Romans Bible Study #8 "Father Of Us All"..Romans 4:13-25 (Video and Lesson Notes)

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Review 4:1-12

Read 4:13-25

So in the section we’ve already covered, Paul explains to us that Abraham was not saved by his works, nor by circumcision, but by faith alone. In verses 13-15, he goes on to explain that Abraham was not saved by keeping the law.

I believe it would be beneficial to us to read from a similar teaching Paul had written to the churches in Galatia years before. Let’s read Gal. 3:16-19.

There are a lot of things we could talk about in this section, but I mainly wanted us to read this to note that Paul brings out to the Galatians what every good Jew would have already known...that the law was not given for many centuries after Abraham. Therefore, the idea that Abraham was justified by law keeping was untenable. We talked last week about how many Jewish teacher’s of Paul’s day believed that Abraham was justified by works. Paul refutes that argument in the first part of Romans 4. Many of them also believed (believe it or not!) that Abraham was justified by law keeping...even though the law would not be given for centuries!

Ancient passages from the rabbis say:

“We find that Abraham our father had performed the whole Law before it was given…” They argued that he kept the law long before it was given...by intuition. Paul refutes this idea both in Galatians and in Romans 4.

In verse 13, Paul identifies God’s words to Abraham in Genesis 15 (which we read last week) as “the promise.” This promise was given to Abraham as he was told to look up at the stars and count them…”if you are able to count them,” God said. “So shall your descendants be.” In Romans 4, Paul describes this promise in all it’s vastness...that he should be the heir of the world. In a sense, this might be a restatement of what God had told Abraham years earlier that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:3) In Psalm 37, David would tells us that “those who wait for the Lord will inherit the land (vs. 9) and “...those blessed by Him will inherit the land…” Jesus would rephrase this in Sermon on the Mount in saying “Blessed are the meek (or gentle), for they will inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5)

Paul in vs. 13 says that this promise was not through law but through “the righteousness of faith.” In vs. 14 he argues that if those who keep the law are the heirs of this promise, then “faith is made void and the promise is of no effect (KJV) or nullified.” The law of Moses and the promise God made to Abraham were at odds with each other. As we already read in Galatians, “For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise.” It is one or the other...it can’t be both.

“”Law and promise belong to different categories of thought, which are incompatible. Law-language (‘you shall’) demands our obedience, but promise-language (‘I will’) demands our faith.What God said to Abraham was not ‘Obey this law and I will bless you’, but ‘I will bless you; believe my promise’.” John Stott

In verse 15, Paul gives a reason for this…”for the Law brings about wrath (or judgement), but where there is no law, there also is no violation (or transgression).” This is not saying that where there is no law, there is no sin. Remember, Paul has already brought out the point in chapter 3 that the law was to give knowledge of sin, not to save us from sin. This is saying that you can’t break a law that hasn’t been given yet. If there was no law that says you can’t murder someone, murderers would not be violators of the law, but that is hardly the same thing as saying that murder is not wrong.

We actually have had this sort of thing happen in our society often. Slavery was allowed in our country before the Civil War. There was no law against it in many southern states. It would have been impossible to arrest a slave-owner for owning slaves before a law was passed making this a crime. Does that mean that it was right to own slaves before then? Of course not! More recently, in the south segregation was practiced. Separate drinking fountains between blacks and whites, separate schools, even separate places on busses. No one could be arrested for this because there was no law against segregation. (In fact, the law was written for segregation!) Once a law was written, in was now “against the law.” Yet, there was always something wrong about it.

In verse 16, Paul begins to pull together everything from the previous 15 verses. (“For this reason” is usually translated “therefore.” I think this makes more sense.) The first part of this verse in Amplified Version reads:

“Therefore, [inheriting] the promise depends entirely on faith [that is, confident trust in the unseen God], in order that it may be given as an act of grace [His unmerited favor and mercy],”

So the promise is given by grace and received by faith. “Grace gives and faith takes.” Paul would say much the same thing in Ephesians 2:8-9:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (NKJV)

Paul says that this salvation is the gift of God, not of works. In Romans 4:16, he says that this was so that it might be sure or guaranteed to all the seed, or all the descendants, not only the physical descendants of Abraham, but the spiritual descendants of Abraham, that is, those who have the same kind of faith that Abraham had. Abraham, he says, is the father of us all, not only Jews but Gentile believers as well! Paul is saying to us that when we believe God, we have a guaranteed promise from God that we will inherit all things, including eternal life. It is not based on lineage, not on pedigree, not on law-keeping, not on circumcision. It is based on God and His gracious provision. It is guaranteed because it is all based on God! This promise is as trustworthy as God Himself! When we simply receive this promise, we never have to doubt anymore. It is “sure to all the seed.” In the first part of verse 17, Paul bases this “father of us all statement” on the scripture in Genesis 17:5 where God said “A father of many nations have I made you.”

