Romans 4

In the justification of man through the mediation of Christ, man, individually, as guilty, and his divine sponsor, personally competent to take upon

himself such a part, stand forward in the court of heaven, there to be severally dealt with as the honor of law shall demand; and, if the representative of the guilty be indeed thus qualified in the eye of the law, and if the guilty, on his part, freely accept this mode of satisfaction, then, when the one recedes from the position of danger, and the other steps into it, justice, having already admitted both the competency of the substitute and the sufficiency of the substitution, is itself silent. Now, in the method of justification through faith, God himself solemnly proclaims that the rectitude of his government is not violated, nor the sanctity of his law compromised. It is he who declares that, in this method, he “may be just while justifying the ungodly.” After such a proclamation from Heaven has been made, “who is he that condemneth? It is God that justifieth!” I. T.

1. WHAT shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? 2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. 3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for 4 righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is 6 counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto 7 whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities 8 are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not 9 impute sin. Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised: that righteousness might be imputed unto them also: and the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. 13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his 14 seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of 15 the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: because the law 16 worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the 17 father of us all, (as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be 18 not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the 19 father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an 20 hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: he staggered not at the 21 promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being 22 fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also,

24 to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the 25 dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

EXPLAUTION is provided by Christ, in his vicarious obedience, suffering, and death on the Cross. In the mystery of his divine condescension, of his unspeakable love for sinners, he voluntarily was made a human subject of the law which he had given. He obeyed it as a man. He expressed in all his life its purity. He even met that death of a strange anguish, unspeakable, unsearchable, with the hiding of the face of the Father himself attending and crowning it, when standing in the sinner’s place. And so he honored and magnified the law, and showed most clearly God’s infinite regard for it; and made it possible for the penitent to be pardoned. He made the law as clearly supreme in God’s administration as it would have been if every man had been perfectly holy, or every sinner had been for ever condemned. R. S. S.

Strikingly in the instance of Abraham are the nature and value of faith made evident; that in its foundation and essence it is through all eternity the same, whether directed toward the promises of salvation of a yet hidden or of an already revealed and accomplished gospel. True faith is an immovable trust in the promises of salvation. Faith dwells specially in the heart; it does not rest on our insight, but on the foundation of God’s word and testimony; and even “hoping against hope” it holds fast this testimony, because it looks away from seen and temporal things up to the unseen, concerning whom it is persuaded that he is faithful and almighty. Let it be often with us as though we heard the voice: “Look up now to heaven.” The stars we can count even less than Abraham; but beyond them lives the author and finisher of the faith, which even Abraham practiced imperfectly. His light disappears not from your gaze; his fidelity guards you here, his love awaits you yonder. Van O.

1-12. Jewish objections met by appeal to the Old Testament and the example of Abraham. Abraham’s belief in God’s promises foreshadows Christian faith, Christians being by virtue of their faith the spiritual children of Abraham, and heirs of the promises. C.

3. Faith is not that which constitutes the ground of our acceptance with God, but which places us upon that ground; it is not our justifying righteousness, but that which unites us to Christ, and appropriates his righteousness to ourselves. “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him ’to,’ ‘in order to,’ or ’toward,’ his justification.” It is not, then, for our faith, but by it, that we are justified: faith, as an act of ours, is no more the meritorious ground of our justification than any other of our performances; for, if it were, we should still be justified by works, as faith is as much a work as penitence. J. A. J.

5. I do not say that the Spirit of Christ gives the least liberty to sin; God forbid; but his convictions are of a more saving and refreshing nature than the convictions of the law, and do more constrain the soul to holiness than that: the law saying, Work for life; the Spirit saying, Now to him that worketh not (for life), but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. One saying, “Pay me that thou owest”; the other, “Thou art freely forgiven all.” Bun.—Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world. Put anything of thine own to it and thou spoilest it; Christ will not esteem it believing. When thou believest and comest to Christ, thou must leave behind thee thine own righteousness (that is hard), all thy holiness, sanctification, duties, tears, humblings, and bring nothing but thy sins, thy wants, and miseries, else Christ is not fit for thee, nor thou for Christ. Christ will be a perfect Redeemer and Mediator, and thou must be an undone sinner, or Christ and thou can never agree. It is the hardest thing in the world to take Christ alone for righteousness; that is, to acknowledge him Christ. Wilcox.

6-8. The New Testament idea of pardon is not merely the forgiveness of sin, nor even its virtual annihilation so that the sinner may be deemed innocent, but it is justification—something by which he may be deemed “righteous.” And Paul says that this was the Psalmist’s idea, though he only appears to express the half of it. “Even David,” he affirms, “described the blessedness of the man unto whom the Lord imputeth righteousness, without works.” So that, according to Paul, the non-imputation of sin is either to be regarded as the same thing as the imputation of righteousness, or that with God the one act implies and is always accompanied by the other. One thing is certain, that the whole transaction is based upon, and springs out of, the redemptive work of Christ; that in that work, whatever may have been its precise nature, there is a reason presented to the divine eye, on the ground of which God can look upon the sinful man who trusts in Christ as so identified with him as to have his faith counted for righteousness, and thus, in Christ, or for his sake, to be accounted justified as well as forgiven. T. B.

