Romans No.8 The Case of Abraham

Sing of my Redeemer and his wondrous love to me. Omit verse two. Omit verse two.

I will sing of my Redeemer and his wondrous love to me. On the cruel cross he suffered, from the curses set me free. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer, with his blood he purchased me.

On the cross he sealed my father, paid the debt and made me free. I will sing of my Redeemer and his heavenly love to me. He from death to life hath brought me, Son of God, with him to be.

Sing, O sing of my Redeemer, with his blood he purchased me. On the cross he sealed my father, paid the debt and made me free. Now let's turn in God's Word to the Book of Romans, the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, chapter four, and we're reading from the thirteenth verse through to the end of the chapter.

It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value, and the promise is worthless. Because law brings wrath, and where there is no law there is no transgression.

Therefore the promise comes by faith so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all, as it is written, I have made you a father of many nations. He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, so shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his name and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

This is why it was credited to him as righteousness. The words, it was credited to him, were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness, for us who believe in him, who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins, and was raised to life for our justification.

Catholic theologians sometimes give us some interesting words, and perhaps one of the most complicated words, and yet it's a good one to try to get your teeth round, that they have contributed to systematic theology, is the word superorogatory, superorogatory. You may say, well, what on earth does it mean? Now, do you take the times? No, you don't, do you? You've all converted to the independent, because I refer to it so often. Somebody is making a noise of rebuke down at the front here on the left.

I'll sort the elder out later on. In the times, sometimes you discover in the personal column a little note directed to St. Catherine or St. Jude. Thanks for mercies received, or thanks for prayers that have been answered.

And the sincere person who's had that little note put in the times, because they read the times up there amongst the saints in heaven, has approached the whole concept of the life of the person that they're thanking God for with a view that they were so good that they sort of accumulated more grace than they really needed. And because you haven't, and you're in difficulty, you come to them and say, in effect, the spare grace that you've got, credit it to my account so that I get out of this particular predicament. They've got an abundance, superorogatory grace, and it's transferred from them to you.

That's the thing about saints, you see, in Catholic theology. They're sort of super-plus Christians. They've got more than is really necessary in terms of good works, and they can transfer it.

Now, I mention that, one, because I wanted to tell you that I didn't know what superorogatory meant. But not really because I want to be critical of Catholic theology, though I don't obviously buy that particular doctrine by any means. But in one sense, it's a helpful concept for us when we're thinking in terms of the Lord Jesus and what he has done, and the way that you and I benefit from him.

Because he did have superorogatory grace. He had an abundance of righteousness. When he died on the cross, he didn't need to see a solicitor first to have a will drawn up.

Because at the material level, the only thing that he got to leave was his garment, and the soldiers were already playing bingo so that the one who was the winner could inherit that piece of clothing. But what our Lord Jesus did have in abundance, far more than you and I could ever measure, was righteousness. And that righteousness he makes available to you and to me on the basis of our believing in who he was and what he has done.

In that sense, I was right, I think, in leading on, though I won't develop it this evening, in leading off in my notes on this particular study with the concept of credit and a credit card. You see, in one sense, verse 22 of this chapter makes it very plain that not only Abraham, but also Christian people, are ones who have credit with God. This is why it was credited to him as righteousness.

The words it was credited to him were written not for him alone, but also for us to whom God will credit righteousness. What happened to Abraham was that he entered into the blessings of being pronounced righteous as a result of the grace and the mercy of God. It wasn't something he earned, it was something that God gave him.

And that's exactly the same with you and me. We are credit card carriers, and the credit card is access. We have access into the presence of Almighty God.

We are part of the family circle of the redeemed, and it all redounds to this. In God's grace, we were given faith in order to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's on that, and on that alone, that we base our hopes for salvation and eternal life.

And so I bring you back to Paul's treatment of the position of Abraham in Jewish theology. Now, here's a bit of revision. It will help to set the context for friends who weren't able to be present with us last time we met.

You see, as far as the Jews were concerned, rightly so, Abraham was an important, perhaps the most important figure outclassing Moses in their theological belief. You find this in their argument with our Lord Jesus in John's Gospel, chapter 8. We have Abraham as our father. When John the Baptist explodes like a meteorite, bringing his advance warning that the Messiah was coming and that the Jewish people ought to be prepared for the advent of the servant of God, they came back again with the same comment.

