Word of Salvation – Vol.52 No.21 – June 2007

 

Abraham and David Believed God and Were Credited with Righteousness

 

A Sermon by Rev Martin Geluk on Romans 4:1-8

(Sermon 2 of 3 on Faith Alone)

Scripture Readings:  Romans 4:1-25; Hebrews 11:8-19

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In a previous sermon on ‘faith alone’ we concluded by saying that believers who lived in Old Testament times, before Christ was born, were also saved by faith alone in Christ alone. They were not saved by their obedience, and could not have been, because their obedience was as imperfect as ours – we who live after Christ was born. Believers in Old Testament times had to believe that Christ was coming and would save them by His death. God helped them in this by making frequent promises about the coming of Christ and that He would suffer and die as the Substitute. So whether believers believed that Christ would die for them at some point in the future, or believe that Christ has died for them at some point in the past, it has always been by faith alone through Christ alone.

To demonstrate that for all believers it is justification by faith alone in Christ alone, the apostle Paul in Romans 4 mentions Abraham and David as examples. In this sermon we’re going to have a look at Abraham, and briefly at David. In this way we will be able to see clearly why salvation has always been by faith and not by works.

1. The faith of Abraham

Our text says, “What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter?” The words ‘In this matter’ refer to receiving a righteousness through faith in Christ and not through the law because no one can keep the law perfectly. Verse 3 of our text says, “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” So let’s look at Abraham, for the Bible calls him the ‘father of all believers’ (Rom 4:11-12), and learn how God credited righteousness to him on account of his faith.

In Genesis 12 we read that the Lord said to Abraham, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you” (vs 1). Migrants know what it means to leave one country for another. Also those who within Australia leave one State for anoth-er. You leave behind your relatives, friends and familiar surroundings, and you may not come back again for many years, in some cases never. God explained to Abraham why he was to go to the land of the Lord’s choosing. God said, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (vs 2-3).

At this time in history, when Abraham lived, which was about 2000 BC, no one knew the Lord anymore. Noah and his sons had died and their descendants had stopped worshipping God. God, therefore, appeared to Abraham, who at the time was still a pagan, and told him to go to Canaan where he was to settle. There God would make Abraham into a great nation, which turned out to be Israel. And many in that nation would believe God’s promises about Christ. And once the Saviour had come, then the gospel of salvation would go to all the peoples on earth and many would believe God in the manner that Abraham did.

The thing to notice about Abraham is what verse 4 says, “So Abram left, as the Lord told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there” (vss 4-5). And Hebrews 11 in the New Testament tells us that Abraham did all that by faith: “By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (vss 8-10).

So at God’s command Abraham moved away from all what was familiar in Haran and came to Canaan as a total stranger. He knew no one and no one was expecting him. Later on the Lord helped Abraham to prosper but he lived in tents among a foreign people, who probably resented him coming to live amongst them. Abraham carried on, however, because he believed God’s promise about him becoming the father of many believers in God. Abraham even looked forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God, by which the new heaven and earth was meant.

But to become the father of a people whom God would regard as His people, and from whom the Christ would come, Abraham and Sarah had to have a child. Abraham wondered how God was going to make that happen because he remained childless. The Lord said to him, “A son coming from your own body will be your heir.” And then God told Abraham to look up to the heavens and count the stars – if indeed he could count them. God said, “So shall your offspring be” (Gen 15:4-5).

On another occasion God said to Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the seashore (Gen 22:17). Yet Abraham was getting older and older and still had no child. God made Abraham wait so that when a son eventually came it could only be explained as God’s doing. Scripture calls Abraham the father of all believers from both Jews and Gentiles. So God was telling him that not only would Israel be his physical descendants, but the whole church, right up to the coming of Christ, would be his spiritual descendants.

What was Abraham’s response to all this? Genesis 15:6 says, “Abraham believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.”

In Genesis 17 we read of God establishing His covenant with Abraham and his descendants. His son Isaac wasn’t even born yet. But to strengthen Abraham’s faith God commanded Abraham to undergo circumcision, which would serve as a sign of the promise God gave in the covenant.

By this time Abraham was ninety-nine years old and he and Sarah still had no son. What a testing of his faith! Finally Isaac came. It was a miracle because both Abraham and Sarah were way past the age of child bearing. But Abraham had kept on believing God that it would happen. Hebrews 11 says, “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered God faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore” (vss 11-12).

Then God again tested Abraham’s faith when He commanded him to sacrifice Isaac. What was God asking him to do? The sacrificing of children was what pagans did. If God was to fulfil His promise of Abraham having descendants, then Isaac had to remain alive and have children himself. What was Abraham to do? On the one hand God commanded him to sacrifice his only son, but on the other hand God promised Abraham many descendants from whom the Saviour would come. That meant that Isaac had to stay alive in order to produce an offspring of his own.

