Romans, vol 10: God's Glory: Exposition of Bible Doctrines

By Donald Grey Barnhouse

Romans is based on Donald Barnhouse’s renowned series of radio broadcasts on the epistle from 1949 until his death in 1960. Demonstrating the author’s acute understanding of Romans and heart for effective preaching, these classic studies reverently expound even the most difficult passage in a clear way. Examining the Letter to the Romans phrase by phrase, Barnhouse elucidates the Scripture with reference to both its immediate context and the Bible’s overarching truths. Barnhouse’s zeal for a universal appreciation of the epistle fuels his commentary and invites all readers into a deeper understanding of the life-changing message of Romans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Jan 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781467467421

Donald Grey Barnhouse

DONALD GREY BARNHOUSE (1895–1960) was a renowned evangelical preacher and pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Most famous for his radio broadcasts and public speaking, Barnhouse also founded, wrote for, and edited Revelation and Eternity magazines.

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PREFACE

At long last, the series of studies in the Epistle to the Romans by Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse is finished.

God’s Glory, the tenth volume of the commentary, closes his study of this great letter. The author has given us expositions which, in his own words, take as a point of departure the book of Romans and range through the whole of the Bible in order to bring all of the correlated truth of the Word to bear on each line and word of the epistle.

Dr. Barnhouse has done well what he set out to do. Never did he think that he would be with the Master Bible Teacher when this volume went to press. He now enjoys in its fullness the glory of God which he so vividly describes in the closing pages of this book.

It would have been his prayer, and doubtless still is, that those who read these words might be led to accept the Savior whom he loved, and that all who do love Him might live for His glory until they see Him face to face.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues, Dr. Mary A. Bennett, who carefully edited the text, and Miss Olive DeGolia, who prepared the text for publication.

—Ralph L. Keiper

Director of Research, The Evangelical Foundation

I

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY

Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling-block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. If your brother is being hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the loss of one for whom Christ died. So do not let what is good to you be spoken of as evil (Rom. 14:13–16).

Many believers are not fully aware of the complete liberty which they have in Christ and the relationship of such liberty to their fellow men. In our text, God calls every believer to refrain from passing judgment on another believer, and to pass severe judgment on himself. We must allow every other believer to do as he thinks best. We may love him and pray for him and so live that we never put a stumbling-block or hindrance in his way. When a believer tells a lie, we do not condone his sin, but we must realize that there may be extenuating circumstances. We are to love him, pray for him, and so live that he will be drawn closer to Christ who is the truth and who can deliver him from his sin. When a Christian brother steals, we are to hate his dishonesty but love him, and be careful that our ostentation does not tempt him to greed. Rather, our example should bring him nearer to Christ who can empower him to overcome the greed that led to theft.

Perhaps you object that this dual attitude is impossible. It is all very well, you say, to talk about loving the sinner and hating sin, but it can’t be done. But day by day in your own heart you hate things that you do, but love yourself. I hated things that I did, but I never hated myself. I loved myself even when I said that I hated myself. All of us have this dual attitude toward ourselves, and God says that we must have it toward all believers. Surely when we love our neighbor as ourselves, we shall hate the evil in his life but love him. We shall desire his growth and seek to build him up so that his conscience will be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and he will live in the glorious liberty of a child of God.

WHO HAS LIBERTY

With this thirteenth verse of our chapter, we should learn how Christian liberty is to be used. Comparatively few believers advance to the point where they possess enlightened Christian consciences. Too many follow the dictates of a church and never learn to live in the light of the Word of God as illuminated for them by the Holy Spirit. At this point, some unbeliever may cry, Bravo! I have the right to live according to my conscience and I shall answer only to God! Although it is true that he will answer to God, no verse in Scripture grants liberty of conscience to the unbeliever. This is brought out in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, written before that to the Romans. In Galatia, false teachers were circulating the doctrine that observance of the law of Moses was necessary to the individual’s salvation. Paul did not say to the Galatians, Let every man be fully persuaded in his own soul, as he did to the Roman Christians. Instead, in one of the most severe passages in the Bible he writes, But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed (Gal. 1:8). And Paul solemnly repeated it: As we have said before, so now I say again, If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed (v. 9).

