Imputed Righteousness Without Good Works? Romans Series Part 11 David Bercot

Well, good morning. I want to welcome everyone here, particularly our visitors. Glad to have you with us. We had just a switch in schedule, so we're going to be looking at Romans again this week. We promise you this isn't going to be every week. I hope you're not getting tired of it. Today we're getting into Romans 4, which has got to be one of the most preached-on chapters in the New Testament in, I'd say, Protestant circles. I've heard it preached on many, many times myself. And what we want to look at today, at least at the start, is what is the context? I mean, usually when I hear this preached on, the speaker totally ignores what Paul is even talking about.

And last week I was mentioning the book. I meant to bring it today with me, How to Be a Christian Without Being Religious. And the application he gives of Romans 4, which is again Luther's application, Paul is talking about Christians that God doesn't want you to think your works have any role in your salvation. And Paul is trying to correct Christians who might think this. And yet there's nothing in the context, either of the New Testament or in Romans, to indicate that's an issue. I mean, Paul never directly talks about that. It's taking his words and giving a meaning to them that's not in the context. So we're going to look at it. We're going to look at just the first 10 verses of Romans 4.

And my subtitle is Context is Everything. I mean, if you read this, yeah, in a blank, just in a blank vacuum, yeah, you could make these verses say just about anything. The issue is what was he talking about? So we're going to look at first the much larger background, the Jewish background behind this. The Christians weren't the only ones actively out there making converts. The Jews were doing the same. I mean, Jesus had said to the Pharisees, "You travel land and sea to make converts. And when you do, you make them twice as much a subject of hell than they were before." So yeah, the Jews were also making converts.

They called their Gentile converts proselytes, and that's where we use the term today in any setting. However, there was a big difference. You have the Jews competing and the Christians both making converts. But there's a difference in what it meant as a Gentile to come in and be converted to become a Jew and what it meant to be converted to become a Christian. Okay?

Okay. So what was required of a Gentile, like I say, as a Jew and then as a Christian?

Okay. To become a Christian, a Gentile had only to repent, believe, and be baptized. And normally in Acts, later the church went a little bit slower for good reason. But in Acts, it's usually right there, right on the spot. I mean, they repent, they believe, they're baptized right there on the spot.

Okay. So fairly easy to become a Christian. There's a lot involved once you are a Christian, but the entrance was quite easy. On the other hand, to become a Jew, I was reading in Josephus a passage this last week of it was actually a minor ruler, a king of just a small group of people who decided to convert to Judaism. Okay. So first, he had to start living by the law, keeping the Sabbath, and not just what's said there in the Old Testament, which isn't horribly restrictive, but then all the interpretation the Pharisees, scribes, rabbis had put on it, which was very restrictive of living by the Sabbath laws. Okay. Then there were all the dietary laws, all these different kinds of foods you could not eat, including the laws given back to Abraham that are binding on, I mean, to Noah, that are binding on Christians not to eat food with bloods and all this.

So you had to be doing all of this. And then all of the other regulations of the law to be keeping all of these things, and you're not even accepted yet as a Jew. I mean, this is just, okay, first you do all of that.

Okay. So we're looking at becoming a Jew. Okay. Then after he had proved himself this way, then to be formally inducted into the Jewish community. Now this is described in the Torah, not the Torah, the Talmud, which is a few centuries later. It purports to be describing what was true in the days of Paul.

I couldn't guarantee that, but I think most of this does apply. Okay. So once you've been living by the law and everything, then if you actually want to become a Jew, then you had to be circumcised, receive the bath of purification. So the Jews were practicing baptism just like the Christians. Didn't have the same meaning, but it was called the bath of purification. So you had to go through baptism to become a Jewish proselytes. And then the Talmud says to offer a sacrifice in the temple. Of course, later the temple was destroyed. Or if you were living in Rome, it wasn't practical to go offer a sacrifice. So you could just give money as an offering.

