Now let's open our Bibles back
to Romans chapter 4. Romans chapter 4. The title of my message this
morning is Imputed Righteousness. Imputed Righteousness. Now we
read about that in Romans chapter 4 here in verse 6 where he quotes
from Psalm 32. The Apostle Paul, by inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, quotes from the Psalm, Psalm 32, where David,
King David, wrote about a blessedness. That's a blessedness that comes
from God. And it's a blessedness that God
gives by His grace to a man. And not just the one man now,
but David speaking of himself in Psalm 32. And he's ascribing
his own blessedness, his own salvation unto God. And David described the blessedness,
verse 6 of Romans 4, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without
works. And when David wrote that down,
he didn't write it down in those exact words. He says in verse
7, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose
sins are covered. And that's imputed righteousness. He says in verse 8, blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Again, imputed
righteousness. Now, several things that, you
know, I've studied quite a bit on this in the past two or three
weeks, listened to a lot of message from a lot of different people.
And former pastor, Brother Mahan, he preached quite a bit on this
subject, great messages on imputed righteousness. And I realized
that many people who hear that term, it may be totally unfamiliar
to you. Imputation is the doctrine, the
doctrine of imputation. Imputed righteousness. You may
not know what impute means. And then in the past five or
six years, you've probably been pretty much bombarded with these
terms. Impute, and then there's another
term that men use, it's the term impart. You've heard of impart. Some people use the term imparted
righteousness. I don't believe that's a biblical
term. I don't believe righteousness can be imparted, but some people,
you know how we love to throw around terms, and then we put
our own definitions to them, and then we stick to them no
matter what. And usually when we do that,
we invest our ego in it, and therefore you can't argue against
it unless you attack me. So, you know, it's neither here
nor there. I'm not here just to argue terms.
or just to teach terms or to teach anything like dead, cold
doctrine that people speak of. But here what the Apostle Paul
is doing, he's using Abraham and David as illustrations of
salvation. Now we've been talking about
salvation quite a bit. And we want to know what the
Bible means about salvation. By salvation, salvation is such
a big, beautiful, all-comprehensive term. And there's so many ways
of describing salvation. We've come to understand that
these three things here, that number one, salvation is of the
Lord. You notice there in verse 6,
he talks about God imputing righteousness without works. This act of imputation,
whatever it is, is an act of God. It's not an act that I do
or that you do. In fact, really what it means,
he says it there in verse seven, blessed are they whose sins are
forgiven, whose sins are covered. Who forgives sins? God does.
Now, we're to forgive one another, but he's talking about salvation
here. He's not talking about our relationship
to one another and how we treat one another. We're to treat one
another in love and forgiveness and humility and compassion,
all of those things. That's the product, that's the
evidence, that's the fruit of the grace of God within the heart. But here he's talking about a
man's relationship to God. How God justifies a sinner. What is it to be justified? The
Bible teaches us that salvation, this is one aspect of salvation,
not the only aspect now. But one aspect of salvation is
to be justified before God. Now what is it to be justified?
It means to be not guilty. Forgiveness of sins. Sins covered. Now, what covers our sins? What? We sang it. The blood of Christ. The blood of Christ. Are you
washed in the blood? That's just a metaphorical way
of speaking about, are you covered by the blood of Christ in the
side of God? And so, to be justified means
to be not guilty. And that means that God, even
though you're a sinner and I'm a sinner, it means this, it means
God does not charge us with our sins. We're under no charge of
sin in God's sight. Now somebody says, how can that
be? How can that work? Well, it's the doctrine of imputed
righteousness. Turn back over to 2 Corinthians
chapter 5 that I read at the beginning. And later on in another
message, I'm going to go into this 2 Corinthians 5 even in
more detail. Another way of stating salvation
in the Scripture is reconciliation. Peace made between God and His
people, His elect, God and sinners. God is at peace with His people. He has nothing against them.
God is for them. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. That's
an act of God. And then as a result of that,
as a result of God having, as peace having been made between
God and His people by the blood of Christ, as a fruit of that
and a result of that, the Holy Spirit comes and imparts spiritual
life, and knowledge and grace, and reconciles us to God. That's
bringing us to faith in Christ. That's the new birth. So when
you speak of imputation, to impute, that means we're not charged
with sin, and we're charged with something else. What are we charged
with? Righteousness. And here's the grace of God.
