Sunday Sermon: The Father of All By Faith (Romans 4:9-12)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday and our Q &A on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.

Justification by Faith Alone in Romans 4

As we continue in this chapter in reading about how it is only by faith alone that we are justified, I am reminded of this quote from 20th century Presbyterian minister Edmund Clowney who said, the Lord himself must save for the plight of sinful humanity is too desperate for any lesser savior.

Reading about this justification of faith alone or by faith alone is not to say that we believed hard enough and therefore by our efforts we've been saved, but really is to put all of the emphasis on the one who saves us, and that is God.

And he does so and has chosen to do so through faith, believing in Christ who has sacrificed himself on our behalf, that in Jesus Christ we would be justified. Let's continue this morning in Romans chapter 4.

We've read verses 1 through 8. This morning we're going to be focusing on verses 9 through 12. In honor of the word of the King, would you please stand. In Romans chapter 4 verses 9 through 12, hear the word of the Lord.

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised?

It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.

And to make him the father of the circumcised, who were not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. You may be seated as we pray.

Heavenly Father, we come to this word again this morning, and I pray that it stirs in our hearts an understanding of this deep and wonderful doctrine, which is the declaration of the gospel. That we are justified by faith, and only by faith, in our Lord Jesus Christ.

He who gave himself as an atoning sacrifice on the cross for our sins, who died and rose again so that all who believe in him will likewise, along with Abraham, be justified.

By faith.

And as we read of these things this morning, God, may we also see the implications of this. It is not by our works that we are justified, but nonetheless, the person who is justified, who is saved by faith, will demonstrate, will prove their faith by their works.

Our works do not save, but they are the evidence of our salvation that has been given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. But we understand, as has been stated from the very beginning of the book of Romans, it is the just who live by faith, so that God might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

It's in his name we pray, Amen. An atheist, a rabbi, and a gospel preacher walked into, not a bar, but a television studio. I know it sounds like the beginning of a joke, but while it's not meant to be funny, it does in fact have a great punchline.

The atheist was a woman named Ellen Johnson, who was then the president of the American.

Atheists.

This was after the infamous O 'Hare family, who founded the American Atheists, went missing. It would turn out to be that Madeline Murray O 'Hare, who founded the American Atheists, along with members of her family, were murdered by a man who had previously worked for their organization.

The rabbi on this program was Marvin Iyer, who would later pray at President Trump's first inauguration in 2016. The preacher was John MacArthur. Pastor of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles. And the television studio was CNN on the set of Larry King Live.

This exchange happened on April 22, 2005, almost exactly 20 years ago. The topic of discussion was what happens after we die. The rabbi said that you have to live a righteous life, and if you live a righteous life, then there will be a good reward for you after you die.

The atheist said that there is no life after death at all. You live, you die, and the lights go out, and that's it. Then Ms. Johnson said to Mr. MacArthur, the price for eternal life and life after death is obedience to church doctrine.

So you must live a certain life in preparation for that life after death. I totally reject that. And MacArthur stunned both the atheist and Larry King when he said, so do I. Larry King said, so then what is the way?

You said that you have to believe in Christ. MacArthur said, that is the only way to heaven. And at this point, I respectfully disagree with the rabbi. No one can live a righteous life. The Bible says that no one can obey the law of God.

No one.

So, no one can go to heaven on their own merits or on their own works. I don't care how many good works they do. King said, so a bad guy who believes in Christ, he's going to go to heaven. But a good guy who doesn't, he's going to go to hell.

That doesn't sound just. MacArthur said, Larry, we don't want justice. King was stunned by that too. You don't want justice? No, MacArthur said. Justice sends everyone to hell. We need grace. We need forgiveness.

We need mercy. John MacArthur preached right there on CNN. And as we have been reading here in Romans chapters 3 and 4, it is by the grace and mercy of God that he forgives us our sins. And by faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are justified.

It is not by our works. It is not by our religious obedience. It is not by any merit that we have earned. It is by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you if you got that fly. No, okay.

As we read last week in Romans 4 -5, to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. To make this point, Paul doesn't lay out a thick or abstract doctrinal argument.

