By Faith, It's Always Been that Way

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Romans 4:1-25 Justification- A Defense of the Universal Good News of the Gospel: “By Faith, It’s Always Been that Way” One of the biggest misunderstandings concerning the Bible is the false idea that the God who is portrayed in the OT is different than the one who is portrayed in the NT. Many people believe the God of the OT ia capricious, bloodthirsty, and condemning and that the God of the NT is a loving and gracious God who accepts everybody and every idea known to mankind. The problem with this kind of thinking is that in the NT Jesus himself talked more about hell and judgment than anyone, and that in the OT there are lots of stories about God’s grace given to both the Jews and Gentiles. For sure, God comes across strongly as a judge in the OT and as merciful in the NT but it is still the same God because in each testament God is portrayed as One who is both just in his wrath and merciful in his love. Another misconception people have about the Bible is the false idea that the OT teaches that one is saved by keeping the law or doing good works. This is not true and it is this idea that Paul attacks in in our text today. What Paul is doing in this section of his letter is he is addressing a false objection that has been raised against the gospel he is proclaiming. He is anticipating what some of his audience are thinking about what he has written thus far (most likely Jews) and he is heading off their objections. Their line of thinking goes like this: Ok Paul thus far in your letter you have made the point that the whole human race, both Jew and gentile, have sinned against God by turning to something else for life other than the one true God who made them. We get it Paul, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (3:23) We also understand everything you have said about Jesus and how if we put our faith in him we will be saved. We get it. We know he lived a sinless life for us so that God could declare us to be righteous on the grounds of his righteousness, and we also understand that he died in our place, bearing upon himself God’s wrath on our sin so that we could be forgiven, and because of that all we have to do is trust in him and we will be saved. We get that Paul… but what we don’t get is why you would teach us something about salvation that is not found in the OT. You are teaching us something that is in contradiction to what our Scriptures teach and because you are doing that we are not so sure we want to embrace the gospel you are preaching. It would not be wise for us to go against God’s Word. This is the objection that Paul is up against and is seeking to overcome. Now the way Paul does that is by showing his readers that faith has always been the way to salvation, even in the OT. That’s why I have subtitled this sermon, “By Faith, it’s always been that way.” In this text Paul gives us two examples of people in the OT who were justified, made right with God, because of faith. The first person is father Abraham and the second one is King David. His chief example is Abraham and Paul spends almost all of this chapter talking about him but we shall first look at David. In our text Paul quotes a portion of Psalm 32, which is a prayer of confession prayed by King David. In that prayer David says, “Blessed are they whose transgressions forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him.” (Rom. 4:7-8) Basically what Paul is saying here is that David has sinned and yet God is not holding his sins against him. His sin should keep him out of God’s Kingdom yet the text tells us that the Lord has forgiven him and received him. On what grounds? It can’t be because of David’s good works. David has sinned, his works are not good. And it can’t be because David ceased to sin after he confessed his sins. He messed up again, like we all do. So why has God forgiven David? God has forgiven David simply because he had faith enough 1

to ask God for forgiveness and he had faith enough to believe that God would be merciful to him solely on the grounds that God is merciful to those who trust in his mercy. Now on to Abraham. Abraham is the father of the Jewish people and he is the one whom God called to leave his country and go to the land that God would show him. God promised Abraham, a tired worn out old man, that he would bring forth from his seed a great nation of people, even though his wife Sarah was barren. This promise that God made to Abraham was a promise of salvation. Ultimately from his loins would come a Savior who would lay his life down for the sins of the world and be raised from the dead. Paul reminds us in this text that before Abraham was ever circumcised, which was considered to be a chief sign of having kept the law in the mind of the Jews, that he “believed God and it was credited unto him as righteousness.” What did he believe? The promise that God had given to him; the promise that one day his descendants, who would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, would bless all the nations of the earth. It took a tremendous amount of faith to believe in what God had promised Abraham. Again, he was old and his wife was barren, yet he believed. There were times that Abraham doubted and doubt is a part of faith, but ultimately he believed that God would do what He said He would do. Paul referred to it in v. 18 as Abraham “hoping against hope,” meaning Abraham believed “against all odds” that God would fulfill His promise. So what brought about the righteousness of God in Abraham’s life was not his good works (if you know his story you will recall that his good works weren’t always so good) but rather his faith. His faith was the vehicle that brought about God’s declaration of righteousness in Abraham’s life. So according to the OT the way to receive a declaration of righteousness from God is through faith. And you need this declaration pronounced over you because the Bible says that without holiness no one will see the Lord. How do we get that holiness? Faith is the way, it always has been, and it always will be; therefore Paul’s message that one is declared to be righteous by God through faith in the blood of Jesus, is not a new concept, but rather it is a fulfillment of the way that people have always been declared to be righteous by God, the way of faith. This is why Paul says in v. 22 of the text concerning Abraham, “The words ‘it was credit to him as righteousness’ were not written for him alone but also for us to whom God credited as righteousnessfor us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” I would like to make two brief points of application concerning this text. The first one has to do with the question what is the big deal with Paul showing us from Scripture that the God of the OT is the same as the God in the NT and that the way of salvation in the OT is the same as the way in the NT? The big deal is this: One day you may have a crisis of faith and it may lead you to doubt the authority and truthfulness of the Bible. But what we see from this text is that there is unified consistency in the OT and NT in terms of how the nature and character of God is described and in terms of how it is that a person can be reconciled unto God. To me this consistency points to the truthfulness and reliability of Scripture in terms of it being the Word of God. If the Bible was inconsistent when it came to describing the nature of God and how it is that we are saved then it would be a good reason to dismiss the authority and inspiration of Scripture, but because the Bible

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is consistent in its witness in regards to these things then perhaps we ought not to dismiss it but trust in it all the more in times of doubt. The second point of application has to do with what is faith? I’ve spent a lot of time showing you from this text how it is that the Bible, both OT and NT, teaches from beginning to end that faith is the way in which we receive a declaration of righteousness from God but I have not said anything what faith is. What is faith? Perhaps the best way to define faith is by explaining what faith is not. Faith is not merely intellectually grasping the idea that something is true. As it says in the book of James that “even the demons believe there is a God.” (2:19) Faith is not merely believing something to be true. Faith is not just believing things about God but rather it is believing in God and what he has done for us in his Son Jesus. You can believe that the chair won’t break if you sit in it but you do not believe in the chair until you sit down in it. It is the same with Jesus. You can believe that he is who he says he is but you must sit your life and faith down in him every day. You must trust in his promises and in the provisions he made for you on the cross. In short, you must give your life to him. Lord I am yours. I believe who you say you are. “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matt. 16:16) I accept you in my heart and into my life and I believe that you lived a perfect life for me so that I might be declared righteous and I believe that you died a sinners death for me so that I might be forgiven, and I believe that the Father raised you from the dead so that so that I too could be raised on the last day. Lord I accept what you have done for me and I now give my life to you as your disciple. I believe Lord so help me in my unbelief because I know that without faith you cannot be pleased. That’s what it means to have faith. In the name of the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.

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