Now listen to me. We're charged with a righteousness
that we had no part in producing. We didn't touch it. We didn't
work it up. We didn't make it up. Well, whose
righteousness is it? Who did work it up? Christ did
in his obedience unto death on the cross. Another way of saying
that is he paid my debt. I owe the debt to God's law and
justice. What's the only thing that'll pay the debt to God's
law and justice? Well, the Bible says that the
wages of sin is what? Death. So I need somebody to
pay my sin debt. I need somebody to stand in my
place and die for me and pay my debt. That's what Christ did.
You see, this is the whole thing about substitution and satisfaction,
you know. We talk about, we sang that song,
once for all. Christ died one time for all
his sheep. That's what that means. He died
for them. That means he was a substitute.
He was a surety. He paid our debt in full. And that is accounted and charged
to us. Our sin, the demerit of our sin,
the guilt of our sin, what we deserved and what the bill that
we ran up was charged to him, imputed to him. Now look at 2
Corinthians 5. He says, verse 19, Now what he's defining here
is the word and ministry of reconciliation. How God is reconciled to sinners
and how sinners are reconciled to God. That's what this whole
chapter is about. He talked about the judgment.
When you stand before God, God who looks on the heart, God who
judges according to truth, how's it going to be with me? How's
it going to be with you? Is God going to stand before
you as a righteous judge who must punish your sins? Is He
going to stand before you as the judge who is your enemy and
has a matter against you justly and rightfully and therefore
must pronounce eternal damnation? Or are you going to stand before
God as He's reconciled to you? Christ and you're reconciled
to him. And so that's the word and the
ministry of reconciliation. Now what is the word in ministry
of reconciliation? The gospel. The good news of
how God saves sinners by his grace and mercy through Christ. Christ in him crucified. So he
says in verse 19, to wit That would be like saying, now I'm
gonna tell you what I, I'm gonna define what I just said, or namely,
that God was in Christ. God was in Christ, in him, in
Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. God engaged
everything that he is in the person and work of Christ. If
you want to know God, you've got to look to, rest in, and
know Christ and love Him. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto Himself. Now, the word world there is
talking about God's people out of the world. He's not talking
about the whole world as everybody without exception, because everybody
without exception is not reconciled to God. Now, how do you know
that? Well, look here. not imputing,
not charging, not counting their trespasses unto them. He's not
charging them with their sin. They're sinners now. I heard
a fellow say in a message this past week, they said, if God
doesn't impute my sins to me, that means I didn't do them.
Not true. You did them, I did them. We're
sinners saved by the grace of God. But God didn't charge him
to his people. Now what did he do with them?
He charged them to Christ. This is what verse 21 talks about.
Look there. For he hath made him, that's
God the Father hath made him, God the Son incarnate, sin for
us. He was made sin. God charged
him with our sins. He was our sin bearer. Our sin
offering. Now that doesn't teach that he
was made a sinner, one who sins. That's not so. It doesn't teach
that sin was imparted or infused or shot into him in some weird
way. It just simply means that he,
Christ, was made totally responsible and accountable for all the sins
of all his people. And he died. for those sins. He died for his people. So, here's
the exchange. He goes on there in 2 Corinthians
5, look at that. In 2 Corinthians 5 and verse
21, he says, Christ who knew no sin, that we might be made,
and that's created, created the righteousness of God in him.
When Christ died on the cross, he made a new creation. It's
his church. And he says, they were made the
righteousness of God in him. That righteousness of God is
the obedience unto death of Christ. Now go back to Romans 4. That's
what we are in Christ. In salvation, there's something
that's imputed, charged, accounted. What is that? The righteousness
of God. That's the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the merit of everything that he did to save his people
from our sins. That's what that is. And listen,
when we talk about being washed in His blood, or being clothed
in His righteousness, as the scripture uses that kind of language
as an analogy, that's what we're talking about. Our sins were
charged, accounted to Him. And He paid the debt. Now, I've
often used the illustration to teach this to children and I
thought about this. Well, if we're saved, we're children
of God, so I'm going to teach even the adult children on this
subject. I don't want this to go over
your head and I don't want it to go over my head either, but
listen. Use the illustration of a debt. We've talked about
that. We have a sin debt. Say it this way. Let's say that
you're in debt a million dollars to somebody or a local bank,
for example. You owe a million dollars, and
here's the case. You don't have one penny to contribute
to paying that debt. Now, that's our case spiritually.
