Romans chapter 4 is the chapter. Open your Bible, we're going to look at Romans
4 for a little bit tonight. There was a little girl who secretly and quietly
had saved up enough money to buy her father a present for Father's Day. But when she had all her money collected,
she was very concerned and so she went to her mother and said, "I can't be going down
town every month to make payments. Mother, is there a store where they let you
pay for the whole thing at once?" That's the kind of question a child would
ask. And it is also true that there are religions
in the world, in fact all false religions believe that you buy your salvation on some
kind of an installment plan. You pay a little bit as you go. Good works offered to God each month, each
week, each day, but nothing could be further from the truth. Salvation doesn't come on the installment
plan. The price was fully paid at once by Christ
and the gift of salvation is given at once by Christ to the penitent and believing sinner. This great reality is the message of the section
we're in in the great epistle of Paul to the Romans. And in this fourth chapter, Paul explains
that Abraham is the true example of salvation. Those of you who have been with us for our
Sunday nights will remember back in chapter 3 we saw Paul lay out the sinfulness of man,
the sinfulness of sin, the absolute and utter impossibility of a man to do anything about
his own sin and its consequences. And then from verse 21 to 31 he laid out the
gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone in which God
grants righteousness to the penitent sinner. In that section of Romans, Paul gave us teaching
on how to be right with God, how to establish a right relationship with God. Another way to say that is how to have a relationship
with God that will take you to heaven rather than send you to hell. How to come out from under the judgment of
God into the grace of God. That has already gone before in chapter 3. The key to it, of course, is verse 24, "Being
justified," that is made right with God, declared to be right with God, "as a gift by His grace
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." So Paul as presented his case for justification
by faith. He has given the theology of it, the theology
of it. In so doing he shattered religious myths and
lies, including Jewish ones, showing that the way to be right with God is by repentance
and faith in Christ, not by works. Now to prove his case, he goes from a theology
of justification to an illustration of justification. And the illustration comes in chapter 4. He's going to illustrate the truth of justification
by faith not works with a life, a life of a man, no less than the man Abraham. Let's look at the opening eight verses. "What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather,
according to the flesh has found? 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 credited to
him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wage is not
credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work but believes
in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing
on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have
been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will
not take into account." He does refer to David as an aside in order
to borrow the quote out of Psalm 32, but the main character here used as an illustration
is none other than Abraham. And this is very important because he is arguing
against the traditional Jewish view of salvation by works. And Abraham is the perfect model for salvation
by faith because of how the view...the Jews viewed Abraham. Why does he select Abraham? Because Abraham transcends, if you will, the
dispensations because Abraham is a sort of permanent illustration of the righteousness
of God that comes by faith. First of all, he was an Old Testament character. That is very important. Not only was he an Old Testament character,
but he was saved before the Law was given. So he transcends, if you will, the age of
grace and the age of Law. He is therefore a kind of universal illustration. He is the supreme example in the Old Testament
of faith. And so he is the ideal example to use for
salvation by faith as being the consistent norm, in fact the only way of salvation. It is also important to note that the Jews
looked to Abraham as their model of righteousness. So Paul picks him not only because he transcends
the ages, and not only because he is the supreme example of faith in the Old Testament record,
but because he was the favorite illustration the Jews used to prove salvation by works. So he really overturns their model of salvation. The majority of rabbis held that Abraham was
the only righteous man of his generation, that he was the only truly righteous man of
is generation which remember now is pre-Israel since he is the father of Israel, pre-the
giving of the Law to Moses. So he stands alone as the emblem of righteousness. And the Jews taught that is why God chose
him to be the father of his people. He was such a righteous man that God selected
him to be the father of the nation that would become the dispenser of divine revelation. However, if we remember Romans 3:10, we remember
the Old Testament also says there is none righteous, not even one. Well they were content to ignore that statement
in the Old Testament and grant Abraham a kind of righteous perfection as the reason God
