"Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward."

2But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what, can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."

4Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars- if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."

6Abram believed the LORD, and he credited to him as righteousness.

3:21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forebearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

27Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. 29Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

4What shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? 2If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about- but not before God. 3What does the scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.' [Genesis 15:6]

4Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 6David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteouness apart from works:

7"Blessed are they those transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
8Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him." [Psalm 32:1,2]

9Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? we have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. 10Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! 11And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. 12And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

13It was not thought law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, 15because law bring wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

16therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring- not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." [Gen 17:5] He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.

Pray then Read 3:20-31

1. Work through 3:20-31 commenting on everything said about 'righteousness' and 'justify.'

2. From how the words are used in this passage, what do you think 'justify' means?

3. In your own words, how can someone be right with God?

Read Chapter 4

4. Why is it significant that Abraham was circumcised after he was justified?

5. What is it about us that leads God to justify us?

6. Who should we allow to be members of our mission team?

Pray

Introduction: What is Faith?

1. Mercy and Justice? (3:21-31)

• (a) Mercy # Justice under the Law
• (b) Mercy = Justice under the Gospel

• (a) Wages = Obligation
• (b) Gifts = Free

• (a) The Promise of the Law
• (b) The Promise of the Gospel

In the previous talks we learned from Romans 1:1-17 that the Gospel is God's power to save. We learned that the Gospel is promises about Jesus that create trust. We should be 'Power Rangers-' speaking the powerful words of the Gospel. From Romans 1:18-32, we learned that sin was not simply doing bad things, but was firstly against God- failing to acknowledge him as God and failing to be grateful. We saw that we are 'as guilty as sin.' In the third talk (Romans 2:1-3:20 - Cruel to be Kind) we learned that all have sinned but God's kindness leads us to repentance. We decided that we should always keep on starting over with him. Today we will learn from Romans 3:21 - 4:25 how we are saved by trusting God. God gives us the kind promise of the Gospel to the guilty. Those who trust it, trust God who gives it. They are saved by what Jesus did on the cross. We will see how God gives us salvation, as a gift. He gives us new hearts that trust him. We can't boast about our goodness.
 

What do people mean when they talk about faith? Have you heard people say, "You've got to have faith in yourself," or just, "You've got to have faith?" What do they mean? Typically they seem to mean, despite your failings, despite how black things may look, you've got to hope for the best. What they seem to mean is hope for the best despite the evidence. This seems to be the way they view Christian faith also. They think that Christians hope for heaven despite the evidence living in a fallen world provides. If this is Christian faith they are right to think we are pathetic. They are not completely wrong, though. Christian faith, the hope of heaven despite the evidence of our continued sinfulness and suffering is something Bible leads us to. However, Christian faith is bigger than this. In fact, the sin and suffering of the world are not evidence against the hope of heaven but evidence for the need of the Gospel. Christian faith is based on positive evidence- the evidence of sin but also the evidence of the death and resurrection of Jesus and, thankfully, the evidence of the changed lives of Christians- the physical evidence of the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. Faith is hoping for something better, yes, but most importantly it is trusting the trustworthy evidence of a trustworthy God.

How do people become Christian? What makes us right with God? It is through trusting a trustworthy promise- faith and faith alone, not by our own works. There is a wrong way of understanding this that I had before my conversion and which many Christians still hold. The wrong view is something like this. 'Doing good won't get us to heaven, but believing the crazy idea of a man being raised from the dead puts us right with God.' God rewards us for believing something unbelievable. Today's passage will show us the right understanding and show why this wrong view is wrong.

>>Jesus' death is what makes mercy possible<<
 

What is justice? Whenever people live together they have to work out how to work together. In a family some things just have to be done, food has to be prepared, clothes have to be washed, the bathroom and kitchen need to be cleaned. When we live together, we work out what needs to be done to keep things running nicely so we can enjoy one-another's company. We can call this having good or right relationships. There is a lot more to relationships than just these sort of practicalities. Respect, trust, interest, concern, mutual enjoyment and other things are evidence of good or right relationships.

Justice has two meanings. Firstly, it means that relationships are right. The Bible calls this righteousness. When we have right relationships we call it justice. However, relationships in a sinful world are never perfect, never truly reflect justice. Bad relationships have bad consequences- this is a second meaning of justice. The second meaning of justice is fair consequences- good relating leads to good consequences, bad relating leads to bad consequences. In both senses of the word 'justice' it means 'fairness.'

