Book of Romans - Ch. 4, Vs. 1-13 (12/26/1999)

Park Meadows Church

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Romans chapter 4, Paul is discussing works versus faith and how that works by itself will get you nothing but exercise and experience.

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First of all let me make a statement again. God does not react to man.

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I know it may seem like it sometimes and we may hope that he does, but he does not because it would require constant change.

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So he does not change. He cannot and remains sovereign.

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So we come now to the first verse of chapter 4. What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?

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The doctrine of justification by faith is shown by the case of Abraham and that's what he intends to do.

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Abraham received the promise of God through the righteousness of faith and not by his own works.

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We are justified in the same way. For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath worthy glory but not before God, only before man.

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Let's review just a little bit on justification and sanctification. Remembering like this, justification is something done for us.

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Sanctification is something done in us. You tell me, one of these changes our state, the other changes our nature.

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Which one changes our state and which one changes our nature? You're right.

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Greg, we need to turn it down just a little, down just a hair.

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Justification does something for us. Sanctification does something in us.

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One changes our state. Which one is that? The other changes our nature.

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Well, let's go at it another way then.

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One of these is perfect, the other is gradual. What? Which one is in us?

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That's right. I don't know who said that but they said it right.

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One is from the obedience of Jesus the Christ. Which one? The obedience of Jesus the

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Christ. The other is from the Holy Spirit. That's our gradual sanctification.

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The one gives us title to heaven. Which one is that? The other makes us fit for heaven.

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Which one is that? Self -justification.

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Self -justification, which lots of people like to do, is like a person being caught in a rainstorm,

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Russell, rushing into a barn that has no roof. Can faith conceive great things?

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Greg, can faith conceive great things?

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All right. All faith can do is to cause us to be placed as an instrument in the hands of God and to guide us as we exercise and do

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His will. That's faith. Third verse, for what sayeth the scripture,

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Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

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David, what does the word counted bring to mind? To me it's an accounting term.

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He debited Jesus' account for righteousness and credited

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Abraham. He took it out of Jesus' and put it in Abraham's.

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All right, does this diminish the account of Jesus? No. All right, so he believed the scripture, or he believed

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God, and it was not his belief now, it's the faith. And it was put to his account,

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Greg, even though the payment had not yet been made. And that was made at the cross.

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Fourth verse, now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt.

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Now if a person could work for his salvation by something he could do, this would put

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God in what kind of a position? All right.

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All right. Now can we put God in debt? I got a few murmurs.

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To put him in debt would mean that he would owe you something or owe someone something which would make him subservient to that someone or something.

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This cannot be. So you see how it's impossible for him to react to man.

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I hope you understand that. All right, and four, he says to him that works, the payment or the reward would not be by grace.

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But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him, that justification justifies the ungodly.

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His faith is counted for righteousness, not his belief. His faith is counted for righteousness.

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Now Russell, what would it mean to be counted for something? In this case righteousness, counted for righteousness.

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What's that mean? All right.

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All right. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of man, unto whom

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God imputeth righteousness without works. Greg, what's the word impute mean?

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Well, somewhat. It's a little bit more than that.

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Jesse? That's all right.

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Someone else tell me, what's the word impute mean? David? Joy?

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All right, that helps us a little bit more.

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Paul, tell him what does impute mean. All right.

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In this case, blessed is the man unto whom

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God imputeth righteousness. So we're talking about righteousness and imputing righteousness.

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Imputed means what you have said, to put into or put to the account or to place available to someone.

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In this case, Russell, it's righteousness that is imputed. So is it our righteousness?

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Well, then we must be able to add something to the definition of impute. What? To place

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God's righteousness in our account. All right. Well, that's the result of it.

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All right. All right, now we're getting to it.

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To impute means to make available, place upon someone, something, and hold them responsible for the use of it, even though it does not belong to them.

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So he imputed his righteousness to us. It is not ours, but we're held responsible for the use of it, but it remains his all the time.

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Impute, very important word. Brother Otis, is that definition, is there an example in the physical world where that word is used very often?