Okay. So then when you do all of this stuff, then you're formally inducted. You are now officially a Jew. So yeah, you could be a Jew even though your background was Gentile. But yeah, it was a big process to go through. So Jewish Christians struggled with this idea that the Gentiles could just come straight out of being an idol-worshiping pagan and become a Christian just through faith, repentance, and baptism. That's it? That's all we're going to require them to come in? Now again, a lot was expected. I mean, you had to begin a new life. Baptism, conversion, yeah, a new life. So there was a lot of teaching, and a person would have been given this teaching, but they didn't have to first do all of this before they could become a Christian.

Like I say, it was a fairly easy process getting in. Now, yeah, the church later probably saw enough problems in Acts of these instant conversions of enough people then who didn't walk with Christ that they did want people to go through a period of instruction, which every time in Acts, you don't hear the instruction, but it's always Paul preaches to them a while, explains some things. Peter, there on the day of Pentecost, we don't know what all he said. I mean, we know part of his message, but then he says he shared many other things. So yeah, I'm sure they covered a lot of this, but the church, yeah, was seeing, okay, people are becoming Christians.

They don't fully understand what's expected of them. So there was more instruction. But again, you didn't have to have any godly works. You didn't have to be doing this before you could come into the church. Okay. So that's the big Jewish background. Okay. The difference between becoming a Christian, particularly in Paul's day and the Jewish, very big difference. Okay.

The extended biblical context. Okay. So if you're going to understand Romans, you need to first read Galatians. Paul wrote that letter a number of years before he wrote to the Romans. And he describes the problem that was going on there in Galatia. But we can see when we read Acts and other of Paul's letters, it was going on everywhere. I think you could assume every congregation where you had Jews and Gentiles, you had the same problem. And that was not every Jew, but a number of the Jews, they're called Judaizers today, were trying to force the Gentiles to become Jews.

In other words, okay, you got in without being a Jew, but now you're going to have to get circumcised. Now you're going to have to live by the law if you want to remain a Christian. And if you hadn't done those things, I mean, in some places, Paul, when he's writing to the Galatians, he says back in Antioch, yeah, the Jewish Christians wouldn't even eat a meal with you. I mean, it's kind of like what we were describing in Sunday school today. It's like you're being shunned. I mean, you could come to church together, but they wouldn't come to your house.

They wouldn't eat a meal with you. I mean, imagine how you would feel. Like our congregation, we don't have a division between Jews and Gentiles. Does anyone here have a Jewish background? Okay. So I assume we're all Gentiles. Okay. But about half of you do have an Amish or Mennonite background. And about half of us don't.

Now, imagine how if you were one of us who don't come from a plain background. Okay. It's now on Sunday. Okay. We're having fellowship meal. All of you who have an Amish, Mennonite background or Brethren background, you're welcome. Come out to Kevin's house.

If you don't have one of those backgrounds, you're not welcome. Please don't show up. We don't want to embarrass you. We're going to have to ask you to leave if you show up. You guys are free to go have your own meal. I mean, please work out something, but you're not welcome at my house. I'm speaking in the terms of Kevin. Okay. I mean, imagine how you'd feel. I mean, this is what was happening. Okay. So it's a big problem. It's not some theoretical thing he's talking about. The Jerusalem Council, again, you had these Jews insisting that these Gentiles are going to have to be circumcised. They're going to have to live by the law of Moses.

If we don't do that before they come in, then they're going to have to do it once they do come into the church. Acts 21, this is when Paul, right before he wrote Romans, or right after, yeah, I'm sorry, right after he wrote Romans, maybe before it was even delivered, he went down to Jerusalem to take this offering. And wow, find out he is extremely controversial. He already knew that. It wasn't something new to him.

And the brothers in Jerusalem told Paul, he met with them first, "You see, brother, how many myriads of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law." So you had these Jews in Jerusalem who had converted to Christianity, but they were still totally living by the law. And that was not forbidden. Okay. They're saying it proudly. This is James and others there in Jerusalem.

