All right, Psalm 32. Let's read
through this psalm together. There's only 11 verses. In verse
1, it begins this way. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no guile. When I kept silence, my bones
waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and
night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into
the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin
unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord. And thou forgavest
the iniquity of my sin. Selah. For this shall everyone
that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be
found. Surely, in the floods of great waters, they shall not
come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place. Thou
shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with
songs of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct thee and
teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with
mine eye. Be not as the horse, or as the
mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with
bit and bridle, lest they come near to thee. Many sorrows shall
be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall
compass him about. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
you righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright
in heart. Okay, so you'll recognize this
psalm right away, as the Psalm of David is quoted in Romans
chapter four. And you can see in this psalm
that it has to do with our sins. It has to do with God's passing
over our sins, and it has to do with the confession of our
sins. When we confess our sins, it's spoken of as what all of
the godly do when it says in verse six, for this shall everyone
that is godly pray unto thee. This confession of sins and this
coming to God, trusting him to take away our sins. And so this
is such a common experience, a great desire among God's people
that we can easily identify with it. And the first two verses
especially are explained in the New Testament. In verse one and
two it says, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit is no guile.
This describes a man justified by God. And so I want to turn
to Romans chapter four where this is explained and pick up
the explanation there in the New Testament. In Romans chapter
four, the apostle Paul is giving an example of what he had declared
in chapter three to be how God justifies sinners. In Romans
3, in verse 20, it says we cannot be justified by our own personal
obedience to God's holy law. It reads this way in Romans 3,
20. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh
be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of
sin. The law brings all people, all
who are born to Adam under the guilt, the charge of guilt for
their sin. In verse 19 it says, we know
that whatever the law says, it says to them who are under the
law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty
before God. The law doesn't make us sinners,
but it finds us to be sinners by presenting to us God's holiness
in requirements placed upon us. And we can't keep those requirements.
And verse 20 says, the law therefore cannot justify us because we're
sinners. And how deep our sin goes is
explained in what comes before, verse 20, in all of the Book
of Romans, before chapter three, verse 20. But in verse 21 it
says, but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon
all them that believe, for there is no difference. So in light
of the fact that we're sinners and in light of the fact that
we cannot rid ourselves of our guilt and that we cannot keep
God's law in order to come before God and find approval or acceptance
by God because of what we are or because of what we do, we
cannot make an argument that will cause God to accept us. We just can't do it, not by anything
we've done, not by anything we will do someday. None of those
arguments will avail with God's justice. If we're going to be
saved, it has to be by another way, and God reveals that way.
It's the righteousness of God, and that righteousness is in
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Romans 3, in verse 22, it
says, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there
is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. And here's the verse that really highlights
the conclusion. He says, being justified freely,
by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So our
justification is entirely by God. It's by His grace, and it's
on the basis or through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. All
right, so then in chapter four, the apostle Paul, by the Spirit
of God, is now going to convince believers, those that God has
opened the gospel to, he's going to explain to them and prove
from the Old Testament that this was always the way of salvation.
This is not a new thing. And so what he does is he uses
the patriarch Abraham as the example. Abraham lived in Ur
of the Chaldees. His family were idolaters. This
is explained in Acts chapter seven. And before he ever left
that land, God appeared to him. And God told him to come out.
