Romans 3:27 - 4:25

Romans — Steve Gregg

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Romans 3:27 - 4:25

RomansSteve Gregg

The passage discusses the relationship between faith and the law, particularly the Jewish law, and emphasizes that righteousness in God's sight is based on faithfulness. Paul argues that the law is established, but it does not mean the perpetuation of the Jewish law code. Through various examples, including Abraham and David, Paul establishes that justification by faith was present throughout the Old Testament, and ultimately through Christ's death and resurrection, we have peace with God. The passage emphasizes that faith, and not the law, justifies a sinner by the grace of God, and the inheritance promised to Abraham is fulfilled through Christ as the ultimate seed.

Transcript

We're now in Romans chapter 3, and in our last session, we spent the entire session discussing verses 21 through 26. That was sort of Paul's summary of what he has to say that's contrary to what the Jew normally thought about righteousness. The Jew normally thought about righteousness as something that was kind of just inherent in being in the law, having the law of Moses.

True, no one is perfect, but just having the law made them a different class of people. They were circumcised. They had a covenant with God, and therefore, they never really had to worry about how God was looking at them.

So they thought. And Paul has spent a lot of time saying, you really do need to worry about how God is looking at you if you're not living a righteous life. Being circumcised isn't going to blind God's eyes to the way you're living.

And that the law was never given in order to be the means by which you stand in good relation with God, that you're justified in His sight. And so he has said in verses 21 and following that there's a different kind of, a different basis for righteousness in God's sight. There's a righteousness of God that you can possess and is upon you and toward you when you have the right kind of relationship with God, which is based on faith, which as I've tried to point out, is not only a reference to believing things about God, but it has to do with having an actual relationship with God characterized by faithfulness.

Faithfulness to Him and His faithfulness to you. And your ability to trust Him and frankly, His ability to trust you. That we are supposed to be faithful, in fact, that we're required to be faithful.

There's no question about this in the Bible. For example, Jesus said to the church in Smyrna in Revelation 2.10, He said, Be faithful unto death, and I'll give you the crown of life. Now, obviously, if you want to have life, that's the crown of life, eternal life.

If you want that, you're going to be faithful unto death. Now, how does that jive with the doctrine of justification by faith? It jives perfectly because faith includes faithful. Being faithful to death, it's not just believing God because He's faithful.

It's also resembling God in the sense that you are faithful to Him as well. Mirroring His faithfulness by your faithfulness. And this latter two verses we've covered, 25 and 26, we're telling about how God managed to show Himself to be righteous.

He demonstrated His righteousness in justifying the ungodly because He had made provision for that that did not require any compromise of His justice or His righteousness. That is, He put Christ forward as the one to receive the brunt of the justice owed. And therefore, justice would not be neglected.

Justice would be executed. But a substitute has managed to take that justice. Now, how exactly that has anything to do with me being a better person or me being just inside of God is not fully explained here.

He's going to talk about such things when we get to, I think, chapter 5, about the Adam and Christ discussion in the latter part of Romans 5. Because there, He's going to talk about its being in Christ as opposed to being in Adam. That justifies you. Christ is our representative.

He has suffered for sin and we in Him have done so. We've been through that. We've been through the suffering for sin.

It's not just that Jesus suffered instead of us. He suffered as us. It's not that He suffered and I didn't.

Well, in a sense, He did suffer something I didn't. But He suffered as my representative and I'm counted to be in Him. Therefore, the merits of His suffering are counted as my suffering.

I was crucified with Christ. Paul said in Galatians 2.20. That's because I am in Christ in a sense that needs to be explored and will be explored in the later chapters. That's part of the underlying mindset that Paul has when he's talking about this whole subject in chapter 3, but he doesn't go into that exploration here.

But the reason that Jesus' death can't affect me is because I'm Him, in a sense. I'm in Him. Just like the organs of my body are in me and they are very much affected by what I do.

They share my fate. They share my destiny. If I get killed, my organs die.

If I escape death, my organs survive. It's my organs because they are in me. Their fate and their destiny cannot be separated or considered as something other than my fate and my destiny.

Being in Christ is a concept that Paul loves and uses a lot, especially in places like Ephesians. But throughout his writing, he's assuming this understanding. We are in Christ, so his death means we've died.

We were on death row and lo and behold, we were executed. Not personally, but through our representative Christ. Therefore, the sentence has been executed.

Justice has been served and we now go free, as does Christ, by his resurrection from the dead. He died, he suffered, he paid the penalty, but he's alive again. So he's free from death and so are we in him.

This is all kind of mystical stuff, but it can be explained somewhat better and will be a little more thoroughly in some later parts. But having said all that, it makes it very clear that my justification has very little to do with anything, with any merit to my own. Essentially nothing to do with it, except whatever merit may be thought to inhere in deciding to surrender.

And that's not really meritorious, it doesn't earn me brownie points. It just puts me into the right state of mind to receive the grace and the mercy and for God to insert me by his Spirit into Christ. So it's not about what I have done.

And that's what Paul comes to in verse 27 and continues to discuss through chapter 4. The last five verses of chapter 3 and chapter 4 flow together as if there's no chapter division there. He says, where is boasting then? Now we know that boasting is something that was in view back in chapter 2, verse 17, where he says, indeed you are called a Jew, you rest on the law and you make your boast in God. And there's going to be more talk about boasting in chapters 4 and the first part of chapter 5. This is something important to Paul, to know that we do not have any grounds to boast before God.

Boasting is an arrogant or a proud thing to do and there's nothing more offensive to God than pride. There's six things the Lord hates, yea seven are an abomination to him, a proud look being at the top of the list. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.

So boasting, which is an expression of pride, is always offensive to God and therefore to Paul too. He says, God has arranged a situation where boasting is excluded. No one's going to be able to beat his chest and say I was better than somebody else.

