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this morning we'll be looking at verses 13 through 17. and personally I'm very thankful that there are no cities of Judah mentioned by Paul here
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looking at verses 13 through 17 I'd like to ask Tim faler to pray for the ministry of the word for the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the law but
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through the righteousness of faith for if those who are of the law are heirs faith is made void and the promise is nullified is nullified for the law brings about Wrath
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but where there is no law neither is there violation there violation for this reason it is by faith that it might be in accordance with Grace in
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order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants not only those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written a
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father of many nations have I made you in the sight of him whom he believed even God who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not
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to gather together under the teaching the preaching of your word we ask you allow our hearts and our ears to be opened to recognize the Grace by which we've been
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Incorporated us into your ministry of reconciliation and if this is by virtue of nothing in US
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d done this work through the Fulfillment of your promise so we asked if this you open our understanding to the
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awareness of the difference between us and those outside again
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perhaps the most difficult aspect of Paul's writings and Paul's thought is his view of the law as we read Paul's letters he seems to ping-pong back and forth for on the one
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hand he says you are not under law but under grace under grace but on the other hand he says in order that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in US
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on the one hand he says for through the law comes the knowledge of sin but on the other hand he says so then the law is Holy and the Commandment is holy and righteous and good
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theologians have for millennia posed the question to Paul which is it is the ball is the law good is the law bad and if we Grant Paul
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even a moderate degree of sanity let alone inspiration then we have to conclude that he's not contradicting himself when he says these
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things that seem to be to us contradictions or at least opposition statements there must be a way to harmonize what
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Paul says into a Pauline doctrine of the law the problem is the church hasn't settled on that Harmony yet and has sung
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indefinite Discord for two thousand years and this difficulty in untangling Paul's view of the law has resulted in an unsettled relationship between the law and each
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one of us as believers so for example are believers obligated to keep the Ten Commandments or is it enough just to stick them in
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our front lawn foreign do we keep the dietary Commandments do we keep the Sabbath do we keep the feasts
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the tithe the tithe these are all things that have been dated debated back and forth if the law wasn't given to bring Salvation then what use is it
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is there any use of the law for the church today church today at all
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presents the law as the mode of salvation for the Jews they failed of course they were not able to keep the law and therefore God turned to the Gentiles
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being much more reprobate and stupid than the Jews he presented them salvation just by grace is is that the way the scripture
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presents the law is that the way Paul presents the law that it was a means of salvation for the Jews if they would only keep it is there a Time coming as
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dispensationalism teaches when the law will be resurrected and Temple sacrifice will be resurrected reinstituted as means of Grace for God's
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people well Peter didn't think so in that famous Exchange in Acts 15 where the issue of Gentiles coming into the church without the law and without
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circumcision was the main topic Peter refers to the law this way he called it a yoke that neither our fathers nor we have
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been able to bear his view is actually closer to Paul's than most modern dispensationalists and it's significant
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to notice the order in which Peter then refers to Salvation in the next verse acts 15 verse 11 he says but we believe that we are saved through the grace of
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the Lord Jesus in the same way as they are also
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we through whom salvation has come are to be saved in the same manner as the Gentiles the Gentiles and overturned centuries of Jewish thought that for a gentile to come into the
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communion and Covenant of god Jehovah they must become Jews Peter says no that is to put on them a yoke that we nor our fathers nor us have been able to
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we need to remember as we look at what Paul is saying here our governing question which is back in chapter 3 verse 29 verse 29 where Paul asks rhetorically or is God the god of the Jews only is he not the
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god of the Gentiles also yes of Gentiles also and we've seen over the past several weeks that Paul goes on to explain that answer by bringing up Abraham
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and highlighting the patriarch of Israel to whom all Jews looked as the righteous one as the one through whom they would enter Paradise remember I know I
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mentioned that you know we have this Vision in in Christianity that when we go to heaven Peter will be there at the gates you know checking to see whether we have our Visa well for the Jew it's not Peter it's
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Abraham and literally the rabbis talk about Abraham being there at the gates of sheol and granting admission to Paradise to all Israelites and refusing entry to all
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uncircumcised so Abraham has that place within the Jewish mind that is that is so Supreme and so Paul takes Abraham and he says in chapter 4 verse 1 What then shall we say
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about Abraham about Abraham what what that shall we say that Abraham himself found himself found and then Paul goes on to say did Abraham find righteousness through circumcision
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nope in fact he was reckoned righteous years before he was circumcised okay what about the law did Abraham secure righteousness through
