This morning, if you have your Bibles and will turn with me to Romans chapter 4. Romans chapter 4. The Apostle Paul wrote this book or letter to the Roman Christians and there’s a number of themes that run through this. The main theme is what is salvation? What is the gospel? And then, how do we obtain this salvation? We saw that in the first chapter and a half, Paul laid down the fact of how immoral and wicked we are by nature. And he laid down the fact that there is no hope for us.
We then looked at, last week, the fact that the Lord has enabled us to experience His righteousness through His Son, Jesus Christ. One of the other things that Paul is laying out in this book is a problem that had come into the church then, which is a problem in the church today. A total misunderstanding of Judaism and what the law has in relation to faith.
what the law has in relation to faith
Do I need to be a Jew first and then a Christian? How are Christians in relation to the Jewish people or those that have been given and entrusted the law? These are questions that are going to be addressed by Paul and which the church is not handling very well in the day in which we live. There are some Christians today that live in the church that would say that you have to go back and become a Jew before you can really experience the fullness in Jesus. Is that true? The answer is no.
That was brought to the attention of the early church leaders in the city of Jerusalem, where they held a council to answer that very question. What about the Gentiles? How are they going to be saved and how shall they live? Do they have to live according to the Jewish law? And they came to the conclusion, no. They do not have to live and they were not under the law, but they have been really set free from having to be under the law.
But the law is there to be a schoolmaster to them and really they listed four things that really deal all with occultic or anti-God behavior. And the four things that they were to not do, they were to not drink blood or eat blood, they were not to eat animals that had been sacrificed to idols, that is, they were not to be participating in idol worship, they were not to really have other gods than the true and the living God. And if you look at what was laid out by the Jewish Fathers, which is found in the book of Acts, it was four things that deal with allowing false religious beliefs to enter into your life.
Well, let’s take a look at this morning what Paul is going to say exactly. What about faith then? Do we need to have works in order to be saved or is faith enough? That’s the issue that we’re going to be looking at in chapter four this morning. Let’s just read chapter four beginning at verse one.
What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?
2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
9 Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.
10 How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.
11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:
12 And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.
13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
14 For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect:
15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb:
20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;
24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
Let’s just bow in prayer. Heavenly Fathers, as we look at your word this morning, help us to understand the depth and meaning of faith. And Lord, help us to see that there’s nothing that we do, but it’s all what you do. And Lord, may our focus become upon you, and see that you are God who is able to deliver upon your word, even when it appears it’s impossible.
Speak to us through your word this morning, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. This morning I want to begin by looking at verse 1, where Paul is talking about what is faith.
What shall we say then, that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? So what did Abraham find? Let’s go back into the Old Testament, and that’s why people who don’t study the Old Testament do not have a foundational understanding of what God is speaking of in the New Testament. A lot of churches today only preach out of the New Testament, never going back and studying the Old Testament, not studying and laying the foundation of the great biblical truths that are brought to greater light in the New Testament. The greatest truth of all is salvation that is found in the fulfillment of the promises given, not only to Abraham, but all the way back in the Garden of Eden to Adam.
Now we see here that as you go back and look at the life of Abraham, Paul gives two Jewish men, well actually Abraham wasn’t Jewish. Abraham was a Chaldean. Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldeans, and so he married his half-sister, so she was Chaldean as well.
There was ne’er a Jew to be found in the house of Abraham at the time that Abraham and Sarah left Ur of the Chaldeans, came to Haran, then they left Haran and came to the promised land that God had promised to give to him, even though Abraham had never seen it, didn’t know where it was, and didn’t know what it was all about, but he trusted God. And as we look at this, it’s interesting that Paul would use Abraham and then reinforce it with David. And if you look at it from the eyes of a Jewish person, Abraham is viewed as their ultimate father.
Their roots go back to Abraham, his son Isaac, his grandson Jacob. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the promises given of a people to come, of a land that would be theirs, and of a Messiah that would come out of that people. We also see that they looked at David as being a man after God’s own heart, which Scripture tells us he was, but also a king unlike any other king that ever ruled over Israel.
And he was a type of the coming Messiah that they’d been promised about, that would one day rule and reign over Israel. And so these two men, Abraham and David, are used as examples when Paul is going to explain faith. And it’s interesting that he does use these men.
Now he says, What shall we say then that Abraham, our father as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? Abraham was walking in the flesh just as you and I are walking in the flesh. He was walking as a sinner. The law had not been given.
At this time the law did not exist as a written law that had been established to Moses. It would come hundreds of years later when Moses would be on Mount Sinai and the law would be given to Moses. But yet Abraham understood he had a problem.
