Faith is a requirement! Romans 4:13-15

Romans 4:13-15
For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.

Welcome back once again to Delving into the Scriptures! As you may notice Delving is now on it’s own site – www.delvinginto.com – everything else should be the same!

Todays post should be nice and short… I think this passage reads very well in the New Living Translation – It basically explains it for us (it’s a good ‘explanatory’ translation I am finding).

Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!) (NLT)

If righteousness comes through the law, then faith would not be necessary – we could just ‘do the acts’ required by the law and move on… But – as we have covered before – the only good of the law is to bring about knowledge of sin – for we do not know it is sin until someone tells us!

This is one of the biggest traps of ‘religion’ – we all naturally want to fall into the ‘acts’ of Christianity – we say the prayers, go to fellowship, do the ‘right thing’, even read our Bible and don’t fall asleep when the preacher rattles on – but this is just obeying the law – this is not faith! Faith is living thing – faith is not playing church…. Have a think about it – what things do you do that are just playing church, obeying the law? I am not saying we need to lose these things – but we need to examine them and ensure we are doing them in faith – not just because we thing we have to….

So then – faith is a requirement. We have to believe that Jesus walked this earth, died for our sins, and rose again on the third day. Faith is the key to moving on from knowledge of sin and judgment – into eternal salvation.

Sounds so simple hey!

Lord Jesus, teach us what it means to have faith in You. Show us our sins that we might turn away from them and turn to you in Faith. Amen.

Righteousness comes first – Romans 4:9-12

Romans 4:9-12
Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

Welcome back to Delving into the Scriptures! My apologies for the delay if you read this through email or the RSS – I am in the process of moving back to Australia, and it has been crazy! All is going well however, and we will be back in Australia in about 2 weeks.

I think there are two clear messages in this passage from Romans. The first is the obvious message on circumcision. The Jews at the time that Romans was written held circumcision as the physical sign that they were holy and justified – and therefore Paul covers this not only here but also in other letters of his, as the Jews claimed that you had to be circumcised to be saved – and this was a stumbling block for many for obvious reasons!

Circumcision came as a seal upon of Abraham’s righteousness. If you think of a document, the ‘seal’ of that document comes last – it is the ‘certification’ that something is right and true. That certification comes after the document is written and signed – in other words, complete. So this circumcision of Abraham came after he was accounted as righteous! You will see as we go to the next passage, that he was also accounted righteous before the law was ever given too – which basically continues to back up our messages of before – righteousness comes first.

Going a little further though – these days circumcision is understood to be ‘old covenant’ and not many people push that guys get circumcised for salvation, and those that do have some scriptural issues…. But – we still have different things that people have said, and some still claim fervently. And this is where the second message of this scripture is.

An example is the claim ‘you must be baptized before you are saved’ – There are quite a few people who hold to this doctrine. I can see where they come from in this belief – there is a lot of scripture in this area, and a quick reading may well bring you to believe this. But if you look at the Bible closer, and take into account not just one verse but the whole message of the Bible, and this section in Romans is just one example – righteousness comes before the ‘seal’ of that righteousness. You are first saved – you can be saved for 3 seconds and die and you will still meet God forgiven of your sins. But then baptism is something that you should do through obedience – it is an act of obedience to God that you would then go and get baptized – it is not a requirement of salvation.

This isn’t the only distortion around – it’s just one of the more common ones. Remember – you are first saved, righteousness comes first – and then the rest may follow.

They key here is ‘scripture interprets scripture’. You cannot take one passage, verse or word from the Bible and take it out of context. It must first be read in the context it was written (for example, a letter, a historical account, poetry, etc), and then it must work with the rest of scripture, as God does not contradict Himself. You need to take that verse with the understanding of all of scripture, and then apply it. I’d love to take some time here to cover this, but maybe one day I will dedicate some posts to the study of scripture. In the meantime though, if you have some time, I’d recomend the ‘Bible School’ series at Generation Word, which has an excellent set of audio teachings!

We will finish of Romans 4 hopefully in the next post – but the summary remains the same – it is through faith that we are saved – not through anything else! It is Faith in Jesus alone that will get us there. I hope to see you next time!

Lord Jesus, give us revelation to your Word through the Holy Spirit. Without you these are just words on paper that we could take and twist to our own purposes – reveal to us Your message, show us your Grace and Will in Jesus Name, Amen.

Faith – Not works! Romans 4:1-8

Romans 4:1-8
What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.

But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
And whose sins are covered;

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”

Welcome back to Delving into the Scriptures! I pray that God will use these pages and these things I write for His Glory, and that you will somehow be touched through the Holy Spirit.

