If I had to pick certain phrases
in the Bible to summarize the theme of the whole Bible, I would
pick two phrases. And here's one of them. It's
the title of your lesson today. God justifies the ungodly. God justifies the ungodly. Romans chapter 4. The second
phrase that goes along with him is Christ and him crucified. God justifies the ungodly and
Christ and him crucified. And this is so important because
those two phrases do summarize. Now, you have to unpack them. You have to go through the script.
What does that mean? For example, God justifies the ungodly. That seems like an impossibility,
and I'll show you that in a minute. But as we saw last week, he's
talking about Abraham here. You know, Abraham is the father,
the physical father of the Jewish nation, the spiritual father
of spiritual Israel, in the sense that we know God is our only
father, as far as the source and originator of salvation.
But Abraham is set up in the scripture to be what we call,
you've heard the term archetype? He's kind of like the prime example
of how God saves sinners. And that's why he's called the
father of the faithful in that sense. Because Abraham himself
was a sinner saved by grace. And that's Paul's whole point
here. You know, the issue of the Jewish religion and the Gentile
people and God bringing his people, his sheep, his elect out of both
Jew and Gentile to the point to where the Jew has nothing
to boast in and the Gentile has nothing to boast in. As he said
in Romans chapter 3 and verse 9, the scripture has concluded
all under sin. that we all have the same problem,
whether you're Jew or Gentile, and that problem is that we fell
in Adam into sin and death, and were born spiritually dead in
trespasses and sins, and by nature we have no righteousness that
qualifies us or recommends us unto God. And we cannot work
a righteousness, no matter how good we try to be, we cannot
attain that goal of righteousness that would answer the demands
of God's requirement, his justice. And then what's more, as far
as that's concerned, is the depravity of man, which is seen in the
fact that we don't want righteousness God's way. The natural man receives
not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them.
And so Paul, as he's led by the Holy Spirit, he goes to Abraham.
Now the Jews, the unbelieving Jews who would boast of a of
salvation, of a right relationship with God, of righteousness, based
upon their physical connection to Abraham, Paul says, well,
let's see what God says about Abraham. What does the scripture
say? And look at verse one, what shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? What did
Abraham attain in himself because of his abilities, his physical
abilities, or his mental abilities would be included there too.
And he says in verse two, for if Abraham were justified, now
remember what the word justified means. It means not guilty. It means righteous, all right? That's what justified means.
The word justified, it could be translated that way. If Abraham
were righteous by his works. He hath whereof the glory. He's
got room to boast. If you can make yourself righteous
by your works, you've got room to boast, to glory, to have confidence. I did it, that's what you could
say. Then he says, but not before God. Now, we're not talking,
what he's making, the point he's making there is this is not righteousness
before men as men judge righteousness. In other words, Christ told his
disciples, the Pharisees indeed appear righteous unto men. They
had an appearance. Now they weren't righteous, but
they thought they were. So he says, but not before God.
See, we have to deal with God on this issue. We have to understand
and find out what God thinks, what God says, how God judges,
what God requires. This is not what the preacher
requires or thinks, not what your family thinks. This is what
God thinks. And so then verse 3 says, well,
what sayeth the scripture? To find out what God thinks,
you've got to go to the Word of God. You've got to go to the
Scriptures, the Holy Bible, the Holy Scriptures, the inspired,
verbally inspired Word of God, inerrant. And what does God say? Well, there's none righteous,
no, not one. There's none that doeth good, no, not one. Well,
here's what he said about Abraham, and Paul quotes here from Genesis
15, Abraham believed God. Now, the thing you need to understand
here, the emphasis in today's false Christianity is Abraham's
believing. Oh, look at Abraham, he believed.