He was a man who was walking according to the flesh just as you and I walk according to the flesh. Let’s define flesh. Flesh does not merely mean our physical bodies.
It doesn’t mean our skin. It doesn’t mean our muscles. Rather it means our belief system that is tied to a world that’s in rebellion against God that Satan is the influencer and controller of.
Satan led the rebellion of mankind in the Garden of Eden where he tempted Adam and Eve and they fell into his temptation and chose rather to believe Satan instead of believing God. What they lacked in the lack of belief was a sign of the flesh. It was, I’m going to do it according to my way not what my Creator and God have established is his way.
Abraham understood that he was walking in the flesh and the Lord made it evident to Abraham that there was a problem. Verse 2, For if Abraham was justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. What Paul is saying is if Abraham was justified by his life, he would be glorying in himself saying, look at me.
I am such a righteous man. I am such a holy man. I deserve to come into the presence of a holy God.
But he would be glorifying himself, not God. There are many people today that have come to that same conclusion. They say, if you ask them, are you a good person? Yeah, I’m a good person.
And what does that mean to be a good person? Do you think God should let you into heaven? Well, yes. Why? Because I’m a good person. I do moral things.
I’m more moral than many other people. But what they’re failing to see is the depth of their own sin. Now David, as we’re going to see just a little bit, used two terms.
He used sin and transgression. Sins and transgressions. Sins are what we commit when we violate God’s holy, righteous character and His standard of righteousness and we rebel against Him.
And so consequently, as we defined last week, sin means we’ve missed the mark. We are not able to come before Him and say, I have lived my life without rebellion against you. Sins are not necessarily specifically against any law, because Abraham was a sinner that needed to be saved by grace, but there was no specific laws that had been written down for Abraham except on his heart.
And we said that law of God has been placed upon every human heart, He’s given us a moral compass which guides and directs us, convicts us, when we know that we have done something wrong. I’ve given you examples before of tribes that have been found by missionaries who knew that there was something wrong in their life, that they had done something very evil and they didn’t know the law, but God had placed it on their heart. If they had murdered someone and killed somebody, that they knew it was wrong.
If they’d stolen something, they knew that it was wrong, even though they didn’t have a copy of the Old Testament law that they were reading. Abraham didn’t have that, but yet he understood and knew that there was sin that he needed to be dealt with. And he understood he could not do anything to pay for his sin before a holy and righteous God.
Verse 3, For what sayeth the scripture? And this is what you need to look at. What is the foundation and what is that which we put our trust in? Is it the words of men? Is it the belief systems of a world that has established this is how you become a just and holy person? Is it a religious system? No. We go to the scripture and make that the foundation of our life.
What does the scripture say about Abraham and his dilemma as he’s living in an Ur of the Chaldees? And I want you to just understand the situation that Abraham was living in. He was living in a pagan culture. His father worshipped idols.
How do we know that? Because Abraham is mentioned in the book of Genesis about how that Abraham, there were idols in the house of his father. And Abraham did not worship these idols, but they were there. In Ur of the Chaldees, they were an occultic driven society.
They came out of the Tower of Babel and following the teachings of Nimrod and they followed the occultic teachings that were found in the Babylonian system. They were all teaching a culture and a belief system that was in direct dichotomy and rebellion against God. One of the things that you have to do as you look at different cultures and different religions in the world today, what is the standard that you compare them against? And it’s the scripture.
The scripture needs to be that which we say, does it follow the scripture? Does it follow the teachings of the scripture? Does it follow the way of salvation of the scripture? Does it follow the definitions given to things like forgiveness, love, hope, peace that are found in the scriptures? And whether it be a religious system or an individual’s belief and it doesn’t follow the scripture, it is standing in direct opposition and it’s a lie. Well, what did Abraham believe? It says in verse 3, Abraham believed God and did it and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. Abraham believed who? The culture he was born in? What his father believed? The pagan religion that was all around him? The Babylonian teachings that have been brought down through the Chaldean culture and religious systems? No, it says he believed God.
Believing the word of God. What caused sin, the first sin to enter into the world? Was there a law that was written that man had sinned? Adam did not believe the word of God. He did not believe that he would die, that there would be real consequences if he took of the fruit of the tree of truth and knowledge, of good and knowledge.
And because he took and ate of the fruit that Eve offered him, he was showing his rebellious nature against the will and the purpose of God and the word of God. And so he was really rebelling against God and that’s what sin is. And so we see here that as Abraham believed what God said on how you are saved, it’s not through works, but it’s trusting in me, it’s believing in me.
It was counted on to him for righteousness. Now as I said, there wasn’t a Jewish person yet, there wasn’t a Messiah yet, there wasn’t a Redeemer yet, but God had promised Abraham, then shown him through what had been shown Adam, that one day a Redeemer would come. And he believed God and he trusted God.