Because you weren't accepted by God on the basis of being better than somebody else, but being in someone who is better than everybody and that's in Christ. So I can't boast about being better than you or even better than a non-Christian. Because I've done as many bad things as some non-Christians have done.

And even if I haven't done as many, lots of Christians have done as many bad things as a person can do before they're saved. But no one is in Christ on any basis that they can take credit for. And there's no boasting.

He says, where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but the law of faith. Now, here the word law appears to be used in a different sense than he's been using it in some cases.

The word law has a variety of nuances and like we would talk about the law of gravity, and we'd also talk about the law of the land. We'd say the Constitution is the law of the land, the supreme law of the land. And yet we'd talk about the law of gravity and we'd use the same word law, meaning something slightly different, maybe considerably different.

Because the law of the land simply dictates what is supposed to happen. The law of gravity describes what does happen. In fact, we don't even know what the law of gravity is.

It's just a word we give to what we see always happens. Things fall to the ground. There is something that seems to draw them.

We're going to call that a law. It's entirely a different kind of use of the term law than we talk about the law of the speed limit law. The speed limit law dictates what people are permitted to do or not, but they sometimes can break it.

The speed limit law does not tell us how fast people will drive. It tells us how fast they're permitted to drive, but they may break that law. The law of gravity describes how things will happen, not how they should happen.

And therefore, law, even in our own common usage, doesn't always mean exactly the same thing. The law of Moses is a law that dictates behavior, how people should live. The law that Paul is speaking of now is more like, I think, the law of gravity.

It's a principle. It's a principle upon which things function. The principle of works is a different thing than the principle of faith.

That is, on what principle can I be said to be deprived of my boasting? On the principle of works? That is, if the principle is, I do these works and I get these rewards, on that principle, does that deprive me of boasting? No. Boasting is not excluded on that principle. If anything, that principle might encourage boasting, because I have accomplished something.

I've done something. I've earned something. I've done what someone else hasn't done, so I'm better than somebody else, because of my works, my behavior, my accomplishments.

On that principle, boasting would not be excluded. But it is excluded, in fact, on a different principle. The principle of being justified by faith.

That principle of faith, that law. That the law is, if you have faith, you are justified. That is a declaration.

That's the way things are. Therefore, he's saying, what I've said up to this point, and the implications of it mean, that no one should be boasting about anything. And this, of course, is something of a rebuke to the Jews, whom he said have been boasting.

They've been boasting to God. They've been resting in the law. They've been thinking they're guides to the blind and instructors of babes.

They have had this arrogant, elitist condescension toward other people. He said, that's excluded by the way God deals with us. We don't have any grounds for condescension or arrogance.

And so, the principle that I'm saying is the true principle, justification by faith, has removed any reason for me to think I'm better than anyone else, or for a Jew to think they're better than a Gentile. Because the works, of course, if it wasn't by works, that would give grounds for boasting. But we've already argued it's not by works, but by faith.

And that removes any kind of grounds for self-congratulation. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Once again, the deeds of the law, I believe, are referring to those things that are distinctively Jewish things, the ceremonies.

I believe a man is justified by faith even apart from the moral actions of the law. Since David, for example, is justified by faith, and he had broken the moral law. But I don't think the Jews he's talking to are largely mindful of the moral law as that which makes them better.

They don't behave better, according to the moral law. Paul has pointed that out in chapter 2. The only thing that distinguishes them between Gentiles is not morality, but ritual. The deeds of the law would be circumcision, and those distinctives of Jewish practice that Jews can say, we do this and the Gentiles don't.

The deeds of the law by which they felt superior were not the law of adultery, you know, you shouldn't commit adultery and murder, because lots of Gentiles don't commit adultery and murder, and some Jews do. So there's no way in which morality becomes the distinctive between Jews and Gentiles. It's strictly the ritual law.

And the deeds of the law, making your pilgrimages, keeping your kitchen kosher, those kinds of deeds of that law are, of course, unrelated to justification, Paul said. Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Now, the God of can have more than one meaning.

The God of somebody could be the object that they worship. Somebody's God can be almost anything. Their house, their car, their money.

Idolatry is almost unlimited in its variations, because people can put their wrongful reverence and worship toward almost anything. A relationship, their own kids, or whatever. These can become objects of worship.

And you could say that whatever is the object of worship that you worship is your God. On the other hand, the thing you worship isn't necessarily a God at all. With reference to you and your practice of worship, it may be your God.

But to say the God of somebody can also mean the God who has jurisdiction over, or the God who has a claim upon. Because God is not just a word that refers to an object of worship. God refers to one who has divine status, divine privilege, divine rights by virtue of creation.

And as God, in that sense, the God of the Gentiles and the Jews, of course. The Jews are not the only people created by God. The Jews are not the only people who will stand before God for judgment.

There's one God of the Jew and the Gentile. And therefore, he must have some method of accepting people or rejecting people that is common to both. Jews and Gentiles have differences that are immaterial as far as God is concerned between them.

Circumstances and things like that. But all people, in the much larger sense, the important sense, are the same. They're all created by God.

They all stand before God's judgment. Paul has made these points earlier. And therefore, God is not just the God that belongs to the Jews.

He's the God that belongs to, and to whom belong, the Gentiles as well. That being so, he says, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised, that is the Jews, by faith. And the uncircumcised, meaning the Gentiles, through faith.

Therefore, he's the God of the Gentiles as well as the Jews. There's one God who justifies them all. Now, there is a difference in wording at the end of verse 30.

He justifies the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. It almost seems like he's trying to make a distinction. Faith is involved in both cases, but the justification of the Jews comes one way, and of the Gentiles another way.

It's the Jews by faith and the Gentiles through faith. And I've been asked many times, and I've wondered myself, does Paul have in mind some kind of a difference between by faith and through faith? I've just come to the conclusion that he doesn't. He's just trying to avoid using the same phrase too many times and sound redundant.

