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Romans 3:4-8 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

• 0:00
  Please take out your copy of God's Word, which I hope you have with you today, and turn to the book of Romans, chapter 3.
• 0:09
  I'm thankful that you're all here today. I'm thankful that Ruby Lou is here. I have wondered if I had shaky googly eyes and did this a lot, if I would be easier or harder to pay attention to.
• 0:23
  I hope harder because I don't have shaky googly eyes.
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  Romans, chapter 3. Let's read verses 1 through 8 together.
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  Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
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  What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means.
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  Let God be true, though everyone were a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.
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  But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?
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  That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?
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  I speak in a human way.
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  By no means.
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  For then how could God judge the world?
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  But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?
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  And why not do evil that good may come, as people slanderously charge us with saying, their condemnation is just?
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  Let's pray together.
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  Father God, we thank you very much for your holy word.
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  As difficult as these words are at times,
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  thank you that you've blessed us with its profundity, that we might study it and know you more through it.
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  Thank you, Father, for the blessings we have in Christ, the ability to discern your word by your spirit,
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  which is bought by Christ on the cross.
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  And we pray this in his name.
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  Amen.
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  All right.
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  So last week we talked about why it is that God inspires hard texts.
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  And that idea that was fueled by this text itself,
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  which many have said is at least one of the most difficult paragraphs in the New Testament.
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  But before we begin talking about it, I want to back up just a little bit,
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  remind you where Paul has been so far in the book of Romans,
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  what it is that he's talked about in the first two chapters, the case he's made for us,
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  and then show you these objections, these things that, these questions that have been brought up.
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  In his mind.
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  And I don't believe they're brought up in his mind because he was particularly astute and just could predict what people might say to what he was teaching.
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  But that this was a case.
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  What he has said in the first two chapters was something he was teaching over and over and over again.
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  Paul had preached many sermons before he wrote the book to the Romans.
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  And so he knew the questions that the Jews would ask because they had been asked of him.
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  He even says there in our text, verse eight, as some people slanderly, slanderously charge us.
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  So this has been happening to him.
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  So as he's writing to them, he knows that some listener, somebody who's going to hear the reading of this letter,
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  was going to ask this question in their mind.
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  And he wants to answer those questions before he moves on.
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  He answers them in brief in this spot, but continues later to give us more.
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  He unfolds some of this more.
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  So this morning, we're going to kind of skip a stone off the answer because it's what Paul does here.
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  Later, chapters 11, chapter 9, we're going to get a little bit deeper into the answers to these questions.
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  But he feels the necessity to deal with them so that he can continue on with his argument.
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  So if you flip back a page or however many pages for you, in chapter 1,
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  kind of to read to you the thesis, the theme of the book of Romans, verses 16 and 17.
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  Paul says,
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  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
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  to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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  For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.
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  As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
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  So he had already begun to assert that it wasn't those who had the law and obeyed the law
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  under their own power that were righteous before God.
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  It was those that had righteousness that came from faith in the good news, in the good news of Jesus Christ.
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  He's laid that out for us very clearly right up front.
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  He goes on in the rest of the chapter to talk about how no one has any excuse.
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  Everyone in the world is aware of the glory of God.
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  They have seen it in created order.
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  No excuse whatsoever.
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  He turns in chapter 2 then to the Jews, those who had the law, had religion.
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  Chapter 2, verses 12 and 13.
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  He says,
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  Verse 13.
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  For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
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  And we know, because we have a survey, we understand our scriptures, that we're only capable of doing good, of being righteous in Christ.
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  By our own best efforts, there is no way we can fulfill the law.
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  Because that ability in us was utterly spoiled by original sin.
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  Our nature is corrupted.
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  We are sinful at heart.
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  But we cannot please God apart from Christ.
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  So then he takes his argument a little bit further for the Jewish, for the religious.
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  Verse 25 and then 28 and 29.
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  For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law.
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  But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.
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  Verse 28.
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  For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor a circumcision outward and physical.
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  But a Jew is one inwardly.
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  And circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter.
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  His praise is not from man, but from God.
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  So those outward signs of keeping the law are of no value if you don't actually keep the law.
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  How does that relate to us as a, I would assume, entirely non-Jewish audience?