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the law the law well Paul is going to mention in Galatians actually already had that the law came 430 years later but it is very interesting to realize
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what the Jew of Paul's Day thought now the scriptures had ceased to be written with Malachi some 400 years before Christ
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so we're in what is called the inter-testamental period but that doesn't mean men weren't writing and there's a whole Cadre of books called the Apocrypha that
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were written in regard to the Jewish scriptures and the Jewish hope and one of the most popular written in the time of The Maccabees in the second century before Christ is the book of
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jubilees now we have every reason to believe that Saul of Tarsus read these books we look at them today and we don't read them because they're part of the Catholic Bible and therefore you know we don't want to touch them we might start
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praying to Mary or something no these were historical books they were written they're not canon they're not inspired but they give an
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um an excellent backdrop to the world in which Jesus and Paul came and lived and to the thought of the world of the Jews of the second temple and we see all
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through jubilees but in particular chapter 24 chapter 24 that the Jews had made Abraham a righteous Keeper of the law
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which hadn't even been given yet listen to just a few verses of jubilees chapter 21 and in the sixth year of the seventh week of the Jubilee this Jubilee
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Abraham called Isaac his son and commanded him saying I am become old and know not the day of my death and am full of my days and behold I am 175 years old
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and throughout all the days of my life I have remembered the Lord and sought with all my heart to do his will and to walk uprightly in all his ways what is
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Abraham doing there he's boasting he's boasting listen to what Paul says back in the early part of chapter four If Abraham was justified by works he has
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something to boast about but not before God now frankly I don't think Abraham ever boasted okay and frankly I don't think there's
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anything wrong with Mary it's what people have done with them that has been wrong they have made Mary of course the Queen of Heaven they have Mary the sure way to
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the Lord Jesus Christ and they have made Abraham a keeper of a law that hadn't even been written this is what the Jews had done with
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Abraham they thought he had reason to boast and Paul touches that back in verse two yeah you think Paul or Abraham could boast because of the works that he had done
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but not before God and if you go on and read the rest of chapter 21 of jubilees which I'm not going to do you'll see that as Abraham is allegedly counseling his son Isaac on the on the
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eve of his own departure Abraham's departure he recites the law and keeping of the statutes and the Commandments of the law that was going to come 400 years later
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and he says to Isaac and that do thou my son observe his Commandments and his ordinances and his judgments and walk not after the Abominations and after the
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graven images and after the molten images in other words keep the law the law well Paul has an interesting verse here
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in verse 15 of the passage we're looking for the law brings about Wrath but where there is no law there is no violation
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now Paul was himself as he reminds us in Philippians a very devout Pharisee now the Pharisees were those who were most devoted to the study of Torah of the law they were most devoted not to a
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Salvation that was brought by keeping the law but a Salvation that was maintained by keeping the law they believed the law to be as it were
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the temple of God the presence of God and so Paul could write to the Philippians that as to the law he was a Pharisee and even more significantly to this
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passage in Romans as to the righteousness which is in the law blameless but Paul himself had to come to realize
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when he encountered Jesus on that road to Damascus that the promised Messiah through his death and Resurrection and through the outpouring of the Holy
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Spirit had become the end of the law so we can summarize briefly here at the beginning what was Paul's Discovery through Jesus Christ well first
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was Father Abraham by the flesh no he was the father by the faith even of those who could claim physical
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dissent from Abraham through Isaac through Jacob through Jacob they were only the children of Abraham who walked in the faith of Abraham
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was Abraham was Abraham the Covenant father yes but not through circumcision because he was reckoned righteous and the Covenant was cut 15 years
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before he received circumcision it was Abraham the righteous father yes but not by the law
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but rather through the righteousness of faith so Paul is dismantling second temple Judaism bit by bit by showing that it is not the law that
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brings salvation but rather the promise which is not abrogated nor superseded by the law which came 430 years later
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a brief word about Paul's method here in the Book of Romans especially but not uniquely Paul frequently States briefly a question or a principle
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that he plans on expanding later and you're reading through Paul that's one of the problems with preaching verse by verse through Paul is that you get to the initial
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introduction and you have to realize that his expansion of that thought is going to come in another chapter later so for example we've been looking at his answer to a question that was posed in
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the previous chapter now remember there were no chapters when he wrote the letter but even within he's kind of like those Russian stacking dolls
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okay and you put oh look there's more okay but it's even more than that it's it's more like something that um I can't remember the exact little film children's film but these little popping
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creatures that multiplied and one would pop out and before you knew it there were 30 of them that's Paul Paul's mind okay sometimes my mind works like that it's