To be saved by faith and to be saved through faith is essentially the same thing. To say you're saved through faith means that because you have faith through that means you are saved, justified. To say you're saved by your faith is really saying the same thing, only slightly different words.

The imagery may be very slightly different, but I don't think Paul is saying there's two different methods. He's just said the opposite. Same God for Jews and Gentiles justifies everybody the same way, by faith, or we might say through faith.

In fact, we could say both, and he did say both. Do we then make void the law through faith? Now, why would this question be asked? Paul keeps asking rhetorical questions which he assumes might arise from a misunderstanding of something he said just previously. And Paul is not wrong about this.

People do misunderstand him. People do raise the wrong questions and think he's saying something he's not. Paul was not only one who knew what he thought.

He knew what others would think about what he thought, and he knew what he meant. He also knew what others might think he meant. And so, in presenting his case, he would make his case, but he'd also anticipate someone's going to probably think this, and that's not what they should think, so I'm going to raise that question before they do, and I'm going to answer it so they won't have to raise it or be stumbled by having it unanswered.

So, do we make void the law through faith? It might sound like it. How? Because, okay, the Jews had the law all this time. That made them different than Gentiles.

To them, that was all-defining of who they were, and especially in terms of their cosmic identity as people of God, something that transcends even racial and national differences. It was a religious difference, a difference between their being accepted by God and the Gentiles not being accepted. Certainly, the law was everything, and yet Paul has now argued it's essentially nothing.

The law in which you put your votes is really nothing in terms of what you're using it to do. It's not like it isn't anything, but it isn't what you think it is. It isn't what makes you a better person.

It isn't what makes God like you more. That's not what the law is, and so Paul seems to be stripping the law of all its favorite qualities in the eyes of the Jew that distinguishes them, and he's saying, now, you're going to probably say that everything I've said about this justification by faith apart from the deeds of the law, that just kind of throws the law out the window. In fact, it makes the law void.

It almost makes it sound like the law was wrong. Are we saying the law was wrong? Are we making the law void? Didn't the Old Testament suggest that the law was required, and it was important, and people should keep the law, and if they do, they'll live by it and so forth? By making these seemingly contrary statements, are we voiding the law? And he says, certainly not. On the contrary, we establish the law.

Now, at some point in our earlier introductions, I pointed out that this last line, we establish the law, has been greatly misapplied. In fact, I very seldom hear anyone quote that verse without misapplying it. Certainly, Paul had a proper meaning to it, and I hardly ever hear people quote it to make the point he made.

Instead, people quote it to make a point he wasn't making. When he says, we establish the law, they take it to mean we perpetuate the law. We reaffirm the continuance of the law.

We submit to the law and live under the law, as the Jews did. That's what many people seem to think Paul means when he says, we establish the law. Those who quote it most often are either Seventh-day Adventists or other Sabbatarians, usually, or maybe Hebrew roots people who believe that we're supposed to be keeping Jewish laws.

And they say, even Paul raised the question of whether we void the law, and I said, we don't. We establish it, so there we go. We who are teaching that you should keep the Sabbath, we who are teaching you should keep kosher, we who are teaching all these Hebrew roots things keep the festivals.

We're doing what Paul did, establishing the law. But they're acting as if Paul's question is, do we perpetuate the law? Yes, we do perpetuate the law. No, he's not saying we're perpetuating the law code.

And they misunderstand this in exactly the same way they misunderstand Jesus' words in Matthew 5. Where he said, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy them, but to fulfill them. They always quote that first part because Jesus said he didn't come to destroy the law.

And they think the only way that could be understood is if Jesus intends for the law to be continued, you know, as it was now on into this present age as well. He didn't come to destroy it. It's supposed to keep going.

But they neglect that he says, I came to fulfill it. What I came to do is indeed going to change things with the law. The law is not going to have the same status it had before.

But what I'm doing is not destructive to it, but affirming of what it anticipated. Okay, Paul has more than once earlier in Romans indicated that the law and the prophets confirm his gospel. He said it in almost the opening verse, verse 2 of chapter 1, just as he opened the book.

He said at the end of chapter 1, verse 1, that he has been separated to the gospel of God. And in verse 2, which was promised before through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Okay, the Old Testament promised this.

This isn't an innovation on Paul's part. This is something the Old Testament said was going to happen. And so also in chapter 3, we saw in verse 21 that the righteousness apart from the law was witnessed by the law and the prophets.

In other words, he's already said what he's saying here in chapter 3, verse 31. Namely, that the doctrine he's teaching agrees with the law of the prophets. It doesn't perpetuate the present status or the present practice of the law and the prophets.

But it is brings to fulfillment what they were saying was going to come. And he says, by saying justification by faith, it may seem like we're coming to do violence to the law. No, we're coming to fulfill the law.

We're establishing the law in that we are saying the same thing it had said would happen. Now, how do I know Paul means that? Where there should be no chapter division at all, he says, Why bring him up at this point? Because Abraham's story is in the Torah, the law. And what he's about to say about Abraham confirms justification by faith.

Therefore, the Torah itself, in declaring Abraham to have been righteous by faith, the law has said that justification is by faith. So this is how he's arguing. We established the Torah.

After all, was it not the Torah that said exactly what I'm saying? Abraham believed God and it was counted for us. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying the same thing the law is saying.

So when he says we established the law, he doesn't mean that we continue to keep the law code. It means the Torah, in which the Jews boast, itself contains the information that he's bringing up. He's only saying the same thing the law said when it said that Abraham believed in the Lord and it was counted to him for righteousness.

So he says, Paul is a Jew and his Jewish reader also, like himself, would refer to Abraham as our father according to the flesh. Now, Paul, in his speaking of Abraham's children, sometimes spoke of all Christians being Abraham's seed, but not according to the flesh. There are children of the flesh and children of the promise.

