ROMANS 4
The great subject of chapter 3 is the righteousness of God, but that of chapter 4 is the righteousness of faith: that righteousness of which the believer becomes possessed. The righteousness of faith is spoken of in this chapter as being found (verse 1); chapter 9 speaks of it as being attained (verse 30); the Lord spoke of it as something to be hungered and thirsted after. It is a very satisfying thing; for it puts the soul on ground with God from which there is a clear outlook into the whole world of divine glory.
We need to learn the righteousness of God first — to see how just God is in justifying. The righteousness of faith is the portion of those who believe on God in that character. Paul speaks in Philippians 3: 9 of “the righteousness which is of God through faith”. It was a cherished object of desire with him to be found in a condition where it would not be possible for any other kind of righteousness to intrude. Such a condition will be reached in the glorified state. But now faith is possessed of righteousness, attains it,
[p. 63] and this chapter opens out in a precious way the character of it: it is not God’s righteousness here, but the believer’s righteousness.
Abraham was the first one in Scripture in whom the principle was established of having righteousness put to account on the principle of faith. It pleased God to call Abraham and to make him the father of the family of faith. Adam was not exactly called, nor Abel, but Abraham was; the principle of divine calling first appeared in the ways of God in his case, and also the principle of having righteousness on the ground of faith. This is the principle on which alone man can become possessed of righteousness. Abraham was not the first righteous man, nor the first one who had faith. Abel was the first to be spoken of as righteous, and Noah was righteous too, and he became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith; but neither Abel nor Noah was constituted the father of the faith family as Abraham was. And in Abraham the principle was definitely introduced of having righteousness reckoned through believing God. “And he believed Jehovah and he reckoned it to him righteousness”, Genesis 15: 6; he did no works, he believed God. If Abraham has been justified on the principle of works he would have whereof to boast; but this could not be before God. It is necessary to be a child of Abraham to have blessing from God; it is necessary to believe on God. In this chapter it is entirely a question of believing on God, not on Christ. In chapter 3 we get the faith of Jesus Christ, and the faith of Jesus, but here it is believing on God: the soul is put into direct relation with God, as known through the glad tidings. Through the glad tidings we know God as justifying the ungodly, and we could [p. 64] never know Him in this character otherwise than by the glad tidings.
It does not say here that He justifies believers, though that is true, but He justifies the ungodly. It is very striking that it should be put so. It brings out in the clearest and fullest way how entirely this matter stands apart from any kind of merit in the one who gets it. God justifies the ungodly; that is a strong word, the impious. It is God justifying on principles of His own which do not recognize any kind of merit in the person justified. God justifies ungodly persons; that is the God we know in the glad tidings. Do we not love to think of Him, to believe on Him, in that character? Those who do so are accounted righteous; they are justified. We have been shown in chapter 3 that He is perfectly righteous in justifying people who have sinned; and then, to set aside every thought of merit in the persons who are justified, we are told that He justifies the ungodly. That is the God we believe on.
David is brought in as declaring the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness without works. This goes a step farther. The “blessedness” would suggest a very precious and divine sense of the righteousness accounted to one — a positive delight in it — and this involves for us the gift, of the Spirit. The gift of the Spirit is not directly mentioned in this epistle until chapter 5: 5, but I do not think that the: “blessedness” spoken of in chapter 4: 6 could be in the soul apart from the Spirit. It is instructive to note that in this epistle, which so fully unfolds the glad tidings, there is no point formally mentioned at which the believer receives the Spirit. And one can see a reason in the wisdom of God for this. God [p. 65] would not have His saints occupied with the particular moment at which they received the Spirit, so as to dwell on it as a point of experience. He would rather emphasise what the Spirit does for us, as making good to our souls what God is as accounting us righteous. I believe the first action of the Spirit, as given to the believer, is to make good in the soul the knowledge of God in justifying grace. He gives the “blessedness” of this in the heart; He comes as the “seal of the righteousness of faith”. The believer is set up with God as having found righteousness. He enjoys by the Spirit the blessed fact that his lawlessnesses have been forgiven, his sins covered, and that God will not at all impute sin to him. Everything connected with his former history of self-will has been blotted out; the Spirit witnesses that none of his sins or lawlessnesses will be remembered by God any more.
