By
1.
INTRO:
1.1.
In our last study, we looked
at verses 21 of chapter 3 through verse 3 of chapter 4.
1.1.1. Paul began to build his argument for how that since we as people are
utterly corrupt, depraved, and useless to God based upon our own righteousness,
that our salvation has to be received by us by our faith in Christ and His work
for us on Calvary’s cross.
1.1.2. We saw how that we are “justified as a gift by His grace” when
we believe in Christ and His great substitutionary
sacrifice for us.
1.1.3. We saw how that Christ’s death on
1.1.4. We saw that Paul was using that man who is the most famous of men who
has ever lived, Abraham, as an example of righteousness being reckoned to God’s
people by their faith. We noted that
Abraham is considered by the three major religions on the earth to be the
founder, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
1.1.5. Directing himself towards appealing to the law-keeping Jews Paul began
to use Abraham the Jewish patriarch as an example of a man’s faith being
reckoned to his as righteousness.
1.1.6. We saw how that it was the case that not only in New Testament times but
also in the Old Testament times also that people were made righteous before God
not based upon the basis of their works but rather upon their faith.
1.2.
In our study today, we are
going to look at verses 4-13 of chapter 4
1.2.1. Paul will continue to detail for us how that it was by Ahraham’s faith that he became one of God’s people and
inherited all of the great promises given to him by the Lord.
1.2.2. Paul appeals to the Jews as he asks them if these promises were
inherited by Abraham after he was circumcised or before, when he was living in
the promised land as one of God’s people or before when he lived in Ur of the Chaldees.
1.2.3. We will look at the lives of both Abraham and King David as examples to
us of men whose faith was reckoned to them as righteousness.
1.2.4. We will study the great promises made to Abraham.
2. VS 4:4 - “4 Now to the
one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due.” – Paul tells us that when a person works for something that his wage he
receives is what he is due not a favor from his boss
2.1.
You who have an employer,
can you imagine if when payday came around that your boss were to hand you your
paycheck and then tell you something like, “I’m only giving you this as a
favor!” ? You would think that he
was way out of line in saying something like this because you worked hard for
your wages. In a similar way, if we as
people were able to get to heaven by our works then God’s granting us eternal
life would have nothing to do with Him being merciful or showing us grace. Instead, He would just be giving us what we
deserved because of all of our hard work.
However, the Bible tells us that we are saved because of God’s mercy and
grace that He has revealed to us who are unworthy and sinful people. A person’s coming to salvation glorifies the
Lord alone.
2.2.
The scripture records that men and women shall only be
saved through the mercy and grace of God and our placing our faith in Jesus
Christ and His work on Calvary’s cross for us, and for no other reason.
2.3.
The scripture does not record why it was that the Lord
chose Abraham over all of the other people on the face of the earth. There was no special thing that we know of in
Abraham’s life that caused the Lord to desire to call him. In fact, if we see anything about Abraham
from the book of Genesis it is the fact that though he had faith in the Lord
that it was not great faith that he had, for he often lapsed in his faith and
depended upon his own shrewdness and resources to get himself out of trouble
rather than the Lord. All that we know
about who comes to salvation and who does not is that God sovereignly
elects and chooses who shall be saved.
Plus, since all have the opportunity to come to salvation through
Christ, if anyone chooses not to accept the free gift of eternal life through
Christ it is his own fault. This
knowledge should be enough for us to know.
2.4.
As I say, Abraham was a man who did not have great
faith, but just a little faith. When we
read the account of Abraham’s life in Genesis we see that he left
2.5.
We Christians must likewise always realize that
because we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that our ‘due’
would have been the fires of hell, and therefore our salvation is not the
result of anything that we have earned, but occurs only because of what He has
done for us. We must always declare,
worthy is the Lamb that was slain!
3. VS 4:5 - “5 But to the
one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith
is reckoned as righteousness,” - Paul tells us that the one who does not work
but has faith in Christ for salvation has his faith reckoned to him as
righteousness
3.1.
In this verse, Paul writes that the one who shall be
justified before God is the one who ‘does not work.’ In order for a person to be saved, he has to come
to the end of himself and cry out to God for Him to have mercy and forgive and
justify him. As long as a person is
trying to work his way to obtaining justification before God, then he cannot
receive the righteous of Christ imputed to him.
3.2.
