The Revelation of Justification
Romans 4: Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
God uses the word “credited” in today’s text. From that term I get the picture of banking. Every week I will check the internet to find out how our checking account is doing in an effort to balance the checkbook. When I do this, it sometimes happens that the bank account differs from mine. Somehow, Tristan or Rylee must secretly get into my checking account and write checks out that I have no idea where they came from. I don’t like it when those amounts are revealed to me - when my reconcile says 500 but the bank’s only says I have 300. Every once in a while it would be nice to find an extra thousand dollars in there - that would be a nice revelation - but it hasn’t happened yet.
In a spiritual way, you could look at this world as a system of credit and debits. The debits would be things that we owe God - and the credits would be the God has given us. What’s in your wallet? Are you in debt, or do you have good credit? It often feels that we are up to our eyeballs in debt. The law reveals that we owe God more time. We owe our children more time. We owe our school more homework. We owe our parents more patience. We owe our spouse more attention. It seems like a never ending line of duties. But there is hope, as today we look at -
The Revelation of Justification
This might seem like a peculiar text to pick for an Easter Sunrise service. Most of the time a direct passage from Matthew 28 on the resurrection of Christ will be used, or maybe Job’s statement - “I know that my Redeemer lives,” or perhaps the story of Jonah in the belly of the fish or the disciples on the way to Emmaus. Abraham is not a likely candidate to talk about the resurrection and Easter. However, Paul makes a connection between the two in this paragraph of Romans. What is the connection? Let’s see.
Paul says, Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
The story of Abraham gives us an illustration of what it means to bring life from death - which is what Easter is all about. Abraham’s situation was hopeless. There was no way that he or Sarah could have children, since Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah’s womb was actually “dead”. But God made Abraham a promise in Genesis 15 - He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” This impossible promise could have either caused Abraham to doubt and give up or to grow strong and hope. Instead of weakening in faith, it says that he was “strengthened in his faith” through this promise. The older he got, the more he looked forward to the miracle that was about to come. His faith not only survived, it grew and thrived! The promise of God breathed life into Abraham’s spirit and kept it alive and well.
God’s Word said that when he believed God’s promise of an offspring to come through him, “it was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham’s spiritual bank account had a huge deposit put in it - called “righteousness.” When God looked into Abraham’s account - he only saw holiness and righteousness. Even though Abraham had not done one thing to deserve this kind of a record, at this point he hadn’t had a child, sacrificed Isaac, or anything. Yet his account was still given to him through faith. In God’s eyes Abraham was the richest of all men. He could be assured of eternal life, because righteousness was on his account.
And what happened? God did exactly as he promised. Genesis 21 says, Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. God not only spiritually breathed life into Abraham’s soul, but physically brought life into Sarah’s dead womb. Through that offspring, the Savior would be born - the life of the world. In this sense, Abraham is a great example as to what Easter and the resurrection is all about - God brought life from a seemingly dead situation.
On top of this, Paul connects this story of Abraham to the resurrection. How? Because Paul says the resurrection of Abraham’s faith is a pattern as to what happens to all people. The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. When we, like Abraham, believe in God - then we also are credited with righteousness. God refers to this in his Word as the first resurrection - when God brings us from the death of unbelief to life in faith. Just as God gave Abraham this life through a promise, so God also brings us to life and keeps us spiritually alive through promises. God opens our bank accounts, removes all of the debt, and replaces it with a credit line of unlimited riches. Faith in God is like a secret password that God gives us to transfer the funds from Christ’s account and put them on ours.
But what kind of faith? James said that even the demons believe in God, shutter. What kind of faith is he talking about? First of all, it requires faith in the death of Christ. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Here Paul reveals to us the whole message of salvation in a simple statement. He, Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins. Jesus didn’t go to the cross because Judas betrayed him, or the Jews trapped him, or because he claimed to be the Christ. Jesus went to death for one simple reason - actually billions of them - because of our sins. This passage assumes that we will take responsibility for Jesus’ trip to the cross - that we will admit that it was our sins which caused Jesus’ death. It convicts us as guilty.
