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yeah turn with me if you wish to Romans chapter 4
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. this morning we'll be looking at Romans chapter 4. chapter 4. first eight verses like to read those and ask Yuri if you pray for the ministry of the word this morning
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Romans chapter 4 beginning in verse 1. What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh has
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found for If Abraham was justified by works he has something to boast about but not before God for what does the scripture say
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and Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness now to to the one who works his wage is not reckoned as a favor but as what is due
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but to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is reckoned to him as
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righteousness just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from Works blessed are those whose Lawless Deeds
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have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered been covered blessed is the man who sinned the Lord will not reckon or take into account
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let us pray thank you so much that we can open up your scriptures
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any part of the law but that we can always Post in you and pray that a brother Chuck reaches will touch our hearts and that we can believe and apply those things during the week
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bringing this thing amen amen have you ever noticed in the very famous and familiar parable of Good Samaritan
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[Music] if Jesus doesn't actually answer the scribe's question scribe's question remember someone getting very upset when I said that once that Jesus didn't answer the question but he actually
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didn't The Scribe asked the question who is my neighbor Jesus answered go and do likewise go and be a neighbor
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now Jesus gave the right answer but the Scribe asks their own question which is a problem theologians have been having for 2000 years
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we see that Paul's answer which has been heard by many especially since the Reformation his answer is justification by faith and not by works but have we been asking the right
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question for which this is the right answer the common approach to Romans as to pretty much pretty much the whole new testament in terms of modern evangelicalism especially in the
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last 100 or 200 years the question is what must I do to be saved that is the question that we think that
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Paul is asking to which the answer is you are justified by faith apart from works that is how you are saved well that's the right answer
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but I would submit to you it's the wrong question it's not the question that Paul is actually asking actually asking in Romans
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in Romans now there is one particular verse of course Romans chapter 10 verse 9 where he writes he writes if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God
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raised him from the dead you will be saved now that sounds like the right answer to the question how shall I be saved but we need to keep in mind that Romans
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10 is about the Jews and he starts that chapter by saying Brethren my heart's desire and my prayer for them is for their salvation
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the question isn't actually how shall a sinner be saved but the question in that context is how shall the Jews be saved and Paul's answer which is the same as
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Peter's at the Council of Jerusalem is that they will be saved in the same way that the Gentiles are they will be justified by faith and not
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through the works of the law so again the right answer but what exactly is Paul asking in this
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book and I would submit to you that it is not how individuals may be saved but rather he is dealing with a problem that he has dealt with throughout his
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ministry perhaps the greatest challenge that he as a Jew as a Pharisee faced in his ministry and that is how our Gentiles and Jews
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brought together brought together into one people through the work of Jesus Christ the immediate context of our passage is what has gone before in Romans 1 through 3.
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summarized by Paul in chapter 3 that every mouth be closed and all the world may become accountable to God keep in mind in chapter 3 verse 9.
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Paul writes what then are we better than they not at all for we have already charged that both Jew and Greek
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is under sin he spends several chapters showing that all of mankind have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
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he has set up as it were a legal situation in a courtroom by which all of humanity is found guilty and so yes he is speaking of their
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salvation but more than that he's speaking of what God has been doing from really the fall onward to restore what man has corrupted
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through his sin Paul's overarching theme in Romans and it's not his only one but um his major theme is again the
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unity of Jew and Gentile in the one church this is going to culminate for example in Romans 14 where he deals with an issue that is dividing the church at
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Rome and the division appears to be along the lines as it is in so many other places of Jew and Gentile and Paul maintains as he does in every
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one of his letters there is only one God over both over both and so I would submit to you that the question that Paul is answering from chapter 4 and onward is actually given
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to us in chapter three a verse that is remarkably overlooked in the commentaries verse 29. where Paul asks a seemingly rhetorical
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question or is God the god of the Jews only is he not the god of Gentiles also yes of Gentiles also