Now verse 4, Now to him that worketh is a reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. Now what is Paul saying there? What’s the difference between working for something and something being given to you? Paul is saying that if you have to work for your salvation, there’s no grace involved. You’re going to obtain what you’re working for.
The only problem is, we can never pay enough to offset our sin. And so consequences, the debt that is given to us of God for those that seek to work, will be the consequences of their work. They haven’t believed him, they say, I have to earn my salvation by what I do with my life.
And if I don’t do these things, then I will never experience forgiveness, I’ll never experience heaven, I’ll never be able to go and be with God. And so I do these things trying to earn my salvation, but really what I’ve done is I’ve established myself as God, and I’ve said, these are the rules by which I will obtain eternal life. And God says, I will give you the debt that I have owed you.
And I have said, these are the way you will obtain eternal life, and that is through my Son Jesus Christ and no other way. And if you say there’s another way, you’re making me a liar, you’re trampling under my grace and saying there’s no need for it, so I will give you the consequences of your own works, which is judgment and eternal death. You will receive a reward for works, but the reward is not eternal life, because you do not experience grace, but you get the debt.
So what is grace? We looked at that last week as well. Grace is receiving the unmerited favor or unmerited given to us which we don’t deserve. Abraham did not deserve to be saved out of a pagan culture, yet God did.
Abraham did not deserve to have his sins forgiven, but yet God did. And God did it as He showed Abraham the depth of His grace that He was going to do this, not because Abraham was so special, not because of the culture and the belief system that he had been raised and came out of was so unique, but rather because God was showing him a way and giving it and offering it to him, and Abraham had to do nothing but believe. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
So that is showing how we have faith. We believe, number one, that my works don’t count, and secondly, we believe on him that justifieth the ungodly. We believe on the one that can give us eternal life, the one that can justify and redeem us from under the control of our sin, and because we believe in that, our faith shall be that which enables us to experience the righteousness of God in our life.
Now, it brings in the David quote, which we read earlier in Psalm 32. Even as David described the blessedness of a man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Iniquity is forgiven, and iniquity is when I do violate a law.
When I know the Ten Commandments, and I understand that they are intricately tied to the character of God, and I willfully choose to violate them, what that has become is an iniquity. It’s something that I have willfully done even though I knew what it was. And he says that your iniquities will be forgiven.
If you’ve ever done anything and someone has forgiven you for what you’ve done, and you didn’t have it coming, that’s an example of your iniquity being forgiven, when you knew specifically you weren’t to do something. Back when I was in junior high, they had a rule, no fighting in the school. And I was not the type of guy that normally fought.
But my cousin was, we were being dismissed from class, and my cousin was about four people in front of me. And so he told me that another classmate of his had hit him, and would I hit him back for my cousin. So I wailed off and hit this kid for my cousin, thought I was doing something really great.
Well the teacher saw me, and I found out I wasn’t doing anything really great, and my lame excuse I was doing it for my cousin held no water, because I had violated a law or a rule that the school had, no fighting amongst students. Well I got the distinguished responsibility of paying for my iniquity. And I had to write, I forget how many times it was on the board, I will not fight in school, I will not fight on school.
I think it was like 100 or 200 times I had to write that on the board, that somehow that was going to implant in my mind not to fight in school. Just doing it and getting caught implanted it on my mind. But the thing is, there really wasn’t a forgiveness there.
There wasn’t a covering of my iniquity. I’ll give you another example, where iniquity was covered. There was a world renowned evangelist, he was traveling, driving his own car, he was going to some evangelistic services in the south, and these little southern towns are notorious for having the policemen to sit there and give you speeding tickets.
Well this guy, this evangelist was in a hurry, the speed limit in the town was 25 when he came in through this town, like most of them are in these little towns, and he was going about 35 or 40. The policemen saw him and stopped him. And he said, I’m sorry, I’ve got to give you a ticket.
And the evangelist says, well what do I have to do for this ticket? And he says, well you’ve got to go to court. And he says, I’ve got meetings to go to, where do I, how do I get to court, do I have to come? And he says, no, I’ll take you over to the judge now. So he takes him over to the barber shop.
And he goes to the barber shop, and the barber’s in there getting a haircut, and the evangelist says, the policeman said I was supposed to come over here to talk to the judge, do you know where I can find him? The barber says, just a moment, takes off his little apron, and goes and gets his little judge robe, and says, I’m the judge. What’s the problem? And he hands him the ticket. He says, oh this is pretty serious.
You’re speeding through our city, going 40 and a 25 mile an hour zone. That, you saw the posted sign. Yes, I did.