The Bible teaches that God relates perfectly, that he is perfectly just and fair. When things go wrong, we turn to him to ask for justice, fairness. If we're doing good we ask for good consequences. If we suffer bad consequences from other's bad relating we ask for God to re-establish justice.

When we do the wrong thing, however, we don't ask for justice, the bad consequences we deserve. When we do wrong we ask for mercy. We don't want what is fair, we want mercy. How can God be just or fair and merciful at the same time?
 

Laws are great for describing right relating. God's laws are perfect for describing perfect relating. Laws are also good for setting up fair punishments, so the guilty get what they deserve- they suffer the bad consequences of their bad relating. Justice and the law go hand in hand.

Mercy doesn't fit in, though. Mercy is where we want to escape the consequences of our bad relating, that is, our sin. Look at Romans 3:23 'All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.' Our most important bad relating is failure to acknowledge God as God- the boss- and be thankful (Rom 1:21.) The fair consequence is to be excluded from his glory. God is always fair, so what hope do we have of ever being included in his glory, sharing good relationship with him- being righteous as the Bible puts it?

Well, just as the Bible tells us God is perfectly fair, it also tells us he is perfectly merciful. Here's hope! But here also is a contradiction! Mercy is never justice, it isn't right to let people do wrong and get away with it. John Chapman asks the following question: 'How can God be right to say we are right even when we're wrong?'

The answer is here in 3:25: 'God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement.' In verse 26 it says, 'He did it to demonstrate his justice... so as to be just AND the one who justifies...' As a man Jesus was able to take the punishment we deserve. As a perfect man he did not have to suffer for his own sin. Because Jesus is God we see God absorbing our offense against him in himself. This is the Gospel. It is where the right relating of justice and the right relating of mercy meet. This is the way we can be included in the Glory of God. The just requirements of the law are met by Jesus not by us. They are met by his death in our place NOT by OUR conformity to the law, either by obedience or taking punishment.
 

|
 <---Jesus---> justice
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v mercy

How do we obtain mercy?
 

There is a good way of looking at relationships that sees good consequences as being earned by good relating. If you listen to your teacher, lecturer or boss, if you listen to your parents and do what they ask- you benefit from their instruction and direction. When we do the good things we deserve the good consequences. When we work for parents, teachers or bosses we not only deserve the good results, but they owe us for our part in the relationship. Relationships work both ways- doing the right thing for someone puts them under an obligation to do the right thing by us. If you work diligently you are owed your wages. If we are governed diligently we owe taxes. If we are taught well at church, we owe our ministers their income. When we buy a product or service we are owed something of appropriate quality. The Bible approves this view, here in 4:4 'When a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift but as an obligation.'
 

Sinful human nature, having scorned a generous God is completely without real generosity. When we act in our relationships we do so to put others under an obligation to give us what we want. For example, I coach a cricket team. I wouldn't do it voluntarily, I only do it to keep my employer under the obligation to keep paying me. This is not good. I should, ideally, freely give my time and energy to others, leaving myself dependent on their generosity for what I need. Many Christian workers are in this fortunate position- they voluntarily serve others by teaching the Bible and sharing their life and are freely provided for financially by the generosity of God's people. Many other people love their work and their bosses, clients or customers are pleased to pay them. >>The corner store<< The Bible certainly approves this alternative way of viewing relationships.

Typically we are not generous so we find it hard to understand God's generosity. We instinctively try to manipulate others into obligation and so we do the same with God. Why is this important?

The Bible speaks of our relationship to God and, in particular, our response to the Gospel in both ways. We owe God our lives- he gave them to us in the first place. We owe him the 'wage' of our whole life. However, he wants us to be willing volunteers in his service, not grudgingly obedient. He gave us our lives to give them away to others to his glory. He gives us the gift of being giving. 'Freely you have received, freely give.'

