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Reading Romans 4:13-15 where the Apostle Paul makes the argument that the promise comes only through faith, not by the law, or there would be no promise. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
If salvation was by our works and not by faith, then the promise would be void, because the promise, as God had given it to Abraham, was always meant to be received by faith when we understand the text.
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Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of the Book of Romans and picking up where we left off last week in chapter 4. So I'm going to start reading here in verse 13 and we'll go to the end of the chapter.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the church that was in Rome. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherents of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations, in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as had been told, so shall your offspring be.
He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith, as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness, but the words, it was counted to him, were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
As we continue on here in Romans chapter four, Paul is continuing to expound upon understanding that righteousness is received by faith. Notice that we have this repeated again in verse 22, where Paul says, that is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.
That was something that was stated at the beginning of this particular argument in chapter four. That was in verse three. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
So Paul explains that argument and we continue with that explanation as we pick up today in verse 13. For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring, because remember the covenant promise that God made with Abraham wasn't just strictly with Abraham.
It was a promise that would be given to his offspring. In fact, God said to Abraham that your children will even be enslaved for 400 years. That was a prophecy that of course came true when the Israelite people, those who were the descendants of Jacob, were subjected to slavery there in Egypt and it would eventually be Moses who would be sent to them to set them free.
But Abraham never got the promised land. He was shown the promised land. He was shown this is the land that your descendants are going to receive as a result of this covenant that I am making with you.
God saying this to Abraham, Abraham didn't receive it. In Hebrews chapter 11, verse 13, it says these all died in faith and these being the heroes of the faith that are mentioned there in Hebrews 11, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city. And so Abraham was shown this land that his children would receive and this was all part of the promise that God had given to Abraham.
But Abraham was not going to be the one who would receive that land. In fact, his desire was for something greater than what was on this earth. And that was a heavenly kingdom. And so that is for us as well.
As we see this being said, as Paul is unfolding this argument in Romans four, that we who believe by faith are also children of Abraham, then what we are looking for and aspiring toward is not a kingdom that is of this earth, but a kingdom that is above where Christ is.
So the promise to Abraham and to his offspring, and just a reminder that we are that offspring, we are the spiritual offspring of Abraham, Galatians three, seven, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
And at the end of that chapter, verse 29, if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. So the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Remember the argument that we looked at last week, where Paul was talking about circumcision? Was Abraham justified before circumcision or after circumcision? It wasn't after circumcision. It wasn't because he did something that God told him to do, that he received this justification.
It was by faith. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. So therefore, the promise to Abraham did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. And this is, again, the same righteousness that we are told that we receive by faith, going back to Romans 3, 21.
Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law and the prophets, but the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
Paul is going back to Abraham as our example, but he's using Abraham to ultimately lay out, we have received this righteousness from God by faith for all who believe. So this righteousness that Abraham received, the promise that he received that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law.
It wasn't because he did anything. It wasn't because he followed any instructions. It wasn't because he kept a set of rules, but it was through the righteousness of faith. He believed God and it was credited to him.
It was counted to him as righteousness. Verse 14, for if the adherence of the law, I'm sorry, for if it is the adherence of the law who are to be the heirs, then faith is null and the promise is void because it would not be by faith that we received this promise.
It would have to be because we followed a set of rules. And if that is the way that we come into this promise, then the promise is void. Why? Because the promise that God gave Abraham, according to what Genesis tells us, going back to the first book of the Bible, this promise was received by faith.
So if it's received by the law that was then later on given at Mount Sinai, a book later in the book of Exodus, hundreds of years after Abraham, if it is by keeping the law that we receive this promise, then the promise is void because the promise was given by faith.
And so what was originally said about this promise and this righteousness that was credited to Abraham would be bumpkins wouldn't mean anything. If righteousness was by the law, Abraham would not even be an adherent or a recipient of that righteousness since the law had not fully been given yet.
It wouldn't be given until you get to Moses. So Abraham did not have the law to follow that the Jews were following and claiming that they had received righteousness because they had kept the law. Well, Abraham didn't even have that law.