Well, why were you speeding? I’m late, I need to get to my evangelistic services. He says, well, I don’t know. Then all of a sudden he says, don’t I recognize you? I think, aren’t you that famous evangelist? And the evangelist said, yes.
He said, really, I’ve listened to you, I really enjoy your messages, I enjoy what you’re doing and sharing. And they sit down and they have about a 15-20 minute conversation about this evangelist ministry and how the barber, quote, judge enjoys the ministry. And just then, the evangelist says, well, I need to get going.
Thank you very much for your time. And the judge says, wait a second, where do you think you’re going? He says, well, I didn’t think there was any problem here. And the judge says, well, I run a just court.
You’re responsible when you break the law. And he says, oh. So then he reaches for his wallet to pay the bill and the judge says, just a minute.
He goes over to his barber shop till, takes out the money that he’s earned that day and he pays the fine for the evangelist. And he says there, by grace, your iniquities have been covered. I’ve paid for it, so justice has been maintained.
That’s what Jesus did for us. And it’s much more than a speeding ticket. It’s violating God’s character.
But we see that our iniquities have been paid, as David says. They’ve been covered. And not only that, but he says our sins have been covered and our iniquities have been forgiven.
That was done at the cross of Jesus. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now what does it mean? I didn’t think God caused people to sin, so what does it mean impute? It means place upon.
If that evangelist’s ticket had not been paid by the judge, his sin would have had to been paid by himself or someone. His sin had been imputed upon him. His transgression had been imputed or placed upon him by the judge.
He said, yeah, you’re guilty. There’s no talking your way out of this. You saw the 25 mile an hour speed limit.
You were going 35 or 40. You knew it. And so I’m going to impute upon you that violation or that sin.
You know that there’s going to be people standing before the Lord at the Great White Throne Judgment and God’s going to impute on them their sin because they haven’t had their sin covered by the grace of Jesus. And they’re going to have to stand before the Lord and like that evangelist say, well, it wasn’t that fast, was it? I didn’t break your law that bad, did I? I didn’t violate your character that much, did I? I didn’t hit that guy in the arm on behalf of my cousin that hard, did I? Did I deserve to have this penalty? When I was in junior high and gave you that example, I got imputed or placed upon me the consequences that were due me because that was what was told. You’ll have to stay after school.
That was another joyful thing because I had to answer to my parents on why they had to come pick me up and I couldn’t be on the bus that night because I was writing, I will not fight in school. The thing is, there were consequences that I had brought upon myself and they just weren’t going to be removed. But the Lord was going to impute them or place them justly upon me.
Just like that teacher justly placed them upon me. The thing is, we need to understand that apart from the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, we stand with our sins being placed upon us by the Lord when we stand before Him on Judgment Day. You know, you’ve probably seen people, and I’m sure you look at our current political situation in the country, in the world, and you go, how can these wicked, evil people get by with so much? It feels like there’s never going to be consequences to their actions.
I want to tell you there’s going to be consequences and they’re not going to like them. Because they’re going to have to stand before the Creator of the universe and say, why did you deny my son Jesus? And I’m going to give you the consequences for your choices, your sins, and I’m going to impute them or place them upon you. And you will have to justify how I should let you into heaven when you have done all these things which violate my righteousness and my character.
Paul goes on and he says, Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, nor upon the uncircumcision also. For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. And then we’re going to close here, and I don’t know if I’ll be back next week, if I don’t get back next, if we end up being able to go on our trip.
I’ll be back in four weeks, but if we cannot be able to go, then I’ll probably be here either to speak again in the weeks that we’d normally be gone. But it’s interesting that, how was Abraham redeemed or saved? And he’s going to give the example of circumcision and uncircumcision, which is by the law, under the law, or not under the law. At what state was Abraham when he was saved by faith? He was uncircumcised.
And he wasn’t a Jew. He was a Chaldean. And so, everything that the Judaizers were bringing to Paul that said you needed to do to get saved before you came to Christ, Abraham hadn’t done any of it.
And instead, he was saved by his faith in the Word of God, and the promise of God only. And may we, in turn, understand, our faith needs to be in the finished work of Christ, and the Word of God, that that is what will redeem and save us, not our works. We’re going to get into works in the next lessons ahead, and find out what exactly God says about them, and how they play into our lives.
Let’s just close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for the opportunity You’ve given to us to meet together this morning. Lord, I pray that You just help us to understand the significance of walking by faith in Your Word, and placing Your Word as a foundation of our life, and trusting that what You say will come about.
That when You say that if we trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and what He has done in paying the penalty for our sin, and covering our transgressions, and forgiving our sins, Lord, help us to understand that that is real, and walk as men and women of faith who believe it. Go with us now, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.