But they, meaning the non-Christian Jews, they've been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, nor to walk according to the customs. Okay. And then they said, "Go with these brothers who've made this vow, who are ending it, and go to the temple with them and offer this sacrifice." And of course, that's when the big riot breaks out, and they're ready to kill Paul. So I mean, this was a really touchy subject. Okay. The Jews hearing this.

All right. So again, just to get a bigger background. Okay. The background in the church, it's all throughout the New Testament, is this issue between Gentiles and Jews. So many of the Jews expected the Gentiles to become Jews if they were going to be Christians. If they didn't do it before their conversion, they had to do it after. Or that's what was being pushed. Okay. And this is what Paul is fighting everywhere he goes. And so are the other apostles. It's not just Paul by himself.

Okay. So the immediate text, we're going to read it. Okay. We're going to look at Romans 4:1 through 10. But like I say, if you're going to understand this passage, you need to look at the verses before it and after it. Last week, we looked at chapter 3. We're going to just read them again, the last five verses of chapter 3. You really need to go all the way back to chapter 2. But I mean, just for time's sake, this gives us the immediate context of what Paul's talking about. We're going to read down through verse 14, even though we won't discuss it today.

Okay. You can follow along in your Bible if you want. We'll start at Romans 3:27, or you can follow it here on the screen. Okay. We read this last week. Where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law? That of works. We saw last week the early Christians uniformly understood this. Paul, when he says the law of works, he means the Mosaic law. No, but by the law of faith. This would be the new covenant, the teachings of Jesus, faith in Christ Jesus. Okay.

Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law. So his discussion of works is almost entirely about Jewish works, the works of the Mosaic law. We will see other works he talks about today too. Okay.

Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. I mean, the issue isn't he's not saying now, some of you are believing you've got to live by Christ's commandments if you're going to ultimately be saved. Some of you don't. And he's correcting those who think they do have to live by Christ's commandments. Where does that ever come up? He's talking about Jews and Gentiles through this whole thing.

Seeing it is one God who will justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. Again, he never is talking about Jesus's commandments. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. On the contrary, we establish the law talking about the Mosaic law.

Okay. Now we're getting to today's lesson. What will we say then that Abraham has found our father as to the flesh? He's talking as a Jew. For if Abraham were justified by works, he has something in which to glory, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Now, to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace or gift, a gift, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Now, again, in a Protestant church, this is read.

And if you just look at this, yeah, you could easily imagine he's saying, "Don't try to live by Christ's commandments. If you think that this is going to affect your salvation, then you're trying to be justified by works, not by grace." And he's condemning that. All right. But that's not the context of his message.

Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."

Okay. Now, he makes clear now, in case someone is going to take these words and twist them, he immediately after them says, "Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcision or yet upon the uncircumcision?" He hasn't lost the overall context. He's still talking about Jews and Gentiles. I mean, it's right there in front of us. For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned when he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith that he had yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe. Though they are not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed even to them. And the father of the circumcised as to those who are not only circumcised, but also walk in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham, which he had while still uncircumcised. For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect. So do you see the context? I mean, can you see how dishonest it is to take those three or four verses and act like he's talking about living by Christ's commandments, and he's calling those works, and he's condemning people who are trying to do that? It's like his whole context is about the law. He makes that clear. I mean, you just have to ignore, which is that book. I went back and glanced at it again. Yeah, he ignores all this about the law.

And he ignores about Jews and Gentiles. He's saying, "The Jews are, yeah, these self-righteous Christians who think they're better than their pagan neighbors out there and all of that." Is that what Paul's talking about? When he says a Jew, he really means a Christian, a Christian Gentile. I mean, a Gentile Christian. And he's saying, "You're no better than the other Gentiles. Don't think you are." Where does he ever say anything like that? He's talking about Jews and Gentiles. And like I say, we can see from the other books, it wasn't something theoretical. The Jews did feel way up here above the Gentiles. And the Jewish Christians, so many of them felt they were up above their Gentile brethren unless their Gentile brethren first became Jews.