So if we are recipients of the promise given to Abraham and the righteousness that he received, it would have to be by something other than the law or else the promise is void and we would not be heirs to anything, especially to the promise of God.
Because if the promise of God is given by the law, then it is not of the work of God, but the work of man. You get that? Because we kept a set of rules. We can go down the checklist and say, I've done that.
I've done that. I've done that. So God, you owe me because I've done all of this. So it's really not by the promise of God. It's by merit of our own works, our own abilities, what we did. God gets none of the glory we do.
But as we've already laid out, and as Paul is even going to go on here to say in verse 15, the law brings wrath. So we can't keep the law to bring about a righteousness of ourselves since our breaking of the law, which everybody has done, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Our breaking of the law brings wrath. It does not bring a promise. Well, I guess you could say it brings to the promise of judgment, but it does not bring the promise of salvation and deliverance. I think that our desire for assurance sometimes leads to that legalism.
Why would we do that to ourselves? Why would we want the legalism instead of relying upon the grace of God and believing in him and the promise that he's given to us? Why not go to him by faith instead of trying to bring to him our list of accomplishments?
I think that the accomplishments, sometimes we will lean toward those accomplishments and we'll cling to that list because we think that it gives us some assurance. It's a false assurance, but we think that there's some assurance there.
Because then you can, when you're trying to figure out, have I earned salvation or not? Am I going to heaven or am I going to hell? Then you've got your list. So you can pull your list out and you can go, see, I've done that, so I know I'm going to heaven.
I've done that one right there. I've done that. And you check down everything on the list so you can go to God with it and you can lay it down and you can say, see, I've done all the things that you've asked me to do, therefore you owe me.
But remember that Paul says in Romans chapter 11, who has given anything to him that he might be repaid, that God owes you anything? The answer to that question is nothing. You've done nothing that obligates God to have to give you anything.
Even your best deeds are as filthy rags before a holy God, as it says in Isaiah 64, 6. So we do nothing to earn the righteousness of God. It would be absurd to think that we can be anywhere near as holy as God is, that all of that is just very arrogant.
It's very full of ourselves. We go to our list and think that the keeping of the list is what has guaranteed us salvation when the reality is that the guarantee of salvation is Christ. We don't need to look to our list because we can't keep those things anyway.
We could never do it in such a righteous way that God has to owe us what it was that we've accomplished. Otherwise, our righteousness would be greater than God's righteousness. It is looking at Christ that we have the assurance of our salvation.
We see what Christ has done. He lived perfectly. We have not. Even if you decide now that you want to keep the law and do it perfectly for the rest of your life, you still got the problem of the guilt that you incurred when you broke the law before you decided to start keeping it.
So only Christ is the one who perfectly kept the law. Only he was able to perfectly keep the law. He is the son of God. God incarnate who took on human flesh, became the spotless lamb for us, the sacrifice to atone for our sins with his shed blood on the cross for us.
So whoever believes in him has their sins forgiven and are clothed with the righteousness of God. That double imputation thing. Our sins placed upon Christ on the cross. His righteousness has been given to us.
And so therefore it is by faith, believing in the work of God, what was accomplished through Christ on the cross, his resurrection from the dead. And Paul comes to that here in Romans four. He doesn't just leave the gospel as remember that thing that I mentioned earlier in the letter.
He says it again here. The words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead Jesus, our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
So we believe in Christ and what he has done. And when we see the work that Jesus accomplished in his life, in his death and his resurrection, ascending to heaven and is even continuing to work for us seated at the right hand of God, we look into the word of God and we see the promise of God.
And that is our assurance. It's not because of anything that we've done. It's because of what God has done. And these constant reminders is not going to our list and looking for the things that we can check off.
It is going to God's list in his word and seeing what he has done for us to be received by faith. We believe in God and like Abraham, who is our example, believing in Jesus Christ, it is credited to us as righteousness.
So let me read verse 14 again here. We'll go on to verse 15. For if the adherence of the law, if it's the adherence of the law who are to be heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. We can't get there by our works.
