God's Righteousness (1979)

Part 3 in a 4-part series
by John Stott

"There is something essentially obscene about arrogance in Christian people and something essentially authentic about humility. We shall not be able to strut round heaven like peacocks, flattering ourselves as if we have got there by our own achievement. Instead, we shall spend eternity ascribing salvation to God and to the Lamb."

All men and women of every race and culture—the ungodly, the moral and the religious—have sinned against their knowledge, are therefore guilty before God and have brought upon themselves his holy wrath. They are without excuse and, if left to themselves, without hope.

That was the theme of 1:18-3:20, our text for yesterday. The picture was gloomy enough to plunge any sensitive person into deep depression, and even despair. Indeed, as Luther said at the beginning of his "scholia" or commentary on Romans, "The chief purpose of this letter is to break down, to pluck up and to destroy all wisdom and righteousness of the flesh. “There is none righteous, not even one," the apostle concluded. "All have turned aside." In consequence, "every mouth" has been stopped, and "all the world" has become "accountable to God." There was no ray of light, no flicker of hope, no prospect of salvation. There seemed nothing for us to do but wait speechless for the final pronouncement and execution of the divine sentence of death.

"But now," Paul suddenly breaks in with verse 21, God has intervened with a fresh revelation of himself as the Savior of sinners. After the long and starless night the sun has risen again, a new day has dawned and the heavens are flooded with light. For "now ... the righteousness of God has been manifested ... the righteousness of God through faith." Paul's words are an immediately recognizable echo of what he wrote in 1:17, before he launched into his lengthy excursus on the human rebellion. In both passages (1:17 and 3:21-22) he is proclaiming the good news of God's action in justifying sinners, not because of any merit of their own but because of Christ in whom they put their trust. So Paul's devastating exposure of universal guilt must be read in the light of the gospel which precedes and follows it.

The contrast between the two is dramatic. Over against both the unrighteousness and the self-righteousness of man he sets the righteousness of God. Over against God's wrath revealed from heaven he sets God's righteousness revealed in the gospel. Over against our works, which at best are a pitifully inadequate response to the demands of the law, he sets the atoning work of Jesus Christ, which can be appropriated by faith only. Over against man's guilt, he sets God's grace.

Paul expounds the essence of the Christian good news in only six verses (3:21-26). Charles Cranfield rightly calls this brief section "the centre and heart" of the letter, and adds that "it reads like a solemn proclamation." Yet it is crammed full of profound theology, and contains a number of difficult technical terms. So we must work hard to understand it, and cry to the Lord for the illumination of his Spirit. For here are priceless treasures of truth for those who persevere in seeking them.

The key expression of the whole paragraph (vv. 21-31) is "the righteousness of God," which now for the first time is linked with the cognate verb to "justify," or to "declare righteous." Each occurs four times, the noun (dikaiosune) in verses 21, 22, 25 and 26, and the verb (dikaioc) in verses 24, 26, 28 and 30. Moreover, the two belong essentially together. God's "righteousness," as we saw in our first exposition, is a combination of his righteous character, his justifying initiative and his gift of righteousness. The expression "the righteousness of God" is God's righteous way of "righteousing" the unrighteous. It is his justification of sinners.

Now justification is a legal verdict, the opposite of condemnation. When a judge condemns someone, he declares him guilty; when he justifies someone, he declares him innocent or righteous. Yet when God justifies us, he does more than declare us righteous; he actually bestows on us a righteous standing in his sight. "The righteousness of God" is identical with what elsewhere Paul terms "the righteousness from God"—a righteousness he gives to those who believe in Jesus (e.g., Phil. 3:9; 1 Cor. 1:30).

The sixteenth-century Reformers clearly understood the centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Martin Luther wrote of it: "This is the truth of the gospel; it is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth." Thomas Cranmer, the first reformed Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote about justification by God's grace:

This faith the holy Scripture teacheth: this is the strong rock and foundation of Christian religion: this doctrine all old and ancient authors of Christ's Church do approve: this doctrine advanceth and setteth forth the true glory of Christ, and beateth down the vain glory of man: this whosoever denieth is not to be counted for a true Christian man, nor for a setterforth of Christ's glory, but for an adversary of Christ and His gospel, and for a setter-forth of men's vainglory.

The entire text which runs from Romans 3:21-4:25 concerns "the righteousness of God" or "God's justifying grace." We will consider it under the following divisions:

First, the manifestation of God's justifying grace (3:21-26). Here Paul unfolds the gospel of justification through Christ by faith.
Second, the implications of God's justifying grace (3:27-31). Here Paul answers three objections from an imaginary Jewish critic.
Third, an illustration of God's justifying grace (4:1-25). Here Paul shows that Abraham was himself justified by faith and is therefore the spiritual father of all Christian believers, whether Gentiles or Jews.

The Manifestation of God's justifying Grace (3:21-26)

Paul writes in Romans 3:21-23, "But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Paul speaks of a "manifestation" of God's righteousness, that is, of his justifying grace. The perfect tense here ("has been manifested") probably refers to the historical events of Christ's death and resurrection, and the present tense in 1:17 ("is revealed") to the contemporary preaching of the gospel. The God who once made known his saving plan in Christ continues to make it known today whenever the good news of Christ is proclaimed.

