The Righteousness of Faith
Romans 4:6-8 · Mike Doyle · May 28, 2023
Romans (2022-25), No. 25
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261931297176

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, this first part, I was reading J.B. Stoney this week, and so this kind of comes from him. He says, the question is, what does God propose? What does He offer? To use a figure, some believers are like men who have ordered a new coat to be made. You can tell how long ago this was written. You don't go in the store and buy one, you have somebody make it for you. But it's not made yet, and he's got to get it on. So I've ordered the coat. It's on its way, but I haven't put it on yet. So this is a metaphor he uses.

The great distinction between Christianity and false religions is that while all can hold out a prospect for something good in the future, don't they all do that? Christianity proposes something magnificent at this very moment on the spot, unique to Christianity. If you're merely thinking of what there will be in the future, then you do not have the coat on. Righteousness is a very satisfying thing, for it puts the soul on the ground with God from which there is a clear outlook into the whole world of divine glory.

Charles Coates said that. So, there's nothing extraordinary in my being in God's favor in heaven. When I get to heaven, everybody knows, well, I'm going to be, it'll be wonderful. But I'm made suitable to God down here in the place of my ruin. and misery and shame in this place.

The gospel does not stop with removing a man from the misery of his position he was in, but sets him up in a new life in the same place. We all have new life in the same place. Charles Coates says, but we may say we don't see those who have received the gospel in this new style. We don't. Very likely, and that's just why you have an example from scripture, like Paul, Saul of Tarsus, and what the grace of God has done for that man right now.

Righteousness is a very satisfying thing. It puts the soul on the ground with God, to repeat myself. We need to learn the righteousness of God first, and we have spent four weeks on righteousness now. The righteousness is just to see how God, in being able to justify how He can do it. So, the subject of chapter 3, was the righteousness of God, His righteousness. But in chapter four, what we're going to discover, have discovered, is what I would call the righteousness of faith, which is that righteousness which the believer owns when he believes. The righteousness of faith is the portion of those who believe on God in that character.

Paul talks about in Philippians 3.9, quote, and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. It was a desire with Paul to be found in a condition where it would not be possible for any other kind of righteousness to intrude.

Such a condition will be reached in heaven when we're there. Maybe call it the glorified state. But now faith is possessed of righteousness. It achieves it. And in chapter 4, it opens out in a valuable way the character of righteousness of man, which is in God. It's not God's righteousness here. It's the believer's righteousness. So in Romans 3, we talked about what does the Scripture say?

Abraham believed God. and it was credited to him as righteousness. So Abraham was the first in the Scripture in whom the principle was established, having righteousness put to his account solely on the principle of faith. He was the first one. And it also pleased God to call Abraham and to make him the father of the family of faith. The divine principle of divine calling first appeared in the ways of God in Abraham's case, and also the principle of having righteousness on the ground of faith.

This principle of which alone a man can become possessed of righteousness. I'll make one other comment here. Adam was not exactly called nor able, but Abraham was. Also, the principle of having righteousness on the ground of faith, this principle, which is a lone man can be possessed of faith. What's the principle? The principle is verse 4 and 5. Probably the two most important verses, I think, in the New Testament.

Now, to the one who works, and all you denominational people listen to this, to the one who works, His wages are not credited as a favor or as grace, but what is due him? I don't know of anybody here that ever took a job that they worked all week and didn't expect to get paid. You never went to your boss and said, gee, out of your grace, would you pay me? No, you go and say, I work, give me the money.

But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. The principle of having righteousness on the ground of faith. It doesn't take a very wise person to look around in the Christian world to see how many workers there are. How many people have ever heard the phrase, I'm working for the kingdom?

I'm doing this or I'm doing that, or, as I've said before, I've done enough. God graves on the curve, and my curve is good enough. I've done enough. And it's on the entire wrong principle. The principle is not works. You can't do enough. You can't achieve. You can't work yourself into heaven.