But although the unsaved man has no liberty to decide how he should be saved, the believer is at liberty to decide how to live in relation to those around him. For the unsaved there is the exclusive finality of the Gospel of salvation through Christ alone: And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). The believer has utmost liberty in his walk toward the Lord and his eternal home. It is as though the unsaved mass of mankind were in a broad plain bounded by mountains that are impassable except through the narrow canyon of the cross. Those who traverse that canyon enter another broad plain which extends to the distant city of God on the horizon. From the cross to the city of God, there are ten million paths, and the Christian must walk where he believes the Lord wants him to walk. No man may choose another’s route from the cross to the city of God. We may advise, we may cite our own experiences, we may pray, we may point to the Word of God, we may seek to enlighten, but we may never command the conscience of another believer.

When we understand this, we see how great are the evils of Puritanism, Victorianism, and all forms of religious legalism. God desires to develop each individual’s conscience. When you set up legal principles for another soul, you are the conscience of that soul. The soul can grow only by the light of the Lord; it can not be regimented by other Christians.

JUDGE YOURSELF

Now, although we see our Lord as the goal and way of life, and understand that in following Him we have fullest liberty, we must subject our thoughts and ways to strict judgment. We no longer judge others, but we judge ourselves most carefully. We observe narrowly our conduct, choices, and ways, in order that a weaker brother may not fall. The Greek word for stumbling-block means that which is an obstacle or hindrance on a rough road. May nothing in your life be an uneven place that might cause someone following you to stumble and fall. The second word in the Greek is skandalon, which gives us scandal. In the original language it meant a snare or trap. Put the two words together and we get the full meaning of the verse: we are to order our lives in such a way that they will be neither a hindrance nor a snare.

The committed Christian has the same attitude toward all those who have named the name of Jesus Christ. Just as it is morally wrong to brand an innocent thing sinful, so it is spiritually wrong to do something that may be innocent, but causes some other person to stumble. The Christian life, though as broad as Jesus Christ, becomes as narrow as a razor’s edge while we walk it. But the narrowness is only in what we do and not in what we think. I can look to the Lord and thank Him that I have been delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Then I can see His smile as I refrain from some act that is perfectly innocent for me to do, but which I know might not be innocent for someone else.

As a believer in Christ, I can have nothing to do with any prohibition law; I am under a strict law of love that prevents me from doing what might hurt another.

ARE YOU SCANDALIZED?

Who is the brother for whose life I must be careful? People who are scandalized by the conduct of another believer sometimes need to be scandalized. They need to get out of their narrow rut of legalism and enter the boulevard of liberty in Christ.

Many years ago, I led a Bible conference at Montrose, Pennsylvania. About 200 young people were present, and a few older people. One day two old ladies complained to me in horror because some of the girls were not wearing stockings; these ladies wanted me to rebuke them. This was about the year 1928. Looking them straight in the eye, I said, The Virgin Mary never wore stockings. They gasped and said, She didn’t? I answered, In Mary’s time, stockings were unknown. So far as we know, they were first worn by prostitutes in Italy in the 15th century, when the Renaissance began. Later, a lady of the nobility wore stockings at a court ball, greatly to the scandal of many people. Before long, however, everyone in the upper classes was wearing stockings, and by the time of Queen Victoria stockings had become the badge of the prude. These ladies, who were holdovers from the Victorian epoch, had no more to say. I did not rebuke the girls for not wearing stockings. A year or two afterward, most girls in the United States were going without stockings in summer, and nobody thought anything about it. Nor do I believe that this led toward disintegration of moral standards in the United States. Times were changing, and the step away from Victorian legalism was all for the better.

DO YOU SCANDALIZE OTHERS?

This incident illustrates an important principle: we are not to be concerned about those who are well established not only in faith, but also in the rut of non-biblical legalism.

Another incident may cause us to think in unusual directions, and for our good. A young woman of my congregation met a girl in her college class who had almost no religious background. Child of a divided family in no wise concerned with religion, she had come to college age without any church affiliation and had not been in church services more than two or three times in her life. The Christian girl got her to attend church, and she was saved during her senior year. Shortly after graduation the two girls went with several others on a trip to Europe. The girl from my church was to attend a Christian convention for a few days in Switzerland, while the others went on to Venice. On the morning when she was to go to the convention, she appeared with no makeup. The new Christian cried out, You have forgotten your makeup! The older girl explained that the people at the convention did not wear makeup and that she was conforming to their practice. The young Christian was scandalized. If that was the essence of Christianity, she didn’t want it. The girl from my congregation told me later, I decided then that if going without makeup would cause my sister in Christ to be scandalized, I would never go without it again.

