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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea. God's Word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life. Welcome to this period of Bible study. We are thankful that we have an opportunity to consider with you for a few minutes a portion of God's Word and hope that you find our efforts to be clear and faithful to the text and that it is valuable to you to spend this time with us. But most of all, we pray that we are honoring God in the way that we are treating His Word and trying to apply it to our lives. We want to continue in our study of the Letter to the Romans. And we are going to pick up today in Chapter four. And I just want to describe where we have come so far. In chapter one, I think we see that the Apostle Paul is writing primarily to the Gentile Christians who are in the churches at Rome. In 1:5 he says that his grace and apostleship was for all the nations or all the Gentiles for the sake of Jesus name. And. And then verse six, among whom you also are called. And then he says that he is ready to preach to Greeks and barbarians, verse 14, wise and foolish, because he wants to preach the Gospel there in Rome. Verse 13, so that he can get fruit from among the Gentiles. There are other places within the letter where he indicates he's writing to Gentiles. Now, that is helpful, but it's also challenging because some other readings of the text have said that at some points he's talking to Gentiles, sometimes he's talking to Jews. I'm not sure that there aren't Jews in the congregation. In fact, I think it's very obvious that there are, especially when you look at chapter 16. But I think the focus here is on the Gentile disciples there who either are being influenced or there is the potential that they will be influenced by some of these what we call Judaizing teachers. So in chapter one we have this clear description of the Gentile world and their sin. Chapter two, even though many have read that as talking about a Jewish person, I think we're talking about a hypocritical Gentile who has taken on the name Jew, but has missed the point. One, the law hasn't struck them to the heart, but also they've missed the goal of the Law, which was Christ. And to step back under the law, under circumcision, under these elements of the Law, is to reject that the law had an end goal, that it was always pointing forward to Christ and they missed the idea of the promise to Abraham being for all nations and thought got to convert to Judaism first. And what Paul is saying there is that circumcision is not the thing, faithfulness is the thing. In chapter three, he shows that even those who were under the law, even those who God had given the law to the Jewish people were in sin. But now chapter three, verses 21, 26 says God has revealed his righteousness, his faith, faithfulness to his covenant through the revelation of Jesus Christ. That is, in sending Jesus to be that perfect propitiation, that perfect sacrifice for our sins, God has demonstrated his righteousness in forgiving all the sin prior to the cross that he forgave and even us, we can receive forgiveness from what Jesus accomplished in his death and and in his resurrection. This demonstrates God to be just, to be righteous and be able to make us righteous when we have that faith, when we have that faithfulness to Jesus. Now I want to pick up again just a little bit in verse 27, because there, I think the conversation partner that Paul is using to teach these lessons says, well, where's the room for boasting? Where's the beauty in that? Where's the glory? Where's the joy in that? And I think what Paul is saying is there's not any room for human boasting in that. Now it seems to me back in chapter two, in verse 17, this is precisely what his conversation partner has been looking for, is room to boast. Somebody comes along and says, you want to be right with God. You here's what you can do. And this will give you status. This will give you a place, this will give you room to boast. Would they have used that word? I don't know, but that seems to be the sense. Chapter three, verse 27, he goes, well, where's my room for boasting? If this is about faithfulness, if this is not about these markers, then where is human room for boasting? And Paul will say, there's not any. Now what we're going to see is in chapter four, they're going to try to appeal to Abraham and Paul is going to say, Abraham didn't have room to boast the way that you're thinking. They're going to try to use him as their example of how justification works. And Paul's going to say, let's make sure we understand how justification works in the life of Abraham because he doesn't have room to boast before God. But then we're going to come to chapter five and this is really important. Sometimes your translation will render this the word rejoice. But what we're going to see is in chapter five, in verse two, he's going to say we boast in hope of the glory of God. And then he's going to say in verse 10 that we are able to be reconciled to God through Christ and we're going to be saved. And then verse 11, not only this, but we also boast in God. He also mentions that we can boast in our afflictions in verse three. So there is a boasting that can happen, but it's not a boasting by works. It's a boasting in Christ, it's a boasting in God, it's a rejoicing, it's a glory, it's a beauty in Christ, in hope, even in our afflictions. So this whole section, I think, is talking about where do we find our room for boasting? Well, it's not in a Gentile having these elements of the law imposed on them. Rather, it's by faithfulness in what God has done to what God has done in Christ, his faithfulness. That's where we find room to boast. That's where we find the glory and the room for rejoicing. So we come to chapter four, and I'm going to read the first eight verses and we'll try to make some application there. 