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Not an old word that's tried to be used much today, but I'm wondering where you got the had it.

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Clark, we all miss that idea of responsibility, because that's really it.

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Yes. Is it from the normal use of that word or back when it was used a lot? Well, it was and it's still used, and you'll find it mostly in the legal world.

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So it does carry responsibility? Yes, yes, always. But our rewards, our rewards are coming from how we use that word.

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Yes. Our responsibility. Yes. This is the part that takes away.

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That's right. That's great. Now, what was that other conversation?

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I just said a lot of the grace, the modern grace teaching, leaves that responsibility part out, and it just says that the righteousness is imputed to you, but it doesn't say anything about your responsibility to do anything with it.

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Well, we have to understand that. We have to know that. And the word carries with it the responsibility of causing you to understand the responsibility.

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But you're right, David. We don't hear it very often. In fact,

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I don't remember any place I've heard it other than in the study. So, imputeth his righteousness.

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It means it's given to us, it belongs to him, we're held responsible, and our rewards, as Joy pointed out, are based upon our use of it.

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Now, I'd like for you to go to the book of Galatians, to the first chapter, please. Now, when he imputed his righteousness to us,

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Greg, that would be at what time? When?

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Most everybody has two answers. All right.

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Because our sin was imputed to him on the cross. That's right. His righteousness was imputed to us at the moment of our sin.

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All right. And when was that? When we believed. When God gave us the faith and we believed.

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That was when we were saved? No, that's when his righteousness was imputed to us. Because one day before that,

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I was a lost sheep, living in sin, continual sin, perpetual sin.

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All right. So, at the moment of salvation, when the light came on and he called me to himself, like Paul wrote to Damascus at that moment, his righteousness was then imputed to me, although it was prepared for me on the cross.

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Well, it was prepared long before that. Right. It was prepared in eternity. Okay, let's go to Galatians now, in the first chapter, 15th verse.

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And this gives us an example of what we've been talking about. And when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, when it pleased

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God to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately

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I conferred not with flesh and blood. The Spirit of Christ has been in us from eternity past.

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Because notice what Paul says. When it pleased God, who separated me, and called me to reveal his

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Son in me, he didn't say to place the Spirit in me, but just to reveal it in me.

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And unless he reveals it in his sheep, it will never be seen. So he revealed it in Paul when it pleased

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God. Very same thing with us. In Revelation 17, 8,

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The beast that thou sawest was and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, go into perdition, and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.

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So if there were names that were not written by the laws of grammar,

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Greg, it tells us there were names that were written. And that's us. So now, the word impute, the word righteousness, the awareness of our state, our position, which is in Christ, when it pleases him to make us aware of it, to reveal himself in us, to cause us to know, he does.

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And you will hear no other voice. You will hear his, because you are his.

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And he tells us in Scripture that my sheep will not hear the false. They will hear me.

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Now, to hear him doesn't mean that just after you're saved, you heard him when you were still separated and you became saved.

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Verse 7, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

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Now we have two terms here. Let's see if we can make any sense out of this.

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Blessed, we understand this. Blessed are they, talking about the sheep, whose iniquities are forgiven.

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What's the definition of the word iniquity? Sin? All right, let's go with that for a moment.

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And whose sins are covered. Seems to be two different categories here. Help us out,

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Greg. Well, what's the sins that are covered?

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Thank you. Say that again. All right.

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In fact, you're born into the state of sin. You didn't know it.

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You had nothing to do with it, but that's the way you come into the world. The iniquity is like a trespass.

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You see the sign stay out, yet you go in. And you have done evil, knowing that it was evil.

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So, blessed are they whose knowing sins are forgiven, and whose ignorant sins, by ignorant

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I mean you didn't realize it, they're covered. Blessed is the man to whom the

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Lord will not impute sin. Now, this same man that we've been discussing all of the time, is one that the

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Lord will not impute sin. What sense can we make out of this?

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All right, does that mean then that that one that has the righteousness imputed to him cannot sin?

