S. THE FAITH THAT SAVES
THE FAITH THAT SAVES Dr. W. A. Criswell Rom 4:1-12 07-25-54
You’re listening to the services of the First Baptist Church in downtown Dallas, Texas. And this is the pastor bringing the morning message entitled The Faith That Saves. In our preaching through the Word, we have come to Rom 4:1-25. And it will greatly bless your heart if, while I preach, you follow the words in the text.
Turn in your Bible to Rom 4:1-25, and the message is taken out of the passage we read for our Scripture this day.
I shall read part of it again. In Rom 4:1-25, Rom 4:1-5, “What shall we say then, that Abraham our father have found?
“For [if] Abraham was justified by works, he hath the glory but not before God.
“But what saith the Scripture, ‘Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.’
“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
“But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justified the ungodly, [his faith is] counted for righteousness.” And again, the subject must be his faith. His faith was counted for righteousness.
If you will turn the page of your Bible to Rom 2:16, you will find it concluding with two little words, “my gospel”-“In the days when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.”
Paul said, “The message that I preach, I received it not from men.
“Nor did I receive it from the other apostles. But I received it by direct revelation from God. I was taught it by the Lord Jesus Christ.” And he refers to it as “my gospel” that is, the gospel he personally received by revelation from the risen, resurrected Lord Himself-“my gospel.”
Now, the preaching of that gospel precipitated turmoil and tremendous opposition.
Before I begin, could I just leave out of Paul a summary of his gospel? That’s what the Book of Romans is about. And that’s what we’re preaching these days, that gospel.
Rom 3:10, “As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one.’”
Rom 3:23, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
Rom 3:27, “Where is boasting? It is excluded.” No man can stand in the presence of God who is a lost sinner and say, “How good and fine I am!”
Twenty-eight, “Therefore we conclude”- Rom 3:28 -“that if a man is justified at all he will have to be justified by the mercy and the grace of God, without the deeds of the law.”
Then Rom 4:5, “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly; his faith is counted for righteousness. “
Now, Rom 4:24-25, “For us also to whom it shall be imputed”-this righteousness-“if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, “Which was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.” This is a little summary as we sweep through those two chapters there, a little summary of what Paul calls “my gospel.”
I say, it precipitated tremendous opposition among those who heard Paul preach that message. It precipitated a tremendous opposition when he first stood up to preach, after his conversion on the Damascus road. He first preached Jesus in Damascus. And because there was a plot to destroy his life by the Jewish people he was let down over the wall in a basket to escape.
He next preached the gospel in the city of Jerusalem. And it created such turmoil and opposition that the disciples sent him away to [Caesarea]. Finally, returned [from] home once again and they found him in the temple, and the Jewish people began to beat him to death. And had he not been [rescued] by the chiliarch, the Roman legionnaire, the commander of the post and garrison, had he not been rescued by the chiliarch they would have destroyed him in the temple. Not only did that gospel precipitate a tremendous opposition on the part of the Jewish nation, but it likewise precipitated turmoil and opposition in the first church, in the Jewish church. The first Christian church was a Hebrew church. It was a Jewish church. And it likewise precipitated like opposition in the church, this gospel of Paul.
First in Antioch when they come down from Jerusalem, and that [altercation] ended in the Jerusalem Conference. But it didn’t stop, it continued. And the reason Paul wrote to the churches of Galatia was these who oppose the gospel of Paul swept away the churches of Galatia, that they’re all defensive.
They all turned aside from the gospel of Paul and followed these, what Paul called false apostles.
I don’t know a better way to sit and write that opposition what Paul’s message was and what its antagonist was than to describe it like this: the message of Paul is diametrically opposite of legalism, humanism, self-righteousness, all summed up in the word Pharisaism or Judaism. It stands, I say, poles apart. When anyone is persuaded to follow a philosophy of the adequacy and the ableness of a man to work out his own problem, of a people or a nation to achieve their own destiny whenever they follow a teaching of humanism, the sufficiency of man, you will find yourself going in diametrically an opposite direction to the gospel that Paul says he got from Jesus, because the foundation of the message of Paul is this: that by nature we are corrupt, that by nature we are totally depraved.
I don’t mean by total depravity that we are as bad as we can be. But I mean that all times after that sin has entered all of the faculty of the human mind and the human soul and the human body, that there’s not any area of a man’s life or in his thought or in his soul or in his heart or in his action that are not colored and turned by the presence of sin. That is everywhere. It is in your legislature. It is in your courthouse. It is in your city. It is up and down every street. It is in your church. It is in your life. The great fundamental principle upon which Paul biased his message is this, that we all have sin, and there is none righteous, not one.
