I was very much aware of the length of the last post. Sorry it was so long. I felt it necessary to pull together the first three chapters. This post is shorter.
I am not quite sure what you made of the first three chapters. There were sentences which should have given you hope. Yet, much of those chapters had Paul demonstrating how insoluble our situation really is.
We then come to Romans 4. And with no further distractions, he turns his attention to a statement he made all the way back in chapter 1:16-17
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Chapter 4 pours into the reality that this idea of righteous by faith is not new. Paul demonstrates through both Abraham and David that God throughout the ages has counted people righteous because of their faith and not their works. Let me try and drive that point home. I recently read there are three kinds of people:
Those who do not believe in God. You may or may not find them in church.
Those who believe they have a right relationship with God because they are doing pretty well, they haven’t murdered anyone, they are coming to Church, and they are trying hard, in all they are pretty good people.
Those who believe they have a right relationship with God because they have faith in him through his Son Jesus Christ.
Chapters 1-3 point out that it is through faith in Jesus Christ we have God’s grace and favor towards us—faith alone!
Furthermore, if we think deeply about our world, then we will realize this is the only way, for we fail to do it on our own. Paul, in chapter 4, is having us ponder this idea from God about faith. This idea that God has been telling us through the ages.
If you look at the language you will note that our faith actually has a double effect: There is the negative canceling or covering of the sin and the positive crediting of righteousness. Not only are we forgiven, we are not left in some neutral position; we are put in a positive one.
There are two further bits that I want to unpack, the first is verse 15—”the law brings wrath.” How does that happen? Quite simply the law makes demands, we cannot keep them and so we transgress, and the transgression incurs wrath. This is compared to God’s grace that makes promises that when we believe we are blessed with being right with God. (Verse 16.)
The second bit has to do with what Abraham did when the promise was not immediately fulfilled. He hoped against hope. In other words, he did not give up on God. We should not give up either.
For Abraham, his situation was “hope against hope”, that is to say, “clinging to a possibility”. He waited 25 years before Isaac was born. He had no long history of God.
We stand downstream of Abraham, full with our history of God. We know of Isaac, Jacob, David. Our God is the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
We must steel our memories with God’s faithfulness. That is how we remain faithful in tough times.
“That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.” (Verse 22.) But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but also for ours. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. (Verses 22-25.)
What do you think of Romans so far? How are you doing with this very thorough “legal argument”?