Outlined transcript:
I wanted to follow up on previous videos on how to teach the Word, the law, and the gospel. I talked about training up younger Christians using the law and how to teach it in a way that sticks—using the Ten Commandments as a mirror that reflects our sin and shows our need for a savior.
The Three Uses of the Law
The Mirror: It reflects upon our sin and it shows us our need for a savior.
The Messiah: The second use of the law is to point us to Christ as our Messiah. It shows us our need for our savior, our Messiah.
The Manual: The third use of the law is that it shows us how to walk in a way that is worthy of our Messiah.
Jesus is the custodian of the law of God and the grace of God. He redeems us as our Messiah, and then the law serves as a manual—a way to walk that is pleasing to Christ. I will be teaching this in the Fundamentals of the Faith seminar at the end of April.
Redemptive Indicatives and Moral Imperatives
It is helpful to show how redemptive indicatives typically front-load moral imperatives. For example, the book of Ephesians is largely about the doctrine of Christ, the grace of God, soteriology, and the doctrine of the church. The minority section at the end contains the imperatives—the duties we must do in light of the glories of the gospel and the spiritual blessings God has secured for us in Christ.
Most of Paul's writings are like that. As a good scribe and Pharisee, he was very well trained in the scribal traditions. He does similar things to what you see in the book of Proverbs, which discusses the goodness of the Word and the blessings for those who keep it, followed by actual examples of what wise living under the fear of the Lord looks like. Paul takes the scribal tradition and uses it as the Holy Spirit inspires the text through him.
The Structure of Romans: Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude
The book of Romans is built deep like the roots of a tree before it sprouts. It focuses on the doctrine of Christ, soteriology, and the grace of God. You can break the book of Romans into three helpful categories:
Guilt (Humanity's Need): Romans 1 to 3:20 shows that all are guilty before God.
Grace (God’s Provision): Romans 3:21 to 11:36 shifts to grace. God justifies sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone, according to Scripture alone.
Gratitude (The Obedience of Faith): Romans 12:1 to 16:27 focuses on the obedience of faith.
While Romans is often used for evangelism, it was a missionary support letter written to encourage believers in Rome. It should be called the gospel according to Paul because it is his exposition of gospel doctrine as he learned it from Jesus himself.
The Turning Point: Romans 12
Chapter 12 is the turning point in the whole book. Paul says, "therefore, by the mercies of God," referring to the black backdrop of guilt in chapters 1 to 3:20 and the glories of the grace of God from 3:21 through the end of chapter 11. In light of these amazing mercies, we are called to:
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
Do not be conformed to this world.
Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
When we have filled our minds with the glories of the grace of God, living in a manner worthy of the gospel becomes our natural service of worship and our most reasonable response. Romans 12-16 then deals with the nitty-gritty of church life: how to love one another, show hospitality, and use our gifts in proportion to grace.
Conclusion
The burden of the Bible is not just to get us to behave better; it is deeply grounded in the indicatives of the goodness of God in saving sinners. We make disciples by pointing them first to the blessings of God. As Romans 2 says, it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.
Faith is the ground of our faithfulness. Faith must precede faithfulness; Jesus’ obedience is the condition for our faith, which then results in faithfulness as the consequence. If you get those two things right, you do not conflate or flatten the imperatives and indicatives.