As mentioned in my last post (here), Paul is now about to embark on a section regarding faith – which is one of the key ‘doctrines’ in Christianity – for without faith, we are nothing! And hold in there if you think you understand it all already – because there is a key reason we are spending so much time on these basics – which you will see as soon as we hit Chapter 5. Feel free to read ahead – no secrets here!

The key message here in this first section is that our righteousness comes from faith – not works. Why is that?

Simply – because if you ‘worked’, you would expect wages. When I go to work every day, I expect a pay check to arrive at the end of the week – my boss doesn’t come to me all happy and offer me a ‘gift’ of salary – it is earned! To even pass it off as a gift would be rude and wrong – I work, I get paid. If you could earn your salvation, you would just need to ‘do enough works’ to get your bank account in heaven full enough, and you would be saved! But no – as explained earlier, and in much more depth later in Romans, there is nothing we can do to obtain God’s favor on our own. Nothing at all. We have all sinned – in some way or another – and therefore are no longer in His favor, and even more so, are deserving of both death and eternal separation from Him.

And the only way back to that favor is through the work of Jesus Christ. So – it is grace through faith – not works! Seems like a common topic for our past few posts…..

And lastly, we see the praise from King David, in regards to the grace of God. Many will know the stories, but David (like us all) was a certified sinner – unlike most of us though, he was ‘famous’ and therefore had his sins seen and recorded for all to see, and as the leader of ‘Gods Nation’, had his very own prophet come and tell him off (Nathan). We can read in the historical accounts of the sins of David, and even where he asks for forgiveness. We can read more though in the Psalms of David about the forgiveness of God and what that meant to him. What an amazing thing it is! That though we have sinned – for all have sinned – we receive grace and forgiveness through the gift of God, which is Jesus Christ His Son.

I’ll say it again because it hits me every time I write one of these – don’t you think that the actions of Jesus deserve a response on our part? I think it should start with thankfulness – and work it’s way from there.

Thank you again God that whilst there is nothing we could do to regain your favor, Jesus did the work for us on the cross. Continue to not only teach us what that means, but teach us how to respond to you. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Justified by Faith – Romans 3:27-31

Romans 3:27-31
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.

Welcome back! There are two points here I believe that are being presented to us.

The first, is that ‘boasting is excluded’. We cannot boast of our salvation, because it is not of us. It is not of works, or of the law, or of any actions taken on our part – it is wholly through faith and the grace of God that we are saved, nothing else. Remember this – it is not of anything that we do. Some religions (and even those that call themselves Christians) say ‘you must do this’ and ‘you must do that to be saved’. NO. It is purely and simply our faith in Jesus Christ. Our salvation is a free gift given to us by the Grace of God. I believe this is perfectly explained in Ephesians 2:4-10 – so it is quoted here as I certainly can’t put it any clearer!

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 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. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

(Bold is mine)

Also, do not confuse ‘works’ for salvation with ‘works’ for obedience – you can read more about that in James, but just to clarify – you are not saved through any works – but you may well ‘produce works’ as evidence of your salvation. But that is another huge topic for another day!

Secondly, Paul is about to embark on a large section on faith – and the faith exhibited by those in the past that are recorded in the old testament. So I guess it is time we quickly put a definition around faith! A great read on Faith can be found in Hebrews 11, but here is Hebrews 11:1 to start us off -

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen

Now, here are three definitions of faith from dictionary.com -

• Confidence or trust in a person or thing
• Belief that is not based on proof
• (specifically relating to Christian Theology) the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

Now that we have gone there – what is faith? Faith is our belief in God – despite the fact we have not seen ‘Him’ personally – belief that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, despite the fact that we weren’t there. There is tons of evidence that God exists, and that Jesus did that work on the cross – but we have not directly seen God, nor were we there 2000 years ago to witness the work on the cross.

That is Faith. Belief and trust in God. And to finish it off, let’s take a quick look at what Jesus said after his resurrection, when Thomas (nicknamed ‘doubting Thomas’) finally saw him with his own eyes -

Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

Lord God, thank you again for the work you did on the cross for us, that through your grace we would be free of our sins without cost. Again teach us to believe in you – to have faith all of the time, to know what you have done is true and act upon it. Teach us the right way to see you and how to respond. In Jesus name. Amen.

The favour of God – Romans 3:21-26 (part 3)

Romans 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

We have already spent two posts (and certainly could spend a lot more!) on this scripture, but today I want to wrap up the final points.

The one key thing I want to look at here is ‘propitiation’ – It’s a long word that most people don’t know what it means anymore – I know I was told a long time ago, and either it messed up in my head, or, i was also told wrong! So I took a look online. Propitiate – To gain or regain the favor of.

So God set forth Jesus – through his blood – to gain or regain the favor of God back to us! So we have the favor of God! Seriously – that’s pretty cool.

