THE GOSPEL OF GOD
Meditations in the Letter to the Romans
THE TRUTH ABOUT FAITH

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LAST time we considered these first five verses of Romans chapter 4, we sought to learn what Paul tells concerning the truth about the way of human effort and works to obtain our acceptance with God. We learnt that the way of works to obtain salvation is a failure and can never achieve favour with God.

Now we come to these verses to see the truth about the way of faith as the means of forgiveness and life. Here Paul tells us of the success of the way of faith. We are justified in the sight of God by faith and receive eternal life and favour with God.

Paul tells us that Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, and goes on to say in the fifth verse whoever has faith, but does not work, his faith is credited as righteousness. Let us seek to understand this glorious truth about faith.

THERE IS FAVOUR WITH GOD THROUGH FAITH

Faith succeeds where our own effort and works fail. Faith does not mean that we don’t need to bother about how we behave and whether we serve God or not. Faith means that we don’t look to this moral living and service for God as a means of grace and acceptance before God.

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Abraham was as much a sinner before God as any of us. When we read his history in the book of Genesis, we find him doing some quite awful things. Like us, he fell short of the glory of God, and because of this incurred the just censure of God and condemnation from God. In his life he did not deserve God’s favour, and could not earn his forgiveness.

However we see something else about his life. Although he sinned, what marked his character and life was that he listened when God spoke to him, and he believed God’s word and instruction and promise. So we find him believing God so that he left his father’s land, and journeyed without knowing exactly where he was going, and he did this because God told him to do so. Abraham believed in the promise of God to bless him and save him. Then later, he is promised by God that he would be the father of a great people, the people of God, and from his seed, that is from his human family and line, one would be born who would bring blessing to the nations. He understood that through this seed, to be born in the future, eternal salvation and favour with God would be provided by God. It was this faith in the promise of God of the provision of a Saviour, that brought the bestowal from God upon him of total forgiveness of all his sins, and the crediting to him of a perfect righteousness that made him acceptable to God forever.

When Abraham believed God’s promise that he would be the father of a people more numerous than the stars of the heavens, we must not suppose that this people was the Jewish nation. No, the people are those who follow in the steps of Abraham, and believe God as Abraham did. The people of God are those who believe God’s promise in Christ, from whatever nationality or ethnic group they may come. Christ was the seed of Abraham that Abraham believed in.

Thus we see that faith is opposed to works. Faith does not work, but relies on the work of another, even the seed of Abraham, our Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is not without works, but it is not by our works, which are insufficient and imperfect, but by the perfect work of Jesus Christ. Because we can’t atone for our sins, or meet God’s holy demands by our effort in living, God promised to send one who could live as he required, and also could pay the debt in full that we sinners incur through our sins. This promise was made the moment Adam sinned, when God promised that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head. Faith believes the promise of God, that the righteousness that Jesus won by his life and death, is credited to those who humbly place their trust and confidence in Christ for forgiveness and life.

Faith succeeds, where our own works fail, because faith causes us to be credited with righteousness that meets all God’s holy demands, and meets them for eternity. Faith has no need to work, because Jesus has done all the working for us, and that work is perfect and needs no additions or changes, and lasts for eternity.

FAITH IS BELIEVING GOD

Abraham believed God. Abraham did not understand the word and promise of God as we are able to do with the revelation recorded for us in the New Testament, but what he did hear and understand, he believed. It is not the strength of our faith that saves us or even the amount of understanding which prompts our faith, but the reality of it and the direction of it.

Great faith gives us more assurance and comfort, but it does not makes us more secure. The smallest faith in the promise of God in Christ, causes us to be credited with the righteousness of Christ, and this means we have complete and eternal salvation the moment we believe. We grow in understanding of what Christ has done for us, and as our faith grows, it brings with it greater assurance, but we never have more salvation than we had the moment we believed.

