Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Romans 4:16

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Romans 4:16. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace — On this account the promise is mercifully grounded, not on obedience to a law, but on the infinite goodness of God: and thus the promise is sure to all the seed - to all, both Jews and Gentiles, who, believing in Christ Jesus, have a right to all the blessings contained in the Abrahamic covenant. All the seed necessarily comprehends all mankind. Of the Gentiles there can be no doubt, for the promise was given to Abraham while he was a Gentile; and the salvation of the Jews may be inferred, because they all sprang from him after he became an heir of the righteousness or justification which is received by faith; for he is the father of us all, both Jews and Gentiles. Dr. Taylor has an excellent note on this verse. "Here," says he, "it should be well observed that faith and grace do mutually and necessarily infer each other. For the grace and favour of God, in its own nature, requires faith in us; and faith on our part, in its own nature, supposes the grace or favour of God. If any blessing is the gift of God, in order to influence our temper and behaviour, then, in the very nature of things, it is necessary that we be sensible of this blessing, and persuaded of the grace of God that bestows it; otherwise it is not possible we should improve it. On the other hand, if faith in the goodness of God, with regard to any blessing, is the principle of our religious hopes and action, then it follows that the blessing is not due in strict justice, nor on the foot of law, but that it is the free gift of Divine goodness. If the promise to Abraham and his seed be of faith on their part, then it is of grace on the part of God. And it is of faith, that it might be by grace: grace, being the mere good will of the donor, is free and open to all whom he chooses to make the objects of it: and the Divine wisdom appointed faith to be the condition of the promise; because faith is, on our part, the most simple principle, bearing an exact correspondence to grace, and reaching as far as that can extend; that so the happy effects of the promise might extend far and wide, take in the largest compass, and be confined to no condition, but what is merely necessary in the nature of things."

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Some examples (4:1-25)

To illustrate what he has just been teaching, Paul refers to the example of Abraham. Abraham was justified because of his faith, not because of any good deeds that he did (4:1-3). (To understand the illustrations concerning Abraham that follow, read Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 15:1-6; Genesis 16:1-16; Genesis 17:15-22; Genesis 18:1-15; Genesis 21:1-21.)

Righteousness is a gift received by faith, not payment for work that a person does (4-5). David, as well as Abraham, knew that righteousness comes only through God’s grace, not through one’s good works (6-8). It has nothing to do with circumcision either, because Abraham was justified before he was circumcised. He received circumcision later, as an outward sign of the inward faith that he already had. He might be called the spiritual father of all who are justified by faith, whether Jews or Gentiles (9-12).
Neither has this righteousness anything to do with the law, because Abraham simply accepted God’s promise by faith. He did not have to work for it by trying to keep rules. The law does not make people righteous. It only shows up their disobedience and so brings God’s wrath upon them (13-15).
The principle underlying God’s dealings with humankind, Jews and Gentiles alike, is that he gives his promises by grace, and people receive them by faith (16). God promised childless Abraham that he would be the father of a multitude of people. Although Abraham and Sarah were well past the age when they might normally expect to have children, Abraham still trusted God’s promise and believed God could do the impossible (17-21). God accepted Abraham as righteous because Abraham trusted him to do what he had promised. In like manner God will accept as righteous those who trust for their salvation in what Christ has done for them through his death and resurrection (22-25).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

For four definitions of "seed," see under Romans 4:13. If only the literal seed of Abraham were to be heirs, and only the legal portion of that, called the legal seed, the spiritual seed would be disinherited.

According to grace … The most basic thing of all, regarding the salvation which Almighty God has provided for his erring human children, is the fact of its derivation, in the last analysis, from the unmerited favor bestowed upon them by the heavenly Father. Look: when the angels sinned, no salvation was provided for them; and God certainly did not owe salvation to people; and it was contrary to all precedent that any was provided. The fact that people, as such, cannot merit this generous treatment at the hands of God is absolutely axiomatic. Of course, they cannot. Therefore, what an incongruous thing it would have been if the blessed Messiah himself should have been through such a device as the law of Moses, especially since that law was only a temporary device anyway, and applied to a tiny fraction of earth’s populations, and not even they kept it! Therefore the promise was made to Abraham upon the premise of his obedient faith, a faith which God repeatedly tested and proved, even to the extent of requiring the offering up of Isaac. Abraham obeyed! Abraham’s obedience is not emphasized in this chapter, although stated clearly enough; but it is most certainly a part of the total picture. The reason that Paul did not stress obedience here lies in the fact that even Abraham’s obedience was not perfect, as, for example, in the matter of taking Terah with him; therefore, his obedience in any perfect sense could not have been made the ground of God’s promise; but his obedience was indeed sufficient to exhibit and prove his faith. Despite that, Paul was correct in leaving obedience in the background in this chapter. That obedience was not excluded from the definition of Abraham’s faith as the ground of his justification is implicit in two things: (1) Paul did not say that it was Abraham’s faith alone. The commentators certainly have no trouble finding that word, their exegesis being filled with it from one end to the other, which only points up the significance of the fact that never, not even once, did Paul use such an expression as "faith only" or "faith alone." We are absolutely safe, therefore, in the conviction that Paul designedly avoided such, and it is equally certain that the quality of Abraham’s obedience entered into and formed a part of the consideration on God’s part when Abraham was selected to be the "father of the faithful." (2) The second consideration is this: The obedient nature of Abraham’s faith appears in the twelfth verse where those who shall inherit are described as those who will "walk in the steps of" Abraham’s faith, the same being an inspired statement that would have been impossible to make without considering the "faith" so frequently mentioned in this chapter to have been an "obedient faith."

(The seed) … which is the law … is a reference to those faithful Jews who believed God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, such as Zacharias, and countless others of the old institution, who also are part of the extended spiritual seed which includes many nations, peoples, and tongues. Paul was careful to make it plain that no Israelite was excluded from the promise; for they also would inherit through obedient faith.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Therefore - In view of the course of reasoning which has been pursued. We have come to this conclusion.

It is of faith - Justification is by faith; or the plan which God has devised of saving people is by faith, Romans 3:26.

That it might be by grace - As a matter of mere undeserved mercy. If people were justified by law, it would be by their own merits; now it is of mere unmerited favor.

To the end - For the purpose, or design.

The promise ... - Romans 4:13.

Might be sure - Might be firm, or established. On any other ground, it could not be established. If it had depended on entire conformity to the Law, the promise would never have been established, for none would have yielded such obedience. But now it may be secured to all the posterity of Abraham.

To all the seed - Romans 4:13.

Not to that only - Not to that part of his descendants alone who were Jews, or who had the Law.

But to that ... - To all who should possess the same faith as Abraham. The father of us all. Of all who believe, whether they be Jews or Gentiles.

Living By Faith: Commentary on Romans & 1st Corinthians

4:16: For this cause (it is) of faith, that (it may be) according to grace; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all

Certain words in this verse deserve special attention. The first of these words is a conclusion indicator (the KJV has therefore; the ASV says for). Here, Paul concluded his argument about Abraham. He affirmed that justification is by “faith” and this has always been true. This faith (which is not faith alone) is part of God’s “grace.” For man to be saved, the “system” must be faith and grace, not faith and meritorious works. Grace is descriptive of what God has done. Faith stands for man’s obedience (see Hebrews 11:7-9; Hebrews 11:23; Hebrews 11:29-30, etc.). The Bible calls salvation a gift because we do not earn it (Titus 3:5). Even God’s promise to Abraham was based upon grace and faith instead of meritorious works. Every covenant between God and man has consisted of grace and faith. Meritorious works have never been the basis for salvation and justification.

The system we live under is described in verse 16: “the promise may be sure to all the seed.” This means anyone can be saved by the plan revealed in the New Testament. Inspired writers were convinced that God’s plan is simple enough for all to understand and obey. Furthermore, God’s plan of grace and man’s obedient faith also make salvation sure. When Christians stand in the grace of God (Romans 5:2) and hold fast the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-2), they are continually cleansed from sin (1 John 1:7; 1 John 1:9) because of God’s grace. God said things have been written so that we can “know” we have eternal life (1 John 5:11). When we do what God’s word says, we are a true disciple (John 8:31-32).

At the end of verse 16 Paul repeated the point made in 2:28-29. Abraham is the spiritual father of the Jews as well as the Gentiles when they are obedient. Another passage that makes this point is Romans 9:6 (this is where Paul said that not all Jews are of Israel). There is more to being a child of God than coming from a certain race.

Since true Jews are those who are Jews on the inside, there is no longer such a thing as God’s special people (i.e. no special race). Because we are under a new and different testament, race has absolutely nothing to do with our relationship to God.

God’s view about race should be the one advocated by Christians. We should believe and teach that every race is of equal importance. A congregation in America is not more important or of more value than a congregation in Nicaragua. Though some may feel that an American church is more important because the building is fancier, the people are better dressed, the educational backgrounds are better, money is more available, the preachers are finer, etc., God sees all Christians and races as equal.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

16.It is therefore of faith, etc. This is the winding up of the argument; and you may summarily include the whole of it in this statement, — “If the heirship of salvation comes to us by works, then faith in it vanishes, the promise of it is abolished; but it is necessary that both these should be sure and certain; hence it comes to us by faith, so that its stability being based on the goodness of God alone, may be secured.” See how the Apostle, regarding faith as a thing firm and certain, considers hesitancy and doubt as unbelief, by which faith is abolished, and the promise abrogated. And yet this doubting is what the schoolmen call a moral conjecture, and which, alas! they substitute for faith.

That it might be by grace, etc. Here, in the first place, the Apostle shows, that nothing is set before faith but mere grace; and this, as they commonly say, is its object: for were it to look on merits, absurdly would Paul infer, that whatever it obtains for us is gratuitous. I will repeat this again in other words, — “If grace be everything that we obtain by faith, then every regard for works is laid in the dust.” But what next follows more fully removes all ambiguity, — that the promise then only stands firm, when it recumbs on grace: for by this expression Paul confirms this truth, that as long as men depend on works, they are harassed with doubts; for they deprive themselves of what the promises contain. Hence, also, we may easily learn, that grace is not to be taken, as some imagine, for the gift of regeneration, but for a gratuitous favor: for as regeneration is never perfect, it can never suffice to pacify souls, nor of itself can it make the promise certain.

Not to that only which is of the law, etc. Though these words mean in another place those who, being absurd zealots of the law, bind themselves to its yoke, and boast of their confidence in it, yet here they mean simply the Jewish nation, to whom the law of the Lord had been delivered. For Paul teaches us in another passage, that all who remain bound to the dominion of the law, are subject to a curse; it is then certain that they are excluded from the participation of grace. He does not then call them the servants of the law, who, adhering to the righteousness of works, renounce Christ; but they were those Jews who had been brought up in the law, and yet professed the name of Christ. But that the sentence may be made clearer, let it be worded thus, — “Not to those only who are of the law, but to all who imitate the faith of Abraham, though they had not the law before.”

Who is the father of us all, etc. The relative has the meaning of a causative particle; for he meant to prove, that the Gentiles were become partakers of this grace, inasmuch as by the same oracle, by which the heirship was conferred on Abraham and his seed, were the Gentiles also constituted his seed: for he is said to have been made the father, not of one nation, but of many nations; by which was presignified the future extension of grace, then confined to Israel alone. For except the promised blessing had been extended to them, they could not have been counted as the offspring of Abraham. The past tense of the verb, according to the common usage of Scripture, denotes the certainty of the Divine counsel; for though nothing then was less apparent, yet as God had thus decreed, he is rightly said to have been made the father of many nations. Let the testimony of Moses be included in a parenthesis, that this clause, “Who is the father of us all,” may be connected with the other, “before God,” etc.: for it was necessary to explain also what that relationship was, that the Jews might not glory too much in their carnal descent. Hence he says, “He is our father before God; ” which means the same as though he had said, “He is our spiritual father;” for he had this privilege, not from his own flesh, but from the promise of God ⁽¹⁴²⁾

(142) It appears from [Pareus ] and [Hammond ], that some of the Fathers such as [Chrysostom ], and [Theophylact ], regardedκατέναντι in the sense of ὁμοίως, like, and have rendered the passage, “like God, in whom he believed;” that is, that as God is not partial, but the Father of all, so Abraham was. But this meaning is not consistent with the import ofκατέναντι, nor with the context. The preposition is found in four other places, Mark 11:2; Mark 12:41; Mark 13:3; Luke 19:30, and invariably means before, or, over against. The Septuagint use it in Numbers 25:4, in the sense of before , κατέναντι τοῦ ἡλίου — “before the sun,” not “against the sun” as in our version; for the word in Hebrew is נגד, Coram, in conspectu . The context also requires this meaning: Abraham was a father of many nationsbefore God, or, in the view or estimation of God, and not in the view or estimation of men, because God, as it is said at the end of the verse, regards things which are not, as though they were. Hence Abraham was already in God’s view, according to his purpose, the father of many nations.

The collocation of the words is said by [Wolfius ] to be an instance of Atticism, the wordθεοῦ, being separated from its preposition: andοὗ is put for ᾧ by the grammatical law of attraction; and [Stuart ] brings three similar instances of the relative being regulated by the case of its noun, though preceding it in the sentence, Mark 6:16, Acts 21:16; and Romans 6:17

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 4

Now what shall we say concerning Abraham the father, as pertaining to the flesh, what did he find? For if Abraham were justified by his works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God ( Romans 4:1-2 ).

If it was Abraham's works that brought him justification, then Abraham could boast in his works. He could say, "I left my home, I left my family on the other side of the Euphrates River, and I journeyed not even knowing where I was going, just waiting for God to show me. And I was willing to offer my son." He could have boasted if he was justified by his works, but he could not have boasted in God; he would have had to have boasted in himself.

But what does the scripture say about Abraham? [It says,] Abraham believed God and it was [imputed or] counted unto him for righteousness ( Romans 4:3 ).

Why? He just believed in God, that is what God accounted for righteousness.

Now to him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt ( Romans 4:4 ).

But God will never be a debtor to you; God will never owe you a thing. I am always a debtor to God, but God will never be a debtor to me. Now, if righteousness could come by works, then once I did those works God would owe me salvation. If it were of works, then it would be a debt. God owing me the rewards for my special effort and my work and my sacrifice and my commitment and all.

But it is by faith. It is through grace, God's grace that He gives to me.

But to him that worketh not, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness ( Romans 4:5 ).

I love it because, you see, it opens the door for me. It keeps the door open for me. I can come to God at any time and expect God to bless me, though I may be a total failure as far as my spiritual walk is concerned. Because God blessed on the basis of His grace, not on the basis of my faithfulness to my devotions. "Chuck, you have been good this week, you have been faithful. You didn't yell at anyone on the freeway, special reward this week." No, not so. Do you know that some . . . I hesitate to say this, but some of the times of God's greatest blessings upon my life have been right after my greatest failures. Because I knew that I just had to cast myself on the grace of God. I knew I couldn't come in my own merit. I knew that I was just bankrupt and I experienced many times the greatest blessings of God upon my life after my greatest failures. We need to rid ourselves of the Santa Claus concept of God. Who brings good little boys all kinds of nice toys out of his big bag, but if you are a bad little boy you will get sticks. He is making out a list and he is checking it twice. He is going to find out who is naughty and nice. The nice ones are going to be rewarded the naughty ones nothing. And I carried that concept of God, and I think God is going to reward me for my good efforts for my faithfulness for my diligence, for whatever my, my, my . . . No, God's blessings are given to me on the basis of His grace, that way it's always available.

The door is never shut. I can always come to God through faith on the basis of God's grace towards me. To him that works not, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. God looks at me tonight as righteous, because I am believing and do believe completely in the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for me in taking my sin and dying in my place. I believe that completely. God accounts that belief for righteousness. God looks at me and says, "Righteous, a righteous man." I accept that, I know me, I know my weaknesses, I know my failings, and that is why I have to cling to Jesus Christ. That is why I dare not stand in myself.

David described this blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works ( Romans 4:6 ),

In Psalm 32 , David said,

Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered ( Romans 4:7 ).

The word blessed is literally, "Oh how happy are they" whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

Now if you go back to that you find it very interesting. David talked about that period of time when he sought to hide his own sin. Now, the hand of God was so heavy on him and he became so dried up inside that it was like a drought in summer. His bones were weary, for day and night the hand of God was heavy upon his life, until he finally said, "I am going to confess my sins to the Lord." And God immediately forgave him all of his iniquity. "Oh how happy is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered."

Then he went on even more daring to say,

Oh how happy is the man to whom God does not impute iniquity ( Romans 4:8 ).

That is, the man to whom God has no list. God doesn't impute iniquity unto that man who is believing and trusting in Jesus Christ. What a beautiful position that is where God is not imputing iniquity to me, because of my faith. Now, I would not dare to say this unless it was said in the scriptures. I mean, this seems to be so presumptuous I wouldn't dare to utter it, but the scripture declares it, so I am only declaring what the scripture declares. Oh how happy I am that God accounts me righteous and does not account my iniquities against me because of my faith in Jesus Christ.