What does that mean for us though? It means that God has us in the front of his thoughts – we are His ‘favorites’ if you like – the final, special part of His creation that was created in His image. And what does someone want for their favorites, or to the ones that have favor with them? The best of course! So through the work Jesus did on the cross, we are now back in God’s favor, and he is seeking the best for us.

What do we have here than? Another promise of God! He wants the best for us, and you can be sure He is working towards it. So no matter what is going on in your life – God wants the best for your life. The key then is to stick to Him – pray, praise, worship, ask, follow, do what it takes to stick close to God – because He wants and will do what is best for your life, you’ve just got to take the time and ask.

Lord God, Thank you again for the work of Jesus on the cross, which not only justified us before you, but bought us back into your favor. Reveal the work you are doing in us, show us what you want us to do that we would have the best for our lives. Teach us in some way to understand the full depth of your love and concern for us. In Jesus name. Amen.

Being Justified Freely – Romans 3:21-26 (part 2)

Romans 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Today I hope to move more into the ‘solution’ presented here to our sinful state. Many of us have heard the verse ‘for all have sinned’ – this is true and without question. In fact, I covered much on that topic back in Romans 1 – if you want some more context, please go back and read my post Sin is Sin.

So where are we now? We are Justified freely by his Grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ! Great you say. What on earth does that all mean! (wait till tomorrow when we do propitiation and more…). As many of you know, the dictionary is a wonderful reference tool, and whenever something is not crystal clear I will use it. So, just to make sure we understand, I hit dictionary.com to see what justified means.

Specifically in relation to ‘theology’ (the study of God), it defines justified as ‘to declare innocent or guiltless; absolve; acquit.’

So – we have been declared innocent and guiltless of our sin! And not only that, but it has been done freely. Yes, Free. Totally free. No cost, no catch, no anything – if you want to be free of your sin, you can be. It’s that simple!

So how did that happen? Through his Grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. This means – God’s grace was enough that he chose to allow us to be freed through the work that Jesus did for us all on the Cross. This is the foundation, the core, the central doctrine if you like, of Christianity. This is the reason we are all here – that we were once in our sins (for all have sinned), but we are now justified freely through His Grace.

What an amazing concept! Freely! No matter what we have done, we can be free of that, without punishment. Let me ask you this – do you think that maybe we should be thankful, and that such an act deserves a response on our part?

Lord God, teach us to understand your Grace. Thank you for the work that you did for us – because you loved us. Move in us a response, teach us how to respond to such an amazing act, that is truly beyond our comprehension. Continue to remind us of your grace, a grace that not just loved, but took the ultimate action in response to that love. In Jesus Name. Amen

Faith in Jesus Christ – Romans 3:21-26 (part 1)

Romans 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

And now we come to it – the answer to all the question and problems that have been posed so far in Romans. In fact, this section of scripture is full enough for an hour long sermon – I will try and go for 2-3 shorts posts and cover the key topics…..

In our last post we went through the purpose of the law – the law gives knowledge of Sin – but it does not impute righteousness to anyone – all it does is give knowledge. So now apart from the law, we see God’s Righteousness – which is imparted to us through faith in Jesus Christ. Lets go through this piece by piece.

Apart from the Law – This means that though it came through the Law, the righteousness of Jesus being imparted to us through Faith is not reliant on the Law. We do not need to meet all the requirements of the Law to be saved – we just need to believe in Jesus.

Being witnessed by the Law – It is the Law and the prophets that Jesus came to us through – much of the Law and most of the prophets all pointed towards ‘something new’ to come in the future – that something was a someone – Jesus. It is the Law that testifies to Jesus and the work that He did, therefore being witness to Him.

Through Faith in Jesus Christ – God’s righteousness is both revealed and imparted to us simply – through faith or belief in Jesus Christ. There is no magic ticket. No magic formula. Nothing else or special we need to do – it is not works, or actions, or formula’s, or secret teachings – it is simply faith in Jesus Christ.

To all and on all who believe – God is not discriminatory. If you believe – it’s yours. There is no special people, caste, color, race, sex or anything else – all means all.

So there you have it – God’s righteousness and the forgiveness of sins is available through faith in Jesus Christ – to anyone and everyone who choses to believe. This also has a reminder on the other side – anyone who claims anything different is a liar and a false prophet – God’s word is clear in this regard – that we are saved through Faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing else. You can be saved and die 1 second later – and you are still saved. Remember that!

God, I pray you will teach us the power and simplicity of this message, that all we need to do is have faith in Jesus and we are saved. Give us the ability to grasp the life changing power of this message and apply it in our lives. In Jesus Name. Amen.