As I began to prepare for last week’s message on Chapter 4:1-8, at first I did not think that there were all that many ideas and doctrinal themes to be developed in that passage.
I was pleasantly surprised. That is the nature of expository preaching. The preacher is always learning and adding to his repository of the truth of God’s word.
It is my strong conviction that we must preach the Word of God, Book by Book, verse by verse.
J. L. Dagg: “Preaching is explaining the word of God.”
When we do that, God’s sheep are being fed.
God said through Isaiah in Isaiah 55:8-11
8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD.
9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Romans 10:17
Hearing ? Doesn’t everyone hear?
Jesus said, on several occasions, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear.”
It was my own experience, that when God the Holy Spirit began to convict me of my sin, and the Father began to draw me unto Christ, that it was the preaching of the word of God that was the efficient means used by God to save me.
I started going to church on the first Sunday in 1968. For nine months, I listened to the Bible being preached. I did not want to submit to the command to believe the Gospel, but I knew that what was being preached was the truth whether I ever agreed with it or not. God showed me mercy and saved me. If He had used the same preaching to seal my just condemnation, he would still be God.
**********In our last study we made the following main observations from: Chapter 4:1-8:
A faithful and correct presentation of the Gospel must include the work of the law in condemnation; the wrath of God is a present reality.
Paul, after declaring that he is not ashamed of the Gospel, spends three chapters on the wrath of God, bringing Gentile and Jew, indeed the entire human race under just condemnation.
Works: Those acts of obedience and thoughts of faith, while they are a necessary consequence of being justified by God, offer absolutely no merit to God for us.
“... Faith without works is dead...” says James 2:20.
“... by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight.... ”
(Romans 3:20)
Yet many are taught that in order to be saved you must do some external and overt act: be baptized, belong to a particular local church.
As with Abraham, a person is justified “freely” {without cause} and the act of believing itself is not the righteousness, believing is only the means through which righteousness is given.
The Gospel is only the manifestation of the promise of ancient Scriptures {O.T.}. The Gospel was prefigured in the Garden of Eden when God spoke to the serpent: “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” The Gospel was given in a type in the skins that God used to clothe Adam and Eve; The Gospel was preached to Abraham; the entire Levitical sacrificial system under the ministry of Moses was the Gospel in type. Those who tell us to discard the O.T. are at best misinformed and perhaps are, in fact, heretics.
Paul brings in Abraham and David to establish that the righteousness of God is imputed apart from works. Abraham believed the same Gospel Paul is preaching, because there is only one Gospel. David understood that his sin would not be imputed to himself, i.e., not to David, but to Christ.
That there has been only one Gospel from before the foundation of the world and that everyone who is saved or who ever will be saved, from Adam until the last one of God’s elect, will be saved in exactly the same way; through faith in Christ, and never because of works or ethnicity.
That God does not make us righteous and then justify us; rather He imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. The Righteousness of God is imputed, not infused. Sanctification must never be confused with justification!
That God justifies the ungodly. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones says this may be one of the greatest statement in all of the Bible.
Finally, that you can know you are saved only if you can trust Christ:
plus nothing and minus nothing.
The passage we are dealing with in this study begins an extended discussion on the question: Who are the true descendants of Abraham?
Romans 4: 9-15
Circumcision:
Paul is now going to show that Abraham is the father of all who believe the Gospel. Who are the true descendants of Abraham?
Who are “the Israel of God?”
Abraham is far more than the ancient ancestor of the Jews.
God’s covenant people are not determined by biological descent from Abraham, but by spiritual descent from him.
4:9 “Does this blessedness....” The blessedness that David found, is it for the circumcised {Jews} only? Or for the uncircumcised {Gentiles} also, that is the non-Jews according to the flesh?
“For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.”
Once more we are reminded of how foolish it is to think that Christians do not need to know their O.T. There is no way that you can have an appreciation of Paul’s argument here in Romans without a knowledge of the history of Abraham.
4:10 “How then was it accounted? ....”
When did Abraham receive the blessing?
When did God impute righteousness to Abraham?
After he was circumcised or before he was circumcised?
It occurs to me how obvious this argument is.
Yet, for centuries men have not seen the obvious implication of this question.
The reason they can’t understand is found in 2 Cor 3:14-16 “ But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”
What is the application?
There are those who teach that you are not saved until you are baptized.
The same question must be asked of them. When did you believe?
Before or after your baptism?
Baptizing unbelievers {infants} is another matter. I do not mean to offend, but rather to instruct, baptizing infants is not baptism. You must let the Scripture define the meaning of baptism.