God accounts me righteous. Now comes this happiness,

this blessedness then upon only those who are circumcised, or upon those who are uncircumcised also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. But when was this reckoned? when he was circumcised, or when he was uncircumcised? ( Romans 4:9-10 )

When you go back into the record you find that God said of Abraham, "His faith is accounted for righteousness," before he was circumcised. Therefore, this blessedness of having your sins forgiven, of not having God impute iniquity against you because of your faith in God and trust in God comes not from a physical rite of circumcision, but it came to Abraham before he was ever circumcised.

He received the sign of circumcision, which was the seal of that righteousness of the faith which he had even before he was circumcised: that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they be not circumcised; that there righteousness might be imputed unto them also ( Romans 4:11 ):

God's righteousness imputed to all men who believe and the father of circumcision. He is the father of those who are not circumcised who believed and also,

The father of those who are circumcised who believed who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not made to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith ( Romans 4:12-13 ).

God promised this to Abraham 400 years before He ever gave the law. It doesn't come by the law; it doesn't come by the rite of circumcision, which the Jew was trusting in these two things. But God gave it to Abraham before He ever gave the law, before He ever told Abraham to circumcise his sons, in order that it might be applicable to all men, regardless of race.

For they which are of the law be heirs ( Romans 4:14 ),

If they only which are of the law are the heirs, then,

faith is made void, and the promise is nullified. Because the law works wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression ( Romans 4:14-15 ).

Now you can only transgress the law if there is a law, if there is no law then how can you transgress it? So,

It is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end that the promise might be sure ( Romans 4:16 )

Or be certain. It can never be certain if it was predicated upon me, or upon my works, or my efforts, or my faithfulness, or whatever. If it were predicated upon that, you would never be certain from day to day. I would never really know if I was saved. I may be saved today, but tomorrow I may blow it bad. If it was predicated upon my works in order that it might be certain, in order that it might be sure, God has established it then through grace and faith.

not to that only which is of the law, but to those who are of the faith of Abraham; who was the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) ( Romans 4:16-17 )

Not just one the Jews.

before him whom he believed, even God, who makes alive the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were ( Romans 4:17 ).

Now, this is an interesting aspect of God, and I like this. God said to Abraham before Isaac was ever conceived, "Through Sarah shall thy seed be called," and He spoke of Isaac existing before he was ever born. He spoke of him as already existing before he was ever born. Now, God can do that because God lives in the eternal and in the eternal everything is now. God living in the eternal can speak of things as already existing that don't yet exist in the timeframe that we live in, because God living in the eternal sees them as though they already exist, because He knows they are going to exist, though we have not yet caught up to that timeframe. And so God can speak of things that are not as though they are because of living in the eternal.

Now, this is one of the difficulties that we, living in the timeframe, have in understanding God. There is tremendous difficulty in understanding the resurrection of the dead. When does it happen and so forth? The minute my soul and spirit leaves this body, I also then enter into the eternal timeless zone where everything is now. To help confuse the issue, Son 3:15 said, "And that which has been is now, and that which shall be has already been." We are talking about the eternal, no time zone. So that which has been is now, that which shall be has already been; today is tomorrow, and yesterday is today.

All right, let's go up to Pasadena. It's New Years Day. And standing at the corner there on Colorado Boulevard and the Long Beach float is coming down the street now in sight, and we see the band coming in front of it marching. And we see the float go by and we are oohing. Isn't that beautiful? And the float moves down the street, and here comes the Sierra Madre float. And we are now entranced by the beauty of the Sierra Madre float, which a few minutes ago the people on up the street were entranced by its beauty. But now it is past them and it has come to us. But it also passes by and now four blocks down they're oohing over the Sierra Madre float, and we are watching another float come into view. And I, standing at this point, watch the parade go by. Where I am standing, the Sierra Madre float went by four minutes ago. It has now moved on down in the procession down Colorado Boulevard. I am now watching a new float come by. Where this float now is, in four minutes will be where the Sierra Madre float now is. Let's make it the Long Beach. It's easier. Where this float will be the Long Beach float now is. Where the Long Beach float was, this float now is.

Because I am standing at one timeframe of reference and watching it all go by in a procession, it is constantly moving in a procession as does time constantly move in a procession, and I stand and look at it as it passes by. If I could get into the Goodyear Blimp and fly above Pasadena and look down from that observation cabin, I could see the entire parade from the beginning to end all at one time. Thus, I could see the Long Beach float, and I could see Sierra Madre float, and I could see the Mexico float, and all at the same time, because now I am looking down and I see the entire procession at once. I am no longer limited to this one corner and watching it in time frames passing by.

God, looking down on the procession of history, can see the entire scene at once in one view. He can see Adam sitting in the garden, and where Adam was 6000 years ago, I am tonight. I am tonight as I am moving in the procession, but God can still see the whole procession at once. He can see the glorious coming again of Jesus Christ, and He can see the Millennium reign, and He can see the whole thing because He is outside of time looking down and is not limited to the time frames.

Thus, God says, "Oh, that Long Beach float, what a beauty." I haven't seen it yet; it hasn't come by here yet. "Oh, it is a beauty." I have to wait for it to pass by. But God has already seen it and He speaks of it as existing, though in my time reference it hasn't existed yet. It hasn't come by me yet. Time hasn't come this far to me yet, but God living in the eternal, outside of time, sees the entire picture with one view. Thus, God speaks of things as existing, though in my timeframe they have not yet existed. For God sees them; He knows they are going to exist, because He is outside of the timeframe, and thus He speaks, and that is where prophecy comes in. God just speaking of what He is looking at what He can see. He is not bound by time.

Now our puny little finite minds cannot grasp this. I cannot think apart from time. I am bound in my thinking processes in time, and I cannot think apart from time. God can. God sees the whole; I see only the part. We see in part. We know in part. We prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect or complete has come, then these things which are in part will be done away. For we will know them even as we are known.

This interesting aspect about God is given to us here by Paul: God, who makes alive the dead. When God said to Abraham, "Take now your son your only son Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice," Abraham by faith took his son and journeyed to the mountain. Abraham didn't know how God was going to do it, but Abraham knew that he was going to return to his servants with his son. "I and the lad will go and worship and will come again. We are going to go up and worship God and we are going to come again." Wait a minute, Abraham. You are going to offer him as a sacrifice. I know that, but God said, "Through Isaac shall thy seed by called." Isaac doesn't have any children yet so God has got a problem. Isaac has got to come back with me, because through Isaac the seed is going to be called. Isaac has no children. God is going to have to raise him from the dead if necessary, because God has got to keep His word. Now that is God's problem, how He is going to keep His word. He told me to offer him as a sacrifice and I am going to do that. But, He has got to keep His word to me so He has got to raise Isaac from the dead if necessary. So you see, he was believing in the resurrection.

For three days Isaac was dead in the mind of Abraham as they were journeying, yet he believed there would be a resurrection. I am going to offer him as a sacrifice and God is going to raise him from the dead. Through faith, Hebrews 11 , Abraham offered Isaac, believing that God would, if necessary, raise him from the dead, because God said, "Through Isaac shall thy seed by called." That was where Abraham took this step of faith. A lot of people don't understand this. They say, "Oh, how could a man?" They get all shook over the story of Abraham because they don't know the entire scriptures. They don't realize the faith of Abraham. He knew that Isaac had to be alive to bear children. So, God, You've got a problem. It seems like it is an unsolvable problem, but that is not my problem, Lord, it is Your problem.

Isaac has got to come back with me. He has got to have children, because You told me, "Through Isaac shall the seed be called." God spoke of Isaac's seed before he ever had any children, because he knew he would have children. Abraham knew the word of God had to come to pass, and so he was willing to go ahead and sacrifice his son, because God has got to keep His word and Isaac has got to come back to life.

Belief in the resurrection.

So against hope he believed in hope ( Romans 4:18 ),

Or against any understanding of how God could do it, yet he believed in God.

that he might become the father of many nations, according as it was spoken, So shall thy seed be. Not being weak in the faith, he didn't consider his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb ( Romans 4:18-19 ):

The first key to Abraham's faith is not considering the human difficulties. And that is our first stumbling stone to faith is we are always considering the human difficulties. It is so interesting how that we are measuring our problems into categories of simple, difficult, impossible. But Abraham did not consider the human difficulty here that he was going to have a son when he was one hundred years old. The deadness of his own body or his own he didn't consider his own body now dead. He was probably impotent by this time. Nor yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. She had probably gone through the menopause. No problem, God said she is going to have a son. God's problem, not mine. He didn't consider these human aspects or difficulties. Secondly, he staggered not at the promise of God. "Well, I don't see how God can do that. Now I know God said He would, but I don't know if He means me."

He staggered not at the promises of God; but being strong in the faith, he gave glory to God ( Romans 4:20 );

"Thank you, Lord, for that son. Oh, Lord, I appreciate so much You doing this for Sarah. She's wanted a kid all her life, Lord. Oh, You're going to give her a boy. That's just really neat, Father. Lord, I thank You and I praise You." For you see,

he was fully persuaded, that what God had promised, he was able also to perform ( Romans 4:21 ).

And I can't perform. I can't do it. I've tried for many years; I failed. But God is able to do it. God has promised that through Sarah I am going to have a son, so I know that God is able to perform His promise to me.

Four keys to faith: considering not the human difficulty, staggering not at the promise, but just taking the promise and praising the Lord and thanking God for the promise, knowing and being fully persuaded that God is able to do whatever He has promised.

Therefore his faith was imputed unto him for righteousness ( Romans 4:22 ).

God said, "That is a righteous man. He believes my word. He trusts my word."

But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification ( Romans 4:24-25 ).

So even if Abraham's faith was accounted for righteousness, so our faith in God who raised Jesus from the dead, who was crucified for our offenses but was raised again for our justification, our faith in Jesus, God accounts to us for righteous, and God looks upon that faith and declares that we are righteous.

Does that mean I can go out and do whatever I want? Live after my flesh, indulge in just any kind of thing I desire, because, after all, it's my faith that God counts for righteousness. In chapter five Paul gets into some of these foolish speculations that people often make and the tragic mistake that they make when they take grace and try to run with it. Into lasciviousness and use it as a cloak for their evil deeds. As we move into chapter 5, Paul will deal with the subject, "Shall we sin freely that grace might abound? Shall we just go ahead and can we just go ahead and live however we want after our flesh because of God's grace? Does that mean that it doesn't matter how I live?" If you quit the study tonight you can be in left field and left out. You better come back next Sunday and get the other side of the coin or you could be in deep, deep trouble. Don't take this and run with it yet. You have got to realize that he is talking to a special category of people who have been crucified with Christ. Who are reckoning the old man to be dead and are living now after the Spirit, the new life in the Spirit in the resurrected Christ.

So you've got to get the rest of the story to get the balance, so see you next Sunday night as we balance things off.

I am amazed at God's love for me. I am amazed that Jesus Christ loves me so much that He was willing to take the penalty of my sin, He was willing to die in my place, He was willing to suffer the consequences for my guilt. I love Him, and I appreciate His love for me. Because of my love for Him, I want to live for Him, I want to serve Him. Because of my love for Him, I want to do only those things that are pleasing to Him. I don't want to do those things that will displease Him. I want to walk as He walked. I want to forgive as He forgave. I want to love as He loves. You see, the love of Christ constrains me, and thus, I live by a higher standard than any law could dictate, for I am bound by the law of love. Love for God and love for Jesus Christ that causes me to only desire to do those things that will bring glory to Him.

May you walk this week in such a way as to bring glory unto the Father that He may look upon you and be pleased as you express to Him your love through the life that you live. God bless you and give you a beautiful week walking with Jesus, filled with His Spirit. "

Contending for the Faith

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

Therefore it is of faith: The repeated "it" in this verse refers to the promise of verse 13 or possibly to the inheritance (deriving from the word heirs in verse 14). The promise of salvation from sin and an eternal inheritance in heaven cannot be received on the basis of law. Therefore, it is to be received on the basis of faith. The consummation of salvation in heaven is the focus of this verse, and God in His omniscience has made it available to all on the ground of their submissive, obedient commitment of faith.

that it might be by grace: This phrase harks back to Romans 3:21-26. God’s unmerited favor and love reveal themselves not in the human habit of ignoring sin but rather in God’s divine plan to overcome sin. God does not ignore the sin of man. He punishes it in accordance with His word; however, His grace is revealed in His punishment of sin in the body of Christ offered upon the cross as a sacrificial sin offering. This plan of God at once sustains God’s absolute righteousness and makes it possible for Him to justify the sinner who believes in Jesus. If salvation could be achieved only by a system of law keeping, requiring perfect obedience, then no one would be saved, for all have sinned. But the promise is granted on the basis of faith in order that God’s grace might be extended to all. Cranfield says, "God has made His plan of salvation to depend, on man’s side, not on fulfillment of His law but solely on faith, in order that, on His side, it might be according to grace" (92).

to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed: The meaning of this phrase must be determined carefully, for there are two plausible interpretations. The focus could be on "to all the seed…" in which case the primary argument would be that salvation is available to all and not solely to those who are of the law. This view does receive considerable emphasis by virtue of its expansion in the words that follow, including the quotation from Genesis 17:5 in verses 17 and 18. Nevertheless, this concept is subsidiary to the predominant thought that places the greater emphasis on the surety of the promise. Instead of being an empty promise (as it surely would have been if God’s plan had been dependent on man’s perfect obedience to a system of law), it is full of certainty, a promise sure of fulfillment because it derives from God’s grace and man’s faith. Not only so, this promise is open to all men—Jew and Gentile—who commit their trust in faithful, obedient service to God’s will revealed in the New Testament. Whiteside says:

If the promise had been made on the condition that people keep the law, it would not have been sure to any one, for no one kept the law. And, had any one kept the law perfectly and thereby come into the inheritance, it would not have been by grace, but by merit. But as it is, the promise extends to all who are of the faith of Abraham whether they be Jews or Gentiles (105).

to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham: The seed of Abraham of which Paul speaks here is not that seed descending physically from Abraham. The seed to whom the promise is given refers to Abraham’s spiritual seed—those out of every nation who are of faith. The promise is to all the seed. It opens to all those Jews ("that…which is of the law") who accept the gospel and submit to God’s will in faith and the obedience that faith produces. Likewise it avails to Abraham’s seed who are Gentiles but have the faith of Abraham and who also obey the gospel in faith.

who is the father of us all: This phrase repeats the thought of verses 11b and 12. Godet comments:

The last words…sum up all that has been developed in the previous context. Believing Jews and Gentiles, we all participate by faith, not only in justification, but also in the future possession of the world; for the true seed to whom the promise was made was that of faith, not that according to the law. Abraham is therefore the sole stem from which proceed those two branches which form in him one and the same spiritual organism (178).

But the Jews’ national hopes die hard. Therefore, Paul anticipates and answers the next objection of the Jew, who might say, "Yes, but this plan could not have been accomplished without the nation of Israel and that necessitated the birth of Isaac. Furthermore, Isaac was born to Abraham in the way of natural, physical descent. Does not this indicate that natural descent from Abraham is essential to salvation?" In other words, the question of verse 1 arises one more time—"What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?" The Jew would answer: "His son Isaac, consequently the chosen people, and consequently everything." Anticipating this last bastion of Jewish hope, Paul now enters into this subject as boldly as he has the previous two and saps the strength of their last prejudice. He demonstrates clearly in this fourth paragraph concerning Abraham that Isaac’s birth, too, generated from faith. He proves, once for all, that "as pertaining to the flesh," Abraham found nothing—absolutely nothing! The birth of Isaac was the work of faith. Paul proves that now by appealing to the Old Testament narrative and properly interpreting it.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

4. The priority of faith to the promise concerning headship of many nations 4:13-17

The Jews believed that they had a claim on Abraham that Gentiles did not have. Obviously he was the father of their nation, and this did place him in a unique relationship to his physical descendants. However, they incorrectly concluded that all the blessings that God had promised Abraham would come to them alone. Paul reminded his readers that part of God’s promised blessing to Abraham was that he would be the father of many nations (Romans 4:17). God had given him this promise after his justification (Genesis 17:4-6), and God repeated it to Abraham’s descendants (Genesis 22:17-18). These nations included the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and many others including Gentile nations. Therefore the Israelites were not the only people God had promised to bless. They did not have a corner on God’s blessings.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

This verse summarizes the thought of Romans 4:13-15. God gave His promise to make Abraham the father of many nations (Romans 4:13) unconditionally ("in accordance with grace") after the patriarch stood justified. Abraham obtained the promise simply by believing it (i.e., by faith), not by keeping the law. This is the only way that the realization of what God had promised could be certain. This part of Paul’s argument therefore further exalts faith as the only method of justification. [Note: See Robert A. Pyne, "The ’Seed,’ the Spirit, and the Blessing of Abraham," Bibliotheca Sacra 152:606 (April-June 1995):216-17.]

"Faith is helplessness reaching out in total dependence upon God." [Note: Mounce, p. 127.]

