Romans: The Clearest Gospel of All
By E.H. “Jack” Sequeira
We are studying the three fathers of Israel in the context of Romans 9. Let’s begin at Romans 9. The key text in this chapter is verse 6:
It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
Here Paul tells us two things:
A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.
As we have said, to be part of Israel you have to have the spiritual qualities of these three fathers.
We have already touched on Abraham. Abraham stands for faith. I want to remind you of the words of Jesus to the Jewish nation. In John 8:56, this is what Jesus said to the Jews:
Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.
You see, Abraham represents faith and being a Christian begins with faith. (And, by the way, it ends with faith, too.) Faith is obeying the call of God as it is in Christ. Abraham obeyed God and he became the father of all like him who believe.
This genuine faith results in what we call the new birth, regeneration, being born of the Spirit or being born from above like Isaac was. Isaac was the result of a faith relationship with Jesus Christ. In the new birth experience, the Holy Spirit, who represents Christ, comes and dwells in you. In fact, in Romans 8:9 Paul tells us that he who does not have the Spirit of Christ doesn’t belong to Christ. Now in Galatians 4:28, which we saw in our last study in which we dealt with Isaac, Paul tells us that:
Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.
We believers, who are born again as Isaac was, are the children of the promise. If you have experienced the new birth, you are part and parcel of true Israel. But Israel doesn’t stop there. God gave a third father. But before we go to the third father, which is Jacob, there is one thing that we need to be clear on that takes place in our lives as a result of the new birth experience. The new birth brings about a radical change in every one of us and in at least four areas:
I want to touch on this before we go on to Jacob.
Please turn to John 15 and notice what Jesus says to His disciples. What he says to His disciples is true of each one of us. John 15:19:
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
The call that God gives you in Christ is to be separated from the world and become part of His kingdom. In other words, when we were born we were born citizens of this world which, speaking spiritually, is under Satan. When we accepted Christ, there was a change in citizenship. We have changed our citizenship through the new birth experience from under the world to citizenship in the Kingdom of God, which is now under Christ. For example, in Philippians 3:20-21, if you look at a modern translation, it says:
But out citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Turn to 1 John 5:19 and you will notice that, ultimately, the whole human race is divided into only two camps. There will be no three camps, only two camps, and each one of us will belong to one or the other. Talking to believers, the apostle John says:
We know that we are children of God [i.e., we Christians who have experienced the new birth, who by faith have become one with Christ are belonging to God], and that the whole world [that’s the rest of the world] is under the control of the evil one.
In other words, we Christians are under Christ, His kingdom. We are children of God and the rest of the world is still under the sway of the wicked one. So, number one, the radical change is in citizenship.
There’s a radical change in status. In Romans 3:19, Paul tells us the whole world is guilty. The whole world (in Romans 5) stands condemned. We are by birth and by performance under condemnation of death; but when we accept Christ we experience subjectively what is already true of us in Christ and that is: we move our status from condemnation to death to justification to life. That is, the legal justification that Christ accomplished on the cross becomes effective. Turn to John 3:36:
Whoever believes in the Son has [please notice the verb: not WILL have, but ALREADY has] eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.
The wrath of God is, of course, good-bye to life forever. Another text that brings this out clearly is in John 5:24:
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word [who hears the call of the gospel] and believes him who sent me has [past tense] eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over [past tense] from death to life.
When you experience the new birth, you have passed from condemnation to justification, from death unto life. So this is the second wonderful change that takes place in the new birth experience.
The third change is in dominion and this one is a bit hard. It is hard for us who uphold the law because we have not understood the distinction between the law as a standard of Christian living and the law as a ruler. As I mentioned, in Romans 3:19 Paul tells us that:
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
The whole world under the law stands condemned, guilty before God. But the good news is for those who are believers, those who are the children of Abraham and Isaac. I read in Romans 6:14:
For sin shall not be your master, because you [i.e., you believers, you Christians] are not under law, but under grace.
Briefly, that means that the law no longer rules over the Christian. Do you know what it means to be ruled by the law? It means several things:
So this is what it means to be under the law. But Christians are no longer under the law. Yes, the law is still there as a standard of Christian living, but we are no longer under it. We are under grace. And chapter seven of Romans, which we have already covered, deals with this. It talks in verse four and six about this change of status. Look at Romans 7:4:
So, my brothers, you also died to the law...