It's real simple. You believe on Him who justifies the ungodly. If you do that, He credits to you, He puts into your account, you're righteous. You belong to Me. You will be with Me forever. Only because you believe. Now, in verse 6 now, He uses a second example. just as David also speaks of the blessings on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.

A couple of word studies here. Blessedness means a declaration of blessedness. The classical Greek means prosperous and in the New Testament you could say blessed or spiritually prosperous. spiritually prosperous on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. So David declares a spiritually prosperous condition of a man to whom God imputes righteousness, not on the basis of any good works on the man's part.

Many like David and Peter have sinned greatly, but as Nathan said to David on the very time of the announcement of both the king's sin, and it being put away, celebrated in Psalm 32. Imagine Nathan saying to David, Jehovah has put away thy sin, you shall not die.

Well, what's interesting about that is that he didn't impute it, he didn't put it in his account, he didn't say this is yours. I read a story this week about a man who got released from prison in Missouri, he'd served 33 years for murder. And I don't know why it took him so long, but they finally figured out he didn't do it. So what did they put into his account? He didn't do it. He's free. He has been a judge, not guilty of the crime that he served 33 years for. Somebody made a decision. He wasn't there. And how did he come? 33 years. He was 19 years old or 20 years old when he went to prison.

So a lot of people believe like David and Peter who have sinned greatly. So have many been forgiven. Serious offenses like David's indeed. David is the King that the Jews admire the most. Let's see, he was an adulterer, he was a hypocrite, and he was a murderer. Kind of a guy that could run for president.

But none of these things were reckoned to his account. Truly, he was admonished for what he did because he was told that the sword shall never leave your house. And in 2 Samuel 12, you find out that he was chastened and God allowed four of his sons to be smitten or to die. The child of Uriah's wife, then his firstborn, Amnon, Defer Absalom, and lastly, I can't pronounce that name, Adogiah, is that how you say that name?

But what's interesting about this is that he, if you go back and you look at the story, which I found to be interesting, in 2 Samuel 12, the Lord says to Nathan, who was a prophet, and go to David, And he came to him and said, I have a story for you.

There were two men in one city. One was really rich and the other was poor. The rich man had a great many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he bought and nourished and it grew up together with him and his children. It ate out of his bread, and drank out of his cup, and lie in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, and the rich man was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him. Rather, he took the poor man's ewe lamb, prepared it for the man who had come to him.

How do you think David reacted to that story? He was indignant. And how rightly indignant you and I become when we see somebody sinning just like we do. If you sin like I don't sin, I don't pay attention. But if you sin just like I do, I'm upset about it. Then David's anger burned greatly against the man.

And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution of the lamb fourfold." He's got to give this man four lambs because he did this thing and he had no compassion. So David calls for fourfold payment of the man who took the lamb. David had no compassion for this guy, right?

Here comes Nathan with the line. Nathan said to David, you are the man. I can imagine Nathan saying, you are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, it is I who anointed you king over Israel, and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. So this is such a great story in terms of our own personal sin. Someone comes into our sphere of influence and says, you're the man. And it has a devastating effect on you, as it should, as it should.

Nevertheless, God had not reckoned the guilt to David's account. No wonder David pronounces blessing to the man to whom God reckons righteous apart from works. In verse 7 and 8, and I lopped them together because they do go together, blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. And blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.

All of us can say that. Here is a blessed ray of divine light coming down into this world and what it announces is blessing to the man who is forgiven, not to the man who works for forgiveness. If you've received this ray, you find out that you are forgiven. The wonderful truth of God in this moment is that if the greatest sinner on earth is brought into the glory of God, instead of being consumed, what does he find there? He finds a Savior. He finds a Savior. Psalm 130 says, there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. And the word fear isn't, oh, I'm afraid.

