The God Who Justifies - [Romans 4]

The Apostle’s Introduction and the Setting for Romans 4

Dr. James White. James, I think we've known each other about five years now and James has said not too many churches invite him back the second time, but this is the third time back to Bethlehem Bible Church.

And When I think of James White, I think of first Peter chapter 3 verse 15, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks. Ask you to give an account for the hope that is in you with gentleness and with reverence.

And I just want you to know that I'm glad dr. White is on our side. That's the good news and to God has gifted him with a desire for the word and a desire for public proclamation. My favorite book of dr. White's is the God who justifies so I asked him this morning to preach from Romans chapter 4 and we went to exalt our Lord instead of a man, so please come brother and and Minister to us and I also like you that he preaches just with one Text and that's the Greek text.

No English Bibles up here. No, it's just the Greek Bible. So I like that, too.

Well, it's good to be with you this morning for some of you. You've been seeing a little bit too much of me lately we did a Bibliology class and I was figuring out there was three six six twelve fifteen this morning would have been sixteen so we're going on 17 hours now and.

So some of you are going to be very glad to see me heading for Providence this afternoon and Most of you know that your your pastor has become an avid biker. Did I have anything to do with that? Did I help encourage at all?

I mean, I know when you wrote to me and said you'd pick taken up writing. I've at least tried to aim you to some good biking sites. I know I don't look like a biker. He looks like a biker. I I look like a Harley biker.

Not a biker biker, so. And I do actually ride a motorcycle too, but I do believe it or not. Last year. I wrote about 4 ,500 miles. I'm not gonna ride as many miles this year, but. Back in the 90s if you had seen me then if you see some of my old debates I am as skinny as a rail because I was riding between 5 ,500 and 6 ,500 miles a year and so.

We have that in common and someday you're gonna have to come out and I will we will race up South Mountain together. It's only seven miles, but it's 1 ,400 feet of ascent and it's it's great. It's well, I see your heart rate monitor going stop now or die.

That's that's what you get to see with that turn me pleased. Romans chapter 4. Romans chapter 4. I I do have my Greek text with me, but I hate to disappoint. I do have an English text as well this morning.

I just wanted to make sure you knew that my my Greek text is the electronic one you uh I suppose I should let you know you're looking at the only person to my knowledge. Who has ever preached in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London?

Which is Charles Haddon Spurgeon's Church ever preached from the pulpit there when there were people there. I don't know if you know anybody snuck in when there wasn't anybody there. But we were actually having a regular service of the School of Theology last July.

The first person to ever preach from that pulpit using nothing, but an electronic text. I used the My original tablet which was stolen a few months later, and then it's replaced and was stolen last month and so I'm on the third reincarnation of that particular item but I preached from from the like the electronic text and I'm not sure if the pastor there really fully understood the ramifications of what that meant, but We did do that have some wonderful Saints in the United Kingdom by the way up in Scotland.

I'll be there in May. Speaking up around Stirling and Glasgow and some wonderful Saints, but a very secular nation. It is it is so sad to see where so many of our heroes men that we love to read and who walk the streets of the of London preaching the truth and Today they are they're a very small minority.

I think that is a warning for any nation that would hear the Word of God with such clarity and Then turn a blind eye to it in a deaf ear. God will will not be mocked but Romans chapter 4. Let's gain our bearings.

Paul’s Argument in Romans: Sin, Judgment, and the Gospel of Grace

I'm not going to read the entire chapter to take up a major portion of my time, but let's gain our our bearings in the context of Paul's epistle to the Romans. It seems to me that Paul planned this book very very well.

He is clearly Recognizing that by planting churches in key areas. That the natural result is going to be plant a healthy sound church at the crossroads of the culture the crossroads of the Roman Empire and by Natural osmosis that message is going to go out into all the rest of the Roman Empire.

So he desired to go to Rome. He desired to be there himself. How he got there as we as we read in Acts chapter 26 is probably not exactly how he would have planned to do it. But he desired to go there and you look at where he planted churches.

You look at Ephesus at the mouth of the Lycus River Valley and and the fact that when he writes the Church of Colossae. It's probably because that church had come about from the natural Evangelization that takes place when you have a sound church.

