Practical Discipleship
What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? A disciple's mission is to live a Christ-centered life, reflecting God in all we say and do - evangelizing, teaching, and sharing the gospel so others may know. Austen and Cheyenne share the wisdom of the Bible and discuss how to walk with Christ on a daily basis.
Practical Discipleship
Ep 33: Faith, Works, and the Day of Wrath: Reading Romans 2 with Pastor Dustin
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Ever read Romans 2 and think, “Wait—are we saved by faith or judged by works?” We invited Pastor Dustin into the studio to press into that tension and map the big moves of Romans without losing the thread. Together we read Romans 2:1–13, revisit the contrast from Romans 1, and show why Paul isn’t contradicting himself—he’s building a timeline: all humanity faces just judgment, faith unites us to Christ’s righteousness, and real faith produces real works.
We dig into the Day of Wrath and the Day of the Lord, why many traditions split them and why others see one climactic moment. From there, we tackle prophecy’s “dual fulfillment” and the mountain-range effect, then step into eschatology—dispensationalism versus historic premillennialism—in everyday language. The heart of the episode centers on faith and works: how “judged by works” makes sense when Jesus “trades resumes” with us, how James 2 and Romans 4 agree when you put them in sequence, and why works are evidence of life, not the cause of it.
We also explore conscience and natural law for Gentiles, the tough question of those who’ve “never heard,” and the difference between general and special revelation. Dustin shares mission stories—from visions in the Muslim world to surprising conversions—that show God’s initiative and his consistent path back to the gospel. Finally, we connect circumcision, Sabbath, and baptism: how “everlasting” signs find fulfillment in Christ, why the true circumcision is of the heart, and how baptism fits as an act of obedience that marks our union with Jesus rather than earns it.
If you’re hungry for a clear, coherent reading of Romans that honors grace and makes sense of obedience, hit play and journey with us. If this helped, follow, subscribe, and share it with a friend who’s wrestling through Romans. Your review helps more curious listeners find the show.
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Welcome back to another episode of Practical Discipleship. I'm Austin.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm Shanahan. And here we discover what it means to follow God by engaging with scripture and igniting our faith.
SPEAKER_01:So others may know. Let's do it. Alright, we're finally back in the studio. Sorry for you guys. Um I I know that I'm a week behind on our on our episodes, but we finally are back in the studio. I I have Pastor Dustin here as a guest. Hey, hey. Super excited to have him on here because I have a lot of questions on this. And I kind of want to run this episode in a sense of I want to ask Dustin questions that either I haven't gotten in the past, or that maybe if you're you're trying to preach the gospel at work and there's an unbeliever and they're trying to poke holes in uh the Bible, and they're like, well, the Bible's not the word of God, clearly, because here's a contradiction and I'll show you. And that's kind of what we want to dive into in this episode. But for now, we'll just do a quick recap in case you didn't hear the last episode, because it kind of goes into what we're going to be talking about. Um Romans chapter one. Sum it up really easily. Basically, what I was talking about is the difference between those who put their faith in Christ and the rat the righteousness of God is revealed and those who don't, then the wrath of God is revealed. And I base that all of off Romans 1, 16 through 17. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just go back and listen to that episode. I I kind of unpack that verse by verse uh in there. But I want to utilize the the time that I have Dustin here, and we're gonna start diving into to Romans chapter two. Um also, real quick though, if you guys didn't know, we are part of a podcast network. So Dustin, he does the uh he's the host of Hungry for Wisdom. And we're all kind of like under his his network of the it's called the Hungry for Wisdom Network. It's HFW.network. So you can go online, go to that website, and that's all the different shows on there. Uh so yeah. Actually, side note too, funny. Uh, this is actually our second time recording this because we were about probably, I don't know, what, 15 minutes in? This better be good.
SPEAKER_03:I better do well on this because I already got a practice running. I got no excuse.
SPEAKER_01:I went to glance at what our time was and I realized I was like, Dustin, I'm not, I didn't even hit the record button. So, all right, take two here. I'm gonna read Romans chapter two, verses one through thirteen. And then we kind of we'll we'll break it down. So, chapter two, verse one, it says, Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on one another you condemn yourself, because you the judge practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man, you who judge uh or sorry, you the judge you who judge those and practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God. Or do you presume on the riches and kindness of his forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impotent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek, for God shows no partiality. For all have sinned, sorry, I made that same mistake last time. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Pretty self-explanatory, right? Sums it up.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Romans. No problem. Read it once you got it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Good old Paul with all the the run-on sentences and everything.
SPEAKER_03:So good.
SPEAKER_01:So we're gonna try and get through chapter two, but there's in every chapter of actually not just Romans. I mean, it's literally every epistle of Paul's. You can just there's so much packed in in each verse. I actually, um, one of my buddies, his dad is a pastor, and he told me that he spent like an entire week on just Romans one verses one and two.