DON’T BE SHOCKED!

More often than not, the baby Christian who has just come out of the world is more scandalized by the narrow legalism of some believers than by the normal life of the so-called worldly believer. A true Christian should never parade his abstention. When I am offered tobacco I simply say, Thank you, but I don’t smoke. I have attended a cocktail party where no ginger ale was provided, so when I was handed a cocktail I simply took it and casually set it down somewhere, and did the same when another was offered to me. I set them down all over the room!

If someone in a shocked voice says, But you shouldn’t even have been there! I reply that the Lord Jesus associated with people who drank, and He socialized with men of no honor and women of no morals. He was even accused of being a glutton and a winebibber. I knew that I should be where I was, for the purpose of making friends with someone I was leading to Christ. When you have been socially polite to unbelievers, they are constrained to return the courtesy and listen to your testimony. Usually you cannot win people by exhibiting horror when they do things which you do not practice. On the other hand, such people will listen to you if they know that you have a real interest in them, and that you love them. This is the law of the Christian life.

WHAT IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE?

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus—it is the centrality of truth in Jesus Christ that makes a believer steadfast in true knowledge. We remember that the demons believe and shudder (Jas. 2:19). It is evident, therefore, that in the spiritual realm there must be not only intellectual awareness but the enlightening of the mental faculties by the Holy Spirit. He gives enlightenment in varying degrees. Look, for example, at the difference in knowledge possessed by the man born blind and that possessed by the Apostle Paul.

When questioned by neighbors, and later by the Pharisees, the blind man was only aware that he had experienced a miracle. He knew this and was persuaded of it. He knew no more and it was not necessary for him to know more. To his neighbors he testified, The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went and washed and received my sight (John 9:11). That was all he knew. When they asked him where Jesus was, he could only reply, I do not know. When the Pharisees asked him who Jesus was, he could dredge up only the idea then prevalent about Him: He is a prophet. When they repeated their questions, and added theological formulas, the poor man had not the remotest idea what they were talking about. They charged that Christ was no more than a man and therefore was a sinner, and so could not perform a miracle. The man replied simply, Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see (John 9:25).

There will undoubtedly be many people in Heaven with little more theological knowledge than this man possessed. I have preached to thousands of people who were fresh out of paganism. In Africa I met a minister who had been a cannibal and ate human flesh until he was twenty-three years old. Then the Lord saved him, and he grew in the faith and knew much more than the members of his congregation. His tribe did not have the Old Testament in their language, so it is more than probable that hundreds of those believers lived and died without ever knowing of the Ten Commandments, or of Moses. They may have heard a Psalm or two. They knew little theology, but they did know the Lord Jesus Christ. A person’s faith may be better than his understanding of his faith.

DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE

Do not think that I am decrying theology or denying reason its place in God’s development of the believer. Here, however, we are noting the difference in the degree of knowledge held by someone like this blind man, and that held by someone like the Apostle Paul. The blind man was not chosen to be a channel of divine revelation, or to write a New Testament epistle.

He was healed, and there is no reason to believe that he became literate, or that he did anything other than live the life of a poor working man in ancient Jerusalem. This was all that God called him to do and be. But he knew and was persuaded by the Lord Jesus, and lived to the full the life to which God had called him. We shall meet him in Heaven just as we shall meet millions of other nameless believers who have lived and died on their small edge of history.

The spotlight which flooded Paul’s section of the stage was much brighter than that which falls on most mortals. He was called to fulfill the same purpose on a far greater scale. He, too, had been blind, for he was born a member of the narrowest sect of the children of Israel, and lived according to the rules of that strictest party of his religion (Acts 26:5). He adhered to a set of rules and ceremonies; his clothing was dictated for him by the law of God; the way he took his food and drink was more important than the food and drink. The ceremonial washings, although usually only gestures, were more important than deeds of kindness and love. Everything that could possibly go into his mouth was classified as either clean or unclean. Paul knew and was persuaded in the law that many things were unclean.

