Do Observances of Ordinances Increase God's Favor?

I wanted to start out today, did everybody get a copy of the handout? And better yet, did you look at it? It's not really a handout for today's discussion. The paragraph that I put in there is that as we have been studying, salvation is by grace through faith and not by works in Romans chapters one through four.

It's important that we know where this information comes from in God's word. His word is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes. Therefore, being able to answer the following questions would help us understand our salvation. And the reason that I put this out was I thought, you know, most of the time when we have an opportunity to tell someone about the Lord Jesus and salvation, we use our words.

We don't use God's words. And so the questions are designed so that we can know where to go specifically in the Bible about what God says about righteousness. As an example, the first question is, what verse would you cite in Romans 3 that brings to light how God saves people? What verses would you cite in Romans 3 showing how God took care of the offense of sin? You know, it's good to have, to know what all of those are. Roger suggested that maybe next week's sermon would answer all those questions.

But then I thought, no, you got to answer them yourself. But at the end, I said, there might be more questions as we progress through Romans. And obviously there will be because Romans just, It's a textbook, the survey of Christianity, everything you need to know basically about Christianity is in Romans.

So that's why I did it that way this week. And if you have time, specifically cite the verses in there. Because it's one thing to say, well, God justifies the ungodly, but it's another thing to use God's own words to witness, because his words are a lot more powerful than yours are. Okay. We've been studying, as Jim read, We've seen faith counted as righteousness to Abraham, verified by the testimony of David to the blessedness of those whose evil works were paid and to whom God didn't reckon sin. David's a great example of that.

Next we have the fact that even divine ordinances like circumcision, which we'll talk about today, have nothing to do with righteousness. Nothing. Any more than have good works anything to do with righteousness. That even Abraham's circumcision was merely a seal of the righteousness of faith he had before he was circumcised.

But it brings up a question, especially in a Jewish mind. Were not those blessed in the enjoyment of circumcision? Or is it not limited only to Jewish persons to be circumcised? So in verse nine, Is this, here's a, Paul asks a question. He's great at asking questions to get you thinking. Is the blessing then on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also?

For we say faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. A more literal translation, is this blessing of righteousness without works pronounced on the circumcision or on the Jews only? upon the uncircumcised also, Gentiles. For we say today, Abraham, a circumcised man, has faith, was reckoned to him for righteousness.

So the question is, is the pronouncement of righteous standing before God connected with the observance of the ordinance Or is it entirely apart from any such thing? Paul had already argued that circumcision was not a good work, but the seal of God's stamping Abraham's faith as faith which resulted in the bestowal of righteousness. We have the fact that even divine ordinances like circumcision have really nothing to do with righteousness any more than good works do. Last week we talked about good works the whole time.

So even Abraham's circumcision was merely a seal of the righteousness of faith that he had before. So if you just look at the first half of this verse, it says, is this blessing, the righteousness without works pronounced upon the circumcision, but also on the uncircumcision? So he answers this question by citing the case of Abraham, who was declared righteous in answer to his faith. And as Jim pointed out, 14 years before he was circumcised.

Now, we may not think that's a big deal, and I've told you several times about my buddy Zev, the rabbi across the street. When I confronted him with this, he stopped talking and walked into his house. You know why? This verse is in his Bible. His group, the Hasidics, study the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. That's all they study. And this is there. And I don't know how they deal with it, to be honest with you. So Paul had seen, Paul had to have the Jews in mind when he asked this question. Just as today you and I may be thinking about professing Christians or denominational Christians who have gone through what you might call sacraments.

So the Jews relied upon and boasted on the outward mark of circumcision, which God in Genesis 17 prescribed to Abraham and all the males, all of his fleshly seed. But the Bible tells us that circumcision is an outward sign or it's a symbol both to Abraham and to the world about him. The first thing it did is it said that Abraham, or anyone who was circumcised then, was that God was his God. That's what it means to me. That's what it meant to Abraham. And to the world it said that Abraham was separated from the world unto God.

Just like baptism. Just like baptism today. It's an outward sign. that we are Christ in faith and identification, and that we no longer belong to the world. A lot of Christians put a lot of credence into rituals. But just like the Jews, a vast majority of those calling themselves believers or Christians, they place reliance today on some sort of an ordinance, or a lot of denominations call them sacraments. And they can quote from the Bible to say, well, Christ told us to repent and be baptized, did he not? Yeah, he did. Christ commanded us to take the Lord's Supper, didn't he? Yeah, he sure did. Problem is, is how deadly is the delusion that baptism itself amounts to anything before God? It doesn't amount to anything.