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but we read that and we think duh of course he's the god of the Gentiles also
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but the Jews didn't read it like that in fact their answer would not have been as Paul's answer was because Yahweh was the god of Israel
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he was the god of the Jews and to become the god of the Gentiles the Gentiles must first become Jews
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so this is a major issue that Paul has to overcome to show that God has not now become the god of the Gentiles but has always been
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the god of the Gentiles and he's going to use an example of a man who in terms of his flesh
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was a gentile Abram now don't get me wrong he was a semi descended from Shem the son of Noah
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but Paul is going to make a very major Point here in answering that question is God the god of the Jews only he's going to make a major point two
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points actually points actually that Abraham was called blessed and covenanted before he was circumcised
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he was called he was blessed he was covenanted before there was a law so this is anachronistic to say it this way but that Abram was blessed and
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covenanted before he was a Jew he never was a Jew actually it came later but before that Nation even existed God
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called and covenanted Abraham and so and so we can acknowledge that salvation is from the Jews the scripture tells us that Jesus says As Much to the woman of
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Samaria but it is not by becoming Jewish that men are to be saved in fact it is not by being Jewish
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that a Jew is saved now we can't realize in our day how radical how radical even rebellious and infuriating
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Paul's teaching was to the Jews of that day but remember what their claim was against him what their charge was against him that he was traveling around the world speaking against Moses
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he was attacking Moses he was attacking Judaism he was attacking their identity this is what they believed they believed well in a sense he kind of was
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because he was attacking those things as being false foundations circumcision The Works of the law the dietary laws even the Sabbath
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were not meant to sustain their salvation but rather their identity as the separated people of God they were never meant as Paul will show here and in
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Galatians that the law has not been given by which righteousness May Come May Come and so the question that he's answering for which the right answer is
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justification by faith and not by works is not how can I get saved how can I go to heaven when I die that's wrapped up in it to be sure but
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we're going to see as we move through Romans that also wrapped up in it is the entire Reclamation of creation that God is not simply saving individual
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human beings human beings freeing them from the Wrath that is to come and hell but he is actually restoring his whole creation so that the end of it it's not just a
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bunch of Saved people but a new Heaven and a new Earth in which righteousness dwells so Paul is showing
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that the Jew has placed his confidence incorrectly first of all in circumcision Paul is going to deal with that we won't have time to do it today but we're Lord
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willing next week Chapter 4 verses 9 through 12 he asks the question in verse 9 is this blessing then upon the circumcised or upon the uncircumcised
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then in verse 14 or chapter 13 excuse me 13 for the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the law
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but through the righteousness of Faith circumcision and the law these were twin pillars of the Jewish life
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but Paul goes to two men in establishing this argument who were actually twin pillars of the Jewish hope Jewish hope we think a lot about Moses when we think about Judaism but even within Judaism
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there was a man more important than Moses his name was Abraham and in terms of what God had promised to do for Israel there was another man who was more
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important than Moses his name was David these two men constitute Paul's covenantalism and in fact throughout his letters he
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does not say much about Moses except in comparing the Mosaic Covenant with the new and showing the second one to be far greater than the first one
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but if we look at Paul's covenantalism we can see that it goes from Abraham to David to David to Jesus to Jesus and so in reformed theology of course
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covenants are are very very important it is assumed that Paul was covenantal he was a covenantal theologian well he was but I would submit to you he's not a
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covenantal theologian the way most reformed theologians are today there are definitely covenants in the Bible but not all of them are salvific
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not all of them lead directly to Jesus Christ there is the noahic Covenant for example which was made with creation that God promised not to destroy the Earth with water
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there's a little caveat a little footnote that says yeah I'm going to do it again with fire but not with water okay there were other covenants made he made a covenant with Phineas
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so there are other covenants made in the Bible that are not within the lineage the direct lineage of Jesus Christ that Covenant begins and I would submit
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really ends really ends with Abraham with Abraham and the next major Peak within that mountain range is David
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not Moses not Moses and so he quotes he quotes in reference to Abraham first and then he quotes David from psalm 32.