He begins there. And that’s an affront to human pride. That’s an affront to humanism. That’s an affront to Pharisaism. That’s an affront to those who find in themselves all the adequacy and self-sufficiency. May I continue that for a moment? Pharisaism is an affront to God because Pharisaism, that is self-righteousness, that is human pride, that is a persuasion of our sole sufficiency and adequacy.
It is an affront to God because it is independent of God. The self-righteous man, the Pharisees, the self-adequate man, he comes before God dressed in righteousness all his own. He comes before God demanding God’s approbation. And that’s the reason I say keep your Bible open. That’s the reason Paul says here in Rom 4:4, “Now to him that worketh is a reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” When you read that it doesn’t mean much to you. If I could put it in my language it is this, when a man works, what you give him is not a gift, but you pay him. I should say, is not a gift, it is a debt. When a man works and you pay him, you don’t give him anything, he earns it. And you’re paying a debt to him. He worked for you. And you’re paying him the debt you owe him.
Now, Paul says there, when a man works for his salvation it is no longer a grace of God, no longer a gift of God, it is no longer a mercy of God. It is a debt. God would have to pay it. If any man can come before God and say, “Look, I [achieved] my salvation; I warrant this by the worth and the merit and the goodness of my life,” and then for a man to be saved is no longer grace. It is no longer mercy. It is no longer faith. It is a debt that God owes you.
That’s what he means when he says, “To him that worketh.” For your salvation when you work for it, what you get, the word of salvation, is not grace, mercy, the gift of God. It is a debt, it is a thing that God owes you.
Now the fundamental principle of Paul is this, that no man is able to stand before God and say, “I am in my life worthy for this great gift of salvation. I have won it myself. I have earned it. It’s my reward.”
I say the gospel of Paul and the gospel of a self-righteous life are poles apart, they are diametrically opposite. May I continue? I talked to a man within a week. You know what? This man is very successful. And his attitude is, the tragic problem I face, I will work it out myself. These issues that lie before me, they’re my responsibility. And I will do it myself. I’ll work it out. I’ll find the answer. It’s my problem. And I’ll do it myself. I’ll do it. That is a gospel of a self-righteous man. That’s the gospel of a Pharisee. “I will work it alone. I will do it myself. I am able. I will work it out.” What is the end of that man? I can prophesy the end right now. As he staggers before the problem, as he faces overwhelming issues, first he will begin to drink. They will press his soul. He will begin to drink. “Any less, anyhow, it is my case and what I cannot do.” And finally, he will commit suicide. The gospel of Paul is that life and death paled in heaven and the issues that are to come are beyond what my soul can encompass. O God, I’m a weak man, I’m a weak man. O God, I’m a sinful man. I’m a sinful man. O God, I’m a lost man. O God, upon Thy mercy and upon Thy grace I cast myself. I need You O God, don’t leave. That is the gospel of Paul. In my hand no price I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling.
“To him that worketh is a reward, not of just grace, but of debt.” In my hand, “Not of grace but of debt.” In my hand, O God, no price I bring.
Simply to Thy cross I cling.
Helper of the helpless, O God, help me. Help me. That is the gospel of Paul.
There was a little child in little town of Serampore, which is, was, 18 miles up the Ganges River from Calcutta. I stood at one of the greatest Baptist landmarks of the world. I stood at the grave of the father of our modern missionary program, William Carey. And I read this inscription of his tombstone. Listen to it. Listen to it.
“A poor, miserable helpless worm, on Thy kind arms I fall.” Well, you could hardly speak of it. This man of God who is so small in stature towered above the great Christian leaders of his age and is looked upon by all Christian people as a father of modern missions who began in that place of [Leicester], England, the movement that is engulfed by all: the preaching of the cross to other nations-one of God’s saints of all times.
Yet on his tombstone when he died is this, “Poor, miserable helpless worm, on Thy kind arms I fall.” Help me. Help me.
Now, I am trying to present here the best I could what it was that was so diametrically opposite between self-righteousness, self-character, Pharisaism and the gospel of the apostle Paul.
All right, now, let’s continue on with it. Having seen it is opposite, now let’s see the thing itself, this message of Paul. It starts off with Abraham in the fourth chapter of the Book of Romans. What shall we say about Abraham?
He is using Abraham as the illustration. Abraham was the father of the faithful. Abraham is looked upon as the father of many nations. Abraham is looked upon as the father of the Hebrew people. He is looked upon as the father of the Moslem world.
He is looked upon as the father of those revelations that finally changed in all of its glory fulfilled in his seed, his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians, Muslims, Hebrews all of us alike look back to Abraham. So he’s using Abraham as an illustration of how a man is saved. And the point that Paul will make as he enters into the discussion is this, that if a man is saved, if he is ever saved, he is saved by the grace and the mercy and the forgiveness of God apart from work, apart from his own merit. So he starts off with Abraham. “If Abraham were justified by works, if he were saved by his good deeds, he had whereof to glory.”