All right. So with that background, let's just quickly go through this. So verses 1 and 2, what will we say then that Abraham has found our father as to the flesh? Okay. He says, "Our father to the flesh." This is Paul now talking to Jews. Okay. Our father to the flesh. Okay. He's not talking about Gentiles now, but he says as to the flesh. Okay.

As he keeps saying, that's not very important that he's your father as to the flesh. The unbelieving Jews could say the same thing. All right. For if Abraham were justified by works, he has something in which to glory or boast, some translations say, but not before God.

Okay. Since Paul is directing his argument toward the Jews, he carefully chooses Abraham as an example. Why? Because the Jews called Abraham their father. That was their big thing. Our father, Abraham. He said, "Okay. Okay. So you want to call Abraham your father." Okay.

And the Bible says that he believed and God counted his faith as righteousness or reckoned his faith as righteousness. Okay. So he says, "Let's just take a look at Abraham. Was he living under the law? Was he circumcised when all of this happened?"

And he's showing that no. I mean, the law was hundreds of years later. So Abraham, whom you look up to so much, he says, "Yeah. Okay. So you think it's so important, yeah, you're a child of Abraham." He didn't even live under the law. He didn't keep the Sabbath. He didn't keep any of these things that you're so zealous about. He wasn't even circumcised. So all these things that you're trying to force on the Gentiles wasn't even true of Abraham.

Now, okay, so he says Abraham was justified without works. Okay. Or if he were justified by works, he has something in which to boast. Now, what kind of works is he talking about? He does in this passage talk about works other than the Mosaic law. In this verse, most of the early Christians understand him to be talking about works of the Mosaic law, however.

I'll just give you some example quotes here. Theodoret, "Abraham did not obtain the divine attestation by living according to the law, but he enjoyed the riches of justification by believing on him who called him." Origen, "Whereas the observance of the law merely evades punishment, the merit of faith awaits the hope of the promise." Okay. So he's setting faith not against Christian obedience, but against the Mosaic law.

Ambrose asked, "What then are we to say was found by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh?" Quoting verse 1, "After having explained that no one can be justified in God's eyes through the works of the law, Paul establishes that even Abraham did not deserve anything according to the flesh, by which he meant circumcision. Because Abraham had already been justified before he was circumcised. He sought no benefit through circumcision. For if Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God." That is Paul's point as he develops his exposition. So they're understanding him to be talking about circumcision and the works of the law.

Okay. There's another stronger reason to believe that Paul here, when he says Abraham, if he were justified by works, he has something in which to boast. And that's his if he's talking about Christian works, then that puts him in direct conflict with James. And James was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Because James declares, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?" So one is saying he wasn't justified by works. The other says he was justified by works. So either you have a contradiction in scripture or you do what Martin Luther did and say, "Oh, James, that's an epistle of straw. Yeah, you don't even have to read that.

And we're not going to do that. We believe they're both inspired by the Holy Spirit." So they both have to be true. In short, Paul is saying if Abraham were justified by works, he has something in which to glory. And James says Abraham was justified by works.

But James isn't talking about circumcision, the works of the law. He never talks about those things. He talks about Abraham's willingness to offer up his son, which is a totally different kind of work. It's a work of faith. It has nothing to do with the law, nothing to do with the covenant of circumcision. This would indicate that Paul is speaking about works of the law in this verse. Otherwise, he and James are contradicting each other. If he's talking about works of the law, which is his context, James is talking about Christian works or works of faith, they're not in conflict with each other.

Okay. When Paul is quoting there about Abraham being justified, he's quoting from Genesis 15:6. The setting of that verse was that God had just promised Abraham that he would have an heir from his body and that his descendants would be so numerous that they would be like the stars of heaven.

Now, when he says this, it wouldn't take a lot of faith if you're a young man, you're in your 20s, 30s, whatever, a young wife. I mean, maybe a little faith. Not everybody has children. But Abraham is like going on 100. His wife is 70, 80, whatever, has been bearing her whole life, even when she was young. She's well past the age of childbearing.

And now God says, "You're going to have a son through her." Okay. Yeah. That is going to take faith to believe that. It's going to take incredible faith. Hebrews says, "From one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude." So yeah, not through any human way was he going to be able to have a child.