This manifestation of God's justifying grace, Paul says, has been made "apart from the Law," for it does not depend at all on obedience to the law, but only on faith in Christ. At the same time, it is "witnessed by the Law and the Prophets," for throughout the Old Testament the same doctrine of justification by faith is taught. As for the prophets, Paul has already cited Habakkuk (1:17). As for the Law (by which he seems here to mean the rest of the Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch), he is about to cite the example of Abraham (chapter 4). There is a vital continuity of teaching on this matter between Old and New Testaments.

In verse 22 Paul enlarges on what he means by "the righteousness of God," emphasizing particularly that it is "through faith in Jesus Christ" and is therefore enjoyed by "all those who believe." He stresses the availability of salvation for "all those who believe" because, as he goes on immediately to add, "there is no distinction, for all have sinned [a summary of past history] and fall short [still in the present] of the glory of God," which is God's ideal exhibited in Christ.

All human beings are unrighteous, so God's righteousness is for all who believe. Already in these two verses the main aspects of God's justification have been adumbrated its source, its ground and its means: (1) the source of our justification is God and his grace; it is "the righteousness of God"; (2) the ground of our justification is Christ and his cross; it is "through faith in Jesus Christ"; (3) the means of our justification is faith alone without works; it is "through faith ... for all who believe."

The remaining verses of the paragraph fill in the details of this outline, and clothe this skeleton with flesh.

1. The source of our justification is God and his grace.

Justification is the revealing of God's righteousness, and God's righteousness begins with his gracious, saving initiative. It is God to the rescue, God coming in Christ to put the unrighteous right with himself. It is absolutely fundamental to the biblical doctrine of salvation that the whole initiative from beginning to end is the Father's. No formulation can claim to be true to Scripture which takes the initiative from the Father and attributes it instead to us or even to Christ.

The initiative is certainly not ours. For two chapters Paul has been ramming home to us our sin and guilt, our helplessness and hopelessness. That is why God has now manifested his righteousness "apart from the Law." This statement will have sounded shocking to Jewish ears, for what is righteousness but conformity to the law? Paul's answer is that there is another righteousness, which is not ours but God's, not our achievement but his gift, based not on law but on faith.

Next, the initiative is not Christ's either. To be sure, he came voluntarily, and gave himself for us freely. Yet his initiative was a response to his Father's: "Lo, I come to do your will," he said. Therefore, we must never describe the work of Christ in such a way as to imply any reluctance on the part of the Father.

For the initiative came from the Father himself. The contrast between verse 20 and verse 24 makes this plain beyond dispute. According to verse 20, "by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight." According to verse 24, we are "justified as a gift by His grace." justification is a gift of God's sheer grace, not a reward for any merit or works of ours. For God's "grace" is his spontaneous generosity, his free and unmerited favor, his gracious kindness to the undeserving. Grace is God loving, God stooping, God coming, God giving.

2. The ground of our justification is Christ and his cross.

Granted that God justifies sinners "as a gift by His grace," on what ground does he do so? How is it possible for a righteous God to pronounce the unrighteous righteous? For that is certainly what he does. No phrase in Romans expresses the paradox of his action more strikingly than that in 4:5, which declares that he "justifies the ungodly." It is a fantastic assertion. In the Law of Moses God repeatedly told the Jewish judges that they must "justify the righteous and condemn the wicked" (for example, Deut. 25:1).

But of course! That should go without saying. A righteous man must be pronounced righteous, and a wicked man wicked. What more obvious principle of justice could you enunciate? In consequence, a solemn woe is pronounced against magistrates who "justify the wicked for a bribe" (Is. 5:23), and it is written in Proverbs 17:15 that "he who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous … Both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD."

But of course, we say again, that is self-evident. Such perversions of justice would be bound to be an abomination to God the just judge of all. No self-respecting magistrate would ever be guilty of such miscarriages of justice. So it is hardly necessary for God to declare (as he does in Ex. 23:7 RSV; cf. 1 Kings 8:32), "I will not justify the wicked." For of course he would never dream of doing such a thing.

Yet here in Romans 4:5 Paul has the effrontery to write that God does do the very thing he says he will never do, the very thing which he condemns others for doing, and moreover that he does it habitually. He makes a practice of doing it. He can even be designated the God "who justifies the ungodly." Has Paul lost his reason? How can he possibly describe God like that? Can God overthrow the moral order and turn it upside down? I hope that perhaps we can now feel the gasp of incredulity with which Jewish readers would have reacted.

And they would have been right, had it not been for the cross. Without the cross the just/justification of the unjust would have been impossible. The only reason why God can "justify the ungodly" (4:5) is that "Christ died for the ungodly" (5:6). Returning to chapter 3, notice that Paul refers to the death of Jesus in terms of his "blood" (v. 25), which C. K. Barrett translates "his bloody sacrificial death." For the death of Jesus was such a perfect sacrifice for sin that God is now able, as I might put it, to "righteous the unrighteous without compromising his righteousness or condoning their unrighteousness."