Paul writes that it is God who ‘justifies the
ungodly,’ and I already mentioned in my commentary on verse 1 of this
chapter that since doing this study I have come to realize that one of the
reasons why the Bible contains both the victories as well as the failures of
God’s called people is so that people might realize that “there is none who
does good, no not one” and that all men are ‘ungodly.’ There is none beside the ‘ungodly’
whom God reckons as righteous, because there are no people on this earth who
are not ‘ungodly’ in God’s sight.
3.3.
Paul stipulates that the one who believes in Him for
salvation is also the ‘one who does not work,’ and we must realize that
if we are believing in Christ for salvation while at the same time trying to
justify ourselves before Him by our works, that we are going to fall short of
having true faith. We must come to the
end of ourselves and cry out to God for Him to forgive us and cleanse us
through Jesus Christ and His completed work on the cross with no merit or
righteousness of our own. Then and only
then, we shall be saved and the ‘righteousness’ of Christ imputed to us.
3.4.
As I mentioned in a previous study, we should do good
works and serve the Lord with our lives.
However, we must never do our good deeds in order to make ourselves
righteous or acceptable to God. We are
to do these things out of gratitude and thankfulness to the Lord not to try to
gain His approval and acceptance of us.
3.5.
There have been some who call themselves Christian all
throughout history who have not been able to come to the point of realizing a
salvation that is a gift and completely for the receiving, and they have always
stated that all or parts of the Mosaic Law (I’m speaking of the hundreds of
ceremonial laws here) have to also be kept in order for a person to truly be
saved. However, listen to what the
scripture tells us here. Paul writes
under inspiration of the Holy Spirit that salvation is to be received not by
one who works but by ‘one who does not work.’
3.6.
Our faith is not righteous, neither does our faith
make us righteous, rather it is when we place our faith in Christ and His
completed work on our behalf, that God reckons our faith as ‘righteousness’
through Jesus Christ. From that point
on, we are looked at by God as possessing all of the ‘righteousness’ of
His Son, the Lamb of God who was without spot or blemish.
4. VS 4:6-8 - “6 just as
David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons
righteousness apart from works: 7
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have
been covered. 8 “Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”” - Paul now begins to quote from David’s
writings in the Psalms as an example of a man whom God forgave much and
justified because of his faith
4.1.
The particular incident which precipitated David’s
writing of Psalm 32 was his complete moral failure in committing adultery with
Bathsheba, and then having her husband sent off to the front of the battle line
and the other men pull away from him so that he would be killed in battle. David tried to hide his sin from the Lord,
and he kept it inside him, however the conviction which he felt for that sin
was mighty and burned and burned within him.
Finally, after Nathan the prophet was sent to him and he repented of his
sin he came broken before the Lord asking only for mercy and forgiveness. This incident of receiving the unmerited
favor from God when all he deserved was judgment and condemnation inspired
David to write the Psalm quoted in these verses. Utter failure to serve and honor God in your
life brings a sinner to the end of self-righteousness and the realization of
his unworthiness and sin and need of a Savior in Jesus Christ.
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4.2.
Although Paul’s primary object in writing chapter 4 of
the book of Romans was to use the life of Abraham as an example of how in Old
Testament times that God also justified men and women through their faith, we
can look at the life of David and see a man with failures as great or greater
than ours, and know that he also was not justified before God based upon his
works. David’s faith was reckoned as
righteousness, as has been the case with all of God’s people since creation.
4.3.
David experienced God’s forgiveness of his sin, the
covering of his sin, and the righteousness of Christ reckoned to him in a
futuristic fulfillment since his sin God did ‘not take into account.’
4.4.
If salvation were by works, then it would not be by
faith, and if it is by faith, then it cannot be by works. The two methods to obtain salvation are
mutually exclusive, and cannot exist in any sort of combination. We Christians must realize that our salvation
is given to us based upon what Christ has done for us, totally apart from any
works which we have done.
4.5.
It is such a blessing to us who have come to faith in
Christ to know that God is not counting and recording our sins now that we have
come to faith in Christ, and, that He is no longer imputing sin to us.
5. VS 4:9-10 - “9 Is this
blessing then upon the circumcised, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say,
“Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10 How then was it reckoned? While he was
circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised;” - Paul asks the rhetorical
question of whether or not this blessing of having righteousness reckoned to a
person comes upon the circumcised only or also the uncircumcised? Then, Paul states that Abraham received his
blessings of being accepted by God by his faith while he was yet uncircumcised
5.1.
Paul makes a point that shocks the Jewish reader in
these verses. Here, Paul is trying to
bring out that Abraham was called not while he was a Jew, but rather a heathen
Gentile idolater. As such a person,
Abraham had his faith in God reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, cannot Gentiles today also have
their faith in Christ reckoned to them as righteousness?