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scary but you you have this statement in verse 15 for example he says um where there is no law there's no violation now the implications of that
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statement are quite profound because he's talking about the law that was delivered at Sinai the Mosaic law and he's saying that when there's no law there's no violation
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there's no actual transgression you see he's going to pick that up later in chapter five chapter five and so be patient we'll get to that okay he the law itself is introduced back in
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chapter two chapter two and then here again it's mentioned in chapter four chapter four but Paul's going to deal with it in depth in chapter seven and so we're being introduced to
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thoughts and the reason I think Paul does that is because he's not he's not thinking systematically thinking systematically and he's I think highlighting the danger of a too systematic way of thinking of
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our Theology and that is we tend to compartmentalize the different aspects of our religion whereas with Paul they're woven together like a tapestry
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and each thread is going to lead to another part of the vision they're woven together into history of mankind as he's going to show us in chapter 5 when he talks about Adam
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and they're woven together in the history of Abraham and his descendants which he's been dealing with so far and so when he he pulls out a little thread that thread's called the law and he says okay I'm going to say a little
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bit about that but if you follow that thread through chapter 7 will be woven in front of you but you've got to wait okay and you really do have to read Paul in a very comprehensive way
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but also but also you have to read Paul with some understanding of the rest of scripture because he's constantly tying his theology back to the revelation of God
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in the Old Testament so when he says in verse 15 where there is no law and neither is there transgression he's going to expand on that in chapter five but in its current
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context who is he talking about Abraham and so he's saying to the Jews the law doesn't even pertain to Abraham
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you can't justify Abraham through your law because he didn't even have it now does that mean that Abraham wasn't a
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no that's what Paul's going to show in chapter five how do we know that all mankind sinned mankind sinned even if they didn't have the law
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because they died right that's what Paul's going to say we know sin was in the world because what death reigned death reigned and the wages of sin is death
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and therefore we don't have to they had their laws of course they had their human laws that's not what Paul is talking about they had their penalties in their cultures and their laws were very similar to The
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Ten Commandments Hammurabi's code is not that unlike the code of Moses that's not the point the point isn't you're standing in front of a human judge
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but in front of the Supreme judge and God did not consider it a transgression until there was a law
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so what he is teaching here that the law which was so Central to the Jewish understanding of their position and their Covenant and had become
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Central to their understanding even of Abraham is a non-issue it's actually contrary to
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The dispensationalist View where the church is the great parentheses between what God did with the Israelites in the past and what he's going to do with them in the millennium
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Paul actually puts those parentheses around the law and he says what was before that was God's dealing with Abraham and afterwards God's fulfillment of
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Abraham in Christ see they move the parentheses in the wrong place wrong place and Paul doesn't really talk about Moses very much very much and when he does it's almost always a
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negative comparison to Jesus not negative in the sense that there was anything wrong with Moses but he doesn't not only does he not compare Jesus to Moses
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he Compares himself to Moses see Moses in Paul's eyes is a subordinate position to Abraham and
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Jesus and that's a perspective that has kind of left Western evangelicalism and so he says if God here in verse 14
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he says if those who are of the law are heirs faith is made void and the promise is nullified now imply we tend to think of Faith as our faith and our faith would be made void but
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he's not talking about our faith he's talking about our faith in as much as it reflects the faith of Abraham remember the context here is Abraham and he's saying to the
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Jews you have so highly exalted Abraham that you have actually allowed him to boast before God but let me tell you something that if you The Heirs of the promise of
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the land and here he says the Earth if you The Heirs are heirs because of the law the law then the promise that was made to Abraham is nullified
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because you have introduced a condition to a promise a condition that wasn't even in place when the promise was made
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and therefore you have abrogated the promise and you have nullified and invalidated the faith of Father Abraham if God himself
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would be found Unfaithful in this because the promise given by grace and received through faith would now be by law
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and The Obedience of the law Martin Lloyd Jones says therefore if the promise had been made through the medium of law what God was doing as it were
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was giving as it were with his right hand he would have been taking back with his left hand left hand God gives the promise he says here Abraham you will be the
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heir of the earth and all the nations of the world will be blessed in you and I give you this Covenant monogistically I will pass through the dead animals the
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but Abraham you got to obey the law that's the part the Jews added the part that God never gave the part that didn't come for another
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430 years 430 years takes away takes away the promise the gracious promise that was given and Paul comes to understand this through Jesus Christ because he
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comes to understand that sin abounds in the world because of the sin of Adam Romans 5.