I was listening to a, where was it I was listening
to that? Listening to a preacher talk about Jacob and Esau. And
he was talking about how Jacob went in, deceived his father
and all of that when he was wanting to get the blessing. when he'd
get the firstborn. Oh, it's going to be on TV in
the morning. I was just flipping around. I
heard him talking about God's sovereignty, and he was talking
about Jacob and Esau. And here's what he said about
Jacob and Esau. He said, the reason that Jacob got the blessing
and Esau didn't is because Jacob believed. Well, now, is that
what the Bible says? What saith the scripture? In
other words, Esau didn't believe. All right, but Jacob did. And
the guy went on to admit that morally speaking, probably Esau
was a better person than Jacob, but Jacob believed. Well, is
that what the Bible says? The Bible says that God sovereignly
chose Jacob to serve, chose that Jacob would rule over Esau before
those two children were born, before they had done any good
or evil. Romans 9 says that. So that's
what Paul's doing here. He says, well, whatever you're
gonna say about God and about Abraham and about this situation,
let's go see what God says. And that's what I would tell
that preacher. I'd say, have you ever read the book of Romans
chapter nine? Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated? Neither one of those boys deserved
God's love. Jacob included. So he says, Abraham
believed God. Now, the emphasis here is not
simply Abraham believing like he did this out of his own free
will and rose above the rest of the crowd there in Ur of the
Chaldees and proved himself to be the better man because he
believed like that preacher said about Jacob. Abraham believed
God. Now here's what you gotta understand
if you're gonna understand the scripture. What did God say? What did God promise Abraham? that Abraham believed. That's
the key. In other words, it's not just believing, it's the
object of believing. What did Abraham believe God?
Well, look at verse 20 of Romans 4. It says, Abraham staggered
not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith,
giving glory to God. Abraham believed what God promised. And that's the issue of this
chapter. That's what this is all about. Yes, Abraham believed.
Yes, if we're sinners saved by grace, we're believers. That's
the gift of faith. But what do we believe? What
is our faith based on? What's the foundation of our
faith? What is the object of our faith? What do we believe?
What did God promise Abraham? Well, Christ said it himself.
He said, Abraham, rejoice to see my day. And he saw it and
he was glad. God promised Abraham And as I
said last week, God gave Abraham many promises. Some of them were
temporal and physical and pertain to the physical nation Israel.
And others of those promises were spiritual. But the promise
that Paul's talking about here, the main promise, is the promise
of the Messiah to come to establish righteousness by his death for
Abraham. Now that's what Abraham believed. And so when it says, for what
saith the scripture, Abraham believed God and it, what's the
it? It's not Abraham's believing,
it's the promise. It's righteousness through Christ. That's what was counted, imputed
unto him for righteousness. Now, some commentators say that
that has to be Abraham's believing because God wouldn't repeat himself.
Are you kidding me? God wouldn't repeat himself? Have you ever had children? Do
you have to repeat yourself any with them? We repeat ourselves all the time.
There's an emphasis here. And so they'll say, well, he
couldn't say, and Abraham believed God and righteousness was counted
unto him for righteousness. The it there is what God promised
through the Messiah. You could read it this way. Abraham
believed God and what God promised Abraham through the Messiah was
imputed to him for righteousness. That's what it's all about. Here's
our text, verse four. Now to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned. The word reckoned is the same
thing as imputed or accounted. It's not reckoned of grace but
of debt. In other words, if this situation of being right with
God is a matter of what you do for God, It's a matter of being
conditioned on you, conditioned on something you believe, conditioned
on something you do, conditioned on something you don't do. If
that's what it is, then the reward, and what is the reward? It's
salvation and all of its blessings. The reward is not reckoned of
grace. You can't say it's of grace if
that's the case, but it's of debt, it's what God owes you.
what you've earned. Now, I know preachers who'll
tell people today, they say, well, faith is a work, but it's
not a meritorious work. Well, where do you get that in
the Bible? First of all, the Bible tells us that faith is
the gift of God. And it says that unless God gives
the gift, we won't believe. That's what the scripture teaches.
And then thirdly, it tells us that faith is the fruit of what
Christ accomplished on Calvary. Christ said that. He said, all
that the Father giveth me shall what? Come to me. Now how are
we going to come to him? By faith. God-given faith. By
grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works lest any man should boast. But here's the point that he's
making. If a right relationship with God, if salvation, the forgiveness
of sins, if being righteous before God is a matter of something
you do or something you decide, then it's not grace. It's not
a free gift. It's not God's righteousness with Christ. It is of debt. It's what God owes you. Now,
we've often talked about sin as a matter of being a debt.
We sin in Adam, we sin, that runs up a debt to God. You know, we often talk about,
for example, in our society, you know, a criminal, a person
commits a crime, and they get accused of the crime, they go
to court, and they're sentenced because we know they have to
pay their debt to society. Well, sin runs up a debt against
God. And it's a debt we cannot pay.
