Contact Us / About Us

Phone: (404) 510-1444 Email: john@romans7ministries.org

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* * * Meeting Times & Place:

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Thursday's 6:30 - 8:30 PM:

9917 Silver Leaf Ct.

Douglasville, GA 30135

(In Arbor Station Subdivision)

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* * * ABOUT US:

OUR RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUP STRUCTURE:
The purpose of Romans 7 Ministries is to minister to people who are struggling with various strong-holds, difficulties and addictions. The primary way we accomplish this is by creating a network of 4-Marks Ministries (see Acts 2:42) within the home and community. We do this because the Gospel states that the answer to sin, strong-holds and addiction is a relationship with God and therefore by recreating the 4-Marks of the church within the home we create a fellowship that is most favorable for this meeting to occur and through which we are promised to be fed from God with the provisions we need for recovery. We accomplish this purpose by implementing the practices of the early church as described in (Acts 2:42). We believe it is also important to make this ministry easily repeatable as it is a ministry that not only helps those who attend but it also helps us who lead stay healthy ourselves as we open our own homes to others in ministry. This ministry is founded on the simple principles of the practices of Acts 2:42 and that of a life of faith in the Gospel. Keeping with this simplicity our motto is:

“Finding Recovery in the Provisions of Faith & Community”

Can finding recovery really come through home fellowships built on such a simple foundation as the 4-Marks of the Church, faith & Community?

For the answer to this question please read our pamphlet "The Community of Faith" (click on the 2nd Post at the top-left) which we believe will prove that the answer to this question is “YES”

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In addition to meeting in the format of Acts 2:42 our recovery ministry favors (but is not restricted to) An Augustinian Theology and approach to recovery, which grounds its teachings in Grace, Faith and the Scriptures of the Bible (see "our recovery theology' on the left, for a brief description of Augustinian Theology).

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Each meeting is a fellowship where believing and non-believing members can gather together weekly to support each other in our trials, struggles and weaknesses in a confidential and safe environment. Each meeting includes a portion of time to seek wisdom for our welfare and recovery through the insights of the Bible. Following this is a fellowship meal (as did the house churches described in Acts 2:42). We share this meal to celebrate the recovery that God has done and will do. We also celebrate this meal so that all can participate in the ministry of sharing and hospitality as each is lead and has opportunity. During this meal we also share our stories, trials, prayer needs, victories and Biblical recovery princiles. Finally we close in a group prayer for all the matters that were shared together, remembering also that prayer is an acknowledgement of our own powerlessness and dependency upon God.

Romans 7 Ministries & The Elements of Recovery In Acts 2:42:

Each fellowship is primarily a small “house church” patterned after Acts 2:42 and does not seek to be more than this. If a group becomes larger than twelve we recommend that a member who feels led and is supported by the group should take leadership and the group be divided and seek to start another group that will again start another group. This is an important ministry aspect of Romans 7 Ministries, which we believe is essential to each individuals continued recovery. As the Apostle Paul says, “Walk in the Spirit (which includes ministries of reaching out to others) and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh”. Seeking to help another person in need was also an essential element to the recovery of alcoholics in the early days of A.A. when it was started in Akron, Ohio. The Bible also recognizes the uniquely powerful ministry of the like-minded ministering to like-minded when it says, “comfort one another with the comfort that you yourselves have received from the Lord”.

As a small “house church”, patterned after Acts 2:42, we aim to keep things simple and flexible but yet always to be identifiable as a house church of Jesus Christ. Our ministry believes that real recovery happens through faith and grace in the provisions of the Gospel. Therefore, Jesus and His church is always the focal point of our recovery. Although the work of grace by God through His church is little understood by many today yet God's grace for recovery is a Scriptural truth that both honors God and liberates the struggling person to an abundant life. It honors God because our struggles and weaknesses cause us to seek God and recognize His sovereignty and power in matters of recovery and it also causes us to admit our limitations in achieving recovery alone. This Gospel invites the weak to exchange their ineffective personal resources for recovery for that of the provisions of the Gospel which opens doors to abundant blessings through grace and faith. For example: all members of Christ’s Church are given Christ’s righteousness and are promised His power to overcome struggles, weaknesses and addictions and to lead a new life through this faith and grace. By this exchange, (often referred to as “His life for ours”), we who are often powerless, unmanageable, insane and therefore unprofitable are now profitable both to ourselves and for others (personal ministry). By this Christian principle, “His life for ours”, we who are powerless and broken are empowered to do what we could not do on our own because God specifically promises to empower us so that all may know that our progress is the work is of God in us. And by this Christian principle, “His life for ours”, we acknowledge the power of just showing up together, expecting Him to show up also and bringing His power, management, and wisdom to our lives as we seek recovery, the abundant life, the ability to help others and to multiply God’s blessings amongst us.


How Our Meeting Groups Fulfill the Requirements of Acts2:42


In Accordance with Acts 2:42; “They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer”, we gather together as a Christian support group to do the ministry of recovery in the following way and for the following reasons:

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1) We devote ourselves to the Apostles teaching through following the calendar of J. Vernon McGee’s “Thru The Bible” Radio Program (individuals may choose to study under other teachers but the calendar of “Thru The Bible” is followed and the interpretations of J. Vernon McGee are always allowed). We use this medium because we believe the biblical teaching is sound, it covers the entire Word of God and also because it gives us a world-wide accessible liturgy that binds all the groups together so that an individual may move from group to group if necessary or take a leave of absence and still cover the entire Word of God.

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2) We meet together as believers confidentially sharing and supporting each other in fellowship as members of God’s family;

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3) We pray for one another, always remembering that prayer is also an acknowledgement of our own powerlessness and dependency upon God.

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4) We share a meal together as did the apostolic house churches. We do this to celebrate the recovery that God has done and will do. We also do this so that all can participate in the ministry of sharing and hospitality as each brings as he has opportunity and is lead to bring.

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5) We celebrate the Lord’s Supper with the fellowship meal. We do this because the Lord’s Supper is included in the description of Acts 2:42 and also because it is commanded to be observed by Jesus. It is the purest and simplest proclamation of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 11:26). In it we are humbled and reminded that Salvation and recovery (sanctification) is of God and therefore can never be fully understood by us. It humbles us because it shows us that our healing is accomplished by the work of another (1 Peter 2:24) and that this work is effectual in us (Romans 8:2-4). Therefore we celebrate the Lord’s Supper “every time that we meet”. We do this because it is a constant reminder to us that recovery is through a Person and not a formulae or program, for our healing is through the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ. We do this because we have come to understand that the correct steps, the right laws, the best wisdom, etc. will not help us who are broken or who are addicts and whose lives are unmanageable without this substitutionary life and death of Jesus Christ in us. This aspect of our ministry is in accordance with the Bible as it also puts no confidence in these other things (Philippians 3:3; Colossians 2:20-23). Jesus said regarding salvation (the reality and beginning of our sanctification), “It is like the wind. You can see and feel its effect but you cannot see how it comes or to where it goes” (John 3:8). And Paul says, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory” (1 Tim 3:16). Both of these passages above show the underlying cause of a new life and reveal that it is outside of us. For example: 1) the wind blows where it wills without any need of our contribution to it; and 2) godliness, as it is revealed in the text above, is a historical fact and it is a godliness that is not earned but one that is available to us by faith in the One who secured it for us. This is what the Lord’s Supper shows us “the historicity and the reality of our healing and wholeness through the sacrifice of Christ received by faith”. Recovery cannot be accomplished by us but rather by faith it moves upon us and affect us. Therefore we participate in our recovery with great hope and expectation even though we are not the reality under it. In the Lord’s Supper we see this and acknowledge it and then participate in the mystery of Jesus our recovery through His Sacrifice).

* For "Metting Times and Place" or to "Contact Us" see information at the top of this page.

* For a more indepth understanding of how Faith alone in the Christian Gospel is the well-spring to all true addiction recovery read our posts:

1) The Obedience of Faith Alone (The Road to Recovery)

2) Chief of Sinners Christianity by B.B. Warfield (The History of Augustinnian Theology in the Church)

3) The Romans 7 Road (This Authors Story of Addiction Recovery & Theology)

4) Critique of Modern Recovery (Why Only Christian Recovery Works and the Early Christian Roots of A.A.)

May the God of all grace and comfort, comfort and minister to you through this ministry.
Amen.

The Community of Faith

(The Road to Victorious Living)

by
John Gibbs
&
Romans 7 Ministry, Inc.


INTRODUCTION

Romans 7 Ministries is dedicated to recreating the sacred space of the Church for addiction recovery fellowships. These fellowships are held within the homes of recovering and recovered alcoholics and addicts. We accomplish this by implementing the practices of the early church as described in (Acts 2:42). We believe it is important to make this ministry easily repeatable as it is a ministry that not only helps others who are addicted but it also helps us who suffer from various addictions stay sober as we open our own homes for this ministry. This ministry is founded on the simple principles of the practices of Acts 2:42 and that of a life of faith in the Gospel. Keeping with this simplicity our motto is:

“Finding Recovery in the Provisions of Faith & Community”

Can finding recovery really come through home fellowships built on such a simple foundation as faith & Community?