Okay. I've quoted this before, but Chrysostom brings it up as he goes through Romans a number of times. Unless we receive Paul's words with proper caution and keep looking to the point of the apostle, countless inconsistencies are going to follow.

And so why is warning? It had already happened. I mean, the Gnostics were taking Paul's words in Romans and going all over the place with them. And so Chrysostom, let's look at what Paul's talking about. He says, "Keep looking to the point of the apostle." That means the context. What is his whole discussion about? If you don't do that, you're going to be going into all places that are going to be inconsistent because he talked about works in chapter 2. And he said, "Your judgment is going to be based on works." So are we to believe that he suddenly had a brain transplant between chapter 2 and chapter 4? Now, works are bad. And boy, you don't need works and all of that.

And if you're looking to be justified by works, then you're lost. It's like, "Wait a minute. You just said our judgment is going to be based on works, not just judgment of rewards, but eternal life or eternal damnation." And now you're saying something contradictory of, "Well, of course he's not." And that's what Chrysostom is saying. Pay attention to what point he's driving at. So what is the point? Okay. Number one, he's discussing initial salvation. Chapter 2, when he talks about judgment, he's talking about our final salvation at the time that we die when it's determined, yeah, what our judgment's going to be. We don't go to the judgment seat of Christ when we die, but we either go to paradise or we go to Hades to wait for the day of judgment.

But either way, yeah, anything can happen before we die, but when we die, then it's set. It's too late then to repent. It's too late to do anything once you die. So he's talking about our initial salvation, number one.

And again, that was one of the points of contention that it didn't take a lot to become a Christian, to get your initial justification. I mean, it wasn't just coming in, "Okay, now I'm a Christian," but that God would justify you, forgive all of your past sins, give you this status. You are now a righteous person, even though you really aren't, but God gives you that standing before him when you are converted and become a Christian. It doesn't have to wait. You don't have to finally reach that level. You start off with it. Okay.

And so Paul is talking about our initial salvation here in chapter 4. And again, he's defending the Gentiles against the Judaizers, against the unbelieving Jews, against even Jewish Christians who, yeah, weren't clear on this point. The Jewish believers, when they came to baptism, they came with circumcision and the works of the law. Most of them were obeying the law. The Gentiles brought none of these things. He's trying to get this point across. And he keeps going over it over and over again in Romans. And it did finally succeed. I mean, no one pressured any of us, I think I've said this before, to live by the law.

No one has come up and said, "You were eating pork the other day when I stopped by your house, and don't you know that's forbidden?" I mean, see, we're not having to fight that battle today. Paul fought it for us, and so did the other apostles. It was finished by the end of the first century. No one was having to fight this anymore.

Okay. So Abraham was declared righteous before either the institution of circumcision or the law. If he could be justified that way, so can a Gentile. That is Paul's logic. That's the point he's getting across. So although Paul could have used Abraham as an example of someone justified by godly works, James uses that. And there we're talking about justification after baptism. Okay. But Paul here is talking about the initial conversion. And he chose to use him as someone who is justified apart from works, but he's using that with Abraham to talk about works of the law and circumcision. Okay. As outstanding as were Abraham's works, his faith was even more remarkable. That is because it was his extraordinary faith that led to his righteous works.

So we would tend to think the works are better than the faith. But Paul says, "No, it's the other way around." The faith comes first. And that's actually God looks at that as above works. Paul isn't slamming godly works, but he's saying the faith is actually even more important. So for the Jewish Christians to say, "Well, all you had is faith when you came to baptism." Well, no, that's not how you look at faith. Oh, that's all you have. No, it's like, "Wow, you had faith." Okay.

Because Abraham, look what faith did for him. Now, again, this isn't easy believeism faith. I mean, this is genuine faith in the ability of God to save us and to give our lives to our Savior.

