Romans 4:4-8

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 'Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him' [Psalm 32:1-2].

V4-5 — Imputation. What an amazing statement that “God justifies the wicked”! God declares the ungodly to be righteous! How do we respond to understanding that? Do we understand what imputation means? Paul helps us with these verses. It’s an accounting term, like debit and credit. Justification and imputation work together to accomplish salvation. In justification we are declared not guilty though we are guilty, righteous though we are not righteous. And imputation is how God justifies. He imputes Christ’s righteousness to us through faith, so that He can righteously declare us righteous. He “credits” to our “account” the righteousness of Christ. He cancels the immeasurable debt we owe, but not only that. He also gives us His requirement to enter His presence, the priceless righteousness of Christ. What an amazingly gracious gift! Verse 4 explains the way people would expect this transaction to be accomplished. Paul addresses the hypothetical question: “What must we do to take advantage of this transaction?” Paul says, “Nothing, because if you could do something to gain God’s grace, then God would owe you His grace. It would no longer be a gift. And this is contrary to salvation by grace, for grace would not be grace; it would be like a wage, an obligation, paid out as compensation.” God owes us nothing. Since salvation is a gift and not an obligation, we receive it through faith, not by works.

V6-8 — Blessed is the man. Paul again goes to the Old Testament Scriptures to show that David held this position of justification by faith, salvation by grace. David says, “Blessed are they whose sins have been covered and forgiven. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.” “Blessed”=deeply secure, not deserving; due to God’s divine benediction, your lawless deeds are covered and forgiven and not imputed. God does not credit your sins to your account. This is an example of non-imputation. Both are essential for salvation. So God imputes Christ’s righteous to the believer’s account, and He does not impute the sins of the believer to the believer’s account. And Paul proves this right here, using only the Old Testament. Paul does not see justification as only the imputation of righteousness or only the forgiveness of sin. It’s both! And the blessedness of both conditions is by faith, apart from works. This doctrine for the mind is designed to produce joy in the heart. Be secure that you are justified!

Notice that David says the blessed man is the man whose works the Lord does not consider. The blessed man is deeply secure that God accepts him not on the basis of what he has done, but on the basis of what Christ has done. David does not stand before God and say, “Lord, I’m trying to be a good person.” David says, “The man who is really blessed is the man whose sins God doesn’t count against him.” Understanding imputation and non-imputation are important, as we will discuss imputation more when we come to Romans 5:12. I’ll make a statement regarding that passage for you to ponder until we get there: “The sin of Adam was imputed to all mankind, as every person was ‘in Adam.’ Adam was our representative, and when he sinned, the entire human race was counted as sinners.” Just as the righteousness of Christ was imputed to me through faith, so the sin of Adam was imputed to me through my humanity; I descended from Adam.

God's Glory in the Skies

I've taken great pleasure in a number of sunrises and sunsets that I've taken in over the past two weeks. I am humbled at the magnificence and subtle differences noticed in them. I am ashamed that I do not notice them more often. I read recently that God does not get bored with the seemingly monotonous task of arousing each day. He loves His creation, and it displays His glory. Each day is splendor to Him and, as for a child, repitition is a good thing - far from boring monotony.

Psalm 19:1-6

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies above proclaim His handiwork. Day to day they pour out speech, and night to night they reveal knowledge... Their measuring line goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

To fail to notice the masterpieces God works each day is sinful. Do we think the skies appear as they do by chance? Has He not worked each day anew? Is He not faithful like no other? Dare we take a single breath for granted? Dare we think of His works as less than majestic? Will you answer affirmatively the question found in Job 37:18: "Can you join Him in spreading out the skies"? Far be it from me. I praise Him for the splendor of the skies - a common grace to all inhabitants of the earth - and I praise Him for the new heart and transformed mind - a grace to His elect for His glory (Romans 9:10-24). I'll continue with the Psalmist (Psalm 19:7-14):

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. By them is Your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern His errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep Your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Romans 4:1-3

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about--but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness"[Genesis 15:6].

V1 — Proof that the gospel is rooted in the Old Testament Scriptures. Paul has repeatedly gone out of his way to establish this fact. (See Romans 1:2 and 3:21 and now 4.) Why? His audience was primarily Jewish Christians, and they had grown up learning the law from rabbis who taught justification by works. Paul just finished teaching justification by faith in chapter 3. When people are set in their ways, it’s hard to get them to accept change. That’s why Paul hammers on the truths he teaches as being rooted in the Old Testament. He first uses the example of Abraham, and then he uses David, perhaps 2 of the 3 greatest heroes of Judaism, to make his point. So Paul asks, “What does Abraham’s situation say about this?”

It’s very important to understand the context, the culture, the audience, and Paul’s purpose when reading chapter 4. Many Jewish Christians, being new in their faith in Christ, and certainly all Jews, would have struggled with justification by faith; they looked at Abraham as being righteous on his own. So Paul strived to take them to the traditional proof texts of the Jewish rabbis in order to show them that his teaching was true. Paul knew that his contemporaries would have appealed to Abraham to prove that salvation was by works, by one’s own righteousness, at least to some degree by one’s own merit. But Paul appeals to Abraham to show that, in fact, the Old Testament Scriptures teach the opposite. Salvation is by grace and received by faith. There is continuity here, as all people ever to be saved are saved by grace through faith, regardless of when or where they lived.