We must remember that God justifies not those observing ordinances, but the ungodly who believe. That's who he justifies. 9b says, for we say to Abraham, a circumcised man, his faith was reckoned for righteousness. Kenneth Weiss says it this way without my quoting all of them. Therefore, does this spiritual prosperity come upon the circumcised one or the uncircumcised one? For we say there was put to Abraham's account his faith resulting in righteousness, question mark.

So in the gospel, since the cross, we are not told first to cease being ungodly and then believe, but as ungodly to believe. Now if you pay attention to what contemporary Christendom does, they tell you to confess your sins, to clean up your act, to do this and do that, and then you can believe.

Then you can believe. But it's very subtle. God justifies ungodly. And I made the statement last time, what qualifies you to be declared righteous? What do you have to be? before salvation. You have to recognize you're ungodly. If you think you're pretty good or you're doing pretty well getting down the road, you don't qualify. Ungodliness means you're not like God.

So if you're still regarding baptism or the Lord's Supper or the mass or christening or confirmation or dedication as having anything to do with God's declaring you righteous, you don't understand. being declared righteous is an ungodly one, according to William Newell. In sound Bible churches like this one, we understand that neither baptism nor the Lord's table has power to give any standing whatever before a righteous God. Standing.

What I've discovered about this, and I probably can talk about it because I came out of Catholicism, because I remember in grade school that we had definitions we had to learn for different things, and one of them was, what is a sacrament? A sacrament was instituted by God to give grace. And the sacraments, they had seven of them. Baptism, confession of sins, or communion, the Lord's table, confirmation, marriage, and if you didn't get married and you were gonna become clergy, what they call holy orders, ordination, and then the last rites, which they, a great term called extremunction, the last rites. So those seven things, were instituted by God to give grace.

The problem is they cannot back that statement up with God's word. Both of which thousands of believers buy into this, that there are these events. that you can be put through, that somehow increase the amount of grace and standing and favor that God has towards you because you did this thing. When we baptized Emeryn a couple weeks ago, part of the pre-baptism discussion with her was about her understanding of what she was doing. in baptism, and she did understand that she was demonstrating a sign, but she was not gonna get additional favor from God because she got baptized.

What baptism does is demonstrate what already has happened. So, Newell quotes a man named Hodge who says this, the sacraments and ceremonies of the church, useful when viewed in their proper light, become ruinous when perverted into grounds of confidence. What answers well as a sign is a miserable substitute for the thing signified. Circumcision will not serve for righteousness, nor baptism for regeneration.

So the next verse is, how then was it, it being righteousness credited, while Abraham was circumcised or uncircumcised? not while he was circumcised, but while he was uncircumcised. Paul brings in Abraham. He's the perfect one to demonstrate this. Could any Jew belittle Abraham or hesitate as to the conditions of his blessing?

How, therefore, in this case, was faith reckoned to him after or before he was circumcised? I mean, 14 years is a long time. He was righteous for the first 14 years before circumcision was even discussed. Beyond a doubt when he was uncircumcised as their own records inspire and plain and sure to them.

Note here, first human works are set aside as a ground of righteousness. And so our divine ordinances just as fully set aside. So ordinances and human works both are set aside in order to become righteous. All Abraham did was just believe what God said. He gave God the honor of being a God of truth. God saw that one day he would make Abraham as righteous in glory as he in the past day was reckoned him by grace. Yet it remains that God reckoned him what he really was not as yet in experience and that Abraham stood before God righteous the very moment he believed. back when we were studying Galatians 2.

Galatians 2.3 says, but even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek Gentile, was not compelled to be circumcised, but it was because of false brethren secretly brought in who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus in order to bring us into bondage. My voice is starting to go. But I brought a remedy. Hopefully. Can you hear that sound? but we did not yield in subjection for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

Paul didn't have Titus circumcised or didn't circumcise him. When he's in Jerusalem meeting with all of the believers, sorry, who came out of Judaism, So again, Paul in those verses, and we go on with Galatians, it talks a lot about the fact that these rituals like circumcision, Paul set them aside. Although he did, who did he circumcise, Timothy? so that he would fit in with the Jews. But Timothy understood that being circumcised had nothing to do with his righteousness.