This verse really begins a turning point in Paul’s argument. From here on out, it seems that he is talking not only of Abraham’s initial faith in Gen. 15, where God gives him this promise, but now he is also bringing in Abraham’s more developed faith in Gen. 17, which occurs about 14 years later, when he is 99. Let’s go back and read this account.

Read Gen 17:1-7

So now, after 14 years, Abraham (who up until this time is actually called “Abram” or “Father”) has still yet to receive the promised seed, which was promised to him and Sarah first in Gen. 12 (when he was 75 and she was 65) and then in Gen. 15 (when he was 85 and she was 75). Let’s notice that in Gen. 12, all that Abraham was required to do is believe. Here is required to believe and obey. I think this is often overlooked. The promise was not conditional on Abraham’s obedience, but on his faith. Yet this certainly did not mean that God did not require obedience from Abraham. God absolutely expected obedience from Abraham. But it was not obedience to law, but it was obedience that was born out of faith. Because you believe me, God is saying to Abraham, “I expect that belief to produce a blameless walk before Me. Because of my relationship with you, Abraham, your seed will be multiplied exceedingly. My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations.”

This is where God changes his name from “Abram” (father) to “Abraham” (father of many). It was at this time also that God gave Abraham and his seed the covenant of circumcision, which Paul has already said in Romans 4, was a seal of Abraham’s faith. In the same way, our obedience to God is what identifies us as bearers of Abraham’s faith. Obedience is the fruit of faith. When we see fruit on a tree or on a vine, we now know that life is there...and we even know what kind of life by the fruit. If it’s apples, it must be an apple tree!

Back in Romans 4:17, Paul identifies this God who made Abram into Abraham “father of many”as the God who “gives life to the dead” (resurrection) and “calls into being that which does not exist” (creation). Both of these things are not natural, but supernatural. Abraham believed in a God who would give him descendents supernaturally.

In verse 18, it says that Abraham “against hope believed in hope.” (KJV). In other words, when there was no human reason to hope that the promise would be fulfilled (he was, after all, 99 and Sarah was 89, right?), he still believed the promise. He “hoped against hope.”(actually, this phrase had its origin in this verse) This doesn’t mean that he had a mere wish.

To get the idea of what this hope involved, let’s go ahead and re-read 18-22.

Listen to what John Stott says about this section:

This firm conviction about the power of God was what enabled Abraham to believe, both against all hope and in hope at the same time, when God promised him that his descendants would be as many as the stars, although at that time he and Sarah did not have even a single child... It is not that he ran away from the realities of his situation into a world of fantasy. On the contrary, without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact, indeed the two painful, stubborn facts, that he could not beget a child and that Sarah could not conceive one. For the facts were that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead Yet out of that double death God brought a new life. It was at one and the same time an act of creation and of resurrection. For this is the kind of God Abraham believed in.

When you see the word “hope”, think “earnest expectation.” Abraham expected God to fulfill His promise, though there was no earthly reason to think for. His hope was grounded in his view of God, not in his view of man.

It is amazing to me that our text says that Abraham “did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith.” Did Paul not know what happened between chapters 15 and 17? Let me give you a hint...his name was Ishmael! Abraham took matters into his own hands, according to the custom of the day, and fathered a child by Sarah’s handmaid. God would explain to Abraham later in chapter 17 that the promised seed would not come through Ishmael but through another child yet to be born, not through Sarah’s handmaid but through Sarah herself...and God even told him what the son’s name was to be...Isaac. This tells me that we can make many mistakes and, in God’s eyes, still be considered strong in faith. Isn’t that comforting! You see, I believe that Abraham’s siring of Ishmael was a mistake. It was not God’s perfect will...but it was an honest mistake. I honestly believe that Abraham believed that he was carrying out God’s promise in producing Ishamel, but of course he was wrong. God actually told Abraham that he would bless Ishmael and would make him a great nation. If the covenant which God had made with Abraham was based on Abraham’s works, it would have been negated right there. No, it was based on God’s works and God’s faithfulness.