SPEAKER_03:Easy. Yeah, dude. I preached through Philemon one time, took me 13 weeks. Really? It's like 23 verses. Yeah, I mean, I took every rabbit trail you could possibly take. It was it was just kind of a goofy thing, but there was that much in there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So this will be overview here in this one. We'll we'll get through chapter two here. But going back up to the top just to kind of break it down. So essentially what what Paul's talking about is not being a hypocrite, right? He's he's saying that you the judge who's saying don't do these things, you're doing the exact same things. And that God's righteous judgment will fall on those accordingly. Which leads me into my my first question for you, Dustin. So after he's talking about he's he's basically summing up, you know, practice what you preach essentially. And then verse five, he says, Because of your hard and impotent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. And the my my question is revolving around the day of wrath, because I think I mean, surely I'm not the only one who's wondered this, but what is the difference between the day of wrath and the day of the Lord, or are they the same?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm gonna see those as the same thing. And so I'm I'm what's called a historic premillennialist. And so if I'm if I'm wrong about my you know, my uh eschatology position, then that'll render this answer very unhelpful for everybody. But yeah, basically I'm gonna see those as the same thing. So um, like our the way I was raised is in a camp called dispensationalism, which is a different um a different way of understanding the the kind of end time timeline of events, right? And what those guys will do, and this is a pretty common um common perspective, is they'll split up the day of the Lord as as being different than the day of Christ and the day of wrath, and like everything with a different name is a different thing, right? I'm gonna say those are all different descriptions of the same thing. And I get this partially from places like 1 Corinthians 1 in verses 7 and 8, it says the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I'm like, well, the day of the Lord can't be different than the day of Christ or the day of Jesus Christ, because there it's called the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. So yeah, I think the um the the way I'm seeing this is the day when God's glory is revealed, when Jesus Christ comes, then it's a very good day for those who are in Christ, and it's a very bad day for the enemies of Christ. So the day of wrath is actually the day that Christians finally hope for, right? When Titus 2.13, we await the uh the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Very good day for us. Bad day for his enemies.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah, basically, you know, summing up, and this is why I kind of did the recap of chapter one, you know, Romans 16 and 17, and then that following verse of 18, there's that contrast between those who put their faith in Christ and those who don't. Yep. You either get the righteousness of God that's revealed or the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and and so again, I would see those being dished out on the same day, right? In one day he separates the sheep from the goats, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right. And then follow-up question on that is because I know that the day of the Lord is obviously mentioned in the Old Testament as well. So do you think if we are we supposed to read that into the context of like the original reader, if they're or the original audience, I mean, of is the day of the Lord talking about like when they went into exile or warning them about exile, um, you know, because they broke the the Mosaic covenant and all that, and that's God's wrath.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so there's there's a thing with prophecy where um there there are dual fulfillments, and so you'll see something, you'll see a prophecy fulfilled, and then another fulfillment of it later, like a higher final fulfillment. So, for example, uh Daniel will prophesy things that are fulfilled in the time between the old and the new testaments before Jesus shows up, right? And like Daniel 8, for example, that prophesies Alexander the Great, and so that was between the the testaments. Well, then Jesus shows up and quotes the same prophecy about something that's gonna happen even later. So it's like, well, I thought that was already fulfilled. Well, there's these dual fulfillments. So back to the day of the Lord, there's a um the prophets, like Amos especially focuses really heavily on the day of the Lord, and he is talking about a day. Now, there are many times where the Jews in that day might have been thinking, boy, this is it, right? So the exile to Babylon, they probably would have been like, the temple's destroyed, this is the day of the Lord, and they would have had a point. Uh 70 AD, the Jews might have been thinking, this is the day of the Lord. And yeah, that was a fulfillment of a lot of prophecy. And yet, we're still waiting on some of those elements to be fulfilled. So I I think that there are um there are fulfillments that are kind of whispers of the final great and terrible day of the Lord, which which would be the second coming of Christ.
SPEAKER_01:So in summary, what's the fancy word for that again?
SPEAKER_03:The parousia, the is that when he comes back?
SPEAKER_01:Well, no, I mean like where there's like multiple prophecies and it's kind of like looking through the telescoping. Oh, is it telescoping?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they say that when you um when you that it's a little bit different. They say that with with uh putting together the timeline of what old testament prophets were talking about, and even New Testament prophecy, like Revelation, they um they say it's like looking at a mountain range where when you look at it from ground level, you got all these different mountains and they look like, as DA Carson put it, one flat bit, right? But then you get up over the top as you're flying over it, and you see that these two mountains are separated by 300 miles, right? But from our perspective, we can't see that distance. So Isaiah will say something that looks like one event to us. And then when you look at how it shakes out in history, it was one description of multiple events that were actually kind of spread out chronologically. But you know, I mean the Hebrews they're they they just be like that, man. They sometimes they're like, I don't need to specify. So we're sitting here trying to get mathematical.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, like we're we're trying to get mathematical about stuff, and they're just like, you're trying to answer questions we're not even presenting, you know. So chronology's hard.
SPEAKER_01:So you were raised dispensationalist?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, very much so.
SPEAKER_01:When did it um like did you just as the more that you studied or went to seminar? Jump sides of the fence.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you know, I and to tell you the truth, I've I've set up a uh I've set up a tent where I am. I have not set up a brick and mortar building, I haven't bought property in historical pre uh premillennial land. But what it comes down to for me is is basically that I see I see the rapture happening after the great tribulation. And I'm just you know, call me a Bible redneck. I I look at the chronology of things in Matthew 24, and I'm like, it says after the days of this great tribulation, the son of the son of man will come.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, it's like I don't, I don't know, I don't I don't really know what the what the need is to overcomplicate it. You know, you read first and second Thessalonians with that frame of mind, and it's like it kind of clarifies a lot, you know. So yeah, I don't know. I just sort of um I just I just sort of sat back and said, okay, with the totality of information, what is the simplest explanation? And I kind of uh, you know, like I'm a missionary, right? So to me, if the guy in the African bush with nothing but a Bible and no access to other books and and historical commentaries and things like that, if he could never come away with a position with just him and his Bible, it's probably not the right position, right? And dispensationalism, I think, is something you would not arrive at just with a text, it has to be sort of proposed to you, and then you can kind of see it from there. That's that's my take on it. Okay, you know, I'm disagreeing with guys that are a lot smarter than me. So I I could be very wrong here. And if I change my uh my position on it next week, I reserve my right to do that.
SPEAKER_01:And just in case if anyone's not listening, do you mind just explaining what dispensationalist is?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So dispensationalism would see the the end times timeline like this uh that there is the the Jesus comes back, which could happen any second now, and he raptures the church. He pulls us out of there. Because the church is no longer in the world, because there's no longer believers in the world, everything falls apart and you get a seven-year great tribulation. And then Jesus comes back with believers to start the thousand-year reign of Christ. Okay. And then Israel, uh, also in dispensational thought, Israel has kind of a different track through history than Gentile Christians do. And so everybody's saved by Jesus. They don't there have been some dispes that have wandered off into heresy and said there's a different plan of salvation for Israel than there are for the Gentiles. It's like really rein it in, homie. But um, yeah, but dispensationalism will be very focused on God's promises to Israel and that particular timeline.
SPEAKER_01:They kind of they separate Israel and the church, kind of, right?
SPEAKER_03:Very much so, yeah. Which, you know, they're not crazy to do that. I mean, you know, the the a a huge um theme in the book of Romans is how do we think about salvation as applied to the Jew versus salvation as applied to the Gentile? Right. Because they are kind of starting from different points, right? Like I think it's in chapter three, yeah, chapter three, verse one. He says, Well, then what advantage is it to be a Jew? Right. He says there's much benefit in every way, right? So there is um God is very specific in how he gives salvation, and Israel is in kind of a unique category, which you'll see in chapter 11 where there's promises still to be fulfilled specifically to ethnic Israel. What I want to what I want to stop short of is thinking that they are um closer to God or that they're that uh they have less reliance on repentance and faith in Christ just by virtue of being Jews. Like, oh, you'll be fine, you're Jewish. Yeah, like no, you won't, man. You need Christ.