Paul says to the Galatians, “This only I wish to learn of you, Have ye received the Spirit on the principle of works of law, or of the report of faith? ... He therefore who ministers to you the Spirit, and works miracles among you, is it on the principle of works of law, or of the report of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Know then that they that are on the principle of faith, these are Abraham’s sons... Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, Cursed is every one hanged upon a tree), that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”, Galatians 3. This scripture shows very clearly that the righteousness of faith and the gift of the [p. 66] Spirit go together. And this corresponds with 2 Corinthians 3, where we find that in the new covenant there is the ministry of the Spirit and the ministry of righteousness. The old covenant ministered death and condemnation to all under it; the new covenant ministers the Spirit and righteousness; it serves out these precious realities so that believers become possessed of them. Have you known the “blessedness” of the justified man? Have you had the happiness in your heart of knowing that your lawlessnesses have been forgiven, your sins covered, and that God will not at all reckon sin to you? God would have you to know that this blessedness was in your heart by His Spirit given to you. Jeremiah speaks of new covenant blessing as being the knowledge of God in pardoning the iniquity of His people, and not remembering their sin any more (Jeremiah 31: 33, 34), but Ezekiel speaks also of God putting His Spirit within them; Ezekiel 36: 27. The two things go together.
“For by one offering he has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears us witness of it”, Hebrews 10: 14, 15. The Holy Spirit could not do otherwise than witness to the efficacy of the offering of Christ, and to the perfection in perpetuity of the sanctified, whether we think of His testimony in Scripture or in the heart of the believer. How could the Holy Spirit identify Himself with a doubt as to the righteousness of God, or as to the righteousness of faith? Romans 4: 7, 8, makes very clear what the righteousness is which God reckons to the believer without works. The “blessedness” of it is known in the heart of the believer by the Spirit.
This blessedness cannot be limited to the circumcision,
[p. 67] for Abraham had it in uncircumcision. Circumcision was the “seal of the righteousness of faith”, and Abraham is not only father of all them that believe, but he is “father of circumcision” to the whole family of faith. If we believe God, Abraham is our father, but then what kind of father is he? What characterises him? He is “father of circumcision”. The righteousness of faith has a divine Seal, and that Seal intimates plainly that the believer is henceforth to move on the line of righteousness; he must refuse the flesh by self-judgment; the flesh must be cut off. The family of faith is marked by circumcision in a spiritual sense, and the power for this is the Holy Spirit. There can be no doubt that for us the Seal of the righteousness of faith is the gift of the Spirit, but looked at as presented in the type of circumcision; that is, as power to set aside the flesh practically. The Spirit is given that there may be the refusal of the flesh in self-judgment by the believer. The righteousness of faith has this Seal connected with it; it involves that the believer is not henceforth to walk after the flesh. If we do not move on that line we lose the gain and blessedness of having the Spirit. “For he that sows to his own flesh, shall reap corruption from the flesh; but he that sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit shall reap eternal life”, Galatians 6: 8. “For if ye live according to flesh, ye are about to die; but if, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live”, Romans 8: 13.
It is interesting to see that, though the Holy Spirit is not expressly mentioned in Romans 4, we find these two things brought before us which could not be realised in the believer without the Spirit. The [p. 68] gift of the Spirit thus underlies the truth of this chapter, but presented in a veiled way for spiritual apprehension rather than in plain statement.
“For we, by the Spirit, on the principle of faith, await the hope of righteousness”, Galatians 5: 5. The “hope of righteousness” does not mean that one hopes to get righteousness; it rather comprises everything that comes into the view of a man who has righteousness and the Spirit; such a one has an outlook on the whole scene of divine glory. The inheritance comes distinctly into his vision. The promise “to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be heir of the world”, was not by law but by righteousness of faith. That was the principle on which the inheritance could be possessed. Abraham was told by Jehovah that he should be “a father of a multitude of nations”, and that kings should come out of him (Genesis 17). He was to inherit the world that be and his seed might hold all that God gave to them for His glory and pleasure. Now we know from Romans 8 that the called ones “are children of God. And if children, heirs also: heirs of God, and Christ’s joint heirs”. The inheritance is the whole vast scene of glory shortly to be revealed; it is all to be possessed and held for God’s pleasure by Christ and His joint heirs. But the ground on which we can have part in it is the righteousness of faith.