In the end, Abraham grew strong in faith, believing that what God had promised, he was able also to perform.

As we look at Abraham as “the father of us all”, his faith gives us a good idea about what real faith really is.

1. Abraham did not just believe that God exists. Hebrews 11:6 says that “he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
2. Abraham believed the actual promise of God. His faith was not a dead faith but a living, active faith.
3. Abraham’s faith was a continuing faith. It wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime faith. The faith that is taught today is often built around a one-time confession. Some teach that once you make that confession, you’re in. If it’s not continuing faith, it’s really no faith at all.
4. Abraham’s faith was a growing faith. He “grew strong in faith.”
5. Abraham’s faith was an unwavering faith. “He did not waver in faith.” Though he made mistakes, he never doubted God’s promise.
6. Abraham’s faith was an obedient faith. God told Abraham to walk before Him and to be blameless.
7. Abraham’s faith was a tested faith. Even to the point, in the end, of being willing to offer up his son on the altar. (Gen. 21) Hebrews 11:17-19 tells us this…

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

Abraham’s faith is the model for our faith. Abraham’s faith is true, saving faith.

It was there on Mt. Moriah that Abraham demonstrated the culmination of a lifetime of faith. There, even more than any other time in his life, he demonstrated his belief that “what God had promised, He was able also to perform. And it was there that we have a picture of one who was greater than Abraham. Abraham’s son Isaac was figurative raised from the dead. God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, was literally raised from the dead. God the Father slayed His only Son on the cross.

Let’s re-read the final three verses of Romans 4.

When we believe in Him who was delivered because of our transgressions, and raised because of our justification, when our faith in Jesus Christ is real like Abraham’s faith in God the father is real, our faith in credited to us as righteousness. That is real, abiding faith.

Romans Bible Study #7 "Righteousness Through Faith" - Romans 4:1-12 (Video and notes)

To go to the beginning of the series on Romans, click here...
To go to study #6, click here..
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Before we can move on, I feel we need to spend a few more minutes on this crucial section in chapter 3. We are right now at the very foundation of our faith...the very root. It will serve us well to make sure that we have this down. If we don’t, nothing else matters.

Any public building will from time to time have to be inspected to make sure it is safe to inhabit. We see this all the time, especially after some kind of natural disaster like a hurricane.  Inspectors will come in to make sure that it is safe to live in. Although they will certainly look at the whole building, they will especially be conscious of the foundation. If the foundation is not sturdy, there is no use even looking at the rest of the house.

Before we had our modular home moved to our property in 2003, we had a foundation put in place. I had the choice of two kinds of concrete blocks to build the foundation with. One was sturdier than the other, and of course more expensive. I was briefly tempted to go with the cheaper one, but I immediately thought…”this is the foundation. If you’re going to skimp on anything, it had better not be that!” I’ve never regretted that decision. We’ve had some pretty big storms move through, and I’ve never felt anything shift in the least when we’re inside.

Last week, we spent some time on definition of terms. We talked about what righteousness, justification, redemption, and propitiation mean. Let’s review these briefly…

Righteousness…(vs. 21, 22) Righteousness is being right before God...being approved by God. We’re going to be talking about this a lot more tonight...especially about how we get to be right before God.

(from last week)

Justification (vs. 24) a legal term meaning to secure a favorable verdict, to acquit, to vindicate, to declare righteous. “Just as if I’d never sinned…” We’ll be spending more time on this tonight as well

(from last week)

Redemption (vs. 24) is what Jesus accomplished on the cross. It means the price has been paid. “Tetelestai”.  It is finished! We have been purchased. We are now no longer slaves to unrighteousness but “slaves” to righteousness. Jesus Christ was “the lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.” The passover lamb was the type of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. As Israel was redeemed from Egypt in OT (Egypt is a type of the world and the world-system) by the blood of the passover lamb, so we are redeemed by the blood of Christ.

(from last week)

Propitiation (vs. 25) means to appease the wrath of God. Jesus Christ satisfied that righteous demands of a Holy God. God could never passover sin without a Passover sacrifice. Jesus was that sacrifice. It has often been pictured as the mercy seat, which was the golden covering over the ark of the covenant. It was there that the blood of the goat on the day of atonement was sprinkled. “Just as in the OT God met His people when the blood of the sin offering was sprinkled on the altar, so Christ’s death brings us into fellowship with God.”