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 4

THE FAITH WHICH TAKES GOD AT HIS WORD ( Romans 4:1-8 )

4:1-8 What, then, shall we say that Abraham, our forefather from whom we take our human descent, found? If Abraham entered into a right relationship with God by means of work, he has some ground for boasting--but not in regard to God. For what does scripture say? "Abraham trusted in God and it was accounted to him for righteousness." The man who works does not receive his pay as a favour; he receives it as a debt due to him. But, as for the man who does not depend on work, but who trusts in the God who treats the ungodly as he would treat a good man, his faith is accounted as righteousness. Just so, David speaks of the counting happy of the man to whom God accounts righteousness apart from works--"Happy they whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sins are covered! Happy the man to whom God does not account sin!"

Paul moves on to speak of Abraham for three reasons.

(i) The Jews regarded Abraham as the great founder of the race and the pattern of all that a man should be. Very naturally they ask, "If all that you say is true, what was the special thing that was given to Abraham when God picked him out to be the ancestor of his special people? What makes him different from other people?" That is the question which Paul is going on to answer.

(ii) Paul has just been seeking to prove that what makes a man right with God is not the performance of the works that the law lays down, but the simple trust of complete yieldedness which takes God at his word and believes that he still loves us even when we have done nothing to deserve that love. The immediate reaction of the Jews was, "This is something entirely new and a contradiction of all that we have been taught to believe. This doctrine is completely incredible." Paul's answer is, "So far from being new, this doctrine is as old as the Jewish faith. So far from being an heretical novelty, it is the very basis of Jewish religion." That is what he is going on to prove.

(iii) Paul begins to speak about Abraham because he was a wise teacher who knew the human mind and the way it works. He has been talking about faith. Now faith is an abstract idea. The ordinary human mind finds abstract ideas very hard to grasp. The wise teacher knows that every idea must become a person, for the only way in which an ordinary person can grasp an abstract idea is to see it in action, embodied in a person. So Paul, in effect, says, "I have been talking about faith. If you want to see what faith is, look at Abraham."

When Paul began to speak about Abraham, he was on ground that every Jew knew and understood. In their thoughts Abraham held a unique position. He was the founder of the nation. He was the man to whom God had first spoken. He was the man who had in a unique way had been chosen by God and who had heard and obeyed him. The Rabbis had their own discussions about Abraham. To Paul the essence of his greatness was this. God had come to Abraham and bidden him leave home and friends and kindred and livelihood, and had said to him, "If you make this great venture of faith, you will become the father of a great nation." Thereupon Abraham had taken God at his word. He had not argued; he had not hesitated; he went out not knowing where he was to go ( Hebrews 11:8). It was not the fact that Abraham had meticulously performed the demands of the law that put him into his special relationship with God, it was his complete trust in God and his complete willingness to abandon his life to him. That for Paul was faith, and it was Abraham's faith which made God regard him as a good man.

Some few, some very few, of the more advanced Rabbis believed that. There was a rabbinic commentary which said, "Abraham, our father, inherited this world and the world to come solely by the merit of faith whereby he believed in the Lord; for it is said, 'And he believed in the Lord, and he accounted it to him for righteousness.'"

But the great majority of the Rabbis turned the Abraham story to suit their own beliefs. They held that because he was the only righteous man of his generation, therefore he was chosen to be the ancestor of God's special people. The immediate answer is, "But how could Abraham keep the law when he lived hundreds of years before it was given?" The Rabbis advanced the odd theory that he kept it by intuition or anticipation. "At that time," says the Apocalypse of Baruch (Baruch 57:2), "the unwritten law was named among them, and the works of the commandment were then fulfilled." "He kept the law of the Most High," says Ecclesiasticus ( Sir_44:20-21 ), "and was taken into covenant with God.... Therefore God assured him by an oath that the nations should be blessed in his seed." The Rabbis were so in love with their theory of works that they insisted that it was because of his works that Abraham was chosen, although it meant that they had to argue that he knew the law by anticipation, since it had not yet come.

Here, again, we have the root cleavage between Jewish legalism and Christian faith. The basic thought of the Jews was that a man must earn God's favour. The basic thought of Christianity is that all a man can do is to take God at his word and stake everything on the faith that his promises are true. Paul's argument was--and he was unanswerably right--that Abraham entered into a right relationship with God, not because he did all kinds of legal works, but because he cast himself, just as he was, on God's promise.

"If our love were but more simple,

We should take him at his word;

And our lives would be all sunshine,

In the sweetness of our Lord."

It is the supreme discovery of the Christian life that we do not need to torture ourselves with a losing battle to earn God's love but rather need to accept in perfect trust the love which God offers to us. True, after that, any man of honour is under the life-long obligation to show himself worthy of that love. But he is no longer a criminal seeking to obey an impossible law; he is a lover offering his all to one who loved him when he did not deserve it.

Sir James Barrie once told a story about Robert Louis Stevenson. "When Stevenson went to Samoa he built a small hut, and afterwards went into a large house. The first night he went into the large house he was feeling very tired and sorrowful that he had not had the forethought to ask his servant to bring him coffee and, cigarettes. Just as he was thinking that, the door opened, and the native boy came in with a tray carrying cigarettes and coffee. And Mr Stevenson said to him, in the native language, 'Great is your forethought'; and the boy corrected him, and said, 'Great is the love.'" The service was rendered, not because of the coercion of servitude, but because of the compulsion of love. That also is the motive of Christian goodness.

THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL ( Romans 4:9-12 )

4:9-12 Did, then, this pronouncing of blessedness come to Abraham when he was circumcised? Or when he was uncircumcised? We are just saying, "His faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness." Under what circumstances was it then accounted? Was it while he was circumcised? Or was it while he was uncircumcised? It was not while he was circumcised, but while he was uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of that relationship to God whose source was faith while he was still uncircumcised. This happened that he might be the father of all who believe while they are uncircumcised, so that the accounting of righteousness may come to them too; and that he might also be the father of those who are circumcised, and by that I mean, not those who are circumcised only, but who walk in the steps of that faith which our father Abraham showed when he was still uncircumcised.

To understand this passage we must understand the importance that the Jew attached to circumcision. To the Jew a man who was not circumcised was quite literally not a Jew, no matter what his parentage was. The Jewish circumcision prayer runs: "Blessed is he who sanctified his beloved from the womb, and put his ordinance upon his flesh, and sealed his offspring with the sign of the holy covenant." The rabbinic ordinance lays it down: "Ye shall not eat of the Passover unless the seal of Abraham be in your flesh." If a Gentile accepted the Jewish faith, he could not enter fully into it without three things--baptism, sacrifice and circumcision.

The Jewish objector, whom Paul is answering all the time, is still fighting a rear-guard action. "Suppose I admit," he says, "all that you say about Abraham and about the fact that it was his complete trust that gained him an entry into a right relationship with God, you will still have to agree that he was circumcised." Paul has an unanswerable argument. The story of Abraham's call, and of God's blessing on him, is in Genesis 15:6; the story of Abraham's circumcision is in Genesis 17:10 ff. He was not, in fact, circumcised until fourteen years after he had answered God's call and entered into the unique relationship with God. Circumcision was not the gateway to his right relationship with God; it was only the sign and the seal that he had already entered into it. His being accounted righteous had nothing to do with circumcision and everything to do with his act of faith. From this unanswerable fact Paul makes two great deductions.

(i) Abraham is not the father of those who have been circumcised; he is the father of those who make the same act of faith in God as he made. He is the father of every man in every age who takes God at his word as he did. This means that the real Jew is the man who trusts God as Abraham did, no matter what his race is. All the great promises of God are made not to the Jewish nation, but to the man who is Abraham's descendant because he trusts God as he did. Jew has ceased to be a word which describes a nationality and has come to describe a way of life and a reaction to God. The descendants of Abraham are not the members of any particular nation, but those in every nation who belong to the family of God.

(ii) The converse is also true. A man may be a Jew of pure lineage and may be circumcised; and yet in the real sense may be no descendant of Abraham. He has no right to call Abraham his father or to claim the promises of God, unless he makes that venture of faith that Abraham made.

In one short paragraph Paul has shattered all Jewish thought. The Jew always believed that just because he was a Jew he automatically enjoyed the privilege of God's blessings and immunity from his punishment. The proof that he was a Jew was circumcision. So literally did some of the Rabbis take this that they actually said that, if a Jew was so bad that he had to be condemned by God, there was an angel whose task it was to make him uncircumcised again before he entered into punishment.

Paul has laid down the great principle that the way to God is not through membership of any nation, not through any ordinance which makes a mark upon a man's body; but by the faith which takes God at his word and makes everything dependent, not on man's achievement, but solely upon God's grace.

ALL IS OF GRACE ( Romans 4:13-17 )

4:13-17 It was not through law that there came to Abraham or to his seed the promise that he would inherit the earth, but it came through that right relationship with God which has its origin in faith. If they who are vassals of the law are heirs, then faith is drained of its meaning, and the promise is rendered inoperative; for the law produces wrath, but where law does not exist, neither can transgression exist. So, then, the whole process depends on faith, in order that it may be a matter of grace, so that the promise should be guaranteed to all Abraham's descendants, not only to those who belong to the tradition of the law, but also to those who are of Abraham's family in virtue of faith. Abraham who is the father of us all--as it stands written, "I have appointed you a father of many nations"--in the sight of that God in whom he believed, that God who calls the dead into life, and who calls into being even things which do not exist.

To Abraham God made a very great and wonderful promise. He promised that he would become a great nation, and that in him all families of the earth would be blessed ( Genesis 12:2-3). In truth, the earth would be given to him as his inheritance. Now that promise came to Abraham because of the faith that he showed towards God. It did not come because he piled up merit by doing works of the law. It was the outgoing of God's generous grace in answer to Abraham's absolute faith. The promise, as Paul saw it, was dependent on two things and two things only--the free grace of God and the perfect faith of Abraham.

The Jews were still asking, "How can a man enter into the right relationship with God so that he too may inherit this great promise?" Their answer was, "He must do so by acquiring merit in the sight of God through doing works which the law prescribes." That is to say, he must do it by his own efforts. Paul saw with absolute clearness that this Jewish attitude had completely destroyed the promise. It had done so for this reason--no man can fully keep the law; therefore, if the promise depends on keeping the law, it can never be fulfilled.

Paul saw things in terms of black and white. He saw two mutually exclusive ways of trying to get into a right relationship with God. On the one hand there was dependence on human effort; on the other, dependence on divine grace. On the one hand there was the constant losing battle to obey an impossible law; on the other, there was the faith which simply takes God at his word.

On each side there were three things.

(i) On the one side there is God's promise. There are two Greek words which mean promise. Huposchesis means a promise which is entered into upon conditions. "I promise to do this if you promise to do that." Epaggelia ( G1860) means a promise made out of the goodness of someone's heart quite unconditionally. It is epaggelia ( G1860) that Paul uses of the promise of God. It is as if he is saying, "God is like a human father; he promises to love his children no matter what they do." True, he will love some of us with a love that makes him glad, and he will love some of us with a love that makes him sad; but in either case it is a love which will never let us go. It is dependent not on our merit but only on God's own generous heart.

(ii) There is faith. Faith is the certainty that God is indeed like that. It is staking everything on his love.

(iii) There is grace. A gift of grace is always something which is unearned and undeserved. The truth is that man can never earn the love of God. He must always find his glory, not in what he can do for God, but in what God has done for him.

(i) On the other side there is law. The trouble about law has always been that it can diagnose the malady but cannot effect a cure. Law shows a man where he goes wrong, but does not help him to avoid going wrong. There is in fact, as Paul will later stress, a kind of terrible paradox in law. It is human nature that when a thing is forbidden it has a tendency to become desirable. "Stolen fruits are sweetest." Law, therefore, can actually move a man to desire the very thing which it forbids. The essential complement of law is judgment, and, so long as a man lives in a religion whose dominant thought is law, he cannot see himself as anything other than a condemned criminal at the bar of God's justice.

(ii) There is transgression. Whenever law is introduced, transgression follows. No one can break a law which does not exist; and no one can be condemned for breaking a law of whose existence he was ignorant. If we introduce law and stop there, if we make religion solely a matter of obeying law, life consists of one long series of transgressions waiting to be punished.

(iii) There is wrath. Think of law, think of transgression, and inevitably the next thought is wrath. Think of God in terms of law and you cannot do other than think of him in terms of outraged justice. Think of man in terms of law and you cannot do other than think of him as destined for the condemnation of God.

So Paul sets before the Romans two ways. The one is a way in which a man seeks a right relationship with God through his own efforts. It is doomed to failure. The other is a way in which a man enters by faith into a relationship with God, which by God's grace already exists for him to come into in trust.

BELIEVING IN THE GOD WHO MAKES THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE ( Romans 4:18-25 )

4:18-25 In hope Abraham believed beyond hope that he would become the father of many nations, as the saying had it, "So will be your seed.?" He did not weaken in his faith, although he was well aware that by this time his body had lost its vitality (for he was a hundred years old), and that the womb of Sarah was without life. He did not in unfaith waver at the promise of God, but he was revitalized by his faith, and he gave glory to God, and he was firmly convinced that he who had made the promise was also able to perform it. So this faith was accounted to him as righteousness. It was not only for his sake this "it was accounted to him for righteousness" was written. It was written also for our sakes; for it will be so reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead, who was delivered up for our sin and raised to bring us into a right relationship with God.

The last passage ended by saying that Abraham believed in the God who calls the dead into life and who brings into being even things which have no existence at all. This passage turns Paul's thoughts to another outstanding example of Abraham's willingness to take God at his word. The promise that all families of the earth would be blessed in his descendants was given to Abraham when he was an old man. His wife, Sarah, had always been childless; and now, when he was one hundred years old and she was ninety ( Genesis 17:17), there came the promise that a son would be born to them. It seemed, on the face of it, beyond all belief and beyond all hope of fulfilment, for he was long past the age of begetting and she long past the age of bearing a son. Yet, once again, Abraham took God at his word and once again it was this faith that was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.

It was this willingness to take God at his word which put Abraham into a right relationship with him. Now the Jewish Rabbis had a saying to which Paul here refers. They said, "What is written of Abraham is written also of his children." They meant that any promise that God made to Abraham extends to his children also. Therefore, if Abraham's willingness to take God at his word brought him into a right relationship with God, so it will be with us. It is not works of the law, it is this trusting faith which establishes the relationship between God and a man which ought to exist.

The essence of Abraham's faith in this case was that he believed that God could make the impossible possible. So long as we believe that everything depends on our efforts, we are bound to be pessimists, for experience has taught the grim lesson that our own efforts can achieve very little. When we realize that it is not our effort but God's grace and power which matter, then we become optimists, because we are bound to believe that with God nothing is impossible.

It is told that once Saint Theresa set out to build a convent with a sum the equivalent of twelve pence as her complete resources. Someone said to her, "Not even Saint Theresa can accomplish much with twelve pence." "True," she answered, "but Saint Theresa and twelve pence and God can do anything." A man may well hesitate to attempt a great task by himself; there is nothing which he need hesitate to attempt with God. Ann Hunter Small, the great missionary teacher, tells how her father, himself a missionary, used to say: "Oh! the wickedness as well as the stupidity of the croakers!" And she herself had a favourite saying: "A church which is alive dares to do anything." That daring only becomes possible to a man and to a church who take God at his word.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Romans 4:16

Therefore -- In view of the course of reasoning which has been pursued. We have come to this conclusion.

it is of faith -- Justification is by faith; or the plan which God has devised of saving people is by faith, Romans 3:26. [see note on Romans 3:28]

that it might be by grace -- As a matter of mere undeserved mercy. If people were justified by law, it would be by their own merits; now it is of mere unmerited favor.

to the end -- For the purpose, or design.

the promise -- Romans 4:13. The promise made to Abraham.

might be sure -- Might be firm, or established. On any other ground, it could not be established. But now it may be secured to all the posterity of Abraham.

to all the seed -- Romans 4:13. Abraham’s descendants, physically and spiritually.

not only to those who are of the law -- Not to that part of his descendants alone who were Jews, or who had the Law.

but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, -- To all who should possess the same faith as Abraham.

the father of us all -- Of all who believe, whether they be Jews or Gentiles.

- - - -

Note the pillars of truth upon which Paul has built "Justification by Faith".