That's our case before God. We owe God a million dollars
and we don't have one penny. And listen, no work that I do,
nothing that I do can gain me one penny to pay to that debt. I'm totally spiritually bankrupt
and poor. That's why the scripture says,
blessed are those who are poor in spirit. You see, everybody's
spiritually poor because all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. But not everybody is poor in spirit. You see, by
nature, we're like a bunch of people walking around here a
million dollars in debt and we think we're rich. And then we
find out when God reads the account to us, oh no, I don't have anything.
In fact, I'm a million dollars to the negative here and I don't
have one penny to pay that debt. Well now, let's say unbeknownst
to us, okay? Let's say somebody who's rich
goes down to the bank and says, I want to talk to the president
of the bank and he gets an audience with the president of the bank
and he sits down and he says, how much money does Bill Parker
owe you? Open the account book. How much
money are you charging him with? How much debt are you imputing
to him? That's what that means. And the
banker opens up the books, and he says, well, he owes a million
dollars. Well, has Bill paid any part of that debt? No, he
hasn't paid it yet. We're getting ready to go after
him. We're going to throw him in jail, debtor's prison. And
that rich man looks at that banker, and he says, put it on my account. Put the million dollars on my
account. Impute it to me, and I'll pay it. Are you getting
this now? You don't know anything about
it, do you? I mean, all this transaction's taking place, and
you're at home worrying about that debt you owe, trying to
pay it for yourself. But here that fellow's down there
making a transaction with that banker, and he says, put it on
my account and wipe Bill's account clean. He doesn't owe you a dime. Don't impute it to him anymore.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Don't
impute it to Bill anymore. Legally, really, actually, put
it on my account, and I'll pay it. And that fella hands that
banker a million dollars, and the banker says, well, let's
close the books, and the man says, hold on, hold on now, I
got something else I wanna do. I've got a million dollars I
want you to charge to Bill Parker's account. I want you to impute
a million to him. Charge him with a million. I
earned it. I worked hard for it. Bill didn't do a thing to
contribute to it. But you give it to him. That's
imputed righteousness. You see that? And I didn't know
anything about it. Now, next time I walk into the bank, And I'm just going to cast myself
at the mercy of the banker. Don't have anything to pay that
debt with. I'm broke. I'm worse than broke. And I just say, oh, Mr. President,
have mercy on me. And the banker would look and
say, well, Bill, I have compassion and mercy on you, but here's
the problem. The debt has to be paid. It has to be paid. And he opens up the account books
and he said, look here Bill, you don't owe a dime. That debt's
already been paid. But also you've got a million
dollars to the good. Now that's the illustration of
imputed righteousness, right there. Now when the debt was
paid, I didn't know anything about it. That's imputation. It was paid and that's the way
my debt was paid on the cross of Calvary. My sin-debt to God. I wasn't even around then, except
in the mind of God, and the purpose of God, and in the heart of Christ,
and in his mind. In fact, God set him up to be
my sin-bearer and my surety before this world was ever created.
Really, all of this was given me in Christ Jesus before the
world began. You remember we read about that
in 2 Timothy chapter 1? And then Christ came to earth
one day and He actually paid the debt. That's called redemption.
Redeemed by the blood of Christ. And that's imputation. It was
charged to me before I was even born. before I knew anything
about it. But then one day God the Holy
Spirit came into my life and brought me under the sound of
the gospel, the good news, and a man stood behind this pulpit
and told me that all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, their
debt's been paid already. You don't owe a dime. and you've
been given an inheritance, a richness, a wealth, a blessedness that
you can't even imagine and you didn't work a day for it. Now
that's impartation. Righteousness is imputed. Spiritual
life and knowledge and grace and faith is imparted by the
Holy Spirit. Imputed righteousness is what
God has done for me in Christ. That's the ground of salvation.
Imparted life is what God the Holy Spirit does in me to let
me in on it, to tell me about it, to bring me to a knowledge
of it, and to cause me to trust in Christ, and believe in Him,
and love Him. You know, if you ever found out
that somebody did do that for you, paid your debt, gave you
a million dollars to the good, the first thing you'd want to
know when the banker told you is, who did that? And then what's the first thing
you want to do when you find out who he is? Oh, I want to
go hug him. I want to go just tell him how much I love him. And that's the way it is when
God the Holy Spirit imparts life, spiritual life. That's the new
birth. That's the fruit of salvation.