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  Does coming here to church make you righteous before God?
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  Absolutely not.
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  Does sharing your faith or being involved in one-on-one discipleship make you righteous before God?
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  Does tucking your shirt in and wearing your fanciest shoes make you righteous before God?
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  None of those things do if we're not actually keeping the law.
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  If we're not actually made righteous by Christ.
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  Okay?
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  So he turns.
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  He knows there's going to be objections to this.
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  He knows that the Jew is sitting in this audience.
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  This book is being read to them.
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  They're going, but wait a minute.
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  We're God's special people.
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  The Old Testament speaks of that.
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  It's everywhere in the Old Testament.
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  We know that God had made a covenant with Abraham for us as a people.
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  What are you talking about?
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  You've totally nullified all of that.
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  We ought to take the Old Testament and throw it away.
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  So he addresses the first objection.
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  Verse 1.
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  Then what advantage has the Jew?
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  Or what is the value of circumcision?
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  These are the questions that he's been asked and he's hearing them being asked at the reading of this letter.
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  So the first question I want to ask, did Paul attack God's people?
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  In his writing so far, did Paul attack God's people?
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  The answer is no.
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  The answer to all the questions I'm going to ask today are no.
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  Verse 2.
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  He goes on to say, what is the advantage of being a Jew?
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  It's much in every way.
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  To begin with, which is such an interesting phrase.
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  We talked about this last week.
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  To begin with, would imply that he's going to begin to go on and make some sort of a list.
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  Right?
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  Firstly, and then he would say later.
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  Secondly, he doesn't.
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  He just says to begin with.
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  Of most importance, the greatest advantage to being a Jew is that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.
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  They were given the very words of God.
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  Now this word oracles is used four times in the New Testament.
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  It's not simply the word logos, what we get our logos questions from, that means word.
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  It actually means wisdom.
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  The word oracle, translated here in Greek, means wisdom.
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  And he's not trying to set some kind of different thing.
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  Like everyone else, we have the word of God, but the Jews have the oracles of God.
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  He's not trying to do that, draw a distinction between the two.
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  But what he's trying to see is point out the importance of what was given to them.
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  Right?
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  The words of God, which were the very wisdom of God for salvation.
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  That's what the Jews had.
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  What an advantage they have had over the Gentiles.
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  Now we know, sadly, that many Jews, not as a nation, but many Jews, have rejected the word of God.
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  When the Pharisees tried to back Christ into a corner, a couple occasions, he spoke to this.
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  Mark chapter 12, verse 24, says,
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  Is this not the reason you are wrong?
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  Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
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  You know of them, but you don't understand them or the power of God.
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  And then in John chapter 5, verse 39 and 40, he says,
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  You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.
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  And it is they that bear witness about me.
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  Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
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  I imagine that there was desperation in Jesus' voice as he said that to them.
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  You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.
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  But they speak of me.
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  And I'm standing in front of you.
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  And I'm here for you to hold and to learn from and to place your faith in for righteousness, for salvation.
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  And you're missing the point.
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  Brings our second objection.
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  Verse 3.
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  What if some were unfaithful?
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  Some Jews were unfaithful.
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  Some Jews did reject the truth of God given to them in the scriptures.
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  Does their faithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God?
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  Does the fact that some Jews were unfaithful make God unfaithful in his promises to the Jewish people?
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  Did Paul attack God's promises?
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  That's my question, which the answer to is no.
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  Look what he says.
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  Verse 4.
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  By no means.
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  It's an interesting little phrase.
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  It is the strongest negative Greek expression.
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  I'm going to try to pronounce it.
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  Me genoito, I think.
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  The strongest negative expression possible.
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  And it literally carried with it a note of impossibility.
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  So it's as if he says at the beginning of verse 4, they ask this question.
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  Does their faithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God?
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  He goes, impossible.
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  It can't happen.
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  There's no way that man can affect the faithfulness of God.
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  And then he says this very interesting, at times frustrating phrase.
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  Let God be true, though everyone were a liar.
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  Let God be true, though everyone were a liar.
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  I'm going to give that to you in Nathan language.
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  If God were accused as faithless by everyone who had ever lived because they rejected the truth given to them.
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  Everyone who ever lived rejected the oracles of God entrusted to them.