Then at the end of the chapter we find that Abraham’s history throws a further immense flood of light on this subject of the righteousness of faith. It brings out the fact that the God Abraham believed on was one “who quickens the dead”. Abraham’s faith laid hold of God as One who could bring in life where all was death; the power of life out of death — [p. 69] resurrection power — was with God. There are two great characters in which we believe on God. The first is that He justifies the ungodly: that brings before us the measureless character of His grace. Then we believe on Him as the One who raised up the Lord Jesus: there we see His power; it is known in resurrection. We all have to learn, as Abraham did, death conditions. It is to be noted that the reading of verse 19 is probably that he did consider his own body already become dead and the deadness of Sarah’s womb (see note in New Translation). He considered the death conditions, but after considering them he “hesitated not at the promise of God through unbelief”. The power of God is a marvellous thing — His ability to bring out of death. Abraham was the first to have the faith of that. Enoch had faith that God could set aside the power of death, and take him to heaven without dying, but that does not go so far as resurrection. It is easier to believe that God could keep a man alive so that he should not see death, than to believe that He could bring him out of death after being in it. Martha and Mary said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died”; but they had to learn that He could do more than that; He could bring Lazarus out of death after he had been in it — that is the power and glory of God. Abraham found inward strength in the faith of God’s power. He gave glory to God as the God of resurrection power. It is here a question of what God is able to do. Not now His righteousness, or His grace, but His power.
The gospel puts these great foundations under the soul of the believer, so that he not only knows God in righteousness and grace, but in power — power that [p. 70] has acted in view of justification. Abraham’s faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness. Now it was not written on his account alone that it was reckoned to him, but on ours also, to whom, believing on him who has raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord, who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification, it will be reckoned”. I see not only God’s righteousness and grace, but His power, active for my justification. Resurrection power is the glory of God, but it has come out in the way of grace to men; it has come out in relation to One who was delivered for our offences. If Jesus our Lord was delivered for our offences, how completely must that question be settled! No doubt we see here the anti-type of the scapegoat on which the sins of the people were laid by the hand of the priest to be carried away “to a land apart from men”. That is where the sins of the believer are gone, carried away by Jesus to a land apart from men, never to appear again. And now the power of God has come in to raise up Jesus our Lord from the dead, and He has been raised for our justification. How complete, then, is that justification! Who could think of a spot or stain on Jesus risen from the dead! Jesus risen from the dead is surely whiter than snow! How it lowers this wondrous fact to make it merely a receipt to show that the debt is discharged. It is infinitely more than that. It is Man placed by the mighty power of God in absolute stainlessness before Him. We may get a little thought of it by what was seen in the holy Mount. Matthew says, “His raiment was white as the light”, and Mark tells us that “His raiment was exceeding white as snow, as no fuller on earth could white them”. Was there less purity in the risen [p. 71] Jesus? Surely not. The power of God has come in to raise Jesus our Lord from the dead in stainless purity; Me “has been raised for our justification”. Who could think of a charge being brought against the risen Jesus? And I see there the measure and character of my justification. Is it not worthy of God to justify thus? Does it not surpass every thought of the creature mind T The blessedness of it is in the heart by the Spirit.
One would wish for power to be able to bring this blessed God before souls! It is not here a question of faith in Jesus our Lord, but of faith in God — God who has raised Him for our justification — who has set forth in that risen Man the character of righteousness of which He puts the believer in possession. Abraham gave glory to God. In the light and blessedness of justification this should be the continual attitude of our spirits Godward. We know His righteousness, His grace, His power; we are possessed of the righteousness of faith, and we have the Spirit: what is left for us to do is to give glory to God.
The angelic multitude in Luke 2 knew that all was wrapped up in the coming of that holy Babe, so heaven broke forth in joyous acclamations, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”. What a triumph! God known as doing all for His own pleasure, faith getting the gain of it, and having the seal of it in the possession of the Spirit!
“Jesus our Lord” intimates that the Person of whom he is speaking has become the Object of reverential affection. If He is not that to us, what we have spoken of will not have much value for us. But if we have the faith of Him, and of God who [p. 72] raised Him from among the dead, we have in our souls a solid and permanent foundation of peace.