Why God Imputes Righteousness Without Works — Romans 4

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. But we just try to teach the book and help you to understand when you read. All right, let's get right back where we left off, and that would be in Romans 4, verse 5. And we're talking now about Abraham, of course, who was steeped in idolatry as a young man in the city of Ur, and whereupon God reached down in grace and told him to leave the city, leave his family, and go to a place that He would show him, and Abraham believed God. And that's why I put these two statements on the board—the vast difference between believing God, which becomes faith, or just simply believing in God, which is a recognition that He's out there someplace, but who am I to have anything to do with Him? That's usually the attitude. But now we come down to verse 5, where Paul again has built his case that Abraham was declared righteous only because he believed God. Now we're going to carry that a little further in these succeeding verses. But now in verse 5, "...but to him who worketh not, but believeth on him who justifies the ungodly," and that's where we finished our last program. Remember, God cannot justify righteous people, that is, self-righteous people. God cannot deal with someone who sees no need. God can only deal with the person who recognizes that He is without God in this world. He needs Him, and then of course He immediately responds. So when you believe on the one that can justify ungodly people, then that faith, that kind of believing, is counted. Now that word counted here comes from a Greek word that was a bookkeeping term, and it's used in many other places in Romans as imputed, put to the account. In fact, let me show you the same word in a setting that's so easy to understand. Come all the way back to the little book of Philemon. The little book of Philemon, which is just ahead of the book of Hebrews, only one chapter long, and it's the same identical word, and yet here it's used in a way that we can readily understand the setting. Now if you remember, Philemon had been a slave, and he had run away from his owner Onesimus, and while he was gone from his stint in slavery and he had come across Paul's gospel, he became a believer, and now Paul says to be an obedient believer he should go back to his master Onesimus, but he doesn't want Onesimus to come down on him as a disobedient slave, and so he's pleading with Onesimus to accept the man back and without any punishment. All right, then if you come into verse 18 of Philemon, this is such a beautiful illustration of the word imputed as we see it in Romans. Oh, let's just drop in at verse 15 where Paul says, well perhaps he, speaking of Philemon, therefore departed for a season, he had run away from his slave owner, that thou shouldst receive him back forever, not now as a servant, no longer as just another one of the slaves, but above a servant, a brother, beloved, especially Paul says to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. Now you see Onesimus has a real servant. He's not only a servant for his physical needs, but he's also a fellow believer, and that would give him a fellowship. Now verse 17, if thou count me therefore a partner, in other words Paul is dealing with Onesimus on like ground, if thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. In other words what's Paul saying, when Philemon shows up at your house, open the door to him like he would if it were me. That's what Paul is asking. Now the next verse, verse 18. If he has wronged thee, or o'erth thee ought, put that on my account. Now what's he talking about? Impute it to me, that's the term. Paul says if Philemon owes you anything of monetary value, don't exact it from him, after all he was still just a common slave. But Paul says put it to my account, and I'll pay it when I see you. Now it's the same Greek word that we see back here now in verse 5 of Romans 4 as counted. It's imputed. In other words, how can I put it? Here as an unbeliever we have this long list of debts that there's no way we can pay. It's just a burden that there's no way we could ever pay it off. But by virtue of our belief in the gospel, what has God done with that debt? Canceled it. And on the other side of the ledger, God puts the whole bankroll of heaven to our account. Now again, that's beyond our comprehension, but that's what salvation does. It cancels our sin debt. Never again will God confront any believer with his sin. I'll remember years ago I was asked to call on a couple who had been going through some trying times, and the husband was in a debilitating disease, and I didn't know them that well. I'd never met them before, but I stopped by from the insistence of some of their friends just to encourage them a little bit. And as the lady of the house escorted me to the door as I was leaving, she said, Les, is this because of some horrible sin in our past? I said, now wait a minute. Are you believers? Oh yeah. Do you know the Lord has saved you? Yeah. No doubts? No doubts. I said, then don't you know what the scripture teaches? That all your sin has been forgiven. It's been wiped off the slate. Never will you be confronted with sin. If the Lord should come this very moment, and you and I have done something this forenoon that was wrong, and we haven't even had time to confess it, are we going to come up in the Lord's presence and have Him say, wait a minute, that Wednesday forenoon you sinned and you haven't taken care? No. No. We're forgiven the moment we sin. And oh, this is hard for people to comprehend. They say, well that's licensed. No, it isn't. No, it isn't. That's not licensed. That's just simply the grace of God that says God will never come back at us and accuse us of still having sin on our ledger. It's been wiped clean. And opposite now, like I said, the whole bankroll of heaven has been put to our account. And what am I talking about? God's righteousness. See, all of God's righteousness has been imputed to our account. That's what it says concerning Abraham. All right, let's read on. Verse 6. Now the Old Testament economy, when it comes to forgiveness and salvation, as I've said so often, is hard to put your thumb on it. It's just hard to reckon some of these things. They had salvation, no doubt about it, but it wasn't as delineated as we see it now in Paul's teaching. For us, I mean, the whole thing is just laid open and it's explained and we can understand it. But nevertheless, there was still a salvation in the Old Testament that Paul can go back and relate to, and he even uses David. And we don't ordinarily think of David as the man of faith that Abraham was, but here's what it says. Even as David also describes the blessedness, or the happiness, of the man unto whom God imputeth, there's that word again, puts to the account, righteousness without works. See? God imputes righteousness without our doing a thing. Now let's not confuse that with Christian good works. Turn with me now, hold your hand in Roman, we'll be back. Ephesians, verses that almost everybody knows. Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10. Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10. And again, you don't have to be a theologian to understand these. These are so simple. Ephesians 2, verse 8, for by grace. See what we've been talking about back there in Romans? The unmerited favor of God. For by grace are you saved by what? Faith. See? We're saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves. In other words, not anything that you and I can do. Again, I've got to take you back to Israel on the shore of the Dead Sea. They couldn't do a thing. All right, let's read on. It is the gift of God. And just ask yourself, do you work for a gift? Do you merit a gift? Never. Then it would no longer be a gift. But that's what salvation is. It's a gift. It's something you do not work for. But let's not put that in the wrong context now. Verse 9, not of works, lest any man should boast. There's that same thing that he said concerning Abraham in Romans 4. But now look at verse 10. As a result of our faith, as a result of the finished work of Christ being accomplished on our behalf, and it is now appropriated by our faith, God has imputed His righteousness to our account. But what does He expect? We are His workmanship. In other words, when God saves us, He doesn't leave us like a wreck. What does He do? He makes us a new person. He gives us a whole new personality. We're not the old person that we used to be. So we are a created thing. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the word workmanship is also, now I stand to be corrected if some Greek scholar is out there, but if I'm not mistaken, this word workmanship has the same Greek connection as our word symphony. And I like that, because a symphony, now a lot of people don't like symphony music anymore. They'd rather listen to this other stuff, but I still like a beautiful symphony orchestra. I think it just has sounds that are unbelievable. Now in that symphonic music are all these various types of instruments, and they all meld together for that beautiful sound. Now, what brought all that together? The composer, as he sat and was able to put all these notes, and this is a miracle to me how these men can do that, but sit there and put all the scores of all these various instruments together, and they all play it, and out comes this beautiful music. Now that takes something. All right, that's what we are. When God transforms us, when God makes us a child, when God forgives us, we become a symphonic work of art. We become something that has everything put together that we become a thing of beauty. That's what we should be. We're His workmanship. We are the result of the work of the eternal God, because we believe. All right, now read on. We're His workmanship created. Wow! What does that imply? Oh, just as big a miracle as when God created the universe, and I want people to know that. That when God saves the son of Adam and makes him a new person, it's as great a work of creation as when He created the universe in the first place. And that's what people have to begin to comprehend, that as a believer we are a unique creation of the only Creator in the universe, and that's God Himself. That's what we are, and that's what we better understand. All right, so we've been created into Christ Jesus unto, from that point on, what? Good works. Absolutely. Absolutely God expects the believer to perform the good works, but not for salvation. Not for salvation. They are a result of salvation. You remember when we were studying back in Matthew, in Matthew 25, and at the end of the tribulation, Christ will bring all the survivors. It won't be many of them, but the ones that are survived the tribulation, He's going to bring before Him in Jerusalem, and immediately He's going to separate the believers from the unbelievers, sheep and goats. And He's going to say to the sheep, since you did all this, and this, and this, and this, to these, my brethren, enter into the kingdom. Well, it wasn't their good works that performed their salvation. It was their salvation that caused them to perform the works. And then when He came to the goats, the unbelievers, He said, since you didn't do this, and you didn't do that, you didn't do that, go into your place of doom. Depart from me, I never knew you. And they're going to say, but Lord, you know, when didn't we not do these things? Well, He says, when you did it not to the least of these, my brethren. What's He saying? Since you didn't receive their message, since you didn't believe their message, and you rejected it, you had no concern for their physical needs. So depart. Well, what was their problem? They didn't believe. Why were the sheep responsing by meeting the needs of these servants? Because they were believers, see? Their good works followed. That's the same way here. You know, I think anyone can understand that our society today would not be in the mess that it's in. Our welfare system wouldn't be the gross mismanaged mess that it is if the Christian community would have done their good works from day one. But we failed. See, all these welfare programs should have been carried on by the believing element, in reality. But see, too much of Christian good works has gone by the boards along with everything else. But here's what the Scripture says, that we have been created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained. What does that mean? This is the way He set it up. This is the way He planned it, is that the Christian community should be the practitioners of good works, and that we should walk in them. All right, now I'll come back to the left a little ways to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We've touched on these things before in the program, but like in my weekly classes, I'm learning. I have to repeat some of these things. I sometimes don't like to, you know, because of the people that have tapes. They can go and repeat it anytime they want to. But for those that are not watching tapes, we have to repeat these things from time to time. Now in chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians, beginning in verse 9, Paul is dealing with this other side of our Christian experience. He's not dealing with the salvation end of it, he's dealing with the works part of it. Look what he says in verse 9, "...for we are laborers together with God." See, we can't do anything alone, but with God's help, who knows what we can do? You are God's husbandry. You're God's building. According to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, Paul says, "...I have laid the foundation, another buildeth thereupon. But let every man," that is every believer, "...take heed," or be careful, be judicious, "...on how you build thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." In other words, He's the foundation of our salvation experience. He's the foundation of our Christian life. Now in our Christian life, by virtue of our works, we become builders. We are building into this building that we are constructing with God. And God gives us six materials to work with, gold, silver, and precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble. See, six materials. Three of them will withstand the heat and fire. Three of them go up in a puff of smoke. Now look what the Scripture says. Ephesians 2, verse 12, "...Now if any man build upon this foundation, as believers, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble, every man," now remember we're talking only about believers, "...every man's work shall be made manifest," it's going to be put in a spotlight again, "...for the day," that is the day when we come before the righteous judge, "...for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed, or tested by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." Now this is not hell fire. This isn't the lake of fire. One of the descriptions of Christ is that He has eyes of fire. So as we come up before Him, and I think it will be at the judgment seat of Christ in 2 Corinthians 5, and when we come up before Him to be judged not for salvation, never to answer for sin, but we're going to have to answer for reward. What have we done as a believer? And so those fiery eyes are going to penetrate our whole Christian record. What did we build with? Wood, hay, and stubble, gold, silver, and precious stones, or maybe an inner mixture. Now when those fiery eyes are finished, what's going to be left? Only the three elements that won't melt in heat, only the gold, silver, and precious stone. And on that basis, God is going to give us reward then for eternity. Responsibilities, I think, is what the reward will be. This has nothing to do with the crowns, but this will be responsibilities that are going to be given to us in the kingdom. Now then, believers have got a lot of wood, hay, and stubble. It'll count for nothing. Others are going to have a little gold, a little silver, a little precious stone symbolically, and they're going to receive reward. Others are going to have a lot of those, and they're going to receive a lot of reward. So what's the whole lesson? That yes, we're saved by faith plus nothing, but what do we immediately begin to do? Work, see, and serve, and do everything to God's glory because the reward is piling up. I remember years ago I heard somebody put it that way. Everything you do for God's glory you're sending ahead, see? It's waiting for us. It's going to be there when we get there, and then we're going to be able to cash in on these rewards. Now, while we're here, let's clear up some of the false impressions. Verse 13, "...every man's work shall be made manifest." In other words, not a single believer is going to escape these fiery eyes of the Lord as He judges our works. It'll be revealed by fire. "...the fire shall test every man's work of what sort it is." Verse 14, "...if any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive," what? A reward is what the book says. Not talking about salvation, it's talking about reward. Verse 15, "...if any man's work is burned," now what does that mean? He's got nothing but wood, hay, and stubble. He never went out and grubbed for gold. He never went out and dug for the silver or the precious stones. He just fiddled around with wood, hay, and stubble. All right, now look what the Scripture says. Such a one, if his work is burned, he'll suffer loss, not of his salvation, but of what? Reward. He'll have no reward, and there's going to be a lot of them like that. They're going to be in glory. Now always remember there's no sin in glory. There's no sin nature to deal with. There's no Satan to deal with, so there won't be envy, so there won't be jealousy of those who have gained reward from those that have none. Now look what the book says. "...they'll suffer loss of reward, but he, the person who has nothing for reward, he himself shall be saved." That's what the book says. You and I might think they don't deserve it, but that's not what it's based on. Their salvation was based on their faith. Their works are going to result in reward, and that's what's to drive the believer to live a fruitful life, is that there is a reward being laid up waiting for us. And listen, those rewards are going to be enjoyed for all eternity. What's 70 or 80 years in this life by comparison? It's nothing. See, it's nothing. And so the whole concept of Scripture is, accept salvation by faith, but then when that salvation becomes a reality with God's leading and the Holy Spirit indwelling, we're going to work, we're going to serve, and we're going to have reward out there waiting for us. That's why Paul uses so often the analogy of the Olympic athletes. Why do you suppose they trained? Why did they strive to win? Because of that silly wreath that they could take home, which would be all dried up and fit for the fire before they even got home. And Paul's analogy is, look, if those men did all of that just to get a silly little old wreath, it's about all they got for reward, they didn't get gold, then how much more we should strive for reward when we have something that's not going to shrivel up and die, but we've got something that's going to be eternal in the heavens. See that? All right, where was I? Back to Romans, only got a few seconds left anyway. So come back to Romans 4 for just a second, 30 of them, half a minute. Verse 6-7, even as David describes the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Now verse 8, and here we'll have to stop. Blessed is the man or the woman, boy or girl, to whom the Lord will not put to our account what? Sin. Why? Because they're all forgiven. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.