Paul uses three expressions to explain what this is which God did through the cross of Jesus Christ: (1) "through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus" (v. 24); (2) "whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation" (v. 25); (3) "This was to demonstrate His righteousness" (vv. 25-26). Associated with the cross, therefore, there is a "redemption," a; "propitiation" and a "demonstration." What do these words mean?

Redemption is a commercial term, borrowed from the marketplace, just as justification is a legal term, borrowed from the law court. In the Old Testament it was specially used of the purchase of slaves. To redeem, writes Professor Bruce, was "the act of buying a slave out of bondage in order to set him free." The verb redeem was also used metaphorically in reference to God's deliverance of Israel from their captivities in Egypt and Babylon.

From this meaning and background of the vocabulary of redemption, we learn: that we were slaves, in bondage to our sin and guilt; and unable to liberate ourselves; that Jesus Christ bought us out of that slavery, shedding his blood as the ransom price to rescue us; and that in consequence of his purchase we now belong to him, although our new slavery is the true freedom. We hear much today about "liberation" and "liberation theology." Let us mark well Paul's teaching that (although we should desire to see human beings liberated from everything that dehumanizes them) nothing dehumanizes and oppresses more than guilt, and therefore nothing liberates more than the gospel.

The second word, propitiation, has been resisted by many scholars in recent years. For to "propitiate" means to "appease" or "placate." Unable to accept that God needs in any way to be "propitiated" (a notion which seemed to them heathen rather than Christian), they have argued both linguistically and theologically that what Jesus did on the cross was not to propitiate God, but to expiate sin, that is, to cover it or put it away. In the English-speaking world Professor C. H. Dodd was the main advocate of this view, and his influence is seen in the NEB which renders the word in verse 25, "the means of expiating sin." More recently, however, there has been a greater willingness among scholars to agree that the Bible speaks much of the wrath of God, and that therefore this wrath must somehow be averted if sinners are ever to be forgiven.

Another way to understand verse 25, which has been favored by some commentators ever since Origen, is based on the fact that the Greek word for "propitiation" (hilasterion) is the regular word in the Septuagint, and is once used in the New Testament (Heb. 9:5), for the "mercy seat," that is, the golden lid of the ark or covenant box. Here the blood of sacrifice was sprinkled on the annual Day of Atonement, and here God promised to manifest his presence. It was, therefore, the place of propitiation. Perhaps then, it has been suggested, the Lord Jesus is represented as the true mercy seat, the reality behind the symbol, and his cross as the place where God and sinners are reconciled. Perhaps too this new and real mercy seat (Jesus Christ) "God displayed publicly," in contrast to the old one which was concealed in the holy of holies behind the veil. F. F. Bruce inclines to this view. So does Anders Nygren, following Luther.

Other commentators point out the absence of the definite article in verse 25, and are reluctant to see Jesus Christ likened to "an inanimate piece of temple furniture." Besides, writes F. L. Godet, "The Epistle to the Romans is not a book which moves, like the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the sphere of Levitical symbolism." These scholars prefer to render the word either "a means of propitiation" or, more specifically, "a propitiatory sacrifice." The latter certainly seems to be correct, since Paul goes on immediately to speak of Christ's "blood," that is, of his life laid down in a violent or sacrificial death.

If we want to grasp in what sense the death of Jesus on the cross was a propitiatory sacrifice, we will have to remember that throughout the Bible, literally from its beginning to its end, "sin" and "death" are bracketed as rebellion against God and its just reward. Death (whether physical, spiritual or eternal) is always presented in Scripture as the penalty for sin. Paul himself has already written in 1:32, "Those who practice such things are worthy of death," and in 6:23 he will shortly write, "The wages of sin is death."

So whenever the apostles say, quite simply, "Christ died," even without any further elaboration, there is a wealth of meaning in what they say. For if death is always the penalty for sin, and if Jesus Christ died, and if he was himself sinless, then there is only one possible explanation of his death: he died for our sins. He identified himself with us and substituted himself for us, so that the death he died was our death, in order that we might never have to die it, but instead receive eternal life.

Now perhaps we begin to understand how his death could have been a propitiatory sacrifice. If on the cross, as Paul writes elsewhere, Christ was "made ... sin on our behalf" and even became "a curse for us" (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13), that is to say, if he identified himself with our guilt and bore in his innocent person our judgment, then there is now a righteous basis on which we may be forgiven. Since the penalty for sin has been paid, God can turn from his wrath and justify us.

Here are the bold, outspoken words which Charles Cranfield uses to explain "Paul's statement that God purposed Christ as a propitiatory victim." He writes,

"God, because in His mercy He willed to forgive sinful men and, being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against His own very Self in the person of His Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved."

That God should thus give full and perfect expression to both his love and his wrath, by bearing himself the fearful condemnation which our sins had deserved, is the very heart of the Christian gospel. It is enough to stretch the largest mind, enough to bend the proudest will, enough to break the hardest heart.