You spent three years there in Ephesus. Establishing that church so that it could be a lighthouse to many others and he recognizes that that saying all roads lead to Rome means that he wants to send to that church a Summary of his gospel.

We might well call this book the gospel according to Paul. I mean really it it would function in that particular fashion for us. And so there is a very clear flow Throughout the book and I hope everyone of course recognizes that the Chapter divisions and verse divisions are not a part of the originals and the bibliography class we just had we looked at some of the Old ancient manuscripts and how they were written and there was there was no punctuation.

There wasn't even space between words for that for that matter let alone chapter and verse divisions, which are a fairly new Invention in the history of the church makes it easier to find stuff, obviously.

But sometimes the chapter and verse divisions somewhat mislead us. We tend to think well I've gotten to the end of that chapter and so I've gotten the end of that concept and and we allow those chapter and verse divisions to to break things up that really weren't meant to be broken up and So if we go back, we know that Paul has begun his epistle by establishing the sinfulness of man the universal Sinfulness of man and that in that tremendous Romans chapter 1 such an insight into the heart and mind of man professing to be wise they became fools.

Anyone who who seeks to look at this world without a recognition of God as its creator and Seeks to be in submission to him as creator anyone who looks that is going to profess themselves to be wise. But in reality from God's perspective they become foolish their hearts become darkened.

That chapter tells us that sin touches every aspect of man's existence including man's heart and mind and that God demands that we even think in accordance with how he has created us to think. To think otherwise is Sinful.

Modern man has decided that the mind is my own bastion. God cannot speak to anything that happens between my two ears but in reality the scriptures will not allow us to have that kind of a perspective and Then he turns to the Jews in Romans chapter 2 those who may have been Cheering him on in Romans chapter 1.

Yeah, Paul you talk about those Gentiles then in chapter 2 He turns them and says you too are universally sinful you may possess the law but the mere possession of The scriptures and a possession of the knowledge of the will of God only makes for greater Condemnation for you when you then break that law when you then demonstrate that you do not act in obedience To the God who has given you that law and then at the beginning of chapter 3 then he ties all this up and says look.

All Jews and Gentiles together are under condemnation and he goes through that Katina of passages that he strings together. That concludes with there is no fear of God before their eyes. All have gone astray.

There is none who seeks after God and Having given that rather depressing conclusion. It is then and only then That he can turn to the wonderful message of the gospel of grace and may I say that that is something that is so Sadly missing in so much of the presentation of the gospel today, and I think it explains so much of the woes of the church.

Paul did not just jump to the good news when he was presenting the gospel to the Romans. He spent quite an amount of time on the bad news. He spent quite a lot of time diagnosing the disease and the fact that there is no human cure for it.

And when we skip past because we fear the face of men. We fear the disapproving looks when we skip past what the Holy Spirit has given us in Scripture. The danger is we end up bringing self-righteous people into the fellowship of the church resulting in disastrous problems within the context of the church.

Paul tells us that those passages he cited are meant to close the mouth of Any person who would continue to be professing his own self-righteousness. All Jews and Gentiles Together are brought to a point of hopelessness in themselves.

And it is only that person Who stands before the judge with head bowed? Acknowledging his or her sin and his or her guilt and the righteousness of the judge to pronounce upon that guilt his punishment.

That is the person who is now ready to hear about a Savior a Person who's just looking for a new self-help methodology is not the person described by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 3 19 and 20 and Having established that then he outlines the freeness of God's grace and the perfection of justification.

In in just a small number of verses he lays out for us these truths. He says that we are justified as a gift by his grace to the redemption. Which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.

He lays all of this out and then he asked well where then is boasting. Boasting is excluded because salvation is all of God. But then he has to deal with the fact that his Jewish compatriots his fellow Jews do not embrace This message which he says is consistent with all of the prophets and apostles and so in chapter 4 you have his demonstration of the freeness of Justification what it means to be made right before God from the life of Abraham.

Here is a Argument that initially is aimed toward his Jewish opponents who would oppose This Christian message because it is not consistent. They say with Moses. It is not consistent with the fathers with Abraham.