5.2.
Jews as well as Gentiles can look to their forefather
Abraham as being an example of one who was justified not because of his works
but because of his faith, as the accounts in Genesis testify.
5.3.
Paul brings out in verse 10 that circumcision, the
rite that the Jews were so proud of was performed on Abraham while he was a
pagan idolater.
5.4.
If we being either Jew or Gentile look to Abraham as
our spiritual forefather, then we ought to follow his example and be justified
before God on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, the Messiah
whom Abraham looked forward to as John 8:56 tells us, “56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it
and was glad.”” Abraham
looked forward to the time when Jesus Christ would come and he was made
righteous in God’s sight by the application of the same blood of Christ that we
will be made righteous, if we believe upon Jesus Christ as our Lord and our
Savior.
6. VS 4:11-12 - “11 and
he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith
which he had while uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all who
believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be reckoned to
them, 12 and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the
circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father
Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.” - Paul tells us that it was after Abraham was already
one of the people of God that he was told to perform the rite of circumcision
and that this rite was really just a seal of what had already happened in his
life, of the righteousness that he had received by faith
6.1.
Circumcision was something that set the Jews apart
from all of the other nations of the world, and something for which they were
extremely proud. The Jews assumed that
merely being circumcised assured them that they were God’s people. However, in these verses Paul points out that
Abraham received the rite of circumcision while he was an idolatrous pagan in
6.2.
Paul calls circumcision ‘a seal of the
righteousness of the faith,’ for it was meant to be symbolic of what in
fact was already true of the Jews.
Through faith they had been made righteousness by God, and the external
rite of circumcision was to be symbolic of what had already occurred in their
hearts and lives.
6.3.
By saying that Abraham received circumcision while he
was a pagan idolater, Paul then could say that Abraham was the spiritual father
of Jews and Gentiles alike, and, therefore they all ought to follow the
footsteps of their forefather who had his faith reckoned to him as
righteousness, and trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
6.4.
Just as the Jews wrongly based their hope of salvation
upon being circumcised, we Christians must not rely upon any external thing
such as baptism, church membership, correct doctrines, a special gift of the
Spirit, etc., in order to believe that we are accepted and justified in God’s
sight. We are saved by faith in Christ
Jesus as Lord and Savior, plus “nothing”!
7. VS 4:13 - “13 For the
promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was
not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.” - Paul tells us that the
promise made to Abraham by God that he would be the heir of the world was made
not through keeping of the Law but through the righteousness of faith
7.1.
Chapter 4 of Romans deals with the subject of how it
came to pass that Abraham became “right” with God, or became one of
God’s people. Abraham lived at least 500
years before Moses and the Law of Moses, and he became “right” with God
because of his faith, faith in the promises that God had made to him. He believed that God was able and willing to
fulfill those promises, and in obedience to God’s commands to him, he went and
followed God’s leading in his life. The
righteousness of Christ future was imputed to him at the first step of faith he
took in leaving the
7.2.
In chapter 4, Paul’s aim is to show that Abraham of
the Old Testament was not made righteous or just in God’s sight by any of his
good works, but by faith. He also seeks
to impart to us that all those who are true descendants of Abraham are so not
by physical descendancy, but by spirutual
descendancy, by being justified by their faith in the
promises of God, as was Abraham. In John
8:43-47, Jesus told Jews who were physically descended from Abraham that they
were in reality not sons of God, but sons of the devil, “43 “Why do you not
understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. 44 “You are
of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was
a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there
is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature;
for he is a liar, and the father of lies. 45 “But because I speak the truth,
you do not believe
7.3.
Likewise, in Mat. 3:7-10, when John the Baptist was
baptizing, he told the Jewish leaders who were coming to him for baptism that
their physical descendancy to Abraham didn’t gain
them anything if they were not obedient to God, “7 But when he saw many of
the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of
vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bring forth
fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to
yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is
able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 “And the axe is
already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear
good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
7.4.
As was mentioned, Abraham lived at least 500 years
before the giving of the Mosaic Law, so Paul reminds the Jews in this verse
that God’s promise to Abraham was given ‘not through the Law.’ Likewise, the justification which Abraham
received before God was received not through Abraham’s law-keeping, since there
was no written Law to keep, but rather completely upon the basis of his
faith. Abraham believed the Word of God
that had been given to him and in the obedience of faith acted upon that word.
