Romans 4

Romans 4:1

E. The Harmony of the Gospel with the Old Testament (Chap. 4) The fifth main question that Paul takes up is: Does the gospel agree with the teachings of the OT? The answer to this question would be of special importance to the Jewish people. Therefore the apostle now shows that there is complete harmony between the gospel in the NT and in the Old. Justification has always been by faith. 4:1 Paul proves his point by referring to two of the greatest figures in Israel’s history: Abraham and David. God made great covenants with both these men. One lived centuries before the law was given, and the other lived many years afterward. One was justified before he was circumcised, and the other after. Let us first consider Abraham, whom all Jews could call their forefather. What was his experience according to the flesh? What did he find concerning the way in which a person is justified? 4:2 If Abraham was justified by works, then he would have reason for boasting. He could pat himself on the back for earning a righteous standing before God. But this is utterly impossible. No one will ever be able to boast before God (Eph_2:9). There is nothing in the Scriptures to indicate that Abraham had any grounds for boasting that he was justified by his works. But someone may argue, Doesn’t it say in Jam_2:21 that Abraham was justified by works? Yes it does, but there the meaning is quite different. Abraham was justified by faith in Gen_15:6 when he believed God’s promise concerning a numberless posterity. It was thirty or more years later that he was justified (vindicated) by works when he started to offer Isaac as a burnt offering to God (Gen. 22). This act of obedience proved the reality of his faith. It was an outward demonstration that he had been truly justified by faith. 4:3 What does the Scripture say concerning Abraham’s justification? It says he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness (Gen_15:6). God revealed Himself to Abraham and promised that he would have a numberless posterity. The patriarch believed in the Lord, and God put righteousness to his account. In other words, Abraham was justified by faith. It was just as simple as that. Works had nothing to do with it. They aren’t even mentioned. 4:4 All of this brings us to one of the sublimest statements in the Bible concerning the contrast between works and faith in reference to the plan of salvation. Think of it this way: when a man works for a living and gets his paycheck at the end of the week, he is entitled to his wages. He has earned them. He does not bow and scrape before his employer, thanking him for such a display of kindness and protesting that he doesn’t deserve the money. Not at all! He puts the money in his pocket and goes home with the feeling that he has only been reimbursed for his time and labor. But that’s not the way it is in the matter of justification. 4:5 Shocking as it may seem, the justified man is the one who, first of all, does not work. He renounces any possibility of earning his salvation. He disavows any personal merit or goodness. He acknowledges that all his best labors could never fulfill God’s righteous demands. Instead, he believes on Him who justifies the ungodly. He puts his faith and trust in the Lord. He takes God at His word. As we have seen, this is not a meritorious action. The merit is not in his faith, but in the Object of his faith. Notice that he believes on Him who justifies the ungodly. He doesn’t come with the plea that he has tried his best, that he has lived by the Golden Rule, that he has not been as bad as others. No, he comes as an ungodly, guilty sinner and throws himself on the mercy of God. And what is the result? His faith is accounted to him for righteousness. Because he has come believing instead of working, God puts righteousness to his account. Through the merits of the risen Savior, God clothes him with righteousness and thus makes him fit for heaven. Henceforth God sees him in Christ and accepts him on that basis. To summarize, then, justification is for the ungodlynot for good people. It is a matter of gracenot of debt. And it is received by faithnot by works. 4:6 Next Paul turns to David to prove his thesis. The words just as at the beginning of this verse indicate that David’s experience was the same as Abraham’s. The sweet singer of Israel said that the happy man is the sinner whom God reckons righteous apart from works. Although David never said this in so many words, the Apostle derives it from Psa_32:1-2, which he quotes in the next two verses. 4:7 Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; 4:8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. What did Paul see in these verses? First of all, he noticed that David said nothing about works; forgiveness is a matter of God’s grace, not of man’s efforts. Second, he saw that if God doesn’t impute sin to a person, then that person must have a righteous standing before Him. Finally, he saw that God justifies the ungodly; David had been guilty of adultery and murder, yet in these verses he is tasting the sweetness of full and free pardon. 4:9 But the idea may still lurk in some Jewish minds that the chosen people had a corner on God’s justification, that only those who were circumcised could be justified. The apostle turns again to the experience of Abraham to show that this is not so. He poses the question, Is righteousness imputed to believing Jews only, or to believing Gentiles as well? The fact that Abraham was used as an example might seem to suggest that it was only to Jews. 4:10 Here Paul seizes on a historical fact that most of us would never have noticed. He shows that Abraham was justified (Gen_15:6) before he was ever circumcised (Gen_17:24). If the father of the nation of Israel could be justified while he was still uncircumcised, then the question arises, Why can’t other uncircumcised people be justified? In a very real sense, Abraham was justified while still on Gentile ground, and this leaves the door wide open for other Gentiles to be justified, entirely apart from circumcision. 