1) One can’t be justififed by works - Romans 4:2-3

2) One can’d be justified by circumcision - Romans 4:8-10

3) One can’t be justified by Law - Romans 4:13-15

4) BUT we are justified by Faith - Romans 4:16; Romans 4:23-24

     (Therefore, justified is only by faith; only by the system of faith)

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace,.... Meaning either the promise of being heir of the world, or the inheritance itself, or adoption which gives heirship, or remission of Sin, or the blessing of justification, either and all of these are of faith; not as the cause or condition of them, but as the means of God's fixing and appointing to be the recipient of all and each of them: which is done, "that it might be by grace"; appear to be of the free grace and favour of God, as each of these blessings are: forasmuch as every blessing is received by faith, it is manifest it must be by grace; since faith itself is a gift of God's grace, and lies purely in receiving favours at the hand of God, to whom it gives all the glory of them: and this is done with a further view,

to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed. The promise of the above blessings, particularly of the inheritance which is made in the covenant of grace, ordered in all things and sure, and which could not be disannulled by the law that came after it; this being by faith and of grace, and not of works, nor at all depending upon them, becomes sure to all believers, to all Abraham's spiritual seed:

not to that only which is of the law; to the Jews, who are said to be of the law, in distinction to the Gentiles who were without it; and designs such of them as were believers in Christ, and to whom the Gospel was the power of God unto salvation; to these the promise was, and was sure, and not to them only:

but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; to the Gentiles, who though they are not by natural descent from Abraham, yet are of the same faith with him, and so are his seed in a spiritual sense:

who is the father of us all; whether Jews or Gentiles, who are Christ's, and so Abraham's spiritual seed, and heirs of eternal life, according to the free promise of grace.

Mitchell's Commentary on Selected New Testament Books

THE SAMPLE FAITH (Romans 4:1-25)

Mitchell's Commentary on Selected New Testament Books

JUSTIFICATION IS WITHOUT CEREMONIES
(Romans 4:9-16)

Now we come to the third thing in the passage, and this runs from Romans 4:9 right down through Romans 4:12. Justification is without works and now without ceremonies.

I recognize that the Apostle Paul has the Jewish people in mind. But when we bring it down to the present day, we have “churchianity” in mind. We have a great many folk who are professing Chris­tians, who make a great deal of ordinances and ceremonies.

Theoretically, we see there is no value to it from the question of salvation. But we stress it so much that we take to ourselves some value that is not there. For, when we push an ordinance beyond what is written, we defeat the very thing for which it was written. And not only so, if we trust an or­dinance, it means that we are not trusting the Son of God. Let’s read:

Romans 4:9. Is this blessing then upon the circumcised, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say, “FAITH WAS RECKONED TO ABRAHAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

Romans 4:10. How then was it reckoned? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircum­cised;

Romans 4:11. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised; that righteousness might be reckoned to them,

Romans 4:12. And the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham, which he had while uncircum­cised.

Let me stop here very briefly. When was Abraham justified? He was justified 14 years be­fore he was circumcised.

You see what Paul is after? The Jew has divided the human race into two groups, saying, “We are of the circumcision. Everybody else is of the uncir­cumcision. We are God’s people, and the rest are outside of God’s covenant. We are the people. We are of the circumcision.”

Circumcision was a sign to Abraham of his un­ion and relationship to God, that he was one with God, that God was his God. He was separated unto his God. Jehovah was his God. The Living God was his God. He had been called out by the God of glory, out of idolatry in Ur of the Chaldees. Now he could say, “In my being I have a sign, given to me by God, that I belong to Him. He is my God.” And it is a sign to the outside world of his separation from the world unto God. It’s a sign. That’s all it is—an outward sign to the world and to Abraham that he was justified by faith in God.

The blessings which came upon the Jewish race were not through the faith of a circumcised man but through the faith of an uncircumcised man.

Or, if I might change the wording, the blessing which came upon the Jewish race was through the faith of one who was declared righteous while he was a Gentile. Indeed, if you want to follow it through, if the Jews are going to be saved at all, they have to come the Gentile way—that is, by faith.

Now, you remember, in Acts 15:1-41 there were some Jews who were Christians; and they wanted the Gentiles to come to Christ through Judaism. They wanted the Gentiles to be circumcised, to keep the law.

And, you remember, both Peter and James with­stood that. And Paul withstood it. In fact, Peter said in verse 11—it was nice the way he put it— “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”

How’s that?

By faith.

And here in Romans, Paul insists that no ordi­nance will ever take the place of Christ’s work for us.

I’m going to repeat that. No ordinance or cere­mony will ever take the place of Christ’s work for you or for me.

It’s an amazing thing. Here in professing Chris­tendom how much merit we put in ordinance and ceremony, whether it be baptism or the Lord’s Ta­ble or whatever it may be.

But we are not saved by baptism or by observ­ing the Lord’s Table.

One dear woman said to me one time, “Why, Brother Mitchell, I’ve been baptized seven times, and I would be baptized the eighth time if I had to.”

Well, bless your dear heart. I don’t care what you’ve done. It means nothing as far as that is concerned. I’m not opposed to baptism or to the Lord’s Table.

What I’m saying is this, that the moment you add the least thing to salvation, however precious that thing is to you, you add to the work of Christ; and that moment you ruin God’s good news.

I remember in Galatians 1:8-9, the curse, the anathema of God is upon anyone who brings to you any other message than this. And I repeat it. Nothing you can do in the way of religious obser­vances of any kind can add or take away from the work of Christ.

Abraham was justified 14 years before he went through any circumcision, any rites of any kind. Abraham wasn’t justified after he had this circum­cision ceremony. No, he was justified 14 years be­fore that.

“Well, Mr. Mitchell, do you mean to tell me that he would have been a saved man if he hadn’t been circumcised?”

Of course. Of course. Circumcision was only a sign to the world that Abraham was a man sepa­rated unto God.

Now, I’m asked this question quite often; and I know I’m talking to people who will disagree with me. That’s your right; that’s your prerogative. I wouldn’t expect you to agree with me anyhow. But, brother, if you’re going to come and argue with me, bring your Bible.

No soul was ever saved by faith in Christ plus any work or any ceremony.

“But, Mr. Mitchell,” you say, “baptism is not a work.”

Well, what is it? It’s something you do, and what you do physically is works. Now baptism is a sign to the world of your separation unto God. It’s a sign of your testimony that you are trusting in what Jesus Christ did in His death and burial and resurrection. To those who believe, it is a sign that you have received the Spirit of God.

Now, I’m not going into the question of water baptism—what it teaches or even the mode.

I’m after only one thing, and that is that baptism does not add one iota to your salvation in Christ. Christ is a perfect, complete, eternal Saviour; and His death on the cross is 100 percent. You can’t add to it; and, if you try to add to the work of Christ, you spoil the Gospel. It is no longer good news.

God in just one swoop (as we have in chapters 1, 2 and 3) took men and put them all on the same plane. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All need the same Saviour and can be saved on only one ground—on the ground of grace through faith. It couldn’t be any other way. If there is one God and all are sinners, then they’ve got to be saved by one way and that is by faith. It has to be either by works or by faith.

And, if it’s by works, there can be no reason why Christ died. If it is by faith, then God does the whole business. You have to accept it by faith and revel in Him.

Then, because of your relationship to God, you ought to live like a Christian, like a child of God. This does not lead to license.

Listen, my friend, and I say it very bluntly because I have been accused of this—that, when you teach the grace of God, you teach man to go out and do anything he wants to. When a person makes that statement, he reveals to me his shal­low thinking and his ignorance of the grace of God.

The more one sees the grace of God, the marvel­ous privilege that God has made for men, the more we want to please Him and the more we want to be obedient to His Word and submissive to His will.

And, whether you believe it or not, my friend, this is what the Book says; and I’m going to go by the Book. This is divine revelation. Justification is without works and by faith and without ceremo­nies. And Paul is insisting on this, you know. No ordinance of any kind will ever take the place of the work of Christ.

Now, you have God’s promise in Romans 4:13-16 —God’s promise to Abraham that he would be the heir of the world on one ground, the ground of faith.

Let’s read those four verses.

Romans 4:13. For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.

Romans 4:14. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified;

Romans 4:15. For the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

Romans 4:16. For this reason it is by faith, that it might be in accor­dance with grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the     descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

This dear man Abraham was called out from Ur of the Chaldees, from the house of idolatry. He went out not knowing where he went; and, step by step, there came to his heart the revelation of God. And, one day, when God said (Genesis 15:5; Genesis 22:17), “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars . . . so shall your descendants be,” he believed God; and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Galatians 3:16 says that that seed was Christ. When his faith was coupled with Christ, he was justified.

But God went beyond that and declared him the inheritor of the whole world. God had made Adam and had given him dominion over all the works of His hands. Sin came in, and Adam lost the whole business. God found a man whom He called His friend, a man who walked with Him in all his tests and trials, in all his accomplishments and failures. And Abraham believed God.

He believed God in spite of everything.

And God said, “I’ve found my man. I’ve found the one through whom My Son shall come. I’ve found the one to whom I’m going to give the whole world. He is the heir of the world through faith.”

Go now beyond this question of justification for a moment. The Jews said, “Abraham is our Father. We are God’s people. We are going to rule the world. We are going to be the leading nation of the world.” They could go back to the Old Testament to prove that.

Did Zechariah not say, “The time is coming when ten men from every nation from under heaven will lay hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew and say, ‘We are going to go with you. ’” Does it not say in Isaiah that men shall call Jews the priests of God, the ministers of God? Does it not say that the Word of God shall go forth from Jeru­salem and all the nations of the earth shall be un­der His dominion?

Paul says, “Yes, but don’t forget that this promise that Abraham would be the heir of the world, this in which you Jews are boasting, is not received through the law or through works or through ceremonies. It is received by faith.”

Then, in the 14th verse of this fourth chapter, he makes this amazing statement, “For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise nullified.” If it is by works, if it’s by the law, the Jews have broken that law. They do not qualify. The Gentiles are outside the pale of the law, hence they cannot qualify. And if the Jews and the Gentiles cannot qualify, then God can’t keep His Word. Hence, it must be by faith to the end that the promise might be made sure to the seed.

Now will you please notice that God’s promise that Abraham would be the heir of the world was not on the ground of the law because he didn’t have the law. It was not on the ground of works. It was not on the ground of ceremonies, but on the ground of one thing—faith. And this is ever the di­vine mode of blessing.

Friend, listen. Nothing pleases the Lord more than for people to believe Him. It just rejoices the heart of God when you dare to believe what God says is true, whether you feel it or you don’t feel it. For example, do you have eternal life?

You say, “Yes.”

Do you feel it?

You say, “No.”

Are you justified?

“Yes.”

Do you feel it?

“No.”

Justification is just God’s declaring the man who believes in His Son to be righteous. This is what God sees. I have eternal life because God says it and because I have put my trust in the One who has perfectly satisfied God.

“Do you mean, Mr. Mitchell, I will never die?”

That’s right. I may leave my body behind, but the man who lives in this body is eternal. That’s because we have put our trust in the Saviour. And Abraham became the heir of the world through faith. Adam lost it through sin, but God promised it to His friend Abraham on one ground—faith. And there are no barriers between.

Now, notice what it says in Romans 4:14-16 (let me paraphrase): “If they which are of the law be heirs, then there is no need for faith and the prom­ise is no good because the law worketh wrath—for where no law is, there is no transgression. There­fore it is by faith that it might be by grace to the end that the promise may be sure for all the seed.”

If it’s by the law, if it’s by the works of the law, then there is no need for a promise.

Nobody can receive the promise if it is on the ground of the law.

The law just shuts everybody up.

Let me repeat the argument in Romans 4:14-16. Verse 15 says the law brings about wrath. The law never saved anybody. It doesn’t justify anybody. It doesn’t help anybody. All the law could do is to curse. And, where there is no law, there is no transgression. If there is no law to break, of course you can’t transgress what is not there.

What is he saying? The Jew was the only one who had the law of Moses, but he broke that law. Hence, he was disqualified from being the heir of the world. The Gentiles didn’t have the law; and, hence, they were automatically disqualified. They knew nothing about the law. So, if the inheritance is by law, then the promise of it is no good because nobody can keep the law. The Jews didn’t keep it; the Gentiles didn’t have it. Hence, there would be no heirs.

So, in Romans 4:16, “For this reason it is by faith, that it might be in accordance with grace; in order that the promise may be certain.”

Aren’t you glad for that? He makes the thing sure to all —Jew and Gentile—who are of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all.

In other words, Abraham is put up here as the sample faith. He dared to believe God in spite of everything else. He didn’t add one iota of works to it.

So it is with us.

You see, you have three things in the chap­ter: 1) We are declared righteous by faith. It is without works, and it is without ceremonies. We have every sin forgiven. For God not to impute sin is to impute righteousness. He is not going to im­pute sin to us at any time.

And then, 2) we become the heir of the world through faith. That’s why Romans 8:17 says, “And if children, heirs also, heirs of God, and fellow-heirs with Christ.” So we have justification. We are forgiven; and 3) we have an inheritance, guaran­teed not on the ground of works but on the ground of grace through faith. Or, as one has so well said,

Under the law with its terrible lash,
Learning, alas, how true;

But the more I tried,
The sooner I died,
While the law cried, “You, you, you.”

Hopelessly still as the battle raged,
“O wretched man,” I cried.
And deliverance I sought
By some penance bought,
While my soul cried, “I, I, I.”

Then came a day when my struggling ceased
And trembling in every limb,
At the foot of the tree
Where One died for me,
I sobbed out, “Him, Him, Him.”

So, let me repeat. Verse 16 says, “For this rea­son it is by faith, that it might be in accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be cer­tain, certain, certain to all the descendants.”

We have this confidence because God has done it. Listen, friend, if this were by works —your works, religious works, moral works —you would never be sure that you had done enough. You would never have peace. You would never have as­surance. No, to make the thing sure, God puts it entirely on the ground of His grace.

Let me digress just a moment. There is one word in verse 15 I must touch on since we have been discussing the question of works and the question of the law. I read: “For the Law brings about wrath.”

You see, someone is going to ask the question, “Then why in the world, Mr. Mitchell, did God give the Jew the law of Moses? What is its purpose?”

You remember in John 1:17 that “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were real­ized through Jesus Christ.” The law is the opposite of faith. We had that in Galatians 3:12: “The Law is not of faith.” The law is the opposite of faith, and God brought Israel out of Egypt on the ground of grace.

You take Exodus from chapter 1 right on down to the beginning of chapter 19. God brought Israel to Himself entirely on the ground of His grace. Then in chapters 19 and 20, He gave the law. Why? Because their confidence was in the flesh. They did not appreciate the mercy and grace and love of God. Indeed, they told God, “All that the Lord our God has said we will do.” You have them boasting what they would do for God.

But, notice, in Exodus 19:1-25; Exodus 20:1-26 that, when the law was given, you have darkness and ter­ror. In fact, they were so scared, they told Moses to go before God. Hebrews 12:21 says that even Moses was scared.

Brother, I’ll tell you there is no joy in the law. Haven’t you heard it thunder? It’s a terror. There is no mercy in law—not even in the law of Moses. So, why did God give the law? Galatians tells me in chapter 3:19 that the law was an “added” thing until Christ should come. From Abraham to Moses they were under the grace, under the promise of God. And then God gave them the law, and from Moses to Christ the law was an added thing. And why was it given?

Let me give you a few reasons.

First, the law was given to make sin exceed­ingly sinful. That is, the law was given to give a distinctive character to sin. You take this 15th verse of Romans 4:1-25—the law brings about wrath. Where no law is, there is no transgression. Trans­gression means missing the mark. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were not under the law. They were standing on the promise of God. There was no law given.

Now that doesn’t mean they didn’t sin.

Though they were frail and failed God, they knew God. They had peace with God. But the law brings about sin.

You take Romans 7:7-11. Let me condense it. “I would not have come to know sin,” says Paul, “if the law had not said, ‘Thou shalt not covet;’ and that which I thought was going to give me life, be­hold it brought death.” In Romans 5:12, you have the same thing.

James says the law was like a looking glass, but you don’t wash your face with the glass. The glass shows you just where all the dirt is and what you look like. The law does exactly the same thing.

And, second, the law is the strength of sin. In 1 Corinthians 15:56-57, the law is not the strength of righteousness or of goodness. The law is the strength of sin. “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Do you remember Romans 6:14, “Sin shall not be master over you”?

Why?

Because you are not under the law but under grace. You put men under the law, my friend, and you put them under the dominion of sin. You can’t separate the law and sin. The law was given to show us what sin really is. It was never given to save. It never forgives. It has no mercy.

And, then the third thing, the law was given to bring us to Christ. You have this in Galatians 3:24. The law is effective only as it drives the sin­ner to the Saviour. The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And having come to Christ, says the Apostle Paul, we are no longer under the schoolmaster.

Now, to sum up, that’s why the law was given— to make sin exceedingly sinful. It is the strength of sin. It was given to bring us to Christ. The only way the law is effective is to drive us to Christ.

What does the law do then? First, the law demands perfection. You remember James 2:10 says that he who breaks the law in one point is guilty of all. Not much chance, is there? A man can live 68, 90 years of age and not break the law; and then, one day, he just breaks the law once. Too bad. He is under the sentence of death, and there are no extenuating circumstances. The law demands perfection.

“Why, Mr. Mitchell,” you say, “there is no man who is perfect except Jesus Christ.”

That’s right. And the law demands perfection. Listen to Galatians 3:10: “Cursed is every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” We are going to use that verse again in a little while. They were obli­gated to do the whole law, not just part of it. The law doesn’t say that, if you do the best you can, you will have some mercy. The law doesn’t have any mercy to give you.

