And we have to understand this. We do not stand before God on that day and He sees all of our sins, and it says, paid, paid, paid, paid, paid, paid next to them. He looks at our account and there is no sin there. It says the righteousness of Christ, that is the only thing there. And if I say, "Well, I have sinned." Yes, but Jesus credited that to His account. And He died on the cross to fulfill God's requirements for the punishment and penalty for your sins.
Transcript
Romans chapter 4 verses 13 through 16:
13) For the promise, that he should be the inheritor of the world, was not through the law, to Abraham, or to his seed, but through the righteousness of faith.
14) For if the ones who are from out of the law (as a source) are inheritors, faith has been made void, and the promise has been annulled: (or canceled)
15) For the law is working wrath: for where no law is, neither is there transgression.
16) On account of this it is from out of faith, in order that it might be according to grace; for the purpose of the promise might be established to all the seed; not to the one only who is from out of the law, but to the one also who is from out of faith, that is, the faith of Abraham; who is the father of all of us.
As we stated in the first hour the book of Romans and Galatians cover pretty much the same territory. The book of Romans is more in depth. The book of Romans presents the doctrine of the Christian faith. It is not only for those in Rome but for all Christians everywhere. Every doctrine of the Christian faith is studied and presented in the book of Romans.
Galatians, when Paul talked to the people in Galatia about justification by faith it was in light of false teaching. So not only did he present the doctrine of justification by faith but he also personally ministered to those who are following false teaching.
Here in the book of Romans we saw – the first doctrine that we studied in chapter 1 verse 18 through chapter 3 verse 20 – the doctrine of condemnation. Remember condemnation is a legal term that means to have a sentence against you. Right now every person who has not received and yielded to Christ has a sentence against them. From the moment that we are born – and Paul talks by way of ledger and accounts, Paul says the moment that we are born sin is put on our ledger. That is what we have on our ledger from the very first day on, it is a ledger that is full of sin. As far as payment for that sin on the other side there is nothing and the ledger continues to mount until we receive Christ and what He has done for us.
So he spent much time on the doctrine of condemnation both for the Gentile and the Jew. Because remember the Jews – and we are explaining this to you, that the Hebrew and Jewish people have a different approach to the things of God than even the rest of the world, even the Christians. The Jews believed that they were automatically going to heaven. They automatically had eternal life because they are Jewish. They are God’s chosen people so they are automatically going to heaven. But Paul spent much time telling them, “You have the privilege as a Jew,” remember Paul is one also. That the Jewish person has a privilege in that they were given the word of God. They were appointed as God’s chosen people but that does not mean they are saved. They are appointed to represent Christ and His word. If they have rejected Christ as the Messiah, and rejected the truth of what God’s word said about the Messiah, then they are just as guilty as the Gentile. So from chapter 1 verse 18 through chapter 3 verse 20, the doctrine of condemnation is both against the Jew, as well is the Gentile.
But in chapter 3 verse 21 through to the end of chapter 5 we are studying the doctrine of justification by faith alone. No mixture. Faith plus works is a mixture. Faith alone is what saves. And so in chapter 4 verses 1 through 8 that we saw last week, Paul presents the proof of justification by faith. The proof that it is by faith. The first five verses he used Abraham.
Now, reading through various pieces of literature that we will get to when we get into chapter 5, but various pieces of literature by various Rabbis and Jewish commentators, supposedly some of the best, they present the fact that the Jews themselves believe that Abraham was justified by works, not by faith. By works. Other writings tell us that the Jews hold that Abraham was perfect, that he never sinned. I mean that is how – the level that they put Abraham up. They will not accept any fact that says that Abraham ever sinned. Other writers tell us that Abraham is going to be sitting at the gate of heaven and he is going to be asking for those who are Jewish and those who are circumcised. If you are Jewish and circumcised, you go in. If you are not, you do not go in. And Abraham is at the door letting people into heaven or rejecting them. All of these are Jewish writings that they have made up themselves. But it just goes to show you how highly they think of Abraham. He is their father both in physical decendancy as well as they claim spiritual descendancy.