SPEAKER_01:So So I mean, I don't I don't necessarily mean to get off topic here, but uh it's what I do, man.
SPEAKER_03:You've heard my show.
SPEAKER_01:How is uh so I'm curious of how a dispensationalist would answer the question and be like, okay, the covenant that was given to Abraham, you know, father of many nations and all that, you know, different um I can't remember what you said that it actually is in Hebrew, like people groups or whatever.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the Goyim.
SPEAKER_01:And then there's examples throughout the Old Testament where people were being grafted into the family of God, or even when they uh when the Israelites leave Egypt, it actually says a mixed multitude. Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it doesn't say anything about who it was.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I take that as like literally some of the Egyptians were like, hey, uh, your God that you worship is clearly more powerful. Yeah, it could have been faith or great.
SPEAKER_03:It could have been people who were enslaved from other people groups as well, you know. Yeah, we just we don't know. So but then you've got like Ruth, for example, who was a Moabitus, you know, she's about as unclean as they get as far as people groups go, uh, in in the Jewish mindset, in the Israelite mindset, and boom, she winds up being, you know, great grandma or whatever to keep it.
SPEAKER_01:Genealogy in Christ, Matthew chapter one. Right, right. So that's what I mean from someone who used to be uh a dispensationalist, that's that's those are the questions I'd ask like how how do you how can you distinguish the different like such a huge difference between Israel and the church when it's clearly been all about faith? It's never been about like, oh, because you are Jewish, you're you're you're God's people.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, well, so let me let me actually go back before that. Um, and I know I know you don't want this to be two hours long, so I'll try and summarize this. Um but there there was a thing that started uh in the early church called that we now call replacement theology, which is the church is the new Israel. Um and that made sense at the time. And in fact, it's still kind of a majority position in reform circles and stuff. I don't hold to it myself. Um, but it it made sense at the time because there was no state of Israel. The Jew, I mean, the Jews had been scattered all over the place. So these guys like Augustine, who articulated it first, and then Justin Martyr before him, actually. So I guess Augustine wasn't first. They're they're looking at these biblical prophecies for Israel, and they're like, there's no such thing as the state of Israel. Like there's Jews around, but there's no unified people group for these prophecies to be fulfilled towards. So what do we do with these prophecies? And then they see all this language like in Romans 4 that if you have faith in the God of Abraham, you are children of Abraham and things like that, or we are spiritual Israel, right? Look out for the synagogue of Satan, and they come to the conclusion, oh, the church is the new Israel. And so the um the promises that God made to physical Israel are now just going to be spiritually fulfilled in the church. We've taken over, right? And so that's replacement theology. Now, dispensationalism is gonna react really hard against that, and sometimes, in my view, I think maybe go overboard most of the time and say, no, Israel is still um is still God's main focus. And then the Gentiles, we just kind of get to ride the coattails of what he's doing with Israel, but actually salvation is about the ethnic people group of Israel. We're we're kind of um barnacles on the side of the ship, which we're happy to be. I mean, I don't care how I get into heaven. If I got to be a barnacle, sign me up, dude. You know. Um, but whereas you're you're talking about, okay, there's one people group of God, and yeah, there's different races in there, and God's specific and how he deals with all of them, but it's really one people group that's the main point. Dispensationalists will say, no, God's main focus is Israel, and we get to participate if we have faith.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't. I mean, that's there's so many more questions I have, but I want to I don't want to get too off track. I'll maybe ask you after the the this episode or something, because I I'm I'm curious about that. But for now, let's just kind of dive it back into the what this episode is going to be. So, yeah, God's God's righteous, or yeah, the the day of the wrath, God's righteous judgment will be revealed. And then here he starts talking about according to his works, and God shows no partiality. And these they these are the verses that um I've had someone tell me actually bring up like, see, your your book contradicts itself. Yeah, you just told me in Romans chapter one, verses 16 and 17. For salvation is everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek for any the righteousness of God, you know, that whole thing from faith for faith. Well, you turn the page in chapter two. Now Paul's like saying, for all, or sorry, uh verse 13, he says, For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who are righteous.
SPEAKER_03:And verse six, right? He will render to each person according to his deeds.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah. Yeah, those who who seek for glory, honor, immortality, he'll give eternal life. And then, yeah, those who are self-seeking do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness. There will be wrath and fury.
SPEAKER_03:Sure looks like we're justified by works, doesn't it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I mean, even uh like chapter three, too, uh verse twenty. And then he kind of seems like he contradicts himself again. So he says, For by works of the law, no human being will be justified.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, no, and then it gets even worse. Chapter 4. Like we're just gonna make Paul look absolutely insane here. He's incoherent. Look. So chapter four, verse one. What should we say then? Uh what then should we say that that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, is found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about. But not before God, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, to the one who works, his wage is not credited as favor, but is what is due. But to the one who does not work but believes in him who is justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness. So you're saved by faith, not by works. Yeah. Which is it, Paul?
SPEAKER_01:And then, of course, usually people who talk about this whole faith and works thing, of course, they bring up James.
SPEAKER_03:James 2, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, that's where the most popular one I've seen, you know, the whole faith and works thing. So my question for you, Dustin, is when someone we'll we'll do it in the context of like a non-believer who's trying to like poke holes. Yeah, you know, help us as Christians, like what do you what what is your response? What are verses that we can go to and explain this whole thing of how Paul's not contradicting himself? Because I'm sure that even Christians will read this and be like, I don't know, that non-believer kind of made a good point. 100%, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so um you've got to start by summarizing the entire uh doctrine as presented in Romans, because this is where proof texting gets you in a lot of trouble, right? You you take a snippet and rip it violently off the pages of scripture, and then another one and you compare them. Well, both of these statements are made in a context, in a flow of thought.
SPEAKER_01:First pluck-in.