What does the Bible teach? Well, before the foundation of
the world, God chose a people and accounted, reckoned, imputed
their debt to Christ as our surety. And the pain of the debt was
all conditioned on Him. That's what God's grace is all
about. God's righteousness at Christ's
expense. Not God's righteousness at your
expense, but God's righteousness at Christ's expense. So he said,
if it's conditioned on you, if it's based on something you decide
or something you work, then don't talk about grace, it's dead,
it's what God owes you. But look at verse five. But to
him that worketh not. How plain can it be? But believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly. There's that phrase, God justifies
the ungodly. And it says, his faith. Well,
what is his faith? What was Abraham's faith? It
was the promise that God made to him. Somebody says, I believe. Well, what do you believe? I
believe all of my salvation was conditioned on Christ, and God
sent him into the world, and as God meant, he obeyed unto
death to fulfill all those conditions and secure my salvation. He brought
forth righteousness that's accounted to me. God justifies the ungodly. His faith, what he believes,
which was Christ crucified and risen from the dead, was imputed
to him for righteousness. Now we'll see what I'm telling
you is even more supported in the next verses. But let's look
at this phrase, God justifies the ungodly. That begs the question,
how can he do that? How can God do that? Now, God
justifies the ungodly, all right? If a person commits a crime,
gets arrested, and goes up before a judge and is proven to be guilty,
what would you say if that judge says, well, I'm just gonna set
you free? You'd say that judge needs to
be removed from the bench, wouldn't you? Now we know that people say,
well, sometimes they'll let first offenders go and all that. We
call that the mercy of the court. But you do understand now, even
though, especially if it was like one of our children or something,
and we'd say, oh, man, I'm glad he just gave you a warning. But
you've got to understand something here now. It's still a perversion
of justice. What does justice say? Do the
crime, do the time. The punishment fits the crime.
What's our crime against God? Sin. What's the punishment? Death. The wages of sin is death. All
right? This verse, I've got it in Proverbs
17, 15. I've got it listed here in your
lesson. And the proverb says, he that
justifieth the wicked And he that condemneth the just, even
they both are abomination, a travesty to the Lord. In other words, he's talking
about just like the king in Israel who was a judge. You talk about
the courts of men. And here's what God says. If
you justify the wicked, if you declare a person who is who is
proven to be wicked, a criminal, if you declare them to be not
guilty, to be righteous, and then you take a person who's
not guilty of a crime, and you declare them to be condemned,
that's an abomination to God. So here's the question, when
we say God justifies the ungodly, how can God justify, declare
not guilty, righteous? A person who is ungodly, which
ungodliness deserves death and hell. How can God do that and
not be an abomination to himself? Now that's the question. Well,
what's presented there in Proverbs 17, 15 and what's presented here
shows us this. This is a problem that you, me,
nor any other human being can solve. We can't solve it. And the reason, why is it an
abomination to God when human judges, let's say, justify the
wicked and condemn the just? Why is that an abomination? Because
with man, it's always a perversion of justice. Man cannot do that
based on a just ground. He has to dishonor justice, he
has to dishonor the law, and in essence, dishonor society
in order to do that. So men cannot do this on a just
ground, but here's the point, here's the gospel now. Here's
the theme that we're talking about. It is the glory and wisdom
and power of God alone in the gospel of His grace by Jesus
Christ that through the redemption accomplished by Christ as the
surety and substitute of His people, that we can see how God can do
that very thing in His wisdom and do it on a just ground. How
can God justify a sinner like me and still be just? That's the key. Man can't do
it. But how can God do it? And the
answer is this. It's by His grace through the
blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Before the
foundation of the world, God chose a people and gave them
to Christ. And Christ willingly said, put
their debt on my account, I'll repay the debt. Our sins imputed to him, his
righteousness imputed to us. Now I want to tell you something. You can study all the religions
that man has ever concocted, all the mainstream, all the cultish
ones, all the weird ones, and you'll never find anything like
what I've just told you. I haven't studied all, when I
was in school, I studied all the mainstream religions, even
what I thought was Christianity. That question, how could God
be just and justifier, didn't even come up, let alone be answered. That's what he's talking about,
and that's what he says. His faith is counted for righteousness. What was Abraham's faith? That
God would justify him, a sinner who deserved nothing but damnation
and hell, but God would do it in a way that would honor God.
