4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. ~ Romans 4:4-5
Today, we return to our study of Romans 4 where the Apostle is establishing the fact that the believer in Christ is justified or made right before God only through his appropriated faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And, today, we will see the masterful approach God chose in dealing with fallen man.
In v.4 of today's passage we read, "Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation."
Here the Apostle probes into the heart of the issue at hand. As we have pointed out several times before, Satan never tries to get us to follow him. No, he tries to get us to follow ourselves, and, in so doing, we follow him and his culture. Satan's goal is to get us to the point that we blame God for our fallen condition, and then, to get us to embrace his fallen approach to life and eternity.
When we believe that we somehow earn God's favor, we prove that we do not see ourselves as the wicked sinners that we truly are. To the one who knows in his heart that he can not earn God's favor, he will abandon his totalitarian approach to highlight his supposed self-righteousness. To the one who knows in his heart that he is ungodly and unacceptable before God, he is positioned, by faith, to embrace the only One who by His own humility justifies the ungodly.
Today's passage is included in the context whereby the Apostle Paul uses the Old Testament patriarch Abraham as an illustration of a man who had been granted the gift of righteousness through his faith in the God of the Bible. In context, Paul establishes the fact that if we work for something, then we rightfully expect remuneration in return for the work. When this is the case, the remuneration is not a gift, it is what we have earned. We have been paid as a result of our labor and it is an obligation that must be paid. As a result, we can take the credit for having earned the wages.
It is the default mode of fallen man to want glory. We all want varying degrees of fame and notability. The design that God created us with was meant to produce a glorious world for us, one wherein we would enjoy perfect relational harmony with God. But, sin corrupted the original design, and now you and I have inherited the desire to live for ourselves. Instead of living for the glory of God, we try to steal that glory for ourselves.
We demand to be in the center of our world. We take credit for what only God can produce. We want to be sovereign. We want others to worship us. We establish our own kingdom and punish those who break our laws. We tell ourselves that we're entitled to what we don't deserve, and we complain when we don't get whatever it is that we want.
If we were to somehow earn our salvation, God would be indebted to us. Imagine the God of the universe being in debt to sinful man. But salvation can only come by grace, because we are fallen in our sin and we can not perform well enough to earn God's favor. Righteousness before God was not something Abraham had earned, but something he was given by God's grace. Imagine this world with not one ounce of God's grace expressed.
My mind goes to the movie, Back To The Future 2, where Biff Tannen gains power and fame by taking advantage of time travel. Biff had gotten his hands on a future sports almanac that gave all of the sporting results still to come, and by which, through placing sure-fire bets, Biff takes over the town of Hill Valley. The town quickly became a place of relentless evil and hopeless despair just days after Biff gains his power. In fact, it resembled Hell Valley more than it did Hill Valley. Since then whenever I conjure a picture of the horror of hell, it is often accompanied by images of Hill Valley in Back to the Future II. And, it gives us a peek into a world where there is no grace.
In v.5 of today's passage we read, "However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness."
Abraham's faith account was credited by God with the largest check ever, God's righteousness. If God credited our account on the basis of our performance it would render the most disappointing of results. Since the Fall, man has been totally depraved. Total depravity is the belief that mankind is sinful throughout and can do nothing of himself to earn God’s favor. Because of his sinful state, mankind wants nothing to do with God as described in Romans 1:19-32. It is safe to say that because mankind is totally depraved, mankind chooses his sin, loves his sin, defends his sin, and glories in his sin. This is the backdrop one must understand if he were to understand the importance of the first word in v.5.
The first word in v.5 is "However." The Apostle Paul uses this word in order to turn us from self to turn us to the Savior. And, he uses Abraham as the example. The life of Abraham provides for us the perfect human picture of the gospel. Abraham was, in the eyes of God, a man who was dead to God because his sin had not been forgiven. Anybody who tries to earn God's acceptance by trying to perform for him, is a person who has not been granted a personal and living relationship with God. That is what this passage is saying. We are trying to gain something by our own merit that can never be gained that way.
Our faith in the God of the Bible is merely a channel through which we receive the acceptance that Christ has earned for us. Our faith in Him is an empty hand that reaches out. It is not God somehow concluding that we are so worthy due to our impeccable performance or faith. None of us can do enough good works of any kind to gain His favor. In fact, all of mankind beyond Adam and Eve were conceived in sins and trespasses. That means we were the enemies of God.
Several years ago, my wife and I decided to take our sons to the local mall and get a bite to eat at the food court. I knew that we didn't have much money in our checking account, but there was enough to buy the family a meal. I will never forget pulling up to the ATM and expecting to find a certain balance in my checking account. My jaw dropped when I learned that the balance was five thousand dollars more than I knew to be in there. Since, I knew the bank manager, I immediately went in to notify her that there had been a mistake made by someone. To make a long story short, I discovered the next day that someone had deposited over five thousand dollars into our account.
This is illustrative of what God does for every believer who turns his back on his own self-righteousness and places his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This illustration breaks down though because there is one really big exception here: the deposit God has made into our account with Him is much, much more than a mere 5000 dollars. The amount that He deposited in our account is infinite. This is a picture of the doctrine of Justification by faith. And this is the theme of Romans 4-5.