When was Abraham circumcised?
Some scholars compute 29 years between Genesis 15:6 & 17:11. There is not less than a 14- year span. More than enough time to prove that his justification came before circumcision.
4:11-12 Circumcision of all the males was commanded by God as a covenant sign to set apart those people who had been chosen by God to preserve His word.
Circumcision put a “seal” on what was already done.
To “Seal” means to authenticate.
Like the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”
John 6:27 Jesus says, “... which the Son of Man will give you , because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” Jesus is referring to His baptism when the sign of the Holy Spirit descended on Him as a dove.
Ephesians 1:13-14 “In Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
So again,“Seal” means to authenticate.
Abraham’s circumcision sealed, or authenticated his justification.
Physical circumcision never implied the guarantee of a circumcised heart {2:25-29}. That is what the Jews believed: They thought, “God owes me!”
Our Paedobaptist brothers make the same error today when they teach that baptism is the N.T. continuation of O.T. circumcision and that in baptism there is an implied covenant relationship with the child.
Some Paedobaptists argue that they do not imply anything in baptizing infants: then why baptize them?
To stay with our exposition, it is doubtful that Paul has baptism in view in vs 9-12. So we will examine baptism later at the appropriate text.
The point to be made here is that faith enables both Jew and Gentile to become spiritual descendants of Abraham. Race or ethnicity is no barrier to the universal offer of the Gospel.
Let me also make a finer point here: Abraham was not the first person to be justified by faith. Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, et al, were justified exactly the same as Abraham. But Abraham is the example in Scripture where God makes it absolutely clear that justification is a purely legal matter at God’s initiative.
As “father of the faithful,” Abraham is the arch type; the model or standard for the doctrine of justification.
4:12 Abraham is also the father of circumcision to those who believe.
A man could be circumcised and still be lost. All Jews were not children of Abraham.
Abraham is the father of all uncircumcised who believe and all the circumcised who believe. He is the father of all who believe.
In 4:9-15, Paul once and for all removed the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile. And that wall will is never to be raised again!
4:13-15 “For the promise ....”
I am making an arbitrary break here at vs 15.
The context continues on to vs 22.
For the first time in Romans, Paul mentions “promise.”
“Promise” is used as a noun in vs 13, 14, 16, and 20; and as a verb in 21.
Paul then makes three points about the promise to Abraham:
1) The promise is based on faith and not law {13-15}.
2) The promise, because it is based on faith, unites Jew and Gentile together into one people of God {16-17}.
3) The faith with which Abraham responded to God was firm and unwavering {18-22}.
And so we won’t forget he carries us back in vs 22 to Genesis 15:6.
Notice how Paul defines the promise made to Abraham. Here Paul is not quoting the Scripture, but is interpreting it. Here he makes the promise broader than natural descendants and real estate and includes all who believe the Gospel.
“For the promise that he would be the heir of the world ....”
Genesis often makes the point that Abraham will be a blessing to all the world, but the emphasis is on the vast number of biological descendants and the land promised to them.
Law:
Paul also makes the point that the promise could have nothing to do with the law given to Moses. Abraham was justified 430 years before the law was given in its written form {cf Galatians 3:15-18}.
Back to the O.T. again. What would this claim mean to anyone without an understanding of the account of the law under Moses?
4:14-15 Abraham and those who came after him, “those who live by law,” could never inherit God’s promised blessing through law. If that were true, then faith has no value and the promise is worthless. Why?
Because the law can only condemn. How does the law produce wrath?
“... for where there is no law there is no transgression.”
What is the opposite of that statement? Where there is law there is sin!
Much has been said about faith.
Faith is a most important word for the Christian.
To some, faith is believing a set of doctrinal statements.
Beliving correct doctrine: election, predestination, reprobation.
But I have known men who were correct in their doctrine and yet denied saving faith by their hypocritical lives.
Others make faith equivalent to agreeing to baptism and regular participation in the Lord’s Supper.
Some others view faith as an emotion that can be used to get what they want from God. Are you sick? Then you don’t have enough faith they say.
Are you in debt? Then you don’t have enough faith they say.
Saving Faith:
Saving faith is always distinct from law and works.
Saving faith is always accompanied by obedience and good works.
Saving faith is always based on God’s Word.
Saving faith does not quit God no matter how uncomfortable or how unpleasant the circumstances of our lives become.
The Object of Saving Faith is Jesus Christ alone, as He is revealed in the Word of God alone!
Are you one of Abraham’s children?
Have you seen your condemnation under the law?
Is your hope in the blood of Jesus Christ?
Amen