The important things is the direction of our faith. So many people speak of having faith, but it is a loose and ineffective faith. It is no use simply to say that we believe in God. The devils believe in God, but they don’t love God and are opposed to God. Nor is faith a vague faith in the God’s goodness and the hope that he will love us. The faith that causes God to credit us with righteousness, and that accounts us holy and just in his sight, is a faith that is in the promise of God concerning Christ. Faith that saves is a faith that puts our whole trust and confidence in Jesus Christ as our Saviour, and relies on Christ to make us acceptable to God, and gain the forgiveness of all our sins.

We may not understand how such faith does achieve the result that we desire, but it is faith in the Saviour, and this means that all the Saviour has done on our behalf is what we are placing our trust in, and so we receive all the salvation Christ won for us.

Further it is important to understand that faith in Christ involves obedience to Christ. Abraham believed God. What this meant practically in his life was that he lived for God, followed God, obeyed God and served God. This faith revealed itself in implicit obedience, and was seen in his life when he obeyed God concerning the sacrificing of his son, Isaac. Abraham knew that the promise of God concerning Christ was bound up in Isaac, because unless Isaac produced children, and so on, Christ who was the promised seed could not be born. Yet such was the obedient trust of Abraham, that when God told him to sacrifice Isaac to him, Abraham obeyed. Faith believed God implicitly, and this is the core of our being, which is deeper than all our sins and failure. God knew all along that he would not allow Isaac to die, and that he would provide a substitute in the ram caught in brambles near by, but Abraham did not, and simply believed the promise of God and that God would keep his promise.

Faith for us is the same. Faith places our whole life in the hands of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, and lives in obedience to Christ. Then we know God credits this faith as righteousness.

FAITH BRINGS CREDIT

When Abraham believed it was credited to him a righteousness. So faith brings credit to us. It is the credit of a perfect righteousness that meets all the holy demands of God. We are credited with a righteousness that makes us right with God, so that God can justly forgive all our sins, and be reconciled to us.

What in fact has happened can be illustrated quite well in the light of investment and the dividend paid on that investment. Christ invested his life for us. He paid the debt for our sins and also invested his whole life of righteousness on our behalf. Being God and perfectly holy, he had no need to keep the whole law of God, because he was holy already. He became man to live, not for himself, but for us. He was the second Adam. He did what the first Adam failed to do.

Sometimes we hear people speaking of the merits of the saints which they are able to do over and above what is their due to God. This is fallacy. No human being, even if they live a perfect life, has done anything but what is their due to God. There is no merit over from anything we may do, which can be made over to someone else. Even the best, those who some give the title of saint, are unable to do enough to merit their own salvation. This is why the way of works is a failure. Jesus however, because he was and is perfectly holy, all his life of righteousness is merits that are made over to those who believe in him. By faith in him we are imputed with his righteousness.

It is in this way that faith brings credit to us. Christ’s righteousness is put to our account in the bank of heaven, and it fully secures for us the declaration by God that we are just in his sight, and secures for us eternal life and a place in heaven. Heaven is certain for the believer, not because we are more holy than others, but because of the perfect righteousness of Jesus which has been put to our account.

The wonder and glory of this crediting is that all the capital is invested by Christ. We do not have to work or pay anything whatsoever. This is the wonder and the glory of God’s grace. If anything was left to us to pay, we would fall short of what is needed, and would fail. No partial help, however large; no grace to give us power, however great; would ever be sufficient to make us righteous before God. So God has given total and infinite grace, which bestows upon us, by gift, the righteousness which we need to be just in his sight.

This may seem to be encouraging loose living, but this is not so. No one who receives this righteousness by faith can fail to love Jesus with all their hearts, and want to please him in every way possible, because it is the wondrous love of Jesus, that he was willing to die and suffer hell for us, that we may be credited with his righteousness.

CONCLUSION

So it is by faith we are saved, and by grace that we are saved. It is no credit to us. All the credit is due to Jesus. Our works cannot contribute anything to this blessing. If we try and add any of our works, then we put ourselves under the law of God, and the curse of the law, and condemn ourselves to keeping the whole law ourselves for salvation, which is impossible.

Faith succeeds, where our own effort can’t do anything but fail. This is the truth about faith. So let us rest our souls in Jesus and in his perfect work for us, and be secure in the eternal love of God.