Synonym is “atonement” - At-one-ment

I passed over one section in this latter part of chapter three I want us to pause over for just a bit.

The end of verse 25 says that in His forbearance He passed over the sins previously committed. This is talking about all the sins committed before Christ came. This does not mean that these sins were paid for. It also does not mean that they were ignored. It basically means that they were put off to a later date.  All the sacrifices of the OT period merely postponed the penalty for sin. These sins were atoned for on the cross, just as the sins of all of those who have trusted Christ since the cross have been atoned for.

That is what verse 26 is about. “At the present time” meaning after the cross, God demonstrated His righteousness before the cross by postponing their penalty. He demonstrated His righteousness after the cross by accepting the payment of sins that Jesus paid on the cross.
“That He might be just and the justifier of the one who had faith in Jesus.” Only through the cross could God be both just and justifier. It is truly “just-as-if-I’d never sinned!

Paul in verse 27 says, “Where is the boasting? It is excluded!”  There is nothing for us to boast about.

“The swimmer, when saved from drowning, does not brag because he trusted the lifeguard. What else could he do? When a believing sinner is justified by faith, he cannot boast of his faith, but he can boast in a wonderful Savior.” Warren Wiersbe

"Through the sin-bearing, substitutionary death of his Son, God has propitiated his own wrath in such a way as to redeem and justify us, and at the same time demonstrate his justice. We can only marvel at the wisdom, holiness, love and mercy of God, and fall down before him in humble worship. The cross should be enough to break the hardest heart, and melt the iciest." John Stott

Read 4:1-12

Paul does not want to leave this as theory. In the OT, it was by the mouth of two or three witnesses that a matter was to be confirmed. (Deut. 19:15). Paul brings forth two witnesses...Abraham and David. The Jews would certainly look at these two men as two of the most reliable witnesses in Jewish history. (While this chapter is directed at the Jews, it certainly has implications to Gentiles as well).

At the beginning of the chapter, Paul resumes the “diatribe” (question and answer) style. He hears someone asking the question, “What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?”  i.e. “But what about Abraham?” He is hearing the Jews go back to Abraham in an effort to refute the idea of justification by faith.

Stott…”Abraham was held in the highest esteem by the Rabbis as the epitome of righteousness and even the special ‘friend’ of God.They took it for granted that he had been justified by works of righteousness. For instance, ‘Abraham was perfect in all his dealings with the Lord and gained favour by his righteousness throughout his life.’They quoted the Scriptures in which God promised to bless Abraham because he had obeyed him, without observing that these verses referred to Abraham’s life of obedience after his justification.”

So, here Paul is going to turn the Jews’ near-worship of Abraham on its head. In verse 2, he declares that Abraham was not justified by his works. In verse three, he quotes Genesis 15:6 “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”  

Let’s go back and read Genesis 15:1-6

So Abraham was promised a child. He was at this time about 85 years old. Sarah was 75 years old. God had originally made this promise when he was 75.  It looked like the promise was not going to be fulfilled. Yet, God said it would be fulfilled just as He had said. Abraham, as a response, simply believes God, and the scripture tells us that this was credited to him (or reckoned to him) as righteousness.

The word translated in chapter 4 “credited” is an interesting one. The Greek word is “logizomai” and it appears eleven times in this chapter. It is translated as “credited”, “reckoned”, “imputed”, as well as “counted” in different version. (NASB mostly stays with “credited.”) It is actually a banking term, meaning to put something to one’s account.”

There are two ways that something can be credited to our account. One is, it can be credited to us as wages. We worked for it, we earned it. Therefore, it is owed to us. If you are working at a job and you get paid on Friday, you generally are not surprised to see that money show up in your account. You earned it. The company owed it to you, and they discharged their debt to you.

The other way that something can be credited to your account is as a gift. You didn’t earn it. It may have come completely as a surprise. It was only given to you as a gracious act by someone else. Which way does Paul tell us that righteousness is credited to our account?  Back in 3:24 he already told us we are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Verse 5 of chapter 4 says that like Abraham, righteousness is credited to us when we believe. He emphatically states that this is not a work. It is unearned. Like the swimmer who is rescued by the lifeguard, we would be foolish to boast in our faith in the lifeguard.  Nothing to boast in!