We get there by faith. Faith and works are opposed to one another in this sense. Now there is a work that we do that is done by faith, but this is the product of our faith. It is not the thing that brings about faith.
It is certainly not the thing that brings about justification and righteousness. Our faith that we have as a gift from God and then God works in us, works and wills for his good pleasure, as it says in Philippians chapter one.
But our works, the things that we do, do not guarantee us to God, does not justify us. It is only by faith alone in Christ alone. So we see that faith and works in this sense, as Paul sets them up here, are opposed to one another.
If it's by works, it can't be by faith. If it's by faith, it can't be by works. If it was by works, then faith is null and the promise is void since the promise was given by faith. For the law brings wrath.
Verse 15, the law can't bring righteousness, therefore it can't bring the promise since the law brings wrath. You can't keep the law. You were never able to keep the law. The law was never meant to bring us salvation.
Paul's going to make that argument in Romans eight. It's mentioned again, also in the book of Hebrews, the, the law was never meant to be able to save us since it's through the law that comes death. Romans seven is also where that's talked about.
So it is, it is not by the law since the law brings wrath. There is judgment for those who were not able to keep the law of God. The wrath of God remains on them, as it says in John three 36, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.
That's the rest of verse 15. Don't read too deeply into that because it would be real easy to read that as where there is no law, there is no transgression. Well, the Gentiles didn't have the law, so therefore they didn't transgress the law.
So therefore Gentiles are righteous. Or Hey, if you had just left people alone, God, and not given them a law, then they would have been righteous because then you, you gave your law to them and they transgress the law and they became unrighteous and now they're going to hell.
So if God had not just given us the law in the first place, then we wouldn't have to be in this situation and worry about this problem. Okay. That's not the argument. That's not what it is that Paul is saying here.
It flows from the previous statement. It's just the logical flow from the previous statement. The law brings wrath where there is no law, there would be no transgression, but there's no such thing as there is no law.
Even before a person knew the law, there was still a law that they had broken, right? So before you even knew thou shalt not murder, it was still wrong for you to murder. You understand what I mean? You would still transgress the law, even though you did not know what the law was.
When we get to Romans seven, Paul kind of unfolds, he unpacks this argument a little bit more. And there in Romans seven, nine, he says, I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
Does that mean that Paul was sinless before he heard the law? No, it means that sin came alive. He became aware of it. He saw it in his heart and it even wanted to come out. It wanted to disobey the law.
Once he heard it, he wanted to go against it. We'll talk, we'll talk more about that in Romans seven, but anyway, that's just our sin nature. We don't want to follow God's law. We want to go our own way.
But it is because he has given us the spirit of life and we have the Holy Spirit living within us that our desires have changed. Our nature has changed. We're no, we no longer have that nature that wants to rebel against God.
Although that old man is still there wanting to get out, but rather with this new nature, we desire God and want to obey him. It is the proof or the evidence of our faith working out your salvation with fear and trembling.
That's also Philippians chapter one. So anyway, verse 15 again for the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression. The fact of the matter remains, there is a law, therefore there is a transgression.
You need a savior who will atone for the sins that you've committed against the law of God, whether you knew that you broke that law or not. You know, even when you die, there's going to be sins that you didn't perfectly repent of and yet God is so gracious to you that he is going to forgive you and receive you into his kingdom anyway.
You don't have to know what the law is in order to break it and therefore you have sinned. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If there had been no law, there would be no transgression, but there is a law.
Therefore there is a transgression. Therefore you need a savior and that savior is Christ and the promise of his kingdom and life forevermore with him comes by faith. That's Paul's argument. That's Romans four.
Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we've read and as we come back to this again tomorrow when we meditate on these things this week, we give all praise and glory and honor to you.
You who considered our state and you loved us to send your son to die for us so that whoever believes in him becomes an heir of the promise. We look forward to your kingdom. We ask Lord Jesus come quickly that we may be delivered out of this world and into your perfect heaven and it's in the wonderful name of Jesus that we pray.
Amen.
Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.
Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.