He simply points back to the Old Testament example of Abraham, who likewise was justified by faith. As we come back to considering this further today, you'll notice again that Paul presents several rhetorical questions as he's been doing, which he then answers.

In verses 9 and 10, we have three questions, which Paul also answers. And then in verses 11 and 12, he expounds on that answer. So in verses 9 and 10, he answers, who is this blessing for and how? And in verses 11 and 12, he answers why it was done this way.

And all of this is to see that we, Jew or Gentile, are also justified before God by faith and not by works, as was Abraham, the father of all by faith. But for this to be a truly Baptist sermon, I need to add a third point.

So what I want to do in part three is respond to a common rebuttal to this clearly biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone. And that rebuttal goes something like this. You say that we are justified by faith alone.

But the only time in the Bible that expression, faith alone, appears at all is in James 2 .24, when he says, you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. So how can you say that we are justified by faith alone when the Bible clearly says we are not?

And we will consider that objection also, so that you may know and be assured that we like Abraham are justified by faith alone. So first of all, who is this blessing for and how? Let's come back to verse 9, which says, is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised?

What is the blessing that Paul is referring to? We said it this morning in our responsive reading. We looked at it last week. Look up at verses 6 through 8. David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from.

Works.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. So the blessing specifically we have in view is the forgiveness of our sins, or more specifically.

Justification.

And that blessing we have received is by faith. We're declared innocent. The debt is paid. You are free. This is the great blessing of God, a glorious demonstration of His grace that He counts our sins against us no more.

And again, that righteousness that we have is credited to us not by anything we do, but by faith in Jesus Christ who purchased it for us. In looking at this question, is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised, I was tempted to summarize it, is this blessing only for the Jews or also for the Gentiles?

Now that would be true because the argument being presented is that whether Jew or Gentile, everyone who is of faith is a child of Abraham. However, it is vitally important that we recognize this reference to circumcision because it's part of Paul's example.

That is the line Paul is drawing to ask at what point Abraham was justified. Was it before circumcision or was it after? Now so not to take anything for granted, when we talk about circumcision here, we're referring to that actual act of circumcision.

Not a circumcision of the heart, not a spiritual circumcision, but that physical covenant sign that God gave to Abraham and to his offspring, the children of Israel, that would set them.

Apart.

Every male was to be circumcised, a removal of the foreskin of the male anatomy. For infant boys, this would happen on the eighth day after he is born. It is in Genesis chapter 15 that we have this statement, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, as Paul also quotes here in verse 3.

But it's not until chapter 17 of Genesis that God gave Abraham the covenant sign of circumcision. So he believes God and it's counted to him as righteousness in chapter 15, God gives him the covenant sign of circumcision, which Abraham does and obeys in chapter 17.

So Abraham is justified by faith and not by a single work, two chapters before we get to that work so that we would know it is all of faith and not of works. The rest of verse 9 here, for we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.

Look now at verse 10, how then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? Paul doesn't leave that just as some rhetorical question, he answers it. It was not after, but before he was circumcised, that Abraham was counted as righteous by faith.

So again, it is all of faith and not by works. This could not be more clear in the way that Paul is stating this in this argument. We are justified by faith alone and not of works, period. It was this way in the Old Testament, Paul says, look at Abraham.

This was testified to also by David that we read last week in Psalm 32. So it is with us to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted as righteousness.

I made this statement on social media a couple of weeks ago. I said, we are justified by faith alone and not by our works, or no one is saved. Because by works, no one will be justified, as we had read about in chapter 3.

And I referenced Romans 4 .5. A young man named Jacob said, conveniently you skipped two verses. Romans 4 .3 that quotes Genesis 15 .6, because you know that refutes your position. Now, I don't expect everyone to know that I'm committed to the discipline of teaching verse by verse through the Bible and skipping nothing.

But I did find it astonishing that he thought Romans 4 .3 actually defeated my argument. Abraham believed God and it, his faith in God, was counted as righteousness. Where are the works that supposedly defeated my argument?