Warren Wiersbe makes this statement about the fifth verse:

Paul “makes the startling statement: God justifies the ungodly! The Law said, “I will not justify the wicked” (Ex. 23:7). The Old Testament judge was commanded to “justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked (Deut. 25:1). When Solomon dedicated the temple, he asked God to condemn the wicked and justify the righteous! (1 Kings 8:31-32) But God justifies the ungodly - because there are no godly for Him to justify! He put our sins on Christ’s account that He might put Christ’s righteousness on our account.”

In verse 6, David will turn to his second witness, David, before turning back to Abraham. David said in Psalm 32:1, “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds (or sins) have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.” (NKJV “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”) It’s important to note that the phrase “will not take into account” or “shall not impute sin” is the same word “logizomai” that is translated “credited” in the rest of the text.

Let’s think about this. David says that the man whose sins have been forgive...have been covered...is a blessed man. This man is blessed because the Lord will not take into account his sin. So, in this case, God does not count sin against him.

When I was in college, I took an accounting course. We had a ledger that we would record credits and debits. You may have a checkbook that works the same way. I have a debit card in my pocket. When I use that, I charge my account to pay for something. It’s moved from one side of the ledger to the other. In this Psalm, God does not debit sin against the blessed man. He doesn’t charge him for the sin that he commits. Yet, we know that the sin must be charged to some account. God must be both “just” and “justifier.” How is He able to do this?  The answer is through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

However, let’s turn back to the case of Abraham. Here, we’re not dealing with “debits” but “credits”. By faith, Abraham is credited with righteousness. We are here not only talking about not having sins counted against us, but actually having righteousness counted for us!

Let’s imagine that you or I owe a tremendous debt that we know that we could absolutely never pay. Say $10 million. We get the notice that is due tomorrow. We can’t pay it and we have no hope of paying it, so we respond not by asking for more time (which would never help anyway), but we audaciously ask that the entire debt be forgiven us. Tomorrow morning, we get an email from the debtor. To our astonishment, we find out that the entire debt had been forgiven...It wasn’t charged to us. We then find out, that the debtor charged it to his only Son, who has graciously consented to pay for the entire amount. There is no reason for this. We are now out of debt completely!  Would you be happy? I guess!

Now, let’s take this a step further. You are out of debt. However, you are also still dead broke. You get another email from the same man, who was previously your debtor. This email astonishes you even more than the first one. This gracious man has decided not only to forgive you of all of your debt, but has decided to deposit into your account an amount of money that will cover everything you need for the rest of your life. When you have a need, all you need to do is draw it from your account. Now how happy would you be?  

I have news for you...something greater than this has happened to you. Not only have your sins been forgiven and you have not received what was coming to you (that is, eternal separation from God), but you have been given eternal life. You are in right standing with God now and forever. All you have to do is accept the gracious provision!

Stott…”Justification involves a double counting, crediting, or reckoning. On the one hand, negatively, God will never count our sins against us. On the other hand, positively, God credits our account with righteousness, as a free gift, by faith, altogether apart from our works….Paul writes in Romans 4 both of God not imputing sin to sinners, although it actually belongs to them, and of his imputing righteousness to us, although it does not belong to us.”

I believe this is the real reason behind these OT verses…

Comfort, comfort my people,

   says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

   and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

   that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

   double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1,2)

What good news is this!

Let’s look at one more passage about this “double counting.”

Read 2 Corinthians 5:17-21.

God did not count the sins of the world against them (and we are part of that world), but rather made His Son  sin on our behalf (that is, that he has forgiven our sins and charged them to His Son). Then Paul says that the reason for this is the “we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” So now, not only have we been forgiven, but when God looks at us He see righteousness. As a result, we are new creations in Christ Jesus, gifted with eternal life.

Stott says, “Christ became sin with our sins, in order that we might become righteous with God’s righteousness.”

Hesed (Hebrew word translated “mercy, lovingkindness): When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.

In vs. 9 Paul asks the question “Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also?”  The Pharisaic Jew would state emphatically that the blessing of righteousness was only for the Jew. However, in vs. 10, Paul asks another question, “Was this righteousness credited to Abraham when he was circumcised or when he was uncircumcised?” It was most certainly when he was uncircumcised. In fact, he would not receive circumcision for another fourteen years!