Yet, whenever we talk about Christ as a "means of propitiation" or a "propitiatory victim," we must hedge our words with every possible safeguard, lest we be misunderstood. For this Christian propitiation is fundamentally different from the unworthy notions which are found in some "heathen" or "animistic" or "traditional" religions. The need for propitiation, its author and its nature are all distinct.

Take the need first. Pagan gods have always been irritable and unpredictable. They are subject to moods and fits, and you never know when they are going to fly off the handle. Hence the need to appease them. The holy wrath of the God of the Bible, on the other hand, is entirely predictable. It is never capricious or arbitrary. The only thing which arouses God's anger is evil, and evil always does.

The second difference lies in the author of the propitiation. In pagan religion both ancient and modern it is human beings who, fearful of having offended their gods, determine to bring offerings to placate them. But the gospel begins by declaring it impossible for us ever to win God's favor, for it declares us sinful, guilty and helpless. Then it goes on to say that God himself supplied the propitiatory victim. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 Jn. 4:10).

Similarly, we are told by Paul in verse 25 that God either "designed" (NEB) or "presented" (NIV) or "displayed publicly" (NASB) the Lord Jesus Christ as a propitiation. The love, the idea, the purpose, the initiative, the action, the gift -all were God's, not ours.

Third, the nature of the propitiation is different. In animistic religions the worshiper brings material gifts, perhaps an animal or fruits or candies, hoping by these to avert the anger of the spirits. In the Old Testament too there were material offerings, but these were prescribed by God himself, and it was recognized that "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Heb. 10:4). These offerings prefigured a greater offering, the self-giving of the Son of God himself, who bore our sin and died our death.

So then, in summary, the Christian propitiation is not human beings bringing a bribe to appease a bad-tempered deity, but God's grace giving God's Son to avert God's wrath. It is this God-centeredness of the gospel which we must at all costs preserve. It tells of God acting in his own mercy through his own Son to save us from his own judgment. One might dare to state the matter even more simply and say that God himself gave himself to save us from himself.

So far we have considered the two words, redemption and propitiation, which Paul uses to explain the purpose of Christ's death. His third word, used in verse 25 and repeated in verse 26, is demonstration.

The cross was a demonstration or revelation as well as an achievement. It not only accomplished the propitiation of God and the redemption of man; it also vindicated the righteousness of God. Here is how Paul put it:

"This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

Notice at once the contrast between "the sins previously committed," which God in his forbearance "passed over," and "the present time" in which he has acted to "demonstrate" his righteousness. The contrast is between the past and the present, between the divine forbearance and the divine righteousness, and between the "passing over" of sins (which seemed unjust) and their judgment on the cross (which set forth and vindicated his justice). God passed over the sins of previous generations, forbearing to judge them as they deserved, only because he intended that the full penalty for these sins would in due time be borne by his Son. This was the only way in which God could be both righteous himself and simultaneously the "righteouser" or "justifier" of the sinner who believes in Jesus (v. 26).

The sin-bearing, substitutionary death of Jesus is the uniquely righteous ground on which God both passed over the sins of former generations and can now in the present righteously bestow a righteous standing on the unrighteous.

Bringing together Paul's three technical terms, we can now summarize what God has done by the death of Jesus. He has redeemed his people, propitiated his wrath and demonstrated his justice. Or better, for this relates the words to one another, he has propitiated his wrath in such a way as to redeem and justify his people and at the same time demonstrate his justice. We can, only marvel at his wisdom and his mercy and fall down before him in humble worship.

3. The means of our justification is faith.

There can be no question about this paragraph's emphasis on faith. Justification is "through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe" (v. 22). It is "through faith" that God purposed Christ to be a propitiation (v. 25). And God is "the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (v. 26). Indeed, justification is by faith alone. Although this word does not appear in Paul's text, it was a true instinct of Luther (following Origen and other older commentators) to add it. Far from distorting Paul's meaning, it clarifies and underlines it.

Now it is exceedingly important to understand that there is nothing meritorious about faith. When we affirm that sinners are justified "by faith" and not "by works," we are not substituting one work (called "faith") for another (called "obedience to the law"). Nor are we suggesting that in saving us God does a part of the work (sending Jesus Christ to die for us), while we do the other part (believing in Jesus). Salvation is not a kind of cooperative enterprise between God and us, his share being the cross and our share being faith.

Anders Nygren insists on this point with eloquent emphasis. He even rejects the popular description of faith as the "condition" of salvation. When Paul asserts that the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith," he writes, "He has no thought of apportioning to God and man respective contributions to salvation." Again, "it is not man's faith that gives the gospel its power; quite the contrary, it is the power of the gospel that makes it possible for one to believe."

Another way to put this is to say that faith's value is not at all in itself, but solely in its object, Christ crucified. Faith is the hand which grasps Christ, the eye which beholds him, even the mouth which eats his flesh and drinks his blood (Jn. 6:53-56). Yet what saves us is neither the hand nor the eye nor the mouth of faith, but only Christ who is grasped, gazed upon and received, and the vision of whom evokes our responsible faith. As Richard Hooker, that judicious Anglican theologian in the sixteenth century, wrote in Definition of Justification,

"God doth justify the believing man, yet not for the worthiness of his belief, but for His worthiness who is believed."