SPEAKER_03:Because of these, yeah, because of these um run-on sentences, it's hard to, you know, um it it's really easy to take sentences to take statements out of context. It's like, no, that was part of a run-on sentence. You need the whole thing. So let me let me just summarize where Paul's going with this, and then we can see where the specifics fit. Okay. What he's saying is that if you are if you have faith in Christ, well, let me back up. What he's saying is that we will all be judged for our works before God. But if you have faith in Christ, he trades resumes with you, and now you're judged according to Christ's works and not your own. If you do not have faith in Christ, you will be judged by your works. And how do you think that's gonna go? Because you got sin, right? And so to be judged by our works is um is a terrifying thing because once you sin one time, your entire body of work in life is polluted. It's no longer perfect. And in order to be saved, Jesus says, You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. So if you ever sinned one single time and you're judged by your works, you're going to hell straight up. Right. And so he says that. We're all going to be judged according to our works. So when we stand before Christ, um, you know, 2 Corinthians 5 10 says the same thing. We're going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, where each one will receive a recompense due to his actions. Now, that's a terrible thing for all of humanity, except that there's this new humanity who has been made a new creation in Christ, who has been cleansed and washed, and now gets um now has is clothed in a righteousness not belonging to themselves, but a righteousness belonging to Christ. It's what they would call an alien righteousness, right? It's from somewhere else. So yeah, we we will all be judged by our works unless Christ trades resumes with us. Then we're judged according to his works. So because of that, it can make sense for Paul to talk about being judged by our works all through Romans, and he does. Right? That's all underneath the umbrella of being separated from Christ. Let me put this another way. There's a um there's a there's a pretty common saying in like, I don't know, I I heard it in youth group and stuff, so to me it sounds like youth group theology. But um the uh they they say that nobody goes to hell for sin, you go to hell for rejecting Christ. That's not true at all. Okay, you actually go to hell for committing sin against God, right? Sin leads to death, and death lasts forever because God's judgment is eternally just. So, yeah, sin absolutely sends us to hell, and the only way to be rescued from that is by faith in Christ, where the He then swaps resumes with you.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So how do you uh how would you explain to somebody? Um, I'll just use the the Mormons for example, because they're really like a works-based salvation when you really get down to it and you know the question to ask, where what would you say to a Mormon and be like, well, I'm not saying that works aren't important, but salvation is through faith. What what would be a good response for someone to like specifically like during like in the context of evangelism or something? You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So now this is coming from a guy who's never intentionally converted a Mormon. Okay. Every not for lack of trying, but every Mormon I've seen come to Christ, um, it has not been a result of my efforts. It's always been like some weird, you know, quote unquote accident thing where it's just like, really? Like now you're saved? You know, never my wonderful arguments that do it. Um, but yeah, I mean, the the way to contend for this doctrine with you know, with a works-based uh salvation message, in in my view, is I I basically just tell them, you know, um, look, I'm not telling you that works aren't important. I'm not one of those guys that says what we do doesn't matter. What I'm saying is we can't do anything pleasing to God until we're already born again. So working for your salvation is nonsense because you can't work until you have salvation. One has to come first, and I just think you got the order wrong. Right. So out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Well, if your heart is not made new, then what then every word that comes out of your mouth is from a dead heart. So you get credit for zero words that you've ever said, you know. Um it's the it's what goes into it is uh what goes into a man that defiles sorry, it's not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out of a man. Well, if what is inside of you is dead, then every work you've ever done with your hands is a dead work. Why would you get credit for that before God? What you're missing here, I think, friend, you know, my Mormon friend, is that none of your works count for anything until God has made you new. And that happens when you trust in him.
SPEAKER_01:So do you think that's the the context when Paul is saying this? He's talking about someone who's actually have already accepted Christ and then the work like specifically verse 13 here. And sorry that I may maybe seem like I'm keep asking the same question, but it's just trying to break it down for someone super simple. Yep, yep. Because he says that, you know, for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. And I've heard the where someone has said, Well, you know, yeah, Paul's writing Romans to this church that is both Jew and Gentile. So there's parts in here where he's talking specifically to the Gentiles who completely disregarded the works portion, and they're like, Well, it's just all based off faith, and then they've they've taken it too far, where then it's almost like this weird theology where there's no such thing as sin anymore. Right. And then the Jews, on the other hand, are so far on the other side where it's all works-based, and Paul's like trying to do this where it's like, Well, no, you are saved by faith, but there is the works that are important. Um, like, do you think it uh would be wrong to say that works are necessary, not not necessary towards salvation, but if you have no works that see, I don't even know how to ask the question. It's a tough one. Yeah, it's weird.
SPEAKER_03:It's easy to fall into a ditch on this one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's why I didn't want to do this episode by myself. We've been trying to have tackled it kind of one time.
SPEAKER_03:We've had a um a quick little episode about faith and works, but yeah, yeah, I mean so faith, uh, so works are a natural byproduct of saving faith. So much so that, you know, um, in in many different places, the the whole book of first John, a lot in Galatians, you know, in fact later on in Romans, uh starting in in chapter 12, you know, faith is seen as something that produces works. And so it the warning is if you don't see any works, you need to go back and question whether you've whether you have saving faith. And it's not that the the works lead to faith, it's that they're a diagnostic tool for it. Yeah, right. So if you've um if it's like if uh you know if there's if there's a a a tree, uh, you know, a dead tree with no apples on it, and you say, Oh, this is you know, this is an apple tree, it's like, well, I'll believe it when I see it, right? It's like you can tell me that all day long. Right. Apple trees make apples. So that that's kind of the uh that's that's kind of the logic there. Now, the the apples don't make it an apple tree. Is that getting what I'm you get what I'm saying there? So like I John Piper had this great illustration where he said, if you look you if you look at a tree, you've got the root and you've got the fruit. And what works righteousness does is it takes the fruit and it tries to bury it down by the root and say, now this is what leads to the entire tree. And then the fruit just rots. It doesn't do any good in the ground, right? So the the roots have to be there, you know, sucking up the actual nutrients that lead to life, which is the righteousness of Christ and faith in Jesus and things like that. Then you can get the fruit, the works, which is beautiful in its place. But if you mix these things up, it doesn't do anybody any good. Flip a tree upside down, it just dies, you know. Right.
SPEAKER_01:That's a good analogy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. He's he's dependable, man. Old faithful, that guy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I I usually always bring up uh Hebrews chapter 11, that whole like Hall of Faith thing where it'll say, like, by faith, Abraham so-and-so did this. The order's important. Um, so yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, that's a place where we can look in scripture. Also, I think though it's important, uh, you kind of mentioned this before, but any of these like letters or you know epistles, they're supposed to be read all in one sitting. And so I imagine for you being a pastor, it's probably hard to be like, all right, we're gonna preach on Romans chapter two today, but then it's like, well, you gotta kind of mention Romans 1, Romans 3, you gotta like the context of like leading up because it's supposed to be read as just like a normal letter, how we would you know, mail to someone or like an email.