In Vs. 11 Paul calls circumcision both a sign and a seal. It is a sign of the covenant that God had made with Abraham and “a seal of the righteousness of the faith” which he had while he was still uncircumcised. This, Paul says, it so that he might be the father of all who believe, regardless of whether they are circumcised or not. Those who believe in Christ have righteousness credited to them too. Vs. 12 says, not only those who are circumcised, but for all those who follow in the steps of the faith of Abraham.  In other words, we are included! Remember what Paul said in 2:28-29?

28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

So, whether you have Jewish heritage or not, if you have believed in Jesus, trusted in Him for your salvation, you are a Jew!  According to Paul, you and I are children of Abraham, who is “the father of all who believe.”

After all this, maybe it will make these lyrics to this old gospel song more meaningful to you and me:

• What can wash away my sin?
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
  What can make me whole again?
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

• Refrain:
  Oh! precious is the flow
  That makes me white as snow;
  No other fount I know,
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 
  
• For my pardon, this I see,
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
  For my cleansing this my plea,
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 
  
• Nothing can for sin atone,
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
  Naught of good that I have done,
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
• 
  
• This is all my hope and peace,
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
  This is all my righteousness,
  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Romans Bible Study #6 "But Now" - Romans 3 (Video and notes)

To go to the beginning of the series on Romans, click here...
To go to study #5, click here..
To watch the entire series on YouTube, click here...

Read Romans 3:1-20

Vs. 1-8

• Actually a continuation of argument from chapter 2, where Paul had been castigating the Jews for their reliance on the law, when they themselves did not keep the law.
• Paul in this section again uses the diatribe format, in which he answers questions from an imaginary antagonist.
• John Stott -‘It often becomes easier to follow Paul’s arguments’, writes C. K. Barrett, ‘if the reader imagines the apostle face to face with a heckler, who makes interjections and receives replies which sometimes are withering and brusque.’
• “We may go further than this. ‘Paul’s interlocutor was no straw man,’ Professor Dunn writes. ‘In fact we would probably not be far from the mark if we were to conclude that Paul’s interlocutor is Paul himself—Paul the unconverted Pharisee, expressing attitudes Paul remembered so well as having been his own!' In this way Paul the Pharisee and Paul the Christian are in debate with each other… "

First question… “What advantage is there to being a Jew? Vs. 1-2

• Answer - The Jews had many advantages, chiefly that they were given the word of God (the OT).
• This was indeed an advantage, but it was also a great responsibility.

Second question…”If some (Jews) did not believe, will their unbelief nullify the faithfulness of God?” (“ True, some of them were unfaithful; but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful?” NLT) Vs. 3-4

• Answer “May it never be!” (NASB)
• Stott - Paul’s (answer) is more violent than is suggested by the expressions ‘Not at all!’ (NIV), ‘By no means!’ (RSV), ‘Certainly not!’ (REB) or even ‘God forbid!’ (AV). John Ziesler suggests that ‘ “not on your life” or “not in a thousand years” gives something of the flavour.’
• Paul goes on to say “let God be true but every man a liar” (NKJV). I.e. even if every single person were unfaithful, it would not in anyway make God unfaithful. Our disobedience will never besmear God’s character.
• Paul quotes from Psalm 51:4 where David is expressing sorrow for his sin with Bathsheba. In that Psalm, he acknowledges that even his sin brings glory to God in that it makes God justified in His words and in His judgements. (This scripture had evidently been twisted by some. The first part of the verse takes away all thought of David trying to justify himself…”Against you, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight.”
• Put it this way...if a righteous father (or mother) teaches his child correctly and the child rebels against the teaching, does this make the righteous father now unrighteous? Of course not! (Not on your life!)

Third question...If our unrighteousness (or disobedience) demonstrates the righteous character of God, is God unjust to to punish us?” Vs. 5,6 (But,” some might say, “our sinfulness serves a good purpose, for it helps people see how righteous God is. Isn’t it unfair, then, for him to punish us?”... NLT)

• Paul’s answer - Again “May it never be!” (“Not in a thousand years!”)
• He then says, “For otherwise, how will God judge the world?”
• It is interesting to me that Paul takes it as axiomatic or unquestionable that God will judge the world. Though many doubt this doctrine today and try to tear down the idea of final judgment, Paul took this as basic gospel truth.

