Looking at Romans chapter 4 once
again, and we'll be here in Romans 4 for a few weeks. Last week
we looked at verse 1, down through verse 2. 6 and I read verse 7
and 8, but I'm going to go back and review for just a moment.
Let me give you this introduction. There is a word that is repeated
in Romans 4 at least 10 times. The same word, repeated at least
10 times. It's given in three different
words, but in the original it's all the same word. Now when you
read Romans chapter 4, the word that's the same in the original,
is given counted, reckoned, and imputed. Did you notice that?
It's given ten times. Ten times. But it all means the
same thing. The word also, same word, is
given in other places, it's given this word, accounted. Accounted. Accounted. Now, counted, reckoned,
and imputed. are words that declare unto us
one of the primary principle truths of the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Three things. Adam's sin was
charged to you, reckoned, counted to you. We're going to see that
in Romans chapter 5, aren't we? By one man, sin entered into
this world, Death by sin, and so death passed upon all men,
for in Adam all have sinned. His sin, what he did, was reckoned,
imputed, and counted to you personally." Personally. That is the principle
truth of what we call total depravity. The second thing where this principle
of imputation is given, our sin, that is the sin of God's elect,
was charged, reckoned, laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And we
could use the word impute. It's the same, same truth. Our
sin was accounted or laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, is
that important? Absolutely. We'd have no pardon. We'd have no righteousness without
Christ dying for our sin. So, we read in 1 Peter 2.24 that
the Lord Jesus Christ bare our sin in His own body on the tree. Now, how could he do that? He
could not do that unless the Father had laid upon him or charged
to him all the sin of God's people. He stood guilty on account of
our sin being laid upon him. Now, he committed no sin himself. Had no sin, knew no sin, did
no sin. He's the spotless Lamb of God.
But we see our sin was reckoned and counted to be His sin. Matter of fact, in Psalm 40,
He calls our sin His own. Our own, my own iniquity. And
then the third thing where this thing of reckoning counted and
imputed is taught in the gospel, the righteousness of Christ is
charged, reckoned unto you. That's what we read in Romans
4 verse 6. Blessed is a man unto whom God
imputeth. Righteousness without work. Now this is the good news of
the gospel. We have a justifying righteousness
before God in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is made to us righteousness. God made him to be sin for us. who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. You see, that's the
gospel. You take away imputation, you
take away that reckoning and accounting, you just take that
out of the gospel. You don't have a gospel, do you?
You see how important this principle is, one of the foundation principles
of the gospel, this thing of imputation. Now we need, Not
only sin put away, and the Lord Jesus Christ completely and fully
did that, and we must insist upon what the Scripture says,
that He put away the sin of God's people, and He did that by the
sacrifice of Himself. We need not only our sin put
away, but we also need a justifying righteousness charged unto us. So we need, what? Redemption,
deliverance from sin, and what else do we need? Righteousness. Now, that is all summed up in
Christ. He is our righteousness. He is
our redemption. You see, He that hath the Son
hath all things. All things in Christ. Now Abraham
and David and every believer enjoy and enjoys the full blessings
of the Gospel in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. The same
blessedness that Abraham had. Abraham was called the friend
of God. The same blessedness that David
enjoyed, God said of David, he's a man after my own heart. David and Abraham both were believers
who had faith given to them. They didn't believe the gospel
naturally. No man does because the carnal
mind is enmity against God. We love darkness, not light. That's why faith has to be the
sovereign gift of God. We do not possess it by nature. Now, I want to revisit briefly
verse 6, 7, and 8. I touched on this last week.