We've got Abraham as our father. And John the Baptist, who didn't pull any punches when he was preaching, said, God could create sons of Abraham out of the stones that are in front of you. In other words, recourse to Abraham historically does not in any way guarantee your salvation.

What is necessary, says the Baptist, underlined by our Lord Jesus and made explicit by Paul in Romans 4, is that the faith that Abraham had in God was an example of the faith that God is looking for on the part of all those who are redeemed. You see, Paul, this converted Jew, who is moving around Asher Miner, creating great consternation in the synagogues, preaching this seeming addition to Judaism. He's time and time again being confronted by the Jews who say, look, your argument might hold water, but it doesn't deal with the fact of Abraham.

You are preaching that one is right in the sight of God only through trust in Jesus Christ, not as a result of works, not as anything to do with law, not as anything to do with circumcision. Well, what about Abraham? And as I quipped last week, Paul in effect says, all right, you appeal to Abraham, unto Abraham, let us go. And in the most brilliant fashion, enhanced by the inspiration of the Spirit, though Paul obviously had great natural gifts as a man skilled in logic, he takes us back to the story of Abraham.

And he's very, very concerned to bring out the time sequence of Abraham's experience with the Lord. What happened, when it happened, what God said of Abraham, where Abraham was geographically and spiritually at the time when God said what he did. And of course, the most important thing that God said of Abraham was, you are righteous.

And so Paul asks the question in the 10th verse, under what circumstances was God declaring Abraham righteous? And he works through the fact that he's going to repeat in the 13th verse and onwards that Abraham at that point hadn't received the law, Moses was still 400 years away. And Abraham hadn't been circumcised. That was still two or three years away.

Here is an instance of the founder of the Jewish nation being declared right by God, not on the basis of a physical mark or as a result of something that he had attained in terms of law keeping, but surely on the basis that he believed that when God said you will be the father of a great multitude, Abraham acknowledged that God was speaking the truth. So let's continue, and if there's a bit of sameness about what I'm sharing this evening over against last week, then the responsibility is Paul's. Because in effect, in these opening verses, he is just recapitulating, he is representing the argument that he's already made in the opening verses.

It's not a bad thing to repeat, is it? Tell me the old, old story, for I forget so soon. Abraham and the law, that's what verse 13 is dealing with. Abraham is not brought face to face with the Mosaic law for reasons I've just reminded you of again.

Yet he is pronounced righteous because he receives, latter part of verse 13, the promise that he would be heir of the world. Not incidentally that you ever get that terminology in Genesis. But if you put together all that God promised Abraham, he would bless all the nations that there will be on the planet, then it's not far removed from a summary conclusion of suggesting that Abraham will be heir of the world.

And the reason that he's going to have such a tremendous benefit from the Lord is, as Paul has reminded us, and I have already several times this evening, because Abraham has exercised faith in God. Righteousness that comes by faith, latter part of verse 13. Now look at verse 14, and here you've got a repeat, although in a different sense, of what Paul has said in verse 4. In the fourth verse, he is told, as you remember, that when a man earns his wages, then his employee is not being kind at the end of the week in giving him his 60 pound or 80 pound, as the case may be.

It's his by right, not so? Well, as far as the law is concerned, verse 4, if it was possible for people to be declared righteous, verse 14 rather, to be declared righteous by law keeping, then it would have nothing to do with grace. The reward would be theirs by works. But faith would have no value, and actually, says the apostle, the promise is worthless.

Because if you are going to work for your earnings, then the fact of having an unconditional promise is not really of great value whatsoever. And, the apostle Paul adds in the 15th verse, actually, the law won't really help you. Because if you break the law, you're really going to receive the wrath of God.

You're going to be condemned by the law. Having received the law, if you didn't know the law, then sin wouldn't be accounted to you, latter part of verse 15. But, if you were breaking the law, and you knew the law, then you'd be in trouble.

You'd be under the wrath of God. Well, Abraham's not in that condition, is he? We've already discovered he lived before the law. He was declared righteous before he was circumcised.

And so, we are told that Abraham has a guarantee. The guarantee that, in the estimate of God, he will always be considered as his son. Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace, and may be guaranteed, not only to Abraham, but all Abraham's offspring.

