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Romans 14: Blessed is the Man (4: 1-8)

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Introduction

The word imputation may seem like one of those technical-sounding theological words to make your head hurt, but it is really quite straightforward—and full of blessing.

The Text

“What shall we say then 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. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Rom. 4:1-8)

Summary of the Text

What did Abraham, our father, discover (v. 1)? He would have had something to boast about if he had been justified by works (v. 2). The problem is that this is not possible for any flesh, and so Abraham wouldn’t have been able to boast before God (v. 2). What does the Bible say about his justification? It says that Abraham believed God, and that this was reckoned to him, counted to him, imputed to him, as righteousness (v. 3). The basic division between works and grace is then outlined—work gets a paycheck, and this is the antithesis of grace (v. 4). But for the one who does not work, but instead believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned, counted, imputed to him for righteousness (v. 5). David describes the blessed condition of a man who has received this grace, and it is a two-fold grace. First, God imputes righteousness apart from works (v. 6). Paul then quotes the place where Davide says this (Ps. 32:1-2), and he does so to double effect. Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven (v. 7), and whose sins are covered (v. 7). He continues—blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin (v. 8). We have two kinds of imputation here. The positive imputation of righteousness, and the non-imputation of sin.

How Can He Do That?

Remember that in chapter three, the apostle has established the basis for how God does this without ceasing to be holy. He is the God who wants to be just and the one who justifies. Reckoning, counting and imputing righteousness (apart from a propitiatory sacrifice offered by a genuine and lawful substitute) is acquitting the guilty without foundation, a thing that a holy God cannot and will not do. So this is why Jesus died and rose again—He did so as our representative. So fix it in your hearts and minds—Jesus did not die so that we might live. He died so that we might die, and He lives so that we might live.

Ungodly Abraham

Paul is here setting Abraham before us as the paradigm of faith, but in the Bible faith is always preceded by repentance. Abraham is our father in repentance, and not just in faith. He did all that we need to do (4:23), and we certainly need to repent. Here in v. 5, we see that Abraham (like us) was trusting in the God who justifies the ungodly. And last, the Bible is plain that Abraham was called out of idolatry and sin (Josh. 24:2). Abraham, the father of pilgrims, was himself a pilgrim.

A Direct Object Implied

We also have to take a moment to decipher some Pauline shorthand. He says here that Abraham’s belief of God was counted unto him for righteousness (v. 3). This is also a general truth—anyone who believes God has his faith counted for righteousness (v. 5). But does this mean that God is taking my faith (as imperfect as anything else I do), and treating that faith as my righteousness? No, not at all. The ground of our righteousness is the life and death of the Lord Jesus—our representative. That righteousness is apprehended by us using the instrument of faith.

When Jesus tells someone “your faith has saved you,” this is a comparable form of shorthand (Luke 7:50; 18:42). Of course, Jesus saved these people, and not their naked faith. We see the same thing here. The person who is justified here “believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly.” So faith counted as righteousness is short for faith in the representative substitute who is counted as that righteousness. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to have faith in your faith. Your isolated faith can’t justify anyone or anything.

A Triple Imputation

We must shake loose of our individualism. The problem is in the ism, not in the individual as such. True individuality does exist, but autonomous individuality does not. We are not individuals in the sense that marbles in a box are—we are like individual leaves on a tree. One differs from another, but they are all connected.

The connection is a covenantal one. There are two human races, and each one has a covenantal head, a federal head. Adam is the head of the first race, and Jesus is the head of the new human race, and there is a covenantal or imputational bridge between the two races—making it possible for us to transferred from the old humanity to the new. Here are the three great imputations. Adam sinned as your representative, and so his rebellion against God was imputed to you. In Adam, you rebelled against God. God in His mercy caused that original sin (in which you participated through your representative) and all your individual sins, to be imputed to Jesus Christ on the cross (2 Cor. 5: 21). This is the imputational bridge, and it is referred to here in our text (v. 8). And finally, God imputes the righteousness of the new Adam to every member of His race.

So Adam’s sin was yours. All your sins are Christ’s. And all Christ’s righteousness is now yours in the resurrection. Lift up your heads.

Grace and Works Cannot Mix

Works are connected to things that men would love to have, but which they cannot have. Men outside Christ would love to boast, but they cannot boast before God (v. 2). They would love to receive a reward in the judgment, a reward through which God pays them what He owes them—as a matter of debt (v. 4). Men love the idea of being a standard of righteousness unto themselves, and this is why they loathe and despise every form of free and sovereign grace. And free and sovereign grace repulses every form of works, striving, earning, moralistic tip-toeing, meriting, goody-two-shoeing, shucking or jiving.

But there is an up side. The reason you are saved at all is because you are saved by grace.