8. The term, “to impute,” or “put to the account of,” is a term borrowed from pecuniary transactions among men; and, as applied to sin, contemplates it in the light of a debt, which is put by consent of all parties to the account of a surety, and is thus made his own and discharged by him for the debtor. This state of a sinner wherein God lays no sin to his charge is called a state of justification; which as a term of law signifies the declaring a person righteous. It supposes the arraignment of the criminal before God at the bar of conscience. The case is tried. The charge of sin and desert of wrath is brought home to the soul by the Holy Spirit. The convinced man admits it all; sets up no defense of works done, or to be done; thou art “just,” saith he, in “judging, and clear in condemning”; but, Lord, thou hast thyself provided me with an all-sufficient plea—the atonement and righteousness of Christ: thou hast assured me of my personal interest in them, when I take them as meant for me, on the faith of thy own word. Lord, I believe. I plead with thee to do as thou hast said; to deal with me as righteous, seeing I present to thee that perfect righteousness of Christ, which is mine by believing acceptance of him as thy gift to men. This plea God admits. The debt (to look again at sin in this light) is hereupon “blotted out.” The sinner is declared righteous. Goode.

9-11. We are justified by believing. In accepting God’s testimony to the righteousness—in crediting his word concerning this justification—we are justified at once. The righteousness becomes ours; and God treats us henceforth as men who are righteous, as men who, on account of the righteousness which has thus become theirs, are entitled to be dealt with as righteous, out and out. Of Abraham it is said, “His faith was counted for righteousness”; that is, God counted this believing man as one who had done all righteousness, just because he was a believing man. Not that his act or acts of faith were substituted as equivalent to work, but his believing brought him into the possession of all that working could have done. Thus, in believing, we get the righteousness. Bonar.

16. Of faith . . . by grace.** Man, the disinherited, is brought back and reestablished in that for which he was made; or, his lost and forfeited inheritance is restored. All is done, too, as originally planned. The divine purpose is accomplished, the divine promise fulfilled. It is “of faith,” and “by grace.” It is the one, that it may be the other. T. B.

17. God quickeneth the dead.** First in the resurrection this great declaration of Paul comes to its full accomplishment. Death still reigns here below, although for the Christian his terror is vanquished; we expect, however, the arrival of the hour in which the song of triumph, “Death is swallowed up in victory,” shall no more lack one note. Sin’s last word is death, but the last word of God Almighty is life; and what matters it though the eye of sense at times can see nought else but dissolution and decay? This earth is passing away with all that is subject to death, but the great Resurrection morn is coming, of which at once the hallelujah and amen shall be this word, that God, and God alone, is he who quickeneth the dead. Van O.

20. Strong in faith.** What did Abraham believe? What God was pleased to reveal. That Abraham should become the father of many nations, was but a small part of what was revealed and of what he believed. The sum of what God revealed to him was, that one of his descendants was to be the promised Saviour of men; and that both he and his spiritual seed were to be saved by faith in him. Why did he believe this? Just because God had said it. He had no other ground for it. Everything else would have led him to doubt or disbelieve it. His faith was firm and hopeful, and no seeming impossibilities could shake it. J. B.

A gracious soul knows that if he is rich in faith he can not be poor in other graces; he knows the growth of faith will be as the former and latter rain to all other graces; he knows that there is no way to outgrow his fears but by growing in faith; therefore his cry is, “O Lord, whatever I am weak in, let me be strong in faith; whatever dies, let faith live, whatever decays, let faith flourish.” Brooks.—Faith is faith, whether it be as a grain of mustard-seed, or like the tree in whose branches “the birds of the air lodge.” Faith must grow in strength. At its birth it is only as a little child, but, by the training grace of God, it grows up to the strength of youth and of manhood. As faith is, so also is the soul. The soul is strong when faith is strong. A. C.

24. Imputed.** The union of believers with Christ is the ground of their receiving his righteousness. That is set to their account which has become theirs by this gracious connection. This, and no more, is what we mean by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Instead of an arbitrary ascription to us of something contrary to fact, it is God’s beholding us as intimately connected with the Great Surety. The obedience which he rendered was rendered by him in our nature, in our name, and as our covenant head. It was in its very intention that it should be regarded as ours. It had no other intention. Faith completes the union, long contemplated in the covenant, and thenceforth God regards the believer no longer in himself, but in Christ, and the Church of elect saints as the body of Christ, invested with his righteousness. J. W. A.

25. My sin is gone; for it is forgiven. The righteousness of Jesus is mine; for he has given

me faith in him. The separation from my God and Saviour is ended by the forgiveness of sins in the blood of Jesus; the union between me and my God is restored by Christ, the Crucified and Risen One. He is my righteousness; and, since I have him, my sins can no longer terrify me. This is what Paul saith: “Christ was raised again for our justification.” A. C.—It was impossible Christ should be holden by death. It was naturally impossible upon the account of the divine power inherent in his person; and legally impossible because divine justice required that he should be raised to life; partly to vindicate his innocence, for he was reputed and suffered as a malefactor, and principally because he had fully satisfied God. Accordingly the apostle declares, he died for our sins and rose again for our

justification. Briefly, our Saviour’s victory over death was obtained by dying, his triumph by rising again. He foiled our common enemy in his own territory, the grave. Bates.

ly secure an honorable issue to all the afflictions and temptations of his people. He carried his pitying nature to the throne, and is still touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and disposed to help us in every time of need. Lastly, the life of Christ secures to his people the resurrection of their bodies, and the happiness of the whole man, in the full and everlasting enjoyment of God. Therefore praise and magnify that compassionate Saviour, and faithful high priest over the house of God, who ransomed us with his blood; and amid all the splendors of his exalted state is not unmindful of his charge upon earth, but continually appears in the presence of God for us; whose ear is always attentive to the voice of our supplications; whose mouth is ever open to plead in our behalf; and, as if it had not been love enough to die for us, still lives and reigns for us. R. W.