4:11 Circumcision, then, was not the instrumental cause of Abraham’s justification. It was merely an outward sign in his flesh that he had been justified by faith. Basically, circumcision was the external token of the covenant between God and the people of Israel; but here its meaning is expanded to indicate the righteousness which God imputed to Abraham through faith. In addition to being a sign, circumcision was a seala seal of righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised. A sign points to the existence of that which it signifies. A seal authenticates, confirms, certifies, or guarantees the genuineness of that which is signified. Circumcision confirmed to Abraham that he was regarded and treated by God as righteous through faith. Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of Abraham’s faith. This may mean that his faith was righteous or it may mean that he obtained righteousness through faith. The latter is almost certainly the correct meaning; circumcision was a seal of the righteousness which belonged to his faith or which he obtained on the basis of faith. Because Abraham was justified before he was circumcised, he can be the father of other uncircumcised people that is, of believing Gentiles. They can be justified the same way he wasby faith. When it says that Abraham is the father of believing Gentiles, there is no thought of physical descent, of course. It simply means that these believers are his children because they imitate his faith. They are not his children by birth but by following him as their pattern and example. Neither does the passage teach that believing Gentiles become the Israel of God. The Israel of God is composed of those Jews who accept Jesus, the Messiah, as their Lord and Savior. 4:12 Abraham received the sign of circumcision for another reason alsonamely, that he might be the father of those Jews who are not only circumcised but who also follow his footsteps in a path of faith, the kind of faith which he had while still uncircumcised. There is a difference between being Abraham’s descendants and Abraham’s children. Jesus said to the Pharisees, I know that you are Abraham’s descendants (Joh_8:37). But then He went on to say, If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham (Joh_8:39). So here Paul insists that physical circumcision is not what counts. There must be faith in the living God. Those of the circumcision who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are the true Israel of God. To summarize, then, there was a time in Abraham’s life when he had faith and was still uncircumcised, and another time when he had faith and was circumcised. Paul’s eagle eye sees in this fact that both believing Gentiles and believing Jews can claim Abraham as their father and can identify with him as his children. 4:13 The argument continues relentlessly on as Paul chases every possible objector down every possible alleyway of logic and Scripture. The apostle now must deal with the objection that blessing came through the law and that therefore the Gentiles who did not know the law were cursed (see Joh_7:49). When God promised Abraham and his seed that he would be heir of the world, He did not make the promise conditional on adherence to some legal code. (The law itself wasn’t given until 430 years laterGal_3:17.) It was an unconditional promise of grace, to be received by faiththe same kind of faith by which we obtain God’s righteousness today. The expression heir of the world means that he would be the father of believing Gentiles as well as of Jews (4:11, 12), that he would be the father of many nations (4:17, 18) and not just of the Jewish nation. In its fullest sense the promise will be fulfilled when the Lord Jesus, Abraham’s seed, takes the scepter of universal empire and reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords. 4:14 If those who seek God’s blessing, and particularly the blessing of justification, are able to inherit it on the basis of lawkeeping, then faith is made void and the promise made of no effect. Faith is set aside because it is a principle that is completely opposite to law: faith is a matter of believing, while law is a matter of doing. The promise would then be worthless because it would be based on conditions that no one would be able to meet. 4:15 The law brings about God’s wrath, not His blessing. It condemns those who fail to keep its commandments perfectly and continuously. And since none can do that, all who are under the law are condemned to death. It is impossible to be under the law without being under the curse. But where there is no law there is no transgression. Transgression means the violation of a known law. Paul does not say that where there is no law, there is no sin. An act can be inherently wrong even if there is no law against it. But it becomes transgression when a sign goes up saying Speed Limit 20 MPH.The Jews thought they inherited blessing through having the law, but all they inherited was transgression. God gave the law so that sin might be seen as transgression, or to put it another way, so that sin might be seen in all its sinfulness. He never intended it to be the way of salvation for sinful transgressors! 