Please notice how God delivered us from under the law. He did not deliver us from under the law by doing away with the law. That is a heresy. What He did away with was us. We died to the law. Not that the law died. We died. How?
...through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
It is only under grace that we can bear fruit. Romans 7:6:
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit [that is the new birth experience], and not in the old way of the written code.
What does Paul mean by “the old way of the written code”? He means serving out of fear. Serving as a requirement. Serving as in do’s and don’ts. But under grace we serve God, not because we have to but because we love Jesus Christ. We do not serve Him out of fear but we serve Him out of love. And that is the change of status that we have come under.
I want to give you one more text about this. Turn to Galatians. Galatians also deals with this issue in chapter four. Read first Galatians 3:24-25 where Paul talks of the law as our school master or custodian that we are under:
So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
But when we come to Christ we are no longer under that schoolmaster. Now look at Gal. 4:4-6:
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law...
Christ came where we are. He joined Himself to us under the law. Why did He do it? Verse five:
...to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Have you got it? We have been redeemed from under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And then in verse six:
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
That’s the new birth experience (Isaac). You have been born from above and now you are a child of God. You can cry to God, not in fear, but call Him “Dear Father,” because Christ has adopted us into that family.
Then we come to number four. The next radical change we have is in terms of nature. Please turn to 2 Peter. There is a radical change in nature and you need to be aware of that. You know, through Christ, God has given us some wonderful promises. Listen here to what Peter says. 2 Peter 1:4:
Through these [i.e., through the promise of the gospel, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ] he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Please notice that we become partakers of the divine nature in the new birth experience.
So there are four radical changes. But remember in John 3:6, Jesus said to Nicodemus:
Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
You need to be born from above, you need to be a child of Isaac, you need to be born of the Spirit. That’s in John 3:3-8. But these radical changes bring about some real problems, and you must be aware of these problems, because Jacob represents the struggle that is the outcome of the problem. And the main problem that you will face as a born again Christian is that you have become an active participant, you have become a part of the firing line, you have become actively involved in the great controversy between Satan and Christ. And that is what the experience of Jacob is all about.
You see, when you become a Christian, you change your citizenship from the world, under Satan, to the Kingdom of God, under Christ. But you are still living in Satan’s territory. You are still living in the world. In John 17:15, Jesus prayed to His Father. He said:
My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.
If Satan hates anything, he hates losing a citizen. He gets mad when you change your citizenship. Some time ago I was looking at the news. There was a young man who had sold some of the secrets of the United States government to the Russian government. He was caught and this news item was showing him coming out of a car handcuffed to a policeman. What impressed me was the Americans standing around that car who were watching him. They were mad. They were mad because he was a traitor. That’s exactly how Satan, the ruler of this world, looks at you when you become a Christian: “You’re a traitor and I’m going to make life hell for you.”
Now the experience in this struggle is really the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. When you are born again, what happens is your citizenship changes, your status changes but you still have the flesh. Yes, in your mind you have said “goodbye” to the flesh, but in reality it is still there and it will be there until the second coming of Christ. So the unconvertible flesh and the Spirit, which now dwells in you, are in constant struggle. Paul brings this out in Galatians 5:17. He talks about the flesh and the Spirit being contrary to each other:
For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
This struggle between the flesh and the Spirit is what Jacob is all about. No other Bible character represents more fully the spititual battle, the conflict in the lives of the saints between the flesh and the Spirit than does the life of Jacob. You read his history. At times we see him sinking down to the depths of despondency and despair. At other times he rises up to the glorious heights of the kingdom of God. It’s up and down.
Has your Christian experience been up and down? Don’t be discouraged. You are going through Jacob’s experience. The wonderful thing about Jacob is that he prevailed. He finally emerged at the very last upon the plains of triumphant faith. Then, and then only, did God change his name from Jacob, which, by the way, means “schemer,” to Israel, “the one who prevailed.”
