in our hearts that results from that love relationship, is one of God’s great gifts. Paul speaks of his desire that we experience that “peace” in Romans 1:7.
He greets them with the expression, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Grace was a Gentile greeting and peace (shalom) was a Hebrew greeting. Paul combines them as God had united both Jew and Gentile in the church.
Don’t miss the order: grace always precedes peace. You cannot have peace with God until you experience the grace of God.
This peace means that we are no longer at war with God. We have surrendered to His will. It is an inward serenity of knowing that it is well with our soul. It proceeds from the Father and through the Lord Jesus.
Did you catch that title? The Son is spoken of in the same sentence and with the same standing as the Father—showing Paul the monotheist’s understanding that Christ is God—and there is no contradiction between belief in One God and that He is Triune.
It is in bowing before Jesus as Lord that peace comes. If we insist on our way and living in sin, Scripture warns that there is no peace to the wicked. There is nothing like being able to pillow one’s head in peace—knowing that if death should come, we will awaken in heaven. Do you have that conviction?
2 comments:
Greetings Dennis Thurman
With all due respect, just because "The Son is spoken of in the same sentence with the Father";
doesn't make the ONE GOD triune!!
Using your logic, look at this verse, 1 Tim 5.21:
I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
(Also compare Rev. 1.4-5)
This would (using that logic) add the angels to this "so-called triune" God?!?
NO! Paul was a strict monotheist like all Jews of his era.
Hence, Paul proclaimed:
(1 Cor 8:4) ... that there is none other God but one.
(1 Cor 8:6) But to us there is but one God, the Father, ...
Paul did not believe in a triune God, but rather believed in solely ONE GOD, namely, the Father.
As taught by our Lord Jesus Christ,
who identified his Father
as the only true GOD & the only GOD
[John 17.3, 5.44]
Neither Jesus nor any of his disciples ever taught that GOD was triune.
Therefore, Dennis Thurman,
I recommend this video:
The Human Jesus
Take a couple of hours to watch it; and prayerfully it will aid you in your quest for truth.
Yours In Messiah
Adam Pastor
Thanks for reading and responding--and even with all due respect. I would agree that any verse taken out of context can be twisted to mean something other than what the inspired author intended. If this were the only verse in the Bible dealing with the Trinity, then you would be right to question the doctrine. But, it is here that your argument breaks down.
For example, suppose I am called to court to testify in a murder case. The only knowledge I have is that I witnessed the defendant entering the victim's house at the approximate time of the murder. That doesn't prove the guilt of the defendant. But, if others add testimony: the defendant had motive, someone heard him make a threat, the defendant's gun was used, the victim's blood was found on a pair of his shoes, etc. then my testimony is relevant and logical when in context of the other testimony.
In the same way, Paul's verse in Romans 1:7 in context of his words in v.1-6 corroborate the implications of linking God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ as consistent with the doctrine of the Trinity. He is the Lord (designation for God) Jesus (Jehovah is salvation) Christ (the Messiah)--so Son of God, Son of Man and Son of David--the unique Second Person of the Trinity.
You are correct that Paul was a strict monotheist which only reinforces my argument and undercuts yours. For him to give his worship, allegiance and service to someone less than God is inexplicable apart from His belief in the Trinity. That the Jewish religious establishment wanted to kill him for such faith in Christ is clear. The issue for them was Christ and the claims concerning Him. They plotted to kill Christ for His claims to be equal with God (John 8:37-59)and they sought to do the same to the one who preached likewise (Acts 21-24). This is the thrust of the entire New Testament and the groundwork is laid in Old Testament passages as well. He is Immanuel "God with us." Paul said in Titus 2:13, "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ...."
We do not deny His full humanity, neither His absolute Deity. To do either one is heresy. Gnosticism and such heretical teaching has been around since the first century. Paul had to deal with it in some forms and John, later, even more so.
Adam--only the real Jesus can save you--not some idol of human invention. Bow before Him as Thomas did in the Upper Room and confess, "My Lord and my God!" You want to consider the humanity of Jesus (which of course, I firmly confess) then consider this, "because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead," (Acts 17:31). Before Christ one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord (Phil.2:5-11). That includes you. But if we wait until that day, it will be too late. Do it today and salvation is promised (Rom.10:9-13).
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