Gresham Machen, the lucid Presbyterian writer of this century, also put it plainly:

"The faith of man, rightly conceived, can never stand in opposition to the completeness with which salvation depends upon God; it can never mean that man does part, while God merely does the rest, for the simple reason that faith consists not in doing something but in receiving something. To say that we are justified by faith is just another way of saying that we are justified not in the slightest measure by ourselves, but simply and solely by the One in whom our faith is reposed."

Such is Paul's exposition of "the righteousness of God" which is revealed in Christ and the gospel, that is, his righteous way of bestowing righteousness upon the unrighteous. Its source is God and his grace, its ground is Christ and his cross, and its means is faith alone, apart altogether from any human merit.

And in all this Christianity is unique. No other religion proclaims the good news of a free forgiveness to undeserving sinners, as Christianity does. On the contrary, all the religions of the world teach some form of self-salvation, whether by religious devotion or by prescribed ceremonies or by good works or by correct belief, or by a combination of these, sometimes with the mercy of God thrown in, though only for the meritorious. In contrast to these, Christianity is not primarily "a religion" at all. It is "the gospel," the good news that God has had mercy on the undeserving, that his wrath has been turned away by his grace, that his Son has died our death and borne our judgment, and that there is nothing left for us to do except to put our trust in him and call upon him to save us.

Nothing in my hand I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling,
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die!
(Augustus M. Toplady, 1776)

The Implications of God's Justifying Grace (3:27-31)

Paul's exposition (in vv. 21-26) of "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ" will have raised important questions in his readers' minds, especially in the minds of Jewish critics. So in verses 27-31 he anticipates three of them and answers them.

Question 1: "Where then is boasting?" (vv. 27-28).

The Jews were inveterate boasters, as indeed are all fallen human beings. They were proud of their unique privileges. In 2:23 Paul has described them as those who "boast in the Law." They imagined that they were heaven's darlings, eternally secure in the favor of God.

But the gospel excludes all boasting, on account of the "law" or "principle" of faith. If we could say, "I have been justified by the law," meaning "by my own obedience and merit," we would have something to boast about. But since we can say only, "I have been justified by faith," meaning "by the merit and work of Christ alone," we have nothing to boast about (v. 28).

There is something essentially obscene about arrogance in Christian people and something essentially authentic about humility. We shall not be able to strut round heaven like peacocks, flattering ourselves as if we have got there by our own achievement. Instead, we shall spend eternity ascribing salvation to God and to the Lamb. Praising, not boasting, is the characteristic activity of justified Christians, both on earth and in heaven. Or rather, the only boasting we are free to indulge in is boasting of Jesus Christ our Savior. As Paul put it to the Corinthians, quoting Jeremiah, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord" (Jer. 9:23-24; 1 Cor. 1:31).

Question 2: "Is God the God of the Jews only?" (vv. 29-30).

The Jews were fiercely nationalistic. They prided themselves on their special relationship to God and despised Gentiles as outsiders. But the gospel excludes discrimination as much as boasting. God is One and he justifies all sinners in the same way, whether they are circumcised or uncircumcised, namely "through faith." At the foot of the cross of Jesus, when we find this justification and forgiveness, there is total equality-between male and female, black and white, Jew and Gentile. All discrimination is excluded.

This doesn't mean that our differences are obliterated. Our skin pigmentation, our cultural inheritances, our sexuality still remain. But these things are rendered of no account before God. The gospel abolishes the barriers to fellowship.

Question 3: "Do we then nullify the Law through faith?" (v. 31).

The law, as the revelation of God, was the Jews' most treasured possession. One of their reasons for rejecting the gospel was that they perceived it as a threat to the law, undermining and contradicting it. The law and the gospel seemed to them irreconcilable.

And so they are irreconcilable if by "the law" we mean self salvation, salvation by obeying the law. But that was never the intended function of the law. If we understand the law correctly, Paul insists that the gospel does not nullify it; "on the contrary, we establish the Law." From his instruction elsewhere we can guess what he means.

First, the gospel establishes the law by emphasizing its true function, which is to give us "the knowledge of sin" (v. 20). It is in this sense that the law is our "schoolmaster" or "tutor" to bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:23-24). It is only those whom the law condemns that the gospel can justify.

Second, the gospel establishes the law by enabling people to obey it. God sent his Son and gives his Spirit "that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us" (8:4). Both Reformers and Puritans used to explain that first the law sends us to the gospel to be justified, and then the gospel sends us back to the law to be sanctified, though of course by the Holy Spirit's power.

The third way in which the gospel establishes the law is by confirming and elaborating its teaching. The truth of the gospel, the apostle has written in verse 21, is "witnessed by the Law and the Prophets." Perhaps this is the most likely explanation of his statement because he immediately proceeds in chapter 4 to refer to Abraham and David as outstanding examples in the Old Testament of the gospel of justification by faith. By these models of gospel truth the law is established.

Here then are the three implications of justification by faith alone, which Paul draws out. First, faith humbles the sinner and excludes boasting. Second, faith unites the church and excludes discrimination. Third, faith establishes the Scripture and excludes every facile attempt to represent Old and New Testament, law and gospel, as incompatible. The Jewish objections, which Paul's answers imply, have no substance.