SPEAKER_03:You don't read it in sections and kind of yeah, and I think it's a both, and I mean, you know, when you you say um when you look at how the author of Hebrews, for example, handles scripture, he's he's very much handling it in in little chunks, and so it's perfectly appropriate to do that. But yeah, I mean, Paul at the end of his letters he says, make sure this letter is read to the church.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, he means the entire thing, right? Yeah, so the um another another example of this, if if we go back to uh chapter to verse 13. So Romans 2, 13, for it is not the hearers of the law who were justified before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. I actually think the best way to interpret this is in light of James chapter 2, which is usually seen as the opposite of Romans, but in James chapter 2, verse, I think it's verse 10, he says, um, if he says, He who keeps the entire law but stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking the entire law. So if you take that standard, again, you have to be perfect because your father in heaven is perfect. If you take that standard and apply it here, it's not the hearers of the law who are justified before God, but the one who never breaks a single portion or single commandment inside of the law, those ones will be justified before God. And that forces us to look at ourselves and be like, How are we doing?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Have I ever broken the first commandment? Any, you know, ever had any any God before Yahweh? Have I ever committed idolatry? Have I ever carried his name in vain and misrepresented him in public? Have I ever lusted after a woman? Have I ever hated my brother? You know, like forget about it. You don't make it out of verse 13. So what he's doing is he's stripping away excuses here, right? In fact, if you go back to verse 12, uh, for all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. And those who have sinned under the law, those are Jews, will be judged by the law. So it's like, whether if you're Jewish, you've got a law here and you have not met the standard, you're gonna be judged. If you're not Jewish and you say, Well, I can't be judged according to the law of Moses, that was given to Israel, not me. He's like, Well, you know, see, you know, refer to the rest of chapter two where he says, If you broke your conscience, you've sinned. So, yeah, you that you have an internal law that you have violated, you're gonna be judged also. So all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He's he's just he's he's leaving sin no place to hide. He's leaving our self justification, no, no case to make, basically.
SPEAKER_01:You know what I just noticed on verse thirteen? I don't know what uh like version that you're reading. I have ESV here, but it says, For in it the hearers of the law who are righteous before God or sorry, for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but then the second half it actually says justified. It uses righteous and justified.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I got just and justified. I would guess that's probably the same Greek word. It's probably a version of Diakosune. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:But uh righteous and justified are the same.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, righteous and just.
SPEAKER_01:I think when I read that, like all the way going through, I think I said justified.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah, I just got good theology.
SPEAKER_01:I just now realized I was like, it actually says righteous.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Alright, so moving on. Uh two more questions that I want to ask you, kind of summing this up here. I try to keep these within like 30 to 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_03:You should not have brought me on then.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I'm happy to make it more. It's just I have that certain thing that I only pay for like the three hours per month. Oh, is that what it is? Okay. Uh anyways, so when it says that let me find it. I think it was verse 14 here. Oh yeah. So for verse 14, for when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. It's kind of a two-parter question, I guess. So is this kind of referring to general and special revelation?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, very much so. Okay. So the the conscience would be considered general revelation, right? So if you've if you've ever apologized to your mom for disrespecting her, even if you're not Jewish and you've never seen the fifth commandment, you know, the fifth commandment says you shall honor your father and your mother. Yeah. Well, you snap at your mom as a Gentile, having never read the Ten Commandments, and then you say, I'm I'm sorry, I feel bad about that. You show that the law is written on your heart, which means there is a law of perfection, you've broken it, and you know it, you stand self-condemned.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So our consciences condemn us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And then uh you mentioned uh a little bit about how those who have never heard the name Jesus before, they've never heard the gospel. Where where does that fit in with the whole general and special revelation? Because I've had a hard time explaining this where people will ask me, like, do you really want to serve a God who just because they've never heard his name before, that they're gonna be sent to hell because you claim that only people who put their faith in Jesus that are under the blood of Christ can make it into the kingdom of heaven. What is a I mean, what have you said in the past, or what what would be a good response to that of kind of explaining that general and special revelation?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, there's I've kind of got two two different answers based on the tone of the question. If somebody just wants to accuse God, I'm I'm a little more spicy with them. I don't you know, it's like like why would you want to serve a God? My answer is fine, don't like I don't care. You know, like you you you can you can want a God like that or not want a God like that. I'm just telling you how things actually are. Your your preferences on the matter make zero change to this. So either you're gonna burn in hell forever or you're not. Now, would you please listen to what I've got to say? Because I care about your soul apparently more than you do, you know. So it depends. But if if somebody but it is a good question, right? Like, how is that fair? And even Christians will wrestle with this, how is that fair if somebody's never even given been given the chance to God just to do that? So, in a in a more charitable conversation, then I'll just tell them, like, look, this is this is not a popular answer that I'm about to give you. And usually I'll start out with with Romans 9, it's either verse 20 or 22, um, where it says, What if God, you know, desiring to show his mercy to some and and others, what if he did this? And basically he's just he's on the subject of election and he's forcing you to that point of like, okay, if God did something that makes you uncomfortable, will you still worship him? Because if not, we need to be having a whole different conversation, right? Right. So if somebody asks me, How is it fair that somebody who's never heard of of Jesus would be sent to hell, then I'll usually start there and say, Okay, I'm gonna tell you something that might make you uncomfortable with God. Can I proceed? Like, can you you don't let me get to the end of this? And they'll usually say yes, because we're having a conversation and say, okay, so here's the thing. If all of humanity sins voluntarily, right? And God knows our hearts, so it's not a matter of what we've had a chance to do, it's a matter of what we actually want, and and he knows it and he sees it. He's he is he who looks at the heart. And so if if what he knows we want, what we actually want is and every expression of that is actually anti-God, then we're all fallen. So the the the question is not so much how could God hold anybody responsible? The question is how could anybody possibly be saved? And so that's where the Christian will come around and say, God is gracious to save some. Like that's not fair. It's not fair that God would save somebody. Now, why doesn't he save absolutely everybody? I don't know. He's got his purposes, but we can't talk about the the justice of God without talking about the grace of God. And so both of these things are running in full steam. And Paul says that in in Romans, I think it's 11. Behold the kindness and the severity of God. This is a real problem you're seeing here, and he will send people to hell. And usually if it's a Christian, you know, I'll I'll also include like, you know, they'll say, I don't think God would send anybody to hell that hasn't had a chance to hear. And I'll say, you you don't believe that, because you've given money to my mission before. And if if that were true, that um that God would not send somebody to hell if they haven't heard, the worst thing we could possibly do is go and tell them about Jesus. Because then we're opening up the opportunity for them to go to hell. What we should do is leave the entire world in ignorance and shut our mouths so that they might be saved.