We hope that this little pamphlet will prove that the answer to this question is “YES”

Copyright © 2007 by Christian Support Group Publications’
(This article may be reproduced as long as credit is given to Romans 7 Ministry, Inc. and its website @ romans7.org)



The Community of Faith


The Community of the Christian Faith has addressed the issues of sin and of addiction recovery for many centuries but today the Church and its Gospel are seen by society as simplistic and outdated approaches to the ills of society. What’s worse is that a large portion of the Church has agreed with this opinion and therefore sends the people with addictions and other strong-holds away to people who have nothing to do with the Church or the Christian Faith.

The purpose of this article is to refute this ever increasing trend in the Church and to show that the Christian Church and its community of faith is the only answer to addiction and other strong-holds recovery.

Contrary to the view of many of its critics the ‘Faith Alone’ teaching and the fellowship of the Christian community is not a simplistic view of the problem of sin or of addiction recovery but rather its so called simplicity goes to the core of the problem and is indicative of the enormity of the dilemma of our sin and that no amount of personal works or therapy can overcome it or lead to true recovery. In fact no humanly devised method will ultimately succeed according to the Scriptures. Those who try to fix the problem with any type of human method do not understand the human problem of sin (which includes addiction and other vices, etc.).

Unfortunately there are many today, even in the Church, who do not understand how “faith alone in the Gospel alone” is a necessary doctrine to the church and is the vehicle through which the we both enter into and also grow in our recovery within the Christian community and so this teaching of ‘faith alone in the Gospel alone’ has been neglected both in the church and in addiction recovery. As a result there are many who feel defeated, frustrated, without joy and without hope for their problems today.

We therefore shall attempt to show that the church of Jesus Christ is a community of Faith with the only answer to sin and addiction recovery. As a Christian community the Church is built upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it is faith in this Gospel that holds the answer to sin and addiction. But this is a leap of faith that most cannot understand or connect to the process of recovery. How can faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ be the answer and the process to recovery? This is the question this article hopes to answer for you and therefore it is important to understand the meaning of “faith alone” as this phrase is used throughout the rest of this article.

The word “Faith” in this phrase is a specific faith, the faith of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By faith alone we mean that the restoration of fallen man to a relationship with God is through faith alone in the Gospel (the good news of the Person and work of Christ). Another key word here is “relationship”. Faith alone is the only avenue to a relationship with God, which relationship holds the answer to sin and addiction. It is here that we do not allow anything other than faith to enter in. It is here that we are even against the addition of the Mosaic Law. These other things have their place but nothing but faith in the Gospel alone is allowed to enter at this place of establishing a relationship with God. It is the simple act of faith in the Gospel that brings us into eternal life and this life is a relationship with God (John 17:3) and it is a relationship with God that restores unto us everything that we lost due to sin. In this Gospel neither the Law nor our performance is a determining factor negatively affecting our relationship with God. But the Law and our performance are still good and have a purpose in other areas. For example the Law shows us the holy nature of God; it can be used as a guide to help us make decisions regarding what is right and wrong, etc. but when it tries to become a determining factor in our salvation or our eternal blessed state of unbroken relationship with God it is mercilessly thrown out and condemned as a heresy (Galatians 1:6-9). This is an important point to settle in addiction recovery because the reality of an unbroken relationship with God through faith alone in Jesus Christ is the foundation of all addiction recovery.

This rest of this article will attempt to prove the reality of this working principle of “faith alone in the Gospel alone” as necessary for both Christian salvation and also Christian living (day to day recovery from our sins and addictions). But before we get into how it is not only practical but also necessarily needed in order for us to live the Christian life and make progress in recovery let us first go straight to the Scriptures and discover how three Biblical characters lived their lives for God. And then after proving that all of these people lived by faith alone without the Law or even their own ability, and by this way alone they were in an unbroken relationship with God and through this relationship grew in the victory of the faith, we would then attempt to show the practicality of this way of living out our own recovery today by faith within a Christian community of faith.

To The Scriptures

Now, we will examine the Scriptures for its own examples of those that were approved by God for their faith without the Law or their own merit or performance and who by faith without these lived powerfully for God and grew in victory. In these examples we will examine the lives of three individuals; 1) That of Abraham, the father of faith; 2) The Apostle Paul, who many use as an example of how the New Covenant gives power to personally fulfill the Law and therefore include him in their arguments against the faith alone position, and; 3) Rahab, the prostitute, who is used as an example by James regarding how “faith without works is dead”, a verse that is constantly used against the faith alone position.

First, let us look at Abraham, an example that is so famous for living a life of faith and being approved by God receiving approval and righteousness for his faith alone. We give this example first because Scripture is so clear in this case that the text needs no other comment or explanation:

Romans 4:1-25:

So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own." If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. A sheer gift. David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man:
Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off, whose sins are wiped clean from the slate. Fortunate the person against whom the Lord does not keep score. Now, do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don't we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God? Now think: Was that declaration made before or after he was marked by the covenant rite of circumcision? That's right, before he was marked. That means that he underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation of what God had done long before to bring him into this acceptable standing with himself, an act of God he had embraced with his whole life. And it means further that Abraham is father of all people who embrace what God does for them while they are still on the "outs" with God, as yet unidentified as God's, in an "uncircumcised" condition. It is precisely these people in this condition who are called "set right by God and with God"! Abraham is also, of course, father of those who have undergone the religious rite of circumcision not just because of the ritual but because they were willing to live in the risky faith-embrace of God's action for them, the way Abraham lived long before he was marked by circumcision. That famous promise God gave Abraham—that he and his children would possess the earth—was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God's decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed. If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That's not a holy promise; that's a business deal. A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise—and God's promise at that—you can't break it. This is why the fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God's promise arrives as pure gift. That's the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father—that's reading the story backwards. He is our faith father. We call Abraham "father" not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!" Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right." But it's not just Abraham; it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God. (Romans 4:1-25 [MSG])


This chapter explains what we have been saying without comment as these verses speak for themselves and for this reason they have been used repeatedly to support the faith alone position: “faith without the works of the Law are accounted for righteousness and enable a man to live powerfully for God.”

Next we’ll look at the life of Paul, a man whose exemplary life is often used to refute the faith alone position as an example of one who was enabled to live by and personally fulfill the requirements of the Law after having become a Christian thereby proving that a man is justified and lives by faith plus works. But is this what the Scripture teaches? No, the Scripture clearly does not teach this. Paul himself said that he was a wretched man (Romans 7:25); that nothing good dwelt in his natural nature (Romans 7:18); that the Holy Spirit warred against the evil of the flesh (natural nature) that was still alive in him and that his sinful flesh warred against the power of the Spirit in him so that at times he did things that he did not want to do (Galatians 5:17); and even at the end of his life Paul does not claim power over his sinful nature but pitifully responds that he is still the chief of sinners (1 Titus 1:15) and he says this in the ‘continuing present tense’, notice he does not say, “I was the chief of sinners” but “ I am the chief of sinners” and not only this but Paul, using himself as an example, says that “this is a faithful saying” true of all Christians, and these words recorded in Timothy were written by Paul in the height of Christian maturity shortly before his death, a truth that Paul admitted and which he also expected to be admitted by you and me (in other words Paul is saying that our honesty confirms this statement of Scripture). But for the most conclusive of evidence that Paul was not only saved by grace without the Law but that he also lived by grace without the Law let us look to what Paul himself writes in Romans chapter 7 concerning his own struggles in living the Christian life: First we’ll look at the text and then we will attempt an in depth interpretation of the chapter using other respected sources so that this interpretation will be shown not to be a private one.

Romans 7:15-25

“For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do that I do not practice; but what I hate that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Rom. 7:15-25).

In this passage Paul describes a very real struggle that exists when a Christian tries to live a godly life and the grammar and context of this passage proves that Paul is speaking of his own experience after his coming to faith in Christ and this is the reason that most teachers of the Scriptures interpret this passage as recording Paul’s own experience of a continuing failure and struggle with sin even after having become a Christian.

Having therefore affirmed the position that this passage does indeed speak of Paul’s struggle as a seasoned Christian we therefore conclude, along with other passages in the Bible, that the Scriptures do speak of two natures, an old and a new, that are alive simultaneously within the born again Christian and that both continue to affect the Christian life and experience after salvation (an affirmed doctrine of Augustinian Theology).