The word is, I'm awed, because you are a forgiver. Jeremiah 33, Jeremiah said, I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. And I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against me and by which they have transgressed against me. It will be to me a name of joy and praise and glory before all the nations of the earth, which will hear of all the good that I have done for them. and they will fear and tremble because of all the good and all the peace that I make for it." I don't think another thing we don't realize is that God is so gracious and so forgiving, it makes him fearful to a non-believer.

I remember another story. Years ago I was working in a mission down, when I was first a Christian, working in a mission down on Larimer Street. And I was standing out in front before the service began. A guy came by and we started talking. And another guy, the guy who led me to the Lord, came up to listen to the conversation. And so I invited the man to come in to the mission and hear the sermon.

And he said to me, Oh, you know, I'm such a sinner, God can't forgive me. Well, I was a young believer. I was stunned. What do I say? My buddy says to him, that's your pride talking. Who are you to tell God he can't forgive you? He sent his son to die for you. Why can't he forgive you?

Come in and find out. And the guy walked away. What's interesting is that God is so gracious, men walk away. They walk away. That astounds me. So here we're looking at this ray of light that comes down into the world to a man who knows, like last week, the one qualification for forgiveness or being declared righteous. You remember what it was? You had to be ungodly. Well, this man standing outside the mission, he was a candidate, admittedly so.

So, there are two things that Psalm 32 quoted in Romans 4. One, it says that not only did God forgive your sins, but also that He will not credit sin to you. How many people do you know that sin lingers even though it's been forgiven? He forgives you and what you have done. But also he does not attribute what you are to you.

In other words, I am a sinner or I was a sinner. Many believers might be able to say, I believe my sins are forgiven. But if you ask him, is sin imputed to you? They'll hesitate and say, probably not. Such a one does not put the coat on, to use that same metaphor. The coat's still being made.

He forgives you on what you've done, and He does not reckon to you what you are or were in Adam. Hard things to get your arms around to start with, because we think, oh, you know, It's like this idea that God will forgive me faster if I'm really sorry. No. He doesn't forgive you on the basis of whether you're sorry or not. He forgives you based on what His Son did. That's what He forgives you for.

Because He wants to be the just, and He is, and the justifier of all those that believe. He sent His Son. who came to do His will and remove every hindrance out of the way between Him and you, so that God might righteously receive you and me into His presence for all eternity."

So there's an example in Luke 15, interesting, I'll not read the whole thing, but in that, in Luke 15 are three parables, the one of the shepherd, who lost his sheep and put the flock aside and went after that one sheep. The story of a woman who lost a coin and searched and searched and searched to find it. And then the third one is the father coming forth and taking the prodigal son into his arms. If Christ had not come and cleared the ground, the father could not have received the prodigal.

Abraham was not the first righteous man, nor the first one who had faith. Abel was the first to be spoken of as righteous. I think that Adam, well, I'll get to that in a minute. Noah was righteous too, and he became heir of righteousness, which is according to faith. But neither Abel or Noah was constituted the father of the faithful family as Abraham was.

So if Abraham can be justified on the principle of works, he could certainly brag. It's necessary to be a child of Abraham to have blessing from God. It's necessary to believe God. In Abraham, the principle is introduced of having righteousness reckoned through believing in what God says. In Genesis 15-6, he believed Jehovah, and he reckoned to him righteousness. Abraham and King David did no work. They just believed God, and he justified them solely on the basis that those two believed him. So David says really in this psalm, quoting the psalm, Oh, the blessedness of a man. What man?

The man who iniquities are forgiven, in verse 7. Forgiveness is more than merely remitting the penalty of sin. Even a hard-hearted judge might remit a man's fine if it were paid by somebody else. But forgiveness involves the heart of the forgiver. God's forgiveness is the going forth of God's infinite tenderness towards the objects of his mercy. It is God hugging the sinner like the particle father did as the returning particle was hugged to his bosom. Such a one is blessed indeed. Second, whose sins are covered. Covered in the Old Testament for those sacrifices, wouldn't take away sins, it just covered him. Covered him from his sight.