I want to look at Jacob by first turning to Romans 9 because that’s the context of our study. Then we’ll go quickly through his life and come to a conclusion. Having made the statement in Romans 9:6 that not all who are of Israel belong to true Israel, Paul takes us step by step. He goes through Abraham. He goes through Isaac. Then, finally, he deals with Jacob. Jacob is dealt with in Romans 9:10-13:
Not only that [not only must you be a child of Abraham and Isaac], but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad — in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls — she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
To appreciate what Paul is saying here, you must be familiar with the background. We don’t practice today the birthright system as the Jews did. The first-born had the birthright in the Jewish culture. That meant special privileges. One of the privileges was, of course, that he got a double portion of the inheritance. If there were three sons, the father would divide his inheritance into four parts. The first son would get two of the parts and the rest would get one each.
But in the case of Jacob and Esau, the issue was not so much the inheritance. The issue was the promise of God. Remember what God promised to Abraham and then carried on to Isaac? Genesis 12:3:
...All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
In other words, what God promised Abraham was that one of his children — one of his descendants — would be the Messiah. This was, of course, the greatest privilege that any man could have. This privilege was passed on, not to Ishmael but to Isaac, he who was born from above.
According to the Jewish culture, according to the law of the land, this privilege should have been passed on to Esau. Why? Because he was the first born. But God was trying to teach a lesson and that lesson is that the promise of God is not based on natural inheritance or through works, something you do, but according to the promise, the election of God.
Paul is not discussing here the salvation of all men but the New Testament tells us that God has called all people to be saved. When you read that text which has confused so many people, Matthew 22:14:
For many are invited, but few are chosen.
please remember that that is in the passive. It is not God who does the choosing. It is God who does the calling. It is man who does the choosing. Many are called but few choose that call. That’s what Jesus meant.
Did God offer Esau the promise? Yes. Did God offer Esau salvation? Yes. But what did Esau do with his birthright? He despised it. When you read Romans 9:13, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,” you must remember that’s a quotation. It’s a quotation from Malachi 1:1-3 and, in that context, God is saying to Malachi, “I have loved you, Israel. You don’t deserve to be loved but I have loved you.” And then it uses Jacob and Esau as an example.
What he is saying is, “Look, Esau deserved the birthright, but I gave it to Jacob.” He is using this as an example, but please remember that the reason why Esau was rejected — because the word “hated” means “rejected” — was not because God said to Esau, “I will not save you.” It was because Esau did not want the birthright. We will see this again in Hebrews.
Here is the problem. The promise that Jacob would have the birthright was made to Rebekah before Jacob was born. The problem is that all his life Jacob tried to fulfill God’s promise. And that’s the struggle; the flesh will be your greatest hindrance. I’ll tell you why, because when God produces righteousness in you, who gets the credit? Not you, but Christ. And the flesh doesn’t like that. The flesh doesn’t like getting no credit.
In Africa, the “Third World,” the majority of people who come into this church are brought in not by pastors or evangelists but by lay people. The lay workers are the ones who do the soul winning in Africa. I wish it was that way here [in the U.S.A], too. That’s how it is in Africa. But here’s the problem: it is not the laymen who baptize. It is the pastors who baptize. And when they photograph the baptized people with the pastor, the lay workers get no credit. Read the Review and Herald and see all those people baptized in Africa and see the pastor. It was not he who gave them the studies, it was the lay workers.
So the lay workers got together and they looked at their Bibles and they said, “In the Bible it doesn’t say that only pastors should baptize. Look at Philip. He was a deacon. He baptized. Why can’t we baptize?”
In a big committee meeting, I asked the laymen, “Are you fighting for your rights or are you fighting for the truth? Are you fighting for the flesh which wants to be honored or are you trying to uphold the word of God?” Well, they were not willing to answer that question.
The thing is this: “Is it the flesh or is it the Spirit?” The issue is not one or the other. The issue is: what is motivating you to do God’s will?
All his life, right from his birth, Jacob was trying to use the flesh to fulfill God’s promise. Do you remember what Jacob was doing when Esau was being born? He was holding unto his heel. Do you know what Jacob was saying to Esau? “You have no right to be born first. It’s me. Come back!”
Did he succeed? No. He failed miserably, because it was Esau who had the hair on the chest. Jacob was mother’s boy. Then, a few years later, Esau went hunting. In those days, they did not have telescopic lenses, so he came back empty-handed. He was starving. (He didn’t live in Kenya as I did. We never came back empty-handed. Thank God for the American government which stopped hunting in Africa. I don’t know why I did it but it was the flesh in me that enjoyed to see an animal come down.)