Paul is presenting something totally different. Concerning Abraham, he says, (verse 1) Abraham our father, what has he found according to the flesh? Verse 2, If Abraham were justified from out of works, he has something to boast; but not before God. Notice the progression here. Is that if Abraham was saved by his own efforts and his own merits then he would have to stand before God and boast about those efforts and those merits, and say, “I deserve to come in because here is what I have done.” Can you imagine standing before God and ever making claims to God, “Here is why You should let me in because here is how good I did”?
Someone posted on the internet the other day a nice saying and they said, “God looked at me and all of the good qualities about me and then He came and died for those sins.” I like that. Our best works are as filthy rags in His sight. There is no good in us, spiritual good, but sin.
So then he goes on to say in verse 3, he quotes from Genesis chapter 15 verse 6, What does the Scriptures say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness. Because he believed God. Right out of their own Scriptures. “Well,” they would say, “sure he had some faith. We are all of the faith, but it was also out of works.”
So he says in verse 4, And to the one who is working the wage is not credited according to grace, but according to debt. If you come to work for me, every minute that you put in working for me I am indebted to you for that, for your work. So if justification before God is by works, therefore God is indebted to us. He has to let us in to pay the wages because we are keeping the law.
But he says in verse 5, But to the one not working, but believing upon the One justifying the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.
Then David’s example, this is in support of Abraham. Because remember Abraham was before the law. He has presented that Abraham – when God called him out of Mesopotamia to come into the Promised Land, Abraham was a Gentile. Abraham was uncircumcised. And it was four hundred thirty years before the law. Tell that to a Hebrew person and you will see a missile go off because they will be very angry when you remind them and bring up those facts.
But what about David? David was under the law. What King David did, the greatest king in their history was worthy of death. He had Bathsheba’s husband killed. Sent him out on the front lines so he would be killed and so that he could have his wife. He committed adultery with Bathsheba. He had her husband killed. According to the law he should have died. (Verse 6) =But just as David also describes the blessedness of the man, to whom God credits righteousness apart from works, (verse 7) he says (in Psalm 32:1-2) Blessed are those whose lawlessnesses are forgiven. Lawlessness is a violation of God’s law, the Torah, Old Testament. And whose sins are covered. So he says the person who has been forgiven is very blessed, and David would know that because he confessed his sin. Psalm 51 is David’s Psalm of repentance and you can read that and see a man who is broken. He knows what it means to be forgiven by grace, to be saved by grace because he should have been put to death. Saying, Blessed are those whose lawlessnesses is our forgiven, and whose sins are covered. (verse 8) Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not credit sin.
Again we are using, eleven times in this chapter Paul is using the terms for credit and accounting. He is painting the picture for us that every human being has this ledger and every human being has a column where sins are listed. But here is what he is saying. Our sins, when Jesus came to pay the penalty for those sins, our sins were put on the Lord’s account. And His righteousness was put on our account. He took my sins upon Him as if they were His sins, but they are not. He was sinless. He was perfect. But He took my sins and put it to His account. He credited my account with righteousness. How did that happen?
Try that this Christmas season. Go out and charge up your credit cards and then find out somebody has paid it, as if it never existed. That is not a hint. That is not what I need for Christmas.
So the proof of justification by faith – he is using Abraham, the great father of the Jews. Of course, Jesus in John 8, when the religious leaders came up to Jesus and said, “We have Abraham as our father,” and Jesus said, “If you were the children of Abraham, you would believe in Me because Abraham spoke of Me, but you are of your father the devil.” Ooh. Ouch. Every Hebrew and Jewish person is a descendent, a physical descendent of Abraham, but not a spiritual descendent of Abraham. Both Jew and Gentile, both are descendants of Abraham spiritually when it is by the same faith as Abraham, outside of the law, outside of the performance.
So, the proof of justification, verses 1 through 8. The problem of justification by faith is verses 9 through 16. We took part of this last week. It is divided into two parts. The first one is the covenant sign, verses 9 through 12 and then the condemnation of the law, verses 13 through 16.