SPEAKER_01:That's a good argument.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but we don't believe that we believe that before. We we don't we don't believe that, right? We we know that people need the gospel to be saved. Now we wrestle with it logically, but we know it um uh in intuitively as our as the new creation, because the spirit inside of us is saying, go, go, you know, make disciples of all nations, man. Go tell somebody about me, testify. Yeah, like you will be my witnesses, and so we just can't get around it. So yeah, it's it's not something I think that's a good response. It's it's not something that I try to make people comfortable with. I just try and, you know, you've probably heard me say before, even from the pulpit, like, hey, if you got questions about this, I can't promise you you're gonna like the answers, but I'll tell you what they are, you know, and that's one of those subjects.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because I I can't think at the top of my head what verse it is. I know it's in Romans, but Paul he says that you know, everyone's without excuse.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That's chapter one, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, is it chapter one? Yeah. Everyone's without excuse. Here are the laws written on their heart, and so it does it makes it so I mean, do you think? I mean, at least I I don't know if the Bible talks about it or not. Um where I'm trying to think of how I want to word the question. Is it necessary for somebody else to actually come and preach the gospel to that person? Or do you think that that God will just reveal Himself to someone who like random island somewhere? You know, you know, of course, people always give these random um analogies or extreme examples, I guess.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but they happen. So, like the um in the Muslim world, for example, they put a lot of stock into visions. They're they're um in their theology, those are very important. Revelations from God happen that way a lot. So um God seems to be, you know, revealing himself a lot in visions to Muslims. This is happening all over the place in the Muslim world. And it has been, as long as I've been aware of it, which is about 15 years, and it wasn't new when I started finding out about it. And so you'll have a white guy or a guy in white clothing show up and say, My name is Isa al-Masi, which is Arabic for Jesus the Messiah, who they know from the Quran and the Hadith, um, mostly the Quran.
SPEAKER_01:This is like in a dream that they're having?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Wow. Yeah, and and Isa al-Massi told me, go and see this person at that time there. And so will God reveal himself unilaterally? Absolutely. But in my observation, he always sends them to somebody that will share the gospel with them. Right? So um, nobody is saved apart from the gospel. But yeah, sometimes God will kickstart people to go hear the gospel. That happened to me one time. I was in India and it was so hot there. He got up to like 127 degrees, I think, during the day. And I'm teaching in this in this room with cinder block walls and a corrugated tin roof. It was it was a friggin' oven, dude. It was brutal. We're all like passing out and stuff. But we got the classes done. At the end of the last day, this guy comes up and talks to me. There are about uh, I don't know, 80 pastors in this room. This guy comes up and talks to me. He I said, Hey, you know, tell me about your church. He says, Well, I'm I'm not a pastor, I'm I'm the uh the imam at our mosque. And I said, You've been sitting through a pastor's theology class for three days. What are you doing? And I didn't realize this. He had just showed up that day and he said, he said, No, I haven't been here three days. Um, this morning I woke up, or it was last night or whatever, and he said, I had a dream, and a guy, you know, in white clothes showed up and said, Hey, tomorrow I want you to go to this place at this time. There will be a white man in white clothing, and I want you to talk to him and do what he says. Well, because it was so hot there, I was wearing these white linen clothes because it's just it helps keep the body temperature down in the sun and the wind moves through it and stuff. So I was the only white guy around. We were in a slum in India somewhere. So I was the white man in white clothes, and he just said, Do whatever he says. And so I was like, he was like, So what do I do? And I was like, Dang, hang on a second. I said, Where do you live? And he told me, and I said, Hey, who around here lives there? And I've got one of the the pastors from the class, and I said, Let's talk. And we just share the gospel with the guy, convert him. He goes and preaches the gospel to his mosque. I hope he's okay. I don't know what happened to him after that. I, you know, wow yeah. So that kind of thing happens all the time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I guess actually, even like the example with Paul in Acts.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, totally, yeah, with Ananias.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yep. Ananias comes, baptizes him and everything.
SPEAKER_03:Go to Straight Street and pull some scales off the guy's eyes. Wow. Yeah, nothing new.
SPEAKER_01:And then it kind of gets into the whole thing of like um predestination.
SPEAKER_03:Well, yeah, because on that same trip, I w I we we went out to a village late at night and we preached the gospel, and a bunch of the people believed. And they had never heard of Jesus. Like literally, we asked them, Have you heard of Jesus? They were like, No, we don't know that guy.
SPEAKER_01:This is still in India?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Same trip. He says, You you might you might have uh you might have the wrong village. We don't know this Jesus guy. Well, and I found out that their tribe was in the middle of their mourning rituals, their grieving rituals, because their village elder had died, like within that week. And I'm like, why didn't God send me or somebody two weeks before? So now God decided when I was gonna be there, and it was after this guy who had never heard of Jesus died. That was a hard one for me to wrestle with. And I like I just I had to come away with the conclusion that God is under no obligation to save anybody. He just doesn't have to. It's it's gracious when he does, but yeah, it's a hard truth.
SPEAKER_01:It is. I mean, because Paul even uses the word predestined.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So it's like we gotta wrestle with the word somehow.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, like Ephesians 1. It's in the Bible. We you know, we can talk about what it means, but we can't talk about whether it's in the Bible, because it is. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's definitely a hard one.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:All right, last thing, kind of summing this up here. Um, I want to get to the circumcision part here. Because this is this is one that I'm just truthfully asking for myself, and you know, of course, anyone who else is listening, but well then, real quick, then I'm I'm sorry, I know this is your show, but I I I'm just picturing people who are struggling with this whole faith and works thing.
SPEAKER_03:And so let me just touch real quick on James 2, because that'll get bounced off of it, right? Okay. So starting in James 2, 14, what use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warm and be filled, and yet you do not give him what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so, faith had that faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. And so people will look at that and say, Well, we're obviously saved by faith and works, not just by faith, right? So my the the the the way that this crystallized in my head where I was like, okay, I get it, because that seems to contradict Romans 4, right? Where we're saved by faith without works and so on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And actually, it's funny because if you keep going, James and Paul cite the same verse to make their points.
