Romans 3:27-4:25 A Gift Received by Faith

Romans 3:27-4:25: A Gift Received by Faith

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Romans 3. If you’re using one of the Story Bibles we provide, that’s on page 779. We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Romans, and this morning we find ourselves in Romans 3:27 and will actually work our way through the remaining verses of chapter 3 and all of chapter 4. So we’ll be looking at Romans 3:27 through 4:25. But before we start exploring that passage, let me pray. 

There’s something within us as human beings that places a high value on personal achievement. We like to achieve things. I remember when I was a young boy, one of my favorite things to do was play with my Game Boy. I loved that thing. And one of my favorite games to play on that Game Boy was the Pokémon game. I remember that according to the timer on the game that tracked how many hours you had spent playing it, I apparently spent an incredible 265 hours playing this game. That kind of makes my head spin as I think about it nowadays. If only I could reclaim that time, right? But one of the things that drove me to play this Pokémon game so much was my desire for achievement. You see, one of the goals of the game was to collect all 250 species of Pokémon. Some of you may remember that the Pokémon slogan is “Gotta catch ‘em all!” That was both the slogan and the goal of this game. And I actually did it. I caught all 250 Pokémon. And as far as I was concerned, it was an achievement of epic proportions. And even as we progress beyond childhood, we still have that desire for achievement. We value educational achievements, athletic achievements, and career-related achievements. There’s just something deeply satisfying about putting in hard work over a prolonged period of time and seeing that culminate in some sort of recognized accomplishment—like getting a college degree, landing a good job, or whatever else it may be. And our society is set up for that. There are certainly exceptions, but people who work hard are generally rewarded with advancement. Our society rewards this achievement-based mentality. 

And so it’s very easy for us to carry over this achievement-based mentality into the realm of spiritual things. We want to earn a right standing with God through our own merits and efforts. That’s what it seems we’re hard-wired to try to do. And that’s why the Christian gospel is such a foreign message to most people. If you’re a Christian, have you ever wondered why the gospel is on the one hand such a simple message and yet for some reason seems to be so difficult for many people to truly grasp? Why is that? Well, it’s because people are hard-wired to think differently. Our default way of thinking centers around human achievement, while the gospel in contrast is a message of God freely granting us something we don’t deserve and could never earn. If you were here last week, you may remember how Paul described our salvation in Romans 3:24. He called it a “gift”—a free, unmerited gift. The opposite of an achievement. 

Then our main passage this week builds on that. Read with me in verses 27-28 of Romans 3: 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. In other words, since we don’t earn a right standing with God by observing his law in the Old Testament or by any other form of human achievement but rather receive it through faith, what then becomes of our boasting? How is it possible for us to boast? The answer, of course, is that it’s not. All boasting is “excluded,” Paul says. It would be ridiculous for us to boast. That’s the point Paul’s making. Now theoretically, if we had earned a right standing before God, we’d have something to boast about. We could proudly claim that our own efforts got us to where we are. But the Bible’s very clear: you and I are so far gone spiritually, so sinful, so hopelessly enslaved to sin that we can never achieve for ourselves a right standing before God. Instead, God grants us a right standing with him as a free gift through Jesus to be received simply by faith. That’s the core of the gospel message. And here’s the result: God gets 100% of the credit for our salvation. After all, the only thing we contributed to our salvation was the sin that made it necessary. So God gets 100% of the credit, and we get 0%. 

It’s kind of like receiving an organ from someone else. Let’s say you have kidney disease and will die unless you get a healthy kidney. Fortunately, however, your friend generously decides to give you one of their kidneys. So you both go to the hospital, where doctors are able to remove one of your friend’s kidneys and give it to you. I’m sure you’d be very happy at having received a kidney and very grateful toward your friend. And yet, you obviously wouldn’t have any grounds for boasting. What could you possibly boast about? You didn’t provide the kidney, you didn’t perform the surgery, you didn’t contribute anything. And that’s the way it is with our salvation. It’s not something we achieve but rather something we receive. And we do that simply through faith in Jesus. He’s the hero, not us. 

And as we work our way through chapter 4, we’re going to see that in the life of Abraham. Remember, Paul was writing to an audience that had a lot of Jews, so they regarded Abraham quite highly. He was the father of their nation. Yet Paul demonstrates that even Abraham back in Old Testament times was justified by faith, before circumcision, and therefore had no grounds for boasting. That’s the main idea of this passage: Abraham was justified by faith, before circumcision, and therefore had no grounds for boasting. So let’s look at those two features of Abraham’s justification. Number one, that he was justified by faith. And number two, that he was justified before circumcision. 