Even as David also describes the blessedness. Now this comes
from Psalm 32. David writing by the inspiration
of God, the sweet psalmist of Israel, he says, the man who
is a blessed man is a man who enjoys this righteousness that's
reckoned, this righteousness that's imputed. Imputeth righteousness,
and it is without work. Verse 7, saying, Not only are
we righteous, but blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven
and whose sins are covered. Now, if you go back and read
Psalm 32, he talked about our transgression, our iniquities,
and our sin. Now, they're all sort of describing
the same thing. But sin is what we are. Transgression
is what we do. We transgress against God in
His law. And iniquities, as someone defined
that is, are inadequate. That is, we have not honored
God as we should have. Our iniquities, our iniquities. That is, we should not, we did
not do what we should have done. We should have honored God fully,
but we're inadequate to do so. Our iniquities. Our iniquities,
our sins are forgiven. They're forgiven. They are forgiven. Now, who said so? God says so. The sin of God's
elect, who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect, it
is God that justifies. Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not charge you, will not impute. You see that in verse 8? He will
not charge you with sin. Now, that's the best news a sinner
has ever heard. God will not charge me with my
sin. He can't. Because the Lord Jesus
Christ has fully took all the sin of God's people and answered
for it completely. Answered for it fully. The blood
of Christ cleanses us from all our sin. Sadly, in our day, this blessed
truth of God giving sinners and imputing and charging to their
account a justifying righteousness is not being taught. in most
churches today. Matter of fact, if you would
ask someone, some of your religious friends, do they teach down where
you go about a righteousness that God freely imputes unto
his people? And they'll look at you and go,
huh? Most people have never, ever
preached or believed this righteousness that's taught in the scripture
and how God reckons and imputes that unto us. Rather, most of
the time, in most churches, they teach a righteousness or a holiness
by what you do. As a matter of fact, they even
have churches called holiness churches. or some other kind
of church. And it's based upon a holiness,
based upon what you do. Based upon what you do. Holy,
holy, holy. Now, the Apostle Paul deals with
that in Romans 10, doesn't he? He said to those Jews, they being
ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish
their own righteousness, Romans 10 verse 3, and the reason they
do that It's because they have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. Now remember I pointed out that
is one of the key phrases in the book of Romans is the righteousness
of God. And that again is talking about
that righteousness that God reckons and imputes unto His people. Now, we want to be careful here
about trusting things and doctrine rather than Christ. In other
words, it's not right for a believer to say, well, I'm just trusting,
I'm just trusting the imputed righteousness of Christ. That's
not a good statement. I'm trusting, but rather we should
say it this way, I'm trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
my righteousness, and I have that by God reckoning that to
my account. So we're not trusting And I wouldn't
diminish any truth about doctrine, but we're not trusting doctrine. We're trusting the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is the Lord, our righteousness. Now, blessed is
that man to whose iniquities and sins are forgiven and covered
by the blood atonement of Christ. Now, it's pretty hard to cover
up a crime, isn't it? And if you watch these crime
shows, these detectives are smart. And they have got things and
tools at their hands. They can discover a crime and
they even know it points to the one who committed the crime.
And people often try to cover up their crime, don't they? They
try to cover up their sin. Most of the time, they don't
get away with it. Sometimes maybe, maybe they do. But I tell you this, our sin,
all of our sin is completely covered up. Will never be discovered. God said their sin and their
iniquity will I remember no more. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
put away our sin. It doesn't exist. God said it's
cast behind my back. God said it's cast into the depths
of the sea, total darkness, total blackness in the depths of the
sea. You remember that airliner that went down some years ago
in the Indian Ocean? They've never found it. They've
never found it. It's down in the depths of the
sea, the blackness of the sea. Now, someday they may find it. But my friend, when it comes
to someone finding the sin of God's people, they'll never find
it. I like what David said in Psalm 103. He has separated our
sin from us as far as the east is from the west. East never
meets west. That's pretty for a priest, isn't
it? He has totally put away our sin. Blessed is the man to whom
the Lord will not impute sin, all of the sin of God's people
completely covered, because the Lord Jesus Christ has already
made full satisfaction. Now, what does God's justice
require? Full satisfaction. You can't
meet it, I can't meet it, no man can. But the Lord Jesus Christ
did. He fully satisfied God in every
aspect of His law, every precept, and in every penalty. He fully
paid our sin debt, He fully put away our sin, He fully honored
the law of God, and He fully made complete atonement. Now
since the Lord Jesus Christ has done that for His people, He
has performed all things for us. I like what it says in the
book of Daniel chapter nine. He has brought in an everlasting
righteousness for us. So in him, we have all spiritual
blessing. We are reconciled to God in Christ
Jesus saying that he will not impute our trespasses unto us. We are redeemed, delivered from
the power of sin, from the penalty of sin. One day we'll be delivered
from the very presence of sin, in whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sin, according to the riches
of His grace. And then we have that blessed, blessed righteousness
that we enjoy. The righteousness, now it's just
not the righteousness of the church. It's not the righteousness
of some man. It is the very righteousness
of God given to his people. Now that's a blessing. That is
a blessing. One old writer, commentator years
ago, one of the oldest that we have around, Matthew Poole, said,
there is an offense against God which is forgiven. There is a
filthiness of sin which is covered. There is a guilt that is not
imputed. Our guilt was charged to Christ
and He made full satisfaction. The law of God executed Him.
