Faith Is Accounted For Righteousness

Alba 8-22-2021

FAITH IS ACCOUNTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Romans 4

John Newton, who wrote the song “Amazing Grace”, once said: “Down through life I have forgotten a lot of things. But these two things I remember. The first is that I am a great sinner. The second is that I have a great Savior.”

Anyone who agrees with that can say, “Amen!”

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He paid the price for our sins when He went to the cross.

By so doing, He both pleased His heavenly Father and appeased God's anger toward our sin. Our hope is in Jesus, and we must place our faith in Him for our salvation.

God has always required those who want to be righteous to place their faith in Him. This has been always been true. As far back as Abraham in the Old Testament it has been true.

Look at what the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Roman. Turn to Romans 4:1-8 and lets read.

“1 What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.

“5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, 6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:

7 'Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; 8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.'”

The entire 4th chapter of Romans is devoted to Abraham, whom Paul uses as an illustration of the central biblical truth that we come into a right relationship with God by faith in Christ through grace, and not by what we try to do on our own.

Abraham was a good man, even a great man. He is a model of Old Testament piety. Yet Abraham was not saved by the good he had done, nor could he be.

Abraham was accounted as righteous by his faith because his faith was in God. His faith was not in himself and not in what he had done. His faith was in God. That is how he came into a right relationship with God. And that is the same for all of us.

What does it mean when it says that faith was “accounted unto Abraham for righteousness”? That word “accounted” means “to put on one’s account.” So when Abraham believed God, righteousness was placed on his account.

If we bank on our own righteousness to get us into heaven, the account will come up as lacking the funds necessary. We need the Lord to put His righteousness in our lives, or we will always come up short.

Abraham's faith was seen from the time God called him and said in Genesis 12:1-3, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.

“I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

With no guarantees but God’s Word, Abraham left his business, his homeland, his friends, most of his relatives, and probably many of his possessions. He abandoned his earthly security for a future uncertainty, as far as his human eyes could see or his human mind could comprehend.

The land he was promised to inherit was inhabited by pagans, perhaps even more pagan and idolatrous than those of his home country.

Abraham may have had only a remote idea of where the land of Canaan was, and it is possible that he had never heard of it at all.

But when God called him to go there, Abraham obeyed and began the long journey. Abraham trusted God to give him a land he had never seen, and a posterity he did not yet have.

Several things happened along the way. But a few chapters later in the book of Genesis (in chapter 15) Abraham complained to God that the great nation that was promised wasn't happening. Abraham didn't even have one child of his own.

“Lord God, what will You give me, seeing go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?... Look, You have given me no offspring... 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 'This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.'