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  It wouldn't say that God is faithless.
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  God would be found true and everyone else found a liar.
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  That's what he's saying.
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  If everyone else accused God of being faithless because some were unfaithful.
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  They would all be liars, but God would still be true.
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  He goes on to say.
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  As it is written that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.
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  Psalm 51.4 is what he's quoting there.
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  Which is, Psalm 51 is David's psalm of repentance after his great sin, Bathsheba killing her husband.
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  This is his coming back to God.
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  And before that, in verse 4, he's talked about his own sinfulness and the evidencing it gives.
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  What it actually does.
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  It makes God a righteous judge because of his actions.
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  Because of his sinfulness.
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  So that's what Paul's getting at when he says that.
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  Now the problem with this Jewish question, the what if some were unfaithful?
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  Does the unfaithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God?
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  Comes from their understanding of the covenant.
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  God's covenant with Abraham.
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  Which was an unconditional covenant.
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  We find it in Genesis chapter 12.
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  We're not going to go there.
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  But it was an unconditional covenant.
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  God made the covenant and he said, I will accomplish this thing.
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  But they didn't have a clear understanding of what that thing was.
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  They thought as a nation.
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  They were God's people.
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  If I have Jewish heritage in my lineage, therefore, I will be saved.
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  I am one of God's chosen people.
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  We're going to get into this more in chapter 11.
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  I'm honestly dreading it at this point.
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  I hope I'll be very excited by the time we get there.
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  We'll get there.
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  But the promise never was for the individual.
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  It's never for the individual.
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  Let's look at a conditional phrase.
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  Isaiah 55, 6 and 7.
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  Go ahead and turn there with me.
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  Give me a break to breathe.
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  Isaiah 55, 6 and 7.
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  So we see the unconditional covenant God made with Abraham.
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  He would bless the nations through Abraham's lineage.
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  We know that Christ comes from there.
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  The promise of the gospel has extended beyond just the Jewish nation to the church.
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  We are now Israel.
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  Here's a conditional.
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  Seek the Lord while he may be found.
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  Call upon him while he is near.
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  Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
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  Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.
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  That's the individual.
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  So here we have Isaiah, a Jewish prophet, calling the people back to God.
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  And here's the conditional promise.
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  God will be what?
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  Faithful.
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  He will have compassion.
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  He will abundantly pardon the man that returns to him.
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  That places his faith in him for his righteousness.
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  So the Jewish people had a poor understanding, generally speaking, a poor understanding of what the promises of God meant for them.
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  More of that to come in chapter 11.
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  So it was for the nation of Israel, but never the individual from Israel.
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  So then the third objection, verse 5.
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  So we had, did Paul attack God's people?
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  No.
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  Did Paul attack God's promises?
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  No.
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  The last one is, did Paul attack God's holiness?
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  He sees the question this way.
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  Here's it being asked.
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  But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, which is what we've seen to be true from the psalmist, what shall we say?
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  That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?
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  And then Paul inserts, I speak in a human way, or I speak with human logic, or I speak insanely.
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  It's another way of rendering that text.
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  I speak as a man, not as one who's spiritually enlightened to the truth of God.
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  All right?
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  That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us.
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  So did Paul attack God's holiness?
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  And in verse 6, he says once again the same phrase, by no means impossible.
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  How is it possible that God could be unrighteous?
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  For then how could God judge the world?
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  Now, Jesus had a very clear understanding of God as judge.
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  In Genesis 18, 25, he is called the judge of all the earth.
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  The psalmist repeatedly referred to him as judge.
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  Psalm 50, 58, 94.
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  The major theme of nearly all the prophets is that of God's judgment.
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  Past, present, the imminent judgment, and out far in the future, the judgment of God.
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  The Jewish people entirely understood when he said,
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  how could God be unrighteous for judging us?
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  Because if he is, then he can't be a perfect judge.
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  That's his very simple response to a very complex question.
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  Verse 7, he goes on.
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  But if through my lie, God's truth abounds to his glory.
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  Through my lie, God's truth abounds to his glory.
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  So if my sin shows God faithful in delivering me,
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  his grace is abounding when I'm found unfaithful, when I'm a sinner,
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  why am I still being condemned as a sinner?
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  Isn't it good that I prove God faithful?
