We like Abraham are justified by faith.
Romans 4:18-25 · Roger Henderson · Jun 25, 2023
Romans (2022-25), No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261931496882

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

So actually today we're going to finish up chapter 4. I've forgotten how many weeks we've spent in chapter 4, but I'm not sure about you, but it's been, this has been a great blessing for me going through this, even though we've, you know, all of us have been probably through these verses before, but it's just wonderful. There's so many cool things to consider.

So I labeled this section, which is right from the text, we are like Abraham and are justified by faith. Because we've been studying about how Abraham was justified by faith. So this section kind of brings it to a climax. It says, we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are justified by faith. So I thought it would be appropriate to go back and look a little bit at, we've been talking about Abraham and Sarah and their journey of faith, if you will.

And just look at some of the key passages in summary form, I will be here a long time if I do otherwise, of just what led up to Isaac's birth. So here we go, this is in summary form. So it starts off, you know, with Abraham's entry into scripture, if you will. It starts in with his father, Terah, and it starts back his past.

And what struck me in reading it again, right off in chapter 11, I'm not sure what verse, but before you get to 12, it says, Sarah was barren. So she had problems, quote unquote, humanly speaking, right from the beginning. So it's interesting, I said, wow, right from the beginning, she was barren. And we're gonna see here, at one point, she gets frustrated and she tells the Lord something about her barrenness, which is interesting. And who's responsible for that barrenness? And like we all, it's always somebody else, not us.

And then the marvelous Abrahamic covenant in chapter 12. And then one of the highlights is, in you, in Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed. So at this point in time, Abraham is 75 years old. So then we go fast forward, so to speak, to Genesis 15, and we see the promise of children. And this is where it goes out. It says, count the stars. If you can, your descendants will be that many. And this is where we first see this wonderful statement. It's the first time in Scripture we see this wonderful statement by Abraham.

And he believed in the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. and then we go to the next chapter and we see this is so God so he believes God but then time passes and no children and they got a plan Abraham and Sarah have a plan right doesn't involve the Lord but we'll get your handmaiden and you can have a child through I guess that wasn't unusual you have a child through Hagar and they did at this point he was 86 years old and we keep going Now in Genesis 17 he talks about this is the institution of the covenant, circumcision, the covenant of circumcision. He says, I will establish my covenant between me and you. I will multiply your seed exceedingly. And he changes his name to Abraham. At this point he's 99 years old. Then we get to Genesis 18 and this is a case where Abraham and Sarah the Lord appears to him with two other men out in the oak of Mamre. And this is where Sarah says, this is where Sarah, the blame game.

At this time, I'm sorry, I'm not quite there. Did I miss that? Actually, it might be later on. The problem is I get different parts of the message in my head. So we'll see. I guess we keep going here. So, okay, here's the case where Sarah's listening at the tent, and the Lord says, at this time next year, Sarah, your wife, will have a son.

And she laughs to herself. And the Lord, because he knows all things, he hears her and he confronts her and she says, I didn't laugh. And you know, anyway, she did laugh. And so, and eventually Isaac is called laughter. And then finally in the culmination in Genesis 21, Sarah conceives and bore Isaac through Abraham, through him.

And he's a hundred years old at this point. Okay, so that's the background, the back story. So now, I thought it would be worthwhile to just go through, as I do, I like to go back to the previous verses and just quickly review them. So if you notice in blue here, these passages that were written, read, several phrases jump out you know this this is Abraham's if you will journey of faith and it says this phrase and hope against hope so I want to look at that again and then we talk he talks about without becoming weak in faith and he contemplated that he wasn't he contemplated what was going on his body Sarah's body and he did not waver in unbelief, it says, but he grew strong and being fully assured that what God had promised, he was able to perform. So that's kind of the, we're gonna just roughly go through these again.