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Romans 9: The Absolute Necessity of the New Birth (2:25-29)

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Introduction

We left off with St. Paul’s observation that the Gentiles blasphemed God’s name because of the behavior of God’s people. In this passage, he goes on to show the root cause of the discrepancy between the holy name by which God’s people were called, and unholy lives which disgraced that calling. The root cause was the lack of personal regeneration. As Jesus told Nicodemus, a man must be born again. To take the larger argument of Romans, not all Israel are Israel. We may (and we must) extend this to say that not all Christians are Christians.

The Text

“For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Rom. 2:25-29)

Summary of the Text

What good is circumcision? Who needs it? Paul says that circumcision does profit a Jew, if he keeps the rest of the law (v. 25). Circumcision is obedience to the Torah at the doorway (Dt. 11:20), but if disobedience is pervasive through the rest of the house, then God treats the sign of allegiance at the doorway as though it were the opposite (v. 25). And what happens when you flip this around? If an uncircumcised person keeps the righteousness of the moral law (remember, he is not keeping Torah because he is uncircumcised), then won’t God place him in the ranks of the honorary circumcised (v. 26)? Not only so, but the uncircumcised in this position will be in a position to judge the person who “by letter” and “by circumcision” transgresses the law (v. 27). This person could either be the pagan Gentiles of v. 14, or the baptized Gentiles in the church at Rome—Paul’s argument works either way. Why does it work this way? Paul then says that a man is not a true Jew who is simply one outwardly, and that true circumcision is not a matter of what is done to the flesh (v. 28). A true Jew is a Jew on the inside, and true circumcision is a matter of the heart and spirit, not the letter (v. 29) The praise for such a man is not from men, but from God (v. 29).

Torah and the Righteousness of the Law

The distinction between the Torah and what might be called the essence of the law is a very important one if we are to understand Romans. We have noted it before and we have to make a note of it again here. Paul clearly distinguishes between formal law-keeping and essential law-keeping—but this is not possible if we say that his only interest has to do with the relationship of the old Torah and the new gospel. Paul insists here that an uncircumcised person by nature can nevertheless keep the essential law, what he identifies as the “righteousness of the law.”

Counted or Reckoned

A similar thing must be said about a very crucial word here, one that is essential to a right understanding of Romans. It occurs in our passage here, and that word is logidzomai. It is the kind of word that is remarkably flexible—it was rendered as “thinkest” in 2:3, but it occurs here as “counted” (2:26). Elsewhere in Romans it is translated as “reckon” (4:4), “account” (8:36), or most famously “impute” (4:6). We will muddy everything if we understand this word as any kind of infusion. We will not do a great deal with this now, but it will be very important later—so mark this spot.

Outward and Inward

Sin creates rebellious dualisms. God created us so that our spirit, soul, and body would all live in harmonious union. But rebellion against Him fractured this harmony, and made it possible for an individual to be one man on the outside and a completely different man on the inside. This was not what we were created for, but our sin made hypocrisy possible. But that is not our concern in this message now—the basic problem of hypocrisy was addressed earlier.

Here is a different problem. Some Christians, discovering that there ought not to be this inside/outside divide, have falsely concluded that there is no such thing as an inside/outside divide. But this is saying, ultimately, that hypocrisy is impossible. However, Paul is blunt here. He knew men who were Jews on the outside, but he did not consider them to be Jews on the inside. What needed to occur in order for them to be Jews on the inside? Paul says that it amounted to heart circumcision, in the spirit and not in the letter (v. 29). As it was, their outside testified against their inside (v. 27). By the letter and by their circumcision they transgressed.

A Quick Caution

This is the great contribution of historic evangelicalism—teaching the absolute necessity of the new birth. Do not confuse this with the accretions of pop evangelicalism, or certain traditions within evangelicalism, which seeks to put that new birth in a can, prepackaging it for the upcoming revival meetings, prescribing just what it looks like in every instance—going forward, signing the card, that kind of thing. But the Spirit moves as He pleases. Reformation and revival is not a commodity.

How Does It All Translate?

Does this warning at the end of Romans 2 translate over to Christians? Can we say that “he is not a Christian who is one outwardly, neither is baptism that which is outward in the flesh”? Can we say he is a Christian who is “one inwardly,” and baptism is “of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.” Of course we can, and we must.

Paul here is spelling out the root causes of the great Jewish failure. The Jews hadnot kept the law in truth, even though they were circumcised—precisely because they had not obeyed the law by receiving the circumcision of the heart (Dt. 10:16;30: 6; Jer. 4:4). This doctrine of the new birth is not an innovation of Paul’s—God required it in the Old Testament times as well. And Paul elsewhere tells the covenanted Christians that they were capable of failing in just the same way that the Jews had (Rom. 11: 20-21;1 Cor. 10: 6), and for the same reasons (2 Cor. 13:5). A brief glance at church history shows us the wisdom of this warning, as well as a moment’s reflection on our own circumstances. A man, if he wants to see the kingdom of God, must be born again. Is this your desire? Then look to Christ—Christ on the cross, Christ in heaven, Christ in the Word, Christ in the water, Christ in the bread and wine. But always this is looking through, not staring at.

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