Was our nation established by God? Indeed! Paul tells us that ALL nations have been established by God. The very best nations in this age may reflect a deference to the Kingdom of God and a degree of submission to it's principle, but no nation of this age will ever become the Kingdom of God. All national governments, including ours, will one day be relegated to the ash heap of history. When the Kingdom of God comes in it's fullness the Scriptures say it will "destroy" all other authority and power. But in the meantime, Christians have a duty and obligation to the nations they are citizens of.

Romans 13:1-7

Rev. George C. Hammond

A Nation Under God

Those who are in Christ will be marked by love; love for other Christians, love for mankind in general, and even love for our enemies. But what is love?

Romans 12:9-21

Rev. George C. Hammond

Love's Bridge

By the mercies of God, because of what Christ has done for us, we present our lives to God as a living sacrifice in worship, a summation of how we have lived for the week. Knowing, believing, and living in the grace of God has a transformative effect. Fear that we may fail will keep us from boldly exercising the gifts God has given us. But fear is incompatible with faith. If we understand that grace of God, we know that even our failures cannot separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. We we are bold to exercise our gifts in the body. Understanding grace also means that we accept those who have gifts that differ from ours and rejoice in them.

Romans 12:3-8

Rev. George C. Hammond

Inside and Out

God's grace is free. We don't earn it or deserve it. God does not treat His children as their sins deserve, but as the righteousness of Christ deserves. But God's grace does not simply expiate our sins. It changes us, so that the truth does not have dominion over us is more and more realized in our lives.

Romans 12:1-2

Rev. George C. Hammond

It's Imperative

In the promise made to Abraham and brought to fruition through Moses, God established an elect nation (Deut 7). And yet as Paul makes clear in chapter 9, not all the people in the elect nation were elect individuals. Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Paul specifically points out Ishmael and Esau. Even in the OT there were elect gentiles who were grafted in to the elect people, Rahab and Ruth being the most well-known. When the Son of God came into the world he was rejected by most of the elect nation, and received only the elect within the nation. As time went by, fewer and fewer of the elect nation trusted in him, but more and more of the gentiles did. They were not a different, separate people. They were the people of God, the "natural branches" broken off for their unbelief so that the "wild branches" could be grafted in to Israel. But now Paul tells us a "mystery" - not a puzzle to be solved, but rather a revelation of something would could not otherwise know - that the hardening of the Israelites is not only partial, but it is temporary. Once the fullness of the gentiles comes in, the physical descendants of Abraham will return, and thus "all Israel will be saved" - an Israel made up of the elect and redeemed of all the nations.

Romans 11:25-36

Rev. George C. Hammond

It's A Mystery

Going back as far as Hyppolytus of Rome, some in the Church have taught "supersessionism," the idea that God cast off the descendants of Abraham in favor of the Gentiles. Much as one might draw that conclusion by observing events, and the Gentiles in the church at Rome drew that conclusion, the Scriptures say something different. They indicated in Romans 11 and Ephesians 2 that the Gentiles who have believed in the promised Christ have not replaced the children of Abraham, but have been grafted in to them. There is not, never has been, and never will be any other than ONE People of God.

Romans 11:13-24

Rev. George C. Hammond

THE People of God

Since the advent of Dispensationalism there has been a hope placed in a reconstitution of nation of Israel. The creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 caused Dispenationalists to proclaim that prophecy had been fulfilled. As a result a segment of Reformed Christianity today denies any special blessing to or for the physical descendants of Abraham. But it was not always this way.

Reformation theologians John Calvin and John Knox, and later theologians such as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Spurgeon maintained that the plain reading of Romans 11 meant that there would be a turning to Christ by the physical descendants of Abraham. As late as 1965 John Murray wrote that Romans 11 indicated that the hardening of the Jewish people was neither total (since Paul believed), nor permanent.

We should not throw out the baby with the bathwater in reaction to erroneous theology. What is in focus is not the reconstitution of a nation, but the conversion of a people.

Romans 11:1-12

Rev. George C. Hammond

A People, A Promise, A Prophecy

No Better No Worse

For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile - the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Romans 10:1-13

Rev. George C. Hammond

The Good Confession

In Matthew 9:13, Jesus said, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Jesus is a scandal, and the gospel is very bad news for "the righteous."

Romans 9:30-33

Rev. George C. Hammond

The Holy Scandal

The doctrine of election and the people of God.

Romans 9:6-29

Rev. George C. Hammond

It's Personal

Being born into the church is an advantage, but it is not a guarantee as Paul makes clear in the book of Romans. Yet God established his covenant and works his grace through faithful families.

Psalm 145

Rev. George C. Hammond

One Generation to the Next

"Conceived by the Holy Spirit... Crucified, Died, and Was Buried... The Third Day He Rose Again From the Dead"

Matthew 28:1-10

Rev. George C. Hammond

Resurrection Day

Jesus went to Jerusalem and for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.

Matthew 21:1-11

Rev. George C. Hammond

For the Joy Set Before Him

God's Sovereignty in Election means that God always keep his promises, but they may not work out the way we anticipated. God's promises do not back him into a corner, or force him to accept sin.

Romans 9:1-13

Rev. George C. Hammond

The Unsettling Settling

The sufferings Christians undergo are not proof that God does not love them, or has abandoned them. The effect of them is our good, and not only negatively. It is not merely that God is consuming our dross, but he is refining our gold. So give thanks to God for all things (even when it seems counter intuitive to do so).

Romans 8:28-39

Rev. George C. Hammond

A Working God

Beloved, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Romans 8:18-27

Rev. George C. Hammond

Den Grimme Aelling and the Kingdom of God

For those who are not "in the flesh," but are "in the Spirit" (viz. all true Christians), the evidence of our being justified with God and our being of another realm of existence is subjective (that is, within us - others can't see it, and we can only sense it through conscience and persuasion). Is there any objective evidence that we belong to Another Age? Yes. It is the fact that since we don't fit in this one, we will have a fair amount of suffering and discomfort here, a suffering and discomfort which we could avoid if we belonged to this age. But entering into the sufferings of Christ is an objective testimony that we will also share with him in his glory.

Romans 8:12-17

Rev. George C. Hammond

Evidence of Another Age

In Paul's theology, "flesh" and "spirit" are not anthropological components, but redemptive historical realities. To be "in the flesh" is to have one's point of reference in his perishing age. To be "in the Spirit" is to have one's point of reference on the New Creation, which Christ in his resurrection is and anticipates, and of which we, if we are in Christ, are made partakers of.

Romans 8:5-11

Rev. George C. Hammond

The Point of Reference

The struggle that Paul details is a struggle, not before he was a Christian, but after. It is a struggle that every Christian will have until his justified spirit is made perfect with a view to the resurrection of the body. But more significantly, is the struggle is between Paul as he is in himself and Paul as he is in Christ. The perfectionist heresy taught that man in this life could be free from doing any sin if he tried really hard because of the power of Christ in him. John says that such a man is a liar, and the truth is not in him. The lesson with regard to sanctification, though, is this: that those who truly are justified long for sanctification.

Romans 7:7-8:4

Rev. George C. Hammond

The Epic Struggle