Romans 4:1-8

Romans chapter 4 1 to 8. What shall we say then that Abraham our father as pertaining to the flesh hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory but not before God. For what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man to whom God impudeth righteousness without works. Saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord. Lord will not impute sin. God bless to us His holy and sacred word this evening. When a woman is married, all that the groom has becomes hers as well. If you listen closely to most wedding vows, you’ll hear something of this nature. For instance, some of the vows will have, with all my worldly goods, die and thou or something to that effect. The husband’s house becomes her house. The husband’s car becomes her car. His wealth becomes her wealth. All his possessions become hers. Now, the wife doesn’t do anything to earn these possessions. They are simply reckoned to be hers legally. If she’s poor, she instantly becomes rich if she marries a wealthy person. In addition, whatever debt that she has, prior to marriage, becomes the liability of the husband. All of this is commonly understood, well known, by most people. Scripture indicates to us that marriage is a picture of Christ, Christ and the church. But somehow the implications of this union are not fully understood by many. You live in a day and age where professing Christians are often ignorant of what I will call some basic Bible truths. Some professing Christians could not properly explain the meaning of our text. verse 6, this idea of imputed righteousness. Perhaps it is related to the fact that today there is a total rejection of God’s law in so many so-called Christian circles. When growing up, I can’t recall a single sermon on Christ imputed righteousness. There was much said about Christ dying in the place of sinners as a substitute. and taking away our sin debt, as is spoken of in verses 7 and 8. But that’s just half the story. There’s more to it. There’s more to the gospel. Something important is missing. And I think the same problem persists today. And that’s why I wanted to speak on the imputed righteousness of Christ tonight. Now, if we look at the Book of Romans and see what has led up to chapter 4, the epistle was written for the purpose of explaining and vindicating the doctrine of the sinner’s justification before God. That’s its main focus. He begins by proving both Jews and Gentiles are under sin as violators of the law of God in chapters 1 and 2. All are under the curses. and the condemnation of the law. And therefore, they cannot be justified in God’s sight by obedience to the law. Chapter 3. He concludes Chapter 3 by declaring that a person must be justified by faith in Christ. To prove his case, we now go to Chapter 4. And here he is going to speak about two important. important individuals who found justification before God. David and Abraham are the two that he mentions here. And I wish to focus upon six in particular because I would like us to have a very clear understanding of this imputation of righteousness. Now, what is righteousness? Let’s talk about what it’s not here. It obviously is not your point. personal obedience to the law. Righteousness speaks of being right or just. You are judged to be in conformity with the law of God. God uses his plum line. He checks out individuals. He sees if we are matching up to his standard. And your problem is that at your best, you are imperfect. So your works can never justify you before God because he demands perfection. You look at the Pharisees. If you read anything about them, you see how eager they were to be seeking after righteousness by their obedience to the law of God. They tried to keep it in order to find acceptance before God. But you remember what Jesus said. Except your righteousness shall exceed, exceed the righteousness. Of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 520. Paul has made it perfectly clear, previously in this epistle, there is none righteous, no not one, in chapter 3 in verse 20. Why, the holiest men, who have ever, never lived, have acknowledged the imperfections in their lies when it came to obedience to God’s standard. Solomon sums it up like this in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 20. There’s not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sineth not. If we are honest, we will make the same plea as David does in Psalm 143 verse 2, enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. Remember the passage in Isaiah where we’re told that all our righteousness is are as stealthy racks. Besides, your personal obedience to the law of God would be a righteousness based upon works. That’s contrary to our text, which speaks about an imputed righteousness, one that does not come by human works. The text speaks of a righteousness of another that is given to us. If you can be righteous by keeping the law, think about this, Christ’s coming into this world would be unnecessary. Paul speaks in this manner to the Galatians. I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead and vain. Hey, if we can be justified by what we did, Christ wouldn’t have had to die. It’s as simple as that. So it’s not your personal obedience to the law. It is also not your act of believing. Now, some have argued, Christ came into the world to relax the old law of works. You study the dispensational viewpoint and they will say, well, you know, in the old dispensation, you were justified by keeping the law, but he introduces a new law for the righteous, and that is for righteousness, and that is obedience to the gospel. As if something that you do, a faith that you produce, by the way, is why you are justified. That your act of faith by itself is now considered the basis of your righteousness and makes you acceptable before God. So they would point it in verse 3 and say, Abraham believed God in it and his faith, he was counted unto him for righteousness. Obviously, Paul doesn’t believe the cause of justification is Abraham’s personal faith. That would be something Abraham did. He’s going to explain that faith is the means, not the cause of our justification, but the means by which we will be justified. And that’s to ignore the context. Look back a page up here, if you would, to chapter 3. and beginning with verse 20. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the laws and knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God, now notice here, it’s not your personal righteousness. It’s a righteousness that comes from God. Without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, yes, even in the Old Testament, It talked about this justification by another’s righteousness. Even the righteousness of God, which is by, here, notice the means by faith of Jesus Christ. Our faith isn’t the righteousness. Our faith is the means by which we obtain the righteousness. Unto all, and upon all that believe, for there’s no difference for all of sin and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Faith is not therefore justifying righteousness, because it is a faith in Christ, and he is the one who justifies us. So Paul here in Chapter 4, verse 3, sort of uses an abbreviation, abbreviated terms when he talks about it was counted unto him for righteousness. It is not Abraham’s faith per se as the basis of righteousness. But the object of faith, Jesus Christ, is the basis by which he is justified. Abraham’s faith was in the seed to come. And that seed, we’re told. and Galatians 316 is Christ. Notice how Paul applies the text here in chapter 4, verses 22, the 24. He says here, and being fully persuaded what he had promised he was able to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus Christ, our Lord, from the debt. It was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. Remember, faith, according to Scripture, if you read it carefully, you’ll notice faith is not a work. Faith is a gift of God. It’s not something man produces. It is a fruit of the spirit of God himself. It’s always contrasted with what. works. I’m not going to spend the time on this tonight, but Ephesians 2,8, 9, Acts 316, Philippians 1,29, Hebrews 12, 2, 2, Peter 1 1, 1, 1, 4, verses 8, and 9 as well. All of these speak about faith being God’s gift. Now think about this carefully. Faith is imperfect, even in the best of saints, right? It’s imperfect. And for this reason, your personal act of faith could never justify it. It’s not perfect. But if that faith, even if it’s a little faith, if it’s in Jesus Christ, that makes the difference. He is the one who justifies us. So faith is distinguished from righteousness. I’ll just make you look at one more text here, chapter 10 in verse 10, very familiar passage of Scripture, for with the heart man believeth, notice, unto righteousness. With the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. This is how we obtain the righteousness. The faith itself is not righteousness. It’s the way we obtain it. And so this is the key factor that he is emphasizing here. So what this righteousness is not, is not your personal obedience to the law. And it’s not your personal act of faith. Let’s talk about what it is. Friends, the righteousness you need, as I’ve mentioned, is the righteousness of God. Not something it originates with you, but something that is given to us. Thus, we read in Jeremiah 236 about the Lord, our righteousness. If we have the Lord that he’s speaking of, we have the righteousness that is granted to us. Jesus Christ, by his active and passive obedience, by a life perfectly obeying the law of God, and by his death bearing the penalty of the law, you have a law honoring, justice-satisfying, satisfying righteousness. Jesus Christ is sinless. Jesus Christ obeyed. the law down to every jot and tittle. It is his perfect righteousness that you need. Christ’s righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. He’s going to bring an everlasting righteousness according to Daniel chapter 924. Something that can’t be lost, something that cannot be taken away from you. C.H. Spurgeon was once walking the streets of London, and a peddler was out there selling canes. Walking sticks, if you would. And he followed Spurgeon around trying to get him to pay attention to him so he could sell Spurgeon and cane. Well, Spurgeon showed him his own cane, which was a quite expensive cane. It was very nice cane. Far better than the one that the peddler had to sell, so the peddler immediately withdrew. He figured, no sale. here with this guy. My friends, Christ’s righteousness is far superior to your own. You don’t need another one. You don’t need… Nobody should be interesting you… Interesting… Interesting… …you in another righteousness because you have the best. You have Christ. So this is what we’re talking about here. Now, what is meant by the imputation of righteousness. The word imputed means to reckon, to count, to place something in the account of another. I guess if we were thinking about banking and I put money into your checking account or something of that nature, if I wired it to your checking account, I’m putting money into your account. Christ puts righteousness into our account, if you would. As I said, when you marry, all the wealth of your mate becomes yours. It’s reckoned to be yours. It is legally yours. When you are brought into union with Christ, when you’re married to Christ, you become part of the bride of Christ, his perfect righteousness is credited to you. Now you have it. So in Christ you are viewed as perfectly righteous by God. you are declared to be in complete compliance with the law of God. As the scripture indicates in