Now Abraham is an illustration of that, right here. Abraham
and David both. Look at it. He teaches us here
in this passage that there's no justification for sinners,
Jew or Gentile, before God by deeds of the law and works of
the flesh. He says in verse 1, What shall we say then that Abraham
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? That word
flesh there has to do with anything that comes from Abraham or anything
that Abraham has done, is doing, or will do. In other words, anything that
Abraham is. Abraham is the father of the
Jewish nation. Well, did Abraham get anything
from God because of that? Did Abraham find any blessedness
from God because he's the father of the Jewish nation? Abraham was a recipient of the
covenant of circumcision. Abraham was circumcised. Did
Abraham get anything from God, any blessedness, any favor, because
he was circumcised physically? Abraham followed God. He left
Ur of the Chaldees, his hometown of idolatry, and went and followed
God. Now did he get any blessedness
from God because he did that? What can we say about Abraham
as pertaining to the flesh? What did he find? Well, verse
2, now look at it. For if Abraham were justified
by works, if Abraham was not guilty before God or declared
righteous before God by works, he hath whereof to glory. Now
that word glory means to boast. In other words, if your justification
before God, if you're being not guilty, innocent, Before God. If your being righteous before
God had anything to do with your works under the law in any way,
shape, form, or fashion at any time, to any degree, at any stage,
then you've got room to boast. But he says, but not before God. Now, why is it that Abraham had
no room to boast before God? Well, look back at Romans 3 and
look at verse 20. Or verse 19, now here's why Abraham
had no room to boast before God. Here's why you have no room to
boast before God. Here's why I have no room to
boast before God, based on our works. He says, now we know that
what thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law, for this purpose, that every mouth may be stopped and
all the world may become guilty before God. That's what the law
does to a sinner. It shuts our mouth from boasting
and justifying ourselves and brings us in guilty before God. The only thing the law can do
for a sinner based on that sinner's works is condemn him. And that's me and you and everybody.
That's Jew and Gentile. That includes Abraham and David. Do you realize that? Somebody
says, well I live by the law. What do you mean by that? Because
if you mean you're keeping the law, you're just fooling yourself.
And then he says in verse 20, therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. Now that's why
Abraham had no room to boast before God, because by deeds,
based on the flesh, based on his deeds, based upon his obedience,
his best acts, his best efforts. And he says, for by the law is
the knowledge of sin. So there's no justification,
there's no righteousness for sinners, Jew or Gentile before
God by deeds of the law, or works of the flesh. Another thing he
shows us here is there is a righteousness of God in which our attempts
to obey the law have no part. And it's manifested and it's
witnessed by the law and the prophets. It's the righteousness
of God. What is that righteousness of God? I've quoted it a thousand
times. Romans 10 and verse 4. For Christ is the end of the
law, the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believe. My righteousness is Christ. And let me say this now, this
thing about imputed righteousness and imputed guilt and all that,
Christ was charged with my sin, my guilt. He became guilty. and
I'm charged with his righteousness. I'm justified in him," you say. He died for me. He paid my debt
in full. Now I heard a fellow say this.
He said that most people's view of imputed righteousness is this.
He said that God sees you as righteous and views you as righteous,
but you're really not. Now let me say this. If that
is your view, For my view of imputed righteousness, we don't
know what the Bible teaches about imputed righteousness. Imputed
righteousness is not that God sees me as righteous and views
me as righteous, but I'm really not. You see, God doesn't deal
in pretense. God doesn't pretend that I'm
righteous when I'm really not. I'm telling you this right now
based on God's testimony, you right now, are looking at a righteous
man. And that's real. Now, you may
not see that in its reality because you see all the flaws and all
the shortcomings and the fact that in myself, in my own experience,
I'm still a sinner. But you see, my hope is in Christ,
who is my righteousness. I trust Him. Listen, I'm going
to tell you something right now. I have no other righteousness
before God but Christ and Him crucified and risen again. Now,
you may look at me on a good day and you say, well, you look
pretty righteous to me. And I say, well, you've either
got a lower standard of righteousness than what you should have or
you're just blind. My righteousness is Christ. I've
been made the righteousness of God in Him. And that's real.
Now just because I'm still a sinner in myself doesn't make the fact
that I'm righteous before God any less real. Some people call
that a legal fiction. It is not a legal fiction. God has judged His people righteous
in Christ. And when the Holy Spirit, listen,
just like the fella who paid the debt down at the bank, now
when the banker tells me about what happened, that doesn't make
that transaction any more real than it was when it happened.