Paul will bring that distinction out in Romans chapter 9. He says, Not the children of the flesh are the heirs, are the sons of God, but the children of the promise are counted as a seed. Likewise, in Galatians 4, Paul talks about Abraham had two children, Isaac and Ishmael, and one was of the flesh and one was of promise. A child of Abraham according to the flesh is different than a child of Abraham according to the promise.

All Christians have Abraham as their father because he's the father of the faithful. As many as are of faith are the children of Abraham, he said in Galatians 3. So, in a sense, every one of us who is a Christian has Abraham as our father. But here he's speaking to the Jew distinctly.

Our father according to the flesh. Now, I realize that according to the flesh in the New King James is found in a strange position with reference to father. But the word order or the phraseology order is often flexible in the Greek.

And it's not asking what he found according to the flesh. It's talking about what he, our father according to the flesh, has found. So the order of words in the New King James is rather confusing there.

But Paul is speaking to Jews like himself who could call Abraham our father according to the flesh. We are physical descendants of Abraham. Now, spiritually speaking, what did our father according to the flesh find? That is in terms of a basis for relationship with God.

He says, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something of which he might boast. Now, you see the connection to chapter 3 verse 27, where is boasting? It's excluded by the law of faith but not by the law of works. If Abraham did works, he'd have boasting.

Boasting is not excluded by the law of works. If Abraham had done the works and that's how he's justified, well, boasting is not excluded. He'd have something actually to boast about.

Though not before God, Paul throws that in. No matter how good Abraham was, no matter how much better than his neighbors he may have been in his works, he still would never measure up to God. He wouldn't be able to boast before God but he could boast before his neighbors.

Exalt himself above them as a more righteous man because of all the good works he had done. But that's not the basis by which he was counted righteous. It's not as if Abraham did a lot of bad works.

Like most people in the Old Testament, he'd made some mistakes on record, some of which are a little shameful in fact. But, nonetheless, he was a good man and probably a better man than most. But that's not an issue.

That's not how he was accepted by God. He was not justified by his works. It says if he had been, he'd have something to boast about.

But what does the scripture say? Verse 3, Abraham believed God, that's faith, and it, meaning his believing, was counted to him for righteousness. The quote is, of course, Genesis 15, 6, on the occasion where God took Abraham out under the stars and said if you can count the stars, this is how your seed will be. And it says Abraham believed in the Lord and it was counted to him for righteousness.

What a strange, what a strange place to make that comment. I mean, it's not strange to us because it's a very commonly quoted verse in the Bible, so we forget how strange it is. But just reading a narrative about Abraham believing God, there's other places in Genesis that speak about God making promises and it doesn't say, and Abraham believed him, and it was counted for righteousness.

This is almost like Moses is writing Genesis, sticking this in as a theological statement. Because Abraham believed God, now we get a theological interpretation. He was counted righteous by God.

Now back to our story. It just seems like a strange aside in Genesis, but it is there, and it is there probably so Paul could use it here. If it wasn't there, he couldn't use it.

And he says this is what the scripture says. Guess where? In the Torah, in Genesis, in the law. Therefore, if I'm saying the same thing the Torah is saying here, then I'm establishing that the law is true.

The Torah is true. That doesn't mean I want you to keep in the statutes and the ordinances and stuff that are now fulfilled. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt.

But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Again, Paul makes a very stark contrast, an absolute dichotomy, between two possible systems of religion or relationship with God. One is by works, the other is by faith.

If it's by works, there's no grace involved. Grace is that which is undeserved. Grace is a gift.

Grace is bounty bestowed without warrant. Now, if I had to do a certain amount of works, and once I crossed a certain performance threshold, God said, okay, you're in, you've done enough now. Then I've earned it, because there was an assigned price to pay, and I paid the price, so now he owes it to me to bring me in.

If that's what it's like, then there's no grace in it at all. It's just a debt that God owes me, and something I can boast about. Hey, I pulled it off.

You know, I did what had to be done. God himself is indebted to me. But on the other hand, if it's not by works, if God justifies the ungodly, meaning obviously those who haven't performed well, but on the basis of their faith, then, of course, it is accounted for righteousness.

Accounted means it's just kind of like an accountant would put it over into the ledger on your side. It's God's righteousness that this is all about, but that righteousness is now ledgered over into your column. It's accounted to you.

You didn't earn it. It's a gift, and it's now on your account. So it's yours.

You are righteous, not because you did anything to get it, but that somebody graciously said, I think I'll just put this over on your account, I should say. And so he says, Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man whom God imputes righteousness apart from works, and he quotes here Psalm 32, Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.

Now, a couple of things here. Why this scripture? For his point. It may be obvious, but there's a couple of things to observe.

One is that David lived after Moses. Paul has shown that Abraham was justified by faith. But a Jew might argue, well, yeah, that's before God gave us the law.

Abraham lived before the law. There clearly had to be some other means of justification before the law was given as a means of justification. And it happened to be that he didn't have to keep any laws because God didn't give any.

So Abraham's justification by faith is really irrelevant because ever since his day, there's been this law that God gave that the Jews are supposed to keep. And so Paul says, well, let's talk about David then. When did he live? He lived after Moses.

He lived under the law. He lived in the Jewish society that was governed by the law of Moses as much as any other time after Moses' time. So here we have a case after the law which is going to show that if David was also justified the same way Abraham was, and the law did not exist in Abraham's day, but did in David's, but nothing changed, then the law didn't change anything with reference to being justified.

Abraham could be justified without the law. So could David. And Paul puts it this way before he quotes it in verse 6, David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

Now this scripture he gives is very specific in pointing that principle out because David is writing Psalm 32 after his sin with Bathsheba and after his repentance. There are two Psalms of David that are associated with his repentance from that sin. One written in the act of repenting and one written to commemorate the joy he felt after repenting.