7.5.
In the rest of this chapter, Paul discusses how it was
that Abraham came to receive and believe in the promises made by God to him.
7.6.
As we look at the promises made by God to Abraham, we
see that they involve four different areas:
7.6.1. First, God
promised that He would give him a land (Gen. 15:18-21, “18 On that day the
Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this
land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river
Euphrates: 19 the Kenite
and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite
20 and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim 21 and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite,”
however it was 500 years before Joshua conquered the land of Canaan and the
Israelites realized any of that promise.
7.6.2. Secondly,
God promised that He would become a people so numerous that they could not be
numbered, something which was comparable to the stars in the sky or the dust of
the earth (Gen. 13:16 says, “16 “And I will make your descendants as the
dust of the earth; so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then
your descendants can also be numbered;”
15:5 says, “5 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the
heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to
him, “So shall your descendants be.””
7.6.2.1. Abraham was
originally named “Abram” which means
“father of many”, but after making
some of the promises, God changed his name to “Abraham,” which means “father
of a multitude,” and thus Genesis 16:5 records God changing Abraham’s name,
“5 “No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be
Abraham; For I will make you the father
of a multitude of nations.”
7.6.3. Third, God’s
promise was to make Abraham a blessing to the entire world (Gen. 12:3 says, “3 And
I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth
shall be blessed.””
7.6.3.1. This promise reminds me of Rev. 5:9 where we see that the Lord Jesus
Christ has purchased for God with His blood people from every tribe, tongue,
people and nation of people on the face of the earth. There shall be some saved from every tribe,
tongue, people, and nation on the face of the earth.
7.6.4. Fourth,
God’s promise to Abraham involves the giving of a Redeemer as a descendant of
his who would bless the entire world by bringing salvation (Gen. 12:3), and as
Paul wrote in Gal. 3: 8-9, this promise is Messianic and fulfilled in Christ’s
Kingdom being setup, “8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify
the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All
the nations shall be blessed in you.” 9
So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.”
7.7.
Before you criticize Abraham for the lapses in his
faith consider something. Abraham was a
man of faith, for in his lifetime he saw the fulfillment of none of the
promises which God made to him, however he died believing that somehow God
would fulfill those promises which He had made.
All Abraham ever received in believing God’s promises was a miraculous
son of promise in Isaac.
7.8.
Jesus said in John 8:54-56 that Abraham saw the day
when He would come as the Savior and Redeemer, “54 Jesus answered, “If I
glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom
you say, ‘He is our God’; 55 and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him;
and if I say that I do not know Him, I shall be a liar like you, but I do know
Him, and keep His word. 56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he
saw it and was glad.”” I believe
that when Abraham had his faith reckoned to him as righteousness and he was
justified before God, that he knew that God had reckoned him righteous not
based upon His own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of the
coming Messiah imputed to him.
7.9.
Likewise, in Hebrews 11:8-10 the author reveals that
Abraham knew that the promises he had inherited went beyond his lifetime and
the grave, but actually included eternal life in heaven with God, in a heavenly
city created by God, “8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by
going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went
out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he lived as an alien in the
land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob,
fellow heirs of the same promise; 10 for he was looking for the city which has
foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
7.10. When we
contemplate the life of Abraham, and we see what a man of faith he was in trusting
God to the grave to fulfill the promises which He had made to him yet never
seeing their fulfillment, then we ought to be encouraged ourselves not to give
up hope in God. When we go through those
tremendously long and dry valley times when the promises God has made to us
seem so far away and distant, then we need to just hang in there and trust that
He is faithful and will fulfill His Word to us.
So many times we give up just before the blessing, but Abraham should be
our example to hold to God’s faithfulness to the end.
8. CONCLUSIONS:
8.1.
As we consider this message
and how that we ought to apply it to our life, we again need to recognize that
our salvation through Christ is one that is given to us as a gift apart from
any works that we might do. Just as with
our father Abraham our salvation comes to us because the righteousness of Jesus
Christ is imputed to us through of our faith in Christ, apart from any works
that we may perform.
8.2.
When we consider Abraham and David, two of the great
men of faith in the Old Testament, we must be encouraged in the times of our
spiritual failures that these men both had great flaws in their faith and yet
that their faith was reckoned to them as righteousness. God justifies the ungodly and unrighteous and
therefore we have hope beyond the grave for we have eternal life promised to us
through our faith in Christ and what He did for us on
8.3.
We need to thank God and be grateful for such a great
salvation and such a great Savior as we have.