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.
Faith is a requirement! Romans 4:13-15