Justified by Faith

So first, that Abraham was justified by faith. Look at Romans 4:1-5: 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.” 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. 

Now, in this passage, to be “justified” means to be declared right before God. We examined that in detail last week. Justification is a legal declaration of right standing before God. And Paul says in verse 2 that “if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.” In other words, if he had worked his way to a right standing with God, that that would be legitimate grounds for boasting. But, of course, he didn’t. Paul makes that clear in verse 3, where he quotes Genesis 15:6, which says that “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” If you look at the original context of that verse in Genesis 15, you see that God had just made a tremendous promise to Abraham. Even though Abraham was at that point childless and had a wife who was way past childbearing age, God promised him that he would have descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky. Then we read the verse Paul quotes—that “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now that word “counted” can also be translated “reckoned” and was often used to describe a financial transaction. To use a modern-day parallel, I’m sure that as Christmas approaches this year, just about everyone here will either give or receive a gift card to a certain store or restaurant. And the way a gift card works, of course, is that you can bring it to whatever store or restaurant issued it, and that business will count the gift card toward your purchase. And that’s what God does with Abraham. Just like a gift card is counted as payment toward a purchase, Abraham’s faith is counted as righteousness. 

Then Paul continues in verse 4: Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. That’s a pretty common sense statement. For those of you here who work for an employer, I’m pretty sure none of you have ever written a thank you note to your employer in order to thank them for their wonderful grace and generosity in giving you your paycheck. No, you’ve earned your paychecks. The money your employer gives you isn’t a gift but rather an obligation. They owe it to you. And that’s what verse 4 says: Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. Paul then continues in verse 5: And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. So in contrast to a wage that’s deserved, God gives us something that’s undeserved. As Paul says, he “justifies the ungodly.” Whenever an ungodly person exercises faith in Jesus, God justifies them. He counts their faith as righteousness. That’s what happened with Abraham. Even though Abraham was sinful in many ways, God counted his faith as righteousness. 

Justified before Circumcision

Then number two, not only was Abraham justified by faith, he was also justified before his circumcision. That’s point two: justified before circumcision. Look at verses 9-11: 9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So what in the world is Paul talking about here? Why all this talk about circumcision? Well in the Old Testament, circumcision served a very important purpose religiously. God had instructed his people Israel to practice circumcision as a way of making them distinct from the other nations. It set the Israelites apart and marked them off as God’s chosen people. So naturally, circumcision became something in which they took great pride. And not only that, but many of the Jews were also pretty much trusting in their circumcision to save them. Of course, they didn’t have biblical warrant for believing that, but that’s nevertheless what they assumed. They thought they’d go to heaven simply because they were among the circumcised. And since a sizeable portion of the early church was made up of those who were ethnically Jewish, a distorted view of circumcision also found its way into the church. There were some who claimed to be Christians and who had mixed in with the church who taught that circumcision was necessary for salvation. These people were called “Judaizers.” They said that even though faith in Jesus might be a requirement for salvation, there was also a requirement that someone be circumcised if they were a male. 

But here in our text, Paul points out something that absolutely demolishes that teaching. He reminds his readers that Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation, was counted righteous not after his circumcision but before. That’s huge. Paul basically just dropped a nuclear bomb on the idea that you have to be circumcised in order to be saved. Abraham himself was “saved” or, in Paul’s words, “counted righteous” prior to his circumcision. That demonstrates that justification really is obtain by faith alone and not by ritual—whether circumcision or anything else. 

Now in case you’re sitting there wondering how all of this is relevant today, I’d like to suggest that even today, there are still Judaizers trying to propagate their teachings in the church. Of course, I don’t think anyone’s claiming these days that circumcision is necessary for salvation. But there are people claiming that other things, beyond simple faith, are necessary for salvation. For example, not long after Becky and I moved here to Pittsburgh to start this church, a man started attending our Bible study. Back then, our “church” was just a small Bible study of 7 or 8 people meeting in my living room. And a man started attending this study from a particular denomination that teaches the view that baptism is necessary for salvation. Now we know from the Bible that baptism is certainly necessary for obedience since Jesus commands it, but this denomination goes a step beyond that and says that baptism is necessary not only for obedience but also for salvation. In other words, if you don’t get baptized, you can’t go to heaven. That’s what this man’s denomination believed. And when I talked to this man outside of the study, he was extremely knowledgeable about his denomination’s view on this issue and wholeheartedly embraced it.