Fourth question… Really a restatement of what has gone before… Vs. 7, 8

• Living Bible “
  • “For he could not judge and condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty brought him glory by pointing up his honesty in contrast to my lies. 8 If you follow through with that idea you come to this: the worse we are, the better God likes it! But the damnation of those who say such things is just. Yet some claim that this is what I preach!”

Vs. 9-20 Paul’s summary -The whole human race is under condemnation

Vs. 9 Paul asks, “Are we Jews better than the Gentiles?” (Notice that this is a very different question than vs. 1…”What advantage then has the Jew…?” Jews had an advantage in that they had the teachings of the law, but there advantage did them no good. They did not come out ahead of the Gentiles one whit. He sums up that Jews and Greeks (meaning Gentiles here) are all under sin.

• "Paul appears almost to personify sin as a cruel tyrant who holds the human race imprisoned in guilt and under judgment. Sin is on top of us, weighs us down, and is a crushing burden."

Vs. 10-18 is a series of OT quotations that basically put the nails in the coffin of all mankind.

Paul pulls out his big guns now. In rapid fire like a machine gun, he quotes from at least six different places in OT with devastating effect.

Vs. 10-12 show the ungodliness of sin. Most of this section is a quotation from Psalm 14:1-3 (this is emphasized in the psalms by repeating this almost word for word in Psalm 53). (Read this Psalm if time).

• “These verse indicate that the whole of man’s inner being is controlled by sin.”
  Wiersbe

• His mind (“none that understands”)
• His heart (“none who seek after God”)
• His will (“none that does good”)
• “Measured by God’s perfect righteousness, no human being is sinless. No sinner seeks after God...Man has gone astray and has become unprofitable to God.” Wiersbe
• “God’s complaint is that we do not really ‘seek’ him at all, making his glory our supreme concern, that we have not set him before us,that there
• is no room for him in our thoughts, and that we do not love him with all our powers. Sin is the revolt of the self against God, the dethronement of God with a view to the enthronement of oneself. Ultimately, sin is self-deification, the reckless determination to occupy the throne which belongs to God alone.” Stott

Vs. 13-18 teach the pervasiveness of sin.

• Paul quotes from Psalm 5:9, Psalm 140:3, Psalm 10:7, Isaiah 59:7-8, and Psalm 36:1. (Homework...read in their context for full impact!)
• What do you observe about these different quotations? Lists different body parts.
• What body parts does Paul list? Throat, tongue, and lips (vs. 13), mouth (vs. 14), feet (vs. 15-16), mind or brain (vs. 17 by implication), eyes (vs. 18)
• Wiersbe “Paul gives us (here) an X-ray study of the lost sinner, from head to foot.”
• Perhaps the most devastating passage is the last one…”There is no fear of God before their eyes.” How few men today fear God!

“This is the biblical doctrine of ‘total depravity’... It has never meant that human beings are as depraved as they could possibly be. Such a notion is manifestly absurd…”Not all human beings are drunkards, felons, adulterers or murderers. Besides, Paul has shown how some people sometimes are able ‘by nature’ to obey the law (2:14, 27). No, the ‘totality’ of our corruption refers to its extent (twisting and tainting every part of our humanness), not to its degree (depraving every part of us absolutely). As Dr J. I. Packer has put it succinctly, on the one hand ‘no one is as bad as he or she might be’, while on the other ‘no action of ours is as good as it should be’ Stott

Vs. 19-20 Paul’s conclusion...I believe that the law that Paul is referring to in these verses is not just the law of Moses, but the totality of the law of God. He has described two different laws in the last two chapters. In chapters 1 and 2 he has made reference to “the law of conscience”, which is in every man. In chapters 2 and 3 he has made reference to the law of God as revealed in the OT, particularly the Torah. Here, it seems to me, he is combining both of these.

• Notice “so that EVERY mouth may be closed and ALL THE WORLD may become accountable to God. Vs. 19
• NO FLESH (Jew and Gentile) will be justified in His sight vs. 20
• In chapter 2:13 he stated that only the doers of the law will be justified. This is true in theory, but the section that we just read tells us than none does good, not even one. So if we were to draw a circle around all “the doers of the law” who are justified, we would be drawing a circle around nothing. It would be empty. In practice, Paul says here, no flesh is justified in God’s sight, because no one keeps the law.
• Last part of vs. 20 is vitally important. He shows here the real purpose of the law...to reveal to us the sin that is in us. He will repeat this later in Romans.

