Sunday Morning Service

Romans 3:21-Romans 4 (Click scripture reference for audio access)

"If It's Good Enough For Abraham..."  •  3.18.12  •  Sunday Morning Service, Calvary Christian Fellowship

Intro.

            - The section before us represents a wonderful transition. Paul has firmly established the doctrine of condemnation. Mankind by any standard, stands condemned before God.

            - Men have transgressed their own conscience, the knowledge of creation or the express written law of God and stand before God thoroughly and hopelessly guilty as charged!

            - Chapter 1:18 through 3:20 are sincerely depressing chapters. That is why this section is so wonderful, for Paul moves us from the doctrine of condemnation to the doctrine of justification!

            - What does it take in order for any man, woman or child on earth to be saved? Paul answers that question in great detail.

            - We'll unveil an outline as we go, but if we took this section in two parts, I would suggest that chapter 3:21-31 speaks to how God views salvation, where chapter 4 speaks to how we view it.  

Text

            •  Romans 3:21 : "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets," : Those two little words continue to impress me: But now! Literally, at this very moment!

            - In all of human history, men have looked for a way to approach God, but have not found it. But now, things are different!

            - "Now" represents a paradigm shift in the relationship between God and Man. "Now" represents an opportunity that did not previously exist. What does this refer to?

            - The righteousness of God. The state of what a man ought to be, the condition that is acceptable to God! It must be acceptable to God, because first and foremost, it is "of God!"

            - It's of His character! It stems from Him! It's rooted in Him! It is dispensed by Him!

            - It is a righteousness that is entirely apart from or without the intervention of the law. It is another entity, a third party.

            - It is from God, separate from the law, and it is now recognized or realized! It is fully understood now, even though it was nothing new.

            - The law and the prophets, an Apostolic way of speaking about the entirety of scripture stands as a witness to what was once obscured!

            •  Romans 3:22 : "even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; "  :  This righteousness that comes from God comes to man by the vehicle of His faith in Jesus Christ.

            - Faith in Christ is the pipeline that righteousness flows through to get to you!

            - Note what is not there: Even the righteousness of God, through good works. Through church membership. Through virtuous living! God requires one thing: Faith in Jesus Christ!

            - To those who believe upon Christ, the righteousness of God is given freely, to all and on all who believe. What a stark contrast!

            - When Paul last used the words "all" or "none," he used them to consign men under the power and penalty of sin. Now, all who believe will receive God's righteousness, none excluded!

            •  Romans 3:23  :  "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," :  This is a positive negative statement. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

            - In context, this is actually a positive statement! Paul is saying every man has the same opportunity to receive righteousness, because each man has desperate need of it!

            - They have sinned. Their actions have exposed their unrighteousness. Every person has missed the mark, wandered far from the path, being under the power of sin.

            - Consequently, all fall short of the glory of God. The word "fall short" would be one that was used in the games, speaking of one who came up short in his time trials.

            - Additionally, this is written in the present tense, signifying that they keep falling short. It is their habit to fall short, never once having fulfilled their goal.

            - The goal was this particular time and anything less than that, was failure. In life, the goal is to glorify God, to give Him His proper place. But men have sinned and have come short of that goal.

            - What is the glory of God? One can only believe that it's living a life equal to the life lived by Jesus Christ Himself! Who has lived like Him? None.

            • Romans 3:24-26 : "being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." : These believers in Christ are being justified freely by His grace. Justified is a legal term. A judgment has been made in your case, and it's good!

            - This word "freely" is important. The word used elsewhere means "without cause."

            - There is nothing in you that causes God to respond this graciously toward you. It all comes from Him. He sets His grace upon those who believe upon Christ simply because He is gracious!

            - God has declared you, one who is thoroughly guilty, to be treated as though he were righteous! This is done by His grace through redemption, referring to a purchase price.

            - Redemption is a word that comes from the marketplace, where goods and even people were purchased. Whatever market value there was to pay, God paid it!

            - God set forth Jesus, as a public spectacle of propitiation, a word taken from the temple. By the shedding of the Savior's blood, God's justified anger against sin was appeased or expiated..

            - In the Greek version of the New Testament, the same word is employed to translate the word "mercy seat." The mercy seat was the covering piece on the Ark of the Covenant.

            - When the High Priest came into the Holy of Holies, He was to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice upon the mercy seat, thereby appeasing God's wrath against Israel's sin.