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 counted to him as righteousness. Now, to the one who works, his wage is not counted according to grace, but according to what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes upon him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God counts 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. Now, when this conversation partner asks this question, I think that we have a little bit of a difficulty here because translations render this in different ways depending on the text you're using. I think the question is framed in a different way. So I was using the legacy standard. And the legacy standard there says, what has Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, found, found? And I think that's similar to what the English Standard Version would find. But I think when you look at like the King James and the new King James, I think what you see is they're asking what has Abraham our father found according to the flesh? That is the way the question is phrased, I think makes a difference here. They're not asking about their forefather according to the flesh, and they're asking about what their forefather, Abraham, they view him as their forefather regardless of if it's by the flesh or not, by DNA. Their forefather Abraham, what has he found in a fleshly way? What has he found in accordance with the flesh in those kinds of terms? Now, I go with that translation because as I made the case just a moment ago, I think we're talking to Gentiles who could not claim a Abraham as their forefather according to the flesh in a literal, physical, genetic, descendant way. But they could view Abraham as their forefather. And they are wanting to say, doesn't Abraham make the case that if we're going to be justified with God, that we have to do things like be circumcised? Right. Here's Abraham, he's a Gentile, wants to be made right with God, he's circumcised. Well, I think the question is to say their question is, didn't Abraham find his right standing with God in a works way? Now Paul is going to say no, Abraham did not find his his standing with God in a works way because he would have had reason to boast. If that's how justification works. But before God, he doesn't. His justification was not on the basis of circumcision. It was not on the basis of works of the law. In fact, he lived 500 years before the law's deliverance. I'm going to make the case that I believe that Paul is saying that rather than the law of Moses being the way in which right standing with God would be determined best, that actually Abraham is the better example for a Gentile to consider being made right with God. Because what Paul is going to say here is that Abraham's circumcision did not produce his right standing with God, but instead it was given to him because of his confidence and faithfulness. In light of that confidence in the faithfulness of God to keep his promises. Notice that it says verse three. What does the scripture say? Abraham believed God. We'll say more about that word believed there in just a minute. And it was counted to him as righteousness. Now, just for a note, that's from Genesis chapter 15. And you say why does it matter what chapter it is? It matters because Paul makes a point about the order of the chapters in the book of Genesis. Now to the one who works, right? To the one who has worked these works, it would be considered as what is due. That's how this Gentile conversation partner is viewing it. I have reason to boast because now I have aligned myself in into this people. But he says but this is not about works, this is about grace. This is the grace that is not according to what is due but is according to God's mercy and forgiveness. Even the ungodly, his faithfulness to the Lord can be counted as righteousness. Now this trust of Abraham, this confidence, this faithfulness of Abraham puts him in right relationship with God. When he was made right with God he looked a lot more like a Gentile than a works observing Jew in Genesis 15. So I want you to consider what it means that Abraham believed in God. This is a quote from a man named Dale Ralph Davis. And, and he is a Calvinist leaning Old Testament scholar. I have found him to be very fair in his dealing with especially Old Testament texts. I even have a little commentary he wrote on the book of Luke and I think he does a really good job. Of course I always have my senses alert when I'm reading because I know that he leans in a Calvinistic direction. And yet notice what he says here about Abraham's faith. He says the form of the verb shows it should be translated something like had believed or better remained firm. Verse 6 does relate to verses 1 through 5 referring to Genesis 15, but it takes in much more ground. It seems to sum up Abram's prevailing attitude from chapter 12 on. Verse 6 does not begin with then but with and or now. And he remained firm though his faith was tried in verses two and three, Abram was still maintaining the faith he had from the first. So this was not the initial moment of faith. It was not Abram's conversion. It was another instance of ongoing faith in it sums up his