There in the book of Romans chapter
four, my brother David just read, we have what we might call a
theological or doctrinal explanation from God's word by the power
of the spirit concerning salvation as God communicates it and applies
it through this man named Abraham. Back in verse 13, it starts off
with the promise. And what is that promise? What
promise did God make Abraham? Now, God made Abraham a lot of
promises, but the particular promise that the apostle has
in mind here, as again, as inspired by the spirit, is the promise,
listen to this very carefully now. It's the promise of eternal
salvation and final glory conditioned on, based upon the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not a promise conditioned
on me or conditioned on you. It's not even a promise conditioned
on our believing. Now God's people will believe
and that by the power of God, but that's not a condition we
meet in order to be saved and glorified. Christ fulfilled those
conditions. And that's what he's saying here,
for the promise that Abraham should be the heir of the world.
Now, what does it mean he'll be the heir of the world? God
filtered a promise, an everlasting promise that was made before
the foundation of the world through this man named Abraham and chose
to use this man as the prime example of how God saves sinners. There's no salvation in the person
Abraham. There's no salvation in being
connected physically to Abraham. You know, the Jews felt like,
well, they're physical descendants of Abraham, therefore they're
children of God. It's not so. Christ told him
that. He said, you claim to be Abraham's
seed, but you're not Abraham's spiritual seed. You don't believe
what Abraham believed. You believe salvation's by your
works, by works of the law. And that's not what God did to
Abraham. God didn't come to Abraham, and you can read it back in Genesis
12, and Genesis 15, and Genesis 17. God didn't come down and
say, now Abraham, if you'll just do this, if you'll just give
me your heart, or if you'll just cooperate with me, I'll do that.
That's not what God did to Abraham. Abraham was an idolater in a
place called Ur of the Chaldees. And God came down and he said,
Abraham, you're coming out. I will, God said, and you shall.
And that's the way it was. And that was the promise. And
the main promise that God gave Abraham is that through his physical
descendants, God would send the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ,
into this world in human flesh without sin. That promise. And he told Abraham, your salvation
eternally, spiritually, is conditioned on that person who's coming through
your physical line. And he says, and that had nothing
to do with what Abraham would do or wouldn't do as far as Abraham
doing his part. You know, people say, well, God
did his part, now you need to do your part. Well, let me tell
you something, if that's the case, we're all doomed. I'm only
a sinner saved by grace. How many times have I been saying
that? Well, look at verse 13, well, verse 14. For if they which
are of the law be heirs, faith is made void. Now faith there
is the promise. It's not our believing here.
Now we do believe that's the gift of God. And it's gonna talk
about that as we go down through this, but that's Christ. He says, If you're of the law,
or heirs, then faith is made void. What he's saying here is
if we can be saved by our works, then what Christ came to do and
accomplish is void. Wasn't needed. Useless. Paul
said it this way in Galatians 2.21, if righteousness comes
by the law, by our works, Christ is dead in vain. Because he came
down to fulfill all righteousness. Didn't he say that at his baptism?
He said, his baptism, why was he baptized? It pictured his
death, burial, and resurrection to fulfill all righteousness
for his people. And that's what he said, thus
it behooved us, he was obligated because of a covenant made before
the foundation of the world to fulfill all righteousness in
his death, burial, and resurrection. And so he says, if they which
are of the law be heirs, faith is made void and the promise
made of none effect. The promise of salvation condition on Christ
is none effect if we can be saved by our works. Verse 15, because
the law works wrath. Now why does the law work wrath?
I'll tell you why, because we're sinners. Look at, where no law
is, there's no transgression. But where the law is, there's
transgression. The law wasn't given for a righteous
person. He was given for sinners to show us our sinfulness, our
depravity, our need of salvation by God's grace conditioned on
Christ. And so he says, now look at verse
16, this is interesting. Therefore it is of faith. Now
faith there is the promise. Keep that in mind. It is of what
God promised through Christ that it might be by grace conditioned
on him to the end, that is to the purpose, the promise might
be sure to all the seed. The seed there is the children
of God, his elect, chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world and given to Christ. And here's what he said, the
only way that that promise of salvation and eternal glory can
be sure to me and you is if it's conditioned on Christ. Because
if it's conditioned on us, you know what the surety is? It's
sure to fail. You say, well, it didn't fail
Abraham. No, it didn't, because his salvation was conditioned
on Christ. So it might be sure to all the
seed, not to that only which is of the law, not to the Jews
only, but to that which is of the faith of Abraham. What is
the faith of Abraham? It's the promise of salvation. All based upon the person and
work of Christ. That's the faith of Abraham.