Yet this reality of the continuing struggle between the old and new nature is debated among Christians. Regarding these two natures John F. Walvoord, a past president of Dallas Theological Seminary, says the following regarding the various opinions about the extent and duration of this struggle between the old and new nature:

”Ever since the time of the early church fathers, theologians have struggled to delineate the moral character of individuals before and after their salvation. There is general agreement that a person is sinful before salvation, but what has been debated is the extent of the transformation after the new birth. Some emphasize the tremendous change that takes place with the new birth, quoting, for example, 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Some picture the transformation as gradual, culminating in perfection in heaven. Others offer the possibility of totally eradicating sin – at least as willful sin. Others describe people as having two natures: the old nature, or sin nature, which they had before salvation, and a new nature like the divine nature of God, which includes eternal life… The central problem of all these views was and continues to be the extent and power of sin in Christians after their conversion and the means of sanctification, or a holy life, in view of the sin factor that remains.” [1]

Walvoord then goes on to give his own summary of a person’s spiritual state in regards to sin and righteousness after salvation:

"In light of the foregoing discussion, we may conclude that, once a person is saved, the spiritual state of that person includes a new nature and an old nature. That is, the believer still has an old nature – a complex of attributes with an inclination and disposition to sin; and the new nature, received (along with eternal life) at the same time of the new birth, also has a complex of attributes, but these attributes incline and dispose the Christian to a new manner of life, one that is holy in the sight of God… The basic problem of sanctification is how individuals with these two diverse aspects in their total character can achieve at least a relative measure of sanctification and righteousness in their life… The old nature has a tendency to sin and the new nature a tendency to act in righteousness; hence these two natures are in the struggle that is described in Romans 7:14-25. Moreover, just as the old nature cannot produce a righteous life, so also the new nature cannot in itself produce one either… a holy life is possible only by the grace of God and the enablement that God has provided for every Christian… Christians do not automatically experience sanctification on earth simply because they have been made new creatures in Christ. On the divine side, it requires provision for the Christians spiritual needs; on the human side, it requires appropriation.” [2]

This summary by Walvoord states that Christians do indeed have two natures, (an old nature that is still in bondage to sin and a new nature that is alive to the things of God) and that we continue to have these two natures struggling for control throughout our Christian lives. He continues to say that just as the old nature cannot produce a righteous life, so also the new nature alone cannot produce one either. He then says that the answer to this dilemma of powerlessness is two-fold. It requires provision to be made for the believer on the divine side (by grace) and it also requires the believer to take and keep hold of those provisions (by faith). This interpretation is exactly in accord with the experience and answer given by Paul in Romans 7:15-25. Paul in this passage gives thanks to God for this provision (by grace) that he takes hold of (by faith) but what exactly is it and how does it give him victory?

As Dr. Walvoord has said earlier, “Some emphasize the tremendous change that takes place with the new birth… Others offer the possibility of totally eradicating sin – at least as willful sin.” These two positions above interpret the provision to be one of inherent power. In other words they believe that believers receive the power to fully live the Christian life out of a new ability either at the time of salvation or by a second work of grace after salvation. But others believe that the Scriptures explicitly state that this provision is not an inherent power but rather a declared (legal) possession of the Christian through faith in the provision of the Gospel. This legal provision of the Gospel is what Protestant and Evangelical theologians refer to as “judicial justification”. What this term means is that the primary provision and victory that we receive in the Gospel is not our own "practically" or "inherently" but it is rather the very work and victory of God in Christ given to us by grace for our faith in the Gospel. In this way God calls us victorious even though we are not yet practically (inherently) victorious and He is just in doing this because He has truly made us victorious in Christ since Christ’s victory now legally belongs to us through faith.

In this sense God is no liar in calling Christians victorious who have no complete practical victory in this life as He has made perfect forever those He is still perfecting (Heb. 10:14). This faith, according to the Scriptures, is how Paul took hold of God’s provisions for living the Christian life and this taking hold of God’s provision by grace through ‘faith’ (apprehension) is the second part of a Christian’s victory that Walvoord spoke of earlier as the responsibility of the Christian.

This truth is also proven by a careful examination of the Romans 7 passage itself. In Romans Chapter 7:1-6 Paul speaks of the Christians freedom from the law. In verses 7-14 he speaks of the advantage that sin has over us when we live under the law or return to it. Then in verse 15 Paul begins to describe a dilemma. He says that as a believer he has within him two desires that are contrary to one another at work in him simultaneously. One desire is to carry out a godly life but there is something else in him working against this desire and continually frustrating his good desires. For a good portion of chapter 7 Paul goes back and forth describing these two laws at work in him and then he finally cries out, “Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death.” (v. 24) Immediately after this cry for help he praises God for the answer, “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25a). He then concludes with a summary, “So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (v. 25b).

The context and the order of these verses prove that Paul was not giving thanks for an inherent or practical ability to now live the Christian life or fulfill the requirements of the Law with a new power that overcame this struggle. According to the grammar and order of this passage Paul is declaring his victory over sin to be in accord with the definition described by theologians as a “judicial justification”. This fact is proven by the passage because Paul gives thanks to God for Jesus Christ as the answer to this condition and then concludes by stating that although he has the victory in Christ with power to serve the law of God with His mind yet he is still, even now after giving thanks to God for the answer to this dilemma, subject to serving the law of sin with his flesh. The fact that he is still subject to the power of sin in the flesh, even after the provision of Christ his victory, is proven by the fact that he makes this statement of slavery to sin (v. 25b) as a "So Then" conclusion continuing to occur even after the reality of his victory in Christ.

In Romans Chapter 7 Paul is definitely declaring his victory in Christ to be a judicial justification through faith alone, which is consistent with Protestant, Evangelical and Reformed Theology. He is truly giving thanks for a sure and real victory but this victory is definitely not in Paul's flesh or over the sinful tendencies of his flesh, and therefore he was still unable to personally fulfill the Law. This Paul makes plainly clear when he ends verse 25 by saying that he still serves the law of sin with his flesh even after his praise to God for the solution to this dilemma.

Therefore, the only possible answer that explains this kind of victory according to order and context of this passage is that Paul is giving thanks for the victory of Christ in his behalf and that this victory is therefore positional (with practical consequences) but not practical (Paul's own victory over the sinful tendency of the flesh) and therefore, in further conclusion and in agreement with this incredible victory of Christ in his behalf Paul writes, “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). So then, we see that Paul’s victory was not inherent or practical in the sense that he now had personal victory over sin and neither did he receive a newly acquired inherent power to overcome sin and weakness by any second work of grace. Rather Paul, who was saved by faith without the Law, continued to live by faith without the Law, as he knew that his victory was in Christ by association and imputation and therefore a true and just judicial declaration of victory by God given to sinners without a complete experiential victory over sin in the flesh. Therefore through God’s own victory of righteousness over sin (the Gospel of Christ crucified) Paul righteously lived for God while he was also and at the same time both a sinner and a saint (simul Justus et peccator) through faith in this Gospel. No wonder he was so energized to live for God by the Gospel of God because he knew he could not loose, God had guaranteed it. Even in his failures he was more than a conqueror in Christ through the Gospel.

The victorious life and the conquering reality of the Christian over sin is therefore an ever-present reality in-spite of remaining sins in the believers’ life and this God Himself accomplishes and declares about us through the imputation of Christ’s victory to us and is what theologians also refer to as positional (in Christ) rather than practical (in us).

This realization and reality of our positional and judicial victory has very real practical consequences. It enables us to live for God by faith without the Law because our transgressions against the Law cannot disqualify us and as we continue in a life of faith without the Law we grow in the grace and knowledge of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is how Paul, the chief of sinners, (1 Tim. 1:15), lived one of the most powerful lives ever lived for God, but not because he personally merited it, or acquired the ability to do the Law, but because he, a sinner, ‘lived by faith and grace’ in the provisions of the Gospel which include a righteousness and victory not his own but rather one given to him through grace by God (2 Corinthians 3:5,6).

In regards to this type of a judicial and positional righteousness Francis Turretin wtites:

“The justification of the wicked” of which Paul speaks (Rom. 4:5), ought not to be referred to as an infusion or increase of habitual righteousness, but belongs to the remission of sins (as it is explained by the apostle from David). Nay, it would not be a justification of the wicked, if it were used in any other sense than for a judicial absolution at the throne of grace. [3]

As mentioned earlier there are some who disagree with this interpretation and rather believe that a Christian has or needs an inherent justification (true personal righteousness) for true Christian victory (this is the teaching of Rome, Ariminians and Pelagians) but others teach that Christians have already received a perfect judicial righteousness by the imputation of Christ’s perfect righteousness to them and by this ever present possession we are to live for God by grace through faith over and against the fact that we are also and at the same time sinners in the fallen nature (the position of historic Protestant, Evangelical, Reformed and Augustinian theology). In regards to this issue of the basis of our justification R.C. Sproul has written much in the defense of an imputed, positional and judicial justification. The following is just one example: "Hence the issue was this: Is our justification based on the righteousness of Christ in us or the righteousness of Christ for us? Luther and the Reformers insisted that the righteousness by which we are justified is a righteousness that is extra nos , “apart from us.” He called it an iastitiam alienum, an “alien righteousness.” [4], and therefore Luther used the phrase ‘simul justus et peccator’ (simultaneously saint and sinner) to describe a Believers personal righteousness.

In summary of what has been said already we claim that born-again Christians do indeed have two natures (one that serves God and holiness and one that serves man and sin) and that believers continue to struggle with these two natures throughout their lives. As a result of this truth they never inherit a personal, practical righteousness that overcomes this struggle or that is enabled to live by the Law or have personal ability or merit before God. And because this is true they must then live by the provisions of grace through faith in a righteousness that is not their own in order to grow and walk in fellowship with God and live for Him (2 Corinthians 3:5,6).

Therefore just as ‘faith without the Law’ is essential on man’s part for salvation so ‘faith without the Law’ also is required on man’s part in Christian living. This truth is clearly seen in Paul’s instructions, “Just as you have received Christ, so walk in him” (Col. 2:6) and this is exactly what Paul did in Romans Chapter 7 as he continued to live by faith alone in the Gospel alone.