You see, when that fella paid my debt and gave me a million
bucks, that bank is legally, really held accountable to say
that about me. This is a fella who doesn't owe
a dime. This is a fellow who's got a
million dollars in the bank, whether I know about it or not. Now the fact that God imputes
righteousness to his people demands and requires and ensures that
one day they will know about it. God the Holy Spirit will
come and impart life, spiritual life. They'll be regenerated.
They'll be born again by the Spirit. And God will tell him
what he's done for you. And you know what you'll do?
You'll thank him for it. You'll believe in him and rest
in him. Now, your thanking him doesn't pay the debt. You see
that? When that banker tells me that
the fella paid the million dollars for me and gave me a million,
my going to thank the fella didn't add no more money to the bank
account. My embracing him and loving him and thanking him didn't
pay the debt. It was just an acknowledgment
of the debt being paid. But I'll tell you, it's necessary,
isn't it? It's necessary if I'm going to be free. What if my
debt was paid and I had a million dollars and I walked around all
my life and never even knew about it? And I'm thinking all the
time, I'm in debt, oh, I'm in debt. That's bondage. You see, the Holy Spirit sets
us free when He imparts spiritual life, when He lets us in on it,
when we come to know about it, and believe it, and love it,
and trust Him. Trust Christ for all of our salvation.
Look back at Romans 4. He says in verse 3, he says,
for what saith the Scripture? Now here's the issue now. So
don't let anybody tell you that imputed righteousness is some
kind of legal fiction. Let me tell you who come up with
that idea was the Catholic Church. They called it a legal fiction
because they didn't believe it. They looked at it as a legal
fiction because you're only justified in their view when you receive
it. Not so. Not so. What does the scripture say?
Well, look at verse 3. Abraham believed God and it was
counted unto him for righteousness. Now, when you say Abraham believed
God, what does that mean? Well, it goes back to Genesis
chapter 15. We won't turn there today, but that's when God made
that covenant with Abraham and gave him the promised blessings.
What did Abraham believe? See, and the reason we need to
make that distinction is because people here, people usually put
emphasis on Abraham's act of believing. Now that is a work
of the Holy Spirit. That's the impartation of life
and grace and faith and repentance and all of those things that
the Holy Spirit gives in regeneration and conversion. But the emphasis
here is not on Abraham's act of believing as if that made
him righteous. It wasn't Abraham's act of believing
that made him righteous. Because you see, whatever makes
you righteous must be perfect. It must be complete with no flaws,
no sin, no contamination. That's the work of God in Christ.
The emphasis here is on what Abraham believed. What did God
tell Abraham? What did God promise Abraham?
Well, God made a lot of promises to Abraham. And here's where
a lot of people get confused. Now listen to me very carefully.
God made Abraham some physical, temporal, temporary promises
that pertain to the physical nation Israel. and had to do
with that land of promise, the land of Palestine that he gave. But now God made Abraham an eternal
promise too. A spiritual promise of eternal
salvation and eternal life and righteousness eternally based
on the promise of sending someone into the world to pay his debt.
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me prove that to you.
Turn to John chapter 8. John chapter 8. Now here, the Lord teaching the
Pharisees, preaching rather, and they rejected what he taught. And then they challenged his
claim of being God. And he says in verse 53, look
at John 8, 53. Now look at this. He says that
this was the charge against him from the self-righteous Pharisees.
They said, Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is
dead? And the prophets are dead? Whom makest thou thyself? And
Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing. It is my
father that honoreth me, of whom you say that he is your God.
Yet you have not known him. But I know him, and if I should
say I know him not, I should be a liar like unto you. But
I know him, and keep his saying." Verse 56, listen to this. Your
father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and
was glad. You see, there were promises
made to Abraham that had pertained just to this earth and that physical
nation. But there were also promises
that went beyond that nation to a spiritual nation. And it
was the promise of eternal salvation in the coming Messiah who would
pay the debt, to whom sin would be imputed, and who would work
out righteousness to impute to his people. And that's what Abraham
believed. Now back here in Romans 4, that's
what he means when Abraham believed God. And it was counted unto
him. That word counted is the same
word as imputed. In fact, these words imputed,
counted, and reckoned are used 11 times in this chapter. They
mean the same thing. It was counted to Abraham. It
was imputed to Abraham. It was reckoned to Abraham. It
was charged to Abraham. What was? It was. What is it?