Do I have the faith of Abraham? In asking that, am I asking do
I believe as much as Abraham believed? That's not what it's
asking at all. I know I believe because God
brought me to believe. Do I believe as much as you do?
Do you believe as much as I do? Is this what this is all about?
Because if it is, I'd be saying, well, this thing of salvation
is based on a sliding scale here, and really we can't measure where
it's supposed to. No, I have the exact same faith
that Abraham had. Because my faith is in Christ.
My hope is in Christ. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. That's what Abraham's hope was.
So that faith there is the promise. He says, but that which is of
the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, not the
father in the sense of creation or regeneration, but as the archetype,
the prime example of how God saves sinners. If you're truly
saved, you were saved the exact same way that Abraham was saved.
If you're truly saved, you are saved the exact same way that
old Abel was saved. Enoch, Noah, keep on going. We're saved the exact same way
by grace. Now we may have had different
circumstances, lived in different places, had different backgrounds,
that's okay, but it's all grace based upon the righteousness
of another, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he identifies that as the
imputed righteousness of Christ here. Look at verse six of Romans
four. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without worse. What does that mean? Well, that
means as Christ was charged with the debt, sin debt of his people,
imputed sin to him, and he went and died on the cross for those
sins charged, accounted, imputed to him, his people have his righteousness. the merits of his obedience unto
death, the value, the power imputed to us. And that's what this is
all about. Look at verse 19. He says, being
not weak in faith, Abraham, 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 through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God." Now, I want you, well, read on. He says, and being fully
persuaded that what God had promised, God was able to perform. Now,
when you read that, and then you go back and read the life
of Abraham, was Abraham's belief, his believing, was it always
perfect? And what's his saying here? says
he staggered not at the promise of God. What that means is he
knew what God promised, but he didn't always live by it perfectly. He went into Egypt one time,
and you know Sarah, his wife, who was barren, she was a beautiful
woman, and he was afraid that Pharaoh might kill him to get
his wife. And so what did he say? He lied,
didn't he? He said, she's my sister. Now the promise to send the Messiah
through Abraham was going to come through Sarah. So where was Abraham's believing
then? Did he stagger? A little bit. You remember what happened in
that story. And then there was another time. Think about this.
There was another time when God's speaking with Abraham, telling
him that he and Sarah will have a child. And what Sarah do? She
laughed. You remember she said she didn't
laugh and God said, oh, you did. How in the world am I gonna have
a baby this old? But even before that, you remember
what happened? They were waiting on the promise, it never did
come, so Sarah, what'd she do? She presented a woman named Hagar
to Abraham and said, you go in and have a child with her. All
of that happened. Abraham was a sinner saved by
grace. He was justified before God, forgiven of all his sins,
declared righteous in the sight of God, based upon what God promised
would happen and come through the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But what this is talking about is the tenor of Abraham's life. Now Abraham was just like us,
sinners saved by grace. We have moments where our believing
is strong, and we have moments when our believing is weak. We
struggle. But the tenor of our life is
looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. Isn't
that right? I've been studying Job coming
up for a message. And you know what happened to
Job? All the suffering that he went through, all the loss. Job
lost everything that a human being holds dear in this earth.
He lost his family. He lost his belongings, what
he owned, and he lost his health. You know, the Jews always say,
well, at least you've got your health. Well, they couldn't say
that to Job. And Job was a righteous man.
God said that, he was upright. And of course, what does that
mean? That means he's a sinner saved by grace, based upon a
promise to come. But when his three friends came
to him and started trying to figure out what's going on here,
Job, you've messed up, buddy. You've sinned against God. Let's
figure out what's going on so you can repent. And he calls
them miserable comforters. He begins to justify himself.
I don't deserve what I'm getting. I've done that, haven't you?
Lord, I know I'm a sinner, but I don't deserve all this. That's us, that was Abraham.