Now there is an about-face, yes, more than an about-face. As a Christian, Paul is more firmly persuaded that he was wrong than, as a Jew, he was that he had been right. He now holds that there is absolutely nothing unclean in itself. This is not an opinion based on sanitary laws. He is not thinking in terms of allergies, calories, proteins, and carbohydrates. His knowledge and certainty are now the fruit of faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that he knows Christ, he knows that regulations about food and drink, and observances of days and times, and similar matters, are not of fundamental importance.

THE FREEDOM OF CHRIST

What was the motive that effected this transformation of Paul? There can be no doubt that his new attitude was the outgrowth of the great liberty which he had found in Jesus Christ. He writes to the Galatians, who were going through a similar battle between legalism and liberty, and tells them that they are to avoid the practice that was the very sign and seal of the relationship of Israel to the living God—the rite of religious circumcision. To them he writes, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty in which Christ has made you free, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery (Gal. 5:1).

Likewise, Paul here is telling the Romans that they are not to follow a religion of rules. Nothing is unclean in itself. A man can eat whatever he pleases and whenever he pleases. There are to be no fast days or lean days. There is complete liberty.

The only factor that need be considered is what a man really thinks about the things that he eats. If, for any reason, a man thinks that something is unclean, he must then abstain from it. For if he thinks it to be unclean and eats it, he has defiled himself before God. But if he knows it to be clean, as Paul knew and was persuaded in the divine wonder of supernatural knowledge from God by the Holy Spirit and through divine revelation, then he is clear before God.

CARE FOR YOUR BROTHER’S CONSCIENCE

It should be noticed that two things might happen to the weak brother—he might be injured or he might be destroyed. These words must be carefully examined if we are to grasp all that is being taught here. The KJV suggests that the brother may be grieved and then destroyed. The RSV says that he may be injured, and that we must not cause his ruin. I have translated this, "If your brother is being hurt"; and, Do not cause the loss of one for whom Christ died.

I have an obligation toward all men, but especially toward babes in Christ. Our present text concerns only those who have believed in Christ; it does not contradict the scores of verses that teach the eternal results of justification by faith. The man who is in Christ can never be taken out of Christ. He cannot lose his salvation or be severed from Christ. Any contrary teaching is a complete departure from the truth of justification by faith: once a man has been justified by God in Christ, he can never be unjustified. The man who has been born again can never be unborn.

Now, how can the believer be grieved, or hurt? Today this expression usually means to hurt one’s feelings, but generally such hurt feelings indicate injured pride. Our text, however, means an injured conscience. We must be extremely tender with the conscience of other Christians. Every individual must do what he truly believes the Lord wants him to do, and his conscience must never be forced. Likewise, his conscience must never be relaxed. The difference between these two opposites can be explained by specific examples. First, if, as a condition for church membership, a Christian is required to sign a pledge to observe certain practices and abstain from others, the conscience of that Christian is being forced or regimented. This is contrary to Scripture. The conscience of a young believer is weakened when it is held up by such props. On the other hand, the young believer’s conscience must not be relaxed through the example of older Christians who, taking undue advantage of Christian liberty, live in such a fashion that the young believer follows them to the extreme of license. Our only example is Jesus Christ; there is no other. When the young Christian forsakes the call of his own conscience to follow another believer in what he thinks is liberty, he does himself great harm, for he runs the risk of being ruined, lost, destroyed.

The Greek word here translated destroy, cause the ruin, or, as I have rendered it, cause the loss, was used by our Lord to convey the idea of loss of reward. Whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward (Matt. 10:42). This Greek word was also used by John in his second epistle, where we read, Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward (2 John 8). When understood thus, our text may be expanded to read: If your brother is being hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not permit what you eat to cause another, for whom Christ died, to relax his conscience to the point where he does something just because you do it, even though his conscience tells him not to do it. For if he does this, you have caused him to do something for which he will lose his reward when he stands in the presence of Christ.

The implications here are deep. In any profound difference over policy in Christian living, neither party is to call the other’s conduct evil. In fact, our text states flatly that the believer who acts according to his conscience must not let the opposing party call his way evil.

The true believer, then, should enjoy complete liberty in Christ without digressing to the