Finally we come to Rahab whose righteousness by faith becomes an important issue because her faith is used as an example by James of works being required for righteousness. This verse, “Faith without works is Dead” (James 2:26) is a favorite text of those who say that the Gospel must be combined with the Law and therefore they use this passage as a proof-text that their position is correct. But as we shall see this passage is not a proof-text for their position but rather clearly supports the position of a salvation and righteousness without the Law. First let’s look at the two places in the New Testament where the righteousness of Rahab is recorded. The first of these is found in chapter 11 of Hebrews. In this chapter the author lists the heroes of faith in order to prove his testimony regarding the Gospel providing a new and living way whereby we can boldly approach God and live for Him. Here the author of Hebrews says,

“By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.” (Heb 11:31; NKJV)

The second is in James where he uses Rahab as an example of righteousness coming by works:

“You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:24-26; NKJV)

Both verses above confirm the faith of Rahab but in the text of James she is also used as an example of justification coming by works and therefore James writes that often-cited verse, “Faith without works is dead” which is so often used to prove that the Law must precede or accompany faith for salvation. But is James saying in this passage that in addition to faith one must have works of the “Law” for either salvation or righteousness. No, in fact the verse proves beyond doubt just the opposite. For one, Rehab was not an Israelite rather she was a citizen of Jericho and therefore as a Gentile she was without the Law for the gaining of righteousness and without the altar for the forgiveness of sins. So then what were her works of righteousness? The answer is found in the text of James and the text is clear, her works of righteousness were that “she received the spies and sent them out another way”, hardly the works of the law or even something resembling a test of righteousness by anyone’s standard of works. We could understand our opponent’s argument had James said, “was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she turned from her harlotry unto God.” But this is not what James said rather he is very specific that her works of righteousness were that “she received the spies and sent them out another way.”

How then were these works the types of works that were accepted by God and credited to her as righteousness? We find the answer in the original story told in the Old Testament at Joshua chapter 2, the key verse in this story being Rehab’s confession in verse number eleven, “for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” Here we find the reason for Rehabs righteousness. From this verse we find that Rahab believed that the God of Israel was the true God and because of this she knew that the spies who were spying out her city in preparation for war against it would definitely be victorious. So to save her life she hides and helps the spies and making them promise to spare her life for her help. Hardly the kind of fruit the proponents of the Law look for when making their decision regarding those who are truly saved by examining their works under the Law. Not only this but the text is clear that Rahab’s righteousness was a righteousness without the Law because it describes Rehab as, “Rahab the prostitute” not “Rehab who was the prostitute”. For it truly was “Rehab the prostitute” who believed and was saved and therefore performed works of righteousness before turning from her profession for if her works or righteousness were done after a renunciation of her profession James could have very easily said, “Likewise, was not Rahab who ‘was’ a harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? But in order that the truth of the Gospel might be preserved the Holy Spirit also preserved the tense of this word so that the truth of God might remain with us. So we see the order according to Scripture: ‘Rehab the prostitute’ repented of her unbelief and believed that the God of Israel was the true God and so she was righteously declared righteous for her faith alone in God and from this righteousness of faith alone she did what she did, sending the spies out another way, thereby proving her righteousness by faith without the Law and no doubt continuing on in this faith to fulfill more and more righteousness as result of the righteousness that she had by faith alone.

Oh, the victory and glory of the Gospel of God !!!

So then, even though in the Old Testament writings we find that God promised the blessing to those who were obedient to the Law yet in the New Testament we find that the blessing comes by faith without obedience to the Law (Romans 3:28) and yet still fulfilling the purposes of God. Just one of the many verses in the Bible pointing to the necessity of understanding, dividing and correctly applying the knowledge of these two covenants and how they apply to us of the Christian faith is found in the Book of Hebrews where it says, “When there is a change in the priesthood (since Jesus was a priest from the tribe of Judah rather than a priest from the tribe of the Levites) there must of necessity be a change of the Law” (Hebrews 7:12) and because this change in the Law is necessary the old order of the Law and its purposes are passing away (Hebrews 8:13). Therefore there is a necessity for the study of these two covenants so that we might know how to properly apply both Law and Grace so as to live the Christian life and succeed in recovery.

Even though the Old Testament offered a blessing for the one who kept the Law (Deuteronomy 28). The ultimate purpose of the Law, according to the New Testament, was that it served as a ministry of condemnation (Galatians 3:24). The Law was added because the human race did not know they were Lawbreakers (Romans 7:7) and therefore were not aware of their need for the grace and mercy of the Gospel. The New Testament goes so far as to say that the reason the Old Testament offered a hope in the blessing through the keeping of the Law was so that the mouths of everyone in the whole world would be silenced forever as to any claim of blessing by their personal performance of the Law (Romans 3:19, 20). The true purpose of the Law then was to make us aware of our complete slavery to sin and through this discouragement drive us to faith in Christ for the grace and mercy of the Gospel (Galatians 3:24, 25).

All of this has very important implications for living out our recovery in a Christian manner that bears fruit and renders obedience possible. A preoccupation with obedience to the Law can lead only to knowledge of sin and a superficial change, and yet it is at the same time a hard taskmaster. Faith however gets to the core of the sin issue, establishes a foundational change and asks for a foundational turning of direction (to God, not the Law), as the Scripture says, “We have been called to the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26, 27) and yet paradoxically this profound and foundational change by faith is the easy way (Mathew 11:30). But in order to get more insight into how these two covenants can properly lead us on to true Christian living and recovery let us look further into the hoped for results of both of these covenants separately and in their order.

First, the Covenant of the Law:

Here, in describing the purpose of the Law I will attempt to make a short summary of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones book, “Spiritual Depression”. In this book Dr. Martin describes the purpose of the Law in order to cause his hearers to run from it and cling to the Gospel in the hopes of bringing healing to those suffering from spiritual depression caused by sin and addiction.

In the covenants of Law and Grace there are certain principles that we must understand before we can ever attempt to live the Christian life or progress in recovery. Without knowledge of these principles life is void of happiness, joy and peace. The first of these principles is a deep conviction of sin. We must get to the point where we are absolutely clear about the depth of our own sinfulness and by this knowledge made to be utterly miserable by understanding our powerlessness over sin (John 8:34). We must first become miserable and without any hope at all (including hope in the Law and our own ability) before the Gospel and its peace can be known by us. This misery and knowledge of our powerlessness is absolutely necessary and this is the true purpose of the Law, so that sin might become utterly sinful (Romans 7:13). If we become properly enlightened by the Law we will never again return to it but if we have not then we shall find ourselves once again hoping to receive something other than condemnation by it. This is not only true in the beginning of our faith but it is also true in the middle and in maturity. The Law never has a blessing for us other than to drive us to Christ. The Scripture is clear and has its order and its order must be observed if we are to derive the benefits of the Christian faith for our recovery (Galatians 3:19-22).

For those who have not been enlightened to the true purpose of the Law sin is only seen as certain kinds of actions or disobedience such addictions, etc., and of comparisons or experiences with other people. Their tendency is to think that a certain amount of change, holiness or sanctification is all that is needed to make one right and worthy of something good from God. But since they have not perceived the true purpose of the Law they continue to seek God’s blessing by a certain amount of change, holiness or sanctification through their own willpower to perform the Law and so being deceived by this course they remain under the curse rather than the hoped for blessing (Galatians 3:10).

The essential point here is that the way to know that you are a sinner is not to compare yourself with other people (2 Corinthians 10:12) or to be preoccupied with specific sins (or addictions) but rather it is to come face to face with the Law and this Law is not just the Ten Commandments but the whole of the Old Testament Law as James, the Apostle, makes clear, “To break the Law at one point is to break it all” (James 2:10). To make this point clearer Jesus sum up the Law with just two commands “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with your entire mind and all your strength. And the second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Mark 12: 30,31). Here then is the test for all who desire to earn a blessing or anything good from God through their obedience to the Law: Do you believe that you are capable of loving God with your entire being, without any flaws? This is Jesus description of the law and this is what the Law demands. This is also why the Apostle Paul says that the Law is a ministry of condemnation (2 Corinthians 3:6-9) and that according to the Law there is no one good, no, not one (Romans 3:12). The Law then forces everyone to Christ and the Gospel for grace and mercy.

The second principle that we must understand regarding the Law is how to attain the righteousness that it demands because without this righteousness we are eternally separated from God without grace, mercy, favor or blessing. This is the problem that the Gospel answers. The blessing of the Law demands that we have the righteousness of the Law before the blessing can be received but this is a righteousness man cannot attain and so it is a blessing that he cannot receive. But the Gospel offers a righteousness that supersedes the Law and this righteousness is the “Righteousness of God” Himself, (through Jesus Christ). This righteousness is received by faith alone in the person and work of Jesus by His life, death and resurrection. This is a righteousness that comes by faith to everyone who believes, a righteousness that comes by faith without the Law (Romans 3:28). This way of restoring the Blessings of God to us was accomplished by Jesus’ sacrificial death and is received by us through our faith alone and the obedience that follows salvation is also accomplished by faith without the law also. As it is written, “For just as you have received Christ so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6) therefore “The just shall (also) live by faith” (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:ll; Hebrews 10:38).