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okay we've overworked the covenants in reformed theology reformed theology we've made them bear more than they can carry and we've made more of some of them than
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the Bible does and we have tried to force fit them into a a consistent systematic approach and it has I think failed
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Paul was a covenantalist but Paul was also a dispensationalist he uses that word several of his letters but he was by no means a dispensationalist the way modern
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dispensationalists are because he understood that from the very beginning God has had but one purpose and plan that he has not had seven different dispensations he has had one path and
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way of Salvation so that Paul in Romans 1 can quote habakkuk the just shall walk by faith by faith not by law so when we look at Romans let's be
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asking the right questions what is it that God began to do not only with Abraham because we're
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going to see in chapter 5 that Paul's going to take it back another step not as a covenant but he's going to take it back to Adam and show that his Redemptive plan his
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purpose started immediately with the fall and the promise that was given that the seed of woman would crush the Serpent's head what is significant I think about
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the Covenant with Abraham in terms of Paul's treatment Paul's treatment is that Paul more much more frequently calls it
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calls it a promise a promise rather than a covenant now no doubt it was a covenant but listen to what he says for example back in in Galatians chapter 3. now the
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promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed he does not say and to seeds as referring to many but rather to one and to your seed that
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is Christ is Christ what I am saying is this given what Peter has told us about Paul's writings
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Paul's writings whenever we hear Paul say what I am saying is this we probably ought to listen carefully so he says what I am saying is this the
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law which came 430 years later does not invalidate the Covenant previously ratified by God so as to nullify the
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promise it was the promise of Abraham the promise given to Abraham which was a reenactment of the promise
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that was given to Eve that her seed would crush the Serpent's head that Redemption would come through the seed of woman
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it is the historical ratification of that promise to which Paul refers in Romans 4. it predates the mosaic and it continues to predominate
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throughout the Mosaic era and Beyond the important Covenant to Paul was the abrahamic the second one in importance was the one to David the davidic because
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this is the one that promises the lineage of that Seed of Abraham of all of the things that go on in Israel it is ironic to me that
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dispensationalum teaches what the age that we're living in as a parenthesis called The Church age or the age of Grace but in their famous
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timelines we are a parentheses in God's plan kind of a hiatus God was working with the Jews and he will again after we're gone but we are the parentheses I would submit that as
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Paul lays out God's Redemptive plan Israel and the law that's the parentheses because he was working from his promise
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to the woman through his promise to Abraham to the Fulfillment of that promise and the ex of that promise through Jesus Christ
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it's a change in Paradigm and we don't really realize even reformed evangelicals do not realize how much of our soteriology has come through
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literature that has flown out of or grown out of dispensationalism we tend to think of Israel as a country today as if God is restoring a theocracy
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over there over there we tend to think that God's going to somehow rebuild that Temple over in Jerusalem we hear so much of it we read so much of it in modern Western
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especially American literature that it's through that filter we read Paul we think well that's what Paul must mean but if there's any way you can take that
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filter down and just read what Paul says you'll find that dispensationalism is not only wrong it is dangerously wrong
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answer What then shall we say now the common the common English translation that you probably have in your Bible and as I read it in
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The New American Standard what shall What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh has
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that problem that statement is correct grammatically from the Greek but as with many other Greek passages it's not the only way it can be rendered if you've read the letter of Romans
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fairly often fairly often then the first few words will ring a bell What then shall we say that is a
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common phrase in Paul's letter to the Romans it comes in two forms the spelling is the same what then I've already read that back in chapter
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three verse 9. what then are we better than they than they not at all or it is in the phrase What then shall
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we say for example Romans chapter 6 verse 1 What then shall we say exactly the same spelling and order in the Greek
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are we to continue in sin that Grace might increase might increase may it never be
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the point is that this little phrase that Paul uses usually and much usually very frequently introduces an opposition to which the answer is negative
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shall we continue in sin that Grace might abound might abound are we better than they and the answer to these is no we should not continue in sin no we are
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not better than they are so when he says it here in chapter 4 verse 1 What then shall we say then we should expect the answer to be
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negative and so and so I want to rephrase the question that Paul puts to us in chapter in verse one What then shall we say
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that our forefather Abraham found as to the flesh
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that the phrase as to the flesh does not modify Abraham our forefather but rather what did he find what did he find according to his
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physical genealogy his lineage what did he find in terms of his own works this is how Paul uses the word flesh frequently did he find Merit
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did he find that that he earned God's call and God's blessing Paul goes on to answer for If Abraham was justified by
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works in other words if this is what Abraham found according to himself that his Works stood before God then he had cause to boast