And let me just say that this man was an extremely nice guy. Honestly, he was just as caring and likeable as anyone here in this room. I loved being around him. But he was committed to the view that baptism was necessary for salvation. And as I asked him more questions, he even admitted that he believed his denomination was the only one that could properly administer baptism. So basically, baptisms performed by other denominations didn’t count. If you weren’t baptized in his denomination, you couldn’t go to heaven. And like I said, this man was extremely knowledgeable. If I remember correctly, he had been to seminary. And so, we had a very good conversation in which he articulated several carefully-crafted and well-nuanced arguments for his position and then challenged me to examine the scriptures myself with an open mind. So I agreed to do that. I started studying up on this issue in the Bible. And I discovered that the view this man had articulated to me was nuanced enough to account for many of the Bible verses that address this issue. For example, he would agree that salvation is a gift of God, he would agree that God gets 100% of the glory for our salvation, and he would even agree that we’re saved entirely by God’s grace and not through our works. Yet he still maintained that the ritual of baptism was necessary to receive that grace. He said that he didn’t believe baptism was a meritorious work but simply a necessary action by which we receive the grace of God. So that’s what I mean when I say his arguments were very well-nuanced. 

But then, in my personal study, I came to Paul’s teaching about circumcision. And this is actually what convinced me, more than anything else in the entire Bible, that the position I had been holding to was correct. It was Paul’s teaching about circumcision both here in Romans 4 and in even greater detail in his letter to the Galatians. Paul actually wrote Galatians for the express purpose of warning the church in Galatia not to listen to what the Judaizers were saying and reminding them that circumcision was absolutely not a requirement for salvation. That was the occasion for the whole letter. Paul states his argument quite clearly in Galatians 2:16: Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law [such as circumcision] but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. So just like in Romans 4, Paul’s clearly teaching that neither circumcision nor any other work of the law or religious ritual is in any way necessary for salvation. That includes baptism. Rather, we’re saved simply through faith. 

And not only that, but adding those other things to faith as requirements for salvation is no small error. We’re not just talking about theological minutia here or splitting theological hairs. Adding other things to faith and presenting them as requirements for salvation is a colossal error. In fact, I would even have to question whether someone who taught that error from an informed perspective was even a true Christian at all. And I realize that’s a pretty radical statement, but listen to how Paul starts out his letter to the Galatians. With this kind of error in view, Paul writes in Galatians 1:6-7: 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. So what does Paul call the idea that some kind of ritual or work is necessary for salvation? He calls it “a different gospel.” That’s what it is. And that’s why, as radical as it may seem, we have to insist that any denomination today that teaches baptism as a requirement for salvation is in fact teaching “a different gospel” and not the gospel of Christ. 

Because, at the end of the day, if you add anything to the gospel, you lose the gospel. It’s kind of like your DNA. If you change just one little thing in someone’s DNA sequence, it can cause a very serious disease, right? I think about cystic fibrosis and all the other genetic diseases that are out there. These diseases are devastating. Yet they’re caused by just a very slight alteration in the DNA of one particular gene. The alteration is so small but the impact so big. And that’s the way it is with the gospel. Just one slight alteration to the gospel undermines the entire message. If you add anything to it or, for that matter, take anything away from it, you end up losing the gospel. And one of those foundational gospel truths that we dare not alter is the truth that we’re saved through faith and faith alone. Not through a ritual, not through a work, not through morality, and not through anything else we do. Remember, salvation is received, not achieved. And, by the way, to close the loop on the story of the man attending the Bible study, I did end up having to ask him not to return because he was actively and persuasively trying to convince others of his view, and the gospel just isn’t something we want to mess with. You know, there really aren’t many things that I count as true hills to die on, but the gospel’s one of them. In fact, it tops the list. It’s hill number one. Martin Luther referred to the gospel and specifically to the teaching of justification by faith alone as the article by which the church stands or falls. That’s what he said. Justification by faith alone is the article by which the church stands or falls—and I believe that. 