It is a new religion and the Apostle Paul is saying no. This is the same way that men have always been justified in the sight of God and he uses the example of Abraham so note the first few Verses here what then shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh has found.

For if Abraham was justified by works He has something to boast about but not before God. For what does the scripture say. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works His wage is not credited as a favor literally according to grace.

But as what is due but to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is credited as righteousness just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.

And then we have Citation from the Psalter blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. Now it is very clear that the Apostle is Attempting to communicate the fact that what he is preaching is consistent with the ancient message of the Jewish scriptures themselves and that in the experience of Abraham and the experience of David that they experienced righteousness with God in a Gracious free manner.

He says what shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to faith is found. So let's look to Abraham The founder of the faith. Let's look to him. How did he come to have a proper relationship with God?

Was he justified was he made right before God by what he did by his actions? Well, if he does Paul's assertion in verse 2 is he has something to boast about. But not before God for what does the scripture say and then Paul goes to that key text in Genesis chapter 15?

Verse 6 Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Three terms there that you need to make sure that your your ear is attuned to Belief faith. Abraham believed God and that faith always has an object.

Christian faith always has an object. I So often hear Christians missing that point and thinking that faith is the acceptance of things for which there is no evidence. That is not Christian faith. Abraham had the very promises of God and he was believing that God had the capacity to fulfill those promises.

He was not acting on some kind of blind faith that just simply launched him out into nothingness. God had already proven his faithfulness given him his promises and faith had as its object this God. But then notice the next word credited.

Credited that is the term to impute to consider something. It can be used a number of different ways. It can be used simply to to Think about something along a certain lines to consider something to be one way.

It can has that have it can have a very sort of bland meaning along that line but it's also used in accounting text to refer to Crediting to someone's account to impute something to them that they do not possess and then they come into possession thereof it was credited to him as Righteousness.

Righteousness, I often like to ask people. What's the difference between righteousness and justification? Especially if I maybe my voice isn't doing real well, and and I'm not really feeling real. Well I've got a Sunday school class teacher something.

I'll say what's the difference between righteousness and justification and then I can sort of stand back for a few minutes and and let folks hang themselves on whatever whatever answers they give and You know lets us some debates get going and a few things like that and then I can step in and say well.

It was a trick question. There isn't any difference between righteousness and justification. Those are English terms that it translate the one complex of Greek terms. That refer to a right relationship with God now when we think of those terms.

We can think of it as a relationship with God, but then we also think about moral things. When someone is righteous We can use that term Descriptively of the way they live their life the way that they live Amongst their family the the holiness of their life and so we we recognize that when God is called righteous.

That there is a holy aspect of that a moral aspect of that, but when Paul speaks of this He speaks of that type of saving faith that Abraham had in God that this results in an imputation a crediting to him as righteousness.

Now What we have then in verses 4 5 is what might be called an apostolic interpretation of an Old Testament text. We don't get a lot of that in the New Testament. I mean we certainly do get some the Old Testament is constantly cited.

But still the New Testament is considerably smaller than the old so it's not like the New Testament functions merely as an apostolic Interpretation of every verse we'd like to have interpreted from the Old Testament.

And so when we get something like this, we probably should pay close attention to what is said. How does Paul understand Genesis 15 6? How does he understand the assertion that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness?

How can anyone today who when they come under the Influence of the Holy Spirit of God who brings conviction of sin upon them and they desire to be made right with God. They desire to have a clean conscience before him and yet they know their own sin.

How can they be made right with God? I believe that Paul's answer stands true to this day. It was true when he spoke it. It remains true to our day as well. And I would like you to see verses 4 5 as contrasts to one another.

Because if you were to look at the Greek text itself, you would see that Paul specifically lays it out. So that they are contrasts to one another. He starts the second verse verse 5 with the very same words that he started verse 4.

But he puts in the particle of negation that which turns it into its opposite. Notice we see this in English now to the one who works and then verse 5 but to the one who does not work it's literally the working one and So we have here two different attitudes.