believing stance. The reason I point that out is because sometimes people point to this passage in Romans 4 with reference to Abraham and basically use that to justify the belief in belief only salvation. That it's just that moment of intellectual sin and even trust that that's the moment of saving. And what Del Ralph Davis is saying is that this is not the first moment that Abraham has faith. This is in the midst of the question, in the midst of maybe even what he would have considered an impossible situation. Abraham remained firm in his confidence toward God. And I think that's helpful to see. Now circumcision and the Torah with a fleshly view, that is the law with this works mindedness approach were not the kind of things that established Abraham as God's kind of man. In fact, that would amount to considering right standing as what is due and leave room for boasting. But that's never the case. Those rituals were never intended to be the fundamental thing about where it was for justification. It's about steadfast confidence in God. Abram's circumcision was the sign of the covenant, not intended to give him right standing with God. Ultimately, right standing comes by faith faithfulness to Christ and what he accomplished. And Abraham's faith pointed towards that. Now I want you to think about what Paul says to the Galatian Gentiles who are being tempted or pulled away by Judaizing teachers. He says that giving in to circumcision and the works of the law would cause them to fall from grace. Galatians 5, 4. And as we see in Abraham, even the ungodly can receive God's reckoning, God's consideration of righteousness, if they will be faithful to God. Now to summarize what Paul is saying here, to be Abraham's seed, to be his descendant, was never fundamentally about something like circumcision or ethnic distinctiveness. It was about faithfulness to God in view of God's faithfulness to him. It was by grace, not by works of the law. So a Jew and a Gentile could be Abraham's descendants because it was never about circumcision, it was never about the Torah. It was never about the law. It was about the matter of our faithfulness in view of God's faithfulness to us. I think David is used here to support the case as well. David depended on God's faithfulness and his forgiveness. Even as a Jew under the law he had been circumcised. But that work, if we can call it that, didn't account for much when he was desperate for God's mercy. There was no sacrifice in the law that would atone for what David had done. But what did fix the problem was God's faithfulness, his mercy and God's faithfulness. And his faithfulness to God is where he found forgiveness. That's where he put his confidence. Now notice this in verse 9 we're going to read through verse 12. Therefore is this blessing on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also, for we say Faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted while he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised. So that he might be the Father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be counted to them, and the Father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but also who follow in the steps of the Father faith of our Father Abraham, which he had while uncircumcised. Do you notice this? When was Abraham counted as righteous? Before he was circumcised. Think about this. Genesis 15. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Genesis 17, which the way the numbering system work is two chapters after Genesis 15 is when he's circumcised. Now I want you to think about how this helps us understand chapter two, verses 25 and following in chapter two, this Gentile conversation partner or the Judaizing teacher, whoever it may be, is saying, circumcision is important. You've got to have circumcision. But they missed the main point. They missed the inner transformation that had to take place. They missed the circumcision of the heart that had to occur. The fundamental thing about Abraham being God's man, one of his people, was his faithfulness to God that was demonstrated prior to his circumcision, not his circumcision. A Gentile's acceptance of that outward sign of circumcision missed the way that God determined who received righteous status. And as a result, both uncircumcised and circumcised people can follow Abraham's example. I love that the Gentile doesn't have to be circumcised in order to be considered a descendant of Abraham, because they can follow in the footsteps of Father Abraham, even being uncircumcised, because the very reason he was justified before circumcision was so that he could be the father of those who are uncircumcised, but. But who have faithfulness to God in view of his faithfulness. And even the Jews, this is a really important point. Even the Jews who had received circumcision rightly had to make sure that they weren't just following in the circumcision, but that they were following in the steps of Their father Abraham, by faithfulness to God as a result, Gentile. And you could follow in the steps of their father Abraham. This is how we find Abraham to be the father of many nations. Not by the flesh, not by circumcision, not by imposing the works of the law, but rather by following his model of faithfulness. Well, now we come to verse 13. For the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he would be heir of the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been made empty and the promise has been abolished. For the law brings about wrath. But where there is no law, there also is no