He promised to give him an inheritance. He promised Abraham, in Genesis
chapter 12 and verse 3, that through his seed, through Christ,
God would justify the heathen. And this is exactly the state
that Abraham was in when God appeared to him while he was
in Ur of the Chaldees. So the explanation of how we
are justified before God is perfectly illustrated by Abraham because
he's the one God holds up to us of how a man is justified
apart from works. And so that's what chapter four
is going to do. And this is why we're going here, is because
chapter four of Romans quotes Psalm 32. And therefore, in quoting
it, it explains those first two verses and helps us to understand
the entire Psalm. That's why I want to look at
this chapter. Romans chapter four, in verse one, he says,
what shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to
the flesh, hath found? In other words, if we consider
Abraham and what he discovered, what he was taught, what he learned
concerning his own abilities, his own natural abilities, what
he could do himself in his flesh, what do we learn? That's the
question put forth. What did he find concerning his
own flesh? I mean, he's the father of all
the Jews. because through him was born
Isaac, and through Isaac, Jacob, and through Jacob, the 12 sons
of Jacob, all the patriarchs that were the heads of the nation
of Israel, and through the nation of Israel, Christ came. So these
were the Jews. Abraham was the first one that
God gave this promise to in this way. So what did Abraham find? Because if the father of all
of the Jews was saved in this way, then that means that all
who claim to be Jews also have to be saved in this way. And so the first thing he asks
is, what did he find concerning his own flesh? Now you remember,
Abraham was old. God had promised to him that
he was going to give him a son, and that through his son Christ
would be born, and that through Christ he would justify those
who were heathen. And so when this promise was
given to Abraham, what was his condition? Well, he was 75 when
God first called him, but Sarah couldn't have children. And then
God gave the promise and nothing happened. Abraham and Sarah,
there was no miracle performed. They didn't have any children
until 25 years later when he was 100 and Sarah was 90. So concerning his flesh, concerning
Abraham's own ability, he could not bring the promise of God
to pass. He was entirely helpless to bring
to pass God's promise, blessing, that Christ would come and would
justify the heathen. Now this is the physical circumstance,
this is a physical situation that sets up the teaching of
how we are saved, how we're justified before God. Abraham had no ability
whatsoever, and in fact, it calls his body now dead in this chapter
itself, in this very chapter. It says in verse 19, if you look
at Romans 4, 19, he says, being not weak in faith, he considered
not his own body now dead. when he was about 100 years old,
neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. So Abraham couldn't have
children, his wife couldn't have children. Therefore, it teaches
that concerning his own natural ability, he had none. He was
dead to bearing children. He couldn't produce life. He
couldn't produce the promise. He couldn't bring it to pass.
He was utterly dependent upon God doing all through this. So that's the context here. But specifically, he's talking
about Abraham here with regards to his justification. And this
also was part of the historical account God gave concerning Abraham
in the book of Genesis. When God spoke of Abraham in
Genesis 12, he goes on to speak about him. And when he gets to
chapter 15 of Genesis, he appears to Abraham and he tells him,
I am your shield and your exceeding great reward. So this was a blessing. He didn't deserve it. And so
when God spoke this to him, he said, I am your shield, I'm your
exceeding great reward. And shortly after that, he said,
look to the stars, count them if you can. And Abraham considers
the number of stars he sees, and God tells him, so shall your
seed be. Your seed, those who would come
through you, those who would be born through you. Abraham
had no children. And God made this promise. And
this promise that God made to him was concerning the fact that
not only would he have many children, but the child born to him would
justify the heathen. And so Abraham, hearing this,
understood what God's meaning was, and he believed the Lord.
And God said in Genesis chapter 15 and verse six that God imputed
it to him, it counted it to him for righteousness. And so, what
God considered concerning Abraham was that he was righteous, and
God said this to him then, before he was circumcised, before he
had children, before Christ came into the world, it was all before
Abraham could do anything. And that's what's being talked
about here. So let's read this now. He says again, the first
verse, What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining
to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham were justified
by works, so this is the issue, justification, if he were justified
before God, obviously, if God could justify him by works, then,
or if he were justified by works, then he has whereof to glory. He has something to boast in,
but not before God. So if Abraham, by what he could
do, could be justified before God, to be declared by God to
be utterly righteous in his sight, and acceptable, and approved,
and God was able to allow him into his presence, could be at
peace with him, all these things, if that could be done by what
Abraham could do himself in his own personal obedience, because
that's what works means here, then Abraham would be able to
boast because by his works he gained approval from God. But he couldn't boast before
God. That's what this verse is saying
in verse two. But not before God. And why? Well, this is the first principle.
No one can have personal pride before God. No one can be proud
before God. No one can boast before God. They cannot glory. That's the
first principle. Why can no one boast before God?
Well, because God created him. God made him. God gave him what
he has. We don't have anything. Our breath,
our life, everything is in God's hands. What do we have that we
haven't received? Of Him and through Him and to
Him are all things. In Him we live and move and have
our being. God who created the world is
not worshipped with men's hands as though He needed anything.
He gives to all life, breath, and all things." So those are
words from Scripture in order to teach us that everything we
have belongs to God. And what we give to God, or what
we do, must come from God first, so that we're only giving Him
what is already His. The song, I Found a Friend, O
Such a Friend, He Loved Me Ere I Knew Him, that song that we
sing, one of the verses in it says, Not that I have, I call
my own. Nothing that I have, I call my
own. I hold it for the giver. My heart, my strength, my life,
my all are His and His forever. So this is an expression in the
hymn of what is true from scripture that what we give to God is already
His that He gave to us. It's like a little child giving
his father something that his father had to give to him first.