Psalm 51 is his psalm of repentance for that sin. Psalm 51, he's repenting as he writes. Psalm 32 is actually written later.

Maybe immediately afterward or maybe sometime afterward, but he's still celebrating the liberty and the freedom he now has having been forgiven by God for his sin. Now you may remember how it was that David came to be forgiven. When Nathan came and confronted him and David was convicted of his sin, he did not go and offer an animal sacrifice.

In fact, he specifically says in Psalm 51, sacrifices and offerings you did not desire or else I would give it. But the sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit and a broken heart. And so David did not even offer a sacrifice.

He didn't rely on anything in the law at all to justify his guilt, to be cleansed of his guilt. He had committed in fact sins that could not be justified under the law. There was no sacrifice available for murder and for adultery.

The remedy for that was death. The law did not have any sacrifices that a person could offer if they were a murderer or adulterer. They just had to die.

And they died condemned. And so David of course couldn't by the works of the law be justified of his deeds. There was no provision in the law to be justified from those deeds.

Yet he was justified. Well if not by the law, then by what? Now, in verse 6 Paul says, well God imputes righteousness. That's the same thing as accounts it.

He puts it on his account. He couldn't earn it because no legal process would remedy his sin. But he could be imputed righteous, but that would be without works of the law.

And if so, then David stands as another good example of what Paul is trying to prove. The works of the law are irrelevant to justification. David was counted righteous.

David was forgiven. David was justified. But no works of the law were involved at all.

David says, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Apart from the law. My deeds are lawless.

Apart from the law, yet forgiven. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered, atoned for. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.

Now, I'm a man who has sinned, but God's not imputing sin. He's not accounting my sins to my record. What's instead of sin? Well, righteousness.

I'm imputed righteous. And that's why at the end of verse 6 Paul says David was celebrating the fact that he was imputed righteous. He doesn't specifically use those terms, David doesn't, but he says that God did not impute sin to me.

Well, what's that mean? Then he imputed non-sin to me. Imputed righteousness to me. So, what Paul has done now in the course of these first chapters is establish his doctrine that justification is not by the law but by faith from three passages so far in the Old Testament.

One from the law, one from the prophets, and one from the Psalms. And thus he has excerpted every major collection of writings in the Old Testament and said, you get the same doctrine in all these places. The law says Abraham was imputed righteous by his faith.

The prophets say the just shall live by his faith. The Psalms say a man, a lawless man could be forgiven and God not imputed sin to him. So, there we go.

What part of Scripture then would come against this? We have established what the Old Testament law says. Now, the Jew who is still trying to find some angle, some error in Paul's argument who probably would have said Abraham lived before the law and therefore it counted for him but not since then. And then Paul answered that by saying, well, hold on, David, he lived after the law and it applied to him too.

They come back with another possibility. Okay, well, Abraham, of course, lived before the law but he was circumcised and so circumcision is necessary for righteousness. Maybe, you know, he didn't keep the whole law and didn't have a law but he had circumcision and therefore the man you're saying, both of these men who claim to be justified by faith, both were circumcised men, Abraham and David.

Therefore, the common denominator, Paul, that you're missing or undermining is circumcision here. So, Paul comes back at that anticipated objection and says, does this blessedness that David spoke of then come upon the circumcised only or upon the uncircumcised also? Now, David was blessed but he was circumcised but does such blessedness belong to people who aren't circumcised as well? He says, for we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness, how then was it accounted? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Well, in fact, it was not while circumcised but while uncircumcised and he received the sign of circumcision later. A seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised that he might be the father of all those who believe though they are uncircumcised that righteousness might be imputed to them also and to be the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

So, this is brilliant. It's a slam dunk. Anyone who thinks you have to be circumcised and even uses Abraham's circumcision as an argument for it, he says, wait a minute.

The statement Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, when was that made? That was chapter 15 of Genesis, verse 6. When was Abraham circumcised? Genesis 17, two chapters later. In fact, years later, more than 13 years later, Abraham was circumcised but he was imputed righteous more than a decade before he was circumcised and therefore though he later was circumcised, he did so only as a seal and a sign that he really was a man of God on another basis. We could argue this way about baptism if we wished.

Some might dispute it but I think that our salvation is by grace through faith not by baptism but we are commanded to be baptized and every obedient Christian will be baptized and a disobedient Christian that's really kind of a misnomer because a Christian is someone who is following Jesus and therefore a person who really is deliberately disobedient isn't exactly a follower of Jesus at all. Therefore, a Christian is someone who obeys and there is a command to be baptized just like Abraham was a man who had justification by faith and then there came a command to be circumcised so he did that and Paul says he got circumcised that didn't make him justified before God. He did that as a seal and a sign that he already had a relationship with God based on something else but of course a man who has such a relationship with God by faith is going to obey God when God gives instructions.

Therefore, a person who really is born again is going to get baptized. In fact, biblically they got baptized the very same day they came to faith. There was never a case where they were deliberately delayed from being baptized.

Being baptized was essentially part of the conversion process in the early church. They repented, believed and got baptized all in rapid succession. They never would have thought of there being a Christian who was not baptized but because there never was a Christian who was not baptized, it may have been mistakenly thought that baptism justifies you.

That's what makes you a Christian. Some would say so but I feel that baptism is what shows you to be a Christian. I mean it's the first thing.

There are other things that show you to be a Christian even more but baptism is the declaration that you're now a follower of Christ and you're going to follow Him in this first step of obeying Him when He said to get baptized. So that's what I'm going to do. Now someone who doesn't know they should, hasn't been told they might be a true follower of Christ and neglect baptism only because they don't know better.

Shame on whoever was preaching to them. They should have been told. Or they might be like the thief on the cross.