But the tenor of our lives, if we're sinners saved by grace,
is looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And
the reason that that's the tenor of our life is because God will
not forsake us. God will not let us go. So when
it says this, verse 21, being fully persuaded that what God
had promised, he was able to perform. God's able. Paul wrote,
I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Here's
what I know about myself. That is, as much as I mess it
up, and I do, as much as I struggle in myself with sin and even doubts
sometimes, I know that I've committed my whole salvation everything,
all of its blessings, all of its benefits, and its final consummation,
I've committed it all to Christ. I've not committed any of it
to me, because I'll mess it up. I've committed it to Christ,
and he's able to save to the uttermost them that come unto
God by him. That's the key. He says in verse
21, being fully persuaded what God had promised, God was able
to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
Now, what was imputed, charged, accounted to Abraham? The righteousness
of Christ, the promise, you see, what God promised. Now look at
verse 23, he says, now it was not written for Abraham's sake
alone that it was imputed to him. This wasn't just a single
promise given to a single person, but for all us also. Who? To whom it shall be imputed
if, a better translation would be since we believe on him that
raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Now how can you preach
the gospel without preaching the resurrection of Christ? We
believe in God who raised up Jesus, God our salvation, that's
what Jesus means, our Lord from the dead. And that if there,
that is not a conditional if, it's an evidential if. Our believing,
when God brings us to faith, you see, the Bible speaks of
three glorious resurrections. The first glorious resurrection
is the resurrection of Christ himself from the dead, which
is the ground of all salvation, the power of all salvation. All conditions met, all requirements
fulfilled. How do you know? He raised him
from the dead. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the first glorious
resurrection. Christ himself as our surety,
having our sins charged to him, he died, he was buried, having
satisfied justice as our substitute, Our Redeemer, He fulfilled it,
He paid the debt in full. There's not one person who will
perish for whom Christ died, was buried, and arose again. Because He redeemed them with
His blood. And He established righteousness, and righteousness
demands life. And He was raised from the dead.
He ascended unto the Father and ever lives to make intercession.
for his people. Who are his people? All who look
to him and rest in him for all salvation. The second resurrection
is the new birth. That's when the life of Christ
is applied to each and every one for whom he lived and died
and was buried and arose again. It's a resurrection from the
dead because we fell in Adam and were born spiritually dead
in trespasses and sins. In order to be saved, in order
to be born again, we have to be raised from that deadness.
Ephesians chapter two and verse one, and you hath he quickened,
that means made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.
You see, salvation, the new birth, believing on Christ is not the
product of our goodness or our right decisions or our free will,
it's all of God. If you believe the gospel, if
you believe in Christ, his person and work, you're a miracle of
grace. That's right. You're not the
product of, well, I did better than the rest and made the right
decision, walked an aisle, got baptized. No. You see, true believing
in Christ, that faith, is the product, the fruit, of what Christ
accomplished on the cross. as evidenced by his resurrection
from the dead. And so the second resurrection
is our new birth. If you believe in Christ, you've
been raised from spiritual death into spiritual life. The third
resurrection is yet to come. That's the resurrection of our
bodies to be united with a spiritual body, a perfect body in glory. That's when this corruptible
will put on incorruption. And that's a sure thing. And
how do we know that? Because we have the earnest of
the spirit, sealed by the power of the spirit. We're looking
to Christ, looking to him. So it wasn't written for Abraham's
sake alone, it was written for us also, to whom it shall be
imputed, and that shall be, it sounds like it's a future tense
verb, but it's not future. I'll give you a little grammar
lesson, it's present active infinitive. Indicative rather present active,
and you know what that means it means is something it always
has been It's not something that happened. That's going to happen
later on It's a present reality that cannot be changed in other
words what he's saying here is That we've been in Christ the
whole time in Even when we were dead in our sins, we were in
Christ in the purpose of the Father, in electing grace, justifying
grace. And it says, if we believe, since
we believe, that's the evidence on Him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead. We believe in the Father through
the Son. And then verse 25, who was delivered
for our offenses, that's our sins, Charged to his account,
Christ was not a sinner. He was never made a sinner. He
never had our sins infused or transferred or imparted into
him. They were legally put to his
charge as our surety. He took responsibility for the
sin debt of his people. And he was delivered, delivered
unto death, delivered to the grave. And he was raised again
for our justification. Now what is it to be justified?