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  That's what he's saying.
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  And why not do evil that good may come?
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  A common question there.
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  We're to glorify God in what we do,
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  and God is very glorified when he shows grace to sinful man.
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  Why not continue sinning?
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  That's a great idea, right?
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  We can keep drumming up grace.
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  We can keep on making God look really good and gracious to his people.
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  What a fantastic idea.
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  It says then,
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  As some people slanderously charge us with saying,
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  their condemnation is just.
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  Jude, verse 4,
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  Jude writes to the church of Corinth,
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  For certain people have crept in unnoticed,
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  who long ago were designated for this condemnation,
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  ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality,
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  sensuality, or licentiousness,
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  and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
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  So what is Jude talking about?
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  He's talking about the very same person that would have this objection,
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  or use this objection to justify their sin.
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  He's talking about these people that have slipped in,
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  who have snuck themselves in to the church at Corinth,
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  and have said,
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  If God is so gracious, we can do whatever we want.
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  It's fantastic.
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  And they've turned it into sensuality or licentiousness.
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  It's basically sexual sin.
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  So we can do these things.
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  It's good because God will forgive us because we're His children.
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  Romans chapter 5, verse 20,
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  and then chapter 6, 1 and 2.
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  Paul writes this,
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  Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
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  Seems to agree with this philosophy.
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  Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
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  Chapter 6, verse 1.
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  What shall we say then?
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  Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
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  By no means.
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  There's that phrase again.
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  It's impossible.
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  How can we who died to sin still live in it?
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  We have been delivered by the grace of God from sin.
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  As new creatures, why would we continue to sin?
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  That's not God glorifying.
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  When I sin, does God's grace abound in my life?
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  Absolutely.
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  Do I prove God faithful all the time?
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  Yes.
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  But should that be my aim?
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  Absolutely not.
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  My aim should be to obey Him.
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  To walk obediently by His grace.
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  And honor Him in that way.
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  There's a great famous debate between John Bunyan,
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  the writer of Pilgrim's Progress,
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  and some other guys that were in prison
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  for the same reason,
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  for preaching the gospel without being sanctioned.
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  But they had very different theological perspectives.
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  And they had been thrown kind of into the deepest, darkest parts of the dungeon.
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  And what's the most intelligent thing to do when you're down there
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  is to debate theology.
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  That's how I would probably pass the time.
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  And what they kept saying to him was,
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  Bunyan, you can't keep telling people how much God loves them.
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  If you're telling people how much God loves them all the time,
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  they're going to do whatever they want.
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  They would have had this objection to Paul's teaching.
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  That type of thinking.
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  That would have been the objection that's coming up here.
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  Wait a second.
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  If what you're saying is true,
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  then we should actually sin.
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  Because that makes God look great.
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  Because He's gracious to us as people.
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  Bunyan's response to them,
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  which I think was very carefully worded and poignant,
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  was,
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  No.
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  If I tell God's people about God's love for them,
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  and he's excluding this group of men from this equation,
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  if I tell God's people about God's love for them,
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  they'll do whatever He wants.
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  See the difference there?
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  See how He excluded them from even being God's people?
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  Even thinking that that's right and proper?
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  That it's even okay for a Christian to sin?
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  Shoots it down pretty quickly there, doesn't He?
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  In brief,
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  He quickly deals with these issues,
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  these questions that are raised,
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  so that He can move on.
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  Glances off of them.
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  Says,
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  Nope, nope, nope.
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  Okay.
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  Now let's keep reading the rest of chapter 3,
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  and on to the end of the book.
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  Whose condemnation is just?
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  It would be my last kind of question for you.
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  The last sentence of that,
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  He says,
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  Their condemnation is just.
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  Those who don't believe the Word of God,
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  who play light with it,
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  who ask questions with human wisdom,
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  and don't look for scriptural answers,
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  who flippantly ask questions,
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  define who God is by their wisdom,
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  are any of us guilty of that?
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  I think I have been.
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  In the past,
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  I can't give you specific examples,
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  but I'm sure that at times,
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  I've applied my logic and said,
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  Well, this doesn't make sense.
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  I don't know that God would operate that way.
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  So,
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  I'm going to ignore that passage.
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  I'm going to move beyond that.