His clothes, his food, everything that the son has. was given first
by the father and when he gives it back to his dad on Father's
Day and he's five years old, he's just returning to his father
what his father already provided. So much infinitely more what
we give to God must come from God. So the first principle is
no one can boast before God. No one can stand up and say,
I did this. No one can claim that God owes
them something because God cannot owe anybody since he gives to
all. He gives. We owe Him. He doesn't
owe us. That's the first principle here.
So, repeating this verse, if Abraham were justified by what
he does or by his works, then he has something to boast about,
but not before God. You can boast before men, but
not God. And verse three, for what saith
the scripture? Now he's going to not only refer
to this first principle that no one can boast before God,
he's going to bring the most powerful, the most fundamental
source of truth known, the only source of truth that we have,
which is Scripture. You can't go any more basic than this. You can't say, well, I know this
is true because of something even more primary than this.
because I experienced it, for example, or because some scientist
said it, or because I can feel it. or because I have come to
this on my own intellectual skill. None of those things discover
truth. God has to reveal it. So he refers to the scripture
because this is God's word and God is the God of truth, as we
saw in Psalm 31. He says, for what saith the scripture?
Abraham believed God. Now that's contrasted with what?
if Abraham were justified by works. So these two are held
in contrast. Abraham, according to the flesh,
what did he find? If he were justified by works,
then he would have something to boast. That cannot happen.
Therefore, he could not have been justified by works because
that would be to boast before God. And not only that, the scripture
says explicitly that Abraham believed God, which is not works. He believed God and it was counted
to him for righteousness. So this word counted here is
the word impute, or we see it in scripture in a number of ways,
which we're going to see here in a minute. But the point here
is that we see the first principle, no one boasts before God. The
second principle, scripture says Abraham was not justified by
works because he just believed God and God counted righteousness
to him. And then in verse four, he says,
he goes on in the argument here that it's not by our works. He
says, now to him that worketh, the one who works in order to
be justified, the one who works in order to find acceptance with
God, approval with God, to obtain blessing from God, life from
God, to avoid condemnation from God. The one who works, notice
in verse four, to him that worketh is the reward, the compensation,
not reckoned of grace, but of debt. You see? So if you're working
to get, then you make God your debtor. You're saying that by
your work that God owes this to me. And you're not trying
to get it. You're not coming to God as Abraham
did and hearing the promise with God-given persuasion that God's
promise is going to bring about his will. God's promise is the
way I receive this gift. And it's a gift and not something
I can earn. That's the contrast here, the
one who works versus the one who doesn't work but believes
God. Those two are contrasted here.
The one who works, that compensation to him is counted as a debt because
he makes God his debtor, but God can't be his debtor, so everything
he does puts him further into debt. Let's go on and read in
verse 5, but to him that worketh not. Now this describes faith. This describes what we do when
we believe Christ. To him that worketh not. but
believeth." So this one who believes does what? He does not work.
He abandons all attempts. He forsakes. He gives up any
attempt to earn God's favor, to take away his own sin, to
do what God requires for a righteousness that God will approve. He doesn't
do anything for those things. What does he do? Through the
one who worketh not, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness." And we'll talk about this phrase,
his faith was counted for righteousness in a minute, but I want you to
understand, first of all, the contrast here. There's a worker
and there's a not worker. There's one who works and then
there's one who believes. There's one who receives a reward,
a compensation for what he does, and that amounts to his own personal
debt to God. because he tried to make God
his debtor, put him further into debt. And then there's the one
who doesn't do anything but receives God's gift freely because it
all came from God's grace, meaning God found the reason in himself
and paid the debt required in order to give it freely. He paid
the price for it. And so this one who doesn't work,
coming without working, hearing the promise of God concerning
justification and righteousness, and simply believing God. Faith doesn't do anything. It
just looks to God. It's the full persuasion that
what he promised he was able to perform. That one, he says,
his faith is counted for righteousness. And to put it concisely, it means
the one he believed The promise believed is counted to him for
righteousness, not his act of believing, because our act of
believing is always sinful. We always have some amount of
doubt. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Or the disciples,
Lord, increase our faith. But this faith, saving faith,
is saving because of the object. not because of the strength of
my personal subjective faith. And I use this illustration many
times before because I heard it when I was younger and it
stuck with me. It's like a man who ventures to put the weight
of himself, his whole body, on the ice. And he doesn't know
if the ice can hold him up. So he's very apprehensive and
tentative. He holds back until the person
who grows up in an area where you can walk on a frozen lake
or a river convinces him, you can put your full weight on the
ice. And so finally, when he does that, and the ice holds
him up, It's not because he believed the ice would hold him up, but
because the ice was thick enough to hold him up. Because the object
of his faith was able to keep him from drowning. And so, what
we believe, it's the object of our faith, not our own, the strength
of our faith or the purity of our faith, but the object of
it, which is Christ and him crucified, if he's thick enough, if he's
able to save us, then our faith is true, and our faith, meaning
Christ, will save us. And that's what God imputed to
Abraham for righteousness. The promised blessing, which
was Christ and him crucified for the justification of the
ungodly, was promised to Abraham. Abraham understood that. Abraham
was fully persuaded of it. He was persuaded that what God
promised, he was able also to bring about, not only concerning
the birth of Isaac through Sarah, but the fact that God through
Isaac would bring Christ into the world, and then Christ himself
would justify his people. That's what Abraham saw, and
we know that from Galatians chapter three and four, and we know it
from John chapter eight, And obviously in this place, that's
the object of Abraham's faith because he's dealing with righteousness
imputed for justification. And so notice here in verse five,
the object of faith. To him that worketh not, he puts
aside all attempts to earn God's favor. He puts away the fear
of the wrath of God against him for the guilt of his own sin
because of this, what follows. He doesn't work, but he believes
on him that justifies the ungodly. What is the object of our faith?