So, verse 11 tells us, and he received the sign of circumcision. a seal of righteousness, of the righteousness of faith, which he had while he was uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believed without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to him.

Most of us think that Abraham was a Jew. No, he was a Gentile. The first Jew wasn't until his grandson. But circumcision had been commanded to the Jew, and the Jew trusted in it, and therefore became utterly blind to the fact that even Abraham, the father of circumcision, had been declared righteous on a whole nother principle altogether, by simple faith, years before his circumcision. Paul has turned the Jewish boast upside down. It's not the Gentile who must come to the Jewish circumcision for salvation. It's the Jew who must come to the Gentile faith, such faith as Abraham had long before he was circumcised. Now, William Newell makes some comments about Abraham. I thought were really cool.

He said, Each year that I live, I become more impressed with the celerity, grandeur of this great friend of God. Behold him. He came from the very home of idolatry, Ur of the Chaldees. He walks among the Hittites as a prince of God. There are names for him in Genesis. 23, consider him to whom the God of glory had appeared in his old city, and to which, bless God, he is so drawn by the cords of trust and love that his whole life is as God's friend. Walking with him, ever learning of him more and more, taking a mark of absolute separation to him, ever building authors to him and calling on his name. Behold him, called to part with Isaac, his only son, readily giving him up to God." Quite a man.

So what kind of a sign is it? What does a sign do? It's a marker, an indication, or a token. It's used of that which distinguishes a person or a thing from others. A seal, a seal of the living God, quote, is an emblem of ownership and security. Here combined with that of Destination, Ezekiel 9.4, the persons to be sealed being secured from destruction and marked out for a reward.

We find in Paul's epistles that the Holy Spirit is our seal. He's the guarantee that God's gonna carry through with everything he promises. Circumcision, to Abraham was a seal that everything that God said, he would do. Charles Coates says, I believe the first action of the spirit is given to the believer is to make good in the soul of the knowledge of God in justifying grace. He gives the blessedness of this in the believer's heart. He comes as the seal of the righteousness of faith. I thought that was just a great quote by him because he seems to have an insight. The believer is set up with God as having found righteousness.

The believer enjoys, by the Spirit, the blessed fact that his lawlessness have been forgiven. His sins are covered in our sense. They're not covered, they're put away. And God will never impute sin to him. Everything connected. with your and my former history of self-will has been blotted out. The spirit witnesses that none of his sins or lawlessnesses will be remembered by God anymore." That is a really cool thing. God, I mean, I might remember, but he doesn't. That's kind of cool.

So if you look at Galatians 3.2 and down through some verses here that corroborate what we're talking about, Paul asks the Galatians, this is the only thing I find out from you, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Which is it?

And then in verse five he says, so then does he who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. Even so, verse six, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Verse eight, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, all the nations will be blessed in you. So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse of the law. For it is written, curses everyone who does not abide by all things that are written in the book of the law to perform them. Now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident for the righteous man shall live by faith. However, the law was not a faith. On the contrary, he who practices them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the law and the curse of the law having become a curse for us, for it is written, curse is everyone who hangs on a tree, in order that Christ Jesus, or in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promises of the Spirit through faith. All of that's out of Galatians, written to Gentiles. It shows really clearly that the righteousness of faith and the gift of the Spirit go together. You have both.

Remember last week in the words, we were talking about it, clear that righteousness which God reckons to the believer without works, the blessedness of it is known in the heart by the Holy Spirit. It's a pronouncement, it's true, But without the Holy Spirit showing me what the blessedness of it is in my heart, I wouldn't know it. I would just maybe be told it, but I wouldn't understand it spiritually. So, question.

Have you known the blessedness of a justified person? Have you had the happiness in your heart of knowing that your lawlessness has been forgiven, that your sins are put away, and that God will not at all reconsent to you? Do you know that blessedness? Are you persuaded about that? I think God would have us know it, that this blessedness was in our hearts by the Spirit given to us. Jeremiah even spoke about this back in Jeremiah 31. And Ezekiel spoke about it in Ezekiel 36.

In Hebrews 10, 14, and 15, the writer of Hebrews says, for by one offering, he has perfected forever the sanctified. and the Holy Spirit also bears witness of it. You know, the Holy Spirit couldn't do otherwise than witness to the value of the offering of Christ. He couldn't do otherwise than to witness to the perfection of an endless, the endlessness of sanctification, whether we think of his testimony in Scripture or in the heart of the believer. How could the Holy Spirit identify himself with any doubt as to the righteousness of God and the righteousness of faith?