Now, the early Christians, all of the ones I have been reading on Romans, all understand Paul to have written Hebrew. So we're going to take that position. And notice what he says here. By faith, Abraham obeyed. So faith and obedience are not, they're not two enemies. Okay. By faith, Abraham obeyed. Now, which came first, the obeying or the faith?

The faith came first. Okay. First, he had faith when God told him to leave his home. Okay. I don't know if he had to cogitate on that or not. Most of us like, "Whoa, okay, where are you taking me? I'm not going to tell you.

I'm going to take you to a land you've never been to before." Okay. Abraham has faith. Okay. God wants me to do this. I believe God, I will do it. Okay. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. Not because he was mixed up, because God hadn't explained where it was going to be. All right.

It wasn't just a one-time faith. Paul goes on. By faith, he dwelt in the land of promise. So he didn't just go there and suddenly, "Okay, now you're king here and solved you." He never inherited that land. His whole life, he was just a pilgrim wandering about, living in tents, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.

By faith, Abraham, again, each time it's by faith. When he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promise offered up his only begotten son. Again, Paul is saying his faith is actually even greater, more remarkable than what he actually did offering up his son. Because he had the faith to do this because he believed that God would bring Isaac back from the dead. Because he said that all of these heirs were going to come through Isaac. Now he wants me to kill Isaac, but the heirs are going to come through him. So I guess God's going to bring him back from the dead. Otherwise, how can I have these heirs? So he had that remarkable faith, and that allowed him to go through.

Well, he didn't kill Isaac, but he was ready to do so. So Abraham's faith preceded his works. Therefore, Paul is saying that Abraham's faith was something even greater than his works. This explains why the Gentiles could be justified without any works, either works of the law or even godly works. It was if they came with faith that Jesus Christ died for them, that he was their Lord. He's resurrected from the dead, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that their sins could be forgiven through Jesus Christ. That faith was enough for them to be justified and to be able to come into the church. But as in the case of Abraham, works would need to follow.

Origen writes, "Faith that believes in the one who justifies is the beginning of being justified by God." Okay. So you're justified by faith when you come in, but James says later, talks about being justified by works. Okay. In other words, you get a clean standing, but then you have to maintain that through an obedient walk with Jesus Christ. And this faith, when it has been justified, is firmly embedded in the soil of the soul, like a root that has received rain, so that when it begins to be cultivated by God's law, branches arise from it, which bring forth the fruit of works. Okay. So the faith is there. And at the time of baptism, for most Gentiles, that was all.

I mean, they came in with just that, the Philippian jailer, the ones he preached to on Mars Hill, so many other examples. Okay. They had that faith, but it was like a seed down there, a root. Origen is saying, "You water that, you cultivate it, it's going to grow into a plant, it's going to produce fruit."

The root of righteousness, therefore, does not grow out of the works, but rather the fruit of works grow out of the root of righteousness. Okay. So you're going to have that root of righteousness, the faith, first in you. You don't just pick up the Bible that there have been people who've done this through the centuries, and sometimes they've done a decent job of it. They pick up the Bible, they read Jesus's teachings, and they go on, "I'm going to live by this." And some of them haven't done half bad. They've done as good as a lot of people who call themselves Christians, but they don't have faith in Christ. And that's not going to do it.

It's not just he didn't give this just, "Oh, if you just live by these teachings," because you're not going to live by them perfectly, that somehow you can be saved just by doing that. No, you're going to have to believe in him as your Savior. I'm talking about like Leo Tolstoy. I don't know a lot about his life, but I know he tried to live by the Sermon on the Mount. I don't know if he did it consistently. I've heard that it wasn't that consistent necessarily. But he didn't believe in the incarnation. Well, I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. You can't just pick up the Sermon on the Mount and, "Okay, I'm going to live by this, and this will give me salvation," because it's not.

If you're going to reject the incarnation, if you don't believe Jesus came down, became man, died for our sins, rose from the dead, I'm sorry. You're not going to be in the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't work that way.

Now, to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace. And here, gift might be a better translation. It's the same Greek word, but charis usually means favor. It's translated as grace. It can also mean a gift, okay, but as debt.