And so I said to Jacob, Paul literally says, Abraham was not justified by works. Later, Paul says, this was before. Abraham was given circumcision so that it was by faith and not by works. Now, of course, with the same degree of astonishment in that those who are of the Church of Rome, the Roman Catholics, cannot seem to read and comprehend the plain meaning of Romans 4 .5.

They would say the same thing about me when it comes to James 2 .24. But I'll come back to that argument here in a moment. Summarizing verses 9 and 10 again, who is this blessing for and how? The blessing of justification is for everyone who believes by faith, Jew or Gentile.

And it is not by works, not Jewish works, not Gentile works. The example that Paul gives is Abraham and the covenant sign of circumcision along with that. Anything else Abraham did before or after is not in view here.

The only thing that Paul is presenting is that Abraham believed and it was before he was given circumcision. And his faith was counted as righteousness. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

As said in Genesis 15, as repeated here in Romans 4, and we see this also in Galatians. But this is therefore applied to us in every way. It is by faith and not by works. It is by faith and not by baptism.

It is by faith and not by acts of penance. It is by faith and not by partaking in the sacraments. Those are, of course, impositions of Rome who will say that you must do these things first in order to be justified.

God will not justify an unrighteous man, they will say. So you must do these things in order to be righteous and therefore be justified. But even though we are not of Rome, and by the way, I've always found it incredibly providential that the very doctrine the church in Rome rejects is the doctrine that is most clearly stated in the letter that Paul wrote to that church in that city before Roman Catholicism existed.

And yet it's these very arguments that we, or that they, would deny. That they twist and manipulate to mean something that they do not mean. We are not of Rome. Nonetheless, there may be other ways that we find even Protestants imposing works for justification.

I put this before the small group on Wednesday. In what other ways have you seen even professing evangelical Christians imposing certain steps that you must take before you are saved? Baptism is the big one.

Even Protestant denominations like the Lutherans, the Church of Christ, or the Christian church, they will require that one must first be baptized in water before they are saved. Another person said the altar call.

Now that one's interesting. You must walk this aisle and pray this prayer in order to be saved. At my ordination there was a deacon who asked me on what day I was saved. I wouldn't find out until later that he wasn't just merely curious.

He wasn't just making chitchat. He believed that a Christian had to know the exact date that he prayed a prayer to receive Christ as Savior, or how could he be sure that he was really saved? And as I've said to you in the past, we don't look back at the date we prayed a prayer.

We look at Christ, and that's how we know we are saved. Brethren, it is certainly good that one prays a prayer of repentance in faith. After all, later on in Romans 10 .9 it says, If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

But what is coming out of your mouth? It is the result of the change that had already happened in your heart. The very next verse, verse 10. For with the heart one believes and is justified. It's not like Paul had a sudden case of amnesia.

I forgot about what I wrote back in chapter 4. He says it again in chapter 10. With the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. You were justified before your prayer of confession.

The prayer of confession is the expression of the heart that was justified by faith. Isaiah 12 .2 says, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. For Yahweh is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.

Who was this blessing for and how? Everyone who believes by faith. Second question, or at least the expansion of this understanding is in verses 11 and 12. Why was it done this way? And Paul expounds on this answer to explain.

Why was Abraham justified by faith two chapters before the sign of circumcision? So let's look together at verse 11. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

The purpose was to make him the father of all who believed without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, but also not just to those who are uncircumcised, but even those who are circumcised.

That faith would be counted to them, or that righteousness would be counted to them. Now, let me once again make a comparison with baptism. But this is not to argue that I think, along with our Presbyterian brothers, that baptism is the new circumcision.

The Presbyterians argue the covenant sign was circumcision in the Old Testament, and then it flips and becomes baptism under the new covenant. But as I've argued, baptism is baptism, and circumcision is circumcision.

They're comparable, but they're not the same. Praise God they're not the same. Otherwise, our baptism services would be a little more interesting. So, in verse 11 again, he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

You received baptism as a testimony of the righteousness that you had by faith while you were still unbaptized. Right? And so, the saying that we have as Baptists is preserved, baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality, of an inward faith.

You had justifying faith before you were baptized. The whole reason you get baptized is because you believe before you're baptized. It is an expression of your faith. Baptism is the obvious example, but there are many things that we could put here.