Philippians 3.9, and be found in Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, by the means of faith. If I hold up a red piece of glass, to my eye and I look through it, it colors everything red. If I hold up a blue piece of glass and before my eye it will color everything blue. Same way with green. Same way with yellow. If you are united to Christ, if you have faith in Him as your Lord and Savior, God looks at you through Christ, through the white lens of Christ’s Holy Life and righteousness so that you’re close in his perfect righteousness. That’s why Christ says of his bride, as we’ve seen already in Song of Solomon, chapter 4, verse 7, thou art all fair, my love, there’s no spot in you. That’s why. In the book of Revelation, you read about the Lamb’s wife in chapter 19, and verse 8, and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saint. Now here is where I really have problems with the new King James when it says it’s the righteous acts. They say, no, it’s not the righteous acts of the saints. The clothing that they are given is a righteousness of Christ, not their personal righteousness. Now, if you look at this carefully, this text, you’ll notice there’s a double imputation. No only is Christ’s righteousness given to you, but you give something to Christ. Did you see that? Something’s imputed. to him. We’re getting the good stuff. We’re getting perfect righteousness. Guess what he got? All our sins, all our iniquities, our violations of the law, the curses of the law afford those things, are imputed to Christ. So there’s a double imputation. In the book of Philemon, you’ll recall that Paul is interceding for a runaway slave named Onesimus. He ran away from his master, probably stole something from him of value and headed for Rome. Well, Onesimus, the slave ends up somehow, rather, in contact with the Apostle Paul. God’s providence directed him to Paul. He is converted. He is saved. Paul happens to know Philemon, who is the owner, who lives in Colossi. You think about this, the slave went all the way from what we call Turkey. all the way to Rome, Italy, in order to get away from his master, but God hunted him down here, saved him, and sends him back through Paul. And Paul says, he writes the letter Phileman, and in the letter, he has Onesimus take it back to his master. He says this, to Philemon, If he hath wrong thee, or oweeth thee ought, put that on mine account. I, Paul, have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it. That is imputing one’s debt to another. Whatever he owes you, put it on me at my account. I’ll pay for it. That is what Christ has done for us as his people. That’s what we see here. He takes the responsibility. He assumes your sin debt for breaking God’s law. When Rain and I were first married, she owed Singer’s sewing machine company a little over $100. Of course, it was fabric. You know, fabric and she would be sewing clothes and stuff like this. And when we married, she accumulated about one week’s pay for me in order to pay off the debt. But that debt became mine. When we became married. married. I was responsible to pay it. And of course, we paid it off, and she was relieved of the debt. So it is with Christ and your debt. When you’re married to him, he assumes your debt. He assumes it. That’s what we’re talking about. When we talk about imputation, there’s a double imputation. Your righteousness is given, his Christ’s righteousness is given to you, and your sins are laid upon him. Now, how is righteousness imputed without works? You’ll notice in verse five, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Now, did you notice here that you are ungodly when you are justified? Those who are ungodly have not the personal works to commend them before God. If God’s going to justify the ungodly, it’s not by what they’ve done, it’s by imputed righteousness as we’ve been talking about because they have none. The righteousness credit to their account is Christ’s perfect righteousness. This is the only manner in which an ungodly person can be justified, but there is a positive to this. And we’ll be talking about that in a moment. It’ll tell us that no matter how bad we are, no matter how bad we are, no matter how bad we are, no matter how we’re how ungodly we may seem to be, there is a way of finding forgiveness. Justification is an act of God’s sovereign grace. In chapter 3, we read that passage that is found in verse 24, being justified freely without cost, without effort on your part, by His grace. through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. It is by grace that we have this imputed righteousness. All boasting then of men is excluded. You’re ungodly when you get it, and it’s not your righteousness, it’s Christ, and you find it by grace, and unless you find grace in the eyes of the Lord, you don’t get the righteousness. Look at the case of David, whom Paul, whom Paul, quotes in verses 6 and 7. It’s from Psalm 32 records David’s personal confession of sinfulness. If you think about David’s life, and he has many a black mark on his life with regard to Bashiba and with regard to Uriah’s death and so forth, David says, many sorrow shall be to the wicked in 3210 of Psalms. But he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Here is something wonderful about God’s salvation. God saves the ungodly. You come to the Lord with the most vile sins that could possibly darken one’s character, and you can be justified graciously by God. This is how it’s imputed without works. Now how blessed are those who enjoy imputed righteousness. Blessed is the man. Your iniquities are forgiven. your sins are covered, he tells us, in verses 6 and 7. God has blotted out all the charges against you. It’s not that you no longer sin. For Christ’s sake, those transgressions, however, are not imputed to you. Think about that. Blessed is the man to whom God does not impute sin. Doesn’t put it on his account. It’s not marked down against you. You are freed from the guilt of sin so that you’re no longer under condemnation. If you look at chapter 8 of the book of Romans, we find that great passage in chapter 8, verses 33 and 34 in particular I’m focusing on here. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect, it is God that justified. Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, that has risen again, who is even at the right hand of God who also makeeth intercession for us. Can anybody charge anything to God’s elect? No. They are justified. They are declared righteous on the basis of what Christ is done. So you are freed of all sin and condemnation. That’s a blessed thing. It will go well you. with you in life and at death and at the judgment. In Isaiah 3.10, say to the righteous that it shall be well with him. It’s not God, is not God working all things for the good of his people? No matter what happens, Romans 828. The wicked or unrighteous don’t have such a promise given to them. Why, at times God’s sets. their feet in slippery places to have them fall to destruction. For the believer, things shall go well at death. Don’t we have Christ intercession always being effectual for us? What did he say in his high priestly prayer, Father, I will, that they also, whom thou has given me, be with me where I am. They may behold my glory. I want them with me. And you will be. For you, death is swallowed up in victory. For you, death will be gained. For you, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. It’s going to go well with you when you die. But if you’re without Christ’s righteousness, then I have to say that hell has its mouth open wide for you to swallow you up. death means entering into a place where you have no rest day or night but are under great tournament. For you as the believer, when it comes to the final judgment, it will be well with you. You have nothing to fear at the final judgment? For your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. You shall not be declared as one condemned. For you have been declared righteous. Christ, who is the judge, is your Savior. And your mediator. You’ve been given eternal life. But if you are outside of Christ, then you have much to fear at the time of death and at this final judgment, because your name isn’t written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And you will be condemned for your sins as the Book of Works are open and everything that you’ve done will be exposed. Christ, the judge, is not your Savior. And you’re going to hear depart from me, you, ye workers of iniquity, and you’ll be condemned to eternally perish. Let me conclude by saying this. You must seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Without Christ, righteousness and there is no omittance into heaven. Your own righteousness and never going to satisfy God. Your priority in life, then, must be to obtain this righteousness that Christ can give you. What good is it for you if you gain wealth and possessions and position in this world if you die and perish in your sins? What have you gained? Go to Christ. He has a a perfect righteousness to give you. Christ is the end the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Why do you hesitate to go to Christ? He’s the only one that can give you a perfect righteousness. We have to realize that so many people try to think they can be justified by what they do if they can just do a little bit better, if they can behave a little bit better. It’s impossible. It’s not by your own word. of righteousness. Why, that implies Christ’s death isn’t necessary. It would allow you to boast. You can say, I earned it. Listen to Christ. He says, Him that cometh to me, I will unknow wise cast thou. Cast yourself upon the mercy of Christ. For he can give you justification by grace. The lesson to learn from our text is this. It’s found in Isaiah 45, 24. In the Lord, have I righteousness. Outside of the Lord, you have no righteousness. It’s as simple as that. Secondly, let me mention this. You saints of God should admire anew the grace of God in imputing Christ’s righteousness to you. We ought to be leaping for joy. We ought to be like, I guess, David before the ark. excited when we think about how blessed we are to have such a perfect righteousness imputed to us. Not only your vile sins taken away, but here you have a perfect righteousness in which you are being clothed, or will be clothed in the, where you’re clothed now, in a sense, and we’ll be clothed in a more fuller way later. But you see, all your sinful failures and you can hang your head and say, a wretched man that I am. But look at Christ. Look at the sinless one. We’ve been studying in the Gospels, and we see how perfectly he kept the law even as a child. No fault is found in him. Not even his enemies could find fault with him. It’s the righteousness which is yours. Credited your account. Who can lay a single charge now against you? What a one? wonderful salvation that we have. What a complete Savior we have in Jesus Christ. What grace has been bestowed upon us. You have the greatest benefits through your union with Jesus Christ. All he has is yours. You’re a co-eer with Christ because you’re his bride. You’re part of the bride of Jesus Christ. Well, I hope as we consider this tonight, we will think more about this imputed righteousness and not forget that that is also an important part of our gospel message. Not only that Christ died for sinners, and through that death, salvation can be found, but you need a perfect righteousness. You’d be neutral if all you did is had your sins taken away. That’s not good enough. You need that righteousness added that Christ gives you. Let us close with the world.