Esau became hungry one day and he smelled lentil stew. I don’t know what lentil stew here smells like compared to the Middle East. There people use a lot of spices and it does have a wonderful flavor. His stomach began to rumble because he was starving. And he said, “Jacob, can you share some of that lentil stew with me?”
Jacob had only one thought in mind: now was the opportunity to get the birthright. Why couldn’t he trust in God’s promise? Why was he scheming? Because the flesh is always there, in your life and mine, to “try” and do God’s will. So he said, “Esau, I’ll give you some lentil stew on one condition: you give me the birthright.”
Esau said, “What good is the birthright if I’m dead?” So they came to an agreement and Jacob thought he had won. But after his stomach was full, Esau changed his mind.
Then we come to a third experience. You remember that Isaac, if he had his own way, would have given Esau the birthright. Isaac struggled with the flesh as did Jacob. Isaac only represents the new birth. You see, God takes each individual and gives him or her a definite experience but all three men faced the same dilemma. Each man stands out separately because of God’s purpose to demonstrate the qualifications of being a true Israelite.
Isaac wanted to bless his son Esau. Remember what Jacob’s mother did? She schemed with him and, finally, Isaac, by mistake because he was half blind, blessed Jacob and gave him the birthright. Now the final barrier was removed since the last stage of the birthright fulfillment is when the father blesses his son. We would call it writing his will. But do you think the flesh took it sitting down? No way.
Esau said, “You are not going to get away with this alive.” So what did Jacob do? He fled for his life. Here is Jacob trying and trying and trying. Finally, he decides to come back home. All he can think of is Esau. If Jacob had only rested in Christ! 1 Thess. 5:24:
The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
Faithful is He who has called you. God doesn’t want you to try to fulfill God’s purpose in you but the flesh always wants to try. Gal.6:12:
Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.
“Those who want you to do this and that want it so that they can glory in the flesh.”
But I’ll tell you, folks, that struggle is there. You can’t help it. The flesh will not take second place sitting down.
Let us come to the final struggle. Jacob returned home. On the way, he prays to God earnestly and says to God, “Please help me through this experience.” And he begins planning once again. The flesh takes over. “How shall I appease Esau? I have an idea. I’ll give him some good gifts.” Bribery and corruption. So he sends some gifts to his brother, hoping that it will appease him. Have you ever tried to appease God by your good works, hoping that God will not be angry at you? God says all the time, “I’m not angry with you. I love you. Why are you afraid of me?”
Then Jacob said, “What happens if Esau doesn’t accept the gift?” So he took his family and he put them on one side of Jabbok and he left them there and he went to the other side. Now, I’m sure that Esau had no desire to punish his wives and his children but I think Jacob had something in mind. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling, knowing the eastern mind, that he was saying to himself, “If Esau doesn’t accept the gift, the next people he has to contend with are my family and I know what they will do. They will scream. That’s my alarm bell and I’ll take off. They have to cross the river before they reach me.”
He had confessed. He had prayed. He was sincere, but he was still trying to use the flesh, conniving, scheming all the time. After he said his prayer, he went to sleep.
We had a missionary in Africa, a very good friend of mine. During the Mau Mau division in Kenya, they were killing all kinds of people and he was visiting in a school. This school had no walls, just poles. He looked around and saw fires, different houses being burnt, and here he had no protection; he had just taken his little sleeping bag. So what he did was take a lot of pots and pans and put them at the entrance. He said, “If the Mau Mau come for me, they will hit against those pots and they will clamor and I will jump over and escape. So he went to sleep like Jacob. In the middle of the night, he heard this terrible clatter of noise and sweat began to pour down his brow. He thought the Mau Mau were coming for him and he had no courage to even stand up, he was so scared. There he was, waiting to be killed. And then slowly he put his hand under the bed and got the flashlight and waited. Finally, he shone the light towards the entrance and the pots and pans were still there. It had been a nightmare.
Well Jacob, after saying his prayer, made all provisions and went to sleep. Somebody touched him and guess whom he thought it was? He thought that he was so sound asleep that Esau had passed by the family and he hadn’t heard a sound and now he was touching him. So his immediate reaction was to fight for his life, to defend himself.