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Well, then you're saying he can sin. David, what does the scripture mean that says he that is, in my words now, born again, does not sin because he cannot?

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All right, then why is it that we do sin?

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Well, I think we have a day or days where we don't reckon the old man to be crucified.

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Somehow he comes alive to us. He's not really alive, but we believe a lot of Satan, believe he's alive again and he acts.

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All right, at the moment that you sin, are you walking in the spirit? No. So it still holds that the spiritual man, the born again person, cannot sin.

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It's impossible. He has to lay it down and run over to Satan for a little bit.

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And that's what we do. That's right.

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It pleases me very much to see how all of you are growing and learning how to study.

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The Christian profession does not consist in bare knowledge of God or agreeing that that's right.

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It consists in obedience unto God. You cannot be obedient to Him unless you belong to Him.

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Think back to your childhood. You were obedient to your parents.

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You were held responsible to your parents. Your parents corrected you and praised you and loved you.

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Very seldom or never did I ever see my father correct someone else's child in the way that he did me.

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So it is confirmation that we belong to God when

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He corrects us, when we see our sin, when we get forgiven of sin.

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It's confirmation. Verse 9.

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He's continuing now in the same argument. Cometh this blessing then upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also?

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For we say that faith was reckoned unto Abraham for righteousness.

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Upon the when in Abraham's lifetime did he receive this blessing of God for his beliefs that culminated in faith and righteousness being imputed to him?

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At what place in his life the history of his life did that occur? Well, was it before the sign of circumcision or after?

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Before. Why is it important that we understand that? That it was before?

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Because the circumcision was a physical symbol of spiritual truth that had already happened.

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Alright. That's right. The law was given to the Jew only.

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So, it coming before includes the Gentile.

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You and I. He goes on to finish in 10.

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Was it not reckoned when he was in circumcision or uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

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Abraham was called by God because God knew that Abraham would do what he wanted him to do.

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Was that right? Then you're telling me that God did not call

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Abraham because he knew that Abraham would do what he wanted. I'm just saying verse 4 at the end of verse 4.

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You can't put him in debt. Did this so commonly but incorrectly tell you that God looked forward in time and saw things and acted according to that has to be wrong or else verse 4 would be incorrect.

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That's right. So, if you can't put God in debt then it has nothing to do with what you did and what he saw you do.

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I hope everybody understands that. I wish every... So many people, so many so -called

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Christians, Baptists would answer that yes, he picked him out because he knew what he would do.

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That cannot be. Abraham did what he did, Russell, because he was called to God.

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Just like you. You do what you do because you're called to him. He didn't call you because he knew what you would do.

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Very, very important understanding. I hope everybody understands it. He did not.

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Yes? And he had to wait until you got here to see what you were going to do.

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It's ridiculous. The farther you take that the more ridiculous it gets.

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He would have to wait until just before you died. Yeah. You would have a party.

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Absolutely. That gives me goosebumps.

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So you see, it has nothing whatsoever to do with us.

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I see. Verse 11, and he received the sign of circumcision which was a seal of righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised that he might be the father of all of them that believe though they be not circumcised that righteousness might be imputed to them also now.

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To all of them that believe. What's that phrase mean?

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Trudy? Well, you're doing alright.

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Some of you way back in the back of the auditorium. What's it mean that he would be the father of all of them that believe?

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We could say it like this, that he would be the father of all of them that would believe or that shall believe.

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That's right. Who said that? Jesse. You're right.

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All of the elect makes no difference what time in history you exist but Abraham is the, and by father it doesn't mean bloodline it means that the same promise that was made to Abraham was made to us.

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Very same. And we come to the word impute again that he that righteousness might be imputed to them also just like it was to Abraham based upon what?

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What was the imputation of righteousness to Abraham based upon?

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What was that based on? All right.

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But what was the basis for? That's right. It just pleased him.

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We have no other explanation. It pleased him. I cannot tell you why he chose me or why he chose

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Jesse certainly wasn't because we're so good looking Was Abraham a

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Jew? What world was he? Assyrian.