Again Hebrews 11 tells how Abraham handled this crisis by faith. “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promise was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death” (vss 17-19).

Was there ever a believer in God who had such a faith as Abraham did? He believed God and obeyed His commands, when seemingly these led to nowhere, like going to a land he knew nothing about. He believed God even though God’s promise of a son took ages to be fulfilled. He believed God that he would be the father of numerous descendants even though he never saw them. He believed God knew what He was doing when God asked him to give up Isaac by sacrificing him. It caused Abraham much suffering and it seemed totally unreasonable. But Abraham believed that somehow God would have to raise Isaac from the dead were he to die.

Many years after this God Himself did what He asked Abraham to do: He sacrificed His only Son and there was no respite at the last moment as there was with Abraham and Isaac. And Christ was literally raised from the dead.

Before God credited Abraham with the righteousness of Christ, so before he believed and trusted God, Abraham was part of fallen humanity. Before God called Abraham out of obscurity he was a pagan. Romans 1 says that God had made known his eternal power and divine nature in the creation. But along with the rest of mankind Abraham did not glorify God, nor gave thanks to Him. His heart was foolish and his thinking futile. Abraham would have gone to hell had not God, in His grace and mercy, revealed Himself to Abraham. So before he became a believer in God, Abraham was counted among the wicked.

But in His sovereign grace God called Abraham and promised to bless him, and Abraham called on the name of the Lord and worshipped Him (Gen 12:8). But then came a famine and Abraham was forced to live in Egypt for a while. Whilst he was there he was afraid that his beautiful wife, Sarah, would be noticed and brought to the attention of Pharaoh, who then might want to take her into his palace and kill Abraham. So he got Sarah to say that she was his sister (Gen 12:11). Here it is plain that on this occasion Abraham did not fully trust God. His faith was not perfect. Abraham repeated this lie about Sarah being his sister when sometime later another king coveted Sarah (Gen 20:2). Again Abraham feared for his life (vs 11). He even tried to justify his lie by saying that Sarah was his half-sister, which was true for they had the same father (vs 12). But Abraham was not trusting God to protect him and Sarah, even though in the light of God’s promise both of them would not die because they had to produce a son in order for Abraham to have all those descendants.

And then there was the time when Abraham allowed Sarah, who was getting older but not pregnant, to persuade him to take Sarah’s maid, Hagar, as wife (Gen 16: 1-2). Again Abraham fell back on human calculations and the customs of a pagan society around him. Hagar conceived and gave birth to Ishmael but it was not according to God’s plan. When Hagar began to despise Sarah, because she and not Sarah had Abraham’s child, Saran began to blame Abraham for her suffering. In a cowardly way Abraham washed his hands of the matter and said to Sarah that she could do with Hagar as she wanted. Sarah then mistreated Hagar (vs 6), forcing her to flee with the child. The whole thing was a sinful episode in the life of Abraham and Sarah.

Now we mentioned these lapses in Abraham’s faith to show that Abraham’s faith was not perfect. He sinned like everyone else. What this means is that Abraham could not look at his life and boast about his good works. They were not good enough to satisfy God’s standards. His trust in God also had holes in it. So God, who led Abraham to Himself and made a covenant of salvation with him, could not justify Abraham, could not credit Abraham with righteousness, on account of his works or his faith. All this confirms the biblical teaching that God justifies the wicked, and that included Abraham.

We see that even more clearly in David. We know the story of his life. He allowed Joab, his army general, to get away with two murders. He coveted Bathsheba, committed adultery with her, and in order to cover up his sin, he murdered Uriah, her husband. As a father David did not control his sons very well, allowing them to rebel against him. But mixed up with all that was David the man of faith. He did many good things as king over Israel. He wrote beautiful psalms about God. Yet, David was a sinner. The reason why the apostle Paul mentions David besides Abraham, is to show that, like Abraham, David could not be justified, could not be credited with righteousness, on the basis of what he did in his life for he was imperfect.

And take Paul himself. Before his conversion he thought he was right with God on account of his good works. He belonged to Israel, God’s covenant people. He was a good Pharisee; Paul even thought he was serving God by persecuting Christians. But when Paul became Christian he realised he had nothing to boast about before God. He too discovered that his life was not righteous. He had not understood God. Thinking he was doing right he was doing wrong.

Having thus looked at Abraham, David and Paul, we must surely come to the realisation that also we ourselves have no righteousness of our own. There are only two ways to be right with God. One way is to have perfectly obeyed every aspect of God’s law for our life. That would have to mean that we would have to be sinless. Then we would not need Christ as the Saviour, because if we are perfect then we don’t need saving. But no one is without sin. Therefore, we need the other way in order to be made right with God, and that way is through faith in Jesus Christ.