            - Jesus is the Mercy Seat, prefigured in the piece of furniture in the Old Testament!

            - The blood of Jesus, like the blood of the sacrifice in Exodus, brought satisfaction to the holy wrath of God, Jesus absorbing all of His wrath in Himself!  

            - God presented Jesus as as a propitiatory sacrifice, in order that through faith in Him, God could be righteous toward you and I!

            - Consider our plight. We are condemned sinners, whose sinful history is well documented. How can God just let people off the hook? He didn't! God paid for our sins in Christ.

            - For every wicked sin that you or I have ever committed or considered, God's treatment of Christ thoroughly pays the consequence and satisfies His righteous demands forever!

            - God did not just remit sin. He cares about our sin and Jesus paid for it! Paul immediately answers the objection: If He was enraged against sin, why didn't He do anything?

            - He did not act because of His forebearance or tolerance! He suspended punishment of men's sins with the knowledge that Jesus would come and die for them!

            - In this way, God is the Just One. He took care of sin, by allowing His Son to be punished for it. He is also the Justifier, the One who has the ability to declare His people righteous.

            •  Romans 3:27  :  "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith." :  Who can stand up and glorify themselves? Paul says that that option for a Christian is gone! Boasting is shut out, the door is closed.

            - We need to be careful how we speak of our Christian experience. Did you come to some "great realization?" Were we so wise in how we accepted Jesus?

            - We don't need to scrutinize every word that comes out of our mouth, but we should be conscious of who it is that we are seeking to give glory to!

            - We have not come into Christian life by law or works. We've been brought in by faith in Christ alone and nothing else!

            •  Romans 3:28-31  :  "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law." : A man. Any man is justified by faith! Jews, Gentiles, circumcised, uncircumcised. It does not matter, God's justice and righteousness are available to all!

            - Why? Because He is the the only God! And His only method of justification is based on faith, so nobody has any choice! Receive His terms or not! But what about the law? Do we discard it!

            - Not at all. The law stands firm in it's place never intended to justify, but only to condemn. For Christians, the law is right where it belongs.

            - According to these verses, God's perspective of salvation is that it is a gracious gift to those whose faith is in Christ, legally pronounced, rightfully paid for and sacrificially valid.

            - Now, let's consider justification from the perspective of earth and the illustration of Abraham.

            •  Romans 4:1-3  :  "What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.': Abraham was a good case study. What could be said about Abraham's salvation? What does the scripture say?

            - When it comes to justification, we want God's Word on the matter and the Father of the Jewish race was the one that you wanted to study!

            - In Genesis 14, Abraham had just come back from a raid against the KIngs of Sodom who had captured his nephew Lot.

            - When he returned and thought about what he had done, he was afraid, realizing that with only 318 men, that the Kings would likely regroup and retaliate. Needless to say, he was very afraid!

            - God speaks to Abraham and says, "Don't be afraid. I am your shield and reward! And far from anyone hurting you, I am going to prosper you with a great number of descendants!"

            - Abraham took a deep breath and he believed God in Genesis 15:6. Just like that, God responded by putting righteousness in Abraham's account!

            - This is called the doctrine of imputation. It comes from the accounting world. It speaks to putting resource into one's account.

            - When you come to the Lord, He doesn't just bring you to zero balance. He puts His riches in your account!

            - Paul is saying that justification by faith is the way that God has always been saving people! There has never been another option!

            - What was it that Abraham believed? Abraham believed God's promise regarding His descendants, especially His ultimate Descendant Jesus, who would bring blessing to the world!

            - Abraham believed forward that God would bring salvation from his body. God then did for Him what He does for us: Imputing righteousness to Abraham's account!

            •  Romans 4:4-8 : "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,  just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ^'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.'"  : The person who works receives a reward. There is a debt that the employer has to pay. In the case of salvation, God will not owe a man anything. Salvation must come from grace!

            - Why? One simple wonderful reason: God wants it to be that way! The one who believes, receives grace from God. King David experienced this as well!

            - Paul quotes from Psalm 32:1, which David wrote after his experience with Bathsheba.

            - David wrote about God imputing or adding righteousness to men apart from their works. David did not deserve God's faithfulness and neither did he deserve God's righteousness!

            - David's sins deserved death. Instead, God had covered over, pardoned David's sin. Instead of imputing guilt, God imputed righteousness!

            -The law condemned David, but when David confessed his sin, God forgave and gave David the grace of righteousness, because David trusted in God's promise.