But how is it that faith fulfills obedience to God without the Law when obedience to the Law, if added to the Gospel, makes it impossible? And how is it that only faith without the Law truly addresses sin while faith plus the Law does not? This is the mystery of true holiness and sanctification, a mystery that is not understood by our natural mind but that is only revealed to us through the Word of God. For it is clear from even the Old Testament examples of God’s people that it was an active faith, not personal righteousness, that enabled these men and women to live for God and by which they were blessed by Him. This is the reason the Scriptures say that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Hebrews Chapter 11 is devoted to proving just this. Therefore let us attempt to look at how faith addresses both sin and obedience in our own lives.

First as to how faith addresses sin. Faith in the Gospel is God’s provision for us to deal with sin on our part (the subjective element of salvation) while God himself provides the objective side (the substitutionary life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ). Faith begins a reversal of mankind’s original fall into sin as it was through a lack of faith in God and His word that Adam and Eve doubted God and ate the forbidden fruit and were therefore separated from God (spiritual death). Humanity fell when we believed the lie of the Serpent (Satan) that we could be like God, knowing right and wrong for ourselves and therefore able to live independently of God. Ironically we got the freedom from God that we wanted but not in the way that we wanted. Satan, our adversary, gave us freedom from God but only as slaves for himself and he did it through the age old warfare of “divide and conquer”. By getting us to doubt God and therefore transgress God’s word we became stained with sin and now stained we could not be in fellowship with a perfect God, which fellowship was our only hope (Ephesians 2:12). God solves the problem of separation on His side by providing for us both the forgiveness of sin and a perfect righteousness through the death of His Son but now we must solve the problem of this separation on our side by restoring the faith that we originally lost in God. This is why the Apostle Paul says that we, (messengers of the Gospel) are spokesman for Christ proclaiming, “Be ye reconciled to God, for God has been reconciled to you” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). The “only” answer to sin is reconciliation with God and this is accomplished by faith in the objective message of the Gospel. Faith, therefore, is a different approach to the problem of sin because instead of hoping in reformation, personal holiness or some other formula, which is always subjective (dependant upon the sinners efforts and ability) and therefore imperfect, faith looks to and hopes in and believes in God and what He has done alone, which is always objective (dependant upon God’s work alone). Faith takes hold of these objective facts and enters into them and lives through them (a personal relationship with God) and in this way it never looks to the Law for hope to the problem of sin since the Law is dependent upon self (Philippians 3:3) and therefore is not of faith (Galatians 3:12). Rather faith looks only to God for the Truth that is independently true and therefore always sure. Faith therefore puts no hope in obtaining life or blessing through a change of the sinful nature by personal determination or willpower in order to please God and thereby receive blessing since it knows that these efforts are imperfect and will therefore always fail. A life of faith does not pursue such a foolish course for blessing (Philippians 3:9). Rather, faith addresses sin by entering into a relationship with God through the blessing of the Gospel alone as it is only this restored relationship with God that is the undoing of sin. For it is by abandoning the Law as having any answer to the problem of sin that our ‘faith alone’ perceives the full extent of sin and therefore the utter helplessness of personal reformation through the Law to supply any solution to sin (Romans 8:3), therefore faith rightly abandons a pursuit of the Law and clings only to Christ and the Gospel for a relationship with God. This alone is the reversal of the fall and this alone is our only hope.

Having therefore affirmed the reality that those of faith do indeed respect the seriousness of sin by abandoning the Law as a necessary addition to the Gospel let us look at how faith without the Law renders true obedience to God.

In a very real sense a life of faith is a story about the changing power of a relationship with God. As it is God’s love, not the Law, that is the motivating factor for a life of faith (Galatians 5:6). Our power to obey God is directly proportional to our love for God (John 14:15) and the extent of our love is directly proportional to our knowledge of the depth of our sinful nature contrasted by the knowledge of the grace, forgiveness and love of God displayed toward us through the Gospel (Luke 7:47; 1 John 4:19). The Law however can energize our faith and obedience through a negative principle by exposing the depths of our sinfulness, so that we might see the necessity of God’s death for us on the cross in order for His love toward us to be justified. For without the cross of Jesus Gods’ love and favorable actions toward us who have sinned would be unjust but through the cross God has justly judged and paid the penalty for sin and so He is just to love us. The Law then serves a purpose by showing us the depths of our sinfulness and also the seriousness of sin through the necessity of the death of Christ. So, in the Gospel this is the message that we preach, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing our trespasses against us, and has committed to us this word of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:19). A relationship with God through faith, this is the answer to sin. It is also the message that energizes and brings peace and joy, which joy is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10).

So, we see how faith is energized and empowered by the love of God displayed toward the sinner through the Gospel (Romans 2:4) and the Law continues after the Gospel for the purpose of magnifying the greatness of the Gospel that saves us from its condemnation. These two, Law and Gospel, are meant to be opposites in relation to enabling men to live for God. The Law breaks man down, humbling him, showing him his continual depravity and weakness before God and at the same time the Gospel lifts him up showing him the provision of Christ’s righteousness for him and the continual unearned favor and love of God for him, thereby making him secure in his relationship with God and so able to deal with sin but at the same time he is unable to boast or look down on others because of this.

Since a relationship with God is the answer to the problem of sin our adversary, Satan, does everything He can to destroy the security of this restored relationship. Satan usually does this by getting us to trust in the Law and our own merit again because when we do this we ultimately end up trusting in something that’s imperfect again and something imperfect cannot be in relationship with God and therefore our guilt complex returns and so we run and hide from God again just as we originally did in the Garden of Eden. Through the reintroduction of the Law Satan has once again divided and conquered and as a result sin once again reigns. This is why Paul says that the power of sin is in the Law (1Corinthians 15:56) and this verse also identifies the Law as the power in which Satan trusted in order to rule over mankind (Luke 11:21, 22). Through the Law Satan divides and conquers and therefore Jesus came to take away the Law by nailing it to His Cross and by His cross He reconciles man to God by a way that is without the Law (Romans 3:28) And where there is no Law there is no transgression or power in sin (Romans 7:8-11; 8:1) and where there is no transgression or power in sin there is constant communion with God (Hebrews 13:5,6) and where there is union with God there is victory over sin. The Gospel guarantees this restored relationship with God and thereby guarantees victory over sin which is why Paul instructs us not to return to the Law (Galatians 3) but rather to remain steadfast in a restored relationship with God through faith in the Gospel alone.

But in the midst of this objective victory of the Gospel we must also remember that the true Christian constantly lives within the reality of these two contrasting witnesses of Law and Gospel and to the extent that we see ourselves in the vast gulf between them is the extent to which we are empowered to live for God (Galatians 2:19-21). Any man who is empowered through the Gospel no longer looks within himself for personal power, reason, purpose, ability or worthiness to live for God as these are so unsure and mixed with impurity, but as Paul before him, he lives purely by faith in the Son of God who loved him and died for him. Paul himself says, “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). The merits of personal sanctification and accomplishments are not the source of strength to a man who has been reborn and enlightened by the Gospel just as they were not to Paul (Philippians 3:9) because he knows the foolishness of returning to a diminished power that is gained through personal holiness or merit through the Law, especially when the Gospel has given him a perfect power through a perfect righteousness. This ‘believing man’ lives by faith alone in the Gospel alone and by it, (without personal merit, ability, or a righteousness of his own), he lives his life for God and God is pleased with his faith without the Law (Romans 3:28). For through the Gospel this man understands the glorious mystery of what was won for him through the cross of his Savior Jesus Christ and that by it he has been delivered from the reality of his sinful self because through this Gospel his life is now hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

For this reason the Scriptures command us never to return to the Law for the perfecting of our faith (Romans and Galatians) because faith in our personal performance under the Law necessarily replaces faith in the perfect provisions of the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified. Again, this is why Paul said, “For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God” and “The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and died for me” (Galatians 2:19,20).

The Scriptures clearly show that Paul, our example for Gospel living, never did return to the Law to improve Gospel righteousness or to secure the Gospels promises or earn God’s favor, but rather Paul only allowed the Law to continue its original purpose of condemnation even after he was saved. Under the Law Paul (while a mature Christian) admitted that in his flesh he was still the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15); never having a righteousness of his own (Philippians 3:8); never having anything good of his own person to boast about (Romans 7:18; Galatians 6:14); but rather, when speaking of himself, boasted in his weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9-10); admitting that the good he wanted to do was often never done and the evil he did not want to do he found himself often doing (Romans 7:19). No, Paul never strained under the Law to prove or improve his salvation but rather allowed the Law to continually condemn him, thereby being a constant reminder to him of God’s unmerited grace to him through the Gospel in spite of his unworthiness and weakness (Romans 3:20). It was this great contrast and gulf between the Law that utterly condemned him, even as a mature Christian, and the Gospel that utterly blessed him, making the Law’s curse unable to touch him (Romans 8:1) that energized Paul to live for God by faith alone without the Law. In this sense Paul was not against the Law, telling people it was alright to break the Law, but rather Paul saw the total inability of the Law to empower him or make him right to live for God and so like a child leaving a tutor who had served his purpose and season of instruction in the child’s life Paul left the Law which had served its purpose and season of instruction in his life because the purpose of the law, “condemnation” (Galatians 3:19-25) had finished its work. Paul now understood that in and of himself he would never, even as a mature Christian, measure up to the perfection of the Law and therefore he would never receive the Laws promised blessing of favor with God or from God, which blessing was essential to live in victory over sin through fellowship with God. Therefore, Paul abandoned the Law whose promise of blessing came through personal merit in exchange for the Gospel whose promised blessing came by grace through faith alone and from this point on Paul lived by faith in the complete and overflowing provisions of that Gospel of God.

