THE GOSPEL OF GOD
Meditations in the Paul’s letter to the Romans
FOR US WHO BELIEVE ALSO

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IF we are to know God personally, be reconciled to him and be his friend, then this blessing can only be realised by faith. This is the whole thrust of the message of Paul here. The Apostle has shown that Abraham was the friend of God and was accounted righteous in God’s sight through faith. Abraham believed God and it was credit for righteousness. He shows that Abraham, coming before the law of Moses, reveals that righteousness which meets God’s requirements is not achieved by our keeping of God’s law, but only through faith. Indeed it is plain from the history of Abraham that he was a sinner before God just as we are and everyone else. Abraham’s life never, in the smallest way, reached a standard of righteousness which God could call righteous, yet God credited him with righteousness, and credited it to him because he believed.

In these last verses of Romans 4, Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith is a pattern for everyone. God credits us who believe with righteousness, and in telling us this clearly shows us the sort of faith that God credits to us for righteousness. It is the same faith as Abraham, but has more detail to it, because we believe after the Saviour, the seed of Abraham has come, whereas Abraham was before and believed in the promise of the seed to come.

Let us notice the faith the Apostle lays before us.

FOR US WHO BELIEVE IN HIM.

Faith that is credited for righteousness is first and foremost a faith that is in God. We believe in Him, in God. Abraham believed God, that is he believed that God is, that he exists and is our creator; but also that God is the God who calls us to put our trust in him. Faith is an acknowledgement of God and our submission to him as our creator and owner. But it goes further than this. We read in Hebrews 11:6 that faith is also a trust in God as the rewarder of them that seek him. This is a faith in God as full of grace and love. This is the faith Abraham had. He believed God; not only that God existed but that he was God who blessed him. Abraham held on to this even though he had not got the fullness of the revelation of God’s love and grace that we have.

Abraham believed God was full of power - power to achieve the impossible, and power to do what he promised. We believe in God who is almighty - in God who raised Jesus from the dead.

The raising of Jesus was an act of power. Firstly it shows God to be God in that he revealed in the resurrection that he had authority and power over life, to give life and to conquer death. The demonstration of power goes further, however. The raising of Jesus from the dead reveals a power to do the utterly impossible. Jesus died on account of sin. God made him sin. God laid on Jesus the sin of the world. The death of Jesus was the justice of God executed on the sin of the world. By the resurrection of Jesus God revealed this glorious and monumental act of power of meeting the whole debt to his holiness for the sin of the world, and paying it in full, so that the penalty of death against sin was fully met and death ended.

Secondly, the raising of Jesus from the dead is also a declaration concerning Christ. God declared the glory and perfection of Jesus as his only begotten Son, and declared also the perfection and excellence of the work of atonement for sin Jesus worked in his living and dying.

So faith believes in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith also is trust in the almighty saving power of God in raising Jesus from the dead, and declaring him to be the almighty Saviour.

Faith that is credited to us for righteousness is a faith that believes in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Paul makes this plain in 1 Corinthians 15. Teachers in Corinth were denying the resurrection of the dead. Paul argues there that if there is no resurrection then Christ did not rise, and if Christ did not rise then there is no forgiveness of sins, and we are all still under the judgement of God for our sins, and under the sentence of death.

It was essential to sin being fully atoned for, and the sentence of death ended, for our sin bearer to be raised from the dead. Death is the punishment for sin. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s declaration that Jesus has fully met, in his death, the full punishment for the sin of all who believe. It is no good trying to speak of Christ’s resurrection in other than bodily terms, because this would leave Jesus still dead, and salvation unachieved.

From faith in God raising Jesus from the dead, there is faith that Jesus was delivered up by God to death for our sins. This is logical extension of faith in the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus raised by God is God’s declaration that the wages of sin, which is death, has been fully met. Jesus had no sin of his own. The bible is quite clear that Jesus was delivered up for our offences, that God laid on Jesus the sins of us all, and Peter in his sermon at Pentecost tells us that, even though Jesus was put to death by wicked men intentionally, yet is was God who delivered him up according his eternal sovereign set purpose.