Conclusion: Sharing the Faith of Abraham

So my question to you as we return to Romans 4, is “Do you have the faith of Abraham?” God makes the same offer to you as he did to Abraham thousands of years ago. Paul writes in verse 16: 16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all [Abraham’s] offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham…. So do you share the faith of Abraham? Paul continues down in verses 23-25: 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for [Abraham’s] sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. So have you this morning taken God up on his promise? Have you come to have faith in Jesus? Notice in this passage that we’re not saved just by some generic faith but by a particular kind of faith—as verse 24 says, “faith in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” Then it describes Jesus as the one “who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” That’s what you have to believe. Jesus was “delivered up” on the cross “for your trespasses.” That means he died in order to take the penalty our trespasses against God deserved. He took on himself the wrath that should have come down on us. And then, Jesus was raised for our justification, so we could be right with God. That’s the message biblical faith embraces. 

And yet, faith isn’t merely assenting to certain truths about Jesus with your intellect. Intellectual assent to those truths is certainly necessary, but biblical faith goes beyond that. It’s something you do not just with your intellect but also with your will. Think about what you do every time you board an airplane. Whenever you board an airplane, you’re exercising an enormous amount of faith. If something bad were to happen while that plane is flying in the air, you’d have no ability whatsoever to rescue yourself. If there’s a mechanical failure, you’d have no ability to fix it. If both of the pilots are somehow incapacitated, you’d have no ability to fly the plane yourself. There’s also no parachute to jump out. Flying in a plane is an act of complete faith—faith in the plane’s engineers, faith in the plane’s mechanics, and faith in the plane’s pilots. You’re relying on them entirely. And notice that you’re not just believing intellectually that the plane will make it to its destination while you remain on the ground. Instead, you’re boarding the plane and actively relying on the plane to get you where you need to go. And that’s what we’re called to do with Jesus—not just believe in him with our intellect but also rely on him and commit ourselves to him with our will. To put it another way, you could think of faith as having a negative side and a positive side. On the negative side, you’re renouncing all confidence in yourself to earn a right standing before God or to contribute to your own salvation in any way. Then on the positive side, you’re placing your confidence entirely in Jesus to rescue you on the basis of what he’s done on the cross. As the old hymn says, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.” That’s faith. And that’s what I invite you to do even this morning. 

And if you’ve already done that and are already a Christian, here’s what I believe you can take away from Romans 4. As you think about having been saved through faith alone, it should humble you. I mean, you should be deeply humble and deeply grateful for God’s grace toward you. Perhaps one of the best indicators of the degree to which you’ve internalized this aspect of the gospel is the degree to which your pride has been eradicated. Pride indicates a basic ignorance of this gospel truth. If you really grasp that you’ve been saved through faith alone, you’ll be humble. And you’ll be humble both toward God and toward others. You’ll respond with humility toward others when they disagree with your opinions, disregard your interests, or do whatever else against you that some would find offensive. Grasping this truth of salvation through faith will give you the humility to face those situations well. 

It’ll also make you a grateful and joyful person. A true Christian is able to genuinely rejoice from the depths of their being at salvation through faith and at God getting all the glory for their salvation. We also rejoice that our salvation couldn’t be more secure. If salvation depended in any way on our own performance, we’d never know for sure whether or not we had measured up. But since our salvation depends no on our performance but on that of Christ, we know with certainty that it’s eternally secure. Since we didn’t earn it by our good performance, we can’t lose through our poor performance. 

And yet, at the same time, we still desire to live for God. If we’ve truly been converted and God has truly changed our hearts, the farthest thing from our mind is to take this reality of salvation by faith and try to turn it into a license to sin. Rather, knowing that we’ve been saved by faith makes us all the more eager to please God and live for him—not because we’re trying to earn something but simply because we’re grateful. Good works in the Bible are never a means of salvation but always a response of gratitude. We’re so grateful at what God’s done for us and therefore count it our greatest privilege to live for his glory. 

Now before I pray to conclude the sermon, here’s what I’d like you to do. If you have a bulletin, you’ll notice on the sermon notes page that there’s space at the bottom with the heading, “How I need to grow and change.” Please locate that and grab a pen. And if you didn’t get a bulletin, any piece of paper will do or if you need to you can just do it in your head. But I’d like to invite you to spend a few moments thinking about how you need to respond to this message. Don’t let yourself walk away from this message having just acquired information. Instead, be satisfied with nothing less than transformation. So how do you need to respond? How do you need to grow and change? I’ll give you a few moments to write that down, and then I’ll lead us in prayer.