{"id":1418,"date":"2009-12-14T21:50:42","date_gmt":"2009-12-15T03:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1418"},"modified":"2009-12-14T21:50:42","modified_gmt":"2009-12-15T03:50:42","slug":"romans-47-thrown-away-and-covered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-47-thrown-away-and-covered\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 4:7 – Thrown-away and Covered"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Romans 4:7<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

God has separated our sins us from and has covered them with the blood of Christ.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The word translated, \u201clawless deeds<\/span>\u201d is the Greek word, anomia<\/span><\/em>, which is made up of a<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cnot\u201d and a form of nomos<\/span><\/em>, which means \u201claw.\u201d So literally, it means \u201cnot legal.\u201d By interpretation, then, it means \u201cthose things which are not legal\u201d or \u201cthose things which are in violation of the Law.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>\u201cForgiven<\/span>\u201d is from the Greek word aphi\u0113mi<\/span><\/em>. This is made up of apo<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cfrom\u201d or \u201caway from\u201d and hi\u0113mi<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto send.\u201d Hence, this literally means \u201cto send away.\u201d The verb is expressed here in the aorist tense and passive voice. The aorist tense indicates action that was performed at a point in time in the past and the passive voice indicates action done to the subject (lawless deeds). So Paul is saying that the lawless deeds were sent away at some point in the past. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSins<\/span>\u201d is from hamartia<\/span><\/em>, which is from the verb hamartan\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto miss the mark.\u201d Hamartia<\/span><\/em>, therefore, describes a situation where we have not met God\u2019s expectation of us. <\/span><\/p>\n

The word translated \u201ccovered<\/span>\u201d is epikalupt\u014d<\/span><\/em>, which is made up of epi<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cupon\u201d or \u201cover\u201d and kalupt\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto cover.\u201d This is also expressed as an aorist passive, indicating that the sins were covered over at some point in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember that Paul is quoting King David here, from Psalms 32:1<\/span><\/strong>. David is describing a condition of blessedness, when God demonstrates His favor toward us. This blessedness is the result of God forgiving, or \u201csending away,\u201d our illegal actions, which is also what it says in <\/span>Psalms 103:12<\/span><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

As far as the east is<\/span> from the west, so<\/span> far has He removed our transgressions from us.<\/span><\/p>\n

God actually separates us from our sins (our acts of lawlessness) when they are forgiven. Otherwise, He would not be able to fellowship with us because sin cannot remain in His presence. Therefore, when God forgives our sins, he sends them away (as far from us as the east is from the west!)<\/p>\n

This verse also says blessed is the man whose sins are covered over by God. In the previous chapter of Romans we learned that Christ is our mercy seat. The mercy seat was a covering of the Ark of the Covenant on which the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled, covering sins so God can \u201cpass them by.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hence, in this verse David is saying that the man whose acts of lawlessness and sins are sent away and covered over possesses the fullness of God\u2019s favor. And, as we have just learned, this blessedness does not come because we earned it in any way. We are blessed because God has chosen to bless us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

My Christian brother or sister, do you realize just how blessed you are? You and I can have fellowship with our Holy God because He has removed our sins from us and covered them with the blood of Christ. Why not take a few minutes to get on your knees and thank Him for everything He has done for you!<\/span><\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 4:7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; Truth to Learn God has separated our sins us from and has covered them with the blood of Christ. Behind the Words The word translated, \u201clawless deeds\u201d is the Greek word, anomia, which is made up of a, meaning \u201cnot\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[600,620,621,128,622],"class_list":["post-1418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-covered","tag-forgiven","tag-lawless-deeds","tag-sins","tag-thrown-away"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-mS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}