Two different understandings and I think it's vitally important to see because I believe here Paul gives us one of the most important insights into the nature of saving faith. Saving faith there are some who believe that all faith is saving faith that there can be no false faith at all and Yet the Apostle John talks to us about people who had professed faith and yet they went out from us so it might be demonstrated that they are not of us.

The Apostle Paul names names of people who had professed faith and Had now gone back into the world or had actually become active opponents of the faith that they once proclaimed so there is clearly false faith and We know there are people who hold to all sorts of falsehoods about the cross About salvation about the Word of God, but who claim to have faith.

I Here in New England with people who claim faith in Christ because of their ancestral religion in essence and Yet, I think these words will help us to understand the difference between saving faith and a false faith.

Verse 4. To the one who works this goes back to verse 2 for Abraham was justified by works or by means of his own Actions, so here's the illustration now to the one who works His wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due.

To the working one this would have been this is this is a very pedestrian or standard illustration. It's something that in every culture people can understand because guess what in every culture people have to work.

Now I know that there are people here in your neck of the woods who are seeking to banish work that's the government will take care of you from the cradle to the grave and You probably feel like you're one of the only people left paying taxes to support everybody else Who is trying to get into that particular mechanism?

But the fact of the matter is if you're gonna be able to make it in this world You've got to work. My kids are are growing up. My son just became engaged if you want to feel old start thinking about that and start realizing that that's that term grandpa might be heading your direction and not too distant future and My daughter is graduating from high school and going off to university and she's both of them, of course work even my daughter works almost full-time and They're starting to realize It's amazing.

They're starting to realize the value of a dollar. Oh, it's so good to be vindicated. Oh all you parents are going on how that the younger parents are going oh, we can't wait and The older parents going, uh-huh, wasn't it great to discover that?

Yeah, you know, they've all of a sudden discovered what cars cost to repair. That that's a that's a tires are actually made of gold. I Think they are. I mean if you bought a new pair new new pair of cars of the tires your car reason it's outrageous and You know, they're they're a little bit slower.

You know. My daughter's a little bit slower to be asking for money because now she realized how many hours she has to work. To get the amount of money. She's been so easily taking out of our wallets all along.

It's a wonderful thing. People got to work and you got to work hard. That's that's how God designed things and this illustration Crosses all cultural barriers because in every culture people work. To the one who works the one who goes into a job with certain expectations.

His misthoss it is the word for wages. I remember when I took Greek Dr. Baird my professor Would give us these funny ways of remembering vocabulary every Greek teacher does that and the weirder it is.

The more likely it's gonna work the sillier. It sounds the more likely it is. It's gonna stick in your brain. And so he talked to us about thinking about misthos. She is a sort of a librarian ish looking woman who sits behind the cage and gives you your wage.

And is the financial lady at your at your work is misthos and that's where you get your wage. So now you all remember that and you were probably wishing that you weren't going to remember that way. But but that is the standard word that would be used throughout the Greek culture.

For your receiving of the wages that are due for what? Standing around doing nothing. No the wages you receive for your work. And so the one working his wage his payment is Not and then again credited as a favor that goes back to credited in verse 3.

Same term is being used by the Apostle here. It is not imputed to him it is not credited or deposited to his account as a favor literally as a gift or. The Greek term is chorus grace. But instead what is do it is a debt?

It is a debt. Now we know the Bible teaches us That if you are an employer if you're a person who employs someone else to work for you. That you are under obligation to pay them a fair wage. That to withhold that wage.

From a worker is sinful in God's sight. That's how he provides for his family. That's how they have food to eat and it is sinful to cheat a man on his wages. That's the exact same term. You could go to all sorts of secular sources of this day.

Go to the papyri that have been discovered of letters that Roman soldiers would write to home or businessmen would would write in regards to business transactions. You'll find all of these words being used credit deposit wage.

What is owed or what is due? Exact same words. Paul is Purposely speaking to all of society in a way that they can understand. And what's his point if you go to work? If you are the working one and You go there it is your intent that when you get done working You're going to be given something in recompense for your wage that you are putting the person for whom you are working into a position of debt and That they owe you until they pay that debt called your paycheck.

It is not considered a gift. You're not a volunteer worker. You have gone there in a situation where you desire to receive something from the one for whom you are working. Now that's an easy and illustration understand everyone understands how that works.