So in verses 9 and 10 he talks about the condition of Abraham. And this is the problem. Jewish people have a problem accepting the fact that circumcision and keeping the law has nothing to do with salvation. They have a problem with that. They do not mind salvation, but you cannot just abandon the law. You cannot just say, “You do not need to be circumcised.” But that is the problem that they are having with justification by faith alone.
We saw the condition of Abraham, verses 9 and 10. Is this blessedness therefore upon the circumcision, or also upon the uncircumcision? For we say that faith was credited to Abraham for righteousness. How therefore was it credited? While being in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. He was still a Gentile when God gave him the promise and he believed it by faith. Believed it by faith.
First part of verse 11, the confirmation to Abraham. And he received a sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which was in uncircumcision. A sign points someone in a direction and a seal guarantees it. The sign was circumcision. It was a sign and it represented what God told the Jews they must experience in their heart, the circumcision of their heart.
Remember back in chapter 2 verses 28 and 29, Paul says a person it is not a true Jew who is one outwardly but who inwardly experiences circumcision of their heart. Did you know that God taught this many times in the Torah? Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 4:3-4; Jeremiah 9:24-26. And then our text in Romans chapter 2 verses 28 and 29. God says you need to be circumcised in your heart. He told the Jewish people this in the law. That if they were not circumcised in heart than they could not be His. And they still rejected it and still rejected Him.
And then, thirdly, we saw the contemplated result that was supposed to come at the middle of verse 11, That he might be the father of all the ones believing, through uncircumcision; that righteousness might be credited to them also: (verse 12) And the father of circumcision to the ones not out of circumcision only, but to the ones also walking in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham, which was in uncircumcision. It is a startling fact to realize that Abraham is the father, spiritual father so to speak, of all Gentiles who believe. He is also not the father of all Hebrew and Jewish people that do not believe. A Hebrew or Jewish person cannot just claim Abraham as their father, they must believe the same way Abraham did. How he believed by faith before the law.
Now, there is another part of this that we are going to get later on. But just let me mention this to you. You can read it at the end of James chapter 2 where Abraham is used not only as an example of faith but an example of works. Because James says, Faith without works is dead. See, works does not produce faith, but faith produces works. He says the evidence that Abraham lived by faith is that when God called him out of Mesopotamia, he left. In other words, he is there; we know from the book of Joshua that his father was a person who not only was an idol worshiper he made them, he manufactured them. It was pagan, idol worshiping Mesopotamia and God takes Abraham and says, “Go out into a land that I will show you and leave your family behind and just go out.” Now, what made him walk out the entrance of the city looking out into a barren desert? He still did not know what direction to go. What made him walk out of that city, it is because he believed God. It was not law. God by faith guided him, ministered to him, and he believed Him. “Well, how did he show that he believed him?” Because God told him what to do, and he said, “Okay.”
Now, if I were in Mesopotamia and I heard little voices, “Go out into a land that I will show you.”
Yeah, where is that?
“I will show you.”
No, You tell me first. Where are we going? Who are You, anyway?
I am not going to go out there and wander around the desert following voices around. But Abraham knew – it was God and he believed God. That is the kind of faith. Trust not only believes God at His word but faith responds to it. That is what God says, that is the way it is, that is what we do.
So for both Jew and Gentile who are saved and belong to Christ outside of the law, Abraham is their father of the faith. In other words, we have the same faith that Abraham did. But both to Jew and Gentile who reject justification by faith alone, their father is not Abraham. Though they be in physical descendancy from him, spiritually they are of their father the devil.
Verses 9 to 12 we saw the covenant sign; verses 13 to 16, the condemnation of the law. Look at the canceling of the promise in verses 13 and 14.
For the promise that he should be the inheritor of the world. And by the way, God promised Abraham that for him and his descendants, not physical descendants, but spiritual descendants, that they will inherit the earth. One day we are going to rule and reign with Christ upon the earth. For the promise, that he should be the inheritor of the world, was not through the law, to Abraham, or to his seed, but through the righteousness of faith. God told him and he said, “Okay.” He believed Him. For if the ones who are out of the law are inheritors, faith has been made void, and the promise has been annulled (or canceled). If it is not a faith and if it is not according to God’s promise – just believing God’s promise – if it is of works then faith means nothing and the promise is canceled. God promised. Abraham believed. If it is by works, if there is something he has to do to work.