You believed before you prayed a prayer of repentance, as I had said earlier. You believed before you put down that drink and stopped getting drunk. You believed before you realized you needed to end that immoral relationship.

You believed before you took communion. You believed before you obeyed God and loved your neighbor. You believed before you became a member of a church. You believed before you became disciplined enough to read your Bible on a regular basis.

You believed before you forgave someone for the wrong that they did to you, because you know forgiving is the Christian thing to do. You believed before you confessed your wrong to someone and asked for their forgiveness because you know that's what Jesus tells us to do.

Faith precedes these actions. You believed before you glorified God, singing that hymn that brought tears to your eyes with the joy of knowing God's love for you. Faith precedes all of this. None of these things made you believe, and certainly none of them made you justified.

Faith precedes our obedience. We obey because we believe. Everything that flows out from us should be an expression of that faith through which God has justified us and counts our sins against us no more.

And I'm going to expound on this even more when we come back to James 2 in a moment. But let's keep going and finish up this section. Look at verse 12. This therefore makes him, Abraham, the father of the circumcised, who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

So this calls back to something Paul said in Romans 2, 28 -29. Circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. So those who are truly circumcised are circumcised from the heart.

The outward act is not enough to declare a person truly circumcised. So it is the same with baptism. The outward act of baptism is not enough to declare that a person has truly been baptized in Christ.

If you are circumcised from the heart, then you will cut yourself off from worldly passions and pleasures and unite yourself to Christ and do what is pleasing to Him. But outward circumcision did not do that for the Jew.

A true Jew was circumcised from the heart, and then his outward circumcision therefore was a sign and seal of his being united with Christ. And it was given to a particular people, an ethnic people group, and not to the whole world.

If you are baptized in Christ, you will be baptized outwardly. But the outward expression itself is not what makes you baptized in Christ. It is the outward expression of a spiritual reality. I am dead to my sin and made alive to God in Christ Jesus.

My sins are washed away, and I am clean before God. And this is not to the praise of man. It is to the glory of God that I have been made His child by His grace. When you love your neighbor, loving your neighbor doesn't save you.

If you are saved, you will love your neighbor. Right? When you go to church, going to church doesn't save you. But if you are saved, you'll go to church. You will love and desire to be with the body of Christ and grow in Christ along with them.

When you partake in communion, eating and drinking the body and blood doesn't save you. If you are saved, you will do it. And you will rejoice and delight in doing it. When you stop getting drunk or inebriated through other intoxicating substances, ceasing from those things doesn't save you.

If you are saved, you will stop doing these wicked things that dull your mind and your senses, which are displeasing to God. When you stop swearing, changing your speech doesn't save you. If you are saved, you will speak words that glorify God and as Ephesians 4 .29 says, also give grace to others who hear.

When you stop gossiping about others, or yelling at them, or cutting them down, stopping that doesn't save you. There are unbelievers who know that these things are wrong. Just recently, in fact, there was a video that went viral of a mom who was cussing out her kids.

And plenty of unbelievers in the comments were going, a mom should not talk to her children that way. So speaking kindly toward others, especially to your children, won't save you. But if you are saved, you will treat one another with respect and kindness.

Because we know that God speaks kindly to us through His Word. And I could go on and on. Plenty of other examples. This is simply to argue that many of our actions are outward expressions of this inward faith.

They are works that do not save, but they are evidence of our being saved. We are justified by faith alone and not of works. But the one who is justified will work. So then, having considered this in Romans 4 .9 -12, who is this blessing of justification for and how?

It is for all of those who believe by faith. Why was it done this way? So that we also would have this testimony that we are justified not by works, but by faith alone. As it was for Abraham, who is the father of all who believe, Jew or Gentile, who believe by faith.

That brings us to the last matter. What is the major objection to this argument? That they are justified by faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ. And that argument is this. James says quite the opposite.

He says very specifically, You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. James 2 .24. The Romanists and the Eastern Orthodox throw this at me all the time. In their theology, it's as if James 2 .14 -26 is everything, and Romans 3 .21 -5 .2 doesn't even exist.