So, verse 11, and he received, Abraham received the sign of righteousness, a seal of the righteousness of faith, which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe, without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to him. This blessedness cannot be limited to Jews only, for Abraham had it before he was circumcised. Circumcision is only the seal of the righteousness of faith. So Abraham is not only the father of all of us who believe, but he's also the father of circumcision to the whole family of faith.

2 Timothy 2.19 tells us that, nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are his. And everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness. So if we believe God and that Abraham was our father, but then what kind of a father was he? What are the characteristics of him?

Well, if he's the father of circumcision, he has the righteousness of faith, And he has a seal. And that seal intimates plainly that the believer is now on to move on the line of righteousness. He must refuse the flesh by self-judgment, and the flesh must be cut off. The family of faith is marked by circumcision in the spiritual sense, of this is the Holy Spirit. Circumcision is interesting because the act of circumcision is to cut off the flesh, just a little part of it. But it tells us of what identification with Christ really means. that we have crucified the entire flesh, the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have been separated from all of it. We as believers are encouraged by the Holy Spirit to refuse the flesh in everything we do.

Why? Because he's already taken care of it. He doesn't ask us to make it true by our efforts. He asks us to believe that it is true because God said it. And the father of circumcision to those who not only are of circumcision, but also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham, which he had while uncircumcised. There's two great characters here. in which we believe on God. The first is that he justifies the ungodly and brings before us the measureless character of God's grace. Then we believe on him as the one who raised up the Lord Jesus. There we see his power. It is known as the resurrection. What's the resurrection? Proof that the work done by Christ was acceptable to the Father.

So you might say that Abraham, more than any other, fitted to the father of all that believe while uncircumcised, the righteousness might be reckoned to them, the father of circumcision, not of the circumcised or Jews, as some perversely understand, but of true separation to God.

Whether for the circumcised or for those that walk in the steps of faith, of our father Abraham while he was uncircumcised. The righteousness by faith results in a walk that's, now what's the word I'm looking for? A walk that is righteous. We're talking about that in Sunday school in Titus, that how, what Paul is trying to do is to teach and to reveal through the Spirit of God everything that's true of believers that results in a walk, that lines up or measures up to the position that we've been told that we are.

The Jew, therefore, could not cite Abraham without being compelled by the scriptural history to allow that this precedent illustrates the grace of God and justified in the heathen more forcibly if possible than in its application of his own circumcision and direct seed. In other words, if a Jew will study and read Genesis, it can't be any clearer.

Circumcision is in no way the means of grace that justifies. but it's a seal of the righteousness that was reckoned to him long before the sign was instituted by God. So as the father, he is the father of circumcision, not only of those who are circumcised, but to those who walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, yet being uncircumcised. The promise to Abraham that he should be heir of the world was not by law, and not therefore conditioned upon his obedience to the law, but rather by the righteousness of faith." So, in closing, I think it's important that we understand that our salvation is according to grace and not debt. God reserves his prerogatives of justifying the ungodly. Accordingly, God and man have their due place, and as nothing but imputing righteousness without works could benefit the justifying of a sinner, nor this only for the very man with whom circumcision began as the command of God was expressly justified by faith before he was circumcised."

I'm not sure we understand what it meant to Abraham to be circumcised other than the fact that God told him. Everything we have to do with God has to do with whether we believe him or not. And Abraham believed him. Abraham was thus the first man to whom real separation to God was first publicly established. So he's the father of all them, us, who believe. He's the father of circumcision, not only to those who are circumcised, but those who walk in the steps of that faith, which he had being uncircumcised. The promise to Abraham that he would be heir of the world was not by law, as I said, and therefore it wasn't conditioned by any obedience. We as believers, We don't function by law. We're not trying to improve anything. We're not trying to increase God's favor towards us. The only thing God really admires or rewards is that we believe him.

So as we study his word, which we do, A lot around here, what do you find out? You find out that God has a specific plan for not only saving us, but for us to be examples to the world of what it means to be righteous. Let's close. Father, how we thank you for your grace. How we thank you for everything that you've done. not only to save us, to make us righteous before you, place us in your Son. Crucify, bury, and resurrect us, but looking forward in the future to spend all eternity face-to-face with you. We're so thankful for that, and we pray in your Son's name. Amen.