They come to be a believer but they don't get baptized only because they never have the opportunity. They're still going to be with Him in Paradise but that's not normative. What's normative is faith followed by obedience which includes baptism but baptism I think is a little bit like circumcision was to Abraham because Abraham believed first and then was circumcised.

It turned out every Jew after that was to be circumcised too. It was like every Christian was to be baptized but it was a sign. The outward act, the ritual is the sign of a spiritual reality that exists prior to the ritual but would not exist in the exclusion of the ritual really because you wouldn't really be a man of God if you refused to be circumcised in those days or refused to be baptized in ours.

You can't be a man of God and be living in willing disobedience. Now it says that it was accounted to him as righteous while he was uncircumcised not circumcised and it says he received verse 11, the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of faith which he already had before he was circumcised. So again Paul establishes that the righteousness by faith is independent of circumcision.

That doesn't mean circumcision never had a purpose or even an obligation to be practiced but it's not what justifies. What did that is faith. And he says that way Abraham could become the father of all those who believe even uncircumcised, even the Gentiles.

So as I said, even Christians who are Gentiles have Abraham as their father. He's the father of all who believe even if they're uncircumcised Gentiles. But also as far as the circumcised, he's the father of those who are not only circumcised not only Jewish but also walking in the steps of faith that Abraham walked in.

So what Paul is saying is what makes a person a child of Abraham is not that they are circumcised. A man may be circumcised or not but if he's a man of faith he's a son of Abraham because God counts Abraham's merit to be his faith and therefore any merit that comes from being in some sense related to him comes from having the same faith he had not from having the same circumcision he had. That wasn't the basis of Abraham's merit before God and therefore it isn't the basis of merit of anyone who's counted as his seed.

Uncircumcised who believe, he's their father. Circumcised who believe he's their father. Circumcised who don't believe, well he's not necessarily their father, except in the flesh.

But he makes it very clear that the circumcised man the Jewish man who wants to claim Abraham as his father must be in addition to being circumcised not only who are circumcised but who also walk in the steps of faith. Circumcision isn't going to cut it. What does cut it is the faith.

Now it's interesting that it says who walk in the faith the steps of faith. Faith has steps. In fact, faith is something obeyed.

Remember we saw in chapter 1 Paul said he's got a mission to call all nations to the obedience of the faith. Faith is not just a mental set of ideas that you believe. It's something you walk in.

Abraham walked in faith. Abraham's story is sort of a prototype of the Christian disciple. He's called to put the call of God ahead of his family and his background and his tradition and to go to territory he's never walked in.

He experiences loss. He goes through the trials of loss of his father, loss eventually of his wife and his first son has to be sent out of the house. Though he doesn't want to lose him but that's just a separation he has to make.

He even has to sacrifice Isaac or almost. These are steps of faith that we see Abraham walking in and the Christian is walking by faith too. In such steps of faith.

For the promise verse 13 that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham and to his seed through the law but through the righteousness of faith. Now the idea that Abraham would be the heir of the world was related to the promise God made to him before he was circumcised. So it's part of his relationship by faith with God and therefore the promise is not to be fulfilled on the basis of anyone keeping laws but on the basis of having that faith.

Now of course it might seem strange to us to read the promise that he would be the heir of the world. We actually read nothing in the Old Testament of Abraham being the heir of the world. The promises that God made to Abraham were the land of the Canaanites.

I'm going to give that to you and to your seed forever. The land of the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Gergizites and the Jebusites and all these different tribes. I'm going to give you their land.

He even mentioned borders. You know from the river Euphrates to the river of Egypt to the Great Sea and the river Jordan on the other side. I mean these boundaries are mentioned as the land that God is giving Abraham.

He never says I'm giving you the whole world. Not in so many words but Paul understands the promise to mean that. You see like so many things in the Old Testament, the promise of the land is a type and a shadow of a much greater promise.

Just as even circumcision was a type and a shadow of spiritual circumcision. The Temple of Solomon is a type and a shadow of the Temple of the Holy Spirit which is the church. There's so many things in the Old Testament that are types and shadows of spiritual things.

The land that God promised Abraham was a geographically limited land but it was a type of the ultimate inheritance of the whole world for Abraham and his seed. And who is his seed? Paul in this place doesn't tell us who Abraham's seed is. Just as the promise was made to Abraham and his seed.

But in Galatians 3 and verse 16 Paul said the promise is not made to Abraham and his seed plural seeds but to seed singular which is Christ. So in Paul's mind the promises God made to Abraham are to him, Abraham, and to his seed, Christ. The provisional type mode of fulfillment came to Abraham but his seed, Christ will experience the full inheritance that was implied by the types and shadows.

Abraham and his family in the next few generations were to inherit Canaan. But his ultimate seed, Christ, is going to inherit the earth. There's a Messianic Psalm Psalm 2 which is very clearly about Jesus.

It's the one that in verse 7 Psalm 2, 7 says Ask of me and I'll give you the nations for your inheritance and the outermost parts of the earth for your possession. That's God speaking to the Messiah. God's going to give Jesus the ends of the earth for his possession.

And the Bible says that we who are Christians are joint heirs with Christ. That means we inherit with him his possession. What did he say we'd inherit? The earth.

The meek shall inherit the earth, the Bible says. God is going to give the whole world to Abraham and his seed, Christ. And Christ is in the process of capturing it through the preaching of the gospel even now.

We've been captured. He's received us. Abraham through this means to become the father of many nations.

The bottom line that God had in mind when he made this promise to Abraham was I'm giving you and your seed the whole world. And Paul just assumes that that's understood. You know that promise that God made to Abraham and his seed that they'd inherit the world? Well, that was not by the law but by faith.

The first part of that, the part that catches us and stuns us. Wait a minute, the world? In the sentence that functions as a given. The point he's making is not to introduce a new idea.

God's going to give him the world. That's the part that's understood. The part that's being explained is this wasn't done because he kept laws but because he had faith.