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Does faith exercise you or do you exercise faith?

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Who giggled? Does faith exercise you?

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Yes. Do you exercise faith?

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Russell? David? That's a phrase we've heard in all our

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Bibles I don't remember if it's in any place in the Bible where it says that I don't think.

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The faith we have is the faith of Christ so faith exercises faith. You hear people say exercise your faith isn't that right?

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Well even if you had it you couldn't. I think they were God's commandments but the faith came from God and God's faith didn't.

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Well that's true but setting that portion aside for just a moment we have faith.

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We know it's not ours. We have the faith. My question really is this.

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Can you call that faith into activity whenever you want to?

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Is that your final answer? That's right.

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You cannot call up faith whenever you want it. So how does it become part of us?

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How do we use it? Or how does it use us? What good is it?

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Marching orders. Alright. Now when do you know whether you have faith or not?

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We don't. We have a lack of faith.

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Well you're getting away from the question. Russell?

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When can we determine that we have faith? We know it's the faith of Christ in us.

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Yes. So that faith can only be a work for walking in the power of the spirit and fellowship.

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So we can know that faith works in us when we're in fellowship in the power of the spirit and walking.

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Alright. That's true. We do know that. But how do we really know it? There's something that will cause us to be able to really know that we have faith.

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Right. That's right. You cannot, you can say yes

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I have faith. You can draw all the pictures, write all the theses you want to but until you experience it and look back, then you know or you don't know.

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Yes. That's right.

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But it's always in the past tense. The good feeling comes after.

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It may be a nanosecond but the faith brings the serene attitude as we're going through this but really it's just one step behind us that we realize this.

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We cannot realize it ahead. In other words, you cannot experience something until you experience it.

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Faith, we really know and understand that we do absolutely have faith after we have called on it, after it has exercised us, after it has made itself known to us and that has got to be just at the moment that we have used it.

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Past tense. You cannot run ahead of it. That's right.

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When when will the well let me ask it this way when we finally when we ultimately attain the real eternity and are in the presence of the

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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit will we still have faith?

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Won't need it then. Well, by not needing it then, what's it tell us about now?

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Can you give me a scripture for that? To just show

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By faith. It's impossible to live any other way except by faith.

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And he made it that way. You'll never bring the reality and the reality of heaven together while we're on this earth.

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There's always the bridge of faith in between and he made it there. Now, where are we?

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Twelve And the Father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our

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Father Abraham which he had being yet uncircumcised for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed but through the law but through the righteousness of faith before the law ever came.

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Brother Odom. Yes. Stop a minute. Just had light come on there.

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Look at verse 13 and look at where he says the heir of the world and tell me that's not the same world as in John 3 .16.

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It is. Exactly. Cosmos. Does not mean human beings.

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So everybody that's in that particular world in verse 13 is an heir. That's right. So why do people have such trouble in John 3 .16

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not to get the same? Because all of their life they have heard the wrong interpretation of it.

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It does not mean everybody. Thank you

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David. An heir is made an heir when?

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At the death. There has to be a death. For if they which are of the law be heirs faith is made void and the promise made of none effect because the law worketh wrath for where no law is there is no transgression.

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Greg can you break a law that does not exist? No. Does the law carry with it the power to make you do right?

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No. Only to punish. 16.

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Therefore Yes. That's right.

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It's just full of minutes. Well we may still we may still be in Romans when he returns.

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We're going to stop with 13 since she backed up to that. This is the last class we'll have in this what they call this millennium although they're wrong.

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The next millennium starts at 2001 but the

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Y2K thing has got everybody hooked onto it I guess.

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At any rate this is the last class at this time of this year.

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I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it and look forward to many many more. And I trust that you have or you would not still be here.

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Is there anything anyone would like to say as we close out? Beyond my understanding

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I wish you wouldn't say that because it puts me in a very precarious position of sinning and I don't want to do that.

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Yes. Brag on God not me. Anything else?