The Gospel: back to Abraham

Daniel Norman

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Notes

Transcript

Introduction

Video: “Gospel: 2 min

Reader: Gretchen Preston

Romans 3:19–20 (ESV)

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:21–31 (ESV)

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Romans 4:1–3 (ESV)

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Tension

Thank you Gretchen. If you haven’t been here over the past couple weeks then you may have noticed how we are introducing different ways to interact with God’s Word each week. Along with my teaching it, we are having a different person each week read the text from up front and we are challenging ourselves to pre-read it before we come in here each Sunday…how are we doing?

That being said, this letter of Romans is a special one as it is often seen as something like the Apostle Paul’s Doctoral Dissertation on the Christian life. Or maybe even better, we could call it his “Doctrinal Dissertation” as he is mapping out for the Christians there in Rome what our lives should look like in light of the Gospel message that we have come to put our faith and trust in.

Another unique element of the book of Romans is the make up of the Church at this time. Back in Acts 18 it talks about how Paul first met this couple named Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth because the Roman Emperor Claudius had kicked all the Jews out of Rome.

Since that time, however, the Jews were allowed back and they were slowly trickling back into the area...but the Church had kept going in their absence. This means that new Gentile leaders and influencers had risen in the Church so when these Jews returned things were not exactly like they left them.

It would be like if the founding members of a particular Church for some reason all had to move away at the same time...and then they moved back to find that things had changed in their absence. Can you imagine?

The Church was still faithful to the Gospel message…but they didn’t sing the same style of music. They didn’t dress the same way. They didn’t stand up or sit down at the right times. They didn’t hold onto the habits or traditions of the founding members because…well...they weren’t there anymore.

And then they were. And you can imagine how this caused a lot of conflict.

And so Paul writes to the Church in Rome, not just to encourage them individually in THE faith, but he writes to them to encourage them in THEIR shared faith…Jews and Gentiles together. A faith that does have it’s roots in the history of Israel but was always about recovering a right relationship with God through faith. Paul brings it the way back to the Jewish patriarch Abraham.

So that is what we are after today, seeing how all people are Justified, saved from the penalty of sin, not by their works, what they have or have not done, but by placing their faith in the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

So if you haven’t already, let me encourage you to open up to the end of Romans Chapter 3, and we will be heading back in forth to chapter 4 as well. It’s on page 941 in the Bibles in the chairs. I’ll pray and we will look into “The Gospel all the way back to Abraham”.

Truth

So with the perspective of this Church in Rome having both a Jewish and Gentile heritage, let’s begin reading again at verse 19 of chapter 3 where it says.

Romans 3:19–20 (ESV)

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. (This means everyone-Jews and Gentiles) 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Our first theme for the week is that...

We are Justified by our Faith (Romans 3:19-22a)

So after looking over the reading for this week, Gretchen rightly texted me that there are a lot of long words in this text, and there is... so I will do the best I can to help us understand them.

So last week we talked about “Justification” or being “Justified” as being saved from the “penalty of Sin”. This is good way to remember the meaning of that word.

It is also helpful to remember to that whenever we are talking about “Justification” we are talking about a legal requirement, or that which corresponds to the law. And so Paul uses a lot of law language when he talks about Justification.

So what does this relationship look like, well let me give you a human example to help us better understand the concept.

Lets say that a man was standing before a judge because he grabbed his gun and shot a man to death. Now the law requires that this man would have to pay for the life he took with his own life. A life for a life. So the judge would have no choice but to declare him guilty. Anything else would be a violation of the law. It would not be just…unless...

The Judge learned that the man who grapped his gun and shot a man to death was an on-duty police officer and the man whom he shot was shooting randomly into a crowd of people and even turned the gun to him.

That additional information changes the situation. Why? Because even though the killing of a man is against the law, the requirements of the law were satisfied in that the officer was acting in accordance with the authority that he was given under the law.

So the judge could declare the action “justified” under the law and so declare the police office not guilty…even though he did in fact do the shooting.

When it comes to “justification by faith” the same principle is involved but the players are different and believe it or not, the stakes are even higher. Since this is a legal matter according to God’s law, the jurisdiction moves beyond this life and into consequences remain in place for all eternity.

See verse 20 again...

20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

That is the purpose of the law, not to save us but to show us the extent of our guilt and how there is no way for us to “justify” our behavior. So God must declare each one of us guilty, unless God makes another way for us to be Justified.