And so keep in mind the mindset of the worker. I am doing what I'm doing to receive something back. That is not the attitude. That is not the mindset that brings righteousness with God because verse 5 says.

But to the not working one. Again laid out in such a way as to make sure you see I am drawing a 180-degree contrast. To the attitude that I just illustrated that we all can understand 180-degree contrast.

But to the one who does not work. But well if he doesn't work then what's he doing but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is credited same word as Righteousness. Here is saving faith.

Here is saving faith and The first thing we see is saving faith. Never thinks it is putting God in a position of being a debtor. If anyone comes to God thinking well if I do these things if I Sing in the choir if I get baptized in a certain way if I give a certain amount of money.

If I crawl on my knees up these steps till they bleed whatever it is. It can be a little thing. It can be a big thing. It can be a whole series of things. It doesn't matter if the mindset is That by my actions I am putting God in this in a position where he's gonna have to give me something in response.

That's Romans 4 4 and That's not grace. That doesn't result in someone receiving righteousness. But instead Romans 4 5. But to the one who does not work the one who recognizes I Cannot come to God with my hands filled with my little trinkets.

Thinking that I can purchase from God by my actions by my deeds anything from such a sovereign King to the one who does not work, but It's not that he's not active it's not that there's not something going on here, but believes.

Saving faith is Contrasted with this idea of action that results in God having to give me something he believes and It's a faith that has a specific object. Just as it did in Genesis 15 6 just as Abraham knew the God in whom he believed he wasn't believing in some unknown God.

This is not some mysterious being out there that has not revealed himself. The faith that God calls for his faith in the God who has revealed himself and made himself known to us. He believes in him a certain God who does a certain thing.

And what does this God do? He is the God who justifies. Yeah, that's where the title came from. He is the God who justifies. Justification is a divine action. It is not a divine plan accomplished by human action.

It's not something that couldn't ever ever have been done. So God does the part we couldn't do and then we come along and fill up the rest of it. That is not What Paul's talking about? Justification is a divine action.

God's the one who justifies and he justifies to his own glory. For though we may in our conversations and our discussions about this text focus upon Mankind and how mankind has to believe and what man you know mankind's sin and all these other things the danger is That we will become so closely Concerned with these issues and we have to be concerned about them.

We have so many friends and relatives that are in False religious beliefs that have been deceived on these things that we we have to know the truth on these things. But the same time the danger is we can become so closely Focused that we lose the big picture and all and recognize that all of the gospel Everything that God's doing in Christ.

Jesus is to his glory. The centerpiece of it all is that God in Christ Jesus is redeeming a peculiar people unto himself and it's all to his glory. There is so much individualism in Western society where it's you know It's me myself and I and and I want to know everything God's done for me.

When the real reality should be what we should be concerned about is is where do I fit in this? Overarching plan by which God is glorifying himself. We so often focus upon ourselves Rather than upon the fact that God is the one who is glorifying himself believes in him who justifies who.

If God does it it's going to be a perfect action if God does it it's gonna be a permanent action. If God does it's all Gonna be his glory, but who does he justify. Who does he declare to be right before him?

So Against human religion are Paul's words here and these would have been very much against the the mindset of Second Temple Judaism and the Pharisees as Exemplified in the New Testament itself. It's amazing today.

There's a whole movement going on in in in academic circles That in essence ignores the testimony of the Gospels concerning the attitude of the Pharisees and scribes Ignores the entirety of the Pauline corpus limits Paul's writings to just a few books and As a result tells us well.

We've all missed the whole point of justification because the Jews actually believed in a gracious concept of justification a gracious covenant. Well in the sense that they recognized God's grace was necessary.

Yes, but that's never been the argument in the first place. It's the same error that certain evangelicals make when they they meet with Roman Catholics and and the Roman Catholics extol the grace of God.

They go wow. Didn't know you believed in that. Well the Council of Trent anathematized anyone who said you could be justified without the grace of God. The issue has never ever been the necessity of the grace of God.

It's always been the sufficiency of the grace of God. And that'll always be the issue because mankind is more than happy to make room for the grace of God. Mankind is more than happy to allow for the absolute necessity of God's grace.