It's not an abomination to God because it glorifies him as both
a just God and a Savior. How can God be just and how can
he be a righteous judge and yet a merciful father? How can he
be both? And the answer is the ground
upon which he does it, which is a just ground. Christ was
appointed to be the surety and substitute and savior of his
people by God. He willingly, he, you know, John
13 one, it says he loved his own unto the end, that's his
own people, unto the finishing of the work. It was his love
for his father and his love for his people that caused him to
agree to be their sacrifice, their sin bearer, their sin offering,
to be their redeemer. You see, in order to do this
on a just ground, the Savior had to be, number one, appointed
by God, Number two had to be willing to do the work, and number
three had to be able to get the job done. And Christ fits that
bill. So yes, it's an abomination under
God to justify the ungodly, to justify the wicked, and to condemn
the just if you can't do it on a just ground, which man cannot. But it's not an abomination unto
God to justify a sinner like Abraham. because he does it on
a just ground. It's not an abomination to God
to justify a sinner like me, because he does it on a just
ground. He's honored. In fact, not only is he honored,
this is the supreme height of God's glory. Because you see,
in that just ground upon which he justifies the ungodly, the
imputed righteousness of Christ, by his grace, you see every attribute
of God working consistently together, not against each other, You don't
see his justice perverted while his mercy prevails, and you don't
see his mercy forgotten while his justice prevails. You see
righteousness and peace, mercy and truth kiss each other, as
the psalmist says. You see that? Now that's the
theme of this whole book from Genesis to Revelation, isn't
that right? And everything's to be interpreted
and seen in that light. Then he gives another example,
let's go over this one, verse six. He goes to David, David's
another prominent figure in Jewish history. He says, even as David
also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth,
that means he doesn't charge, unto whom God imputeth, that
means he does charge righteousness. Now that's what's imputed. Not
faith, faith is a moral, it's a spiritual quality of character
that's imparted by the Holy Spirit. Righteousness is satisfaction
to God's justice. And that's what's imputed. That's
what it tells us here. Now the it, back up in verse
three, it was counted, what was counted, what's imputed, Well,
David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness, but without your works. And David said that, verse
7, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose
sins are covered. And the covering there does not
mean hidden from view, it means that they're atoned for. In verse
eight, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute
sin. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's... Now here's what he's saying.
He's talking about the non-imputation of sin. And if you go back to
Psalm 32, where he quotes from, you know, the word righteousness
is not mentioned in those two verses, but you know what? God
the Holy Spirit is telling us here through the Apostle Paul,
that's exactly what David had in mind when he said, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. The non-imputation
of sin. So at the end of your lesson
here, I've got three things about the non-imputation of sin. Here's
what, in the Bible now, the Bible says that God will
not impute sin. He will not charge his people
with sin, okay? Now if he doesn't do that, he's
gotta do it on a just ground. That's what the scripture says.
But he says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
2 Corinthians 5, what is it, verse 18 or 19? I can't remember.
I think it's verse 19. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing, not charging their trespasses
unto them. And that non-imputation means
three things. I won't read all of this, but
look at it. It's at the end of your lesson. Number one, it means
the debt and demerit of sins of God's people were imputed
by God to Christ as their surety. If God's not going to charge
me with my sin, he's got to do something with them. He cannot
just sweep them under the rug. He cannot just ignore them. He's
a just God. He must punish sin. And he's
either going to punish sin in the sinners to whom he charges
it, or he's got to charge it to someone else and do it in
a just way, and he charged it to Christ. So it means the non-imputations,
it means God charged them to Christ. Secondly, it means Christ's
righteousness imputed to all of God's people. Having imputed
all the debt of the sins of his chosen people to Christ as their
surety and substitute, God justly imputes Christ's righteousness
to them. What is Christ's righteousness? It's the merit, the value, the
quality, the excellency, the earning power, if you will, of
his work of obedience unto death for his people. How much is his
death worth? But it means righteousness for
his people. He's called the propitiation, that means satisfied justice.
And then thirdly, as David, and Paul didn't quote this here because
that's not his subject yet, but he's gonna deal with it on down
here. If God does not impute my sins
to me and he imputes righteousness to me, at some point in time,
he's gonna send the Holy Spirit to give me life in the new birth. And David said it this way over
in Psalm 32, in whom there is no guile. What he's talking about
is the honesty of conviction there, where a sinner is brought
to see, listen, I'm a sinner, and if God were ever to give
me what I deserve or earned, it would be death and hell. I
have no hope but God's mercy and God's grace in Christ. I
have no righteousness but him. That's what he says. God justifies
the ungodly.