“See what I am and what I have done, O God.” And he looks in the face of God as an equal. “Look at me, God, look at me.”
“If Abraham were justified by works and if he were accepted, pleasing to God by the good deeds that he did, he hath whereof to glory.”
Look at what that verse says, the concluding part of it, “But not before God.” Where? Not before God. Abraham might boast before me that thou would not [have] been any better. Abraham might boast before some of his neighbors, and they might not know [they are] better. Abraham might boast of the merits and worth of his life before people who didn’t know and get by with it. But Paul says he can’t do it before God, because God knew Abraham, God knew his soul, and God knew his heart, and God knew his life. And a part of that life of Abraham is written in God’s Book. And what God has chosen to reveal there is anything but complimentary to Abraham.
If you want to see a first-class liar, look at Abraham. If you want to see a man who was willing to sacrifice his wife to the likes of other men in order that he might save himself, that’s the life of Abraham. And see if he can boast before a man who knew his life! See if he could.
That’s what that verse means there. If Abraham were justified by works, he hath [before] us the glory. But he couldn’t do it before God. God knew him. God knew him. Just like he knows you. Just like he knows all of us. We don’t glory before God. No man does. The secrets of the hearts and the secrets of your soul and the [wrong] of your life and the sin of yourself, all of us are alike. We don’t boast before God. And neither could Abraham, the father of the nations.
“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath for us the glory, but not before God.”
Well then, how was he saved? How was he saved? How was Abraham justified? Look at the next verse. But what does the Book say for Paul, for the testimony and for the Scripture, how was he saved? Look at it. “Abraham believed God, and his faith was counted unto him for righteousness.”
Abraham was saved, not because of the sublime pristine beauty and purity and holiness of his life. His life was not that. But Abraham was saved like all of the rest of us poor devils, saved like all of the rest of us lost sinners. He was saved because he cast his soul upon the mercies of God. Abraham believed God. He trusted God that God would have saved him and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.
Then he applies it to us all. The fifth verse, “To him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
How can a godless man, a sinner man, a man like you and me, how could we ever stand before God? How could we ever look into the face of God? How could we? How could we ever be saved?
We are going to be saved, Paul says, like Abraham was, by believing “on him that justifieth the ungodly.”
If God justifies a sinner, then the sinner doesn’t need to try to justify himself. He can’t do it. He can’t do it. The more he argues with God and the more he tries to present his merit to God, the more that that the recesses of his life appear, the blackness and the darkness that are in all of us alike, that sin, our fallen nature, our depraved souls.
All of us poor, warped with the sentence of it in our bodies and in our souls, we try to justify ourselves before God, it’s in vain and it is ridiculous and silly.
Paul’s gospel says it is the Lord that justifieth the ungodly. That’s the reason Jesus in Mat 21:31 said to the Pharisees-you look at this, it says that [of] a Pharisee, “Verily I say unto you, that the publican and the harlot will go into the kingdom of God before you.”
Why can’t we muster [sic] and know that the sinners and prostitutes and the harlots in thy day were marching through the pearly gates into the golden streets and into the beautiful street, while on the outside were those clothed in their own righteousness, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the leaders of the people.
Then how? Mat 21:32, the rest of that verse, because when John came and preached the gospel of the kingdom, the harlot and the sinner and the publican believed John. They were ready to accept the Lord Jesus, while the Pharisee gathered his righteous skirts around him and said, “I have no need of Thee,” and refused to turn and to repent.
It is God that justifieth the ungodly. God does it. God does it. It is God that heals the sick. If you want to try it yourself, put a little wound there in your hand. Heal it back together. Put a wound there in your hand and watch God mend it back together. It is God that heals the sick. It is God that heals the sick. The days of the righteous, whatever came to call to repentance [sic], they that are whole need not a physician. The man who is saying in his pride, in his self-sufficiency, he doesn’t need God, he is a physician to himself.
It is a sinner that God saves. It is the hurt that God heals. It is the ungodly that he justifies. “For him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, [his faith] is counted for righteousness.”
“Now, Preacher, my soul is putting a premium on sin.” No, there is a basis on which God justifies us in our sin. There is a basis on which God justifies the ungodly, you and me. He does it on the basis of the atoning grace and merit of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, look at Romans Rom 4:24-25, “But for us also it shall be imputed”-that righteousness of Jesus-“if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
“He was delivered for our offenses and raised for our justification.”
Now, in Rom 5:6, “For when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.”
Rom 5:8, “But God commended his love toward us in while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And look at Rom 5:11, the triumphant one, “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement”-the atonement, the Lord justifies the ungodly on the basis of the atoning grace and merit and worth of the Son of God Who loved us and gave Himself for us. The Lord does not justify me on the basis of my fear, of my prayer, of my penance, of my good works.
