Studying His Word and His Works

Listen to the study here: Romans 4:1-8

Read here: Romans 4

• Review
  • Calvin on theme of Romans: “Man’s only righteousness is the mercy of God in Christ, when it is offered by the Gospel and received by faith.”
  • Luther: Simul iustus et peccator = At the same time, righteous and a sinner! Romans 3:23-25, all have sinned AND are justified by His grace
  • Really important to connect back to Romans 1:17, righteous shall live by faith, which is connected to Habbakuk 2:4. This is really emphasized in 3:21-31
  • Schreiner has good summary of so far:
    • 1:18-32 covered unrighteousness of Gentiles, 
    • 2:1-3:8 unrighteousness of Jews, and 
    • 3:9-20 is unrighteousness of all. 
    • 1:18-3:20, Schreiner argues the fundamental reason God reveals his wrath is people fail to honor and esteem his name. 
    • 3:21-31 God vindicates his righteousness in the cross, satisfying his wrath by sending his Son as a substitute for sin. It’s all God so we cannot boast. Even the saving faith is not ours, it’s a gift (Romans 3:24, Eph. 2:8-10). Saving faith is different than just faith that the sun rises, or believing that calculus works, eternity is real, etc. I cringe just a little when I hear Christians say “I shared my faith.” Believer, you were bought with a price (I Cor. 6:20), you’re a servant of Christ now, a doulos (see Romans 1:1-7 study). You have a Holy Spirit-infused gift that brought “your” faith to life. In the last study, I described this receiving of grace as a “supercharging” of our faith. But it’s really more like a resuscitation, a rebirth. The only place “our” faith leads us is death and Hell. So, don’t “share your faith,” that’s not in the Bible anywhere. Share the gospel. We will explore this gift of saving faith more in Ch. 4.