Romans 3:21–22 (ESV)

Remember last week I gave you the definition of “righteousness” as “Right-with-God-ness”. We could not make ourselves “righteous”. We could not make our selves “Right-With-God”. So God has made us right with Him by giving us his righteousness through faith in Jesus as the Christ.

This is Justification. That God would now treats me “Just-if-i’d” never sinned. This is another little word play that might help you remember the meaning of the word. To be justified is to have the legal requirements of the law satisfied. So then legally, my record reads not guilty so it is “just-if-i’d” never sinned.

And to make his case even stronger, Paul brings in the testimony of two different witnesses from the Old Testament. He starts with the patriarch ABRAHAM.

Romans 4:1–5 (ESV)

This is powerful stuff for the Jewish Christians here in Rome. Paul is using the Old Testament Scriptures, the Torah, to argue that even Abraham, who the Jews believed to be more “Right-with-God” than any other person on earth was not righteous enough.

This was a big deal because even the most pious Jew would never think that they could be as righteous as Abraham, but Paul is saying that Abarham’s rightousness was not by his works. It was by faith.

Genesis 16:6 6 And he believed the Lord, (that’s faith) and he counted it to him as righteousness. Then Paul continues to explain how that “counted” means that it was not owed to him, but it was credited to him because he believed. :

Romans 4:4–5 (ESV)

4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

We cannot earn our “right-with-God-ness”, it has to be given to us, counted to us as a gift. Abraham’s righteousness was “counted” to him, so even he had to “justified by faith.”

And if the example of Abraham’s righteousness wasn’t enough, Paul brings in another witness, the example of King DAVID. But unlike Abraham, Paul uses David as an example of Justification by faith for the unrighteous one.

Among all the great things that King David did, he was also known for the one huge tragic sin. I call it “tragic” because it began as just a seemingly small compromise but it quickly spiraled out of control into the worst sins imaginable. It’s true, I am not exaggerating .

He didn’t wake up one morning with the intent to do this great evil, he just didn’t feel like doing what God had called him to do that day. Any of us ever had a morning like that?

He felt like just laying around the palace instead of being the leader that a King should be and leading his armies into battle. That one seeming “lightweight” sinful choice…opened him up to another and another and another until by the end of it all he had taken another mans wife, defiled her and had that good man murdered to cover it up. That is how crazy out-of-control it all got…you can check it out yourself in 2 Samuel 11.

Here me church, this is how quickly things can turn when you live in a sinful world like ours and No Sin Is Ever Safe. Did you hear that? let me say it again because we all need to be reminded of this from time to time. NO SIN IS EVER SAFE!

David was the King, the most powerful man in the Kingdom and a man after God’s own heart and it got him. Among all the great things that God did through David and despite the many times that he WAS faithful…this string of unrighteousness casts a shadow over it all and it caused great damage in his life.

Sin is a distortion of God’s good design in us and as such it can only lead to damage, despair and destruction.

But Paul’s point was that even though David had sinned BIG time, he knew where to turn to be forgiven and free again. He didn’t try and earn it back through doing more of the right things, He confessed his sin to God, repented before him, turned from his sin and God forgave him.

That is why Paul uses him as a witness to Justification by faith, because he then quotes one of David’s Psalms here in Romans where we hear David say:

Romans 4:7–8 (ESV)

7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

And David would know what he was talking about. He knew that despite all the good things he had done, he still desperately needed his sin to not be “counted” against him and he trusted in God alone to do such things.

These are two of the most powerful examples that Paul could use to demonstrate how we are Justified by faith. Abraham who was declared righteous by his faith, even though his righteous works were well known and David who was declared righteous by his faith, even though his sinful works were well known.

And I imaging that most of us identify closer to one of these than the other. Some of us may have a reputation closer to Abraham, where we are known by our good works, our church attendance, our Bible knowledge our service to the community. But even if we were as righteous as Abraham, it would still not be good enough.

Others of us feel more like David. We know we have screwed up. Maybe our biggest blunders are not even known yet. We have done a good job hiding them, even thinking we are hiding them from God. Maybe you are not sure that God can even save someone who has done the kind of things that you have done…well …David was an adulterer and murder.

The big idea is this. You cannot be good enough to earn your Justification and you cannot be bad enough to block your Justification. We are only Justified by Faith in what Jesus has done - not what what we have or have not done.

And since this covers both ends of the spectrum, and everything in between, Paul moves us on to show us how... .