selected him to father their nation. If you ask the question...by what standard
was he deemed righteous? You couldn't make it the Law because the Law
had not been given. So how did the rabbis determine the righteousness
of Abraham? They said this, they said Abraham kept the
Law by anticipation and intuition. He expected the Law to be of a certain nature. He anticipated what it would be and intuitively
kept the Law and therefore God made an oath to him, the Abrahamic Covenant, Genesis 12,
that his seed would be blessed. It was a reward for his anticipatory and intuitive
observation of a Law not yet given. But he was so righteous that he was more righteous
than any man and he was self-righteous, even though the Law had not been given. And because of the way in which the Jews revered
Abraham, Paul chooses Abraham as his illustration not of salvation by self-righteousness and
works but the very opposite. He endeavors here to wipe out the Jewish illusion
of salvation by faith, by picking on their own best illustration. He will establish the truth that in fact Abraham
is not an example of salvation by works, but he is an example of salvation by faith. Just the opposite of what they said. He is an illustration that God saves by grace. He is an illustration that God grants righteousness
to those who have not earned it. The basic belief of the Jews was that you
earn favor with God. Abraham had earned more than anybody else
in his generation. The message of the gospel is there's none
righteous, no not one, that is also the message of the Old Testament, "No man can earn favor
with God." It is the supreme discovery of the Christian
gospel that you don't need to try to earn favor with God. You don't need to try to be righteous enough
on your own to be accepted by God. You don't need to torture yourself with a
losing battle to try to earn God's love and salvation. Paul chose Abraham because he was their favorite
illustration of works/righteousness and turn that view on its head. It's also very good to have an illustration
and Paul wanted to put flesh and blood to the previous theology. He wanted to take it out of the realm of abstraction
and put it in the realm of life...flesh and blood. And so for these reasons, Paul chose to illustrate
faith, righteousness by faith through the life of Abraham. Abraham's life is a model, it is a pattern
in three ways. And I don't know if we'll get to all three
tonight, it doesn't really matter. First of all, he was justified by faith, not
works. That's the passage I read. He was justified by faith not works. Secondly, in the subsequent passage, verses
9 to 17, he was justified by grace, not Law. Thirdly, from verse 18 to verse 25, he was
justified by divine power, not human effort. Every way you can look at it, he was justified
by faith, not works, by grace not law, by divine power, not human effort. Each of those points has a negative and a
positive side. So Paul is rather exhaustive in this presentation. And we'll look at them in a measure of detail,
probably not as much detail as the series I did in Romans some years ago, that is more
detailed, more prolonged, more elongated. What we're giving you is something of a summary
of that more detailed study. I only say that because, of course, it's available
to you through the ministry of Grace To You and you can downloaded it free, if you so
desire. So Paul attacks the opponents of justification
by faith at the very fortress at which they felt they were the strongest, at the point
of Abraham. If Abraham was not justified by works, then
no one could be because, as I said, they deemed Abraham to be the most righteous man of is
generation. If Abraham was not justified by works, then
no one could be. On the other hand, if Abraham didn't need
to be justified by works because you could be justified by faith, then all men can be
justified. You see the difference? If Abraham was not justified by his works,
no man could be. If Abraham was justified by faith, all men
can be and must be. In the case of Abraham, is again the center
stronghold of the whole Jewish position. And if you do a little research into what
the rabbis taught, it's quite interesting. Comparing that with the Old Testament, this
is kind of the formula they concocted for Abraham. God commanded Abraham in Genesis 26:5, because
Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws. God said Abraham was obedient. In fact, God spoke to Abraham, according to
Isaiah 41:8, as My friend. So based upon Abraham's obedience as noticed
in Genesis 26 and he being called the friend of God, as indicated by the prophet Isaiah,
they determined that Abraham had earned his way in. There is an ancient apocryphal book called
Ecclesiasticus and in that apocryphal book it teaches that Abraham was given justification
and along with the justification he was given the privilege of circumcision because he earned
it by his law keeping. In fact, Abraham was considered by the rabbis
as one of the seven men who through their own merit brought back the Shekinah glory,
the presence of God, to abide in the tabernacle. They got a little carried away with this extolling
of the virtues of Abraham, and they said, "He began to serve God faithfully at three
years of age." You might want to note the following words
from something called The Prayer of Menassah quoting, "Therefore, Thou, O Lord, God of