The second thing the law does in this verse, Romans 4:15, is that “the law brings about wrath.” It doesn’t work salvation. It doesn’t work peace. It doesn’t work justification. It doesn’t give you forgiveness. The law works wrath.

Third, the law is a ministration of death. You have this in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 and in Ro­mans 7:5, 12 and 13. The law says you must die. And Paul says, “That which I thought was going to give me life, behold it brought death.”

And the fourth thing that the law can do is curse. We have already mentioned that in Gala­tians 3:10 to 13. It curses whom? Those who con­tinue not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

And, you know, man doesn’t believe that. He just goes on trying to keep the law to gain favor with God. He doesn’t believe the law curses. The law is the ministration of death. The law works wrath. The law is the strength of sin. It makes sin exceedingly sinful.

Well, can’t it do anything?

No. I’ll give you four things about this, too.

The law cannot save you. You remember in Romans 3:20, Paul says, “By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” The law can­not save. You find that in Galatians 3:11.

Second, the law is not of faith. We had that in Galatians 3:12. You have it also in Romans 11:6. One could multiply these passages. I am just pick­ing them out to let you see the truth.

And then, third, the law cannot give life. Paul could say in Galatians 3:21, “For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then right­eousness would indeed have been based on law.”

And then, last, the law cannot perfect God’s people. That is, it cannot fit men for the presence of God. In Hebrews 7:19, we read the fact that “the Law made nothing perfect, and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.” The law made noth­ing perfect.

Oh, listen, friend. When you and I accept the Saviour, we are saved apart from the law entirely— we are absolutely outside of its jurisdiction. The law has no authority to save, help or forgive you.

And the moment you and I, as sinners, whether Jews or Gentiles, put ourselves under the law of Moses, then, my friend, you have to face the fact: “Cursed is every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” All it can do is to curse.

No, thank God, we are delivered from the law and its curse, as Galatians 3:13 says: “Christ re­deemed us from the curse of the Law, having be­come a curse for us—for it is written, Cursed is every one who hangs on a tree.”

When Jesus Christ died in your place and my place, when God’s Son bore your sin and my sin, and I say this reverently, all the holy law of God could do was to curse Him because it is written, “Cursed is every one who hangs on a tree.”

Thank God, we are delivered from its curse. And we are also delivered from its authority. That’s what you have in Romans 8:3 and Galatians 4:4-5 when God sent His Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Do you remember that?

In the fulness of time, God sent forth His son, born of a woman, born under the law so that He might free us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us—that He might deliver us from the law and all that pertains to it—that we might receive the adoption of sons.

I’m talking about Galatians 3:1-29; Galatians 4:1-31 and Titus 3:5—“He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and re­newing by the Holy Spirit.”

I repeat it, the law has no mercy. It never did have any mercy for transgressors.

Friend, did you ever break the law of God? “Why,” you say, “everyone has.”

Then they are under the curse.

“Oh, but Mr. Mitchell, I’m going to do better from now on.”

You are too late, brother. You have already bro­ken it. The law says you must die. If you break the law in one point, you are guilty of all and you must die. That is the administration of death. Either you die or somebody else dies for you.

Oh, listen. The good news from God to you is that God the Son came, bore your sins and died your death so that you and I might be set free.

That’s why I like Romans 10:3-4. You remem­ber—the Jews, “not knowing about God’s right­eousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law.” He is the end of the law, not the beginning of the law. He is “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

May I make a strong statement? The law of God was never given as a means of life to the unsaved, nor was it given as a rule of life to the saved. Christ is the end of the law for righteous­ness. And, as Galatians 3:24 says, “The Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ;” and, having come to Christ, we are no longer under the schoolmaster.

My friend, to go back to the law, either for salva­tion or even as a rule of life, denies the sufficiency of the work of Christ. To put anybody under the law, Christian or non-Christian, is to put him un­der a curse. And as Galatians 5:4 says, “You who are seeking to be justified by the law; you have fallen from grace.”

Either Christ is sufficient to save us and keep us or He is not a Saviour at all.

I’m putting it right on the line.

It’s about time we Christians, especially we Christians, got down to the place where we can see that, when the Lord Jesus Christ came, He abso­lutely and perfectly completed the work of redemp­tion. And the resurrection is the guarantee of it.

And for one who professes Christ as Saviour to go back under the law, even as a rule of life, is to deny the sufficiency of the work of Christ.

You put yourself under the curse, and you fall from grace.

Indeed, I might say this, that the death of Jesus Christ has forever severed the relationship be­tween the believer and the law.

If I were to take up this question in the Book of Galatians, which I am not, I would point out that the death of Jesus Christ has severed our relation­ship to sin and to the world and to our religion, to self, to the curse of the law, to the law itself and to the flesh and its lusts.

If we turn from the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament to Christ, then we must turn from the covenant of law to the covenant of grace.

I would remind you of Hebrews 7:11-12 where we read what the purpose of the priesthood was.

“If perfection was through the Levitical priest­hood, (for on the basis of it the people received the Law,) what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchize­dek” or for the law’s being changed? Or the priest­hood’s being changed.

Where there is a necessity, there is also a change of covenant.

And, if I change from Levi and Moses to Christ, then I change from law to grace.

He speaks of this in the 12th verse: “For when the priesthood is changed” from the Aaronic priesthood to Christ’s priesthood—if I change the priesthood—then “of necessity there takes place a change of law also.”

For I read farther on in verse 19, “The Law made nothing perfect, and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

Therefore (Romans 4:16), “it is by faith, that it might be in accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants” (Jew or Gentile, apart from the law and ceremonies of works and all the rest of it).

Christ is our perfect—blessed be His name—our perfect Saviour.

Now then, we come to verses 17 to 25 and I ask the question again, “What is justifying faith?”

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      9 Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.   10 How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.   11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:   12 And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.   13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.   14 For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect:   15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.   16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,   17a (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,)

      St. Paul observes in this paragraph when and why Abraham was thus justified; for he has several things to remark upon that. It was before he was circumcised, and before the giving of the law; and there was a reason for both.

      I. It was before he was circumcised, Romans 4:10; Romans 4:10. His faith was counted to him for righteousness while he was in uncircumcision. It was imputed, Genesis 15:6, and he was not circumcised till Genesis 17:1-27; Genesis 17:1-27. Abraham is expressly said to be justified by faith fourteen years, some say twenty-five years, before he was circumcised. Now this the apostle takes notice of in answer to the question (Romans 4:9; Romans 4:9), Cometh this blessedness then on the circumcision only, or on the uncircumcision also? Abraham was pardoned and accepted in uncircumcision, a circumstance which, as it might silence the fears of the poor uncircumcised Gentiles, so it might lower the pride and conceitedness of the Jews, who gloried in their circumcision, as if they had the monopoly of all happiness. Here are two reasons why Abraham was justified by faith in uncircumcision:--

      1. That circumcision might be a seal of the righteousness of faith,Romans 4:11; Romans 4:11. The tenour of the covenants must first be settled before the seal can be annexed. Sealing supposes a previous bargain, which is confirmed and ratified by that ceremony. After Abraham's justification by faith had continued several years only a grant by parole, for the confirmation of Abraham's faith God was pleased to appoint a sealing ordinance, and Abraham received it; though it was a bloody ordinance, yet he submitted to it, and even received it as a special favour, the sign of circumcision, c. Now we may hence observe, (1.) The nature of sacraments in general: they are signs and seals--signs to represent and instruct, seals to ratify and confirm. They are signs of absolute grace and favour they are seals of the conditional promises; nay, they are mutual seals: God does in the sacraments seal to us to be to us a God, and we do therein seal to him to be to him a people. (2.) The nature of circumcision in particular: it was the initiating sacrament of the Old Testament; and it is here said to be, [1.] A sign--a sign of that original corruption which we are all born with, and which is cut off by spiritual circumcision,--a commemorating sign of God's covenant with Abraham,--a distinguishing sign between Jews and Gentiles,--a sign of admission into the visible church,--a sign prefiguring baptism, which comes in the room of circumcision, now under the gospel, when (the blood of Christ being shed) all bloody ordinances are abolished; it was an outward and sensible sign of an inward and spiritual grace signified thereby. [2.] A seal of the righteousness of the faith. In general, it was a seal of the covenant of grace, particularly of justification by faith--the covenant of grace, called the righteousness which is of faith (Romans 10:6; Romans 10:6), and it refers to an Old-Testament promise, Deuteronomy 30:12. Now if infants were then capable of receiving a seal of the covenant of grace, which proves that they then were within the verge of that covenant, how they come to be now cast out of the covenant and incapable of the seal, and by what severe sentence they were thus rejected and incapacitated, those are concerned to make out that not only reject, but nullify and reproach, the baptism of the seed of believers.

      2. That he might be the father of all those that believe. Not but that there were those that were justified by faith before Abraham; but of Abraham first it is particularly observed, and in him commenced a much clearer and fuller dispensation of the covenant of grace than any that had been before extant; and there he is called the father of all that believe, because he was so eminent a believer, and so eminently justified by faith, as Jabal was the father of shepherds and Jubal of musicians, Genesis 4:20; Genesis 4:21. The father of all those that believe; that is, a standing pattern of faith, as parents are examples to their children; and a standing precedent of justification by faith, as the liberties, privileges, honours, and estates, of the fathers descend to their children. Abraham was the father of believers, because to him particularly the magna charta was renewed. (1.) The father of believing Gentiles, though they be not circumcised. Zaccheus, a publican, if he believe, is reckoned a son of Abraham, Luke 19:9. Abraham being himself uncircumcised when he was justified by faith, uncircumcision can never be a bar. Thus were the doubts and fears of the poor Gentiles anticipated and no room left to question but that righteousness might be imputed to them also, Colossians 3:11; Galatians 5:6. (2.) The father of believing Jews, not merely as circumcised, and of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, but because believers, because they are not of the circumcision only (that is, are not only circumcised), but walk in the steps of that faith--have not only the sign, but the thing signified--not only are of Abraham's family, but follow the example of Abraham's faith. See here who are the genuine children and lawful successors of those that were the church's fathers: not those that sit in their chairs, and bear their names, but those that tread in their steps; this is the line of succession, which holds, notwithstanding interruptions. It seems, then, those were most loud and forward to call Abraham father that had least title to the honours and privileges of his children. Thus those have most reason to call Christ Father, not that bear his name in being Christians in profession, but that tread in his steps.

      II. It was before the giving of the law, Romans 4:13-16; Romans 4:13-16. The former observation is levelled against those that confined justification to the circumcision, this against those that expected it by the law; now the promise was made to Abraham long before the law. Compare Galatians 3:17; Galatians 3:18. Now observe,

      1. What that promise was--that he should be the heir of the world, that is, of the land of Canaan, the choicest spot of ground in the world,--or the father of many nations of the world, who sprang from him, besides the Israelites,--or the heir of the comforts of the life which now is. The meek are said to inherit the earth, and the world is theirs. Though Abraham had so little of the world in possession, yet he was heir of it all. Or, rather, it points at Christ, the seed here mentioned; compare Galatians 3:16, To thy seed, which is Christ. Now Christ is the heir of the world, the ends of the earth are his possession, and it is in him that Abraham was so. And it refers to that promise (Genesis 12:3), In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

      2. How it was made to him: Not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Not through the law, for that was not yet given: but it was upon that believing which was counted to him for righteousness; it was upon his trusting God, in his leaving his own country when God commanded him, Hebrews 11:8. Now, being by faith, it could not be by the law, which he proves by the opposition there is between them (Romans 4:14; Romans 4:15): If those who are of the law be heirs; that is, those, and those only, and they by virtue of the law (the Jews did, and still do, boast that they are the rightful heirs of the world, because to them the law was given), then faith is made void; for, if it were requisite to an interest in the promise that there should be a perfect performance of the whole law, then the promise can never take its effect, nor is it to any purpose for us to depend upon it, since the way to life by perfect obedience to the law, and spotless sinless innocency, is wholly blocked up, and the law in itself opens no other way. This he proves, Romans 4:15; Romans 4:15. The law worketh wrath--wrath in us to God; it irritates and provokes that carnal mind which is enmity to God, as the damming up of a stream makes it swell--wrath in God against us. It works this, that is, it discovers it, or our breach of the law works it. Now it is certain that we can never expect the inheritance by a law that worketh wrath. How the law works wrath he shows very concisely in the latter part of the verse: Where no law is there is no transgression, an acknowledged maxim, which implies, Where there is a law there is transgression and that transgression is provoking, and so the law worketh wrath.

      3. Why the promise was made to him by faith; for three reasons, Romans 4:16; Romans 4:16. (1.) That it might be by grace, that grace might have the honour of it; by grace, and not by the law; by grace, and not of debt, nor of merit; that Grace, grace, might be cried to every stone, especially to the top-stone, in this building. Faith hath particular reference to grace granting, as grace hath reference to faith receiving. By grace, and therefore through faith,Ephesians 2:8. For God will have every crown thrown at the feet of grace, free grace, and every song in heaven sung to that tune, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise. (2.) That the promise might be sure. The first covenant, being a covenant of works, was not sure: but, through man's failure, the benefits designed by it were cut off; and therefore, the more effectually to ascertain and ensure the conveyance of the new covenant, there is another way found out, not by works (were it so, the promise would not be sure, because of the continual frailty and infirmity of the flesh), but by faith, which receives all from Christ, and acts in a continual dependence upon him, as the great trustee of our salvation, and in whose keeping it is safe. The covenant is therefore sure, because it is so well ordered in all things, 2 Samuel 23:5. (3.) That it might be sure to all the seed. If it had been by the law, it had been limited to the Jews, to whom pertained the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law (Romans 9:4; Romans 9:4); but therefore it was by faith that Gentiles as well as Jews might become interested in it, the spiritual as well as the natural seed of faithful Abraham. God would contrive the promise in such a way as might make it most extensive, to comprehend all true believers, that circumcision and uncircumcision might break no squares; and for this (Romans 4:17; Romans 4:17) he refers us to Genesis 17:5, where the reason of the change of his name from Abram--a high father, to Abraham--the high father of a multitude, is thus rendered: For a father of many nations have I made thee; that is, all believers, both before and since the coming of Christ in the flesh, should take Abraham for their pattern, and call him father. The Jews say Abraham was the father of all proselytes to the Jewish religion. Behold, he is the father of all the world, which are gathered under the wings of the Divine Majesty.--Maimonides.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The circumstances under which the epistle to the Romans was written gave occasion to the most thorough and comprehensive unfolding, not of the church, but of Christianity. No apostle had ever yet visited Rome. There was somewhat as yet lacking to the saints there; but even this was ordered of God to call forth from the Holy Ghost an epistle which more than any other approaches a complete treatise on the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and especially as to righteousness.

Would we follow up the heights of heavenly truth, would we sound the depths of Christian experience, would we survey the workings of the Spirit of God in the Church, would we bow before the glories of the person of Christ, or learn His manifold offices, we must look elsewhere in the writings of the New Testament no doubt, but elsewhere rather than here.

The condition of the Roman saints called for a setting forth of the gospel of God; but this object, in order to be rightly understood and appreciated, leads the apostle into a display of the condition of man. We have God and man in presence, so to speak. Nothing can be more simple and essential. Although there is undoubtedly that profoundness which must accompany every revelation of God, and especially in connection with Christ as now manifested, still we have God adapting Himself to the very first wants of a renewed soul nay, even to the wretchedness of souls without God, without any real knowledge either of themselves or of Him. Not, of course, that the Roman saints were in this condition; but that God, writing by the apostle to them, seizes the opportunity to lay bare man's state as well as His own grace.

Romans 1:1-32. From the very first we have these characteristics of the epistle disclosing themselves. The apostle writes with the full assertion of his own apostolic dignity, but as a servant also. "Paul, a bondman of Jesus Christ" an apostle "called," not born, still less as educated or appointed of man, but an apostle "called," as he says "separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets." The connection is fully owned with that which had been from God of old. No fresh revelations from God can nullify those which preceded them; but as the prophets looked onward to what was coming, so is the gospel already come, supported by the past. There is mutual confirmation. Nevertheless, what is in nowise the same as what was or what will be. The past prepared the way, as it is said here, "which God had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, [here we have the great central object of God's gospel, even the person of Christ, God's Son,] which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (ver. 3). This last relation was the direct subject of the prophetic testimony, and Jesus had come accordingly. He was the promised Messiah, born King of the Jews.

But there was far more in Jesus. He was "declared," says the apostle, "to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" ( ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν , ver. 4). It was the Son of God not merely as dealing with the powers of the earth, Jehovah's King on the holy hill of Zion, but after a far deeper manner. For, essentially associated as He is with the glory of God the Father, the full deliverance of souls from the realm of death was His also. In this too we have the blessed connection of the Spirit (here peculiarly designated, for special reasons, "the Spirit of holiness"). That same energy of the Holy Ghost which had displayed itself in Jesus, when He walked in holiness here below, was demonstrated in resurrection; and not merely in His own rising from the dead, but in raising such at any time no doubt, though most signally and triumphantly displayed in His own resurrection.