Earlier we saw about the mediatorship. A mediator arbitrates between two people a contract. Well God was the arbitrator and sent Moses down as his arbitration representative between the children of Israel and God. God made a contract with them, it is called the Old Covenant, the Old Testament. But do you know what that contract was? God says, “I will bless you if you do this.” And by the way, if you do not, it is not a matter of missing blessing, you die. That is works. The old covenant is works: you do this or else. If you want to be blessed, you will do it. If you do not want to get blessed, if you want judgment, you will not do it.
But see, the new covenant is just a covenant of promise and God himself made it, not through a mediator but from Himself. It is a one-way agreement. God says, “I promise you that if you believe,” not just in Him but what He says and what He does, God says, “You will become my child and I will send My Spirit upon you and My Spirit will live in you. And we will be together forever.” The promise. It is a promise believed by faith. Now, if there is something that I have to do to claim that promise, it is no longer by faith. I have now earn it. And if I do whatever it is I am supposed to do, then God is in debt to me because I did by works. So if it is by a law, rule, or regulation it cancels out faith and it cancels out the promise because it is no longer by promise, it is by works of the law.
Look at the character of the law, verse 15. For the law is working wrath: for where no law is, neither is there transgression. The only way you and I know what sin is, is because of God’s law. God presented His holiness in the giving of the law. We know The Ten Commandments but there are actually six hundred thirteen of them in the Tanak, in the Old Testament. Without that standard that God sets up we would not know what holiness is. And you and I would not know what sin is. He says, Where there is no law there is no transgression. How can you be violating a law that does not exist? There has to be some standard. But then he started off by saying, For the law is working wrath. God’s law promises punishment, not promises salvation. Never. Why would you want to go back to keeping the law when all it does is promise punishment? The law is working wrath: where there is no law, there is no transgressions.
Now the character of the promise verse 16, On account of this it is from out of faith, in order that it might be according to grace. The word grace means God’s favor. He wants to have favor upon us. He does not want to be indebted to us nor have that kind of relationship, which gives us the reason why it is not out of law but it is out of grace, His favor. For the purpose of the promise might be established to all the seed; not to the one only out of the law, but to the one also from out of faith of Abraham; who is the father of all of us. The believing Gentile and the believing Jew, who would come and say, “Look what God’s grace has provided for us. Look what His favor has done.”
In summary, God looked at the human race and said, “Here is what is needed for salvation.” And God says, “I will provide that for you. I am going to go out of My way to show you your sin and your need of a Savior, but I am also going to send the Savior.” See, if a person does not know they are a sinner, why would they need a Savior? God says, “Unless you live a perfect life, you have sinned.” The word sin means to fall short. Fall short of perfection. Fall short of God’s holiness. And then He says, “By the way, you need a Savior.”
“Yes, I do. I am condemned. I do not have a chance.”
“Well, I sent a Savior to die for your sins, to pay your account, and to take and credit your account with righteousness, and credit His accounts with your sin. So that when you stand before Me…”
And we have to understand this. We do not stand before God on that day and He sees all of our sins and it says, paid, paid, paid, paid, paid, paid next to it. He looks at our account and there is no sin there. It says the righteousness of Christ, that is the only thing there. And if I say, “Well, I have sinned.” Well, Jesus credited that to His account. And He died on the cross to fulfill God’s requirements for the punishment and penalty for your sins. All you need to do is believe. Enter in. It is out of God’s favor. It is a gift. Nothing required because man cannot meet those requirements.
So the character of the law is that the law exercises punishment; but the character of the promise, it exercises grace and salvation, apart from the law, separate from it.
Next week we continue in Romans. We have studied the proof of justification by faith, the problem with justification by faith. And next week, the provision of justification by faith, as God provides it for us.
Let’s close with prayer.
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