You see, when God promises something, he never goes back on his word. And Abraham's salvation is as secure at the end of his life, as it was at the time when God broke into Abraham's experience, and pronounced him righteous, because he believed in what God had promised. Now, when God makes a promise to people who live after Abraham, after the ministry of the Lord Jesus, it still has the same inbuilt guarantee.

Now, this must, at this point, be clear to you. All of us are Abraham's offspring in Paul's use of that word, whether we are Jew or Gentile, if we believe God. If we believe God's provision for us, as Abraham believed that God would provide for him.

And as Abraham has a guarantee on his future well-being, so you and I have. Isn't that what he's been saying in the 16th verse, the latter part? Not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

Do you remember how God changed the name of Abraham from that shortened version to the longer version? We read that, didn't we, in the 15th chapter of Genesis. And the reason was that the word Abraham gives, in the Hebrew, the concept of being father of a large multitude, father of many people. So, the apostle, when he's appealing back to the position of Abraham in Jewish thought, he's starting to suggest, in fact he's saying it quite loudly by now, that in a very real sense, Abraham is the father of Christian people, because they exhibit the same category of faith as Abraham showed.

Verse 17. I have made you a father of many nations. He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.

Now, Abraham's faith was majestic, wasn't it? I mean, not only does he believe God, when God tells him that though he's an old man, he will still father a child, but Paul has in mind here, surely, the context behind this verse, the 17th verse, the occasion when Isaac was about to die. You remember I preached on that last Sunday and the Sunday before? Now, Abraham has such an understanding of God that he believes that not only can God produce life in the withered womb of Sarah, but when Isaac is born and is a mature young man, when he dies because God has commanded Abraham to kill him, God can still bring Isaac back to life because God has spoken. You see, the one thing that really will ingratiate you, if I can use that word in terms of your relationship with God, is if you will believe what he says.

This was the master stroke of Abraham. I would go so far as to say that there have hardly been any people at all, our Lord, obviously, as an exception, who have measured up to that category of faith that this man from Ur of Chaldees reproduced centuries before Jesus was born. What marked Abraham out that made him so attractive to God? He believed that when God spoke, God would do what he said.

You see, this is the reason why I am so convinced in regard to the importance of the inerrancy of Scripture. I'm hoping to be in Washington in September. I've had an invitation to attend a congress of some very brilliant theologians and preachers.

It's a getting together of men of leadership in the United States and in Canada. It will be addressed by Dr. James Packer, amongst others, and chaired by Chuck Colson. The whole reason for coming together for three or four days is to affirm afresh the commitment of the evangelical church worldwide to the authority of Scripture.

Now, I do believe that such a congress as that will please God because it is a gathering together of men and women who in one sense are in direct lineage spiritually to Abraham, who believe that when God has spoken, it is right to take him at his word and what God has spoken ought to be communicated to other people with no qualification whatsoever. If you want to be the friend of God, believe what he says and act on what he says. One, you will never go wrong.

And two, you will warm the heart of the Lord. I mention in my notes that being privileged, as opposed to the majority of you folk, to have been born in South Yorkshire, on occasions I would go into the villages of North Derbyshire. Very, very beautiful spot.

One thing that is an outstanding characteristic of the city of Sheffield, which still exists, despite what our Sunday school leader has to say, is that around it is most beautiful countryside. And sometimes as a lad with our youth group, we would catch a train from the Midlands station and we would go beyond a place called Havasage to the village of Hope. And from Hope we would go for a ramble for 10 or 15 miles.

You can't get to Hope now. Not via British Rail. There's a parable in that, methinks.

You used to be able to. British Rail would take you to Hope. They wouldn't take you beyond, but they would take you there.

But in the 1980s they won't even take you to Hope, let alone beyond. Now don't you see? The 18th verse indicates this aspect of Abraham's character which again pleases the Lord. It's, if you like, a development of the faith that he has in God.

If you've got faith in God, you never lose out of hope, do you? Because the promises of God are brimming with hope. And so Abraham, he considers the great problems of his body being old as good as dead, is what the apostle says, and that expression is repeated in Hebrews 11. The problems of him being as good as dead.