Hebrews 10-11, every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifice, which can never take away sins. You don't think about that in a lot of contemporary denominations. In essence, have a priest standing all day, all night, working on taking away sins rather than sitting down because they're gone. You know, it's a pretty tricky thing to convince you that your sins are still lingering and you need to rely on me to help you with that. You think, oh yeah, I've got to do that, when in fact, by just simply believing God, they're gone permanently.

The third, as David here describes, in righteousness without works, is the inflexible purpose of God, never to bring up again the sin of the blessed man. It's like you talk about, well, when we go to the beam of judgment, are sins going to be reviewed there?

Answer, no, they're not. Why not? Because they've already been set aside. They are already gone. So what's the beam of judgment all about? It's about rewards. It's about service. It isn't about your sins. Because you will stand there before a righteous God, righteous, no sin nature, nothing to be accused about. So Rome, I did this on purpose because I kind of thought it was a cool way to say it. There's the New Living Translation, and this is a new one.

King David spoke of this, describing the happiness of an undeserving sinner who is declared not guilty by God. Blessed and to be envied, he said, of those whose sins are forgiven and put out of sight. Yes, what joy is there for anyone whose sins are no longer counted against him by the Lord. And then we'll back up a century and here's how we translate it.

Even as David also declares the spiritual prosperity of the man whose account God puts righteous, puts righteousness apart from works. Spiritually prosperous are those whose lawlessnesses were put away and whose sins were covered. Spiritually prosperous is the man to whose account the Lord does not put sin." Pretty cool. Now, to kind of sum things up here, I took an entire footnote from Newell's Romans because I thought it was so appropriate. Instead of God justifying the ungodly on the principle of faith. He justifies ungodly people. And he wants us to think of him that way, to believe in him, in that character. Newell wrote this about the world.

The world rather likes David taking Uriah's wife, for that is the world's manner of life. But for Jehovah not to reckon this sin as damning guilt and freely to forgive David, and that so fully to forgive her that had been the wife of Uriah, another son and bestow special love on him, Solomon, to the extent of giving him a personal name, Jedidiah, for Jehovah's sake, and placing this woman Bathsheba in the official genealogy of Christ. And above all, for God to call David a man after his own heart, all this rouses the ire of a vile, self-righteous, neighbor-judging, blind, grace-ignorant, impenitent world. That's who we deal with. A world that has neither repented nor means to repent of the very sins into which David fell and in which he repented most deeply.

God's record of David is a man that will do all my purposes. Acts 13. For after he had removed him, he raised up David to be king, concerning whom he also testified, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, and who will do all of my will. From the descendants of this man, according to the promise of God, has brought Israel a Savior, Jesus. after John had proclaimed before his coming a baptism of repentance to all the people."

I really like that because it takes the covering off of what I call political niceness. Yeah, they're all sinners, and yeah, that's their attitude about the Lord Jesus. How about it, critics of David? Have you repented? Do you desire to do all God's purposes? If not, well, you'll shortly meet the God to whom the false mouth has babbles.

So anyway, it is God who is the God of grace and blessing that we deal with. Not as a law and cursing, where there was no righteousness, but only lawlessness and sin. Yet the Lord reckons no sin, whatever, but righteousness to those who believe without works. No doubt man is supposed to be altogether evil and without excuse, but this is the revelation of God in all of grace. As he loves to be known, by sinful men as the God of grace. He justifies those who need it most, the ungodly.

Let's close. Father, how we thank you. We're just learning how wonderful you are, how wonderful your plan was, that you are a God of grace and a God of mercy. And if we just simply believe you, You will account us righteous. You will separate us from our sins. You'll separate us from the thing that is abhorrent to you and everything that keeps us from being with you, which is sin nature and our propensities. And we thank you for that. We thank you that As we go forward now that our eyes and our focus and our hearts would be resting on you and your grace. And we pray in your son's precious name. Amen.