We can't make it on our own. Those Pelagians missed the whole boat, but you see what man always wants to do. I'll accept God's grace. But I have to have enough control of this process to where I can determine whether God's grace will be sufficient in of itself or not.

Attribute 99 of it to God if you want as long as the 1 I control determines whether salvation is going to happen or not. That truly is the dividing line between a God centered religion and a man centered religion.

It was a dividing line at the Reformation. It's still a dividing line today. Even if many of those who would pretend to have the Reformers as their spiritual forebears no longer believe the foundational things They said but believes in him who justifies the ungodly.

This is why Paul had just said a few sentences beforehand. The person who is ready to hear the message of justification is the person whose head is bowed. His mouth is closed. No more self-righteousness.

No more excuses. God is just I am NOT. I need a Savior. It's the ungodly who believe unto salvation and If you think yourself one of the godly who don't need to do that then you haven't really understood your sin.

And only the Spirit of God can make your heart to come to understand the depths of that sin. So opposed to human religion are these words that you probably aren't aware of this but Joseph Smith the founder of Mormonism.

Came up with his own Bible. That's not overly surprising. If you claim to be a prophet and receive revelations, hey, why not? It's a very humbly titled the inspired version and When he came to this text, you see Mormonism doesn't have any concept truly of man's sin.

I Mean if you think about if God is exalted man from another planet and he himself Was once a sinner on another planet. You don't have holy. Holy. Holy. You don't really have a Completely other God. We are the same species as God and so Joseph Smith doesn't understand the concept of sin.

Book of Mormon says is by grace were saved after all we can do as I've said to many of Mormon. It's by grace were saved in spite of all we've done. And so, you know what he did here. He took it out. He took it out.

He reversed The phrase by inserting the word not. He does not justify the ungodly. He has no God who can justify the ungodly. He reversed it and in doing so Separated anyone who would follow him from the very grace of God.

For the person who thinks he or she can obtain righteousness before God outside of the finished work of Christ. What did he say elsewhere. I do not nullify or empty the cross of its power by trying to work for these things.

It truly empties the cross of its very power. So here's saving faith. It does not look to us. It does not look to our works. It does not look to our accomplishments instead to the one who does not work to receive a wage.

But putting that aside going a hundred and eighty degrees the opposite direction. Believes in him who justifies the ungodly who has provided that way in Christ. His faith that faith not the faith of verse for the faith of verse 5 his faith is credited as righteousness.

That's the person who? Experiences the right relationship with God and that doesn't end the sentence because he then says here. Let me give you an example of this. Just as David also speaks of what what's the blessing here?

Notice the words are specific. There is a reason why Paul says that the way he says it and doesn't say it the way he doesn't say it the blessing of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.

Now let's follow our use of terms here. Remember see the word credit again, right? Justice David also speaks of the blessing of the man to whom God imputes credits. That was up in in verse 3 and it's again in verse 4 5 6 imputes credits righteousness.

Again, this is 15 6. Here's verse 5. How does a man receive the blessing of? Righteousness imputed to him. Apart from works. Apart from my accomplishment apart from my efforts. How does this happen? Here's the blessing of which he speaks now notice something.

That's a positive action on God's part. Is it not the blessing of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from his? Accomplishments his works his merit. See that part. Keep that in mind. Because then look at the illustration he uses from the Psalms.

Look at the text that he uses coming to us from Psalm 32 at Psalm 31 the Hebrew. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blesses the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account now.

That's actually the same term for impute. Blesses the man in verse 8 to whom the Lord will not impute sin now in verse 6. It's a positive action. But then in verses 7 and 8 it's illustrated by the non Imputation of sin.

I think this is missed by a lot of folks. It wasn't missed by the Reformers. It wasn't missed by good solid systematic theologians. But today it seems to be getting missed by a lot of folks. Who just don't think that the Word of God is clear enough or consistent enough to actually really tell us what's going on here.

Verse 6 is positive proclamation is that God credits righteousness a part of work apart from works, but how does he do it? What's the mechanism for seven and eight tells us that has to do with the non? imputation of sin.