JUSTIFIED BY FAITH ALONE

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’”

“Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:”

‘Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.’

“Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”

“It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.”

“Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations.’ He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.”

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’  Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised.”

“This is why ‘it was credited to him as righteousness.’ The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

Romans 4

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Some time ago, I had the privilege to preach at my home church, Bayside Baptist Church, in Virginia Beach. It was Communion Sunday and the Lord placed a message on my heart intended to remind us of all Jesus had done for us. You’ll remember that He asked that we would observe the sacrament in remembrance of Him. And as we start to remember all that Jesus has done, it starts to produce words that end in the suffix “tion”.

For example, the first word that comes to mind is salvation, right?

Jesus willingly allowed Himself to be crucified on Calvary’s cross to bear our sins so we might avoid the judgment of God and have eternal life. Through Jesus’ shed blood, we are washed clean from the dirty stains of our transgressions so we might appear before God blameless.

This brings me to another “tion” word, propitiation. Jesus’ substitutionary death brought us into favor with a God we were once in opposition with. He took us out of the ranks of the condemned and ushered us into the company of the redeemed.

In other words, through Jesus we are set apart and set on a path to glory. This is something we know as sanctification, the act of making us holy as God called us to be. We can’t achieve this on our own but rather by placing our faith and hope in Jesus as our Savior. He is the only One who can lead us to holiness.

Finally, we come to one last “tion” word for today, one that is central to today’s scripture passage as we look at the entire fourth chapter of Romans. That word is justification.

What is justification?

The easiest way to remember is to use this phrase:

“Because of Jesus, I am made just-as-if-I-had-never-sinned when I stand before God on the day of His final judgment.”

Of course, the “just-as-if-I-had-never-sinned” is a word play on the word “justified” which is the act of justification. All who believe in Jesus are justified by Him, not by works but rather by faith.

Why is the latter part of that statement important?

Because countless people, past and present, have somehow adopted the belief that you have to labor in some way to earn God’s special favor, like there is some qualification list of things a person must to do be justified.

Looking at the fourth chapter of Romans, we see where some Jews in Rome still believed that someone needed to be circumcised to gain salvation. Simply believing by faith was not enough.

Paul surgically attacks this false understanding by using the man who was arguably the most respected and beloved patriarch of the Jewish nation, Abraham, the man who was viewed as the father of the Israelites.

Anyone who knew the scriptures knew that Abraham had gained special status and favor with God who considered His dedicated servant as righteous and worthy of being not just the father of the Jews but many other nations as well.

Did Abraham have to do anything to gain this special standing with God? Was there a list of tasks that God gave Abraham to complete before He would distinguish him from other men?

No, Paul reminds his readers that the scriptures in Genesis state that all Abraham did was believe and God credited him righteousness. It came by faith and faith alone.

So righteousness from God was credited by simple faith and not some series of jobs a person needed to complete. Circumcision was not a pre-requisite to being in good repute with God.

How could Paul make that kind of assertion, one that ran completely counter to what the Roman Jews believed?

Because when God credited Abraham righteousness and made the promise that he would father many nations, He did so before Abraham was circumcised, not after. In other words, God didn’t set circumcision as a prerequisite and because He didn’t, no one should either. No one has the authority to try and trump the Lord God Almighty.

So if circumcision wasn’t a precursor to find God’s approval, then anyone who believed in God through faith, following the lead of Abraham, could count him as the father of their nation. God was for all people who believed by faith, Jew or Gentile, circumcised or not. All one needed to do was place their faith and hope in God and God alone.

When God sent His Son Jesus to save, He did so as a gift of grace to all those who would simply believe. God is still crediting righteousness to people and the only thing needed is faith, faith that He, God, did love the world so much that He sent His one and only Son Jesus so that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus was “delivered to death for our sins” and raised from the dead by God. That resurrection is what brought a Christ believer justification, not by works but rather by faith and faith alone. 

Friends, through Jesus God rescued us from sure eternal damnation and torment. He brought everyone the opportunity to find salvation through the propitiation Jesus brought while seeking to bring us sanctification.

Thanks be to God for the gift of His redemption, yet one more “tion” word, given freely through His Son Jesus!

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com