WWUTT 1217 That is Why it Depends on Faith? (Romans 4:16-18)

Faith, Grace, and the Promise to Abraham

God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. And the Jews thought that meant that whoever blessed Israel would likewise be blessed. But no, it was through our Lord Jesus Christ we would be blessed, when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of Romans chapter 4, and we're going to pick up where we left off yesterday. So I'm going to start reading here in verse 16, and we'll go to the end of the chapter.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, "...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.

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 committed 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. So we come back to where we left off yesterday in 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.

Remember how we finished up yesterday, the promise that we received, the justification by faith, the fellowship that we have with God, the promise of an eternal glorious kingdom. All of these things come to us by faith, not by our keeping of the law, because it's through the law comes wrath.

We can't keep the law. We broke the law. Where there is no law, there's no transgression, but there's a law. So therefore there's transgression. We look at God who is righteous and we are not. How do we know God is righteous?

Because of his perfect law, because he is just and all of his ways are justice. So even if you did not know the law, you've still broken it, whether you are aware that you broke it or not. You don't have to know what the speed limit is in order to break the speed limit and be guilty of breaking the speed limit.

I got a ticket when I was dating my wife. We weren't married yet and we were attending the same church together. This was after church one night, a Sunday evening service. A lot of us at the church were going to meet at a particular restaurant.

And so we were on the way to that restaurant, Becky's riding with me, and we got on this frontage road, you know, one of those roads that runs parallel to the interstate. But where we got on this road, it was like a T-junction.

We turned onto the road and there was no speed limit sign. To see what the speed limit was for this road, you had to have gotten on the road further back. Well, I just assumed that the speed limit was forty five.

That's a pretty reasonable assumption. And in fact, most frontage roads that I had been on were fifty five miles an hour. So I was even playing it super conservative and I was going forty five. I didn't know what the speed limit was.

I decided forty five was pretty safe. No, it wasn't a forty five mile per hour speed limit. It was a thirty five mile per hour speed limit. It wasn't even a residential zone. There were no houses anywhere around where we turned on to this road.

Why would I have assumed that the speed limit there was going to be thirty five? Well, a cop had set up a speed trap there and he probably did that very specifically because he knew that where cars turn onto that road, they don't know what the speed limit is since there's no sign posted so he can pull people over and give them a ticket.

And that's exactly what happened to me. I was so frustrated I even went back and made sure there's no speed limit sign there. But when I went and contested my ticket, the judge did not see it my way. In fact, I believe it was even said to me, ignorance of the law is no excuse just because you didn't know what the speed limit was doesn't mean that you can say that you weren't guilty of breaking the speed limit.

There is a law that the speed limit on that road is this and you broke that law, so therefore you have to pay the fine so you don't have to know what the law is in order to be guilty of that transgression.

And the Lord God is perfect. He is righteous. He is holy. All of his ways are justice. And he has revealed he has revealed his righteousness in his law. That law exists whether you are aware of that law or not.

And so if you break the law, you're going to be guilty of having broken the law, though you did not know what the law was. You can't get away with being able to say, well, I didn't know it doesn't matter.

And Paul has made the argument previously in Romans chapter two that we are a law unto ourselves and even the righteousness that we claim that we have. We can't keep the laws and standards that we set up for other people.

We can't even follow those. So if we were to stand before judgment, if we were to stand before God and judgment using only those moral precepts that we had imposed upon everybody else, those personal morals that we had said everybody else had to live by, we would stand guilty before God because we didn't even keep our own set of morals where there is no law.

There is no transgression. But the fact remains that there is a law and therefore there is a transgression regardless of whether or not you know that you have transgressed that law. So that is why Paul says here in verse 16, it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all of his offspring may rest on grace, meaning that God has demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans five, eight. And when you get to Romans six, one, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for we have received the grace of God by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The fact that we believe is the grace of God. The very gift of Christ was by the grace of God. What we deserve for our sin is death. What we deserve is separation from God forever to just be destroyed in our wickedness.

But he is gracious to us. He showed love to us instead of getting what we deserved. He gave us what we do not deserve. And that is the sacrifice of Christ, the giving of his son on the cross for our sins so that whoever believes in him is forgiven of the transgressions that we committed.

Even if we committed those transgressions in ignorance, all of the sins that we have done against God are forgiven by faith in Jesus Christ. Even if there are sins, you are not aware that you've committed.

You can look into your past and there's things you've done. You don't even know that you did those things. There might be things you've done today and you're not aware that you've done those things. And yet it's by the grace of God that our sins are atoned for and covered over completely because the life of Jesus Christ that was given for us has that much power.

The righteousness of God is far greater than any of our sins. And so we receive forgiveness through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on the grace of God.

What he has done for us, not what we have done, and be guaranteed to all of his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham. Now, Paul is not saying here that there is one who perfectly adheres to the law.

That's a reference to the Jews, not only to the adherent of the law. The Jews to whom the law of God had been given, and so therefore they keep it. The promise is not just for the Jews. The promise is also for Gentiles.

The one who shares the faith of Abraham are likewise children of Abraham who received the promise of God, who is the father of all, is the rest of verse 16. I guess I didn't finish that. But 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, not just the Jews, but also the Gentiles.