But it also gives us comfort. If he was delivered over to death because of our sins- there must have been a reason for it. God says why that was in Isaiah 53, he was pierced for our transgressions - by his wounds we are healed. The message of salvation states that the Christ had to suffer as our scapegoat- to die and go to hell in our place - because of our sins. His account was given all of our debts, and ours was given all of his riches. The message of the cross gives us peace, in knowing that God paid the bill of hell that we should have. It is essential to believe this in order to be saved.
But it’s not just the message of the cross that gives us peace and comfort. It’s also the message of the resurrection. Paul says, He was raised to life for our justification. Anyone could claim to be the Savior of the world through his death. But a dead Savior is no savior at all. However, God was able to take the hopeless situation of a dead Savior, and raise hope to life in it through the resurrection of Christ. As Jesus appeared to hundreds of people, he was proclaiming to the world that it was justified. Paul is literally saying that Jesus was raised to life because of our justification. Justification is a big term - the way most people remember it is by saying, “just as if I’d never sinned.” It is a courtroom term meaning, “declared not guilty.” In other words, Jesus was raised to life because we were declared not guilty.
What does that mean? If Jesus was raised to life BECAUSE we were declared not guilty, it shows that the resurrection proves to us that God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice. We really are not guilty - just as Jesus declared when he said on the cross, “it is finished.” You might compare it to when you write a check out to pay for your taxes. If you send the check in without registered mail, you don’t know whether the check got there or not. But when you receive the check back in the mail signed, with the money taken out of your account, you know that the payment was made and accepted. In the same way, that’s what the resurrection means to us. It means that we were justified - God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice. Our forgiveness is a done deal. The payment has been made.
This is what distinguishes us from many other even Christian religions. Why? Because God’s Word teaches that we were already forgiven and declared not guilty at the cross - as proven at the resurrection. Our forgiveness is not based on a future action of God or a future action of our selves. We believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead, and according to those words of God our salvation is already complete - paid in full and declared to the world through the resurrection. Just as the promise of future life gave Abraham’s faith life, it is this revelation of complete forgiveness that raises our spirits and makes us live. My salvation and forgiveness has nothing to do with my actions. It is only based on the death and resurrection of Christ - which was accomplished long ago.
Years ago there was a prominent banker who had a seemingly very happy family life. He lived in a nice house in a prominent side of town. However, he was about to go bankrupt. And so to save his family from the shame, he decided to murder them all in cold blood, and then take a train to Colorado. He lived there for over twenty years until he was discovered after America’s Most Wanted was able to track him down. The saddest thing about the whole situation was that the murderer had stain glass windows in the ceiling of his house that were worth over a hundred thousand dollars - but he didn’t know it! He murdered his family over a bankruptcy that wasn’t even there.
So many people, like the banker, are spiritually bankrupt. They think that their lives have no hope. Maybe they are facing a murder charge, or the loss of a job, or a divorce. They think it would be better for them just to die or to try and run away from their sins by denial. The sad thing is that they - like the murderous banker - never look up - to the cross and the empty grave - to see that they are actually rich. They already have been declared not guilty. God has prepared a wonderful salvation for them. But they just don’t know it or believe it. So they go on living in guilt and sorrow for no reason.
Imagine if I put a million dollars in your bank account, but never told you about it. Would it do you any good? What if I told you there were a million dollars in your bank account, but you didn’t believe me? Would it do you any good? Would it mean the money wasn’t there? By no means. The only way the million dollars would do you any good would be if you went down to the bank and withdrew the money - then it would do you some good.
Thankfully, God has given us the revelation of justification - and also given us the eyes of faith to believe it. The message of Christ has opened up our hearts to the riches of our spiritual bank accounts. It shows us that all of our debts have been paid for, and we have been given the riches of forgiveness, holiness, and eternal life through the death and resurrection of Christ. As Paul told the Corinthians - you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. That’s why Easter is so special to us. That’s why we want all people to know the revelation of justification - He lives, He lives indeed. Amen.