Paul understood that he was not and never would be worthy of a single blessing of God under the Law but yet Paul received every blessing that was ever promised by God through the Gospel (Ephesians 1:3). Paul, the Apostle, did not live powerfully for God due to any personal righteousness, virtue, character, or merit but rather by coming to know God through the cross of Jesus Christ he was energized by a profound sense of the unmerited grace of God that flowed out to sinful men through that cross of Christ, of whom he always understood himself to be the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). The Scriptures plainly show us that Paul lived his Christian life honestly between the realities of his own weaknesses and the Gloriousness of the Gospel of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ and between these poles of reality Paul would never again mediate by bargaining with his own personal performance under the Law (Philippians 3:7-9). Here Paul lived by faith and grace; sent by God as an Apostle with the Gospel of God. Here he worked for the Kingdom of God and witnessed to that Gospel in spite of his still present sinful nature (which spite was his taking hold of his victory over sin by the cross of Christ). Because between him and God stood a Mediator who enabled him and justified him for that very work by loving him and dying for him and so in the preaching of God’s Gospel Paul was not only its messenger but also God’s example of that very Gospel that proclaimed, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our trespasses against us.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). It was this vision of Gospel truth that empowered Paul to live so powerfully for God in spite of his failures. Oh the glorious wisdom of God in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which gives all glory, honor and power to God alone!

But does this kind of access to God give us a license to sin? “By no means”, says Paul, “We died to sin in Christ, so how can we live in it any longer” (Romans 6:2). Paul then goes on to explain how this access to God enables us to grow in our faith toward righteousness, “Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to ever-increasing holiness” (Romans 6:19). In other words, get involved in the things that God is about and your addictions will begin to loose their power (Galatians 5:16).

So here we see the Gospels way of victory over sin and for empowering Christians to obey God. By faith alone in the Gospel alone we enter into a restored and loving relationship with God through a Gospel that fulfills the Law for us and therefore a salvation without the Law. This is what keeps, enables and energizes a life toward God and righteousness (Hebrews 7:19). For it is not by personal willpower to perform the law that we overcome addiction and sin and then receive God’s blessing as a reward for overcoming but rather it is through a faith relationship with God rooted in the Gospels’ grace that we each personally receive the blessing of a restored relationship ‘first’ and then through this blessing of restored relationship the sinful nature is subdued more and more as God works out that which He Himself has worked into us as we cooperate with Him (Jeremiah 31:33; Philippians 1:6).

Having therefore proved the “faith alone position” from the Scriptures let us look at how faith alone in the Gospel alone effects our progress as we continue to participate in our recovery.


How Faith in the Gospel Affects Our Continued Recovery

As we have shown, the ‘Faith Alone’ position of the Christian faith is not a simplistic view of sin or addiction but rather it goes to the core of the problem and is indicative of the enormity of the dilemma of our sin and that no amount of good works or therapy can overcome it or lead to true recovery. Therefore, no humanly devised method will ultimately succeed according to the Scriptures. Those who try to fix the problem with any type of human method do not understand the human problem of sin (addiction, vices, etc.)

But why are all human efforts doomed to failure?

The Scriptures show us the reason: The human problem of sin is not ours alone but it is also God’s problem and therefore its solution must address these two sides of the problem. This is extremely important to understand so that we do not labor toward our recovery in vain.

Our sin is not only on a human level, against ourselves and others, but it also involves transgression against God. As a transgression against God sin alienates us from God because God’s purity demands that He can only be in the presence of purity. Man therefore is dependant upon God for the answer to his dilemma because no matter what he does he cannot even present his works to God since even his access to God is denied because of his sin. Our sin therefore is incurable because our access to God, our cure, is now denied due to our sin. Recovery (salvation) therefore, must first be solved on God’s side. This is the problem that the Gospel deals with (Jesus dies for the sins of mankind to reconcile them to God). Our faith in this Gospel is the means by which we take hold of the forgiveness of our sins and a restored relationship with God. Once restored to a relationship with God we have access to God and the resources of God which alone make us whole (this is both immediate and a process, which is often referred to as justification or salvation and then sanctification). Both our immediate recovery and the process of recovery are dependant upon ‘faith alone in this death of Christ alone’ since we do not begin our recovery by faith and then secure it or further it by a process of works but rather we participate in our immediate recovery and the process of our recovery at the very same time and this we do by taking hold of what Jesus accomplished for us by His death on the cross thereby reconciling us to God and as such guaranteeing a completed Christian recovery, one that is both already complete and being completed (Hebrews 10:14). This is THE WAY of the Gospel and it is unique. The recovered are both saved by faith and live daily by faith in this Christian Gospel of Christ crucified (Ephesians 2:8; Romans 1:17).

While we have just affirmed why our recovery must begin by faith according to the Gospel yet we must also learn why it is required to also walk daily by faith in the paradox of a completed recovery that is also yet progressing?

As noted above the Scriptures declare that the Gospel is both initially received by faith and then daily lived by faith but these faiths are not two types of faith; one type for receiving faith and another type for living by faith. No, the Scriptures declare that we are of one faith (Ephesians 4:4, 5). The content of this one faith is especially evident when the Scripture states, “Just as you have received Christ, so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6). This is the secret to the ‘one faith’ that saves completely, immediately and also progressively. Although this makes no sense to our natural minds (since something cannot be saved completely, immediately and yet still be progressive at the same time) yet this is the facts as they are recorded in the Scriptures regarding the Gospel. The Scriptures declare this truth in multiple places but most clearly in a single sentence when it says, “He (Jesus) has perfected forever those He is perfecting (sanctifying)” (Hebrews 10:14). Understanding this “one nature of faith” is essential to “a living faith” (living daily by faith).

Most people however start out with a saving faith but then walk by a different faith and so the progressive nature of faith (sanctification or ‘the fruit of faith’) never develops. To understand living faith we need to clearly define saving faith and then looking to the Scriptures see how the two are the same and then do as the Scripture commands, “Just as you received Christ, so walk in Him”.

So, how are we saved?

The Scriptures repeatedly declare that we are saved by faith but this faith is always attached to a particular object and this object is Christ and Him crucified. Three times in First Corinthians Paul comments that the unifying object of our faith is Jesus crucified for us. In 1 Corinthians 1:13, Paul states that Christ is not divided and therefore the object of our faith must not be divided so as to make the cross of Christ as to no effect. In 1 Corinthians 1:23 Paul says that we preach Christ crucified, the power and wisdom of God. Again in Chapter 2, verse 2, Paul says that he determined not to know anything but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Then in Galatians Chapter 3 Paul sums up that the reason for his insistence upon our faith having only this one object in view is so that we will not fall into the error of switching the object of our faith in Christ crucified back into putting our faith in our own abilities and works again. Paul himself never lived nor was he energized by his own abilities or accomplishments (Philippians 3:8) but rather he said that through the law he died to the law in order that he might live to God… and the life which he lived in the flesh he lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and died for him and living like this he said he did not set aside the grace of God (Galatians 2:19-21) Paul hereby confirms that he also lives by the one and same faith that saved him which faith is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified, from first to last, and so he advises these Galatians and all other Christians to do the same.

Since the object of saving faith is always on Jesus (and Him crucified) it is therefore never in ourselves at any time. This is why the Scripture verse is worded the way that it is. Notice: “Just as you received Christ, so walk in Him” How did we first receive Christ?: By faith in Him and His sacrificial death. How do we continue in this faith?; ‘By walking by faith in Him and His sacrificial death’. Our faith is always in Him and never in ourselves (our abilities or disabilities). What we have done or what we have failed to do can never diminish the reality of the perfection that we have taken hold of and abide in through Christ crucified. This is the Gospel. This is why it is said by Christian theologians that Jesus is our “vicarious substitutionary atonement and righteousness”. In other words He is both our forgiveness and our ever-present victory over sin and therefore the Scriptures declare, “We are the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). If, then we have God’s very righteousness through faith alone in Him then we can begin to understand how we can be whole immediately and completely while we are yet still progressing in recovery. This is how we walk by faith in Jesus in the same way that we received Him. We walk in our victory (Christ) and we walk in Christ (our victory) even as we are still progressing in our recovery without returning to works of the Law or of the flesh.

This is the life of faith described by the Gospel: believing in Christ as the reality of our salvation and as the reality of our righteousness, day to day, moment to moment. This is the only way we progress in perfection according to the Scriptures because it is the only way that we can remain in perfect relationship with God. We progress by a faith that is always looking to, believing on and in Jesus as we continue to participate in His completed recovery for us.

