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"From Faith Unto Faith "—Friday Nights With Romans
By Reb. Len G. Broughton
Perhaps a word of explanation just here is nec
essary. These .Friday night lectures by Dr. Brough
ton to his large, popular Bible class at the Taber
nacle were so rich and strong, that the stenograph
er’s notes have been worked out and carefully
revised by Dr. Broughton for The Golden Age.
There are sixteen of them and The Golden Age
will be glad to furnish back numbers to new sub
scribers. It is confidently expected that they will
be eagerly received as they contain the best
work of Dr. Broughton’s life and will greatly aid
the busy Bible student. Editor.
LECTURE 111.
Paul's Testimony of Christ.
Ch. 1:1-5.
I. Who He Is.
1. Promised by the Prophets.
2. The Son of God.
3. Os the Seed of David.
11. His Power —“Resurrection.”
1. Mastery over Death.
2. Essential to Salvation (1 Cor. 15:12-23).
111. (His Position—“ Jesus Christ Our Lord.”
Comprehended in:
1. Salvation. ,
2. Government.
Let us see to what extent Jesus was promised by
the prophets:
Gen. 3:15 —The seed of woman.
Isa. 7:14 —Born of a Virgin.
Mic. 5:2 —At Bethlehem.
Zech. 9:9 —Entry into Jerusalem.
Zech. 13:7 —Smitten by sword.
Zech. 11:12 —Sold for thirty pieces of silver.
Zech. 11:13 —Potters’ field bought.
Isa. 15:6 —Spit upon and scourged.
Ex. 12:46 —Not a bone broken.
Ps. 69:21 —Gall and vinegar.
Ps. 22:8 —Taunted with non-deliverance.
Ps. 22:7 —Mocked.
Ps. 22:16 —Feet pierced.
Isa. 53:3 —Despised and rejected.
Isa. 53:7—Opened not His mouth.
Isa. 53:8 —Moved from court to court.
Isa. 53:9 —Proven guiltless.
Isa. 53:10 —Bruised of God.
As I have gone over these verses and thought over
them I have felt such an overcoming sense of the
Scriptures as I have never felt before in my life.
I have felt that the Scriptures themselves have
not had a chance to do what God intends that they
should do; that the only thing in the world that
is needed is for the Scriptures to have a chance.
The only thing that is needed for the opening of
the eyes of the world to Jesus Christ is to give God’s
word a simple, honest chance. Now, just think of
it for a moment. Here are th~se prophecies. They
date back to the Garden of Eden, and range all the
way from the Garden of Eden to the coming of
Christ. They are prophecies which deal with every
minute detail of His life and His death, and they
are prophecies every single one of them fulfilled
in His coming, His life, and in His death.
Take such prophecies as we are dealing with here:
The piercing of His feet, made 1,000 years before
Jesus’ feet were ever pierced; despised and reject
ed and moved from court to court and bruised by
God. Bethlehem was the last place in the world to
look for the Messiah to come from, yet more than
seven hundred years before Christ was born we have
the prophet telling us that He was to come from
Bethlehem.
The only thing needed to convince the skepticism
of the world is to give the Old Testament a fair
chance. I defy any man to go to the Old Testa
ment Scriptures for light concerning the Messiah
and go away not believing that Christ was the Son
of God.
But there is another thing that I want us to see
under this general division. The Apostle speaks
The Golden Age for August 8, 1907.
of Jesus as the “Son of God,” as well as the
promised One. Now, we find it not difficult to ac
cept Jesus as the Son of God. There is not very
much controversy about that, providing that noth
ing else followed. The world expected that in some
way the Messiah would be connected with God.
There never would have been any objection to Jesus
if it had ended there, but Paul gives a step further.
He states, and this is responsible for the skepti
cism about Jesus Christ, that he is also the “Seed
of David according to the flesh.”
Now that is where the fat got into the fire. When
Paul declared that Jesus Christ was the Son of
God, and also of the seed of David according to
the flesh, then he took one step too much for the
skeptical world. I confess to you that there was
one time in my life when this very fact was to me
a great stumbling block. I know well how it came
about. I got to thinking about the unreasonable
ness of the virgin conception and birth of our Lord.
I was a young medical student, and was dealing
more with science than sense, as a great many
other people are doing today, and I got my head
all wool-gathering on the subject of the incarnation.
I said that it was incompatible with the law of
nature for that thing to be. Mary was bound to
have falsified. I went as far as any man ever
went in his accusations of Mary. However, I was
not so silly as to speak my thoughts from the
house-tops. I was ashamed of them, but I had them
in my heart. Those were terribly black and gloomy
days, when I felt the faith of my mother and my
training slipping from me.
I went to one of the most distinguished scholars
and Bible students of the country, and asked him
to give me a bit of his time to straighten me out
He took me into a long course of reasoning which
to me did not reason at all. There was no reason
in it, and there is no reason in any argument that
can be put up about this matter. Men who attempt
to reason this thing out are fools, because this is
one of the things that reason staggers in the face
of. A scholarly physician once went to Dr. P. H.