It's God who justifies the ungodly. Notice this. That man's faith
is counted for righteousness, the one he believes, what he
believes about him, the promise he made, the work he accomplished,
all of it. See, faith is a self-emptying
grace. When God gives us faith, it causes
us to give all credit to Christ in salvation. So we don't have
to be concerned about attributing to faith a righteousness of itself,
because faith says, no, no, everything is done by Christ. All of my
acceptance and approval and blessing and justification and sanctification
and forgiveness and righteousness, everything is found in him. I
have nothing, nothing at all, except my sin, and I can't produce
a righteousness. That's what faith is saying.
Just like Abraham said, I have no strength in my flesh, nothing
there. Now, here's where we pick up
from Psalm chapter 32. Look at verse six. Even as David
also describeth the blessedness of the man, now notice how he
describes this man, the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works. Saying, so this is an imputation
and it's righteousness without him doing anything for it. Therefore,
it's gotta be a gift of grace, right? Verse seven, saying, this
is what David said in Psalm 32, blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now what do you notice about
these verses here? One of the things you'll notice
is this. It has to do with a sinner, doesn't it? It has to do with
someone who has iniquities, they must be forgiven, who has sins
that must be covered, and the one to whom the Lord will not
impute sin. And so, if you think about it,
you could say that the argument was God justifies those who have
no positive obedience. And that's a bold claim. But
this is even a bolder claim, because he's saying it's even
more grace than that. Because not only is it a man
who has no obedience that God can accept, but it is a man who
is full of sin. He's ungodly, he's sinful, he
has iniquity, he has transgressed God's law. God justifies that
man and that is a blessed man. That's what he's saying here
in these verses. So you can see now that the argument says no
man can boast before God, no man can bring to God something
that will make God his debtor. Man can't earn from God. God
gives everything, and especially in the matter of our acceptance
before Him. If we're going to be accepted
before God, this is what is being taught here, in this chapter
and throughout Scripture, if we're ever going to be accepted
by God, which is the same as being saved by God, God has to
save us. He has to justify us. And how
does God do that? He justifies the ungodly, those
who are sinners, those who have iniquity, those who have transgression.
And this describes me. This is why I can hope. This is why I have confidence
in God's justifying work in Christ. Because I'm a sinner. I have
nothing. I can do nothing. And God prevents
me. He draws a line here. Don't you
dare. Because if you trust in what
you do, what you can become, what you can do someday, some
level of performance that you can rise to, then you're trusting
in your works. And you will become a debtor.
In fact, you're not only going to be a debtor, you are now a
debtor. And you can't get out of that
debt. The only way we can be righteous before God and that
God would then pass his sentence of justified upon us is if God
credits us with, if he considers the righteousness of Christ to
be ours. So that God looks upon Christ
and he receives us for his sake. Now, I don't know how to say
it more clearly than that. And God forgive me for not making
it even more clear. But God does not consider our
performance. He does not consider our obedience.
