THE BOOK OF ROMANS

THE BOOK OF ROMANS
“ Faith Alone”
Romans 4:4-8
February 22, 2012

Last week we proved that Abraham’s justification was an act of God therefore, all of the glory belongs to God.

George Williams makes this statement. “Had the promise of heir-ship of the world been based on the principle of law, i.e. of merit (works), that would have set Abraham aside, for the inheritance was given to him by promise and, therefore, on the principle of faith. Faith doe not fulfill a promise made to it, but believes it; and that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. This principle consequently opened wide the door of grace to all men.” (George Williams) Now, Paul moves from the logic of how Abraham was justified to:

THE LOGIC OF A WORKER – Romans 4:4-5 “Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness,…”

The word “works” in the Greek is “katergazomai” (kat-er-GAD-zom-ay) which means “to do works in order to earn something.” Keep in mind that Paul is still talking about salvation here. Two things here. First of all:

WORKS IMPOSE AN OBLIGATION -- If a person could work for righteousness, then God would owe that man righteousness. That, would mean that righteousness would not be a GIFT from God, but PAYMENT from God. But God cannot be in debt to man for anything. God cannot be forced to do anything. If Abraham had been justified by works, the blessings he received would have been given to him as a reward for those works, and consequently his believing could have had no part in his justification, and his faith would have been useless. Secondly, righteousness of God:

COMES FROM BELIEVING IN GOD – Notice in vs 5 that it is the “ungodly” that are counted as righteous. The man who admits he is wicked is the man who rejects self, and senses his need for godly help in spiritual matters. He is ready to give himself up and honor and glorify God alone. Therefore, he centers and wraps his whole life around God, and is totally dependent on God for righteousness.

Now, there are lots of people today who think that salvation by works is not something that is widely accepted or practiced. But, this salvation by works is the singular greatest problem in the church world today as it has also been in the past.

Anytime a person attempts to earn their salvation, the grace of God is nullified. And without God’s grace, salvation is not possible. And yet, many people attempt to achieve salvation through works of one sort or another – church membership, water baptism, baptism in the Holy Spirit, taking communion, saying penance, etc.

The Mormon Church has declared that they, the Mormon church, “….is God’s church; consequently, to be Saved, one has to be long to the Mormon church.” The Roman Catholic church has the same position. If you don’t belong to the RCC, you are anathema, accursed and you’re on your way to hell. The RCC is a religious system that is totally works oriented. But there are many fundamentalist churches that have their own brand of salvation by works – keeping the Sabbath day, speaking in tongues, being water baptized etc.

God will never turn away a person who senses their ungodliness, who confesses their sins and who recognizes Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of their life and who glorifies God.

The teaching of Scripture needs to be remembered and that is that the man who does not admit that he is ungodly, who will not reject self and who does not sense the need for their need for Jesus Christ – that person is declared to be guilty of their sin and they are rejected by God because they reject Him./

John 3:18 says, " He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Jesus tells us plainly in John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Being born again is to simply understand that you are a sinner in need of Jesus Christ and that you must confess your sin and repent. There’s nothing in any of God’s Word that even remotely states that to be born again you must DO anything. It is by faith and it is by your faith in Jesus Christ that you are declared to be justified and righteous. Now, let’s turn from the logic of the justification of the worker to:

DAVID’S LOGIC OF THE BLESSED MAN -- Romans 4:6-8 “….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 have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered. " Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account." Note who the blessed man is. The blessed man is the man who is:

RIGHTEOUS WITHOUT WORKS -- The blessed man who is credited by God for being righteous without works and who places their belief in God alone.. No man is justified by works but only faith. The blessed man is the man whose:

SINS ARE FORGIVEN -- Sin continues to exist in spite of the works of man’s efforts to eliminate it. No matter how hard a person tries, sin continues to exist. If sin is to be done away with, it must be done away with by God. The Lord simply forgives man’s lawless deeds. Finally, the blessed man is the man whose:

SINS ARE NOT COUNTED AGAINST HIM -- No man can free himself from sin and force God to accept him – not by his own hand. Justification, or complete deliverance from sin and condemnation – come from God and God alone. It doesn’t come from some act of man. Isaiah 55:7 states, “Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the Lord, And He will have compassion on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.” 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Doing the best we can will never be good enough to make us acceptable to God. God requires your faith and not your works. God requires that we put our faith, not in what we can DO, but that our faith be in the proper object and that is Jesus Christ and Him alone. Nothing else will bring us into acceptance by God – only Jesus. Jesus said in John 14:6 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”

Father, again we come to You in the name of Jesus to express our gratitude for the truth of Your Word and for the simplicity of salvation. Holy Spirit we ask that You help us to keep our focus exclusively on the person of Jesus Christ and not on any of our efforts to bring us salvation. May we understand that our acceptance by You is based solely on our faith in Christ and His righteousness. As we live out this understanding daily, may the unbelieving world see Jesus in us and be drawn to Him. In Jesus name I pray. AMEN