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to boast but not before God but verse 3. verse 3. or verse 4 what does the scripture say
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that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as
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this seems like um somewhat academic argument for us gentiles and that is because we do not realize what place Abraham occupied in the Jewish religion and to
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the Jews the Jews Abraham was if I may use the analogy he was Zeus of the Jewish Pantheon now he's by no means a God and they did not make him a god
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but among men he was by far the highest you know that that when you die and go to heaven that who's going to be at the
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gate you know Saint Peter well not if you're a Jew a Jew that's Abraham that's Abraham okay that's where Abraham will be so Abraham is if anyone could boast of
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works it was Abraham and we hear the echo of that in the Jews as they respond to John the Baptist right we are we are Abraham's children or or to Jesus we have Abraham as our
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father you see they they held to Abraham as someone who had something to boast about before God listen to this from the mishnah and every time I quote from the mishnah
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I always recommend you know if you're in a bad you're down you're needing some humor need something to pick you up read the mishnah just just read that this is from about chapter five There
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Were Ten Generations from Adam to Noah to show how great was his God's long-suffering for all the generations provoked him continually until he brought upon them
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the Waters of the flood There Were Ten Generations from Noah to Abraham to show how great was his long-suffering for all the generations provoked him continually until Abraham
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our father came and received the reward of them all and that's just one little sampling you go to the index and look up Abraham
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and go back and read oh it's just amazing how no doubt all of the paintings had a okay now they didn't do that of course but he
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they would have we have Abraham as our father but what did Abraham himself find what value did he find in his flesh
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well the answer is a quote from Genesis 15. and Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness
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as righteousness the word credited or reckoned or accounted is a key word for Paul In this passage and it unfortunately in our English
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Bibles for some reason are translators are translators didn't pick up on that and they use different words
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for the same Greek word where Paul intends for it to be the same in verse 3 in verse 4. in verse 5. in verse 6 and
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in verse 8. Paul uses the same word that's clearly the theme Here by what is righteousness credited to
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anybody's account anybody's account or by what is Iniquity not credited to our account
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our account now iniquity is something that we have earned Paul makes that clear in the first three chapters so when he says that what we have worked for is not given to us as a gift but
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rather what is due now what is he going to tell us later about the wages of sin that's what we've earned is death
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is death so this is this is almost like an accounting class here what have you earned what have you worked for worked for later he's going to say that when you were free from righteousness when you
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were a slave to sin and what did you benefit because the wages of sin is death so it's all tied together here he's not
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necessarily talking about how each of us is an individual can be saved what he's talking about is how can God undo all that we've messed up
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how can he bring righteousness back to his creation when we have committed sin and the answer is credit credit by faith credit through faith and
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that's what he is saying about Abraham so chapter 15 of Genesis
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when we reference Bible verses Bible verses we tend to use them as proof texts and that's not really a good hermeneutic
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because every verse has its context right I don't think Paul ever used proof texts I think what he did and other New
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Testament writers and other biblical writers of that era they would reference a text a text that would bring to mind the immediate context of that verse
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so Genesis 15 16 is not just Paul going to his concordance and looking up the Hebrew words for righteousness and oh that's a good one I'll use that
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Covenant it is probably the most important passage in the entire abrahamic scheme now it's Genesis 12 where he calls him and he promises that he would be the
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father of many people many nations and that in him and his seed all the nations would be blessed but in Genesis 12 we call that the Covenant but it's not yet
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the Covenant the Covenant because to have a covenant the phrase was to cut a covenant what two men will do when they were entering into a treaty
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is that they would take sacrificial animals kill them and cut their bodies in half in half and lay them opposite each other and then the two men would walk in an
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opposite direction between the bodies the corpses the carcasses and what they were saying in fact in some formulations they would actually
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say this say this may I become as these animals should I break this Covenant calling upon themselves death
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if they were unfaithful to the Covenant well in Genesis 15 that entire transaction that ritual is enacted
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and the animals that he gathers Abraham gathers he cuts and he lays apart except for the birds and then he falls into a deep sleep
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and in his vision he doesn't walk between the animals only God does
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this is the monarchism of salvation this is the phrase that we read in scripture salvation is of the Lord for those who want to think that man has something to contribute look at Abraham sitting there watching
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he's not making a covenant with God God is making a covenant with him he is not pledging his life to be faithful to God God is pledging his life to be faithful to Abraham and he will
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give his life not because he was unfaithful but because the ultimate faithfulness was to conquer death
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on behalf of Abraham that's the Covenant that's what God has promised to do and that's why Paul doesn't see it as a covenant as much as he does a promise
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because if it were truly a covenant Abraham would have walked through those animals and Abraham's obedience and Abraham's seeds obedience would have been