the righteous hast not appointed repentance for the righteous, for Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob who did not sin against Thee but Thou hast appointed repentance for me who am a
sinner." So they concluded Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
some of them anyway, didn't need to repent because they were not sinners. The book of Jubilee is probably dating from
the second century B.C. minimizes the weaknesses of the patriarchs and contains this statement,
quote: "Abraham was perfect in all his deeds with the Lord and well pleasing in righteousness
all the days of his life." And so they had built this imaginary man that
didn't need to repent, that was perfectly righteous. Our father, Abraham, became the heir of God
and the coming world simply by the merit of the faith with which he believed in the Lord. As it is written, he believed in the Lord
who counted it to him as righteousness. That is their spin on Genesis 15:6. Abraham believed God and it was counted to
him as righteousness. They spun that verse to mean that is believing
was another in the many acts of merit by which he earned righteousness. We'll go back to that verse in a few minutes
because Paul quotes it in chapter 4 as I read. And so, by anticipation and intuition, he
perfectly kept the Law to the degree, at least to some, that he didn't need to even repent
of sin. They used Abraham to support their theory
of earning salvation. They made him the ultimate model. He had actually inherited this world and the
world to come, as I read, because of his faith which was a personal act of righteousness
on his part by which in part he earned righteousness. Now they had another scripture in the Old
Testament they had to tamper with a little bit. Habakkuk 2:4 says, "The just shall live by
faith." They changed it. Some of the rabbis quoted it this way, "The
just shall live by his faithfulness." If you're faithful enough, which is another
way to say obedient enough, you earn your righteous standing with God. All that simply to say that Abraham was at
the very heart of their system of salvation by works and the two verses that might have
undone their system, Genesis 15:6 and Habakkuk 2:4, they had managed to reinterpret or restate. On the other hand, Paul makes the point that
Abraham's faith was not some merit by which he earned salvation, but simply a means by
which he received the gift. And this will become clear to us as we look
at the passage. So let's look at point one in the chapter,
Abraham was made right with God by faith, not by works. Next time we'll look at the fact that he was
made right with God by grace, not by Law. Now, first of all, as I said, in each of these
three points in the chapter, Paul makes a negative and then a positive comment. Let's start with the negative, verse 1. "What then shall we say? That Abraham, our forefather, according to
the flesh has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he
has something to boast about but not before God." So we start out with how Abraham was not made
righteous. How Abraham was not made right with God. The force of that opening statement is that
Abraham if indeed he was on his own merit made righteous is then allowed to boast. If he earned it, he gets the credit for it. That's Paul's simple argument. He identifies Abraham as our father. He's talking to the Jews about the Jews, the
supreme one of all God's called people, the man of the covenant. Therefore, whatever is true of him necessarily
is true for all his children. So if Abraham is saved by works, then all
his children follow along. On the other hand, if he is saved by faith,
then all his children would follow along as well. So what do we say about Abraham our forefather
according to the flesh? By his natural unaided powers, is what that
means. What was he able to accomplish on his own? What did he gain by the works of the flesh? What has he accomplished? What has he achieved? Was he justified by works? If he was, then he has something to boast
about. But not before God. Translation...if Abraham was justified by
works, he has something to boast about but from God's viewpoint, he has no reason to
boast, no basis for pride. This is Paul's opening point and he will define
and defend it as the text moves on. Men are never made right with God by human
effort, we saw that back in verse 27. Where is boasting? It is excluded, chapter 3 verse 27, by what
kind of Law or principle of works? No, but by a law or principle of faith. We maintain that a man is justified by faith
apart from the works of the Law. So Abraham has nothing to boast about. If you wanted a little bit of a syllogism,
this is the way it would go. If you remember some of your logic courses. The major premise, if a man is justified by
works, he has ground for boasting. Minor premise, Abraham was justified by works,
conclusion, therefore Abraham has a right to boast. But Paul challenges that by stating that the
minor premise is false. Major premise, if a man is justified by works,
he has ground for boasting. You can say that. Minor premise, Abraham was justified by works,
that's not true. He was justified by faith, therefore the conclusion
cannot be he has a right to boast. Starting then with the changing of that minor
premise, he proves that Abraham was not justified by works and thus destroys the conclusion
that Abraham had any right to boast...not before God means not in the presence of God,
not with God standing there. Now how does he support this denial of salvation