SPEAKER_01:And it seems like the point is talking about Abraham and all that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Genesis 15, 6, right? And so it seems like they contradict. Here's what's going on. So Paul is talking about what it takes to save a human soul, like up to the point of regeneration. That's that's sort of like Romans 1 through 11. It's it's how do you go from death to life? And he just explores that in the most magnificent salvific text ever written in Romans 1 through 11, right? Then after he gets us to the point of regeneration, James picks up the baton and says, Okay, now that you're saved, what should your life be looking like? And so the book of James is never going to lay out how to come to Christ. That's why Martin Luther didn't like it. He said, There's no gospel in this book, it's just works, right?
SPEAKER_01:He didn't think it should be our teachings on James.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly. Because there's no there's no salvation message, it really is about your works. Well, that's because he's talking about from the point of regeneration on. So Paul brings us up to the point of being born again, then James picks up the microphone and says, Now let's talk about what your life needs to look like. And the Christian life involves a lot of works, good ones, and God cares about our good works. It's just that they don't count for anything before we're saved.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So James knew Paul. Right?
SPEAKER_03:I would assume so. I mean, Paul was James was the pastor in in Jerusalem, and Paul was in Jerusalem while all this stuff was going down. They might not have been friends before Paul became a Christian.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I mean that that's how because uh I've heard someone tell me they're like, well, actually, no, James actually does contradict Paul. Yeah. And, you know, they didn't know each other and he didn't know the full gospel yet. I'm like, I mean I think these are two it's in the Bible, it's the word of God. Right. That's a weird theology.
SPEAKER_03:Right, but I mean, just you know, just like on the face of it, James and Paul were two of the best connected guys. They knew everybody, right? Paul was the up-and-coming star in Judaism, you know, uh uh educated by Gamillion, the famous teacher. He was he was the Harvard uh back, the the he was the Harvard Valedictorian, is what he was. Everybody knew this guy, and then James is the pastor in Jerusalem. Everybody knows this guy. There's no way that they weren't bouncing things off of each other.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Paul, Hebrew of Hebrews, Pharisee of Pharisees, super Jew. Yeah. Actually, I I love all those verses in Acts where it says he went into the synagogue and proving through the scriptures how Christ was inside, like how well that Paul knew the Old Testament. He's using that. I'm just like, yeah, man. Yeah. I would have loved to just hear what Paul is saying. Oh, why didn't they treat those? And it was a scroll too.
SPEAKER_03:He's just rolling this thing like a hockey puck.
SPEAKER_01:Uh just connecting all the verses and everything. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm I'm glad that you brought that up, kind of summed that up with the whole faith and works thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so it all it all makes sense if you put it on a timeline, right? Yeah, they're walking us through the Christian life. But anyway, so circumcision you were saying.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so this is the this is the last part of uh chapter two. This is verses 25 through 29. And if if you guys listen to my Acts series, you know how I talked in uh or when I went over Acts chapter 15, it's the whole Jerusalem Council, and they're this whole argument about circumcision, you know, comes up. And essentially they're like, well, no, it's the it's all about the circumcision of the heart, it's all by faith, you know, and they're like their evidence is like, well, the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles, just like it did with the Jews in um uh during um Pentecost. So my question is if we go to Genesis 17, uh yeah, Genesis 17, where that whole covenant of circumcision happens, where is that a clear, like, okay, this is fulfilled through Christ here, whatever. Um, you know, like um the Mosaic covenant, there's no denying. It's like we have the entire book of Hebrews that basically is the fulfillment of Leviticus talking about all that. So there's I mean, there's there's really no no confusion there, at least there shouldn't be. Uh with circumcision, though, because God says this will be an everlasting covenant, you know, for the um for within the generations.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And then he also talks about like the sojourner who comes and dwells in the land, so it's even like including Gentiles, at least how I take it. Yep. So I guess this is kind of another question of like how well, I okay, two two-part question, just to make it easy. Sorry. How is this not a another contradiction? And then two, where is this actually a clear line where we can say, yes, this was fulfilled here because XYZ?
SPEAKER_03:Yep, yeah, good. So um, and I'll also tell you the weirdest answer I've ever heard to this one. So that was that was entertaining. Yeah, like heretical weird, or what do you mean? No, like like technically correct, but why in the world would you say it that way? All right, well, so here's the story. I gotta hear this. So it was um we we were we were training up this church planter, good guy, you know, nice kid. And uh I I maybe wasn't um keeping an eye on his sermon outlines as well as I should have. And so he goes through the whole theology of circumcision starting in Genesis 17, and there's like moms with with kids in the room and like little daughters, like, mom, what's he talking about? And I'm just like, All right, there's a you know, you you gotta you gotta sort of give certain verbiage so that people know what you're talking about without daughters asking about these parts of boys, right? Yeah, on the in the car ride on the way home. Anyway, he he had none of those guardrails, so he's just going for it, preaching these guts out with the gospel. And I'm like, all right, well, fair enough, we'll clean this up later. And then he starts talking about um about Isaiah 53 and how the Messiah would come and be or uh Daniel 9, it was the Messiah would come and be cut off for us, and he was like, Jesus is your foreskin, he was cut off for you. And I was like, whoa! Oh my gosh. I'm not saying there's not an analogy to be made here, but dude, like Jesus is your foreskin.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I would like I just wanted to go and hug the guy, like, hey man, wait a swing for the fences, dude.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. We're gonna give it a shot, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we're gonna pivot after this, but you know what? A for effort, bro. That's awesome. Yeah, so the um to answer your question about uh you know an everlasting covenant, basically there are all these covenants that are that are it's said this shall be a covenant for you forever through all of your generation. The Sabbath is another one, right? Right. And then the New Testament pops up, and in Hebrews 4 and Galatians 2, 18, and you know, Romans 14 and whatever, it's like, oh yeah, the Sabbath, if you want to do it on a Saturday, do it on a Saturday. If you don't, do it some other time, right? Like no day is to be held one above another. And the question is, well, then in what sense is it an everlasting covenant? Right. And the the Christian answer to that is Jesus ended history. Like when if we when Jesus came into uh the world and took on human flesh, it was a different eon, is the the Greek word for it. It was a different era, and so it was the um it was the uh uh man, I'm trying to think of the right verse for this. I uh Eldon Ladd explained this the best. What was his verse? Anyway, oh yeah, so the the age to come, right? So it was um he says the rulers of this age, this eon, they don't know the powers of the age to come. This is like 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 language, the the eon to come, but the age to come came with Jesus. And so all of these promises were valid through the end of the age. Well, if you're in Christ, you're you are in the heavenly Jerusalem now. Like you're actually a citizen of the future, but Jesus brought the future to us when He when He brought heaven to earth, right? So it's a different age, different, different zone, different whatever. So these things have been fulfilled in Christ because forever has essentially like Jesus wrapped eternity into himself, would be the poetic way of putting it. So yeah, they expired. Um Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath. Like I I think he fulfilled it um in the uh when he said it is finished, yeah, right. I think that was him saying it is good. The the work of re recreation is now finished the same day, the same way that uh you know, the work of creation was finished. And then the day after that, you know, he he rested, right? He died on a Friday, he rose on a Sunday. What was he doing Saturday? He was fulfilling the Sabbath. Yeah, you know, and Hebrews 1 tells us he went after he had made purification of sins on the cross, he sat down, he took a rest. So Jesus Sabbath, I mean, that's three examples of how he sabbathed right there. Let's call that a triple fulfillment. Circumcision is the same thing, right? So it what was it? It was a sign of the covenant on your body. Well, then he gave um he gave communion, he gave the Lord's Supper at the Last Supper, and he said, This is my blood of the new covenant. And the sign of the covenant now is essentially what he gave to Thomas. He said, Hey, put your put your hands in my wounds, right? So the the blood is the new covenant, and Jesus wounds, Jesus scars are the sign of the covenant, not ours. By his wounds, we are healed, right? It's not by this the cutting of our flesh that we are seen as part of the covenant anymore. We're seen in the blood of Christ. So it's very spiritualized. It's it's very much not literal. And this is where my disagreement comes in with like our Presbyterian brothers and sisters or you know, the Anglicans or whatever, um, where they'll they'll baptize babies and say, Well, the sign of the old covenant was circumcision, the sign of the new covenant is.