The bearing of this on the contents and main doctrine of the epistle will appear abundantly by-and-by. Let me refer in passing to a few points more in the introduction, in order to link them together with that which the Spirit was furnishing to the Roman saints, as well as to show the admirable perfectness of every word that inspiration has given us. I do not mean by this its truth merely, but its exquisite suitability; so that the opening address commences the theme in hand, and insinuates that particular line of truth which the Holy Spirit sees fit to pursue throughout. To this then the apostle comes, after having spoken of the divine favour shown himself, both when a sinner, and now in his own special place of serving the Lord Jesus. "By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith." This was no question of legal obedience, although the law came from Jehovah. Paul's joy and boast were in the gospel of God. So therefore it addressed itself to the obedience of faith; not by this meaning practice, still less according to the measure of a man's duty, but that which is at the root of all practice faith-obedience obedience of heart and will, renewed by divine grace, which accepts the truth of God. To man this is the hardest of all obedience; but when once secured, it leads peacefully into the obedience of every day. If slurred over, as it too often is in souls, it invariably leaves practical obedience lame, and halt, and blind.

It was for this then that Paul describes himself as apostle. And as it is for obedience of faith, it was not in anywise restricted to the Jewish people "among all nations, for his (Christ's) name: among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ" (verses 5, 6). He loved even here at the threshold to show the breadth of God's grace. If he was called, so were they he an apostle, they not apostles but saints; but still, for them as for him, all flowed out of the same mighty love, of God. "To all that be at Rome, beloved of God, called saints" (ver. 7). To these then he wishes, as was his wont, the fresh flow of that source and stream of divine blessing which Christ has made to be household bread to us: "Grace and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ" (ver. 7). Then, from ver. 8, after thanking God through Jesus for their faith spoken of everywhere, and telling them of his prayers for them, he briefly discloses the desire of his heart about them his long-cherished hope according to the grace of the gospel to reach Rome his confidence in the love of God that through him some spiritual gift would be imparted to them, that they might be established, and, according to the spirit of grace which filled his own heart, that he too might be comforted together with them "by the mutual faith both of you and me" (vv. 11, 12). There is nothing like the grace of God for producing the truest humility, the humility that not only descends to the lowest level of sinners to do them good, but which is itself the fruit of deliverance from that self-love which puffs itself or lowers others. Witness the common joy that grace gives an apostle with saints be had never seen, so that even he should be comforted as well as they by their mutual faith. He would not therefore have them ignorant how they had lain on his heart for a visit (ver. 13). He was debtor both to the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise; he was ready, as far as he was concerned, to preach the gospel to those that were at Rome also (ver. 14, 15). Even the saints there would have been all the better for the gospel. It was not merely "to those at Rome," but "to you that be at Rome." Thus it is a mistake to suppose that saints may not be benefited by a better understanding of the gospel, at least as Paul preached it. Accordingly he tells them now what reason he had to speak thus strongly, not of the more advanced truths, but of the good news. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (ver. 16).

Observe, the gospel is not simply remission of sins, nor is it only peace with God, but "the power of God unto salvation." Now I take this opportunity of pressing on all that are here to beware of contracted views of "salvation." Beware that you do not confound it with souls being quickened, or even brought into joy. Salvation supposes not this only, but a great deal more. There is hardly any phraseology that tends to more injury of souls in these matters than a loose way of talking of salvation. "At any rate he is a saved soul," we hear. "The man has not got anything like settled peace with God; perhaps he hardly knows his sins forgiven; but at least he is a saved soul." Here is an instance of what is so reprehensible. This is precisely what salvation does not mean; and I would strongly press it on all that hear me, more particularly on those that have to do with the work of the Lord, and of course ardently desire to labour intelligently; and this not alone for the conversion, but for the establishment and deliverance of souls. Nothing less, I am persuaded, than this full blessing is the line that God has given to those who have followed Christ without the camp, and who, having been set free from the contracted ways of men, desire to enter into the largeness and at the same time the profound wisdom of every word of God. Let us not stumble at the starting-point, but leave room for the due extent and depth of "salvation" in the gospel.

There is no need of dwelling now on "salvation" as employed in the Old Testament, and in some parts of the New, as the gospels and Revelation particularly, where it is used for deliverance in power or even providence and present things. I confine myself to its doctrinal import, and the full Christian sense of the word; and I maintain that salvation signifies that deliverance for the believer which is the full consequence of the mighty work of Christ, apprehended not, of course, necessarily according to all its depth in God's eyes, but at any rate applied to the soul in the power of the Holy Ghost. It is not the awakening of conscience, however real; neither is it the attraction of heart by the grace of Christ, however blessed this may be. We ought therefore to bear in mind, that if a soul be not brought into conscious deliverance as the fruit of divine teaching, and founded on the work of Christ, we are very far from presenting the gospel as the apostle Paul glories in it, and delights that it should go forth. "I am not ashamed," etc.

And he gives his reason: "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith." That is, it is the power of God unto salvation, not because it is victory (which at the beginning of the soul's career would only give importance to man even if possible, which it is not), but because it is "the righteousness of God." It is not God seeking, or man bringing righteousness. In the gospel there is revealed God's righteousness. Thus the introduction opened with Christ's person, and closes with God's righteousness. The law demanded, but could never receive righteousness from man. Christ is come, and has changed all. God is revealing a righteousness of His own in the gospel. It is God who now makes known a righteousness to man, instead of looking for any from man. Undoubtedly there are fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, and God values them I will not say from man, but from His saints; but here it is what, according to the apostle, God has for man. It is for the saints to learn, of course; but it is that which goes out in its own force and necessary aim to the need of man a divine righteousness, which justifies instead of condemning him who believes. It is "the power of God unto salvation." It is for the lost, therefore; for they it is who need salvation; and it is to save not merely to quicken, but to save; and this because in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.

Hence it is, as he says, herein revealed "from faith," or by faith. It is the same form of expression exactly as in the beginning of Romans 5:1-21 "being justified by faith" ( ἐκ πίστεως ). But besides this he adds "to faith." The first of these phrases, "from faith," excludes the law; the second, "to faith," includes every one that has faith within the scope of God's righteousness. Justification is not from works of law. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith; and consequently, if there be faith in any soul, to this it is revealed, to faith wherever it may be. Hence, therefore, it was in no way limited to any particular nation, such as those that had already been under the law and government of God. It was a message that went out from God to sinners as such. Let man be what he might, or where he might, God's good news was for man. And to this agreed the testimony of the prophet. "The just shall live by faith" (not by law). Even where the law was, not by it but by faith the just lived. Did Gentiles believe? They too should live. Without faith there is neither justice nor life that God owns; where faith is, the rest will surely follow.

This accordingly leads the apostle into the earlier portion of his great argument, and first of all in a preparatory way. Here we pass out of the introduction of the epistle. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (ver. 18). This is what made the gospel to be so sweet and precious, and, what is more, absolutely necessary, if he would escape certain and eternal ruin. There is no hope for man otherwise; for the gospel is not all that is now made known. Not only is God's righteousness revealed, but also His wrath. It is not said to be revealed in the gospel. The gospel means His glad tidings for man. The wrath of God could not possibly be glad tidings. It is true, it is needful for man to learn; but in nowise is it good news. There is then the solemn truth also of divine wrath. It is not yet executed. It is "revealed," and this too "from heaven." There is no question of a people on earth, and of God's wrath breaking out in one form or another against human evil in this life. The earth, or, at least, the Jewish nation, had been familiar with such dealings of God in times past. But now it is "the wrath of God from heaven;" and consequently it is in view of eternal things, and not of those that touch present life on the earth.

Hence, as God's wrath is revealed from heaven, it is against every form of impiety "against all ungodliness." Besides this, which seems to be a most comprehensive expression for embracing every sort and degree of human iniquity, we have one very specifically named. It is against the "unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." To hold the truth in unrighteousness would be no security. Alas! we know how this was in Israel, how it might be, and has been, in Christendom. God pronounces against the unrighteousness of such; for if the knowledge, however exact, of God's revealed mind was accompanied by no renewal of the heart, if it was without life towards God, all must be vain. Man is only so much the worse for knowing the truth, if he holds it ever so fast with unrighteousness. There are some that find a difficulty here, because the expression "to hold" means holding firmly. But it is quite possible for the unconverted to be tenacious of the truth, yet unrighteous in their ways; and so much the worse for them. Not thus does God deal with souls. If His grace attract, His truth humbles, and leaves no room for vain boasting and self-confidence. What He does is to pierce and penetrate the man's conscience. If one may so say, He thus holds the man, instead of letting the man presume that he is holding fast the truth. The inner man is dealt with, and searched through and through.

Nothing of this is intended in the class that is here brought before us. They are merely persons who plume themselves on their orthodoxy, but in a wholly unrenewed condition. Such men have never been wanting since the truth has shone on this world; still less are they now. But the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them pre-eminently. The judgments of God will fall on man as man, but the heaviest blows are reserved for Christendom. There the truth is held, and apparently with firmness too. This, however, will be put to the test by-and-by. But for the time it is held fast, though in unrighteousness. Thus the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against (not only the open ungodliness of men, but) the orthodox unrighteousness of those that hold the truth in unrighteousness.

And this leads the apostle into the moral history of man the proof both of his inexcusable guilt, and of his extreme need of redemption. He begins with the great epoch of the dispensations of God (that is, the ages since the flood). We cannot speak of the state of things before the flood as a dispensation. There was a most important trial of man in the person of Adam; but after this, what dispensation was there? What were the principles of it? No man can tell. The truth is, those are altogether mistaken who call it so. But after the flood man as such was put under certain conditions the whole race. Man became the object, first, of general dealings of God under Noah; next, of His special ways in the calling of Abraham and of his family. And what led to the call of Abraham, of whom we hear much in the epistle to the Romans as elsewhere, was the departure of man into idolatry. Man despised at first the outward testimony of God, His eternal power and Godhead, in the creation above and around him (verses 19, 20). Moreover, He gave up the knowledge of God that had been handed down from father to son (ver. 21). The downfall of man, when he thus abandoned God, was most rapid and profound; and the Holy Spirit traces this solemnly to the end ofRomans 1:1-32; Romans 1:1-32 with no needless words, in a few energetic strokes summing up that which is abundantly confirmed (but in how different a manner!) by all that remains of the ancient world. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man," etc. (verses 22-32.) Thus corruption not only overspread morals, but became an integral part of the religion of men, and had thus a quasi-divine sanction. Hence the depravity of the heathen found little or no cheek from conscience, because it was bound up with all that took the shape of God before their mind. There was no part of heathenism practically viewed now, so corrupting as that which had to do with the objects of its worship. Thus, the true God being lost, all was lost, and man's downward career becomes the most painful and humiliating object, unless it be, indeed, that which we have to feel where men, without renewal of heart, espouse in pride of mind the truth with nothing but unrighteousness.

In the beginning ofRomans 2:1-29; Romans 2:1-29 we have man pretending to righteousness. Still, it is "man" not yet exactly the Jew, but man who had profited, it might be, by whatever the Jew had; at the least, by the workings of natural conscience. But natural conscience, although it may detect evil, never leads one into the inward possession and enjoyment of good never brings the soul to God. Accordingly, in chapter 2 the Holy Spirit shows us man satisfying himself with pronouncing on what is right and wrong moralizing for others, but nothing more. Now God must have reality in the man himself. The gospel, instead of treating this as a light matter, alone vindicates God in these eternal ways of His, in that which must be in him who stands in relationship with God. Hence therefore, the apostle, with divine wisdom, opens this to us before the blessed relief and deliverance which the gospel reveals to us. In the most solemn way he appeals to man with the demand, whether he thinks that God will look complacently on that which barely judges another, but which allows the practice of evil in the man himself (Romans 2:1-3). Such moral judgments will, no doubt, be used to leave man without excuse; they can never suit or satisfy God.

Then the apostle introduces the ground, certainty, and character of God's judgment (verses 4-16). He "will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile."

It is not here a question of how a man is to be saved, but of God's indispensable moral judgment, which the gospel, instead of weakening asserts according to the holiness and truth of God. It will be observed therefore, that in this connection the apostle shows the place both of conscience and of the law, that God in judging will take into full consideration the circumstances and condition of every soul of man. At the same time he connects, in a singularly interesting manner, this disclosure of the principles of the eternal judgment of God with what he calls "my gospel." This also is a most important truth, my brethren, to bear in mind. The gospel at its height in no wise weakens but maintains the moral manifestation of what God is. The legal institutions were associated with temporal judgment. The gospel, as now revealed in the New Testament, has linked with it, though not contained in it, the revelation of divine wrath from heaven, and this, you will observe, according to Paul's gospel. It is evident, therefore, that dispensational position will not suffice for God, who holds to His own unchangeable estimate of good and evil, and who judges the more stringently according to the measure of advantage possessed.

But thus the way is now clear for bringing the Jew into the discussion. "But if [for so it should be read] thou art named a Jew," etc. (ver. 17.) It was not merely, that he had better light. He had this, of course, in a revelation that was from God; he had law; he had prophets; he had divine institutions. It was not merely better light in the conscience, which might be elsewhere, as is supposed in the early verses of our chapter; but the Jew's position was directly and unquestionably one of divine tests applied to man's estate. Alas! the Jew was none the better for this, unless there were the submission of his conscience to God. Increase of privileges can never avail without the soul's self-judgment before the mercy of God. Rather does it add to his guilt: such is man's evil state and will. Accordingly, in the end of the chapter, he shows that this is most true as applied to the moral judgment of the Jew; that uone so much dishonoured God as wicked Jews, their own Scripture attesting it; that position went for nothing in such, while the lack of it would not annul the Gentile's righteousness, which would indeed condemn the more unfaithful Israel; in short, that one must be a Jew inwardly to avail, and circumcision be of the heart, in spirit, not in letter, whose praise is of God, and not of men.

The question then is raised in the beginning ofRomans 3:1-31; Romans 3:1-31, If this be so, what is the superiority of the Jew? Where lies the value of belonging to the circumcised people of God? The apostle allows this privilege to be great, specially in having the Scriptures, but turns the argument against the boasters. We need not here enter into the details; but on the surface we see how the apostle brings all down to that which is of the deepest interest to every soul. He deals with the Jew from his own Scripture (verses 9-19). Did the Jews take the ground of exclusively having that word of God the law? Granted that it is so, at once and fully. To whom, then, did the law address itself? To those that were under it, to be sure. It pronounced on the Jew then. It was the boast of the Jews that the law spoke about them; that the Gentiles had no right to it, and were but presuming on what belonged to God's chosen people. The apostle applies this according to divine wisdom. Then your principle is your condemnation. What the law says, it speaks to those under it. What, then, is its voice? That there is none righteous, none that doeth good, none that understandeth. Of whom does it declare all this? Of the Jew by his own confession. Every mouth was stopped; the Jew by his own oracles, as the Gentile by their evident abominations, shown already. All the world was guilty before God.

Thus, having shown the Gentile in Romans 1:1-32 manifestly wrong, and hopelessly degraded to the last degree having laid bare the moral dilettantism of the philosophers, not one whit better in the sight of God, but rather the reverse having shown the Jew overwhelmed by the condemnation of the divine oracles in which he chiefly boasted, without real righteousness, and so much the more guilty for his special privileges, all now lies clear for bringing in the proper Christian message, the. gospel of God. "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets" (verses 20, 21).

Here, again, the apostle takes up what he had but announced in chapter 1 the righteousness of God. Let me call your attention again to its force. It is not the mercy of God., Many have contended that so it is, and to their own great loss, as well as to the weakening of the word of God. "Righteousness" never means mercy, not even the "righteousness of God." The meaning is not what was executed on Christ, but what is in virtue. of it. Undoubtedly divine judgment fell on Him; but this is not "the righteousness of God," as the apostle employs it in any part of his writings any more than here, though we know there could be no such thing as God's righteousness justifying the believer, if Christ had not borne the judgment of God. The expression means that righteousness which God can afford to display because of Christ's atonement. In short, it is what the words say "the righteousness of God," and this "by faith of Jesus Christ."

Hence it is wholly apart from the law, whilst witnessed to by the law and prophets; for the law with its types had looked onward to this new kind of righteousness; and the prophets had borne their testimony that it was at hand, but not then come. Now it was manifested, and not promised or predicted merely. Jesus had come and died; Jesus had been a propitiatory sacrifice; Jesus had borne the judgment of God because of the sins He bore. The righteousness of God, then, could now go forth in virtue of His blood. God was not satisfied alone. There is satisfaction; but the work of Christ goes a great deal farther. Therein God is both vindicated and glorified. By the cross God has a deeper moral glory than ever a glory that He thus acquired, if I may so say. He is, of course, the same absolutely perfect and unchangeable God of goodness; but His perfection has displayed itself in new and more glorious ways in Christ's death, in Him who humbled Himself, and was obedient even to the death of the cross.