Yesterday, I had a funeral service-one of the blessed old saints of this church. So many of his friends were there. Dear, blessed saint, lived by herself; neighbors found her dead. Just to talk to some of the members of the beloved class, one of the dear old ladies, sweet and precious of this church.
They sang a song there at that funeral service. You know what it was? Could my tears forever flow, Could my zeal no languish know, These for sin could not atone, Thou must save and Thou alone.
That’s the reason she was a saint. That’s the reason she was a saint: looking to Jesus, trusting Jesus. Somehow our fear could never be enough. Our prayers could never be prayed enough. Our good deeds could never be good enough. In Thy hands, O God, I lay and cast my soul. O God, on the basis of Thy worth and Thy merit, remember me, remember me. And that is the faith that saves: the faith, the faith, [wholly] and completely in the Lord Jesus Christ according to Paul’s gospel.
“To him that worketh not and but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” We are saved by wholly, completely, trusting, depending on, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the faith that saves.
I am not saved by trusting Jesus and my good works. I am not saved by trusting Jesus and my fear. Not saved by trusting Jesus and my fear. Not saved by trusting Jesus and joining the church. Not saved by trusting Jesus and being baptized.
I am saved-the faith-are saved with the faith of trusting wholly, completely upon the Lord Jesus. “To him that justifieth the ungodly, believing, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
All through the Book, as you turn the pages of the Book, that is the same gospel on every page, in every syllable and in every sentence.
Jesus said to the righteous Pharisees, to Nicodemus, “Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Jesus said to sorrowing Mary and Martha in the eleventh chapter of John in the twenty-[fifth] and twenty-[sixth] verses, “Listen, I am the resurrection and the life. He that liveth and believeth in me shall never, never die.”
Simon Peter preaching to righteous Cornelius, the centurion of Caesarea, the man who praises God always and gives alms for the people, Simon Peter said in Acts 10:43, “To him-the Lord Jesus-give all the prophets witness that in his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.”
Paul and Silas preached to the jailer in Philippi, “Believe, believe, [just] cast yourself, upon the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”
Gal 2:16, “Knowing that a man is justified not by his works, not by the deeds of the law, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“To him that worketh not but believeth on him that justified the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” A man is saved by giving himself to the Lord Jesus.
One time I prayed with this Book opened before me, and I said, “Lord, show me in the Book, show me in the Book where it says what it is to trust in the Lord, what it is to believe in the Lord Jesus. Show me, Lord, where it is in the Book.” And the Lord put that wonderful passage in my mind, 2Ti 1:12, “For I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, committed unto him, against that day. I know whom I have believed.” And what is it to believe in the Lord Jesus, the faith that saves? “He’s able to keep that which I have committed unto him, which I have committed unto him against that day.”
If I have a little life saving and I go to the big bank down there and I commit it to them, I don’t commit it to them if I hold it myself. I commit it to the big bank and I leave it down there and go out the door and they have got it.
I have committed to them. I believe in their integrity and promise, and I left it there. And there it is, that little savings I might have.
I have a precious letter, a dear letter, so important a letter. I go to the mailbox. I don’t commit it to the post office if I keep it in my hand. But if I drop it in that little slot and I see it fall into the box, it is up to them. Uncle Sam has got to make good. I trusted them with the letter. And my soul, and my soul, and my soul-I have committed it to Jesus. When I come to the Lord and say, “Lord, such as I am, kind of poor, I know, kind of a fool, I know, full of sin, I know, not lovely at all. I’m full of imperfection.
“Every day I fall short, Lord all of the time. Such as I am, I cast my soul at Thy feet. And if I perish, Lord, hear I die. I perish with Thee.” And the Good Book says, and the Good Book says, John 6:47, “He that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” Never was a sinner ever saved, but that the Lord drew him in the fullness of the gracious promise.
“And to them, I give eternal life and they shall never, never perish.” All in the words of His words to sorrowing Mary and Martha, “And he shall never, ever die.” Faith. Faith. Faith. Delivered. Delivered. Justified. Justified. Forgiven. Forgiven in the grace and in the merit and in the mercy and in the forgiveness of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let us dedicate but a day, a gift that comes from His blessed hands. That is the gospel of Paul. And it is the gospel of the Son of God.
I come together with [song number] 104, “Only Trust Him.” And while we sing the hymn, while we sing it, on the topmost balcony to the last row in this great throng from side to side and on this lower floor, somebody you, you give his heart to the Lord. Or come into the fellowship of this church. Would you make it now? Would you come and stand by me?
“Here I am, Pastor, and here I come. There’s a whole family of us, Pastor. All of us are coming.” Or just one somebody you, a child, a you. As God makes the appeal, while we sing this hymn of grace, would you come and worship and looking to Jesus. While we stand and while we sing.