And the whole world will be governed by Christ, Abraham's seed. And Abraham's seed will have then inherited the whole world. For if those who are of the law are heirs, that means if the Jews are the heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect because the law brings about wrath for where there is no law there is no transgression.

Now he said something like this back in chapter 3 verse 20 where he said by the law is the knowledge of sin. What he's saying is this the law does not confer privilege. If anything the law condemns behavior that was previously uncondemned before the law came.

Where there's no law there's no transgression. Now it doesn't mean where there's no law there's no misbehavior. It doesn't mean where there's no law there's no wrongdoing.

Where there's no law there's no sin. There's just no transgression because the word transgression specifically means the breaking of a command. Where there's no command nothing has been transgressed.

No law has been violated. But that doesn't mean that what was done was a good thing. Cain killed Abel.

There was no transgression there. God had never said thou shall not murder. But he still did a wrong thing.

It was wrong even though no law had ever been given about it. Later the law was given you shall not murder. That would create a transgression.

Now if Cain had a command from God don't murder then his sin would have been more than just a sin. It would have been a violation of a law that had been given. And that's what transgression means.

He's saying that's what the law does. It doesn't help you be better. It just makes you a transgressor where you were before.

You were just a blissfully ignorant sinner. Now you're a law breaker and you become by knowledge of the law you become knowledge of your violation and your criminal status. And therefore it doesn't make you feel better.

Worse. It doesn't justify. It condemns.

So of course these promises can't be based on law. They've got to be based on something that really does confer righteousness. Not simply more guilt.

Verse 16. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace so that the promise might be sure to all the seed not only those who are of the law but also those who are of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all. So he's making it very clear.

The seed of Abraham includes not only those who are of the law. Not only the Jews. But everyone who is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all.

Jews and Gentiles. We all are the children of Abraham. The promises that God made apply to all who are his children.

Verse 17. As it is written I have made you a father of many nations. You see many nations include Gentiles.

Israel was really one nation. But Abraham is not just the father of one nation. The Jews.

He's the father of many nations. How so? Well in one sense because his offspring really did produce many nations. The Edomites.

The Jews. The Shuahites. The Midianites.

And several others are people who in one way or another. The Ishmaelites. They all came from Abraham.

He was the father of many nations in that sense. But Paul is seen in another way. He's the father of many nations that never were generated from him.

Who are not biologically from him. Those who have the faith of Abraham from many nations are all his children. So he's the father of a multi-ethnic family.

That's defined by the kind of faith he had that he was the prototype of. In the presence of him who gives in whom he believed, even God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did. Who contrary to hope in hope believed so that he became the father of many nations according to what was spoken.

So shall your descendants be. That is in Genesis 15 where he said you see the stars? That's how your descendants will be. And they're not just Jewish stars.

They're many nations. And not being weak in faith he did not consider his own body already dead since he was about a hundred years old and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief but was strengthened in faith giving glory to God and being fully convinced that what he had promised he was able also to perform.

And therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now therefore means because of what I've just been saying, it, his faith was counted to him for righteousness. Saying therefore suggests that had his faith been something else than I've just described it might not have been accounted to him for righteousness.

Because his faith had this vigor, had this tenacity, had this total dedication, attachment. Because his faith was that way therefore it was counted to him for righteousness. There is such a thing as some people call faith that doesn't have any of those characteristics.

Doesn't have any of that stick-to-itiveness. Doesn't have any of that tendency to not consider the natural circumstances and just believe that God is able to do whatever he wants and to act on that even to the point where he eventually was willing to offer up Isaac. That kind of behavior shows what kind of faith it was.

And therefore it, that faith was counted for righteousness. A lesser species of faith would not have been presumably. That seems to be what Paul is suggesting.

Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. I need to wind this down real quickly here.

I want to make some observations here. It says in verse 17, at the end of verse 17 that God calls those things which do not exist as though they did. I want to say that this actually has become one of the verses that the word of faith people like to use because they say, you know, we need to speak the way God speaks.

God speaks of things that are not as though they were. And therefore we need to speak of things that are not as though they were. Am I sick? Well, I need to say I'm not sick.

I need to say I'm healed. Well, am I really healed? That's irrelevant. I'm supposed to speak of things that are not as though they were.

I may not be healed but I'm supposed to speak as though I'm healed. I speak, I'm healed. I'm prosperous.

I'm good. Everything's going well for me. Is that really true? It's irrelevant.

I'm supposed to speak things that are not. In other words, I'm supposed to lie and hope that my lie somehow conforms to reality somewhere further down the road. But is that what God does? Was he lying? God, when he says something is true, it is true, in his purposes at least, and in purposes it will not be thwarted.

It can be counted on to be true. What is the specific case that Paul is referring to when he said that God calls those things that are not as though they were? Well, God told Abram to change his name to Abraham in Genesis 17. The name Abraham means the father of a multitude.

I'm going to start calling you the father of a multitude. You're not but you are really because there's a multitude that I have determined to bring from you and you're the father. You have not yet seen any of this multitude yet, but they're coming.

I'm going to start calling you that even before it is. And my calling you that is something of a promise in itself. I wouldn't call you that unless I'm determined to make you that.

So, in that particular case, I don't know of very many others in the Bible that Paul would be referring to, but he's talking about Abraham's story, that God called him the father of a multitude before he was. It was not something true, but God called it as if it was true because, of course, it was part of his promise that was going to be fulfilled with certainty. We don't have the ability to call realities into existence with our words.

As much as many word of faith people like to say that's a privilege that Christians have, you don't find anything in the Bible that says so. And simply to say that God calls things that are not as though they were is not translating to, and therefore we do. God has prerogatives and powers that humans don't have, even Christian humans.

God is God. We're people. He's the creator.

We're the creatures. And therefore to say that God had this kind of prerogative does not mean that that transfers to us. We would have to be told that separately, and we aren't.