God, therefore, having not the least hindrance to the manifestation of what He can be and is in merciful intervention on behalf of the worst of sinners, manifests it is His righteousness "by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe" (ver. 22). The former is the direction, and the latter the application. The direction is "unto all;" the application is, of course, only to "them that believe;" but it is to all them that believe. As far as persons are concerned, there is no hindrance; Jew or Gentile makes no difference, as is expressly said, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the [passing over or praeter-mission, not] remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus" (verses 23-26). There is no simple mind that can evade the plain force of this last expression. The righteousness of God means that God is just, while at the same time He justifies the believer in Christ Jesus. It is His righteousness, or, in other words, His perfect consistency with Himself, which is always involved in the notion of righteousness. He is consistent with Himself when He is justifying sinners, or, more strictly, all those who believe in Jesus. He can meet the sinner, but He justifies the believer; and in this, instead of trenching on His glory, there is a deeper revelation and maintenance of it than if there never had been sin or a sinner.

Horribly offensive as sin is to God, and inexcusable in the creature, it is sin which has given occasion to the astonishing display of divine righteousness in justifying believers. It is not a question of His mercy merely; for this weakens the truth immensely, and perverts its character wholly. The righteousness of God flows from His mercy, of course; but its character and basis is righteousness. Christ's work of redemption deserves that God should act as He does in the gospel. Observe again, it is not victory here; for that would give place to human pride. It is not a soul's overcoming its difficulties, but a sinner's submission to the righteousness of God. It is God Himself who, infinitely glorified in the Lord that expiated our sins by His one sacrifice, remits them now, not looking for our victory, nor as yet even in leading us on to victory, but by faith in Jesus and His blood. God is proved thus divinely consistent with Himself in Christ Jesus, whom He has set forth a mercy-seat through faith in His blood.

Accordingly the apostle says that boast and works are completely set aside by this principle which affirms faith, apart from deeds of law, to be the means of relationship with God (verses 27, 28). Consequently the door is as open to the Gentile as to the Jew. The ground taken by a Jew for supposing God exclusively for Israel was, that they had the law, which was the measure of what God claimed from man; and this the Gentile had not. But such thoughts altogether vanish now, because, as the Gentile was unquestionably wicked and abominable, so from the law's express denunciation the Jew was universally guilty before God. Consequently all turned, not on what man should be for God, but what God can be and is, as revealed in the gospel, to man. This maintains both the glory and the moral universality of Him who will justify the circumcision by faith, not law, and the uncircumcision through their faith, if they believe the gospel. Nor does this in the slightest degree weaken the principle of law. On the contrary, the doctrine of faith establishes law as nothing else can; and for this simple reason, that if one who is guilty hopes to be saved spite of the broken law, it must be at the expense of the law that condemns his guilt; whereas the gospel shows no sparing of sin, but the most complete condemnation of it all, as charged on Him who shed His blood in atonement. The doctrine of faith therefore, which reposes on the cross, establishes law, instead of making it void, as every other principle must (verses 27-31).

But this is not the full extent of salvation. Accordingly we do not hear of salvation as such in Romans 3:1-31. There is laid down the most essential of all truths as a groundwork of salvation; namely, expiation. There is the vindication of God in His ways with the Old Testament believers. Their sins had been passed by. He could not have remitted heretofore. This would not have been just. And the blessedness of the gospel is, that it is (not merely an exercise of mercy, but also) divinely just. It would not have been righteous in any sense to have remitted the sins, until they were actually borne by One who could and did suffer for them. But now they were; and thus God vindicated Himself perfectly as to the past. But this great work of Christ was not and could not be a mere vindication of God; and we may find it otherwise developed in various parts of Scripture, which I here mention by the way to show the point at which we are arrived. God's righteousness was now manifested as to the past sins He had not brought into judgment through His forbearance, and yet more conspicuously in the present time, when He displayed His justice in justifying the believer.

But this is not all; and the objection of the Jew gives occasion for the apostle to bring out a fuller display of what God is. Did they fall back on Abraham? "What shall we then say that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God." Did the Jew fancy that the gospel makes very light of Abraham, and of the then dealings of God? Not so, says the apostle. Abraham is the proof of the value of faith in justification before God. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. There was no law there or then; for Abraham died long before God spoke from Sinai. He believed God and His word, with special approval on God's part; and his faith was counted as righteousness (ver. 3). And this was powerfully corroborated by the testimony of another great name in Israel (David), in Psalms 32:1-11. "For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye."

In the same way the apostle disposes of all pretence on the score of ordinances, especially circumcision. Not only was Abraham justified without law, but apart from that great sign of mortification of the flesh. Although circumcision began with Abraham, manifestly it had nothing to do with his righteousness, and at best was but the seal of the righteousness of faith which he had in an uncircumcised state. It could not therefore be the source or means of his righteousness. All then that believe, though uncircumcised, might claim him as father, assured that righteousness will be reckoned to them too. And he is father of circumcision in the best sense, not to Jews, but to believing Gentiles. Thus the discussion of Abraham strengthens the case in behalf of the uncircumcised who believe, to the overthrow of the greatest boast of the Jew. The appeal to their own inspired account of Abraham turned into a proof of the consistency of God's ways in justifying by faith, and hence in justifying the uncircumcised no less than the circumcision.

But there is more than this in Romans 4:1-25 He takes up a third feature of Abraham's case; that is, the connection of the promise with resurrection. Here it is not merely the negation of law and of circumcision, but we have the positive side. Law works wrath because it provokes transgression; grace makes the promise sure to all the seed, not only because faith is open to the Gentile and Jew alike, but because God is looked to as a quickener of the dead. What gives glory to God like this? Abraham believed God when, according to nature, it was impossible for him or for Sarah to have a child. The quickening power of God therefore was here set forth, of course historically in a way connected with this life and a posterity on earth, but nevertheless a very just and true sign of God's power for the believer the quickening energy of God after a still more blessed sort. And this leads us to see not only where there was an analogy with those who believe in a promised Saviour, but also to a weighty difference. And this lies in the fact that Abraham believed God before he had the son, being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able to perform. and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. But we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. It is done. already. It is not here believing on Jesus, but on God who has proved what He is to us in raisin, from among the dead Him who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification (verses 13-25).

This brings out a most emphatic truth and special side of Christianity. Christianity is not a system of promise, but rather of promise accomplished in Christ. Hence it is essentially founded on the gift not only of a Saviour who would interpose, in the mercy of God, to bear our sins, but of One who is already revealed, and the work done and accepted, and this known in the fact that God Himself has interposed to raise Him from among the dead a bright and momentous thing to press on souls, as indeed we find the apostles insisting on it throughout the Acts. Were it merely Romans 3:1-31 there could not be full peace with God as there is. One might know a most real clinging to Jesus; but this would not set the heart at ease with God. The soul may feel the blood of Jesus to be a yet deeper want; but this alone does not give peace with God. In such a condition what has been found in Jesus is too often misused to make a kind of difference, so to speak, between the Saviour on the one hand, and God on the other ruinous always to the enjoyment of the full blessing of the gospel. Now there is no way in which God could lay a basis for peace with Himself more blessed than as He has done it. No longer does the question exist of requiring an expiation. That is the first necessity for the sinner with God. But we have had it fully in Romans 3:1-31. Now it is the positive power of God in raising up from the dead Him that was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justifying. The whole work is done.

The soul therefore now is represented for the first time as already justified and in possession of peace with God. This is a state of mind, and not the necessary or immediate fruit of Romans 3:1-31, but is based on the truth of Romans 4:1-25 as well as 3. There never can be solid peace with God without both. A soul may as truly, no doubt, be put into relationship with God be made very happy, it may be; but it is not what Scripture calls "peace with God." Therefore it is here for the first time that we find salvation spoken of in the grand results that are now brought before us in Romans 5:1-11. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." There is entrance into favour, and nothing but favour. The believer is not put under law, you will observe, but under grace, which is the precise reverse of law. The soul is brought into peace with God, as it finds its standing in the grace of God, and, more than that, rejoices in hope of the glory of God. Such is the doctrine and the fact. It is not merely a call then; but as we have by our Lord Jesus Christ our access into the favour wherein we stand, so there is positive boasting in the hope of the glory of God. For it may have been noticed from chapter 3 to chapter 5, that nothing but fitness for the glory of God will do now. It is not a question of creature-standing. This passed away with man when he sinned. Now that God has revealed Himself in the gospel, it is not what will suit man on earth, but what is worthy of the presence of the glory of God. Nevertheless the apostle does not expressly mention heaven here. This was not suitable to the character of the epistle; but the glory of God he does. We all know where it is and must be for the Christian.

The consequences are thus pursued; first, the general place of the believer now, in all respects, in relation to the past, the present, and the future. His pathway follows; and he shows that the very troubles of the road become a distinct matter of boast. This was not a direct and intrinsic effect, of course, but the result of spiritual dealing for the soul. It was the Lord giving us the profit of sorrow, and ourselves bowing to the way and end of God in it, so that the result of tribulation should be rich and fruitful experience.

Then there is another and crowning part of the blessing: "And not only so, but also boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." It is not only a blessing in its own direct character, or in indirect though real effects, but the Giver Himself is our joy, and boast, and glory. The consequences spiritually are blessed to the soul; how much more is it to Teach the source from which all flows! This, accordingly, is the essential spring of worship. The fruits of it are not expanded here; but, in point of fact, to joy in God is necessarily that which makes praise and adoration to be the simple and spontaneous exercise of the heart. In heaven it will fill us perfectly; but there is no more perfect joy there, nor anything. higher, if so high, in this epistle.

At this point we enter upon a most important part of the epistle, on which we must dwell for a little. It is no longer a question of man's guilt, but of his nature. Hence the apostle does not, as in the early chapters of this epistle, take up our sins, except as proofs and symptoms of sin. Accordingly, for the first time, the Spirit of God fromRomans 5:12; Romans 5:12 traces the mature of man to the head of the race. This brings in the contrast with the other Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we have here not as One bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, but as the spring and chief of a new family. Hence, as is shown later in the chapter, Adam is a head characterized by disobedience, who brought in death, the just penalty of sin; as on the other hand we have Him of whom he was the type, Christ, the obedient man, who has brought in righteousness, and this after a singularly blessed sort and style "justification of life." Of it nothing has been heard till now. We have had justification, both by blood and also in virtue of Christ's resurrection. But "justification of life" goes farther, though involved in the latter, than the end of Romans 4:1-25; for now we learn that in the gospel there is not only a dealing with the guilt of those that are addressed in it; there is also a mighty work of God in the presenting the man in a new place before God, and in fact, too, for his faith, clearing him from all the consequences in which he finds himself as a man in the flesh here below.

It is here that you will find a great failure of Christendom as to this. Not that any part of the truth has escaped: it is the fatal brand of that "great house" that even the most elementary truth suffers the deepest injury; but as to this truth, it seems unknown altogether. I hope that brethren in Christ will bear with me if I press on them the importance of taking good heed to it that their souls are thoroughly grounded in this, the proper place of the Christian by Christ's death and resurrection. It must not be, assumed too readily. There is a disposition continually to imagine that what is frequently spoken of must be understood; but experience will soon show that this is not the case. Even those that seek a place of separation to the Lord outside that which is now hurrying on souls to destruction are, nevertheless, deeply affected by the condition of that Christendom in which we find ourselves.

Here, then, it is not a question at all of pardon or remission. First of all the apostle points out that death has come in, and that this was no consequence of law, but before it. Sin was in the world between Adam and Moses, when the law was not. This clearly takes in man, it will be observed; and this is his grand point now. The contrast of Christ with Adam takes in man universally as well as the Christian; and man in sin, alas! was true, accordingly, before the law, right through the law, and ever since the law. The apostle is therefore plainly in presence of the broadest possible grounds of comparison, though we shall find more too.

But the Jew might argue that it was an unjust thing in principle this gospel, these tidings of which the apostle was so full; for why should one man affect many, yea, all? "Not so," replies the apostle. Why should this be so strange and incredible to you? for on your own showing, according to that word to which we all bow, you must admit that one man's sin brought in universal moral ruin and death. Proud as you may be of that which distinguishes you, it is hard to make sin and death peculiar to you, nor can you connect them even with the law particularly: the race of man is in question, and not Israel alone. There is nothing that proves this so convincingly as the book of Genesis; and the apostle, by the Spirit of God, calmly but triumphantly summons the Jewish Scriptures to demonstrate that which the Jews were so strenuously denying. Their own Scriptures maintained, as nothing else could, that all the wretchedness which is now found in the world, and the condemnation which hangs over the race, is the fruit of one man, and indeed of one act.

Now, if it was righteous in God (and who will gainsay it?) to deal with the whole posterity of Adam as involved in death because of one, their common father, who could deny the consistency of one man's saving? who would defraud God of that which He delights in the blessedness of bringing in deliverance by that One man, of whom Adam was the image? Accordingly, then, he confronts the unquestionable truth, admitted by every Israelite, of the universal havoc by one man everywhere with the One man who has brought in (not pardon only, but, as we shall find) eternal life and liberty liberty now in the free gift of life, but a liberty that will never cease for the soul's enjoyment until it has embraced the very body that still groans, and this because of the Holy Ghost who dwells in it.

Here, then, it is a comparison of the two great heads Adam and Christ, and the immeasurable superiority of the second man is shown. That is, it is not merely pardon of past sins, but deliverance from sin, and in due time from all its consequences. The apostle has come now to the nature. This is the essential point. It is the thing which troubles a renewed conscientious soul above all, because of his surprise at finding the deep evil of the flesh and its mind after having proved the great grace of God in the gift of Christ. If I am thus pitied of God, if so truly and completely a justified man, if I am really an object of God's eternal favour, how can I have such a sense of continual evil? why am I still under bondage and misery from the constant evil of my nature, over which I seem to have no power whatever? Has God then no delivering power from this? The answer is found in this portion of our epistle (that is, from the middle of chapter 5).

Having shown first, then, the sources and the character of the blessing in general as far as regards deliverance, the apostle sums up the result in the end of the chapter: "That as sin hath reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life," the point being justification of life now through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is applied in the two chapters that follow. There are two things that might make insuperable difficulty: the one is the obstacle of sin in the nature to practical holiness; the other is the provocation and condemnation of the law. Now the doctrine which we saw asserted in the latter part ofRomans 5:1-21; Romans 5:1-21 is applied to both. First, as to practical holiness, it is not merely that Christ has died for my sins, but that even in the initiatory act of baptism the truth set forth there is that I am dead. It is not, as in Ephesians 2:1-22, dead in sins, which would be nothing to the purpose. This is all perfectly true true of a Jew as of a pagan true of any unrenewed man that never heard of a Saviour. But what is testified by Christian baptism is Christ's death. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto his death?" Thereby is identification with His death. "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." The man who, being baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or Christian baptism, would assert any license to sin because it is in his nature, as if it were therefore an inevitable necessity, denies the real and evident meaning of his baptism. That act denoted not even the washing away of our sins by the blood of Jesus, which would not apply to the case, nor in any adequate way meet the question of nature. What baptism sets forth is more than that, and is justly found, not in Romans 3:1-31, but inRomans 6:1-23; Romans 6:1-23. There is no inconsistency in Ananias's word to the apostle Paul "wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord." There is water as well as blood, and to that, not to this, the washing here refers. But there is more, which Paul afterwards insisted on. That was said to Paul, rather than what was taught by Paul. What the apostle had given him in fulness was the great truth, however fundamental it may be, that I am entitled, and even called on in the name of the Lord Jesus, to know that I am dead to sin; not that I must die, but that I am dead that my baptism means nothing less than this, and is shorn of its most emphatic point if limited merely to Christ's dying for my sins. It is not so alone; but in His death, unto which I am baptized, I am dead to sin. And "how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Hence, then, we find that the whole chapter is founded on this truth. "Shall we sin," says he, proceeding yet farther (ver. 15), "because we are not under the law, but under grace?" This were indeed to deny the value of His death, and of that newness of life we have in Him risen, and a return to bondage of the worst description.

In Romans 7:1-25 we have the subject of the law discussed for practice as well as in principle, and there again meet with the same weapon of tried and unfailing temper. It is no longer blood, but death Christ's death and resurrection. The figure of the relationship of husband and wife is introduced in order to make the matter plain. Death, and nothing short of it, rightly dissolves the bond. We accordingly are dead, says he, to the law; not (as no doubt almost all of us know) that the law dies, but that we are dead to the law in the death of Christ. Compare verse 6 (where the margin, not the text, is substantially correct) with verse 4. Such is the principle. The rest of the chapter (7-25) is an instructive episode, in which the impotence and the misery of the renewed mind which attempts practice under law are fully argued out, till deliverance (not pardon) is found in Christ.

Thus the latter portion of the chapter is not doctrine exactly, but the proof of the difficulties of a soul who has not realised death to the law by the body of Christ. Did this seem to treat the law that condemned as an evil thing? Not so, says the apostle; it is because of the evil of the nature, not of the law. The law never delivers; it condemns and kills us. It was meant to make sin exceeding sinful. Hence, what he is here discussing is not remission of sins, but deliverance from sin. No wonder, if souls confound the two things together, that they never know deliverance in practice. Conscious deliverance, to be solid according to God, must be in the line of His truth. In vain will you preach Romans 3:1-31, or even 4 alone, for souls to know themselves consciously and holily set free.