Now, the law of God got no claim on us. You take a man that has
committed a capital crime in the state of Kentucky, say he
committed first degree murder, and the penalty of that murder
is death. Death. They have a trial, the evidence
is presented, the jury deliberates, they come back with a verdict,
and the judge says, guilty. What does the law say? The law
says the guilty must die. Execution day comes, and the
law of the state of Kentucky puts that man to death. Now,
after he dies, Does the law have any claim on that man now? No. The law has to remain silent
because it's satisfied. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did for us. You see the point? He satisfied
the law. The law of God has no claim against
the believer. The law of God can no longer
say, guilty. You know what the law of God
has to say? Satisfied. vindicated, justified in Christ
Jesus. That is good news. Good news. Now, verse 9 of Romans chapter
4. Now, he talks, he described that
blessedness we have in Christ. And then he said, this blessedness,
does it come upon the Jew only or upon the uncircumcision also? Now, he makes a comparison of
Jew and Gentile. Jew and Gentile. For we say that
faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. Now what he's
saying is true. Faith was reckoned to Abraham
for righteousness. Now this blessedness of salvation
in Christ, the forgiveness of all sin, the righteousness that's
imputed in the gospel is not only for the religious Jew, It's
just not reserved for the religious Jew, but also for the pagan Gentile. For us. For us. To make his case
that salvation is all of grace in Christ, Paul goes back to
Abraham to demonstrate this. Faith was reckoned to him for
righteousness. Now remember, Faith is the means
to receive Christ who is the Lord our righteousness. Now,
don't make a mistake by thinking that faith is righteousness. Christ is our righteousness.
Faith receives Him who is the Lord our righteousness. We enjoy righteousness by believing,
not by Working. Look down at verse 13 of Romans
4. For the promise that he should
be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed
through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. The righteousness of faith. You
see, true saving faith finds its delight and blessedness in
the object of that faith. What is the object of that faith? Well, it's not my feelings, it's
not tradition, it's not ceremony. The object of that faith is what?
Christ. Looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the author and finisher of our faith. Now, so look at
verse 10. How was it reckoned then? How
was it given? How was it imputed? How was it
then accounted? You see the word reckoned? Again,
it's the same word now in the original. Accounted. Imputed. How was it given? Charged
Abraham. When he was in circumcision or
in uncircumcision? Well, the answer comes back.
Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. Now, why does he make that such
a big point? Here's the issue. Did Abraham merit righteousness
by being circumcised? You see, that would make salvation
by works, wouldn't it? So that's the point he's trying
to make here. Salvation is by grace alone, faith alone. Now let's go back and look at
verse 10 for just a moment. When was Abraham justified before
God? After he was circumcised? or
before. He was justified before God 15
years before he received that covenant, that sign of circumcision. 15 years. So he was justified
before he was circumcised. Does that make sense? Now, is
it any different today? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Now Paul is making the point
here that no works of any kind or church ordinance today have
anything to do with salvation. Fundamentalism has made a big,
big mistake. I talk about the fundamentalists
in religion. They have made faith, repentance,
and baptism a work to merit salvation. And they're dead wrong. They're
dead wrong. Faith is the fruit of salvation. Repentance is the fruit of salvation. Baptism is simply acknowledging
that Christ is all of our salvation. Therefore, faith, repentance,
and baptism have nothing to do with a sinner being justified
before God. Now, if you said that in a fundamental
Baptist church, they'd run you out of town on a rail. Because
they think that they've merited salvation by something they have
done. Rather than the grace of God
alone. It's the grace of God. And that's
the point that Paul is making here. Abraham was justified 15
years before he was circumcised. God said he was justified. God
said, I've given that man a justifying righteousness. I've put away
all of his sin by the blood atonement of Christ. I've saved him by
grace alone. Now, verse 11. You know, the
Jews had a most, most difficult time with this. If you read Acts
chapter 15, I've pointed this out over the years. We've studied
through the book of Acts twice. And at some point when we get
through Romans, along about 2025, we'll go back over the book of
Acts. But if you read carefully Acts
chapter 15, those Jews who said they believed Christ and were
trusting Christ, those old self-righteous Jews had such a problem with
the law that they could not get shed of it. They said this, the
law and circumcision. You remember Acts 15.1. They
said, except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you
really can't be saved. You really can't be justified
unless you're circumcised. You remember they had that big
conference and Peter stood up and said, we believe, this is
Acts 15.11, we believe through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that God is going to save us, us Jews, exactly the same way
that He saved those pagan Gentiles. We believe through the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ that we shall be saved even as others. Now, verse 11. I'm about to wind
this up. He received the sign of circumcision. as a seal or a token and a pledge
of the righteousness of faith, which he had yet being..." Again,
he emphasizes this thing of being. "...he had the righteousness
of faith, being an uncircumcised man." Now remember where God
found Abraham now. His name was Abram. He was raised
in idolatry, his father, and he was. When Abram was 75 years
old, God called him out. And God holds him forth as an
example and a pattern. What he's showing here is a pattern
of grace. God shows a pattern that he might
be the father of all them that believe. Or a pattern or picture
or type of how God saves sinners of all them that believe, though
they be not circumcised. Now, circumcision in our day
is a matter of when a child is born over in the hospital, they
circumcise the child, not for religious purposes, do they?
They do it for health purposes, but not for religious purposes.
But those old Jews, they did that for a religious purpose. And this thing of circumcision,
really, that God gave to Abraham, is a type and picture of what
God does in the heart. So, we think of circumcision,
naturally speaking, it's an operation, right, that someone else does
upon the person. You remember over here in Romans
2? Romans 2. You see, circumcision is a picture
of regeneration. It's an operation of God that
He does upon the heart. So, circumcision represents spiritually
regeneration. We are circumcised in the heart.
Look what it says in Romans 2. For He is not a Jew, verse 28,
which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is
outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew, which is one
inwardly. Now, he's talking here about
a true covenant child. God's spiritual elect. That's
who the Jew is here. Remember, Paul said in Philippians
3, 3, We are the true Israel, which worship God in the Spirit,
that rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have no confidence in
the flesh. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and that circumcision
is of the heart. God has operated on our heart,
in the Spirit, not in the litter, whose praise is not of men, but
who is of God. Paul writes about this in 2 Corinthians.
or rather Colossians 2, in whom also we are circumcised with
the circumcision made without hands, and in putting off the
body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision or by the
operation of God upon the heart. Now, verse 12, And the father
of circumcision to them who were not of circumcision only, but
who also walk in the steps of the faith of Abraham." Walking
in the steps of the faith of Abraham. The Lord said, Abraham
rejoiced to see My day. He saw it and was glad. which he had yet being circumcised,
walking in the steps of Abraham, and that is looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ alone for all of salvation. Without faith it is
impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe
that he is, and that he is rewarder of them that diligently seek
him."