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but transgression was not accounted until the law came which begins to give us an understanding through Paul of what the law actually
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does and why it was given sin plus law equals transgression and transgression equals Wrath
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so in so far from the law superseding the promise the law actually turns sin into
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that's what Paul says in Romans 7. remember he says that before the law came I was alive but then the law came sin rose up and I
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died so here we're starting to see a picture of Paul's understanding of the law it brings not salvation but Wrath
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one commentator says in order to attain what is promised we have to be removed from Wrath but this does not happen through the law for the law brings wrath it brings it
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because the law makes us deserving of Wrath since through the law we become transgressors now we are all deserving of the wages of
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sin and you might have wondered over the years you might wonder about those living in the world who never hear the gospel who never have the offer of Salvation through Jesus Christ given to them
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what is their condition well their condition is fallen in Adam and their position is sinner
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and their wages is death is death but what will their judgment be well Jesus said woe unto you
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bethsaida woe unto you Capernaum Nineveh will rise up Sodom and Gomorrah will rise up in judgment against you because you have seen a greater light
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and if they had seen that light they would have repented and so the Judgment that will come against those who have heard the gospel who have heard of the promise of Abraham
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fulfilled in Jesus Christ will be far greater than those who've never heard at all and all of that is under the Sovereign Providence of God so that if he has preached the gospel in
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your ears your ears and has told you of the Liberty from sin that is in Jesus Christ then you stand under not just the Wage
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of Sin but the wrath of God now I'm not trying to say that there are different Hells different Hells but there does seem to be an indication of different degrees of punishment
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and all men As Romans 1 tells us very clearly all mankind is without excuse all you need to do is know of creation around you in fact you only need of your know of your own existence to know that
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there is a God and from that point on any denial of God is rebellion is rebellion and it will bring about the wage that it's due and that is death and judgment
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but to him to whom much is given much is required and every one of us have heard the gospel we know that God has sent his son into the world to save that which was
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lost we know that he bore the curse upon that tree that tree and that the Commandments that were written against us he nailed to that tree we know that there is freedom and liberty from the bondage of sin only in
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Jesus Christ Jesus Christ and therefore we have what Paul calls the law of Christ and we come under a greater and more intense wrath if we ignore it
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so sin plus law ease leads to transgression and transgression as Paul teaches leads to wrath but we come to verse 16.