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instrumental in the Fulfillment of that Covenant meaning it would never have been fulfilled been fulfilled and that that is so critical to understanding of Paul's teaching
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that God made a unilateral promise to bless Abraham and to bless the Nations through his seed
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and all Abraham did was believed also in Genesis 15 there is no mention of Abraham's sin
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the context is not sin but seed it starts out by God saying blessed are you Abraham and a father of many nations you shall become and Abraham responds
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yeah I got no kids and the air of my house as Eleazar my servant I got no kids here I got no son I'm old
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I'm old and God says now don't worry about that you shall have an innumerable seed he says come on outside look up in the heavens now keep in mind
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that light pollution in Abraham's day was like zero okay and look up at the sky and count those Stars if you can count them
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so will your seed be that's a promise this is where I I don't like covenantalism see covenantalism to me and I know I'm a cynic
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but covenantalism to me is a framework that is only needed to justify other things like infant baptism okay Covenant doesn't stand on its own
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it only stands because it has to support something else something else and in my opinion if something has to stand or support something else you should take it away and let that thing
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fall it's not a covenant it's a promise it's not what I do is not the works that I do The Obedience that I bring it's not that Abraham was
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such a great guy Joshua tells us that he and his father worshiped Idols across the river and he was all in all practical purposes
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a gentile a gentile and yet God made the promise to him because it was God's will
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so Abraham did not as Paul says here now to him to the one who works his wages not reckoned as a favor but what as as what is due but to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the
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ungodly his faith is reckoned as unright his all right I want you to picture yourself as a first century Jew not believing in Jesus
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and you've heard me Paul referred to Abraham as being justified by faith not through his works but by believing that God justifies the
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ungodly now biological extension I just called Abraham ungodly Abraham ungodly got any stones they would be flying through the air right now
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right now I mean hear what Paul is saying Abraham believed in the one who justifies the ungodly and through that belief he was
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counted righteous counted righteous which can only mean that even Abraham knew himself to be ungodly and anyone who thinks otherwise about himself or herself
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is deceived is deceived and anyone who thinks that there is something within himself or herself that can reach out and grab that Grace that
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God is offering that God has brought so close to me that all I have to do is believe and that becomes a work
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because even in that little thing I can boast can I can I I can boast yeah God you are great you have done so much you sent your son you so loved the world he went to the Cross he died for
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do we really think that God will share his glory with another do we really think that we will have anything to say on our behalf when we stand before him I mean really do we really think that we're going to be able to say to him
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well well I do believe I did I was the one who believed or will we actually say I believed because you gave me the faith
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to believe to believe I will submit to you that every born-again Armenian born-again Armenian and there are such people
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every Born Again Armenian will fully freely and joyfully admit that it was nothing he or she did
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that it was by grace through faith lest any man should boast it is about our sin is not all about our sin I want I want
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you to hear that carefully because there is a raging debate called the New Perspective and the vate against the New Perspective and we'll talk about that some as we go
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through Romans because you can't help but encounter the different viewpoints but the argument is that we we must stand firm on this principle that it's
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all about me being forgiven through Jesus Christ it is about that but it's not all about that that God is restoring everything that he
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has made he is redeeming everything that is his is his for his glory and not for ours and as we were the Supreme work within
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his creation we should not be surprised that our salvation and restoration is the Supreme work of his Recreation but we aren't the only things he created
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and we're not the only things he's redeeming and if we want to understand the big picture Allowing God to have the glory that he alone deserves then we will not put
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ourselves front and center But realize even by the grace by which God has given me the faith to believe that I am just one part of the overall restoration of the glory
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of his creation to the glory of his grace and even when I say that I am saved by faith and not by works I know that I am just
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the beginning the beginning of the restoration of his creation and that all of creation as Paul will tell us Longs for the revelation of the children of God it is a big and glorious
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panoramic portrait panoramic portrait and not just a mirror let us pray
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father we do thank you for your word and for the for the not only the comprehensive comprehensiveness of it but the interconnection how Paul can simply refer to a verse in
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Genesis 15. and yet in doing so bring the entire picture of the Covenant that you made with Abraham the promise that you made you made that by his seed all the nations would
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be blessed be blessed and we pray that you would give us deeper understanding of Paul's teaching that in that promise we have been made children of Abraham
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through faith in Jesus Christ we pray father that you would comfort us and strengthen our faith to know that you alone you alone are eternally and unchangeably faithful
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that what you have promised you will bring to pass for your glory and for our good we pray in Jesus name
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amen well please stand for the benediction from second Corinthians chapter 13. the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the