by works and therefore a denial that Abraham has a right to boast with Scripture? And I love this. He defends himself based upon Scripture. Go to verse 3, "For what does the Scripture
say," and this is the positive. The negative dealt with Abraham not being
able to boast. The positive deals with how Abraham was made
righteous. It was not by works, it was by faith. How do we know that? And he quotes Genesis 15:6, "What does the
Scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to
him as righteousness." Paul puts Abraham's faith in the foreground. He believed God and it was credited to him
as righteousness. We understand this. We have heard this. This is familiar because it's repeated by
Paul. Listen to Galatians 3:6, "Even so, Abraham
believed God," the same quoting Genesis 15:6, "it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Later in that chapter, the same emphasis is
made. We are all children of Abraham, verse 7, we
are all sons of Abraham because we also come by faith and not by works. He ends the chapter in verse 29, "If you belong
to Christ, you are Abraham's descendants" So Abraham is not the father of all those
made righteous by works, but rather he is, in a sense, the father of all those made righteous
by faith. To Paul and the Holy Spirit, the essence of
Abraham's testimony and witness and model and pattern is simply that he believed God. He believed God. He took God at His Word. To see an illustration of that, turn to Hebrews
chapter 11 for a moment. And this is the account that the writer of
Hebrews gives us of the faith of Abraham. Of course, in Hebrews 11 you have all the
heroes of faith and Abraham is among them, and so here we learn about his faith. What was it that he believed? Well here it tells us, "By faith Abraham when
he was called obeyed...he obeyed." While he was being called, present participle,
he obeyed. And his obedience is remarkable because it
says, "By going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance and he went
out not knowing where he was going. Pretty remarkable, great faith, kind of a
drop all and follow Me faith that we see with the disciples...the kind of self-denying faith,
great faith...He forsook everything without anything in return. No knowledge of where he was going, he literally
put his life in the hands of the God who called him and he believed him to be a secure place
to plant his life. He left the land of his birth. He forsook his home, his estate, severed ties
with those he loved, abandoned present securities for future uncertainty. He abandoned everything he knew for everything
he didn't know. Verse 9 indicates that his faith was not only
instant but it was patient. By faith he lived as an alien in the land
of promise as in a foreign land, dwelling intense with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs
of the same promise. For he was looking for the city which has
foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Mark it, to Abraham, God's promise was never
fulfilled. He never owned land. He never owned land. He wandered everywhere as a tent dweller. He had never lost his faith in those early
years. He really never saw the fulfillment of his
dreams. He never saw a great nation, never inherited
the promised land, never had a fulfillment of his dreams but he never lost faith in God's
promise. And ultimately he knew that the final promise
was heavenly, the city which has foundations whose architect and builder is God. He was following in faith the way to heaven. By faith even Sarah herself received ability
to conceive even beyond the proper time of life since she considered Him faithful who
had promised. Together, you remember, when they were long
past childbearing age, God gave them that promised son Isaac who was the son of the
Covenant and through Isaac came the nation and the promise. Therefore there were born even of one man
and him as good as dead at that as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number and innumerable
as the sand which is by the seashore and that was the promise given to him in Genesis. And out of his loins came that great nation. He didn't see it, he died holding on to the
promise without ever seeing its fulfillment. Look at verse 13, he was one of those who
died in faith without receiving the promises. Having seen them and welcomed them from a
distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth...he knew
that ultimately this was a heavenly promise, that he had been promised eternal life in
heaven with God. He lived seeking a country of their own. Verse 15, "Indeed, if they had been thinking
of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return,
but as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called
their God for He has prepared a city for them. By faith, Abraham when he was tested offered
up Isaac." Imagine. You want to know how strong his faith is,
not only does he drop everything, instantly walk away from everything he knows for a life
of uncertainty, but he's left in limbo for years wandering, as a bedouin in the land
owning nothing. He has no heir until he reaches a hundred
years of age. Finally the child of promise is given and
he still hasn't seen the fulfillment of His promise. Where is the great nation? Where is the great Kingdom? Where is the great salvation? And then that one son, God says to him, "Take