SPEAKER_01:I was just gonna ask you about that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly. And so we should do it that we should administer it kind of the same way with our with our babies, right? You they're born, they are in the community of faith, unless they're cut off through a lack of faith later and they're lost, but they are in the community of faith the same way the Jews were as soon as they were born.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I didn't know that's where why they baptize infants.
SPEAKER_03:Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Now when the Catholics do I mean why why it makes sense of where they're yeah, totally. It's not crazy, right?
SPEAKER_03:It's it's a very respectable line of thinking. It's just that it's they're drawing it from an analogy rather than from a clear text of scripture, because infant baptism isn't in the Bible. So they're making a lot of that analogy. I would say, as a, you know, theologically, I'm a Baptist. I'm not part of like a Baptist denomination. Um, we well, yeah, whatever. We are an independent church or what are they, a non-denominational church with a lot of Baptist friends. We'll put it that way. So in friendly cooperation. Um, but as theologically, as a Baptist, I'm gonna say, no, the the entrance ritual into the church, according to Romans 6, is baptism. We're baptized into Christ and we get the body of Christ around us and so on. But if if we're looking to, if we're looking for reassurance to to say, yes, I'm a part of this covenant, I'm not gonna look to the work of baptism that I did. I'm gonna look to the blood of Christ and the scars that are on him.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, and so I've kind of uh kind of started forming my theology around that, where I mean, because I've I've read some stuff where people make some really good arguments where it's like baptism is the basically the circumcision of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_03:Right, right.
SPEAKER_01:And I didn't I never thought about the infant baptism. That makes sense. That's where that kind of comes from, or where exactly thinking is.
SPEAKER_03:So baptism being the circumcision of the New Testament, that would have been written by somebody from one of those Pato-Baptist traditions, a reformed tradition, a Presbyterian, something like that, right? Um, but in in Romans 2, no, he says that you know you're not you're not a Jew if you're one outwardly, right? With a physical sign of the covenant, such as circumcision. And I do think that that um baptism is an outward sign, right? It's it's it's visible. He says he is a Jew who is one inwardly. There you go. So it's a circumcision of the heart. So Jesus heals our hearts through his work, through his uh by his stripes, not by ours. By his wounds we are healed, Isaiah 53. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know. With with baptism, I know there's um I I mean even Cheyenne disagrees with me on this. Um, but I can't I don't know how to explain it because then when I the more I start talking about it, the more it makes it seem like, oh, well, you have to be baptized to be saved. And it's like I mean, that's not what I'm saying, but where I get a lot of my theology from is Romans chapter six, being dead to sin alive in God, and he's talking about baptism. So you who are dead, and I know it obviously through the Holy Spirit, like there has to be faith in it. It's just you can't just dunk someone in water and then they're right, you know.
SPEAKER_03:No, I would just carry a super soaker around with me and go on a mission trip at the grocery store.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, the whole like being dead, your your dead man walk in in sin, and you know, it's obviously symbolizing that you you died and you resurrect up and die.
SPEAKER_03:So after Pentecost, after Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit, since from that day forward, the New Testament knows nothing of a Christian who's not baptized, right? Yeah, so it's not necessary for salvation, but that doesn't mean it's optional, right? A Christian is a baptized one, right? So people will ask me sometimes, like, oh pastor, do I have to be baptized to be saved? And I'm like, that's the wrong question, right? Like, let's let's make sure you're saved. Now, if you're saved, what does Jesus say? You get baptized and then you learn to obey everything that he's commanded.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because I I I can't think off the top of my head where it says it in Acts, but uh I believe it's Peter that says it, or someone asks him, like, what do I have to do to be saved? And he says, Um, I can't remember exactly word for word.
SPEAKER_03:With the Philippian jailer, right? Acts 16, verse 30, he says, What must I do to be saved? Yeah. And he says, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then immediately says, and be baptized, right?
SPEAKER_03:No, it says, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And then immediately they went to his house and baptized him and his family. Oh, okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I thought there was a verse though in Acts where it actually says, like, repent, believe in Jesus and be baptized.
SPEAKER_03:It does, yeah, yeah. And I can't think off the top of my head. I think that's in chapter two of Pentecost when he's they say uh when the Peter's sermon cuts him to the heart and they said, What must we do? And he says, Repent and be baptized, every one of you.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah. It's it's wrapped up in our conversion experience, and and that's commanded by God. But that doesn't mean that it's um it is what leads to our regeneration. We're we're saved by grace through faith, apart from works. Now, there are again back to Romans 2 and James 2, there are works that are going to follow our salvation. One of them is baptism, it's just obedience to God.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Well, sounds good. Anything else you want to add before we end it? I love your show. Thanks. I love your show. I love you, man. All right. Thanks for listening, guys. We'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to another episode of Practical Discipleship. Follow, subscribe, and make sure you tuned in next week.