2. The meaning of God crediting a sinner with righteousness through faith

Scripture says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (vs 3 & Heb 15:6). What does it mean that God credited Abraham with righteousness? It cannot mean that God looked at Abraham, and said, ‘There is a righteous man; I will justify him on the basis of his obvious righteousness.’ We have already seen that Abraham was among the wicked before God called him and even as a believer he sinned a number of times. But because Abraham believed, God counted him as righteous. God did not justify Abraham on the basis of his faith because that wasn’t perfect either. So how did God credit Abraham with righteousness? How does God credit any believer with righteousness?

Well, the righteousness that God credited to Abraham’s account came from outside Abraham. Before God put anything on Abraham’s account it showed sin and guilt. That would have to be removed before God could put credit on his account. And that’s what God did through Christ dying for Abraham’s sin and guilt. Christ paid for Abraham’s sins by suffering and dying for him on the cross many years after Abraham lived. Christ removed the sin and guilt from Abraham’s account. That’s how God forgave and pardoned Abraham. Christ then added to Abraham’s account the righteousness that Christ earned by His perfect life and obedience. The righteousness of Christ was transferred to Abraham’s account. So when God looked at Abraham He saw the unrighteous Abraham covered with the righteousness of Christ.

In the same way was David credited with Christ’s righteousness. It was the same way again with Paul. In this same way all believers are credited with Christ’s righteousness.

But it is a righteousness received as a gift through faith. Abraham believed God. By faith he went to Canaan. By faith he became the father of Isaac. By faith he offered up Isaac. The faith Abraham had is the faith we must have. If Abraham is our spiritual father, then we are to believe as Abraham believed. So what is it that stands out in Abraham’s faith, even though it was not perfect? It is his trust in God!

We don’t have Abraham’s faith if we merely believe that God exists. The devil also believes God exists but that doesn’t make the devil righteous. There are plenty of people who say that they believe in God but they have not been credited with Christ’s righteousness because they do not trust in God. You really need to examine yourself in order to find out if you merely believe that God exists, or that you also put your confidence in Him. Do you really trust God for your salvation? When Abraham did all those things by faith, then he trusted that God would bring him to Canaan. He trusted that eventually he would have a son. He trusted that God would somehow raise Isaac from the dead after he had sacrificed him.

Do you trust that God has forgiven you and pardoned you? Do you trust that God has credited you with Christ’s righteousness? Do you trust that whatever suffering and struggles you may have, you will always remain a child of God? Do you trust that your heavenly Father will not give you anything you cannot bear, that He will always stand by you? Do you trust God when He says that when you die you will go to heaven? Do you trust God when He says that Jesus will come again to make all things new, and that you will live with other believers on the new earth?

An evangelism course has this illustration about trusting: you are in someone’s house and trying to explain that one must trust Christ for salvation. You point to a chair in the room and you ask, ‘do you believe that chair exists?’ The person you’re talking to says, ‘yes, of course.’ Then you ask, ‘Do you believe that it would hold you up?’ Again the person says, ‘yes’. You then say, ‘But, you see, the only way to know that it will hold you up is by actually sitting on it.

Don’t just believe that Jesus existed. Do you trust Him to have taken away your sin and guilt by His death on the cross, and giving you His righteousness because He perfectly obeyed God’s law on your behalf? Look at what David said in Psalm 32 and quoted in verses 7 and 8: “Blessed are they whose transgression are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”

Think of David’s sins – adultery, murder, not a good father to his sons, sometimes weak in being king. David acknowledged that these were his transgressions and sins. But he believed and trusted that God forgave him, to never again count them against him. God could do that because of Christ. David considered himself blessed because God credited him with Christ’s righteousness.

Now think of your own sins. The big ones and the many small ones. Do you trust God to have justified you? Do you believe that God sacrificed Jesus His own Son to death on the cross in order to take away all your sins and guilt and give you Christ’s righteousness? Don’t just believe that God exists. Also trust Him. Trust God and you will experience the blessedness of having your sins covered, yes, blotted out, by the blood of Christ. Blessed are you when the Lord will never count your sins against you. Yes, here is the joy of forgiveness.

After his exposition of Psalm 51, where David repented of his sins, R C Sproul closes with Psalm 32 and remarked that in Scripture God either pronounces a ‘woe unto you’ or a ‘blessed are you’. ‘Woe unto you’ is the same as ‘cursed are you’. To all who have not repented of their sin, who still have the guilt of their sin on their account, God says, ‘cursed are you’. But to those who have repented, who have faith in Christ the Saviour, and trust God to have credited them with Christ’s righteousness, to those God says, ‘blessed are you’. Your sins are blotted out. Your guilt has been taken away. You have been made right with God through Christ.

Amen.