him up to Mount Moriah and kill him and offer him as a sacrifice. And by faith, Abraham does it, verse 17, offered
up Isaac. And he who had received the promises was offering
up his only begotten son. It was he to whom it was said, "In Isaac your
descendants shall be called," Genesis 21:12. And here he was going to kill Isaac because
God asked him to and in Isaac was the fulfillment of everything that he had left home for, everything
he had languished as a bedouin through all those years waiting for, everything unrealized. How could he do that? His faith was so strong, according to verse
19, he considered that God is able to raise people, even from the dead. Why would he have killed Isaac? Because he trusted the promise of God so much
that he knew that God would raise Isaac from the dead to fulfill that promise if He had
to. That is great faith. Abraham is a model of faith. Now you can go back to Romans for there in
that wonderful portion of the book of Hebrews we have the condensed summary looking at the
faith of Abraham. Abraham, it says then back in verse 3, believed
God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Counted, logizomai, to put to one's account,
to credit, to reckon, used eleven times from verse...well eleven times just in this one
section in one form or another. Righteousness put to an account. It is to say that Abraham believed God and
therefore credited to his account was the very righteousness of God. He received it by faith and that's how all
men are made righteous before God, it is not because they can become righteous on their
own, it is because the righteousness comes to them from God credited to their account
by faith. How can this be? How can this be? Because all sin was imputed to Christ's account
and He suffered for it and bore it on the cross, including all of Abraham's sin. He bore the sin of all believers through all
history. It was counted to him for righteousness. What was? Simply the act of faith. The faith that Abraham had in God was a supernatural
faith. It's not a normal faith. There's no normal human response that says
I'll leave everything for nothing. It's not normal to say I'll kill my son because
he'll be raised from the dead. That is not human fait h. There is such a thing as human faith. We talk about that. You exercise it every day when you turn your
faucet on and drink what comes out. You exercise it every day when you get in
your car and start a series of internal combustions that go on you don't ever think about being
a part of a combustion that blows you into eternity. Same thing you do when you go to the hospital
and they knock you out and slice you open and do whatever they're going to do. You have no idea what's going on. That's faith, but that's human faith. And human faith is built on a history of seeing
things happen that indicate this is something you can trust. You drink the water because you've been drinking
the water. You drive the car because you've been driving
the car and lots of people do that. You have surgery because you've had surgery
and all kinds of people have surgery and people come out of it. You have a track record that this is a valid
thing to put your trust in. There's no track record with this kind of
faith. This is a promise that no one has ever seen. Abraham didn't see the future at all. He didn't know what he was headed for. He gave up certainty for uncertainty. There was no precedent for this. No one has ever seen heaven and come back
to tell us about it. So we live in hope. We put all of our trust and all of our faith
in something we cannot see. This is a kind of faith that isn't natural
faith, this is a supernatural faith. It really is a gift...by grace you are saved
through faith, that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. The faith that Abraham had in God was empowered
in him by God but not apart from his own willingness and his own obedience. And by faith he gave up his life, by faith
he denied himself. By faith he followed and he knew there would
be nothing in this life that would bring about the promise but that he was headed for a city
whose builder and maker was God. He was headed for a country that wasn't in
this world, it was a heavenly one. And whatever the cost, he trusted God. Trusted God to take him to that place. Trusted God to fulfill His promises. It is that kind of faith that marks the man
who is declared righteous. This was Abraham's salvation. He believed God when there was no precedence,
no evidence, no sight, it was all promise unfulfilled. This is justification by faith. You believe God for a forgiveness you can't
see. You believe God for a heaven you've never
been to. You believe God for an eternal reward you've
never received. You believe God for eternal bliss and joy
you've never experienced. That's not normal. I understand why people are skeptical about
that in the natural. I understand that. That's a natural kind of skepticism. But you have, by the way, the testimony of
the faithful in the past and that's given to you in Hebrews chapter 11. That's why the hall of faith is there. And you have unending evidences of the veracity
and inerrancy and authority of the Scripture as divine revelation. And you have the testimony of all the transformed
and regenerate of all the ages who give testimony to living the life of faith and living in
anticipation of that promise which awaits us. Furthermore, although we haven't entered in
the full and final promise, we receive tokens of that promise all the time...the comfort,