But I don't have a problem dealing with James 2, as I will do that now. But they apparently have a great problem dealing with Romans 3 -5. To be clear though, this is not just a Roman Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox argument.

I've also heard this from Mormons, who will point me to James 2 over Romans 4. There are all kinds of false religions who repudiate the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And so that we can both prepare ourselves to respond to those arguments, and to further solidify our confidence in this gospel truth, let us turn together to James 2.

So if you will, if you have your Bible open, turn with me over to James, a little bit further to the right in the New Testament, as we go together to James 2. Now you have probably heard, if you are familiar with some of the history of the Protestant Reformation, that Martin Luther at one point hated the book of James, and he thought, because this seemed to be such a contradiction with the doctrine of justification by faith alone, then James should be removed from canon.

I don't take that position. I never have. And eventually Martin Luther himself even recanted that. Even he came to a point where he said, okay, I was wrong, I was hasty in saying that James was not inspired by the Holy Spirit, and should therefore be removed from the canon.

Though, at least at first glance here, it does look like James and Paul are disagreeing with one another. And so how do we reconcile this? How do we understand it? Let's come together to James 2, beginning in verse 14.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Let's keep going. We'll finish out the section. But someone will say, you have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

You believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works. And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. And he was called a friend of God.

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

For as the body apart from the Spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. All right then. So how do we understand this? There are some that will try to argue that, well, James is actually using a different Greek word for justification or for being justified than Paul is using in Romans 4, so it means different things.

That's not a good argument because it's untrue. It is in fact the same Greek word in James 2 as we see in Romans 4. There are others that will try to make other kinds of arguments like, well, James was actually written after Romans, so James was trying to argue with Paul and make the distinction that, no, it is in fact by works that we are justified, but that's not a good argument either.

It doesn't matter where you put the writing of James and Romans, and there's different arguments from different scholars. If that's the argument you want to go with, then you're going to say the Bible is arguing with itself.

The Holy Spirit of God is arguing with Himself and actually contradicts Himself. My friends, either we have to come to a rational biblical understanding of what's being said here, or we have to do away with all of it altogether.

If Rome is right, does that mean, therefore, we've got to take Reformed Baptist off our sign out front and all of us need to return to Rome and submit to the papacy? And we're under, once again, the judgment of the Pope?

If that's where we're going, then count me anathema because I'm not going to be that. So either we have to come to understand what the distinction is between James and Paul, and where they agree, because we certainly couldn't say that they disagree, or we have to throw out the entire argument of justification by faith alone altogether.

So here's the first thing that you need to consider. What is the question that is being responded to? And whenever I have done my workshops with other pastors and I have helped to guide them in understanding and expository preaching, it is always necessary for the pastor to know who is the author, and who is the author writing to, and why is he writing to them.

Now, the letter altogether is going to have a certain thing that the writer is writing into, but there also are going to come various questions along the way that the author is responding to. We've been seeing that in Romans.

This is Paul's expository apologetics, in which he presents a question and then he answers it. Sometimes the question that he's presenting is a question that he's received from an objector against the doctrine that he has been preaching.

So what is the question that Paul is answering in Romans? Paul is answering this question. How can an unjust person be justified before a holy and righteous God? And that's what he's been laying out in Romans 3.

We have that exposition of our sin, where Paul is even drawing from the Old Testament to show, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So if all are unjustified before God, then how can we be justified before Him?

And the answer is, as we read in Romans 3, 24 -26, we are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.

The argument in Romans is always, we are justified by faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ. How can an unjust person be justified before a holy and righteous God? It's only by that way. What is James responding to?

James is answering the question. We have it plainly stated for us in verse 14. Look at it. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

What does it say again? What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? So what are we talking about here? Are we talking about a man who is justified before God? Or are we talking about a man who is justified before others?

If he makes an expression, I believe in God, well, James says, well, okay, the demons believe that, so now you're just as good as a demon. So what are you going to show? What is your evidence? What is your proof when you say, I'm justified.

I'm saved. What's going to be your proof? What's going to be the evidence of the faith that you say that you have? It's going to be His works. And I've never taught otherwise. We've been looking at it even as we've been going through Romans 4.