Two aspects. Number one, it's to be forgiven
of all our sins. To be forgiven. It's not to be
forgiven of some sins. It's not to be forgiven just
for specific sins that you ask forgiveness for. I know preachers
will tell you, if you don't, at the end of the day, confess
every sin you committed during the day, he won't forgive you.
Well, if that's true, we're all We're all gone. We have sins we don't even know
we commit. Sins of permission, sins of omission. To be, dreams, that's exactly
right. We commit sinful dreams, and
then wake up the next morning and say, I don't remember what
I dreamed, but I don't remember what I dreamed. to be forgiven of all our sins. Think about that. What a miracle. But God is a just God and he
must punish sins. He cannot let them go. He cannot
ignore them. What did he do? He sent his son
into the world. having the sins of all his people,
whom he gave to him before the foundation of the world, charged,
imputed to his account, and sent him to pay that debt by his blood
on the cross. So to be justified is to be forgiven
of all sins, not based upon our believing, but based upon the
blood of Christ in whom we believe. You see the difference? And that's
not just splitting hairs, folks. That's important, and I'll tell
you why, because God's gonna get all the glory here. To be justified, then, is to
be forgiven of all sin by the blood of Christ. To be justified
is to be declared righteous in God's sight. How's that possible? When I walk through my daily
walk, Monday through Friday and Saturday and Sunday, do I perform
acts of righteousness? Not righteousness as God measures
it. I may as man measures it, but
man's standard is too low. You see, God measures righteousness
not by how we compare to each other. He measures righteousness
in Christ. And that's why the scripture
says that God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, in that
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead. That's what the resurrection
means. It means Christ is the supreme
judge and the supreme measure by which we will be judged. You say, well, you know, you're
talking about that song they sing, you know, that, what was
it? I hope, when I get before God,
I hope my works will speak for me, something like that. Oh,
my soul. There was a group of people who
basically sang that song in different words over in Matthew chapter
seven, verses 21 through 23. They wanted their works to speak
for them. And they said, Lord, Lord, haven't we preached in
your name? Lord, Lord, haven't we cast out demons? Lord, Lord,
haven't we done many wonderful works? And you know what he said
to them? Depart from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew
you. You see that? How are we to be
measured? Somebody said, well, everybody's
got to give an account before God. That's true. But now if you're in Christ,
washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, you want
me to tell you what your account says? Paid in full. You see, God's not gonna measure
me and you as how we compare to each other. He's gonna measure
us against Christ, who is the perfection of righteousness that
can be found in the law. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness. And it's to everyone that believeth,
everyone who has the gift of God-given faith. You understand? Well, look at, he was delivered
for our offenses. He was raised again for our justification. Righteous in Christ. I stand
before God in the righteousness of another. I didn't have anything
to do with creating this righteousness. I didn't have anything to do
with contributing to it. My faith did not put it into
effect His death, burial, and resurrection,
His blood and righteousness put my faith into effect. Because if Christ be not risen
from the dead, then our faith is in vain. That what Paul wrote
in 1 Corinthians 15. So will I preach the resurrection
of Christ today? I'm gonna preach Him every time
I get an opportunity to preach the gospel. You know that word Easter, really,
technically, it's not found in the Bible. It is found in the
King James Version, one time in the Book of Acts, but the
actual translation in the original is Passover. The Passover. You remember the Passover, don't
you? God was getting ready to bring the Hebrew children out
of Egypt. He told him, he said, take a
lamb, spotless lamb, of the first year, slay it, roast it, eat
them, and put the blood on the post of it. And he said, when
I see the blood, I'll pass over you. That's a picture of Christ. That's the blood of the atonement. That's the blood of the covenant.
That's the blood that brings forgiveness because it brings
righteousness and righteousness brings life. What a message we
have and it's all every bit of it. Conditioned on Christ who fulfilled
all conditions and ensured the salvation the preservation and
the final glory of every sinner for whom he died and was buried
in a rose again. And now he's seated at the right
hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us.
Who is he? Jesus Christ the righteous, John said in 1 John 2. There's no replacement for that.
There's nothing better than that. Abraham believed it. All of God's
people believe it. It's the only way of salvation
and eternal life and glory, okay? Well, let's sing Amazing Grace. Hymn number 236.