Don’t ask me how he did it. As a kid I used to wrestle. I was still weightlifting and wrestling and boxing and I tell you if, you wrestle for five minutes it is pretty exhausting. He wrestled all night long. He must have been desperate, like the flesh normally is. Finally, at daybreak, he discovered that his enemy was really God who was coming to bless him, to give him assurance and hope. The mighty angel did something to him. I don’t know how many of you have experienced the dislocation of any part of your body. It is very painful, excruciatingly painful. If I was wrestling with someone and he dislocated my hip, I would have let go. But did Jacob let go when he discovered who it was? Genesis 32:26:
...I will not let you go unless you bless me.
God said through the angel, “What is your name?” God knew his name.
Do you know what Jacob replied? “My name is schemer.” The name “Jacob” means nothing to you but to the Jew it means “schemer.” “I’m a crafty schemer.”
God said, “I know that. But now, because you held unto Me and did not let go, even though you failed many times — the flesh has failed but you would not let go of me — I will bless you and I will change your name.”
God takes this experience and He applies it to the last generation of Christians. In Jer.30:7, where He talks of the great tribulation, He says, “This last generation of Christians will go through a time of trouble that has never been experienced by any other generation before. It is even like the time of Jacob’s trouble. And Jacob prevailed. Jer.30:7:
How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it.
I want you to go to Matthew and see how Jesus applied this in Matthew 24. He, Jesus, is giving the prophecies of the last days in Matthew 24:9-11:
Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other [within the church], and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
This is a wonderful picture of what is happening today. There are offshoot movements by the dozen coming up and telling us to come out of the church to do this and that. All kinds of problems. Verse Matthew 24:12-13:
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end [through this time of trouble] will be saved.
Endure what? If you look at the passage carefully, you can divide it into three parts:
Let me amplify on these three points from scripture:
In Matthew 10:17-22, Jesus said that father will betray son and mother will betray daughter and so on. You will be brought before governors and kings but he who endures unto the end shall be saved. Matthew 10:17-22:
Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Paul says the same thing in 2 Thessalonians 1:4:
Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
You must endure the persecution that will come one of these days.
We are going through a refining process. God is refining Jacob. Do you know that? The Bible says so. And that refining process it is very painful. Turn to Hebrews 12:7:
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons....
Are you a child of Jacob? Then you must endure the chastening of the Lord. Is it pleasant? No.
...For what son is not disciplined by his father?
Chastening is never pleasant. But look at verse 11.
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
If you refuse the chastening of the Lord you will not endure. And I’ll tell you, there are too many that do not endure the chastening of the Lord. It may come to you as a shock. Do you know that there are more nonattending Adventists in the North American Division than attending Adventists? There are more Adventists who do not attend church on Sabbath than those that attend. For every one of you here, there are more than one out there who are not attending church. This is a tragedy. This is not true in the Third World. It is the opposite but it is the tragedy in the North American Division. Where have we gone wrong? Where have we failed to produce the Jacobs? It doesn’t take much. All the pastor has to do is say a wrong word to a member and they stop coming to church. Or the school does something wrong and they stop coming to church. When will we learn to endure like Jacob did?
And then, of course, there is the false versus sound doctrine. Please take two texts with you. The first is 2 Tim. 4:3-5:
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Because today there are many offshoot movements who claim to be right and say, “Come out of Babylon,” when they themselves are in Babylon. Babylon is not a denomination. It is a system where self, the flesh, is still ruling. Ephesians 4:14 says the same thing:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
But I won’t tell you what Jacob did. I’m going to read you a quotation from The Great Controversy, page 523:
“Through humiliation, repentance, and self-surrender, this sinful, erring mortal prevailed with the Majesty of Heaven.”
That is the description of Jacob in The Great Controversy: “this sinful, erring mortal.” Have you got it? He was an erring mortal who “prevailed with the Majesty of Heaven.”
Yes, he was a failure in his own eyes, but he never gave up his faith in the promise of God. He held unto God and that is why he is remembered in the book of Hebrews. In chapter 11 of Hebrews, Paul gives us a string of men and women who went through all kinds of crises: men and women who were destitute, who were sawn in half, who were put in the lions den, but they all had one thing in common. They endured to the end. Their faith held on. Hebrews 11:39-40:
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
They did not give up. They held unto God. Then, in verses one and two of chapter 12, Paul makes this statement:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.