From verse 14 there is an advance. There we find Christian knowledge as to the matter introduced; but still it is the knowledge of one who is not in this state pronouncing on one who is. You must carefully guard against the notion of its being a question of Paul's own experience, because he says, "I had not known," "I was alive," etc. There is no good reason for such an assumption, but much against it. It might be more or less any man's lot to learn. It is not meant that Paul knew nothing of this; but that the ground of inference, and the general theory built up, are alike mistaken. We have Paul informing us that he transfers sometimes in a figure to himself that which was in no wise necessarily his own experience, and perhaps had not been so at any time. But this may be comparatively a light question. The great point is to note the true picture given us of a soul quickened, but labouring and miserable under law, not at all consciously delivered. The last verses of the chapter, however, bring in the deliverance not yet the fulness of it, but the hinge, so to speak. The discovery is made that the source of the internal misery was that the mind, though renewed, was occupied with the law as a means of dealing with, flesh. Hence the very fact of being renewed makes one sensible of a far more intense misery than ever, while there is no power until the soul looks right outside self to Him who is dead and risen, who has anticipated the difficulty, and alone gives the full answer to all wants.

Romans 8:1-39 displays this comforting truth in its fulness. From the first verse we have the application of the dead and risen Christ to the soul, till in verse 11 we see the power of the Holy Ghost, which brings the soul into this liberty now, applied by-and-by to the body, when there will be the complete deliverance. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." A wondrous way, but most blessed! And there (for such was the point) it was the complete condemnation of this evil thing, the nature in its present state, so as, nevertheless, to set the believer as before God's judgment free from itself as well as its consequences. This God has wrought in Christ. It is not in any degree settled as to itself by His blood. The shedding of His blood was absolutely necessary: without that precious expiation all else had been vain and impossible. But there is much more in Christ than that to which too many souls restrict themselves, not less to their own loss than to His dishonour. God has condemned the flesh. And here it may be repeated that it is no question of pardoning the sinner, but of condemning the fallen nature; and this so as to give the soul both power and a righteous immunity from all internal anguish about it. For the truth is that God has in Christ condemned sin, and this for sin definitely; so that He has nothing more to do in condemnation of that root of evil. What a title, then, God gives me now in beholding Christ, no longer dead but risen, to have it settled before my soul that I am in Him as He now is, where all questions are closed in peace and joy! For what remains unsolved by and in Christ? Once it was far otherwise. Before the cross there hung out the gravest question that ever was raised, and it needed settlement in this world; but in Christ sin is for ever abolished for the believer; and this not only in respect of what He has done, but in what He is. Till the cross, well might a converted soul be found groaning in misery at each fresh discovery of evil in himself. But now to faith all this is gone not lightly, but truly in the sight of God; so that he may live on a Saviour that is risen from the dead as his new life.

Accordingly Romans 8:1-39 pursues in the most practical manner the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. First of all, the groundwork of it is laid in the first four verses, the last of them leading into every-day walk. And it is well for those ignorant of it to know that here, in verse 4, the apostle speaks first of "walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The latter clause in the first verse of the authorised version mars the sense. In the fourth verse this could not be absent; in the first verse it ought not to be present. Thus the deliverance is not merely for the joy of the soul, but also for strength in our walking after the Spirit, who has given and found a nature in which He delights, communicating withal His own delight in Christ, and making obedience to be the joyful service of the believer. The believer, therefore, unwittingly though really, dishonours the Saviour, if he be content to walk short of this standard and power; he is entitled and called to walk according to his place, and in the confidence of his deliverance in Christ Jesus before God.

Then the domains of flesh and Spirit are brought before us: the one characterized by sin and death practically now; the other by life, righteousness, and peace, which is, as we saw, to be crowned finally by the resurrection of these bodies of ours. The Holy Ghost, who now gives the soul its consciousness of deliverance from its place in Christ, is also the witness that the body too, the mortal body, shall be delivered in its time. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by [or because of] his Spirit that dwelleth in you."

Next, he enters upon another branch of the truth the Spirit not as a condition contrasted with flesh (these two, as we know, being always contrasted in Scripture), but as a power, a divine person that dwells in and bears His witness to the believer. His witness to our spirit is this, that we are children of God. But if children, we are His heirs. This accordingly leads, as connected with the deliverance of the body, to the inheritance we are to possess. The extent is what God Himself, so to speak, possesses the universe of God, whatever will be under Christ: and what will not? As He has made all, so He is heir of all. We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

Hence the action of the Spirit of God in a double point of view comes before us. As He is the spring of our joy, He is the power of sympathy in our sorrows, and the believer knows both. The faith of Christ has brought divine joy into his soul; but, in point of fact, he is traversing a world of infirmity, suffering, and grief. Wonderful to think the Spirit of God associates Himself with us in it all, deigning to give us divine feelings even in our poor and narrow hearts. This occupies the central part of the chapter, which then closes with the unfailing and faithful power of God for us in all our experiences here below. As He has given us through the blood of Jesus full remission, as we shall be saved by this life, as He has made us know even now nothing short of present conscious deliverance from every whit of evil that belongs to our very nature, as we have the Spirit the earnest of the glory to which we are destined, as we are the vessels of gracious sorrow in the midst of that from which we are not yet delivered but shall be, so now we have the certainty that, whatever betide, God is for us, and that nothing shall separate us from His love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Then, in Romans 9:1-33; Romans 10:1-21; Romans 11:1-36, the apostle handles a difficulty serious to any mind, especially to the Jew, who might readily feel that all this display of grace in Christ to the Gentile as much as to the Jew by the gospel seems to make very cheap the distinctive place of Israel as given of God. If the good news of God goes out to man, entirely blotting out the difference between a Jew and a Gentile, what becomes of His special promises to Abraham and to his seed? What about His word passed and sworn to the fathers? The apostle shows them with astonishing force at the starting-point that he was far from slighting their privileges. He lays down such a summary as no Jew ever gave since they were a nation. He brings out the peculiar glories of Israel according to the depth of the gospel as he knew and preached it; at least, of His person who is the object of faith now revealed. Far from denying or obscuring what they boasted of, he goes beyond them "Who are Israelites," says he, "to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever." Here was the very truth that every Jew, as such, denied. What blindness! Their crowning glory was precisely what they would not hear of. What glory so rich as that of the Christ Himself duly appreciated? He was God over all blessed for ever, as well as their Messiah. Him who came in humiliation, according to their prophets, they might despise; but it was vain to deny that the same prophets bore witness to His divine glory. He was Emmanuel, yea, the Jehovah, God of Israel. Thus then, if Paul gave his own sense of Jewish privileges, there was no unbelieving Jew that rose up to his estimate of them.

But now, to meet the question that was raised, they pleaded the distinguishing promises to Israel. Upon what ground? Because they were sons of Abraham. But how, argues he, could this stand, seeing that Abraham had another son, just as much his child as Isaac? What did they say to Ishmaelites as joint-heirs? They would not hear of it. No, they cry, it is in Isaac's seed that the Jew was called. Yes, but this is another principle. If in Isaac only, it is a question of the seed, not that was born, but that was called. Consequently the call of God, and not the birth simply makes the real difference. Did they venture to plead that it must be not only the same father, but the same mother? The answer is, that this will not do one whit better; for when we come down to the next generation, it is apparent that the two sons of Isaac were sons of the same mother; nay, they were twins. What could be conceived closer or more even than this? Surely if equal birth-tie could ensure community of blessing if a charter from God depended on being sprung from the same father and mother, there was no case so strong, no claim so evident, as that of Esau to take the same rights as Jacob. Why would they not allow such a pretension? Was it not sure and evident that Israel could not take the promise on the ground of mere connection after the flesh? Birthright from the same father would let in Ishmael on the one hand, as from both parents it would secure the title of Esau on the other. Clearly, then, such ground is untenable. In point of fact, as he had hinted before, their true tenure was the call of God, who was free, if He pleased, to bring in other people. It became simply a question whether, in fact, God did call Gentiles, or whether He had revealed such intentions.

But he meets their proud exclusiveness in another way. He shows that, on the responsible ground of being His nation, they were wholly ruined. If the first book in the Bible showed that it was only the call of God that made Israel what they were, its second book as clearly proved that all was over with the called people, had it not been for the mercy of God. They set up the golden calf, and thus cast off the true God, their God, even in the desert. Did the call of God. then, go out to Gentiles? Has He mercy only for guilty Israel? Is there no call, no mercy, of God for any besides?

Hereupon he enters upon the direct proofs, and first cites Hosea as a witness. That early prophet tells Israel, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi were of awful import for Israel; but, in presence of circumstances so disastrous, there should be not merely a people but sons of the living God, and then should Judah and Israel be gathered as one people under one head. The application of this was more evident to the Gentile than to the Jew. Compare Peter's use in1 Peter 2:10; 1 Peter 2:10. Finally he brings in Isaiah, showing that, far from retaining their blessing as an unbroken people, a remnant alone would be saved. Thus one could not fail to see these two weighty inferences: the bringing in to be God's sons of those that had not been His people, and the judgment and destruction of the great mass of His undoubted people. Of these only a remnant would be saved. On both sides therefore the apostle is meeting the grand points he had at heart to demonstrate from their own Scriptures.

For all this, as he presses further, there was the weightiest reason possible. God is gracious, but holy; He is faithful, but righteous. The apostle refers to Isaiah to show that God would "lay in Zion a stumbling-stone." It is in Zion that He lays it. It is not among the Gentiles, but in the honoured centre of the polity of Israel. There would be found a stumblingstone there. What was to be the stumbling-stone? Of course, it could hardly be the law: that was the boast of Israel. What was it? There could be but one satisfactory answer. The stumbling-stone was their despised and rejected Messiah. This was the key to their difficulties this alone, and fully explains their coming ruin as well as God's solemn warnings.

In the next chapter (Romans 10:1-21) he carries on the subject, showing in the most touching manner his affection for the people. He at the same time unfolds the essential difference between the righteousness of faith and that of law. He takes their own books, and proves from one of them (Deuteronomy) that in the ruin of Israel the resource is not going into the depths, nor going up to heaven. Christ indeed did both; and so the word was nigh them, in their mouth and in their heart. It is not doing, but believing; therefore it is what is proclaimed to them, and what they receive and believe. Along with this he gathers testimonies from more than one prophet. He quotes from Joel, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He quotes also from Isaiah "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed." And mark the force of it whosoever." The believer, whosoever he might be, should not be ashamed. Was it possible to limit this to Israel? But more than this "Whosoever shall call." There. is the double prophecy. Whosoever believed should not be ashamed; whosoever called should be saved. In both parts, as it may be observed, the door is opened to the Gentile.

But then again he intimates that the nature of the gospel is involved in the publishing of the glad tidings. It is not God having an earthly centre, and the peoples doming up to worship the Lord in Jerusalem. It is the going forth of His richest blessing. And where? How far? To the limits of the holy land? Far beyond. Psalms 19:1-14 is used in the most beautiful manner to insinuate that the limits are the world. Just as the sun in the heavens is not for one people or land alone, no more is the gospel. There is no language where their voice is not heard. "Yea verily, their sound went forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." The gospel goes forth universally. Jewish pretensions were therefore disposed of; not here by new and fuller revelations, but by this divinely skilful employment of their own Old Testament Scriptures.

Finally he comes to two other witnesses; as from the Psalms, so now from the law and the prophets. The first is Moses himself. Moses saith, "I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people," etc. How could the Jews say that this meant themselves? On the contrary, it was the Jew provoked by the Gentiles "By them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you." Did they deny that they were a foolish nation? Be it so then; it was a foolish nation by which Moses declared they should be angered. But this does not content the apostle, or rather the Spirit of God; for he goes on to point out that Isaiah "is very bold" in a similar way; that is, there is no concealing the truth of the matter. Isaiah says: "I was found of them who sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me." The Jews were the last in the world to take such ground as this. It was undeniable that the Gentiles did not seek the Lord, nor ask after Him; and the prophet says that Jehovah was found of them that sought Him not, and was made manifest to them that asked not after Him. Nor is there only the manifest call of the Gentiles in this, but with no less clearness there is the rejection, at any rate for a time, of proud Israel. "But unto Israel he saith, All day long have I stretched out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

Thus the proof was complete. The Gentiles the despised heathen were to be brought in; the self-satisfied Jews are left behind, justly and beyond question, if they believed the law and the prophets.

But did this satisfy the apostle? It was undoubtedly enough for present purposes. The past history of Israel was sketched inRomans 9:1-33; Romans 9:1-33; the present more immediately is before us inRomans 10:1-21; Romans 10:1-21. The future must be brought in by the grace of God; and this he accordingly gives us at the close of Romans 11:1-36. First, he raises the question, "Has God cast away his people?" Let it not be! Was he not himself, says Paul, a proof to the contrary? Then he enlarges, and points out that there is a remnant of grace in the worst of times. If God had absolutely cast away His people, would there be such mercy? There would be no remnant if justice took its course. The remnant proves, then, that even under judgment the rejection of Israel is not complete, but rather a pledge of future favour. This is the first ground.

The second plea is not that the rejection of Israel is only partial, however extensive, but that it is also temporary, and not definitive. This is to fall back on a principle he had already used. God was rather provoking Israel to jealousy by the call of the Gentiles. But if it were so, He had not done with them. Thus the first argument shows that the rejection was not total; the second, that it was but for a season.

But there is a third. Following up with the teaching of the olive-tree, he carries out the same thought of a remnant that abides on their own stock, and points to a re-instatement of the nation, And I would just observe by the way, that the Gentile cry that no Jew ever accepts the gospel in truth is a falsehood. Israel is indeed the only people of whom there is always a portion that believe. Time was when none of the English, nor French, nor of any other nation believed in the Saviour. There never was an hour since Israel's existence as a nation that God has not had His remnant of them. Such has been their singular fruit of promise; such even in the midst of all their misery it is at present. And as that little remnant is ever sustained by the grace of God, it is the standing pledge of their final blessedness through His mercy, whereon the apostle breaks out into raptures of thanksgiving to God. The day hastens when the Redeemer shall come to Zion. He shall come, says one Testament, out of Zion. He shall come to Zion, says the other. In both Old and New it is the same substantial testimony. Thither He shall come, and thence, go forth. He shall own that once glorious seat of royalty in Israel. Zion shall yet behold her mighty, divine, but once despised Deliverer; and when He thus comes, there will be a deliverance suited to His glory. All Israel shall be saved. God, therefore, had not cast off His people, but was employing the interval of their slip from their place, in consequence of their rejection of Christ, to call the Gentiles in sovereign mercy, after which Israel as a whole should be saved. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first liven to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever."

The rest of the epistle takes up the practical consequences of the great doctrine of God's righteousness, which had been now shown to be supported by, and in no wise inconsistent with, His promises to Israel. The whole history of Israel, past, present, and future falls in with, although quite distinct from, that which he had been expounding. Here I shall be very brief.

Romans 12:1-21 looks at the mutual duties of the saints. Romans 13:1-14; Romans 13:1-14 urges their duties towards what was outside them, more particularly to the powers that be, but also to men in general. Love is the great debt that we owe, which never can be paid, but which we should always be paying. The chapter closes with the day of the Lord in its practical force on the Christian walk. In Romans 14:1-23 and the beginning ofRomans 15:1-33; Romans 15:1-33 we have the delicate theme of Christian forbearance in its limits and largeness. The weak are not to judge the strong, and the strong are not to despise the weak. These things are matters of conscience, and depend much for their solution on the degree to which souls have attained. The subject terminates with the grand truth which must never be obscured by details that we are to receive, one another, as Christ has received us, to the glory of God. In the rest of chapter 15 the apostle dwells on the extent of his apostleship, renews his expression of the thought and hope of visiting Rome, and at the same time shows how well he remembered the need of the poor at Jerusalem. Romans 16:1-27; Romans 16:1-27 brings before us in the most. instructive and interesting manner the links that grace practically forms and maintains between the saints of God. Though he had never visited Rome, many of them were known personally. It is exquisite the delicate love with which he singles out distinctive features in each of the saints, men and women, that come before him. Would that the Lord would give us hearts to remember, as well as eyes to see, according to His own grace! Then follows a warning against those who bring in stumbling-blocks and offences. There is evil at work, and grace does not close the eye to danger; at the same time it is never under the pressure of the enemy, and there is the fullest confidence that the God of peace will break the power of Satan under the feet of the saints shortly.

Last of all, the apostle links up this fundamental treatise of divine righteousness in its doctrine, its dispensational bearings, and its exhortations to the walk of Christians, with higher truth, which it would not have been suitable then to bring out; for grace considers the state and the need of the saints. True ministry gives out not merely truth, but suited truth to the saints. At the same time the apostle does allude to that mystery which was not yet divulged at least, in this epistle; but he points from the foundations of eternal truth to those heavenly heights that were reserved for other communications in due time.