Okay, so this phrase, I like the Weiss translation here, who Abraham, being beyond hope, upon the basis of hope. So he was beyond hope, so the first hope is hope, is man's hope, if you will. That's man's human hope. His situation was beyond hope. They couldn't have a child. So this is from Weiss via Denny. It was contrary to hope as far as man's nature could hope for. And then secondly, and this is a perfect tense, I believe. I think so. I'm not sure about that. I'll just keep going here.

But Abraham, upon the basis of hope, believed. So upon the basis of hope, and hope, you know, in scripture, which is wonderful, you know, hope is a favorable and confident expectation. And when God is the object, it's an absolute certainty. So he realized that, he realized that his hope with himself wasn't sufficient, but God's was. He rested, Abraham rested on the hope that God could do what man could not do. Okay, so that's the little part I want from that verse, so let's go on to the next verse. So this is the part, if we kind of rearrange some things here, it says, he, Abraham, contemplated his own body.

And I've kind of viewed this as you're kind of taking stock of what you have, you're putting down, well, this is what I have to accomplish this task, so to speak. And it was pretty grim. It was pretty grim. And here's where the aorist tense comes in. He contemplated or considered what was the situation. And this was an event. This is something he did at a point in time. So he gathered the facts and the facts are explained in the rest of the verse. And he gathered them without becoming weak in faith.

You know, sometimes I know like if you're gathering information to do something, sometimes you gather the information and you say, maybe I won't do that. In this case, he gathered the information and said, well, you know, God's gonna have to do it. And it kind of reminded me of the account of Isaac's situation where he had to sacrifice Isaac. The account that he had was that he was to sacrifice Isaac, but he was so strongly confident that God would, Isaac would be his seed, that he trusted in the Lord that he would even raise him from the dead.

A lot of parallels with this section. So not being weak in his, not being weak with respect to faith. So this tells how Abraham, that's how he contemplated. It didn't make him weak by looking at the facts of his own inadequacy. But these considerations did not sway his faith. Okay, so that's that first section. The second section, now here's the details of that, if you will. So first, the first contemplation, if you will, was about his body. Now as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old. So this is where we have the idea, we have the perfect tense, this is kind of neat here, how the perfect tense in words is displayed here.

So far as his procreative functions were concerned, Abraham's body had died. That's the past completed action. Ceased to function. And as a result of that condition, continued on into the present. He stayed dead, never to function again. So he was done. It was a done deal. He was not going to have children, physically. That could not happen.

And then that's part one, that was himself, his own body. And Sarah, she was a, she had problems too here, right? And then the deadness of Sarah's womb, you know, I found last night, I showed the verses this comes from, but basically the phrases are, she was past childbearing, beyond the proper time of life, and it said like the end of one verse, will Sarah, who is 99 years old, I mean 90 years old, bear a child, question mark? So they're both, it's physically impossible for them to have children.

Okay. Yet, or but, in contrast to that, he did not waver in unbelief. And this idea of waver is vacillating, going between two back and forth, will that work, this won't work, back and forth. He didn't do that. He realized his inadequacy, but he really realized that God was sufficient. And then Vincent points out here that the word, the Greek word here, diakrono, implies a mental struggle. And Robertson translates, he was not divided in his mind by unbelief. So, and actually, you see some of the struggles that Abraham had. We see different places that Abraham struggled. This is one of the places where, at one point in Genesis 17, it says, he told the Lord, oh, the Ishmael might live before me. Can't my seed go forward through Ishmael? Can't be the plan? I'll be part of it. And God says, no, it will come from you through Sarah. And at one point, a little bit later on, Sarah says, God has prevented me from having children. No. That's just, physically, that was your problem. With respect to God's promise, the promise of God was Abraham's focus here. So he didn't waver with respect to God's promise and God's promise was his focus.

And then we find the last part of the verse kind of puts it all together here. He actually, something happened as a result of this. He drew strong in faith, he grew strong in faith. And this word is to make strong or to endue with strength. And you could translate it empower. He was empowered. You don't think of a trial, so to speak, as empowering you. But in this situation, it seemed like it did. And it was the aorist tense, passive voice. God did it in Abraham's life.