Okay. So you've heard this many times. We'll say it again. Eternal life is a gift from God. It is never a debt, neither in our initial salvation or our final salvation. It's never a debt God owes us. It's always a gift.

Doesn't mean he doesn't want righteous works or require righteous works, but you haven't earned it. It's like in the United States. Okay. Let's say your whole life, you obey the law. You don't commit a single crime your whole life.

And probably that's true of most Americans. So what does that gain you at the end of your life in the United States? What's the United States going to do? Absolutely nothing. So you don't deserve anything. Okay. They're not going to punish you. Okay. They're not going to give you anything. You're not going to suddenly, "Wow, David, you've lived 71 years now. You haven't committed a single misdemeanor or a single felony." And so the government, "We're going to give you this gigantic mansion and estate and all of this stuff because you haven't broken any of the laws." It doesn't work that way. You don't get anything. The same way God requires us to live by his laws, just like the state requires us to live by their laws.

But that doesn't entitle us to eternal life. We don't get eternal life because we've lived the way we should live, the way our Creator has told us to live. I mean, that's a gift. And we should never forget that.

And there's no work that we can possibly do that would give us a claim on God that, "Oh, you owe me something, God, because I've done that." No, I'm sorry. I gave you your life. That was a gift. Then I've told you how I want you to live your life. And I didn't punish you even when you didn't live by my commandments.

But I don't owe you eternal life. I mean, that's something I'm doing because I love you. I'm not doing it because I owe this to you.

Now, to be sure, God put conditions on his generous gift of salvation. But our meeting his conditions doesn't somehow turn his gift into wages that he's owed us. Don't think I'm building up brownie points because I'm living by Christ's commandments. And so I've got this big stack of brownie points that's going to get me into heaven. It doesn't work that way. It's still a gift. But he chooses to give that gift to people who love him. And Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." So it's a matter of we demonstrate, "Hey, we appreciate the gift of justification you gave us. We appreciate your dying for us, not by singing hymns to you."

And it's fine to sing hymns, but Christ wants to see how we live. That demonstrates whether we really appreciate his sacrifice on our behalf. I'll give you an illustration. Okay. Let's say an employer of a company. Every Friday, he hands out paychecks to all of the workers. Okay. Is that a gift? No. That's wages. Okay. They've worked. He gives them a paycheck. No gift involved. Okay.

But let's say one day at lunch, he corners a group of workers as they're leaving and say, "Hey, would you do me a favor? Would you stop by the post office? There's a letter there for me. And bring it back with you after lunch." All right. And let's say these workers, "Sure." Okay. And they go get the letter. All right. They bring it back. And then the employer gives each of them $10 million.

Now, is that $10 million wages or is it a gift? It's certainly not wages. I mean, picking up a letter doesn't entitle you to $10 million. That's a gift. I mean, they wouldn't even imagine anything else than that it was a gift. Okay. It's the same way with eternal life. Eternal life is worth a whole lot more than $10 million.

If you could buy it with $10 million, yeah, there'd be a lot of people out there buying it. No. You couldn't. So yeah, no matter what we do here, we're doing it, first of all, with the gifts God gave us. If we use our hands to feed the poor, well, God gave us our hands. He gave us the means to be able to earn money to be able to give to the poor. All of that, it's all a gift from God. But there's a condition. If those workers had said, "Hey, look, union rule number blah, blah, blah. We are on our lunch break. You cannot require us to do anything. We're not going to get your lousy letter.

Go get it yourself." All right. Did they get the $10 million? No. Because it's a gift. The employer's putting a condition on it, a pretty easy one, "Go get a letter for me." But yeah, if they say that, they're not going to get the $10 million. We say, "God, I'm sorry. Yeah, I want the gift that your son gave in dying for me, but no, I don't want to obey him. I don't want him to be my Lord." Okay. Sorry. That's a condition on who I'm going to hand out this generous gift to, those who love me and love my son.

