Romans 4:13-17

Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church iconCoram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

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And before we get started, I wanted to point out,
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I know the majority of us have probably read through that through Genesis 3 twice, at least in the past in the past week.
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Point out, first of all, the promise there in 315, the promised seed of the woman.
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And then also, the first sacrifice. God clothed them.
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This is the first time that a living thing is sacrificed as a covering for sin.
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It's a foreshadowing of what would come later. In Romans 4, starting in verse 13, for the promise to Abraham and his offspring that that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
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For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
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The law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.
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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 adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
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As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist.
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In verse 13, 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.
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The reference here is to Genesis 13 15. For all the land that you see,
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I will give to you and your offspring forever. We ran over the past few weeks about the promise to Abraham and his seed.
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Remember from last week and every other time that I've referenced it,
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Galatians 3 16, the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.
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Scripture does not say, and to seeds, meaning many, but and to your seed, meaning one who is
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Christ. Abraham was justified by his faith alone.
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That means, I'm sorry, the means by which man is saved has never changed.
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The means has always been the same. From Adam to us, the means by which everyone has been saved or will be saved is the same.
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The seed of the woman, the promised seed of the woman.
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There was not one way before and another way after. I was talking about this earlier.
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We call it the new covenant, but it's always been the covenant of grace.
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Genesis 15, which Reed just graciously read for us, it says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. In reference to Christ Jesus our
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Lord, God the Son, Abraham found rest in Christ as do we.
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We are the spiritual children of Abraham, all of us.
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We share in this promise of inheritance with Abraham in Christ.
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And it is made clear in the Scriptures that Abraham was justified before the law had been given to Moses.
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So it is not by the law that he is heir of the promise, but through faith that is given as a gift.
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And through that faith, the righteousness that is from our Savior.
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Verse 14, For if it is the adherence of the law who are to be heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
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If it is in fact those that keep the law that are heirs by merit, as in if it is required of a person to keep the law to become an heir of the promise, then faith is pointless.
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It is. There's no point to having it. If this is the case, then the promise of inheritance to Abraham and his seed is void.
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It would count as much as faith. It has no effect because it is only grasped by faith.
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It was given before the law. Or as John MacArthur states, making a promise contingent on an impossible condition nullifies the promise.
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There would be no promise. Or as it says in Galatians 3 23 through 27,
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Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
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So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
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But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.
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For as many of you were baptized in Christ, you have put on Christ as those garments, just as Adam and Eve put on garments that were given by God to cover their sin.
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In verse 15, For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.
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The law is meant to show us that we are sinners and that we need a
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Savior. It offers no alternative means of salvation. By trying to earn salvation through merit, we kindle
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God's wrath more by further transgressing the law.
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Had the law never been given, we would most certainly still be guilty. We have talked about natural law many times.
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The law of Moses was given, and by it we know our sin more deeply.
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The natural state of human beings in Adam is sinfulness.
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We're bent toward it. Our desire is for sin. Now the magnum opus of Luther's work was probably the bondage of the will, which was given in response to another writing, but if you haven't read it, please read it.
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He discusses in it the issue with free will from a biblical point of view.
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If our desire is for sin, then the choice that we make because of that desire is corrupt, period.
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But because of that, the more we know of the law, the more we are apt to transgress it.
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Where there is a law, there is transgression, and that transgression is provoking, and so the law worketh wrath.
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Matthew, Henry. The only thing that you gain from the law is
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God's wrath. That is it. In Deuteronomy 27 26, it says,
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Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.
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Jeremiah 11 3 through 4 says,
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You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord the God of Israel, Cursed to be the man who does not hear the words of this covenant that I commanded your fathers when
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I brought them out of the land of Egypt. And if you remember from Romans 3 19 and 20,
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Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
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For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
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There's a plain historical record of failure to keep the law in Scripture.
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This is evidenced by the fact that when God gave the law, He also gave the sacrificial system.
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If you could keep it, why did He also at the same time give a means of atonement from it?
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As John MacArthur remarked in the interview that he had with Ben Shapiro, I don't know if you've seen that interview, he says,
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The priests of the temple were basically butchers. The amount of blood that was spilled in the temple over the years for the atonement of the continual transgressions of the law by the
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Israelites, both personally and as a nation, is most likely incalculable.
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The law is simply given to point out our sin. The evidence that the law is given with a sacrificial system is more evidence that it cannot be kept.
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In 16, verse 16, 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 adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
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Paul here reiterates that salvation is by faith alone, and that it is by grace that the promise is given to us, and as Paul says, to all who share in the faith of Abraham, it has always, always been a covenant of grace.
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Faith and the law. Paul has labored in this chapter to show us that faith and the law are juxtaposed, and the promise comes by faith so that everyone is included, both
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Jew and Gentile. Romans 325, or I'm sorry, 326 says,
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For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 17, verse 17,
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As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations, in the presence of the
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God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist.
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First, I want to point out that the fact that he doesn't say, I will make you the father of many nations.
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He says, I have. So all of this, as Scripture also states, has already been done.
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By Genesis 12, or I'm sorry, 15, the elect are elect from eternity.
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Before the foundations of the earth, this was decided. Paul has gone through great trouble to explain the fact that Abraham is not just the father of his son
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Isaac, and therefore the Jews, and those who are adherent to the law, but to everyone who walks the same path, has the same faith that Abraham did.
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Abraham was 99 years old. His wife was barren, and God said that He would give him an heir.
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What earthly evidence did Abraham have for this? None. We'll go through that further next week.
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But he believed God. Sorry, I said 15 earlier.
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Paul's quoting from 17, and in chapter 17, no, that was a typo.
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It was 15. Sorry. My apologies. Lots of numbers on the page here.
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Paul is quoting from 17 when he says, the father of many nations. This is plainly stated through Scripture, and yet Paul labors to make this point again, and again, and again.
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How many words have been used to make this point? Not only in Scripture, but also in various commentaries and books.
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Let's put another way. There is no partiality.
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Everyone who has been saved, everyone who will be saved, is saved in Christ.
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By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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Paul states this another way in Galatians 3, 28 and 29. There is neither
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Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you all are one in Christ.
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And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
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Justification by faith alone, by grace alone, is so plainly in the text, it is no wonder why after the
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Dark Ages, the Reformation exploded like it did. For hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, you couldn't read it, and various people labored over the meaning of texts amongst, and those that did come to the truth were very often martyred.
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But through the courage and conviction of certain men, it was translated at God's appointed time into many different languages.
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People could finally read, in their own language, God's Word, and an explosion of the truth occurred.
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Now unfortunately, the church seems to have recessed in that.
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Most people attend church, sit and listen, and then go home, never opening their own
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Bible, even though they might have 15 of them around their house.
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But please understand, we have the
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Scriptures. They have come at a great cost to many, and also understand that each and every one of you is an heir to the same promise that Abraham is.
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And the assurance of that does not come from works of merit, or how you conduct yourself, how good you are, or how rich you are.
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The assurance of that comes from the One who gave the promise, God, who gives life to the dead, and as I'm sure you read this past week, calls into existence the things that do not exist.
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He promised this. Next week we'll continue with verse 17, as it is greatly connected to the remainder of the chapter, but I will leave you on the words of Martin Luther.
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It is faith without good works, and prior to good works, that takes us to heaven.