God planned that this would be the way he would save us. This was the promise in essence given to Abraham in the promise of the "seed" to be born to him. This is why Jesus showed all through his earthly ministry that he had come to do the will of God, which was to give his life a ransom for many. This is why Jesus had this set purpose to go to Jerusalem to die, and why he never defended himself from false accusations made against him at his trial.

Jesus was delivered over to death by God for our sins. The faith that is credited for righteousness is faith that Jesus died in our place on the cross and that he bore our sins in his body on the cross, and took the wages of sin in our place. Faith that is credited for righteousness is a faith that renounces all trust and confidence in our own doing and working, and by this declaring that our works fall far, far short of the glory of God and are worthless to atone for our sin. On the other hand faith that is credited for righteousness by God is a total faith and confidence in the doing and dying of Jesus in our place and for us.

The faith that is credited for righteousness is faith that believes that God has given us his Son, and that he who has the Son has life, because the Son has taken our place, and worked salvation for us by satisfying the whole of God’s holy demands in our place.

Such faith is strong to save, because it is faith in a perfect righteousness worked by Jesus and credited to our account by God. Because of Christ, we are considered by God to have fulfilled all his holy law, and in grace, because of what Christ has done for us, God registers no sin against us for all eternity.

Salvation by faith in Christ dying for us is sure and certain and can never be lost, because Christ’s work is complete and perfect and finished.

Faith that is credited for righteousness is further a faith in Jesus raised for our justification. We believe that we are accounted just before God because God raised Jesus from the dead.

Until God raised Jesus from the dead he could account no one righteous in his sight. When God raised Jesus from the dead he was declaring the glorious fact that Jesus had paid the price of sin down to the last requirement, and that death, the punishment for sin, was finished. Because of this declaration, God could now, on account of Christ’s perfect sacrifice, declare all those who believed in Jesus to be just in his sight.

God raised Jesus to life for our justification - that is that we who believe on Jesus may be declared just in his sight.

All this is involved in the faith that is credited for righteousness by God. God can credit sinners righteous because of the work of Jesus. Jesus came into the world, at the express purpose and will of God, to do this one great thing. Jesus was sent into the world to take our nature upon him and take our place before the justice of God, and by taking responsibility for the sin of the world, and accepting the punishment for that sin, and bearing that punishment in full.

This is the faith that saves and which God accepts for righteousness. When we come to understand that we are sinners, and have fallen fatally short of the glory of God, then we look outside ourselves for a way of escape from the justice of God upon us for our sin. We have no confidence or hope in anything that we do, and so when we hear the Gospel that whosoever believes on Jesus has eternal life, we are ready and willing to believe. In our hopeless state we place our confidence and trust in Jesus, and the promise of God concerning faith in him.

When we do this, or rather are enabled to do this by God’s grace and by his Spirit, we are engaging in the faith that believes that Jesus died for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Because the promise is that we have eternal life, we believe that we are account just in God’s sight. This must be so because eternal life is only possible to those who are righteous in God’s sight.

However when we do believe in Jesus it is the promise that is clear - the promise of eternal life. We rest our souls on this and though we may not have grasped all the wonderful fullness of what Christ has done, we are believing in all of it, because our trust is in Christ.

God credits for righteousness faith that trusts in Jesus alone. This is the wonder of God’s grace, mercy and love. On account of what Jesus has done in satisfying his law God credits Christ’s righteousness to all who believe on Jesus, and who rest their souls on Jesus. We may not understand these things completely or as clearly as we could, but faith in Jesus, and in God’s promise of eternal life in him, is to place our trust in Jesus alone to save us, and so in all that Jesus has done for us.

Let us rest with assurance in this fact that God credits our faith for righteousness.