Mell with this question. He said:
“Doctor, I would believe in Christianity if I
could explain the supernatural generation of
Christ. ’ ’
Dr. Mell replied: “Well, Doctor, can you ex
plain natural generation in any case 1 ?”
The physician hesitated and then admitted that
he could not. Supernatural generation is no great
er mystery than natural generation.
My friend tried to reason with me about it and the
more he reasoned, the deeper the mystery got. I
finished my medical education, and went to the
backwoods to begin my practice, and a backwoods
preacher at an old country meeting house, one Sun
day morning, knocked out more skepticism in one
half hour than I had gotten in three years, and this
is the way he did it. He said: “If there is any
body here who is troubled about the mystery of
God becoming man, I want to take you back to the
first verse of the first chapter of Genesis. ‘ln the
beginning God.’ ”
He looked down into the audience very searching
ly, and I felt like he was looking directly at me.
He continued: “My brother, let me ask you this:
Do you believe that God was in the beginning?
That is to say, that before the beginning began God
was?” I said to myself, “Yes, I believe that.”
“Now,” he said, “If you believe that God was
ahead of the beginning, you believe the one myste
rious thing of this universe. If I believed that,
God knows I could believe anything else in the
world. ’ ’
I had gone to college and traveled clean through
the mysteries of the theory of reproduction and cell
formation, and had come out to realize that I was
just a common fool; that if God was in the begin
ning, that was the one supreme mystery of all mys
teries of this mysterious universe of God.
I have been using that same argument ever since.
I do not want anything better to crack skeptics over
the head with. When I ask them this question, they
always say, “Yes.” We have very few outright
infidels today. Almost everybody believes in God
—that away back yonder before the beginning God
was, and I always hold them right down to this:
“Think about all the doubts that you have ever
had about it, and then answer me this question:
after all these doubts, do you believe that away
back yonder at the beginning was God?” They al
ways say, “Yes, there was a God back there to
create things.” Then I tell them that if I believed
that God was in the beginning I could believe any
thing that He says; that if He was so great as to
create Himself in the beginning, He could create
Himself through the womb of a virgin woman.
The Apostle Paul believed that Jesus was the
Son of God, and not only the Son of God, but “of
the seed of David, according to the flesh.” Jesus
Christ developed just like any other child up to
the point of His birth, and after his birth He con
tinued to grow just like any other child.
Now you will notice another thing. Paul speaks
of “His power.” First, it was His origin, and
now it is “His power,” and all this attested by
“the resurrection.” He has introduced Jesus to
us as “Promised by the prophets,” “The Son of
God,” “Os the Seed of David,” according to the
flesh, and now, His power, according to the resurrec
tion. His resurrection is the expression of his
power.
Now, I want us to see something of the signifi
cance of the doctrine of the resurrection. Why
did Paul, in introducing Jesus Christ to the Rom
ans, speak of His resurrection? First of all, be
cause Paul himself had a personal knowledge that
Jesus Christ had arisen from the dead. He had
seen Him. He had appeared to him, and assured
him that He had arisen from the dead; and then
he had the testimony of the rest of the Apostles,
and a host of others. Paul had no doubt about
the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He testified to them concerning the resurrection,
first, because of his own personal knowledge, and
second, because of the deep significance of the fact
of the resurrection to the Church of Jesus Christ.
What is the significance of the resurrection ? Let
us go to the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians
and get it. What, acording to this, is the signifi
cance of the resurrection?
It is this: If Jesus did not arise from the dead
then our faith is vain. We hear men today poo
pooing the resurrection of Jesus Christ; some theo
logians, Bible teachers, and preachers of the gospel.
How can they do it when they are confronted with
the plain assertion of the Apostle Paul? I cannot
see how any man who claims any intimacy with
his Bible and who fears God can make a statement
disparaging to the resurrection.
There are two things essential to salvation. The
first is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and the
next is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, in
the Lord’s supper we celebrate the crucifixion, His
broken body and shed blood; in Baptism we cele
brate the burial and resurrection of Jesus. Thus
in these types, one by communion and the other by
baptism, we set forth to the world the two essen
tial things that enter into the salvation of the
world, namely crucifixion and resurrection.
I never come to the Lord’s table that I do not
look to the cross; and I never come to baptism that
I do not see the resurrection. And in these two
simple types we set forth to the world the plan of
human redemption.
Understand, Ido not say that communion is es
sential to salvation, nor do I say that baptism is es
sential to salvation. I say that the two things
that are essential to salvation are crucifixion and
resurrection, the only types which we have to set
forth these two essentials are first, communion, sec
ond, baptism.
We are now ready to come to the next thought,
which is the closing thought in this present study. *
His position. Here is something very deeply sig
nificant. “Jesus Christ our Lord.” You will be
struck with that expression, “Our Lord.” What is