And his dear wife, so faithful to him down all the twists and turns of their life together, their pilgrimage from the Ur of the Chaldees. And although these are insurmountable obstacles at a medical level, for them ever to have a child, he lives in hope because God has spoken. And as far as Abraham's concerned, his advanced years and the state of his wife's body is no obstacle to what God has said he'll bring it about.

Against all hope, verse, can't read that figure, 18 is it? Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him. You see, Paul's again repeating, this is almost the third time, so shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old and so forth.

Go to verse 20, yet he did not waver through unbelief. You see, one of the things, if I can be personal at the moment, my dear brother and sister, that is possibly causing a lack of growth as far as you spiritually are concerned, is not having a full-blooded faith. You remember Elijah at Carmel? He speaks to the Hebrew people.

The contest is between Yahweh, their God, and Baal, the God of the Phoenicians, the God of Jezebel, who has brought this pagan religion into Israel. And Elijah, with his passion equal to that of John the Baptist, turns around on the people and he says, How long will you halt between two opinions? Authorized version. How long do you waver? NIV.

You see, this was displeasing to the Lord. They were lumbering along, one foot and then the other foot, never too sure to commit themselves completely to the Lord. And as a result, their spiritual equilibrium was in jeopardy.

Now, is that not sometimes your case and my case? God has spoken. He's spoken by his word. And yet we take his word and we apply it to our own logic, we bring it into a bundle of circumstances, and we think, But that can never be.

God is good to Israel, yes, but as for me, my steps have well nigh slipped. You remember how the psalmist works himself out as being an exception to the rule. My friend, God has no exceptions to the rule.

As far as his fidelity to you is concerned, it remains intact. His love in times past forbids me to think. He'd leave me at last in trouble to think.

I don't know what it is that is the weak area of your faith, but I want this evening, if possible, by God's grace and the application of the power of the Spirit to his word, to firm you up in the belief that God has his hand on your life, as surely as he had his hand on Abraham's. And what God has promised to you, he will perform as surely as he did. In the case of Father Abraham, for Abraham is our father and Abraham's faith is our faith.

It's a faith that is built on faith. It's a faith that is built on righteousness. It's a faith that's built on the character, the character of God.

So Abraham's faith does not waver. Verse 20. It doesn't waver through unbelief.

It doesn't waver through putting logic over against the revealed word of God. And when you start to have that attitude, then this faith that you are given will strengthen itself as it is exercised. I know that didn't perhaps please purists as far as my grammar was concerned, but I deliberately expressed the thought in that way because I don't know how else to come at it.

You see, the very exercising of faith strengthens faith. It's like the exercising of a limb will strengthen the limb. You see, your limb has its potential.

Some of you do not use the potential that there is in your body for a variety of reasons, some valid, most of them invalid. Bodily exercise profits a little, but it does profit. Paul doesn't rule it out.

It's good to keep ourselves as healthy as we can at the physical level. So you don't use butter anymore. You use margarine.

You've given up white bread because you have brown bread. And you know the gospel of brown every morning. Now, as you deal with your own faith and begin to realise that that little faith can become a greater faith and the greater faith can become an even more abundant faith, so you become stronger, don't you? You see, this is the thing with Abraham.

His life wasn't strewn with primroses, was it? The path that he followed is a tough path. The path of faith is tough. I've got no time at all for these prosperity gospel people.

I'm not saying that God can't make a man prosperous. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above. But there is no way in which the Christian gospel guarantees a man absolute security from all harm and danger and difficulty as he goes through his life.

In fact, there are many, many warnings that our Lord Jesus puts up before you become his disciple in case you find the road being too rough. Now, Abraham had a rough path. He went from one trial of faith to another trial of faith to another trial of faith, and it was just like going across the Himalayas.

You cope with a small mountain, and then there's a bigger one, and then there's a bigger one. You think you've got to Everest, and there's something else that's bigger beyond. And Abraham's like that.

But don't you see, it was the faith, encounter, challenge that he was having all the time that was making this man what he was. It wasn't that God was bringing these things in to tease Abraham. God isn't like that.

God wants to bring Abraham to full potential as he wants to bring you and me to full potential. Therefore, at times, he'll order our circumstances in the way that we will not choose. So Isaac Watson or whoever it was was never more accurate when he construed that line, God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.

And sometimes it's behind the storm that he hides his face. And you and I, we think, what's gone wrong? You know, God's no longer sovereign. He's no longer omnipotent.