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and close with this which is the climax not only of this passage but really of all of Paul's Theology of justification in fact it's one of those passages that
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that we frequently find in Paul when his mind gets we might say we gets ahead of his tongue his tongue Paul is is known to be very
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ungrammatical in his Greek and you might notice in your English translations of verse 16 that there may be some words that are in italics
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they are in fact the verbs because Paul forgot them uh he also left out subjects and objects too is one of the most ungrammatical of a
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very ungrammatical Apostle no verbs no subjects or objects it says literally therefore of faith in order according to Grace toward the being of certain of the
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promise Paul settle down no he can't settle down because these three words Faith Grace promise they are the trifecta of Pauline
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theology it is through those three words that we triangulate the grace of God to our Salvation and to the Salvation of all of creation Faith Grace promise and if I can paraphrase and the greatest of these
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is Grace because it is out of the depth of the grace of God's love that he made the promise and he made that promise unilaterally
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unconditionally that in Abraham all the nations of the world shall be blessed that the the Seed of Abraham would inherit the earth
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believe and and that is what the Armenian does okay God has done so much it's so great all you need to do is believe then Paul says but there's a problem
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let's go back to chapter three of that letter I wrote to the Romans and let me show you that you can't even do that do that and the reason you can't even do that is not only because of your own sin
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but also because that would give you something to boast about before God that would give you some say in all of this and therefore
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and therefore you would deserve to be saved on account of your faith and it would no longer be Grace but a
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can't even go there can we we can't even make Faith a work but we can only say with Paul in Ephesians 2 and that faith is the gift of God
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of God lest any should boast not one single thing will we bring before God and say I did it
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no because that would detract from the glory of God as it is being manifested to all creation we talked in Sunday school about the two Realms of the of the universe the heavenlies and the
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cosmos we're down here in the cosmos but the entire heavenlies are watching and God is displaying his glory not just through his majesty and through
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his power not even through his holiness but most supremely through his grace and he will not share his glory with
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another so we can answer verse 29 back in chapter 3 now we can answer and say God is absolutely the god of the Gentiles as well as the Jews and we can see that by looking at
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Abraham as the covenantal representative of both groups and to understand Paul we need to understand how he saw what God was doing
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because in his mind as Saul of Tarsus he was he was like a he said a Hebrew of Hebrews a Pharisee a persecutor of the church he was at the head of his class in terms
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of hard-nosed Torah obedient Jews he was at the top until he saw Jesus Christ and recognized that God had fulfilled what he had promised
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to the patriarch Abraham a promise that was made when Abraham was an uncircumcised Gentile a promise that was made 400 years before the law was
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given to Moses and therefore a promise that must be dominant over Jew and Gentile that in Christ there can be no such distinction anymore and which is
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while Paul can say there is no distinction neither male nor female Jew nor Greek slave nor Freeman Barbarian scythian
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there is no distinction currently made within human society that pertains to the Church of Jesus Christ because we are all one
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in Christ and so he answers the question what shall we say about Abraham well he was justified 15 years before he was circumcised
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and he was reckoned righteous 430 years before the law was given which means that those two things cannot count for our justification God
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did not bend the rules to let the Gentiles in Gentiles in his promise to Abraham encompassed the Gentiles from the beginning every tongue tribe and Nation every
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Nation on Earth blessed in the Seed of Abraham Jesus Christ and the unshakable foundation of Our Hope and this is I think where
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Paul is so comforting he so firmly grounds our Salvation in the faithfulness of God to his own promise that I know
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that nothing can separate be from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our lord I'm going where Paul's going to go in in Romans 8. I'm gonna I'm gonna see myself
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as so absolutely hopeless and see what God has done beginning with Abraham actually beginning with Adam and Eve we're going to get that in chapter
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five but seeing that he has done something so powerful he has bound himself to my salvation and not because there was anything in me
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that made me worthy of it but rather because it is a manifestation of his grace and my good so the unshakable foundation of our hope is not in our obedience
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not even in our own faith but on the faithfulness of God to his promises specifically his promise to Abraham who in Jesus Christ
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father we just marvel at your grace and we we listen to Paul recount the story of your Redemptive purpose and it is it is astounding it is it is
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beautiful that father we pray that that our hearts might be might be enlightened and enlivened by the the awareness
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that you have taken such a powerfully active part in our salvation that you have even as it were
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placed your own life as forfeit as forfeit for hours for hours and we give you all the glory and father as we come before you in this
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Lord's Supper Lord's Supper I pray that our hearts would meditate on what you have done and as Paul says that we would judge the
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body correctly that we would understand even more what you have done in placing the body of Christ the church here on Earth
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and that we might manifest in in our relationships with one another one another the grace that you have poured out and the love that you have poured out
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through us through us by giving us the Holy Spirit