But why is this type of faith so crucial to our progress in perfection (recovery)? And what would happen then if the object of our faith progressed to faith in Jesus plus faith in our accomplishments or standards?

The answer to the above question is given in the Scriptures. When our faith is co-mingled with works of the Law or some other standard it destroys the progressive work of the Gospel ‘always and necessarily’. This is stated many times in the Scriptures but it is covered extensively in the Letter to the Galatians.

But why is it that faith co-mingled with personal works or any other standards always and necessarily destroys the progressive work of the Gospels’ perfection?

The answer is not obvious to our natural minds because we always see ourselves as the center point to understanding reality. But the Scriptures show us that reality is only understood when God is at the center point and the Scriptures show us reality from God’s perspective.

The Scriptures show us that progress in recovery ‘the Christian life’ is dependant upon reality, not on our efforts. No amount of effort will work if it is not based in reality. This is why a faith in Jesus comingled with what we can contribute always fails. This type of faith is not rooted in reality. It does not understand the full problem of sin or addiction. Here again, we need to remember that we must be informed about reality through the Scriptures.

Our progression in perfection (our recovery) is dependent upon the provisions of the Gospel through Christ and Him crucified and this Gospel accomplished something both in the earthly realm as well as something in the heavenly realm. This two-fold accomplishment was necessary because God must be “just and justifier” (Romans 3:26) in the process of our recovery.

This therefore is the problem that the Gospel solves for us concerning the acceptance of our works before God. They (our works in recovery) must be justified, since they are always imperfect, before they can be accepted by God and empowered for progress in our recovery. This is why the Gospel tells us to do everything in Jesus name because our faith is not to be in our own works but in Jesus who makes and presents both us and our works to God as perfected and therefore both we and our works are accepted and become fruitful in our recovery. And so our faith is in Christ alone even as we work out our own recovery. In other words we must always participate in our recovery from the reality that we are already whole, recovered and accepted in Christ just as Abraham believed the promise of God to him that he would be the Father of many nations before he ever even had a son. In regards to this the Scripture says that Abraham believed in God who calls those things that are not, as though they yet were (Romans 4:17).

But just as important a co-mingled faith (a faith that seeks the Gospels blessings in our recovery through the merit of our personal works) is not only unacceptable to God but it actually brings a curse upon us and thereby these efforts of faith co-mingled with Law or anything else usually end up only throwing us deeper into our sins and addictions.

But how does a faith co-mingled with Law bring a curse upon us and end up further enslaving us in our sins and addictions?

Victory over Addiction and the Power of Sin

Again, the Bible is clear that the power of sin was in the Law, because through the broken Law we became estranged from God (Romans 7:9) and without God we became the slaves of Satan and his kingdom (Ephesians 2:2). But God promised to save us from our slavery into sin (Genesis 3:15) and because of this promise He purposed a Gospel without the Law and yet fulfilling the Law so as to free man from the power of evil that enslaved him due to the broken Law (Romans 3:28). But since the power of sin was in the Law (1 Corinthians 15:55-6) and since man had broken the Law therefore God could not remain righteous and also be in fellowship with unforgiven men in order that He might save them. This problem of how God could be reconciled to a sinful humanity and thereby heal him and still remain righteous was a mystery that even the angels longed to look into (1Peter 1:12) and an accomplishment that even the powers of hell did not think was possible (1 Corinthians 2:8). But the cross of Christ accomplished the solution to this problem (Colossians 2:13-15). Through faith in the Gospel the Law is fulfilled (Romans 6:14) and being fulfilled its’ curse is set aside (Colossians. 2:14; Romans. 8:1). In this way the power of sin and the right for Satan to rule over mankind was overcome by Christ and His cross (Colossians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 15:55-6).

So then, through the Gospel God takes away the Law (Colossians 2:13-15) so as to take away the power of Sin (1Corinthians 15:55-6) so that He can justly reconcile Himself to us (Romans 3:26) and so that we can justly come to Him with a clear conscience (Hebrews 9:14) through a faith that is without the Law (Romans 3:26). This relationship and fellowship with God is how we grow in the Christian faith. Therefore, to try and establish a principle for Christian growth through anything other than this faith in the Christian Gospel is to destroy the only working principle of the Christian faith. This is why God took away the Law through the Gospel so that by fulfilling the Law for us Himself He could justly reconcile Himself to us, which is the only answer to the problem of sin. This is also the only way our consciences could be truly cleared of guilt so that we might freely come into fellowship with Him (Hebrews 9:14), and it is this fellowship alone that is also the reality of our sanctification (1Corinthians 1:30). If we set up any other standard than the shed blood of Jesus Christ as a reason to come boldly into fellowship with God then our standard, because imperfect, will expose us as hypocrites, and our conscience will justly condemn us through our short comings and with a condemned conscience we cannot come into fellowship with God and without fellowship with God we have no answer for sin or access to the provisions for growth in the Christian faith (Ephesians 2:12; Hebrews 4:16) This is why all the powers of hell work so hard to get us to return to the Law or seek merit in our own performance. They know they cannot fool God regarding the fact that He is just in being reconciled to us by His cross and so they put all their effort into fooling us in their attempt to ruin our fellowship with God, because they know that this fellowship is the only reason for our hope and growth in Him. They know that if they can get us to return to the Law (or anything other than the cross of Christ) then that standard will condemn us since it falls short of the perfect righteousness of Christ, which perfection alone is accepted by God, and then being condemned by that Law (or any of our own standards or merits) our conscience rightly becomes guilty again and through this guilt the power of sin is revived and our perfect fellowship is broken and round and round we go as we are continually brought back in slavery to sin under the Law again because of our own arrogance to resurrect that Law that God Himself took away through the Gospel that we claim we trust in (Colossians 2:13-15).

How foolish and arrogant to resurrect the Law again and thereby trample the grace of God in the Gospel underfoot in order to establish our own merit or form of righteousness? Are we so bent on insisting in something to personally boast about before men and God? We must renounce this tendency and its deception in order to keep hold of the Gospel and its gift of unbroken fellowship with God because it is only because of this perfect Gospel and its acquired justice to dispense grace to us that Paul tells us that sin shall no longer have any power over us because we are not under Law but under grace and therefore in a secure relationship with God, who Himself is our victory (Romans 6:14).

The Word of God confirms this, as it is this Gospel without the Law to which both the Law and the prophets testify (Romans 3:21) and it is in this way of taking away the Law that the Gospel triumphs over the principalities and powers that once reigned over us (Colossians 2:14-15) because their right to rule over us was through the broken Law (1 Corinthians 15:56). This broken Law is why the Devil is called ‘the power of the prince of the air’ who works his will in the unsaved sons of men (Ephesians 2:2) and why he is called the God of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4) but without the Law there is no law to break and without a broken law the power of sin is dead (Romans 7:8) and if the power of sin is dead then the power in which hell trusted and ruled over us is dead also (1 Corinthians 15: 55-56) and we are set free (Romans 8:2; John 8:6) with a clear conscience to freely and justly be in a relationship with God and serve Him (Hebrews 9:14) and in serving we also recover and grow in righteousness and holiness (Mathew 6:33; Galatians 5:16).

As the free children of God Paul says of us, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12). Therefore we do not wage war against the evils of the world or the flesh with good works of the flesh through the Law but rather with the Gospel of God declaring the victory of God in Christ crucified fulfilling the Law for us and therefore without the Law on our part and in this way we grow and are healed (2 Corinthians 10:3-4; 2Corinthians 10:3-5).

But still there are many who do not understand why the Gospel cannot be co-mingled with the Law and this is because they do not understand the problem of sin and addiction and how the cross of Christ solves it. If they understood this problem and its solution they would be as bold and uncompromising as Paul in his stand against it. It is therefore important for us in the church today to both understand and incorporate this biblical doctrine of how Faith alone in Gospel alone is the reality and the only basis of all change that is Christian (Colossians 2:17) and that this Gospel is the only truth upon which all Christian work is built and has hope (1 Corinthians 3:11).

We therefore conclude that the answer to sin and addiction is found only through faith alone in the Gospel alone. It is this Gospel alone that brings about a reversal of the fall by restoring our broken faith that separated us from God in the first place. Through His Death on the cross Jesus restored the broken fellowship between God and His people and as such and on this ground He builds His Church, the restored fellowship of God and His people over whom Satan will not prevail (Mathew 16:18). This Church is the only community with an answer to sin. Victory over sin then, in its widest New Testament concept is the community of faith called the Church of Jesus Christ. This Church is a Family consisting of many believing individuals and yet it is also one living body which is sometimes called the body of Christ. This Church known as the Body of Christ is the restored community of Faith which necessarily puts all of its faith, hope and boasting in Jesus Christ and Him crucified alone for the keeping of the Law of Christ (John 13:34) so that lives and relationships can be restored between God and men; and between man and his fellowman. And in this way of continuing our sanctification and recovery the church accomplishes its purpose in the world through the provisions of the Gospel which comes to us by faith alone.

This final conclusion brings us to the essence of the purpose of Romans 7 Ministries. Our purpose is simply to recreate the environment of the Church with all of its provisions for the overcoming of sin and addiction. This we do through implementing the essential provisions of the early Church as described in Acts 2:42.