This strength, sorry. is strengthened, this empowerment is strengthened by the word in faith. He was strengthened in faith with respect to faith. That is his faith was strengthened in God to meet the impossible difficulties with a miracle. Isaac was a result of a biological miracle performed by God in answer to Abraham's faith. Therefore the glory, God would get the glory through that, man would not.

And that's what God was after. If you think about the whole situation, God waiting, he's 75 years old, he's 76 years old, he waits all this time till Abraham's 99. And then quote, he takes action. That's when he takes action. And then the last part here, by giving glory to God and being fully assured, this is what Abraham did in response to this strengthening or empowering And he was fully assured. All these words that describe his mental attitude, where he was at, fully assured. It's kind of the culmination here, fully assured. Again, this was Aorist tense again, and God is doing it.

He believed, despite the knowledge that God had promised that it could not happen, it couldn't happen naturally, but God had promised. That's what God had promised, and he, God, was able to perform it. Now I think about that, this goes back to the Isaac, offering Isaac. In that situation, he considered that God was able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. So that concept kind of fits between, nicely between the sacrifice of Isaac and having a child with Sarah. That God was able to perform what was required.

Okay, so today's verses. So I went through here, and I know Jim likes to do this sometimes, and his, when he, I have a problem, you get its, and you got pronouns and stuff like that, and you don't, so I went through there and said, this makes it more understandable for me. If it doesn't for you, I'm sorry. Okay, I hope it does, that's my goal. So let's just read through it here.

Therefore, it, his faith, and you look at the context, it's his faith was also credited to him as righteousness. And that's kind of the culmination of the previous verses. Now, it says, now not for his Abraham's sake only was it, scripture written, that it, righteousness, was credited to him. So it wasn't only for Abraham we're going to see. We're going to look at that in detail. But for our, or for the believer's sake also. So what was written for Abraham was written for us. to whom it, righteousness, will be credited.

So we're the same, the picture's the same for believers. God is gonna credit righteousness to us based upon our faith. And we'll talk about the object of our faith, and we'll talk about raising from the dead. It seems like a little bit of a discontinuity, but I think it fits well together, though. What Abraham believed and what we believe.

Okay, and then it winds up here with the verse, and the point is, what we believe as believers in today, we believe, will be credited to us as those who believe in Him, who raised Jesus Christ, Jesus our Lord, from the dead. And then the last verse is, He, Jesus our Lord, who was delivered over for our transgression and was raised because of our justification. another one of the really incredible verses that kind of wraps a lot of neat things together. Okay. Therefore, so this is a conjunction that connects the previous verses and this is kind of the culmination.

It is his faith, Abraham's faith was also credited to him as righteousness. Paul here declares that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. And if you look through scripture, you'll see, as I mentioned before, Genesis 15 is the first time that idea is presented that based upon a man's faith and what God has done, God will credit to him that is righteousness.

And we see that in Romans at least four times, in Galatians and in James. And the key word here is this word credited, or logizimae, to reckon, to put to one's account. And we're going to see this word, this is talking about God putting righteousness to man's account, but we're going to see that we're, and it's an accounting term, we're going to see when we get to Romans 6, that this is something that we're to do as believers, we're to logizimae something. And you're familiar with that when we get to Romans chapter 6, we'll see that some more.

But in this case, God is crediting man with righteousness based upon his faith. That's what this next bullet says. This is what God did based upon Abraham's faith. And this is, the consul observes that this is the climax of all this discussion about Abraham and his faith. So now we're gonna switch to the believer in the next verses. So I chose the weaster again. Now it, some more it's to define.

Now it was not written for his, Abraham's sake alone. So what's it? I believe it's the scriptures. So the scriptures were not written for Abraham's sake alone. So it is, from the previous context, it's the scriptures. And it tells us about Abraham's faith.