An Illustration of God's Justifying Grace (4)

Perhaps we should regard 4:1 as a fourth question in the series of Jewish objections: "What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?" How did he come to be accepted by God? It was an extremely important question, partly because Abraham was universally revered as the progenitor of the people of God, partly because the Jews regarded him as the epitome of righteousness and were convinced that he was righteous before God because he had fulfilled the law. Was this not written in Scripture? Did not God say to him, "I will greatly bless you ... because you have obeyed My voice," and later say to Isaac, "I will ... bless you ... because Abraham obeyed me" (Gen. 22:17-18; 26:3, 5)?

Of course it was recognized that Abraham believed God as well as obeying him, but his faith was regarded as meritorious too. God's promised blessing was understood as a reward for his faith and obedience. Charles Cranfield cites examples from Rabbinic Judaism in which the expression "the merit of faith" was used in relation to Abraham. Was Paul wrong then? "For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about" (v. 2), whereas Paul has declared boasting excluded.

Paul allows his imaginary objector to get so far, but no further. The very concept of human boasting is so distasteful to him that he interjects indignantly at the end of verse 2, "but not before God." Let boasters boast, if they will, but they cannot sustain their boasting before God. So the argument is joined. Paul's Jewish contemporaries taught that Abraham was justified by works, Paul that he was justified by faith. He asks, therefore, "What does the Scripture say?" Who is interpreting it correctly?

In the rest of the chapter Paul mentions a number of details in Abraham's life story. He refers to God's promise to him and Sarah that they will have a son and then a posterity. He refers to God's further promises that he will become the "father of many nations" and that through his descendants the world will be blessed. He refers to Abraham's faith in believing these promises through thick and thin, in spite of his great age and Sarah's barrenness, and to the statement of Genesis 15:6 that when he believed God, his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.

As Paul recalls this story of Abraham's faith, he emphasizes two particular features of it, its priority (that it preceded his works, his circumcision and the law) and its reasonableness (the solid rational grounds on which it rested). These points must now occupy our attention.

1. The priority of Abraham's faith (3-16).

First, Abraham was justified by faith before he did any good works. In verse 3 Paul quotes Genesis 15:6: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." The context in Genesis is Abraham's childlessness. "O Lord God," he cried, "what wilt Thou give me, since I am childless?" (Gen. 15:2). In reply God took him one night outside his tent. Above him thousands of stars twinkled from a clear oriental sky. "Count the stars," God said to Abraham, "if you are able to count them."

I have sometimes imagined that Abraham began: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50." If so, we may be sure that he soon gave up. And God said to him, "So shall your descendants be," that is, as countless as the stars. Then the Scripture goes on: "Abraham believed God," and God reckoned his faith to him as righteousness. That is, God accepted him not because he had done any righteous works which merited acceptance, but because he believed God. He had no righteousness of his own which could be reckoned to him; his faith was reckoned to him instead.

Paul goes on to develop the implications of the verb to reckon. To reckon means to put something to somebody's account. Now money can be credited to a bank account either as a wage or as a gift. Which of these two was the "reckoning" in Abraham's case? Did God reckon righteousness to him as a wage (a reward) or as a gift? The text tells us. Not "Abraham worked, and his work was reckoned to him as righteousness," but "Abraham believed, and his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness." Paul makes the alternative clear in verses 4 and 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."

Exactly the same was true of David, to whom Paul now refers in verses 6-8. He quotes from the first two verses of Psalm 32, which declare the blessedness of the person whose iniquities have been forgiven, whose sins have been covered, and "whose sin the Lord will not take into account" or (margin) "reckon." This, Paul explains, is the blessedness of the person "to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works" (v. 6). For here is God refusing to reckon a person's sin against him (which is what he deserves), and instead "forgiving" or "covering" his sin (which he does not deserve). This is God's free and unmerited favor. It is justification by grace without works.

The key to these verses is the verb to reckon. It occurs five times in six verses (3-8), and although Paul varies his expressions, they must be taken as identical in meaning. Thus, the justified sinner is a person against whom God refuses to reckon his sin (v. 8), to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works (v. 6) and to whom God reckons his faith as righteousness (vv. 3-5). Putting these three together, we may say that, instead of reckoning his sin against him, God reckons righteousness to him apart from works, by reckoning his faith as righteousness. This person, justified by God's grace through faith, is truly blessed. Abraham was such a man. So was David. And so today is every Christian believer.

Second, Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised (vv. 9-12). Paul continues to argue his case with imaginary Jews. Granted that God's blessing is pronounced on believers, is it pronounced only upon circumcised believers (Jews), or upon uncircumcised believers (Gentiles) too (v. 9)? To this question also Abraham supplies the answer. The plain fact is that Abraham was justified before he was circumcised (v. 10). His justification is recorded in Genesis 15, his circumcision in Genesis 17, and at least fourteen years (Rabbis calculated a period twice as long) separated these two events. Yet they were related to each other. For Abraham received circumcision as a sign and a seal "of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised" (v. 11).