He has to take away our sin in order to justify us. He has to
make us completely acceptable in the presence of His glory
without blame, without fault, perfectly righteous. And how
does he do that? He looks upon his son and he
finds a perfect obedience. He looks upon his son's blood
shedding and he finds a perfect washing for our sins. All of
our sins removed and a positive obedience. in the obedience of
Christ. That's what this righteousness
is that God imputes to us. It's what Christ has done and
what God thinks about Him. It's not what God thinks about
us, it's what He thinks about Christ for us. That's what this
means here, this imputation. And so I want to get into this
a little bit more in the coming lessons on Psalm 32, because
I want to take a little bit more time to go through how God uses
this term to impute or imputation, or he imputed to him. Because
in this chapter, if you look forward, if you look forward
in chapter four, it says here, and I'm gonna read from verse
19, He says, Abraham, be not weak in faith. Now, when we think
about this, we naturally think of ourselves being weak in faith,
don't we? But remember, the only way you
can be strong in faith, if you see that it's all Christ. If you think that you have to
produce something in order to be strong in faith, then you've
missed the whole concept of faith. Faith is seeing all of my strength,
all of my merit, all of my value in the eyes of God in another.
As Horatius Bonar said, and I love to quote this, he says, upon
a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, another's life,
another's death I stake my whole eternity. And so he says in verse
19, be not weak in faith, He considered not his own body,
now dead, when he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness
of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise
of God, which seemed like, in all human perception, it seemed
like this is impossible. How could a man 100 years old
have a child? Here's a greater question. How
could that child justify the ungodly? That's what he believed. God said it. He staggered not
at the promise of God. God said, this is the way I save. Not through unbelief, but he
was strong in faith, giving glory to God. That's what faith does.
It ascribes everything in salvation to God. And being fully persuaded,
not about himself, being fully persuaded that what he had promised,
he was able also to perform. Therefore, it was imputed to
him for righteousness. Abraham was given the grace to
see things as God sees them. God looks to Christ for his people,
for everything. Abraham looked to Christ for
himself, for everything, and for Sarah. and God says he's
a righteous man. Not because he looked, but because
of Christ and his righteousness that God showed to him. That
righteousness is what God looked to. That's what God considered
in justifying Abraham and all of his people. And the faith
that Abraham had was the gift of God because the righteousness
was already established. So faith is God's gift that flows
to us with all of the blessings of God because of the righteousness
of Christ. He goes on. Verse 22, therefore
it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for his
sake alone. This whole account about Abraham
was not just for Abraham. It was for every believer. It
was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to
him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe
on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. See, what's
the object of our faith? God the Father who raised up
Christ. And here's the summary, the conclusion of the matter.
who was delivered by God the Father for our offenses, he was
delivered up to death, he suffered the punishment our sins deserve,
and he was raised again for our justification. What did Christ
do to justify us? God delivered him up. He submitted
to that. He pledged himself to do all
that his people owed in order to take their sins from them
and establish for them a righteousness before God. In doing that, And
it says, he was delivered for our offenses, having been delivered,
of course, he took them away. God was satisfied with him and
with his offering of himself to God. And he was raised again
for our justification. We were justified in the resurrection
of Christ. We therefore are raised with
him. The spirit of God is given to
us so that our spirit is made alive and we're enabled by God's
spirit to believe Christ. And we hear this, God is saying
this from his word and God gives us faith through his word. The power of God's Holy Spirit
applied to our hearts through the word preaching Christ gives
us this persuasion. That's the way Abraham believed.
God said it, he was persuaded that God who said it was true,
that he would fulfill his promise, he could do it, it was all on
him. He put all of the weight of the
accomplishment of the impossible on God who promised, who calls
things which be not as though they were, who says, I'm just reading back here,
he calls, he quickens the dead, God raises the dead, and he calls
things that we don't see as being so, as so. They're not yet done,
God says it's done. And that's the gospel. God has
said that by Christ he justifies his people. We don't see it with
physical eyes. But in believing it, God says
also he raises the dead. And when we believe it, we know
we've been raised to spiritual life. And so when David writes
these things in Psalm 32, he's emphasizing the great and wonderful
truth that we believe. This is the truth that causes
us to have confidence. This is the truth that gives
us peace. in our heart with God. This is the truth by which we
have access to God. This is the truth on which we
stand in life. Everything hinges on this. If
we believe on what God has said, if we believe God concerning
Christ and what he has done for us in our justification, our
life will exhibit this peace and joy, this calm assurance,
this standing upon Christ in every trouble. That's what Romans
5 goes on to say. So that we will actually glory
in tribulations. Because of what? Because we know
we're accepted in Christ by God, that God did this. We don't work
for it, we rest in it. And this is what David was referring
to. Who more qualified to speak about God imputing righteousness
to sinners than David? He was a man whose life was riddled
with sin, and it was evident. God kept those things in scriptures
in order to teach us this. And don't you feel so much comfort
to be able to stand alongside David as a sinner and say, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. It's all for
Christ's sake. God delivered him for our offenses
and raised him again for our justification. Let's pray.