This passage gives us the model for creating “sacred space” in the full context of the Church. By creating this space we know that God is present and therefore just showing up can change a life.


The Church and the Provisions of the Gospel for Recovery

“And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and in the fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42).

By our faith we become members of a new community and are partakers of a new covenant (2 Corinthians 3:6). This covenant brings us into relationship with each other and with God by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). It is in the provisions of this relationship with God and other believers that we grow and are healed. This passage in Acts 2:42 gives us the simplest description of this community of faith called the Church and it includes (5) essential practices that they participated in: “The Word of God”; “The fellowship of Believers”; “The Sacrament” (or Lord’s Supper); “Prayer/Praise”; and “Deeds”. (Note: Baptism and the receiving of the Holy Spirit are already implied as this is a gathering of Believers).

The following is a short description of these five elements. By including these elements in our Christian recovery fellowships we insure that we are participating in all the provisions of the Gospel.

The Fellowship of Believers

Fellowship is an important part of recovery and Christian fellowship includes four elements according to the Scriptures:

1. A Relationship with God
2. A Relationship with Believers
3. Sharing Each Others Situations
4. Sharing In God’s Work

We relate to God through Jesus, who gave His life so that we could become children of God. We therefore share our lives with Him and bring our cares and concerns to Him as He always cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). But in addition to sharing our lives with Him we also share in His life as we share in His righteousness, peace, joy, wisdom and sanctification (1 Corinthians 1:30). The Scriptures also show us that other ways in which we share in God’s life are through sharing in his suffering (Philippians. 3:10; 1 Peter 4:13); and we are also raised to new life with him (Ephesians. 2:5-6); and we will also reign with him (2 Timothy. 2:12), and even share his future glory (2 Thessalonians. 2:14). So that not only does He share in our problems and difficulties, but we have a share in his own risen life, which gives unto us overcoming power for recovery (Romans 8:11).

We also fellowship with other Believers as our fellowship is both with God and fellow believers and this fellowship is perfectly expressed in the Lord’s Supper (1Corinthians 10:16-17). Fellowship around this meal, as was done in the early church (Acts2:42), helps to build relationships as the societal divisions among people and between people and God are torn down through the reconciliation that is in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:15). We also believe that in the sharing of the fellowship meal the Gospel is proclaimed and can be participated in. And through this meal the fellowship offers an avenue for anyone who desires to share through helping to provide something for the meal. A meal also helps lighten the burden of time lost for attending the group.

We also share in each others situations, both in our joys and sorrows. This also includes sharing the consolation God gives to us in our own situations. 1 Cor. 12:26 shows the reality of our interdependence within our fellowships. We are therefore asked to be willing to be involved in a costly type of sharing and having a deep loving care within our relationships (2 Peter 1:7; Romans 12:10; 1 Peter 1:22).

We also share in God’s work. The Bible uses the word Koinōnia to describe this type of fellowship with the meaning of “a joint partnership in the work of the Lord” (for example, 2 Cor. 8:23; Phil. 1:5; Hebrews 10:33). It is a profound spiritual truth that deep fellowship is almost a byproduct of service. Even Dr. Bob, co-founder of A.A. said that Alcoholics Anonymous could be summed up in two words, “Love and Service”. Real relationships are made, not by socializing only but by joining together in service for God and to each other. This is the reason many fellowships are weak because their members want the joy of fellowship without service. True fellowship includes sharing in the work of God which also includes evangelism. You really begin to taste the blessings of the gospel only when you set out to give it away (1 Cor. 9:22-23; Philemon 1:6-7). This is also something that A.A. stressed when it said that in order to stay sober you had to help another drunk and pass the message along.

The best way of experiencing these four aspects of fellowship is in the house church or small group within a church. There we can truly have fellowship with the Lord and with each other.

The Word of God

The Word of God is an important part of an individual’s recovery and growth process. In the Scriptures we see that Recovery/Salvation is found in Christ and includes a personal relationship with Him. The renewing of our minds “a restoration to sanity” comes through knowing the Person of Christ and this the Holy Spirit does through the Scriptures. Recovery in this way comes not directly, through personal will power or ability, but through the fruit of a renewed mind. This is also consistent with the 12-Step Program, which states emphatically that “the addict is powerless, unmanageable and insane”, these things being true, personal will power, ability, or even the most perfect of laws or rules alone are automatically rejected as viable options for recovery. Biblical recovery answers this dilemma of our powerlessness by the renewing of the man and the mind through the Word of God and by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. By coming to know the Truth through the Scriptures Jesus says that we are set free. Recovery therefore is greatly promoted by the renewing of our minds through the Word of God (Romans 12:2; 2 Timothy 3:14-17)

The Lord’s Supper and Fellowship Meal

The Lord’s Supper is commanded to be observed by Jesus and it is the purest and simplest proclamation of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 11:26). Through it we are humbled and reminded that Salvation and recovery (sanctification) is of God (through the life and death of Jesus). It humbles us because it shows us that our healing is accomplished by the work of another (1 Peter 2:24) and that this work is effectual for us and in us (Romans 8:2-4). Therefore we celebrate the Lord’s Supper as a community of faith. We do this because it is a constant reminder to us that recovery is through a relationship with a Person and not simply a formulae or program, for our healing is in and through Jesus Christ. We do this because we have come to understand that the correct steps, the right laws, the best wisdom, etc. will not help us who are fallen and broken or who are addicts and whose lives are unmanageable. Without the substitutionary life and death of Jesus Christ in our behalf we are without hope (Ephesians 2:12,13). This aspect of recovery is in accordance with the Bible as it also puts no confidence in these other things for our recovery (Philippians 3:3; Colossians 2:20-23). Jesus said regarding salvation (the reality and beginning of our sanctification), “It is like the wind. You can see and feel its effect but you cannot see how it comes or to where it goes” (John 3:8). And Paul says, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory” (1 Tim 3:16). Both of these passages above show the underlying cause of a new life and reveal that it is by a reality outside of us and in this respect it is somewhat of a mystery. For example: the wind blows where it wills as we are not in control of it and “godliness”, as it is revealed in the Scripture above, is not something accomplished by us alone but rather it is revealed as a historical fact concerning the work of Jesus Christ for us in which we participate by faith. This is a godliness that is not earned but one that is available to us by faith in the One who secured it for us. This is what the Lord’s Supper shows us “the historicity and the reality of our healing and wholeness through the sacrifice of Christ which we receive by faith”. Here we see that recovery cannot be accomplished by us but that rather through faith it moves upon us and affects us as we participate in it. Therefore we participate in our recovery but we are not the reality under it. In the Lord’s Supper we see this and acknowledge it and then participate in the mystery of Jesus, our recovery, through remembering His Sacrifice for us (2 Corinthians 4:5 -7).

Prayer & Praise

Prayer, more than anything else, reminds us of the truth of our predicament. Our situation calls for the intercession of a true and mighty God and so we ask and pray. We are truly powerless, unmanageable and sometimes even insane as A.A. describes addiction and truly fallen as the Bible describes it. So we engage in both corporate prayer and private prayer as the Bible instructs us and we know that God hears our prayers as the Bible promises. Therefore we need to spend a portion of each day in prayer, which also includes praise, worship and spiritual songs, while remembering our God who is faithful to us.

Deeds of Faith

This aspect of fellowship was included under “The Fellowship of Believers” when it discussed “Sharing in God’s Work”. There we said, “It is a profound spiritual truth that deep fellowship is almost a byproduct of service. Even Dr. Bob, co-founder of A.A. said that Alcoholics Anonymous could be summed up in two words, “Love and Service”. Real relationships are made, not by socializing only but by joining together in service for God and to each other. This is the reason many fellowships are weak because their members want the joy of fellowship without service. True fellowship includes sharing in the work of God which also includes evangelism. You really begin to taste the blessings of the gospel only when you set out to give it away (1 Cor. 9:22-23; Philemon 1:6-7). This is also a teaching that A.A. stressed when it said that in order to stay sober you had to help another drunk and pass the message along”. It is through the deeds of faith that all God’s people were commended (Hebrews Ch. 11). Indeed faith without the deeds of faith is dead (James 2:17; 26). This faith also shows itself in our relationships with each other (Ephesians 2:10; Titus 2:14; 3:8). Paul shows the relationship of our being involved in faith works and our progress in recovery when he writes, “Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Deeds of faith also lead to a fuller knowledge of all we possess in Christ, “As you share the faith you have in common with others, I pray that you may come to have a complete knowledge of every blessing we have in Christ” (Philemon 1:5-6).

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On the basis of the reasons stated in this article Romans 7 Ministries will continue to make available and make known the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only answer for sin and addiction. We pledge to use our resources to make this sufficiency of the Gospel known to public and private institutions, religious and secular, and people of all walks of life. Also to make available places of Christian community that follows the practices of the Church as described in Acts 2:42 for both addiction recovery and recovery from all the realities of sin in our lives and communities.

Copyright © 2007 by Christian Support Group Publications’
(This article may be reproduced as long as credit is given to Romans 7 Ministry, Inc. and its website @ romans7.org)
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“In the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall ‘live’ by faith” (Rom. 1:17).

“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”.
(2 Cor 3:5-6)

“Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm”. (1 Tim 1:4-7; NKJV).