• 23:20
  We find this often as we look at the Bible teaching
• 23:22
  the sovereignty of God in all things,
• 23:24
  and the responsibility of man in his actions.
• 23:28
  Well, that just doesn't make sense to me.
• 23:31
  So,
• 23:31
  that's alright.
• 23:35
  What is the argument Paul's made so far,
• 23:38
  up to this point?
• 23:40
  That God chose the people, Israel,
• 23:42
  to bring them righteousness by faith,
• 23:45
  made a
• 23:46
  unconditional promise to bless the nations,
• 23:49
  in Abraham's lineage.
• 23:51
  And here we see the culmination of that.
• 23:55
  That some of them rejected the gospel.
• 23:58
  And the gospel message is now passing beyond
• 24:00
  the borders of Israel,
• 24:02
  and going out to the Gentile people,
• 24:05
  those who weren't Jewish.
• 24:06
  To us.
• 24:08
  It's gone beyond that.
• 24:09
  It's accomplishing much more
• 24:10
  than the Jews ever even thought was possible.
• 24:12
  God has a covenantal people
• 24:17
  that he's calling,
• 24:19
  that he's reaching,
• 24:20
  that he's involved in bringing into the fold.
• 24:27
  But that promise is conditional for us, isn't it?
• 24:30
  Unconditional on one hand,
• 24:31
  because it's God's work in our lives,
• 24:32
  but conditioned on the fact that we live righteous.
• 24:34
  How is it that we do that?
• 24:39
  How is it that we live righteous lives
• 24:41
  before God?
• 24:45
  Jesus Christ.
• 24:46
  That's the answer.
• 24:49
  With all of our effort,
• 24:50
  and all of our strain,
• 24:51
  we should work to do right.
• 24:54
  We should read the commandments of God.
• 24:56
  We should be exhorted by them.
• 24:58
  We should be rebuked by them.
• 24:59
  We should strain
• 25:00
  to live holy lives.
• 25:02
  And when it happens,
• 25:05
  when it actually is happening in our life,
• 25:07
  we should all give all praise and honor to God.
• 25:12
  It is Christ's work,
• 25:13
  the Spirit moving in us,
• 25:15
  to help us accomplish such things.
• 25:19
  Praise be to God
• 25:20
  that our righteousness before Him
• 25:24
  is not dependent on our action.
• 25:28
  So righteousness,
• 25:29
  we're righteous in total
• 25:30
  because of Christ.
• 25:32
  We are clothed in His righteousness.
• 25:34
  We can pray.
• 25:35
  Today,
• 25:35
  none of us are going to be burned alive
• 25:37
  by God's wrath
• 25:39
  because we're seen
• 25:40
  as righteous in Christ
• 25:42
  if we place our faith in Him.
• 25:44
  No matter what you did this morning,
• 25:48
  while you ought to repent
• 25:50
  and turn back
• 25:50
  and strain to do more
• 25:53
  and to do better
• 25:53
  and to go harder,
• 25:55
  you're still seen as righteous in God.
• 25:57
  It's an amazing position
• 25:59
  we stand in
• 26:00
  to be so
• 26:01
  un-perfect
• 26:02
  and yet seen as perfect.
• 26:04
  To have both this
• 26:05
  unconditional covenant
• 26:07
  and a conditional covenant
• 26:08
  applied
• 26:09
  to our living.
• 26:10
  I pray that none of us
• 26:15
  stand in this place,
• 26:17
  this place of objection.
• 26:21
  Because if you do,
• 26:22
  your condemnation is just.
• 26:25
  You can't get on board
• 26:26
  with the fact
• 26:26
  that God is entirely sovereign
• 26:27
  in all things
• 26:28
  and yet you're responsible
• 26:29
  for your actions.
• 26:30
  You ought to live
• 26:30
  good lives,
• 26:32
  righteous lives
• 26:32
  before Him.
• 26:34
  Your condemnation is just.
• 26:36
  It's a challenge,
• 26:36
  isn't it?
• 26:37
  Mentally.
• 26:38
  It's hard to deal with.
• 26:39
  That's why this text
• 26:40
  is such a strain
• 26:41
  for our minds.
• 26:44
  But it's true,
• 26:45
  nonetheless.