trespass. I think Paul is making the point here that the law, the Torah came after the promise had been made. God had promised Abraham that his seed would have people who would inherit the world, that is that in his seed all nations of the earth would be blessed. Now if the Torah, if the law of Moses had been God's last word about how to bring people to him, it would have fallen short. Why? Because Israel failed. The promise had been for all nations. If it was only limited to Jews or people who became Jews by proselytism, then how is the promise have been fulfilled? It would not have been because in the way that the Jewish people approached the law, for the most part they only saw the wrath. We saw that in chapter three, verses 19 and 20, they only saw the wrath side. But God had made a promise to Abraham that would not be invalidated even by Israel's unfaithfulness. There was no way to quote, trespass the promise. So there had to be something other than the law. There had to be something other than the Torah. In fact, there had to be something that, that the law that the Torah itself was pointing to. And what the law the Torah was pointing to was Jesus. So God made Abraham the father of many nations, not just the Jews. It would come not by the Torah, but it would be a gift received by faith in the promise for all, all the seed, not just those who are under the law. In fact, it is because it is by faithfulness to God regarding the promise that Abraham was made righteous by God's grace, before circumcision, before the law of Moses, that Jew and Gentile can be his descendants. Now let me read the rest of this chapter and then we'll make some final points. For this reason, it is by faith, in order that it may be according to grace, that the promise will be guaranteed to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, a father of many nations have I made you in the presence of him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. Verse 18. In hope against hope, he believed so that he might become the father of many nations according to what had been spoken, so shall your seed be. And without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb. Yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully assured that what God had promised he was able to do. Therefore it was also counted to him as righteousness. Now, not for his sake only was it written that it was counted to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be counted as those who believe on him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He who was delivered over on our account, on account of our transgression, and was raised on account of our justification. Paul is highlighting Abraham's confidence in and faithfulness to God. Because Abraham's confidence, his hope, his trust, his faithfulness was happening when things seemed impossible. His hope was in a moment when there was no reasonable hope. And that was the means of his right standing before God. Those passages about Abraham's faithfulness, putting him in right standing with God and God's faithfulness to him are not only for him, but they're for us as well. You know, Abraham didn't get to read Genesis, chapter 15, but we do. We get to read that passage. It is for our benefit to see that God justified him. Now why does he justify him? Because he has faith in the ability of God to bring life from death. Now, in this case, Abraham believes that God can bring about a seed from the deadness of Sarah's womb. And what does God do? He does in factly, that he believes that What God, verse 21 had promised, he was able to do. I think that's a great definition of hope. That Abraham believed that what God had promised, he was able to do. Now Abraham had belief that God could bring life from death. Do you see how Abraham then becomes a model for our faith, for our faithfulness? God has again, in a greater way, made something alive from death, made someone alive from death. Jesus Christ, Jesus the King, our Lord was raised from the dead. He was crucified for our sins, so that we could be in right relationship with God. And his death and his resurrection make it that we can be raised on account of our justification, that we can be raised to new life. And I think we see this picture very beautifully in Romans chapter 6, verses 3 and 4, that when we are baptized, we are buried with him into his death. And when we are raised up, we are raised up to walk in newness of life. He was delivered over. He was crucified for our sins. And he was raised so that we could be brought into that right relationship with God, that we could be justified into that covenant commitment with God. Now let me say this. Jesus, not the law, not circumcision, is how God has been faithful to us in the ultimate way. The question here is not whether or not we should obey God. The question is, is God being faithful to his promise through the law, or is he being faithful to his promise through Jesus? Ultimately, it's through Jesus that the law was always pointing to. Romans 10, verse 4. Paul is not putting grace against works as far as obedience. He's not even putting faith versus obedience. He's not saying that the law is is against Christ. He is contrasting a law of works that focuses on just submitting to those elements of the law and a law of faith that was always pointing to Jesus. That's where we'll leave all for today. Until next time. We bid you a pleasant good day. Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea, God's word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life.