But the main point here is God is never under an obligation to us, he never owes us a wage, we can never manipulate God. However, I have tried and I'm still trying. How do you think I might try to manipulate God? The main one is repetitive prayer, this can be an exercise in unbelief, not faith. If I believe and sometimes I do, that I can impress God with my passion and perserverence, perhaps he'll give me what I want, I don't believe he's really generous, I don't believe he's really in control, I don't believe he really knows best. However, when I trust all these things, his kindness, power and wisdom, then I do keep praying, then I'm passionate in an appropriate, frankly dependent way. Frank dependence is trusting and honours God. Intensity of a certain kind is manipulation that dishonours God and will fail.

How do we obtain mercy?

We can't!

God just gives, out of his own kindness. He does so to whom he wants, when he wants. He is perfectly free. He never owes anybody anything. This may sound removed and remote- he is- that's what holiness and sovereignty mean. The miracle for us is that the Holy God chooses to come near to us, to give us everything, even at the cost of Jesus' death.

Our lives and our new lives are unearned income, they are given for free, not from obligation. God never owes anybody anything.
 

Today's passage tells us how God saves people. We've seen that it is by mercy in the Gospel not by obedience to the law. We've seen that it is a gift and not something God owes us. We've addressed the meanings of justice, mercy, righteousness and grace but we still haven't quite examined faith as the passage describes it.

Romans 4:13-17 shows us two promises from God, one that saves and one that doesn't. The first is the promise that comes from God's justice, the promise of the Law. God promises that those who do wrong will be punished, v15 'the law brings wrath/anger.' We can trust this promise and should, we don't have to take revenge for wrongs done to us. But what about our wrongs? The promise of punishment for our wrongs is also kept, but kept at Jesus' expense not ours- thank God. The promise of the Law of good to those who do good is no help to us because we are not good and cannot be perfect. The promise of the Law is not a promise we can trust for our salvation. If it were, Jesus would not have had to die. Think about it, why did Jesus die? It was not just an example of self-sacrifice, it was necessary. How we trivialise Jesus' death if we think this it was merely an example for us to follow. How arrogant, and wrongly proud of our goodness if we think we can be saved by the promise of the law by being good.
 

The second promise we see is in verse 16, 'the promise comes by faith so that it may be by grace.' In trusting a trustworthy promise we give nothing, we are owed nothing. Rather by trusting a trustworthy promise we give what we owe! Trustworthiness deserves trust, trust does not deserve trustworthiness. What I mean is this. Just trusting something does not mean we're entitled to it being trustworthy. Placing a bet because we trust we'll win doesn't mean we should win. However, when we know that it's raining we should carry an umbrella, we act out our trust in the trustworthy fact that an umbrella will protect us from the rain. This kind of relationship of trusting the trustworthy is really one way. The trustworthy shapes those who trust. As people trust my teaching of maths, they learn and are shaped by the teaching. they have a part to play, receiving my teaching, but they are completely dependent on my trustworthiness, their trust doesn't make them good mathematicians, it is my trustworthiness as a communicator of mathematical thinking that does that. It is the same with the Gospel. We are right with God by trusting him, not because our trust makes us right, but because God's promise of mercy on the basis of Jesus death is trustworthy. >>REPEAT<< Our salvation is completely dependent on God- his initiative, his gift, his free choice, not ours. verse 17 says 'God gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.' Dead things can't earn anything, can't show initiative. God can and does make dead hearts live, he did it to us! It is just like the beginning. God creating everything from nothing- he calls things into being that were'nt there, Life and New Life, Born Again life, are creative acts of God- gifts and mercy not wages or justice.
 

So how do people become Christian? Well it is not by doing good things, is it? Nor is it by believing something against the evidence, as I used to think, and so many others still do. People do not make themselves Christian. That is not how people become Christian. It is all God's work. It is God who makes people Christian. He freely chooses to have mercy. He absorbed, once and for all, the punishment our sin against him deserves. He did this in the death of Jesus. He changes our hearts, so we desire forgiveness, on the basis of Jesus' death and resurrection. The changed hearts he has given us trust his trustworthy promise.

Do you see how your natural instinct is careless of God- not acknowledging him as God nor being grateful? Do you understand this rightly deserves exclusion from his glory? Do you long to love him rightly? To accept his promise of forgiveness? This should be all of us here. Let's acknowledge him as God in his free act of mercy. Let's be grateful for it. Let's keep finding relief for our hope of heaven. Let's find it in the only place it can be found- the trustworthy promise of mercy he gave us, once and for all. Let's place all our hopes in the death and resurrection of God's Son and our Lord, Jesus.