Intro

• Paul continues developing the doctrine of Sola Fide, justification by faith alone, by using an example from history, Abraham. The fact that Paul uses an actual historical figure here bring a couple of things to mind:
  • Paul trusted God’s word as true in all ways, including time and space. He trusted the history it describes, all the way back to Genesis.
  • There is no other religion that does this, that connects back to actual people and an actual law and actual covenants that were given in actual places and times. We can dig in the dirt and find these things, from deposits left from the Genesis Flood to ancient cities mentioned in the Bible, to scrolls found in caves containing Scripture, etc. 
  • Sproul makes the case that people were saved in the OT the same way as in the NT, through faith. The only difference is men like Abraham looked FORWARD to Christ, and we today look BACKWARD to the cross.
    • The Bible says faith comes through hearing (Romans 10:17) [And yes deaf people can believe, this doesn’t mean your ears have to work in order to be saved!].
      • READ Galatians 3:1-9. Verse 8 affirms what Sproul is saying here. God himself preached the gospel to Abraham. See how interconnected the BIble is? See why Scripture memory is important? Paul is constantly quoting the OT, he must have had it memorized well. Remember, Martin Luther suggested believers memorize ALL of Romans. Make Scripture memory a part of your daily routine.
    • During this study I talk a lot about God’s attributes revealed in creation, Romans 1:20, especially how one thing can be many things. This is something that makes sense and at the same time, doesn’t make sense. Saving faith is where faith and reason meet. That’s why the Bible’s definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 is often referred to as a “reasonable faith.”
      • One body, many parts. Unity and diversity. E pluribus unum. Continuous and discrete. 0 and infinitely small at the same time, vastly different but vastly the same. Simul iustus et peccator. The OT and the NT, separate but also continuous by Christ’s gospel. Saved by grace either way, them looking forward to the promise of Christ, us looking backward. If we don’t trust this, then all the verses we cover today are nonsense. It makes no sense to explain the gospel by talking about Abraham. 
• Verses 1-2
  • Chapter 3 ended by saying there is NO room for boasting. So NO as in none, zip, zero, nada. So what is saving faith then, didn’t I have to DO something? In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis describes the “good infection.” How do you get the flu? By EXPOSURE. You don’t have to do anything, you just have to be exposed to it. That’s how saving faith is. “Faith comes through hearing,” Paul says later in 10:17. Through exposure, in other words. God’s gift of faith comes to us! My faith to commit to a wave and surf it, or faith in calculus IS something I muster up inside of me. That is different than saving faith, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is continuous (we use the same word, faith) and discrete(saving faith is a gift, while other types of faith I have to commit to). It’s also a testimony to the power of God’s word to change people, even Mormons, who read the Bible, but teach an “after all you can do” salvation by works. The Bible is still influencing their morals, their way of thinking, etc., along with everyone else who ever reads a scripture, whether they believe or not. Jesus, living rent free in people’s heads, haha!
• Verses 3-4
  • Paul quotes Scripture, all the way back to Genesis 15:6. READ 15:1-6.
    • Abraham had no heir, God promises him an heir, Abraham believes it, even in his old age. 
    • Does this contradict James 2 on faith and works, that “faith without works is dead,” v. 20? James also references the Abraham story in v. 21-25.
      • Sproul: Even the Roman Catholic church used the verses in James to refute the Protestants sola fide argument. (Council of Trent, 16th century)
      • Luther was so confounded by James that he said it shouldn’t be listed as a book of the Bible (later repented of that).
      • I think part of the confusion is because of the same things we keep talking about. Reductionism, wanting one simple solution to everything. But when we read Romans, we see there are no human works required in salvation. So what James is describing must be after salvation. After salvation, faith and works are hand-in-hand. Works are a response to receiving the Holy Spirit, to receiving the gift of saving faith.  
      • I think this is why saving faith is best understood as a gift, as something we receive, and when we receive it, we possess it, “it” being the Holy Spirit. This gift of grace is multifaceted, it is faith, it is the Holy Spirit, it is Jesus covering our sin with a cloak of righteousness so God can now see us, it is eternal life, etc. 
      • But Sproul says, “if we possess it we should profess it,” and that’s what James is addressing. We aren’t saved by raising our hand or walking down an aisle. Possession of faith LEADS TO profession through works.
        • If the gift is possessed, then there is profession. The converse is false, if profess/then possess. Or, if work/then faith. That’s backwards. Jesus himself says the converse is false in Mark 7:6 while quoting Isaiah 29:13-”This people honors me with their lips [profess], but their heart is far from me [possess].” 
        • It’s interesting that at the Council of Trent, the Catholic church didn’t acknowledge this. It doesn’t seem that hard to understand. It’s super logical. We are using junior high school-level logic terms like converse to describe this. It’s like the Catholic leaders at the Council of Trent were so rabidly anti-Protestant that it blinded them from the Truth. They had PDS, Protestant Derangement Syndrome, similar to people today with TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome haha. They would rather go with a completely unreasonable conclusion than agree in any way with “the other side.”
      • But, the simple answer here is works are a response to possessing Christ’s gift of grace. One CAUTION about doing deep dives into Scripture like we are, or Sproul and Luther did, is overthinking. In the mid 1500’s, there was some serious overthinking going on at the Council of Trent. That faith should be revealed in works seems obvious enough. That God would not put a massive contradiction in the Bible is also obvious enough I believe.
    • Abraham is a great example here because God didn’t wait until Mount Moriah in Genesis 22(when he offered Isaac). God counted him righteous the moment he believed back in Genesis 15. In a moment, an instant, an infinitesimal of time, saving faith flooded Abraham’s soul.
      • Sproul says God knew Abraham’s faith was authentic at that moment; we are the ones who have to wait until we see some works (Gen 22) to see Abraham’s faith is authentic. James describes these works, which are really obedience, as proof that for Abraham, profession=possession. 

• Verse 4
  • Paul will use the theme of wages all the way through to at least Romans 6:23, “for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
    • Proverbs 10:16 alluded to this “wages of sin.”

• Verse 5
  • Sproul says only Christ’s righteousness is the grounds of our justification. When God sees we have received the “faith download” He counts us righteous, even while sinners. Simul iustus et peccator, at the same time, righteous and a sinner from last week.
• Verse 6
  • Again, it is God who counts righteousness, and that person David called blessed. Some versions say “imputes” instead of “counts”. Adam’s sin in the garden imputed to all humanity. Christ’s righteousness imputed to all believers, covering their sin. Using banking terminology, since verse 4 talked of wages, this “counted” can be thought of as “transferred to our account”. We possess it now, which was the point made earlier in verses 3-4. Luther called this justitium alienum, an alien righteousness, not our own. It’s Christ’s righteousness that justifies us. 
• Verses 7-8
  • Paul is quoting from Psalm 32:1-2. Our sins are covered, by who, by ourselves and our fake righteous deeds? No, by Christ, and for that we are blessed. We are covered, so God does not see our filthy rags that are all we have to offer. When we are covered, He sees Christ.
  • Sproul: As Christians, we possess the righteousness of Christ, it has been transferred to our account, imputed in other words. This transfer is the article upon which sola fide stands or falls, and sola fide is the article upon which the gospel stands or falls, and the gospel is the article upon which the church stands or falls.
    • So, believer, you are blessed. And because you are blessed, don’t share “your faith,” share the gospel.
• Up next: Romans 4: 9-16.