Now, it says that Abraham contrary to hope, believed because, of course, he was old and his wife was old, and yet he believed because God said it would be. God said your descendants would be multiplied like the stars of heaven. Now he had a dead body, his own, and a dead womb in his wife.

Now the word dead here when it says in verse 19, he didn't consider his own body already dead, or the deadness of Sarah's womb, is an example of Paul's use of the word dead when he doesn't really mean literally dead. In fact, in speaking about this same thing, making essentially the same statement, in Hebrews chapter 11, the wording is changed only a little, and we can see that Paul means the same thing in Romans 4 as the writer of Hebrews means in chapter 11, where it says of Abraham in Hebrews 11, 12, it says, therefore from one man, meaning Abraham, and him as good as dead were born many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. Notice it's the same statement.

Abraham became the father of multitude despite being dead. That is, Romans 4 says dead, Hebrews 11 says as good as dead. These are not contradictory, this simply shows us that sometimes the word dead has that connotation, as good as dead.

And this is important because Paul uses the word dead in places where some people try to establish doctrines that Paul doesn't teach. Like that we were dead in trespasses and sins. And they try to make that some kind of an objective deadness that cannot do anything including believing God.

But we were as good as dead in our transgressions and sins. We were doomed. If you're on the train track and you can't get out of the car and the train's coming on you and you say we're dead, you're not saying I have no vital signs.

That's not what you're saying. You're saying we're as good as dead. We're doomed.

There's nothing for it but to be dead in a few seconds. This is what's happening to us. Death is our essential unavoidable destiny.

To say we were dead in trespasses and sins, I believe it's like what Paul says in Romans 8 where he says, verse 10, Romans 8, 10, he says, if Christ is in you the body is dead because of sin, your physical body. But the spirit is life because of righteousness. My body may be dead, that is doomed to die, but my spirit not because Christ is in me.

He says the body is dead. I'm of the opinion he means we're as good as dead. We're doomed.

Our bodies in contrast to our spirit is mortal and dead. And so also Abram's body was dead as good as for having children but he didn't think about that. He didn't waver at the promise.

The promise was there. The circumstances were not encouraging. A dead man as it were as good as dead for having children his wife as good as dead for having children but he didn't waver at the promise of God through unbelief but he was strengthened in faith giving glory to God.

Now it's important to note that when you are strengthened in faith trusting God is giving glory to God because you are saying I believe you're honest God. You said something that I can hardly see any confirmation of it but you said it and I believe you're honest. I believe you're truthful.

By my believing you I'm declaring my confidence that you are faithful. I wouldn't believe you if I didn't think you were and therefore my faith is glorifying to God. It glorifies his character.

It's my declaration that he can be trusted. It says in Hebrews 11, 11 that through faith Sarah though she was old received strength to conceive seed because she counted him faithful who promised it says. Her faith was simply judging God to be faithful.

That's glorifying him. That's declaring his virtue and Abraham by putting his trust in God against all odds and against all hope he glorified God. He gave glory to God that way and being fully convinced that what God had promised he was able to perform.

Therefore his faith being such a vigorous virile steadfast immovable faith as that therefore it was accounted him for righteousness. It was a specie of faith that is different than simply what the demons have. The demons believe and they tremble but it's a different specie of faith.

They don't have this kind of faith and they're not justified. So it closes by saying it was written not just for him. Sure we only read about him in Genesis 15, 6 that he was accounted for righteousness but why is that even written there? Is that written for his benefit? He never even read it.

Abraham never read the book of Genesis. It's not for Abraham's benefit that that says. It's for our benefit that we'll know that this is how God justifies people by faith.

For us it's written it shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. Now that he was delivered up meaning delivered to die for our offenses that's not hard to understand. We sinned.

He died for our sins. That's clear. What does it mean he was raised up because of our justification? I'm not 100% sure how Paul means that phraseology but apparently it suggests that Jesus was only able to rise from the dead because that justification had been accomplished.

Because Jesus' death was counted as approved by God as our substitute and our justification. Therefore Christ was vindicated. If Christ had taken our sins with him to the grave and God had not wished to honor it had not wished to justify us by him those sins would still be on him apparently.

I mean it's not clear exactly what would have happened but it appears that Paul is saying because his death actually did justify us because it really was effectual therefore he was able to come back. Therefore he was raised up because of our justification and therefore his resurrection becomes a visible proof that we are justified. We don't have to just say well God said it and I believe that that settles it.

Oh that's a good thing to say when you have to say it that way. If you have no evidence for something and God said it you should believe it anyway but we do have evidence. He's saying Christ's resurrection is the proof that we're justified.

We don't have to just believe a bare declaration. We have a visual proof that Christ rose from the dead because of our justification. So Paul of course is saying here this business about Jesus being delivered for our offenses and raised for justification goes back to what he was saying about Christ was put forth as a propitiation we're saved through the redemption that is in Christ.

He's talking about that atoning aspect but most of what he said between that discussion and this last verse is that this atonement is accessed through faith and that this is not something that contradicts Old Testament theology it is something that is part and parcel with Old Testament theology both the law and David frankly Abraham and David were among the top ranking heroes of the Jews as well as Moses but Abraham and David are both given as examples of the principle of justification by faith. How could any Jew then who believed the Old Testament raise any further objections to it? And so Paul considers at the end of chapter 4 he has made his point firm. When we come to chapter 5 he'll be talking about the ramification since we are justified by faith that's a given now concerning what we've proven we are and since we are here's what is the result we have peace with God and so forth so chapter 5 is going to be kind of celebrating the truths that Paul feels he has established beyond question beyond dispute at this point we're also going to by the end of chapter 5 have one of the more difficult passages in the Bible to sort out and that's the Adam and Christ passage which is while difficult still very interesting that lies in the chapter ahead of us.