We are Unified by our Faith (Romans 3:22b-26)

Back to Romans chapter 3 in verse 22 Paul says that the “righteousness of God” or being “right-with-God” is now for all who believe through faith...

Romans 3:22b-26

For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

So Paul uses some pretty lengthy and complicated words, but the cool thing is, if you look at the words that surround them, you can still get a really good idea of what he is talking about.

Let’s start with a familiar one, Sin. Paul couples “sinned” together with “falling short of the glory of God”. That is a great definition of Sin. Any time we fall short of God’s glory, his holiness, his perfection then we are in sin. God created us to rightly display his holiness and glory so anytime we don’t, we have fallen short. We have missed the mark and that is Sin.

We have already talked about “Justified” being saved from the.. just and legal... penalty of our Sin.

But lets look at “Grace”. Paul gives us the the best way to fundamentally understand God’s grace. We need to simply remember that it is a “gift”. A gift is something that is given freely. It isn’t earned, it can’t be earned. If we earned it then it is wages - which we already talked about. A gift is something that given purely out of love for the receiver of the gift. That is how God gives us this gift, it is His grace.

But because God is a just God, he can’t give us something that would violate His law. So our sin can’t be ignored, the debt must still be paid. This is where those other long words fit in.

“Redemption” is to buy something back. It’s like when you return to a pawn shop to buy back what you sold to them for a price. You are redeeming your stuff. As part of God’s creation, we are His stuff. We sold ourselves as slaves to sin, but in his love for us... God wants to buy us back. He wants to “redeem” us. That is redemption.

But the cost of our sin is high, so God had to “put forward” the most precious thing that has ever been a part of this world…His own Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was put forward as a “Propitiation” which is word that means a payment to cover the cost. Their is nothing more valuable than the perfect shed blood of Jesus and no other payment would be sufficient to cover to cost.

When you step back and look at how all these things work together you start to see that the only role that we can play in any of this is the bad stuff. Do you see that. We don’t do any of the good stuff here. All we did is fall short of God’s glory and then in his love for us and for His glory…God stepped in and did all the rest of this great stuff.

That is why Paul says:

Romans 3:27-30

27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith

Circumcision was the sign that God gave to the children of Isreal, but Paul is saying here that being right with God is not about being Jewish, as the returning Jews may have implied, but it is now and has always been about God’s grace for all people received through faith.

We are Justified by our Faith

We are Unified by our Faith

and lastly this morning, we are

Mobilized by Faith (Romans 3:31)

. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

The fact that we have been unable to keep the law of God does not diminish it in any way because it was God who required it of us. The shows us our sin, as Paul said earlier, because we can never do all the good things that it requires but that doesn’t stop it from displaying God’s glorious design for us. Obeying God’s commands is what pleases Him and brings him glory - even though we could never do it perfectly.

As we the Church - every Church - comes together as the body of Christ, Justified by a shared faith in Jesus Christ, we seek to help each other obey the law of God in loving response to all that God has graciously given to us in Christ Jesus.

Gospel Application

The Doctrine of Justification by Faith is one that Paul shared to the Church in Rome in hopes that it would bring them together in their understanding that even though they may come together as Church with different histories, heritages and back stories, they can find unity in their shared need to be Justified by Faith in Jesus Christ.

In closing, let me share with you a little illustration that hopefully will give you a fuller picture of our helplessness to save ourselves.

Let’s say that our journey to be “right-with-God” was like attempting to swim from the United States to Japan.

Those of us who are really bad swimmers, you will all drown right away with me.

Others of us might spend enough time up at the cabin that we can get out to the floating dock…so at about 200 yards you will poop out too and drown.

Others of us were on the swim team in high school and we know how to channel every possible advantage out of every stroke…but give it a mile or two and those swimmers will also drown.

The point is this: The high school swim champion does not end up less drowned than the guy who drowned first. Sure he kept his head above water longer, but in the end the distance was still too far and the cost was too high and so all their efforts couldn’t do it either.

This is how it works with righteousness. Some of us may be doing more righteous deeds than others, we may keep our head above water better than most everyone else... but at the end of our life if all we have is our righteous deeds then we will still be judged guilty.

None of us can do what must be done to Justify ourselves. We just can’t cover the distance. We can’t pay the high price. Abraham couldn’t., none of us can…but Jesus did. And he did it for each one of us.

That is the Good News. That is the Gospel.

Landing

And If you want to hear more about how the death of just this one man could pay the price for every other person on earth…then read Romans chapter 5 and come back next week