Namely it, it was put to his account. Namely, another it here, this time it's, let me just read it here. Now it was not put, I'm sorry, now it was not written for Abraham's sake alone, namely it, righteousness, was put to his account. That's what it says from Weist. What's put to count is logizima again. So this was, that's an event again.

That putting into one's account was not for Abraham's sake but for our sake only. And the next verse tells us who it will be for. I've already kind of told you that. But for our sake also to whom it will be credited. So the scriptures concerning Abraham's faith give us instruction, as all the scripture does, give us instruction about our faith today and how it works. How does faith work in a believer's life in terms of salvation?

And it's a really key verse in that whole picture that, and it says in Romans 15.4, for whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. So what was written in the earlier times in the Old Testament, that's actually instructs us, that's to instruct us in what we're to believe and understand about God. To whom? the believer's account is to be put to.

And again, the it here is righteousness, and it's logizimai again. So God has put righteousness to the believer's account based upon our faith, just like he did with Abraham. So that's one of the big takeaways of these verses here. We have the same thing going on. Righteousness is accounted to the believing man based upon righteousness, and woman, based upon his faith. Okay. So the last part of the verse, the last part of the verse, these are complicated verses, I think it's been observed, so I went back to Weist again. And so Weast has it. I even wanted to kind of touch up Weast a little bit.

So I have, to us who places our faith upon the one, speaking of God, who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from among the dead. I'll read it again. So that's the last half of 24. 24b. To us who place our faith upon the one God who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from among the dead.

So that's, if you remember, that's the covenant they made in eternity past between the son and the father. The son would lay down his life and the father would raise it up again. Okay. So first of all, we're told, and here's where we try to connect What did Abraham believe and what does a believer, what is a believer to believe? Okay, so here.

We are told about the object of our faith. So this part's pretty straightforward. The first part, our verse says, to us who place our faith upon the one, God. So the object, so the object of our faith, the believer's faith is one, is God. If you look back at verse 17, actually Jim read that, which was good. what was described as Abraham's faith, and what was its object. And the last part of 17b, it says, in the presence of him whom he believed, even God. Therefore, both the believer and Abraham have the same object of our faith, which is God.

So that's pretty straightforward. All right, so let's go on. So this is a, so I did now, I took the last part of Weiss and I put it at the top of the chart. to us who place our faith upon the one who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from among the dead. So let's just look at that phrase. So now we have the content of what we're to believe. And the content for the believer today is it's the one who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead.

So it's a resurrection, right? 24b is speaking specifically about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Abraham, he talks about believing in a resurrection too, right? In 17b he says, even God who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. So Abraham believed in the resurrection, too. And we certainly know he believed in that. In the case of Isaac, right?

We see the whole account. He was so confident that God could raise a person from the dead. So we check off that part. But you say, well, wait a minute. We don't see the Lord exactly mentioned there. We see this verse here. This is the second time I've quoted it. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead.

So Abraham believed that. So we have one more piece of information that I've been able to find that kind of gives us insight. What did Abraham know and understand? So here's an account. It's in the Gospel of John. He's talking to the Pharisees about Abraham. And they go through and say, Abraham's my father, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Jesus said, listen to this, guys, so to speak. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He sought and was glad.

So that's, unfortunately, that's about the, we don't have much more about his understanding of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, but he did understand some aspect of that. He certainly, he was the same God, he believed in resurrection, Abraham did, but some of the details we're not sure. So I'm going to kind of leave you maybe hanging there. That's, you know, God accepted Abraham's message and he credited him as righteousness. He accepts our faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of our Savior and gives us righteousness as well.