the assurance, the joy, the peace, the blessedness, the answered prayer, the usefulness, the demonstration
of God's power through our lives and the lives of others as we witness to the gospel and
see God work through us. All of these are evidences, these are tastes
of that heavenly reality. And so, we all live like Abraham lived. We live by faith, having been saved by faith. So then, back to the original question...how
can a man be right with God? How can sin be forgiven? And how can we have the promise of that city,
that heavenly country? Do we earn it? Do we gain it by works? Paul's answer is absolutely not...absolutely
not. It is by faith and faith alone. And let me hasten to add, it is not a faith
that is a righteous act that merits it. It is a faith that simply channels the gift
to us. One way to say it is, faith is never the basis
of our justification, it is only the means of it. It is only the channel of it. It is just the hand that reaches out to take
the gift. It isn't that because you believed on your
own you earned it, for faith itself is a gift of God. It is a means by which we receive the justification
given to us. Listen to Galatians 2:16, "Knowing that a
man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we
have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by
the works of the Law since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified." What Paul is saying is belief is not a work
of the Law. He contrasts belief with the works of the
Law. It is not a righteous deed done by a sinner
on his own. It is not the basis of justification. You're not justified because you did this
righteous thing of believing. Believing is only a means by which that justification
comes to you and even that believing is a work of God in a regenerated heart. Now let's go back to the text. In verses 4 and 5, "Now to the one who works,"
Paul's argument moves from Scripture to reason here, "Now the one who works to the one who
works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who doesn't work, but believes
in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness." This is a simple obvious fact. If you work, it's a wage, it's not a favor...it's
not a gift. But if you didn't work, but simply believed,
then it's a gift. That's all that he's saying. "The one who works gets a wage, that's what
he's due. The one who doesn't work and receives this
greatest of all gifts, then has to acknowledge that righteousness has been credited to him
and he doesn't deserve it...and here's the key line...he believes in Him who justifies
the ungodly." Now you ought to underline that in your bible
because you ought to go back to that again and again and again and again. The Jews believed that God justified the godly. Religion believes that. That if you want to be right with God, you
have to be good, you have to do good works, you have to merit salvation. But God is in the business of justifying the
ungodly. That is an absolutely stunning statement. God is in the business of justifying the ungodly. In fact, He only justifies the ungodly because
that's the only kind of people there are. There are no people who work the righteous
law well enough to have earned their standing with God. There are only people who have failed. All have sinned and come short of the glory
of God...as we found in the previous chapter. And so, God justifies the ungodly. That literally overturns all works/righteousness
systems. Salvation comes to those, verse 5, who do
not work...who do not earn it, but believe in the God who justifies the ungodly and that
believing is counted, credited as righteousness. Job 9 verse 20 says, "If I justify myself,
my own mouth will condemn me. If I say I'm perfect, it will prove me perverse." He's right. Nobody honestly can stand before God and declare
his righteousness. There are no godly to justify. There are only ungodly. In Exodus 23:7 the Law says this, "I will
not justify the wicked...Exodus 23:7...I will not justify the wicked." On the other hand, grace says here, "God justifies
the ungodly." If you go by Law, can't get there. He will not justify the wicked. If you're going to come by Law, you're going
to end up wicked, you have no hope. But by grace He will justify the wicked. The high point, I think, of this in the Old
Testament, turn to Isaiah 43 and it's good to look at this because Abraham is not the
only illustration or model of Old Testament salvation by faith and grace. Maybe the high point of Old Testament grace
is in Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43, well let's see, let's start at
verse 23, or verse 22. "Yet you have not called on Me, O Jacob. You have become weary of Me, O Israel. You have not brought to Me the sheep of you
burnt offerings, nor have you honored Me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings or
wearied you with incense. You have brought Me not sweet cane with money,
nor have you filled Me with the fat of your sacrifices. Rather you have burdened Me with your sins. You have wearied Me with your iniquities." Then look at verse 25. "I, even I am the one who wipes out your transgressions
for My own sake and I will not remember your sins." That in my mind is the pinnacle of grace in
the Old Testament. The promise of God to justify the ungodly
didn't arrive with the New Testament. It has always been so. All through the New Testament, of course,