This has happened in my life, and that's happened in my life. I must be a terrible sinner. Not necessarily so.

It may not be brought about as a result of your sin, but rather the Lord wanting to bring this faith to the full potentiality that it can attain to in your life. Well, this was Abraham. He's fully persuaded that God has power to do what he has promised.

And as he keeps true to his initial belief in the infallible, inerrant word of God, so he grows visibly. And on the pages of Scripture, you see it, don't you? I'm not suggesting that Abraham's without fault. There were things that he did that were wrong.

Thank God for the honesty of Scripture. It points out where Abraham went wrong, and sometimes he went terribly wrong. But nonetheless, there's always this imperceptible, well, I say imperceptible, there is this growth that for those who've got sensitive eyes as they read Scripture and as they see Abraham moving from page to page, you discover that he is becoming stronger as the years go by, even despite the failings that sometimes mismatter his progress.

Being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he promised. And this is why, you see, we're back to the credit card. We're back to the access business.

Verse 22, this is why it was credited to him as righteousness. And this is why it's going to be credited to you and to me as righteousness. What is our test? It's nothing to do with us physically bearing children, at least not directly.

With some people it might be, in a secondary sense. But the main thing is, do we believe what God has spoken through our Lord Jesus Christ? Look at verse 24. But also for us to whom God will credit righteousness, for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

Do you do that? Do you believe that? He was delivered over to death for our sins. He was raised to life for our justification. This is in essence the gospel, isn't it? It's a summary of it.

This is what we placard in front of people every Sunday night as best we can with our human imperfections here at the tabernacle. This is the word of the Lord. This is what he wants men and women to hear.

And the way that they respond to that in terms of belief or disbelief will be the determining factor as to whether faith or as to whether righteousness is credited to them. You see, salvation is not a question of doing. It's very much, as Paul worked out in his opening chapter, a question of believing.

And then what you do becomes consequent on what you believe. So we're virtually through now with the fourth chapter. Not that I've exhausted the teaching.

I've only in effect given you a summation of it. Paul's antagonists at the beginning bring the spotlight on Abraham. Paul writes to Paul, you appeal to Abraham, let's go to him.

And he discovers, and they discover, that in the case of Abraham you've got evidence that underlines the gospel. A man is declared righteous because he believes what God has said. Let's pray.

Father, we're glad to know how essentially simple the gospel message is. Lord, there are some that we come across who think that its very simplicity rules it out as being absurd. And yet you ask us to believe you because you have spoken.

And all the repercussions you work out, as Abraham believed it, you work out all the repercussions in terms of his advanced years and the state of his wife when you said that he'd have a son and become the father of a great nation. Now Lord, we want a simple faith like Abraham had in the essentials of the gospel. And a realization that the logical immediate development of receiving salvation is that you will always be faithful to us.

Help us to come to terms with that. So that at times when we would panic, we'd be made stable. For faith is essentially not panicking.

As a result of external conditions being somewhat difficult to understand. Help us to work this out in the warp and woof of life right now. Some of us are getting on in years, Lord, and that brings its own particular challenge.

Help us not to throw overboard the faith that we've had in you in the years gone by because we do believe that we've got enough to go on to maintain confidence in the absolute love of our God. Some of us, Lord, are having to get through life on our own and that wasn't our personal choice. But nonetheless, we believe that you're working this through because this was your choice for reasons that even now perhaps are beyond our ken.

We accept, Lord, what we can't change because it becomes best for us. And within what we are is a context by which you will develop a greater faith in our lives. Help us to accept that.

Help us not to fight what is not to be changed. But to accept what you have determined. And we pray that within that acceptance we may discover a greater faith than we've ever had before.

Lord, only you can help us to work all this out personally in terms of our own situation. But we pray that you will deliver us from coming to Paul to your word and just being enlightened in our minds. For that's not the purpose of your word.

We want to take it into the marrow of our experience so that it helps us where the action is. Not necessarily in the lounge at the tab, that's a fairly easy place to work things through. But rather tomorrow, Lord, and next week, next month, when we're in a state of panic.

Then steady us and help us to realise that this is not faith. This is the opposite of faith. And you've called us to faith.

Help us, Lord, to work out the practicalities of your word in our life's experience. This we ask for Jesus' sake. Amen.