            - Both Abraham and David testified to God's grace in justification.

            •  Romans 4:9-12 : "Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, 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 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." : This part of Paul's argument is absolutely crushing to the Jews. The Jews believed that circumcision was equal to salvation. 

            - Paul's next argument is that salvation is not dependant upon ritual.

            - Surprise, Abraham technically wasn't even a Jew when God called Him and Abraham received righteousness a full two chapters before representing 14 years of time!

            - Abraham was graced with righteousness and then later, as a sign and seal of that righteousness, he received circumcision.

            - In the end analyses, Paul is saying that the Jews needed to come to God just like Abraham did and just like the Genties were doing: By simple belief in Jesus Christ.

            •  Romans 4:13-15  :  "For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.  For if those who are of the law are 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." : Paul asserts that one cannot be saved by race or ritual. What about rules!? What about the law!? Was Abraham saved by the keeping of the law?

            - Abrahm was promised the world. When God gives you Himself, you have the entire world!

            - The promise of righteousness cannot be mixed. It is either from law or it's from faith. If it's from law, then faith doesn't work and vice versa! The law only brings wrath!

            - The law could not have brought Abraham righteousness because it did not exist for 400 years! How could Abraham have been declared righteous by something that did not exist!

            - There was no law to condemn and there was no law to transgress.

            •  Romans 4:16-18 : "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 to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, 'I have made you a father of many nations') in the presence of Him whom he believed—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.'"  : The promise of God's righteousness is of faith so that God can be gracious, not only to Abraham but to Abraham's seed as well.

            - That promise needs to be sure. The word means "stable." Why is it stable? Because the promise is based upon Him, not upon us! We never have to fear a change because He cannot!

            - God doesn't want to be any person's debtor. He wants to be gracious to all men. This is how Abraham is the Father of many nations!

            - God's word to Abraham was prophetic, not racially, but spiritually. He would be the Father of those who believe, who have his same faith.

            - His faith was not one that was simple. He had to believe against all hope. His wife was barren and old. He was old. Naturally speaking, there was no way, but God had promised.

            - Abraham's faith believed God despite what he saw or could make happen himself! Do you see the correlation? You have been called to believe the same thing!

            - When you look at yourself, you see all the flaws of your own nature. How can I ever be fit for heaven? How could God accept someone like me? We take God at His Word!

            - Abraham's faith was not based upon Himself. It was based upon God. Paul continues.

            •  Romans 4:19-22  :  " 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 also able to perform. And therefore 'it was accounted to him for righteousness.'"  : Not being weak in faith. This is an interesting construction. Abraham did not abstain from the use of his strength. He kept feeding faith!

            - It was not easy for Abraham to believe. He was 100 and Sarah was 90! But when God promised him an heir, he did not waver, the word meaning to be at variance with himself!

            - Not looking at the circumstances, Abraham kept looking at God and that kept Him strong!

            - He was strengthened in his faith, fully convinced, filled full to the brim with persuasion, that what God promised He was able to perform! What a powerful statement!

            - Is that your response to God? Are you fully confident, ready to stake your eternity on God's claim that He will impute righteousness to you? If so, you will have Abraham's faith and God's reward!

            •  Romans 4:23-25 : "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." : God inspired Moses to write all of this, not to tell us a nice story about Abraham, but to speak clearly to us about His justification!

            - Do you not want this same justification? I want that sure basis that I cannot find in myself. Abraham had to believe that God could bring life from death, the deadness of Sarah's womb.

            - Paul is saying that our salvation is based upon a God who can do that! He will add His righteousness to our account

            - Jesus was delivered up because of our offenses, for the sake of our sin. That was His justice poured out upon Christ, but then God raised Him for our justification!

            - He brought life from death and gave us a promise. Do you believe? Is all your eternal hope there?

Conclusion

            - In the mind of God, justification is based on righteousness, firmly grounded in the language of any law court, any market place or in any temple of that time.

            - He has justified. He has redeemed. He has propitiated. Jesus accomplished all of this on a Roman cross, the effects of which continue to this very day!

            - From our perspective, justification is experienced by faith. It's a faith that is apart from race, ritual or rule. Abraham was righteous before there were Jews, circumcision or the law!

            - It's a faith that believes despite what seems possible and a faith that doesn't waver, but is strengthened day by day, fed by the knowledge that it is God who can acoomplish His promise.

            - Have you trusted Him? Have you believed? Let us believe today as never before!