sinners are referred to as ungodly sinners and their ungodly ways are referred to. Second Peter, Jude especially. It is God who justifies as He always has the
ungodly because there are only ungodly, there are none righteous, no not one. From start to finish then salvation is a gift
that comes by faith. Righteousness is credited to the account of
those who don't deserve it, but in faith believe to receive it. And Abraham's experience is not isolated. The next great illustration is David, let's
look at it just briefly in verses 6 through 8. "Just as David also speaks of the blessing
on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works." And this comes right out of Psalm 32 verses
1 and 2, supporting Paul's point. David speaks of the divine blessing on the
man to whom God credits, imputes righteousness apart from works when he says in Psalm 32,
"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will
not take into account. Blessed is the one to whom the Lord forgives. Blessed is the one whose iniquities are forgiven,
whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one to whom the Lord will not
impute sin...is what it says...but rather to whom the Lord imputes righteousness." It's sort of like Psalm 130 verse 3 and 4. "If the Lord should mark iniquities, who shall
stand? But...says the Psalmist...there is forgiveness
with Thee that Thou mayest be feared, worshiped, honored and adored." And why does God do this? Well Isaiah 43:25 says it, "For My own sake." Why does He forgive? "For His own glory." To put His grace on display, to put His love
on display, to put His mercy on display, to put His salvation on display, His loving kindness,
His compassion to prove to all that He is the God that the prophet Micah said He was,
"Who is a God like You who pardons iniquity, passes over the rebellious act of the remnant
of His possession, He doesn't retain His anger forever because He delights in unchanging
love," that's grace. "He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes you will cast all our sins into the depths
of the sea." He is a God who removes our sins, the Old
Testament says, as far as the east is from the west and remembers them no more. And so, Abraham, David and all other souls
made righteous were and always will be made righteous by faith alone. So Paul begins his argument from the illustration
of Abraham by saying, "Abraham's righteousness came not by works but by faith." Next time we'll look at the fact that is righteousness
came not by Law but by grace. Our Father, we know that this is true because
it is continuously the wondrous message of Scripture. We see the imagery in our minds again of the
prodigal running home to the father with no works to offer, a life of wretched sinfulness
was all that he had accumulated, animosity and hatred toward the father, scorn toward
all that was good and right and true. And he came back empty handed, starving as
a beggar with nothing to commend himself. But he was willing to repent and he trusted
in the goodness of his father. And we remember the scene where the father
throws his arms around him and kisses him and embraces him and puts a ring on his finger,
a robe on his back and sandals on his feet and receives him fully back as a son and gives
him all rights and privileges and has a great celebration. And our Lord puts in the words of that father
who represents the Lord Jesus Himself, we had to rejoice, we had to rejoice for your
brother who was dead is alive again. We know this is heaven's attitude. There's no reluctance, O God, on Your part
to impute righteousness to a penitent sinner, but rather You find Your joy in forgiveness. You find Your joy in a wretched sinner in
rags comes back with nothing to offer. You go out to meet that sinner with a full
embrace. You set him at Your table, give him the finest
clothes, the finest meal and hold a celebration as he sits in a robe of righteousness before
You. We thank You that You bring the best robe
and You put it on the ungodly when they come to You in repentant faith. This is the gospel, Lord, and we love this
truth. It is the truth that has set us free from
sin and death. And like Abraham, we live in this promise
of things unseen. We love an unseen Christ, we have received
an unseen forgiveness. Our lives are controlled by an unseen power
and we are headed to an unseen heaven. But like Abraham, we believe You and we believe
You strongly enough that we will go to death knowing that You will raise the dead to fulfill
Your promise. It's in that hope that we live and rejoice. And we thank You along the way for all the
tokens, all the evidences of the heaven to come, all the small deposits of heaven's realities
that are given to us in this life, the taste of heaven, the taste of what is to come, the
tokens of Your love and power and grace and mercy, the joys that You give us in the Spirit,
the peace that passes understanding, all foretastes of what is to come that delivered to us strengthened
our faith and our hope. We thank You for this gift. If we had to depend on anything we could do,
we'd all perish in hell. But because of the gift of salvation by faith
alone we have a righteousness not our own but as Paul called it, the righteousness of
God granted to us and in that righteousness we stand before You as worthy of Your love
and Your heaven. This is the glory of the gospel and we thank
You for it. In our Savior's name. Amen....Amen.