So there's a parallel, but we only can go so far with that parallel. Okay, so now, so now the last verse. This last verse, you know, if Macaulay's always making these superlatives, he says this verse, and he has some superlative about this verse, so 25, he has a superlative about this verse. He says, Chester Macaulay says this is the strongest verse on the power of the cross in the New Testament. So I'm only gonna take the A part to start with here. So here's the A part, and this is the Macaulay translation. The only difference is he added a little comment at the end.

So it starts off, he, Jesus Christ our Lord, was delivered over because of our transgressions, and Macaulay inserts that we committed. Okay? So Jesus Christ our Lord was delivered over. God delivered him over. And we see a parallel verse. He who did not spare his own son but delivered him over for all of us. So Jesus Christ our Lord was delivered over for all of us.

So again it's an Aorist passive. So it's an event of the cross. And it's because of our dia, our transgressions. It's a little bit of, if you look in different translations you'll see a little bit of, some will choose for our transgressions, but most think that because of is a better translation. It's a clearer translation because of our transgressions. That's what Constable thinks. And Macaulay says because of relates to death of Christ to our sins or to our transgressions. And transgressions here is the idea of a false step. It comes from the verb to deviate from right, to turn aside. For the first part, he who was delivered over because of our transgressions that we committed. So that's the first part of the verse. The second part He, if you connect, it's a compound sentence.

Again, he who, Jesus Christ our Lord, was raised because of our justification that was accomplished. And the reason people are so careful about this is because you gotta define justification clearly, and that's why they're taking pains with this, that was accomplished. Okay, he was raised, the idea of raising from the dead, This is an event of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God the Father did. Again, because of our justification is a better translation. And Macaulay likes to say, because of relates Christ's resurrection to our justification. There's a connection there. Because of connects them up. And justification, this is from Chafer.

I've had different definitions over the years. I thought this was pretty good. Justification is a declaration, underscore declaration, by God respecting the Christian that he has been made forever right and acceptable to him, to himself. All right, so let's, to close it out here, I want to focus on this verse and just hear some thoughts from Chester McCauley about ways you can think about this verse.

Okay, so there's gonna be sets of three statements, and I have three sets of three statements, with some text in between. Okay. Everything, you know, our goal is to understand the original language the best we can and to make it real in our lives, to make it shoe leather. So here we go. So this is ways of understanding this verse from Macaulay. Okay, here we go.

Christ's death is history. Because of our sins is interpretation. and was raised is a verification. Christ's death is history, because of our sins is interpretation, and was raised is verification. Okay, and a little text in between, something to think about. The resurrection did not deal with our sins, right? It only proved our sins were dealt with Christ's death.

So that's kind of critical to this. So another set of three thoughts here, three statements. And this is like banking terms, you know, like we go to a bank, you write your check, you put it in there, and you get a canceled check in the mail, so to speak, or on your computer. So in that logic, here's this kind of thought.

Christ died, Christ's death or Christ died is a check written. For our sins is a check cash, which God accepted. Raised from the dead is a canceled check that proves that this is finished, that it is finished. Christ died is a check written. For our sins is a check cash, which God accepted. Raised from the dead is a canceled check that proves that it is finished.

You begin to see this verse kind of packs just so much into it, it just really, and that's what Macaulay's trying to bring out. Okay, lastly, the last set of three, Christ died as fact, maybe I like this the best, Christ died as fact, for our sins as a purpose, and the resurrection is proof that it is finished. That's a pretty, pretty to the point. Christ died as fact, our sins as his purpose, and the resurrection, and the resurrection is proof that it's finished. And the last statement, how do we know that Christ's death was sufficient? The resurrection is proof that justification has been accomplished. And we see that, we do that in Corinthians, there's so many cool verses that talk about why the resurrection is so important.

So hopefully that was helpful in that last verse. All right, let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you so much, Lord, for your word. We thank you for just so much is there, Father, that tells us about who you are and what you've done and tells us about your plan for man. And it starts back with Abraham and how he was justified by faith and how that we are justified by faith as we trust in our Savior. And we ask it in his name, amen.