Now, unfortunately, Augustine, who did not speak Greek, completely understood the meaning of grace. He imagined that in the subject verse, Paul's giving a definition. So he thought that Paul was saying, "If you do anything toward your own salvation, if you have any role in your own salvation, even faith, then it's no longer grace." Well, that's not what Paul is saying. He's saying it's not wages. But he's not saying if you do anything yourself, even believe that now you've turned it into wages.

The fact that a gift carries condition doesn't turn it into wages. Okay. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Now, again, the book I was talking about, How to Be a Christian Without Being Religious, he thinks this is talking about Christians right now. Okay.

So if we don't work, if we don't try to obey Christ's commandments, but we just believe, well, then our faith is going to be counted as righteousness because he will justify the ungodly. You can live an ungodly life because he's going to justify you.

That's not Paul's context. He's talking about the Gentiles coming to baptism. Okay. He's moved away now from his example of Abraham. He's talking about the Gentiles. They were ungodly. Abraham wasn't ungodly. No one could call Abraham ungodly. But these Gentiles were who were coming to baptism, and they didn't have any works with them. He's talking about conversion works, not about works of the law in this verse. Okay. And so God will even justify the ungodly. He was doing that day in and day out with these Gentiles. They were coming in straight from being idol-worshiping pagans, and they were accepted in. Now, not all of them were like that. Cornelius, he came to baptism with godly works, and he's commended by God for that.

God doesn't look down on him. He didn't say, "Oh, I don't care about your filthy rags." That's not how God views that. Cornelius was picked out because of his godly works, but he still needed the justification from faith. I mentioned last week the Philippian jailer. Probably that morning, he had worshiped his idols. He probably cursed throughout the day, probably had flogged some people during the day. And then that night, Paul preaches the gospel to him. He's converted. He's baptized right that night. All of these ungodly works, they're all washed away. And he didn't have any godly works at that point to bring to baptism. And you don't have to. Okay. Again, in a Christian setting, normally you are.

But this is the point Paul was trying to get across to the Jews. It is by faith. On the other hand, a Gentile or a Jew who possessed good works but did not have faith in Christ could not be saved with those good works. So there were Jews who lived very exemplary lives. But if they didn't believe in Christ, those good works were not going to give them the kingdom of heaven. Lactatius mentions a Gentile. He says, "Let's suppose that it's possible for someone by natural and innate goodness to gain true virtues." We've heard that Kimon, who lived in Athens, was such a man. He gave alms to the needy, fed the poor, and clothed the naked.

However, when that one thing is lacking, that is of the greatest importance, the acknowledgment of the true God, then all those good things are superfluous and empty. In pursuing them, a person has labored in vain, for all of his justice will resemble a human body that has no head.

So if you're not going to believe in the true God, if you're not going to believe in Christ, all of those things, yes, God is glad you're doing them, but they will not save you. However, unlike so many modern Christians think, by elevating faith, Paul is in no way denigrating or putting down works or eliminating the need for them as we live out the Christian life.

Origen says, "After giving a—" well, he gives a hearty amen to Paul's words about faith. And this is what he writes. However, there is something we must realize. If someone has such a faith that justifies and by which he may glory before God, he is unable to simultaneously cling to unrighteousness. For there is nothing in common between faith and unbelief. There can be no communion of righteousness with evil, just as there can be no fellowship between light and darkness. So don't think that you can get justified with this faith. And then now I'm going to go back to the works of ungodliness. I'm going to just treat this justification as if it's nothing. I'm going to trample on the blood of Christ that made my justification possible.

And I'm going to live in unbelief. No, it doesn't work that way. You got saved by your faith, but now demonstrate that through this faith, you really want to be a child of God. You're going to accept the adoption. But yeah, he wants to see now how genuine your faith is.

So the early Christians understood that faith must be a continuing element in our lives. Clement of Alexandria writes, "For it is neither the faith nor the love nor the hope nor the endurance of one day, but he that endures to the end shall be saved."

So it's not a matter of once saved, always saved. Nor is it true that if a person does not endure, that it means they were never saved. There are a lot of Christians today, Protestants, who do insist on godly living.