V2-3 — If salvation has anything to do with you, then boasting is possible. The Jews of Paul’s day taught that Abraham was chosen by God because of his righteousness. They taught that since he was the most righteous man of his day, God chose him to be the father of Israel. Furthermore, they also taught that Abraham was without sin, that he did not need to repent, and that he had kept God’s law perfectly throughout his life. Here are examples:

In the prayer of Manasseh, which was written a couple of centuries before the time of Christ, we read: “Therefore, You, O Lord, the God of the righteous have not appointed repentance for the righteous, for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who did not sin against you. But you have appointed repentance for me, a sinner.” There’s the suggestion that some people out there that don’t need to repent, that some haven’t sinned other than Christ.

From the book of Jubilees, a Jewish work written before the time of Christ, we read: “Abraham was perfect in his deeds with the Lord and well pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life.” I wonder if the author of that read Genesis 12-17. The Abraham in Genesis 12-17 was a man who fell into sin and displeased the Lord and wounded his own people and had to be restored in his feeble faith. Yet this is what the Jewish rabbis taught.

Even in commenting on Genesis 15:6, which is quoted in Romans 4:3, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited (or imputed, as we’ll see) to him as righteousness,” the rabbis said: “Our father, Abraham, became the heir of this and the world to come simply by the merit of faith. His faith was a work whereby he earned the right to the inheritance of this world and the world to come.”

This is what the Jews thought. And so Paul countered this by suggesting that Abraham, then, would have had a reason to boast before God. But the Jews couldn’t imagine boasting before God! Paul knew that they wouldn’t dare boast before God, so he closed the argument with “but not before God.” That helped make the point that the Jews already knew but did not admit: It’s not in us! If it was in us, then we’d have something about which to boast. The Jews hadn’t taken their beliefs to the logical conclusion. They just accepted what they had been taught without going deeper, without carrying it out. And that is dangerous to do for us today as well. If you say that God is saving you because of something in you, that’s wrong. Do you think God looked out and saw that you were good or saw something good in you that wasn’t in others, and that’s why He saved you? That’s wrong. If that were right, you could boast before Him. Paul makes that clear right here. There is no boasting before God.

To clarify, faith is the means of receiving righteousness. Faith is not righteousness, nor is it the cause of righteousness. Through the channel of faith, by faith, Christ’s righteousness is credited or imputed to us. Here’s a poor analogy: We would not say that the wire in our wall is the cable TV signal, nor would we say that the wire caused or merited or earned or deserved the cable TV signal. The wire is absolutely essential for our television to receive a cable signal. But in and of itself, the wire is not the signal. The wire is the conduit or channel by which we receive the cable TV signal. Faith is not righteousness / justification, nor does it cause or merit righteousness / justification. It’s absolutely essential for righteousness / justification. It’s the conduit or channel through which God accomplishes His justification and His salvation. God justifies us and credits Christ’s righteousness to us through faith. This question still remains: Why do some have faith and not others? Is it something in them? If so, how can they not boast?

Romans 3:29-31

Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

There is One God of all, Who justifies all kinds of men by the same faith in Christ. Paul uses the words, “we maintain.” This truth is not just something that Paul values; it’s a truth that Christians embrace. Justification is by grace through faith apart from works. And amazingly, it’s for all people. It’s not just for the Jews, those to whom God gave His law. And that is offensive to them. That’s why Paul spends so much time explaining these Jew / Gentile issues. He wants more than anything for his own countrymen to understand what their God has done. And they needed to understand that…

…God doesn’t depend on what we do. He depends upon His work and His work in His Son. On God’s end, salvation is provided by grace. But it’s not just on God’s end. Our salvation is provided by grace. On our end, our faith, whereby we receive the grace of God in the gospel, is a gift of God. He gifts us with faith. So salvation is by grace at both ends: on God’s end and our end. We don’t do things in order to condition God’s acceptance of us, and the one thing that God requires of us—faith—He gives. It goes right back to the prayer of Augustine. He said to God, “Command what You will and grant what You command.” In other words, “Lord, command me to do anything You want. And make me willing and able and certain to do it.”

The law is not nullified, but upheld by this faith. Paul probably got this objection frequently: that the doctrine of justification by faith was nullifying the law. Justification by faith rightly understood, as Paul says, doesn’t lead you to neglect the law or negate or hate the law. In fact it will lead you to love the law of God. But on the other hand justification by faith doesn’t lead you to believe that you can do anything that you want. Paul raises and then briefly answers this question saying that God’s free justification does not mean that works or obedience or love do not have a place in the Christian life. Paul wants us to hold two truths simultaneously in our understanding. We must understand first that there is absolutely no contribution whatsoever on our part to our justification. There is no work that we do or obedience that we do or love that we show or anything in us that determines whether or not God will justify us. There’s not even anything that God does in us that conditions our justification. Justification is done on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. Paul wants us to understand that on the one hand; on the other hand he wants us to understand that obedience and works and love that flows from a renewed heart, those things are a necessary part of the Christian life.

God in His mercy accepts you not because of something in you, but because of something in His Son and something that His Son did. And so when He accepts you, He looks at His Son, not at you. Do works flow from the work of God in you? Of course they do. But that doesn't make them meritorious. We'll look more at this in chapter four, beginning next week.