Read 3:21-31

We have read 64 straight verses of nothing but condemnation. Jew and Gentile alike condemned...Yet we have now before us two of the sweetest words ever written…”But now…”

All 64 verses showed us the futility of being righteous in God’s sight by law-keeping. “But now”...Paul says...God has revealed another way...actually the only way possible. The way to God has been revealed (and he says the whole OT witnesses this revelation) by faith in Jesus Christ. By believing (or trusting) in Jesus the Messiah, the very Son of God, the only one who ever kept the law, we now stand justified before God in a way that we never could by our supposed law-keeping. Paul says that there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (all 64 previous verses are summed up in 3:23).

Vs. 24 tells us the supremely good news that justification is a gift of God’s grace given to all...the implication (which is spelled out later) is to all who will receive the gift...through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

“Must guilty man remain under wrath? Is the wound for ever incurable? No; blessed be God, there is another way laid open for us. This is the righteousness of God; righteousness of his ordaining, and providing, and accepting. It is by that faith which has Jesus Christ for its object; an anointed Saviour, so Jesus Christ signifies. Justifying faith respects Christ as a Saviour, in all his three anointed offices, as Prophet, Priest, and King; trusting in him, accepting him, and cleaving to him: in all these, Jews and Gentiles are alike welcome to God through Christ. There is no difference, his righteousness is upon all that believe; not only offered to them, but put upon them as a crown, as a robe. It is free grace, mere mercy; there is nothing in us to deserve such favours. It comes freely unto us, but Christ bought it, and paid the price” Matthew Henry

Let’s stop here and talk about terms…

Righteousness…(vs. 21, 22) We talked about this in chapter 1. What does it mean? Righteousness is being right before God. Yet, here we see it is not something we achieve but what is achieved for us. Some versions in vs. 21 and 22 say “righteousness from God” rather than “righteousness of God” which is probably more correct. This is righteousness bestowed on us by grace. We are made right before God through no action of our own...

Justification (vs. 24) a legal term meaning to secure a favorable verdict, to acquit, to vindicate, to declare righteous. “Just as if I’d never sinned…”

Redemption (vs. 24) is what Jesus accomplished on the cross. When we see this word it should immediately bring to our mind the cross, which was the place where redemption took place. What does it mean to be redeemed? It means the price has been paid. “Tetelestai”. It is finished! We have been purchased. We are now no longer slaves to unrighteousness but “slaves” to righteousness. Jesus Christ was “the lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.” The passover lamb was the type of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. As Israel was redeemed from Egypt in OT (Egypt is a type of the world and the world-system) by the blood of the passover lamb, so we are redeemed by the blood of Christ.

“Christ Jesus died to provide redemption, which means he died to pay the price required to ransom sinners. By paying the penalty of their sin through His death, Jesus can free people from their sin and transfer His righteousness to those who believe in Him…”

Propitiation (vs. 25) means to appease the wrath of God. Jesus Christ satisfied that righteous demands of a Holy God. God could never passover sin without a Passover sacrifice. Jesus was that sacrifice. It has often been pictured as the mercy seat, which was the golden covering over the ark of the covenant. It was there that the blood of the goat on the day of atonement was sprinkled. “Just as in the OT God met His people when the blood of the sin offering was sprinkled on the altar, so Christ’s death brings us into fellowship with God.”

Synonym is “atonement” - At-one-ment

Vs. 25 says that God demonstrated His righteousness by passing over the sins of all who lived before Christ. Vs. 26 tells us that He demonstrates His righteousness at the present time by justifying all who put their faith in Jesus.

Vs. 27 tells us that there is nothing for any of us to boast in because it is not by our works...not by our lawkeeping...but by “the law of faith.”

Vs. 28, 29 restate what has been already said for emphasis. We are not justified by law by by faith. Justification by faith is equally for Jews and Gentiles.

Vs. 30 tells us that God justifies the circumcision (Jews) by faith and the uncircumcised (Gentiles) “through that same faith.” (NIV)

Vs. 31 Paul asks a final question in the same style the chapter began. Is the law nullified because of faith in Christ? Paul answers again “May it never be!” or “A thousand times no!” In fact, he says, we establish the law. I.E. We show the true purpose of the law.

What is the true purpose of the law? Vs. 20 “through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Next week, we will look at an OT example of faith that foreshadowed salvation by faith in Christ.