Everyone who believes is a child of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As I've quoted to you several times now, but I'm reminding you again, Galatians 3 .7. Now, it is those of faith who are sons of Abraham and Galatians 3 .29.

If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. So the grace of God is guaranteed to all of his offspring and his offspring are not just the Jews, the adherents to the law, but also the one who shares the faith of Abraham, the Gentile.

For Abraham is the father of us all, a spiritual father. Even if you're not descended from the line of Abraham, you still are a child of Abraham. If you believe by faith in the promise of God, and that promise is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 17, as it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. Remember, that is the promise of God to Abraham. And that is, that's going back to Genesis 17. So starting in Genesis 17, verse one, when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God almighty.

Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, Abram, of course, was the pre Abraham name.

But anyway, verse four, behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations, not just one nation, but a multitude of nations. And we know that in the Lord Jesus Christ, there are people of many nations who have come into the family of God by faith in him, by what Christ has done on the cross.

When the gospel of what Jesus has done on the cross and his resurrection of the dead, when it is proclaimed to the nations, and there are people from all kinds of nations who believe and come to faith, then Abraham is the father of many nations.

He is the father of all of these who believe by faith, not just the nation of Israel, but anyone of any tribe, tongue, nation on earth, those that are described in the book of revelation as being gathered around the throne, singing the praises of God forever.

They've come from everywhere because the gospel has gone out everywhere. So wherever there is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a child of Abraham, for we are his offspring. He being the one who believed by faith, and therefore we receive the same promise by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Behold, my covenant is with you, God said in Genesis 17, 4, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but you shall be called Abraham, for I have made you a father of a multitude of nations.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you, and I shall establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout the generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Now, of course, in the immediate, what we're talking about there is the nation of Israel.

But as Paul is laying out here, there are other children of Abraham. Jesus talked about it in Matthew chapter 10. Even before Jesus showed up, John the Baptist was talking about it, even from these stones, God is able to raise up children for Abraham.

And so we who believe in Christ have been adopted into the family of God, and we are children of Abraham, for he is guaranteed an offspring. And we are that 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, 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 the things that do not exist.

Now, as we read that particular verse, you understand the context there, right? Of Romans 4, 17, that it is God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. There was no offspring of Abraham when God gave him this promise and made this covenant with him.

He didn't even have a son yet. Isaac wasn't even born yet. And then you had Ishmael, but God said Ishmael is not going to be the son of the promise. There is a son that is going to come from you and is going to come from Sarah, even though it was previously thought that Sarah was barren and was not able to give Abraham a child.

But God has the ability to call into existence the things that do not exist. And so even in this barren woman, God made her pregnant and she gave birth to a son of promise from the line of Abraham would come the ultimate promise, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are many word of faith people, those false teachers, often prosperity preachers who will say that you bring about your reality. You can cause your reality by speaking it into existence. And often the verse that they will use in order to justify that theological position is this one, Romans 417, where it says that you can call into existence the things that do not exist.

Is that what it says? That's the way that they'll quote it. They'll say words create reality. Words bring into existence things that do not exist. That's not at all what Romans 417 says. Romans 417 says that God brings into existence those things that do not exist.

And so Abraham believed in him who was able to do that. And God fulfilled what he had promised to Abraham. So whenever some word of faith nonsense preacher says to you that you can bring into reality those things that do not exist by speaking them into existence, they are twisting the word of God and actually taking away the good news of the gospel, where it is by faith that God gives us his righteousness, brings into existence those things that do not exist.

It is God who does that. When the word of faith heretic tells you that you do that, then they're robbing you of salvation that comes by faith, because that's really the message that's being spoken about here.

They're taking the gospel and twisting it into some sort of a prosperity narrative so that you can believe and quote and claim and bring about riches and hopes and dreams and all this other kind of stuff for yourself.

That's not what's being talked about here. What's being talked about is that God made a promise with Abraham, and he brought that promise into reality because Abraham believed, believed God, believed in the promise that God had given to him in hope that he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations.

In hope, he believed against hope. So like when it sounded like nonsense for Abraham to believe what it was that God was promising him, 99 years old, his wife was 90 years old or just about, and she was beyond childbearing years.

There was no it made no sense for Abraham to believe that he was going to become the father of many nations. But in hope, he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations as he had been told, so shall your offspring be.

Now, that's the end of verse 18, and that's where we're going to conclude today. We'll pick up the rest of our study of Romans chapter four tomorrow. Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that you've shown to us in our Lord Jesus Christ and that you have brought into existence something that previously did not exist, and that is faith.

We did not believe God. We were wandering in unrighteousness. We were going our own way. We were headed for destruction. And then the gospel came to us, the good news of what Jesus had done for us on the cross and had risen again from the grave so that whoever believes in him has everlasting life.

And by faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we now have something that we did not have before, and that is the promise of eternal life. You brought that into existence for us where previously it did not exist.

It is not by our word that we are saved. It is by the word of God. So lead us into all truth and sanctify us in your truth as we grow in holiness and righteousness this day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.