• 26:47
  Later on,
• 26:48
  as Paul deals deeper
• 26:49
  with this issue
• 26:50
  in chapter 9,
• 26:52
  the same question
• 26:54
  he brings up once again.
• 26:56
  And his response to it
• 26:57
  is this.
• 26:58
  Who are you,
• 27:00
  oh man,
• 27:01
  to ask after God?
• 27:03
  That confusion
• 27:05
  of God's sovereignty,
• 27:06
  my responsibility,
• 27:07
  that's so confusing to me.
• 27:09
  I want answers, God.
• 27:10
  I don't like it.
• 27:11
  I want to figure it out.
• 27:12
  He says,
• 27:13
  who are you,
• 27:14
  oh man,
• 27:15
  to ask after God?
• 27:17
  Let's pray.
• 27:22
  Father,
• 27:23
  we thank you
• 27:23
  for the great truths
• 27:24
  of your scriptures.
• 27:24
  We thank you
• 27:25
  for your sovereignty
• 27:25
  that we can lean
• 27:26
  wholly on.
• 27:30
  I thank you,
• 27:30
  Father,
• 27:31
  that you have shown us
• 27:32
  the great weight,
• 27:33
  the cost
• 27:35
  of discipleship,
• 27:36
  the things
• 27:38
  that are required
• 27:39
  of us to do,
• 27:40
  to strive for.
• 27:43
  I'm afraid,
• 27:44
  Father,
• 27:44
  that those of us
• 27:45
  who lean heavily
• 27:47
  on the sovereignty
• 27:48
  of God
• 27:48
  take very little
• 27:50
  responsibility
• 27:51
  for our own actions.
• 27:54
  And,
• 27:55
  Father,
• 27:55
  I want to be a people
• 27:56
  who takes those truths
• 27:57
  and sets them
• 27:58
  in perfect balance
• 27:59
  really understands
• 28:02
  what it is
• 28:03
  Paul is trying
• 28:03
  to say to us
• 28:04
  that get what it takes
• 28:06
  to live righteous lives
• 28:08
  in the evidence
• 28:10
  of them,
• 28:11
  the things we do,
• 28:13
  the actions
• 28:13
  we carry out,
• 28:15
  that we can also
• 28:16
  fully embrace
• 28:17
  the righteousness
• 28:18
  we have
• 28:19
  that Christ has
• 28:19
  purchased on our behalf.
• 28:24
  Find us humble
• 28:25
  this morning,
• 28:26
  Lord.
• 28:26
  allowing you
• 28:29
  to probe our hearts
• 28:30
  for the doubts,
• 28:33
  the questions
• 28:34
  we ask,
• 28:35
  that we ask
• 28:35
  in human wisdom,
• 28:36
  and don't look
• 28:37
  to the scriptures
• 28:37
  for the answers.
• 28:40
  We pray all this
• 28:41
  in Christ's name.
• 28:42
  Amen.
• 28:45
  I'm a part
• 28:46
  of our service
• 28:46
  now where we
• 28:47
  celebrate the death,
• 28:50
  resurrection,
• 28:51
  ascension,
• 28:51
  and the eventual
• 28:52
  return of Christ,
• 28:54
  our Lord.
• 28:55
  We read our
• 28:56
  wonderful statement
• 28:57
  of faith
• 28:57
  statement this morning
• 28:59
  about that,
• 29:00
  about Christ's
• 29:00
  return for his
• 29:01
  people.
• 29:03
  I just pray
• 29:03
  that you'll
• 29:04
  take it solemnly.
• 29:05
  You will
• 29:06
  just be examined
• 29:09
  before you do
• 29:10
  and that ultimately
• 29:11
  you'll find joy
• 29:13
  in it.
• 29:13
  Amen.
• 29:43
  Amen.
• 30:13
  Amen.
• 30:43
  Amen.
• 31:13
  Amen.
• 31:43
  Amen.
• 32:13
  Amen.
• 32:43
  to one a fragrance from death to death,
• 32:46
  to the other a fragrance from life to life.
• 32:49
  Who is sufficient for these things?
• 32:51
  For we are not like so many peddlers of God's word,
• 32:54
  but as men of sincerity,
• 32:55
  as commissioned by God in the sight of God,
• 32:58
  we speak in Christ.