What God promised Abraham to send Christ to die for his sins
and work out a righteousness for him. That's what was imputed
to Abraham. Verse 4, look at this. Now to
him that worketh is the reward not reckoned, or imputed, or
accounted, or charged of grace, but of debt. Now you see if I
worked and paid any part of that million dollars that I owe down
there to that bank, that part is not of grace. That's not a
gift. That's something I work for. That's debt. That's something
that the bank owes me. So that's what he's saying here.
To him that worketh, if you're working to be justified, if you're
trying to establish a righteousness of your own, it's not of grace,
but of debt. It's something God owes you.
It's not mercy. You see, when you jump into the
realm that says, well, God owes me this because I did this, then
you need to understand at that point you are denying grace. and mercy. Do you understand
that? Whatever point it is, if it's
the beginning of salvation, the middle of salvation, or the end
of salvation, at whatever point you stop and say, now I'm getting
this from God because I did this, this certain thing, you're denying
grace. You're denying mercy. You're
talking about what God owes you. That's why I'm so opposed to
this false notion of these earned rewards in heaven. God doesn't
owe you a thing, friend. When He blesses His people, He's
talking about the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without work. When God blesses us, the Bible
says we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. God doesn't owe me a thing. The
only thing I can earn from God is eternal damnation, the wages
of sin. That's why it says in Romans
6.23, it says, the wages of sin is death. But the what? The gift
of God is eternal life and everything that goes with it through Jesus
Christ our Lord. It's a gift. Grace reigns through righteousness
by Jesus Christ our Lord, Romans 5.21. And that's why people, you know,
this is the deception of Satan in today's world. That people
talk about what God owes them and what God will give them because
they do certain things, they jump through certain hoops, or
they join certain things, and then they call it grace and mercy. And that's a deception. Well,
look at verse 5. He says, "...but to him that
worketh not." Well, does that mean salvation doesn't include
works at all? Oh, no. What he's talking about
is for salvation here. But him that worketh not for
salvation, he's talking about legalism here. Yes, works are
part of salvation, good works. They're the fruit. They're the
evidence. How many times have I quoted
Ephesians 2, 8-10? For by grace are you saved through faith,
that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus." There's the new creation. If any man be in
Christ, he's a new creation. Created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, not because of, but unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them. That's the product,
you see, not the cause. That's the effect, not the cause.
And so he says in verse 5, But to him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. That's who God justifies. He justifies ungodly people.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. For he shall
save his people from their sins. God justifies people who don't
deserve and have not earned that place. That's what he did when he did
Abraham. And it says, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Now that's not his act of believing there, counted for righteousness.
As if God says, well, you know, you can't keep the law, so I'll
accept your faith in place of it. No, no, no. His faith was
his belief in the promise. His faith is the actual promise
that God made. What was that promise? To sin
Christ, to die for his sins, and to work out a righteousness
for Abraham. what God promised. So he says
in verse 6, even as David also describeth the blessedness of
the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.
The righteousness that I have is without my works. It's totally
the work of Christ and he charged it to me. Same, verse 7, same,
blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are
covered, that's the atonement That's the blood sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the forgiveness. You see, to be justified is to
be forgiven. It's to be accepted in Christ. Verse 8, blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin. He doesn't charge me with
my sin. You know why? He charged him to Christ. Now
verse 9, cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision. Is
this just for the Jews? or upon the uncircumcision also,
or can Gentiles have it too? That's what he means there. For
we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham, imputed Abraham.
What is that faith there? That's the promise of sending
Christ into the world to die and to establish righteousness.
And he said it was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How
was it then reckoned? How was it imputed? When he was
in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Was this imputation of righteousness,
did it have anything to do with Abraham's circumcision? And he
says, not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. Abraham had
it before he was circumcised. What does that mean? It means
his circumcision didn't have anything to do with it. His being
a Jew didn't have anything to do with it. Didn't have anything
to do with it. And look at verse 11, he says,
and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of
the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised. What is the faith?
The promise of sending Christ. And he says that he might be
the father of all them that believe. Abraham is the archetype. He
is the supreme example of all who believe, though they be not
circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also."
How do you know if righteousness has been imputed to you? I'll
tell you how you know. Do you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ? Do you rest in Him for all righteousness
and eternal life and glory? Do you trust Him As your only
hope, can you sing from the heart, my hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness, and that you truly dare not trust
the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name, on Christ
the solid rock. We stand, and all other ground
is sinking sand. That's how you know. All right.