Romans (Program #35) – Being Freed from Sin, the Law and the Flesh

Our destiny is not merely to go from hell to heaven.  Our destiny is God’s heart desire which is to make us sinners into sons of God, to be constituted the Body of Christ for His glorious expression in this universe.

Many of us know what it is to struggle against sin and the flesh.  And many also know the struggle of never living up to the standard that we or others set for us.  All three requires the freeing of the spirit recorded in Romans chapter 8.  This is our focus of the life-study of the Bible today.

Once again today we look at the tremendous revelation that God is busy making sinners into sons.  Sometimes you hear the word “adopted” inserted into this portion regarding our being the sons of God.   To be a son of God, you need the life of God. The word “adopted” doesn’t do justice simply because of our understanding of “adopted”. more…

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Romans (Program #34) – The Basic Points in Chapters 5-8

The Lord is with our spirit, so this wonderful. If we’re going to contact God, we need to exercise our spirit. God is Spirit, those who worship Him must worship Him in their spirit so that we can live and walk according to the Spirit who is mingled with our spirit.

If you’ve ever had the experience of making a resolution to be better, or to try harder, or promising never to do something again and then failing miserably, you will want to stay tuned for today’s Life-Study of Romans with Witness Lee.

We’re going to revisit Romans 5 to 8. In these chapters, we’ll see something wonderful concerning how we can experience and enjoy Christ. In today’s message we’re going to hear Witness Lee talk about the Spirit as it’s mentioned in chapter eight. In reading these verses, it seems almost impossible to tell whether the reference is made to the divine Spirit or the human spirit. What’s the relationship between these two and is it important for us to make a distinction? more…

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Romans (Program #33) – The Consummation of the Gospel

In God’s salvation, He does not just wash us from our sins, forgive us and make us clean, but He imparts His very life into us.  He does this in order to make us His sons.  So sonship or being sons of God is a matter of receiving the life of God.

God’s plan or eternal purpose cannot be realized without genuine sons of God that are match to Him in righteousness, holiness and glory.  But all He has to work with is just sinner like you and me.  How can He accomplish such a lofty goal?

We have a favor theme of Romans as our focus today and that is God is making sons out of sinners.  This seems out of comprehension to most of us.  But what does it mean really to make such a statement?

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Romans (Program #32) – A Closing Word

The book of Romans in its final three verses concludes with a beautiful offering of praise to God. Theologians have dubbed it a doxology; though it might aptly be called a melody, a melody of praise that we can fully enter into. It’s the peak of the gospel of God as presented in Romans.

This message begins with a concise overview of the entire book. The perspective is that of the revelation of God’s entire economy revealed in the New Testament. And the feeling is that in our experience and practice, we should have a book of Romans with sixteen chapters, that is with all of the stations or all of the sections, and not just part.  We appreciate the fact that when the reformation began, God used a segment of the book of Romans to recover a tremendous truth – that of justification by grace, through faith.  This is the first major station in the book of Romans.  The station or section of justification.  The importance of this can hardly be over-emphasized…

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Romans (Program #31) – The Consummation of the Gospel

Today we come to the conclusion of the gospel of God in the book of Romans. The book of Romans, perhaps the most doctrinally complete book in the New Testament, has a surprising and non-doctrinal conclusion concerning what God wants for every believer.

The gospel of God refers to the entire speaking of the book of Romans. Here in the book of Romans, Paul gives perhaps the most complete doctrinal portrait of the gospel in its fullness than in any other book that he has written. Romans begins with man in condemnation and then shows us how God takes him through the steps of justification, sanctification, glorification, selection, and transformation – a panorama of God’s organic salvation. Now we come to the conclusion of the gospel, and this conclusion is surprisingly non-doctrinal, after the marvelous picture that Paul painted in the process of that salvation. The goal of that salvation is given in a very experiential way that is surprising to the readers of the rest of the book.

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Romans (Program #30) – Transformation in Receiving the Believers

If we receive the believers, according to the Word, we will be those who are absolutely beside ourselves with the joy of the Holy Spirit. God’s blessing is commanded upon those who receive the believers in such a way.

One of the most intimate and revealing passages of the New Testament is found in the final chapters of Romans. The apostle Paul opened his heart revealing the real practice of the Body life.

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Romans (Program #29) – Transformation in Receiving the Believers (1)

Our eternal salvation is by faith through faith.  Once we have been born of God, we can never be unborn and lose our status as regenerated ones.  But there is a matter of reward and/or discipline.

The book of Romans has been called the fifth gospel or the gospel of God.  At its consummation, it beautifully depicts the tender and intimate church life that satisfy both God and man.

The book of Romans as we have been seeing, is divided into 5 basic sections of justification, sanctification, glorification plus selection and then one other.  If we look just casually, it may not seen to fit that this final section concludes with several non doctrinal chapters dealing with the church life.

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Romans (Program #28) – Transformation in Practicing the Body Life and in Subjection, Love and Warfare

In all of our experiences we need to have the real expression of the life of Christ in all that we do; in our behavior, in our habits, in our ways, we like to be living out Christ.

The emphasis that Paul places on the gifts both in Romans and also in Corinthians.  He surely acknowledges the so call the gifts of the Spirit but it seems that his emphasis is on the gifts that help us in the growth of life.  Witness Lee picked up the concept and the revelation that came through our brother Paul.  Paul was very much on the gifts that have to do with the growth in life.  Regarding the gifts of the Spirit, this is one area that has been very much misunderstood by a lot of Christians. more…

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Romans (Program #27) – Transformation in Practicing the Body Life (2)

What is God’s great will?  It is that we would enjoy Christ, by rejoicing, by praising Him, by praying unceasingly and by saying “Thank you Lord Jesus” in everything.

We need to see what God’s will is.  When we talk about God’s will we shouldn’t have the thought of “what can God do for me?”  What we need to see is that God has a heart’s desire.  He has a great will in this universe and we want to be one with Him to carry out His will.  Hebrews 10:5-10, specifically verse 7 where the Lord says “I have come to do Your will, O God”.  What this means is that God’s great will in the universe.  If you look at the context of this verse is to have Christ as the replacement of all the sacrifices and offerings in the Old Testament that He would come and become the reality of all the sacrifices and offerings so that we might enjoy Him as our all in all.   So what is God’s will?  more…

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Romans (Program #26) – Transformation in Practicing the Body Life (1)

Our life study of Romans today brings to to chapter 12, a wonderful marvelous chapter in the book of Romans.  The early portions of Romans present us many great spiritual terms; justification, sanctification, glorification to name just a few.  We have seen deeper meanings of these items in the previous programs.  But the presentation that will take place today will begin to show how the process of life that we experience really has a goal related to our practice of life.

The process of life is sanctification and this is actually the process of our being saved in Christ’s life.  He sanctifies us wholly.  This means He adds Himself in His holy nature into our spirit, into our soul, and into our body.  This is the process of life.  more…

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