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“The Finished Work of Christ; the Truth of Romans 1-8”, Francis A. Schaeffer Book Review
By Basil Rehill | March 6, 2011
I have studied the book of Romans on 3 separate occasions. Each time I have come away with a new sense of God’s grace and have been left in a state of awe. Francis Schaeffer has left me in that state again. He has helped me to see a new way of applying the first eight chapters to my life and the life of those who come to me for counseling. He breaks down the first eight chapters of Romans into three sections; Justification (vs. 1:1-4:25), Sanctification (vs. 5:1-8:17) and Glorification (vs. 8:18-39) with an introduction thrown in at the beginning. In this introduction he states that chapter 1-8 “…are really an exegesis of vs. 1:16-17. You never get beyond these two verses. 1:1-15 in the introduction; 1:16-17 is the theme; then 1:18-8:39 is the exegesis of that theme.”
It makes sense to look at this verse. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’” This salvation spoken of has three tenses, past, present and future: or justification, sanctification and glorification. When I read the first eight chapters with this framework the lights began to turn on in my mind. I could see the structure more clearly than in my past studies.
In order to understand justification we must first understand our need for it. Romans begins with the person without the bible and addresses his need first and then proceeds to the person with the bible and addresses his need and finally concludes with the fact that all have sinned and need salvation. Mr. Schaeffer points out that all are found guilty. “Salvation is not just making a wager with our eternal destiny, or repeating some magic phrase. Salvation begins with the fact that God exists, and that man has rebelled against Him. Then there comes a point when each of us must decide: Will we believe God, or will we continue to rebel against Him?” Once we have accepted Christ as our savior “we have peace with God.”
Mr. Schaeffer point out a very important aspect of Romans as it pertains to counseling. “People struggle like mad to have peace in their hearts. They try all kinds of psychological methods to find some point of integration. But all such efforts lead only to disappointment unless it involves the relationship and the purpose for which we were created. The only way we can return to that purpose and to that relationship is by having our guilt before God removed on the basis of Christ’s finished work.” This is the essence of all our problems and struggles. We fight against all sorts of things in our lives and try to find that peace, but look in every place but in Christ. We never find what we search for until we come back to God through Christ.
Assuming we have accepted Christ as our savior, the next phase of salvation is sanctification. This is a process we go through each and every day as we learn to become more and more like Christ. This process can feel overwhelming at times if we take our eyes off the Lord. “But if salvation is going to have any reality in my everyday life, I must think also about walking according to the spirit.” We are either walking according our flesh or walking according to the spirit. There is no such thing as neutrality in our relationship to God. Most importantly we have no obligation to live according to the flesh. After we are justified we can begin building on a new foundation, that of our faith. It is based on the promise of God. Even though we may fall back into sin at times we can rest on the assurances that God has provided. The first is whoever believes on the some has everlasting life. This we can come back to as often as we need to throughout our lives. No matter how beaten and fallen we become we can come back to this fact. We are saved because of Christ’s finished work. This fact will always be an assurance for our counselees. This will always be our anchor to come back to.
The final phase of salvation is our future glorification when Christ returns for us and our bodies become like Christ’s glorified body. “Because the spirit indwells us, we can be sure that the Lord has purchased our whole being, and that he will one day claim it by raising us from the dead.” This gives us hope that we can share with all the people in our lives. We will one day no longer have to deal with sin and its consequences. We will no longer have to deal with our aging bodies. We will no longer be limited by the results of sin. This is what gives us hope to live today, the promise of Jesus.
Francis Schaeffer has helped me to see the larger implications of Romans not only in my life, but in the lives of those I will counsel. My foundation in my understanding of salvation and its three tenses will help me to help those who come to me. I found some of the author’s writing styles to be more difficult to understand than others I have read. The effort I had to make was well worth it to get to what was being said. I believe that I will retain the information longer since I had to work hard to get there in the first place. I highly recommend this book to anyone who desires a deeper understanding of Romans and its theology. It is also extremely helpful for anyone who wishes to counsel others.
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