Thus Abraham received two distinct gifts from God, first, justification by faith while uncircumcised and, second, circumcision as a visible sign and seal of his justification. But his justification (which was an "inward and spiritual gift" of God) came first; his circumcision (also a gift of God) came later, as an "outward and visible sign." Moreover, this order of events (faith-justification-circumcision) had a purpose (v. 11). It was to make Abraham "the father of all who believe," on the one hand the father of all uncircumcised (Gentile) believers, who by faith have righteousness reckoned to them, and on the other hand (v. 12) the father of circumcised (Jewish) believers, who are not only circumcised like Abraham but also believe like Abraham, and so follow in his footsteps.

Third, Abraham was justified by faith before the law was given (vv. 13-16). Paul now reminds his readers that the faith by which Abraham was justified was faith in a promise of God. He calls it God's promise that he would be "heir of the world" (v. 13), a remarkable expression which presumably alludes to the fact that through his posterity all the earth's families would be blessed.

Anyway, Paul's point is that God's promise and God's law are two completely different things. God did not make his promise to Abraham "through the Law," but "through the righteousness of faith." That is, God's word to Abraham was not "obey this law and I will bless you" but "I will bless you; believe my promise."

Laws are to be obeyed, while promises are to be believed. They are two distinct realms, which have two distinct vocabularies (vv. 14-16). On the one hand the law requires obedience and (because we disobey) brings us under God's wrath, while on the other the promise requires faith and issues from God's grace. So law, works and wrath go together, as do promise, faith and grace. These sets of words cannot be mixed.

The heirs of the promise are not lawkeepers, but believers who are Abraham's spiritual descendants. If we share his faith, he is "the father of us all," in fulfillment of God's word to him "a father of many nations have I made you" (v. 17) which was the meaning of his new name "Abraham."

Thus, the true descendants of Abraham are not Jews who can trace their physical descent from Abraham and call him "our forefather according to the flesh" (v. 1), but Christians who (whether Jews or Gentiles) belong to the spiritual lineage of faith and can call Abraham "the father of us all" (v. 16).

Looking back over the first half of chapter 4, Paul has hammered home his insistence that Abraham was justified by faith. He was not justified by works, for it is written that he "believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." He was not justified by circumcision, for he was justified first and circumcised later. And he was not justified by law, because his believing response was to God's promise, not God's law, and in any case God's law was given centuries later.

We modern men and women need to have the same message hammered home to us, for our fallen nature is inherently proud, anxious to establish a claim on God, and deeply hostile to the concept of grace, whereas a Christian is precisely a self-condemned sinner who despairs of self-salvation, trusts only in God and thus becomes a child of Abraham.

2. The reasonableness of Abraham's faith (17-25).

The apostle has established that Abraham was justified by faith, and that Christians are those who share "the faith of Abraham" (v.16). But what was this faith of his? How did it arise? How did it grow! What was its rationale? Such questions come as a surprise to many people. They have never thought that faith could be "reasonable." On the contrary, they have always supposed that faith and reason were mutually exclusive, and that faith was a synonym for superstition.

This is not so. Faith goes beyond reason, but not against it. True faith always has a rational basis, and its reasonableness is well illustrated in the story of Abraham.

The principle is this. Faith means believing somebody's word or promise. Now behind every word is the person who speaks it. Behind every promise is the person who makes it. Whether it is reasonable to believe a person's word or promise depends entirely on his or her character. Is he or she trustworthy? That is the question. It is always reasonable to trust the trustworthy.

Now Paul refers in verse 17 to "Him whom he [Abraham] believed, even God." Who was this God whom Abraham trusted? What was he like? How did Abraham assess his credibility? Well, according to Paul, Abraham believed two fundamental truths about God, which led him to trust his promises. The first was his power, and the second his faithfulness.

Take power first. This is obviously relevant, because when anybody makes a promise, we have to know whether he has the ability, the power, to do what he has promised. What about God's power, then? Has he the power to keep his promises? You bet! See how Paul describes him at the end of verse 17. He is the God "who gives life to the dead" (that's resurrection) and who "calls into being that which does not exist" (that's creation).

We human beings are entirely baffled by nothingness and by death. The "angst" of the existentialist is his dread of the abyss of nothingness, and death is the one event none of us can forever escape. But God is not baffled by either. He creates out of nothing and he raises from death. And this God of creation and resurrection is the God Abraham believed in, as is evident from his story, especially the promise of the birth of Isaac and the command to sacrifice Isaac.

God promised Abraham a son when he was an old man of "about a hundred years old" (v.191, whose body was "as good as dead," and when Sarah was an old woman far beyond the age of childbearing. It would therefore take a supernatural act, a special creative act, for a child to be born to them. But Abraham believed God could do it, for he was the Creator who had called the universe into existence out of nothing.