4:16 Because law produces God’s wrath and not His justification, God determined that He would save men by grace through faith. He would give eternal life as a free, undeserved gift to ungodly sinners who receive it by a simple act of faith. In this way the promise of life is sure to all the seed. We should mention two words heresure and all. First, God wants the promise to be sure. If justification depended on man’s law-works, he could never be sure because he could not know if he had done enough good works or the right kind. No one who seeks to earn salvation enjoys full assurance. But when salvation is presented as a gift to be received by believing, then a man can be sure that he is saved on the authority of the word of God. Second, God wants the promise to be sure to all the seednot just to the Jews, to whom the law was given, but also to Gentiles who put their trust in the Lord in the same way that Abraham did. Abraham is the father of us allthat is, of all believing Jews and Gentiles. 4:17 To confirm Abraham’s fatherhood over all true believers, Paul injects Gen_17:5 as a parenthesis: I have made you a father of many nations. God’s choice of Israel as His chosen, earthly people did not mean that His grace and mercy would be confined to them. The apostle ingeniously quotes verse after verse from the OT to show that it always was God’s intention to honor faith wherever He found it. The phrase in the presence of Him whom he believed continues the thought from 4:16: … Abraham, who is the father of us all. The connection is this: Abraham is the father of us all in the sight of Him (God) whom he (Abraham) believed, even God who gives life to the dead and speaks of things that do not yet exist as already existing. To understand this description of God, we have only to look at the verses that follow. God gives life to the deadthat is, to Abraham and Sarah, for although they were not dead physically, they were childless and beyond the age when they could have children (see 4:19). God calls those things which do not yet exist as already existingthat is, a numberless posterity involving many nations (see 4:18). 4:18 In the preceding verses Paul has emphasized that the promise came to Abraham by faith and not by law that it might be by grace and that it might be sure to all the seed. That leads quite naturally to a consideration of Abraham’s faith in the God of resurrection. God promised Abraham posterity as numberless as the stars and the sand. Humanly speaking, the chances were all but hopeless. But contrary to human hope, Abraham believed, in hope that he would become the father of many nations, just as God had promised in Gen_15:5 : So shall your descendants be.4:19 When the promise of a great posterity was first made to Abraham, he was seventy-five years old (Gen_12:2-4). At that time he was still physically able to become a father, because after that he begot Ishmael (Gen_16:1-11).

But in this verse Paul is speaking of the time when Abraham was about 100 years old and the promise was renewed (Gen_17:15-21). By now the possibility of creating new life apart from the miraculous power of God had vanished. However, God had promised him a son, and Abraham believed God’s promise. Without being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, which was already dead, nor the deadness of Sarah’s womb. Humanly speaking, it was utterly hopeless, but Abraham had faith. 4:20 The apparent impossibility that the promise would ever be fulfilled didn’t stagger him. God had said it; Abraham believed it; that settled it. As far as the patriarch was concerned there was only one impossibility, and that was for God to lie. Abraham’s faith was strong and vibrant. He gave glory to God, honoring Him as the One who could be depended on to fulfill His promise in defiance of all the laws of chance or probability. 4:21 Abraham did not know how God would fulfill His word, but that was incidental. He knew God and had every confidence that God was fully able to do what He had promised. In one way it was wonderful faith, but in another way it was the most reasonable thing to do, because God’s word is the surest thing in the universe, and for Abraham there was no risk in believing it! 4:22 God was pleased to find a man who took Him at His word; He always is. And so He credited righteousness to Abraham’s account. Where once there had been a balance of sin and guilt, now there was nothing but a righteous standing before God. Abraham had been delivered from condemnation and was justified by a holy God through faith. 4:23 The historical narrative of his justification by faith was not written for his sake alone. There was a sense, of course, in which it was written for his sakea permanent record of his acquittal and his now-perfect standing before God. 4:24 But it was written also for us. Our faith is likewise reckoned for righteousness when we believe on God, who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. The only difference is this: Abraham believed that God would give life to the dead (that is, to his weak body and Sarah’s barren womb). We believe that God has given life to the dead by raising the Lord Jesus Christ. C. H. Mackintosh explains: Abraham was called to believe in a promise, whereas we are privileged to believe in an accomplished fact. He was called to look forward to something which was to be done; we look back on something that is done, even an accomplished redemption, attested by the fact of a risen and glorified Savior at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. 4:25 The Lord Jesus was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. Although the preposition because of (Greek dia) is used here in connection with both our offenses and our justification, the context demands a different shade of meaning in each case. He was delivered up not only because of our offenses but in order to put them away. He was raised up because of our justificationwhich we are justified. In the first instance, our offenses were the problem that needed to be dealt with. In the second instance, our justification is the result that is assured by Christ’s resurrection.

There could have been no justification if Christ had remained in the tomb. But the fact that He rose tells us that the work is finished, the price has been paid, and God is infinitely satisfied with the sin-atoning work of the Savior.