Then, some years after Isaac's birth, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice him. The agony of this test was not just that Isaac was the son of his old age, his only son, precious and beloved, but that Isaac was also the child of promise, through whom alone God could fulfill his further promise to bless the world by Abraham's posterity. How could God keep this promise if Isaac were to die? The only possible answer to this question is given in the Letter to the Hebrews. Abraham "considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back, figuratively speaking" (11:19 margin). After all, Isaac's birth had seemed like life from the dead. Romans 4:19 refers both to Abraham's body which was "as good as dead" and to "the deadness of Sarah's womb." Yet out of that double death a new life had been born. If Isaac were to die, why should God not bring life out of death a second time?

The kind of God Abraham believed in, then, was the God of creation and the God of resurrection. This too is our God, except that we know far more than Abraham, for we live this side of the resurrection of Jesus, and we have a completed Bible in which both the creation of the world and the resurrection of Jesus are recorded for our instruction. They are, in fact, set before us in Scripture as the supreme exhibitions of the power of God.

Jeremiah said: "Ah, Lord God! Behold, Thou hast made the heavens and the earth by Thy great power and by Thine outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for Thee" (32:17). And Paul prayed that the eyes of our hearts might be enlightened so that we might know "what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe ... in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead" (Eph. 1:19-20).

If God has thus exhibited his almighty power, by creating the universe and by resurrecting the Lord Jesus, would it not be reasonable to believe that he is able to keep his promises?

But Abraham was convinced of the faithfulness, as well as of the power, of God. This too was vital for his faith. For there are two main reasons why we human beings break our promises. One is that we lack the ability or power to do what we promise; the other is that we lack the will, being fickle and unreliable creatures. But God has both the ability and the will, for he is faithful as well as powerful. Abraham believed this. Therefore, "In hope against hope he believed ... according to that which had been spoken." The expression "in hope against hope" is a remarkable one, isn't it? Although there was no hope, yet he went on hoping.

These two hopes seem to reflect the two possibilities, human' and divine. Humanly speaking, his faith was "beyond hope," "a defiance of all human calculations." Yet he still believed, "in hope," because he clung to the promise of God. Charles Wesley expressed this admirably in one of his well-known hymns:

In hope, against all human hope,
Self-desperate, I believe....
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities,
And cries: It shall be done!

Yes, clinging to the promise of God was Abraham's secret. Verse 19 describes him as not "becoming weak in faith," while verse 20 says that he "grew strong in faith." Scripture often indicates that there are different degrees of faith. Some people's faith is "weak"; others' is "strong." Similarly, Jesus could complain of the "little faith." of his own disciples and marvel at the "great faith" of a Gentile centurion.

How then can a little faith increase and a weak faith grow strong like Abraham's? Well, Abraham's faith grew as he used his mind. "He contemplated" both his senile body and Sarah's barren womb (for he did not close his eyes to the problems). But he also considered God's promise, for it was "with respect to the promise of God" that "he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God" (that is, acknowledging the truth about God's faithfulness). Thus, he set the problems in the light of the promise. And as his mind played on the promise, the problems were eclipsed by it. For he was "fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform" (v. 21), and therefore his faith was "reckoned to him as righteousness" (v. 22).

Thus faith rests as much on the faithfulness of God as on his power. There is a fine phrase in Hebrews 11:11 that Sarah "considered Him faithful who had promised." So central is this to the biblical meaning of faith that Hudson Taylor, the great founder of the China Inland Mission, used to paraphrase our Lord's command "have faith in God" (Mk. 11:22) with the words "reckon on the faithfulness of God." All human faith reckons and rests on the divine faithfulness.

Paul ends this chapter (vv. 22-25) by applying Abraham's faith to us. The statement of his justification was not written "for his sake only ... but for our sake also." For just like Abraham we too will be justified by faith if we "believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.... who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification."

Abraham's faith was a response to certain promises relating to Isaac; Christian faith is a response to certain events relating to Jesus, in particular his death and resurrection, and to the promises of salvation which are founded upon them. Behind these promises and these events stands the same living God. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and he is the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

More particularly, both the death and resurrection of Jesus were part of the divine purpose (v. 25). For he was "handed over" to death and then "raised" from it. Both are represented as divine actions. Because of our sins God handed him over to death, to deal with them. Because of our justification (which his death secured), God raised him from death, to prove it. This is the God we believe in, the God who displayed his love, holiness and power in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Is not such a God absolutely trustworthy, worthy of our faith?

H. L. Mencken, the so-called sage of Baltimore, once defined faith as "an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." His definition is witty, but inaccurate. True faith is neither illogical nor irrational, neither superstitious nor credulous. It is neither whistling in the dark to keep our spirits up, nor convincing ourselves to believe something we know isn't true. No, no. The reasonableness of faith is that it rests on the God who has revealed himself in the death and, resurrection of Jesus, who promises to save those who believe, and who keeps his promises. What, constitutes authentic faith is "not the sheer fact that one believes the improbable, the impossible, the absurd" but that we "hold to God's promise."

So let us stay our minds on this God—on his faithfulness, on his power as he has revealed himself in Christ and in Scripture. Then our faith will grow and ripen, and then we shall prove ourselves to be genuine descendants of our great spiritual forefather, Abraham.

Comments

Be the first one to add a comment.

To post a comment, please login or register

God's Righteousness (1979)

God's Word

Urbana Stories

See what happened at

December 27-31, 2009