We continue to explore the subject of faith this morning. Not faith in a generic sense by which someone claims to have a little bit of religion, but rather, we are focusing on the kind of faith that is effective enough to move a person from under God's judgment, unforgiven, and without any standing with God to a position of perfect acceptance before God. Now the question that often arises is how much of this kind of faith is necessary to have a right standing with God? People go to great lengths to cultivate religious thinking and acting because they consider this to be faith. Yet it is not faith. Others strain their brains, trying to force themselves to believe something that they just do not believe. That is not faith either. Many substitute certain styles of behavior or venture into legalism or follow prescribed rituals. Yet these things are not faith, either.
So how much faith does it take to be right with God? We want to quantify this—put it into our imaginary measuring cup so that we make sure that we have enough. We fear that our faith might slosh out, so we best have a bit extra to overcome bad days.Yet the Bible does not offer a guide to quantifying faith. Instead, it focuses on the aim of faith, the substance of faith revealed in the gospel. Some had great faith and were accepted by God. Others had weak, thin faith and still found acceptance with God. What the Scripture shows us is that it is not the quantity of our faith that saves us from God's wrath but it is God Himself who does the saving. Faith does not save—God does through Christ.
I bring this to your attention because the tendency is to get our scale and measuring tape to see if our faith is big enough for God to save us. Introspectively, we search through the nook and crannies of our lives trying to see if we measure up to some standard of faith that we have conjured. When we do that we are putting our faith in our faith instead of our faith in Christ. The Bible never tells us to look to our faith. Instead, we are to look to Christ and live. Just like Abraham, we must rely upon God's promise in the gospel for the righteousness necessary to stand before God. Abraham had only a sliver of the gospel. But he relied on that gospel kernel that God had promised and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness. Paul uses him as an example so that we see that God has always saved in the same way: through faith in Him. What is this faith all about?
Hope is used more in Romans than in any other book in the New Testament [Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, 210]. Often, we find faith and hope coupled with each other. At other times, it seems that faith takes on characteristics of hope and other times hope appears to take on the shape of faith. So what does hope have to do with faith?
Our text begins with an oxymoron—a figure of speech in which the word seems contradictory or even foolish the way it is used [thus oxymoron]. "In hope against hope he believed." Hope is juxtaposed against hope. Paul speaks of two views of hope or two types of hope. One is hope set on the Lord and His promises. The other is hope set on human ability. Let's see how this is worked out.
"In hope…he believed," conveys a sense of anticipation on the part of Abraham that God would indeed fulfill His promise. And what was the promise that we've noted before contained a kernel of the gospel? "A father of many nations have I made you" (4:17). Though Abraham had no son by Sarah his wife, God insisted that not only would he have a son but that his progeny would be as the sand on the seashore and as the stars of the sky. And ultimately, "in you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Gen. 12:3). The blessing, of course, points to Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world.
God made the promise to Abraham when He took him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. Decades passed and he still had no son. You recall that he tried to take matters in his own hands by taking Sarah's handmaid, Hagar, as a second wife. She did bear a son but the Scripture consistently points to him as the son of the bondwoman and not the free woman (Sarah). Ishmael was a son of the flesh and not of the promise of God (see Galatians 4:21-31). When Abraham suggested that Ishmael might fulfill God's promise (Gen. 17:18), the Lord told him emphatically, "No!" The child of the covenant promise would be through Sarah (Gen. 17:19, 21). God had promised and God would fulfill His promise. That promise contained the necessary fragment of the gospel upon which Abraham could rely. "In hope…he believed." Hope gave him anticipation of God's effectual work to fulfill the promise.
We must distinguish between the way hope is used most prominently in our day and the way it is used in the Scripture. We might say, "I hope that I will not run out of gas even though my gauge shows an empty tank." "I hope that I will win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes." "I hope that I will get a new IPod for my birthday." That's more clearly termed wishful thinking. We have no promise or basis for expecting these things. It's just what we wish will happen.
Biblical hope does not involve wishing; instead it means confident expectation. We hear the promise of God and anticipate with confidence that what God promised, He is able also to perform (Rom. 4:21). It is an expectation that motivates you and affects the way that you think and live. The Apostle John explained that when we have the hope of seeing Christ it has the corresponding effect of self-purification so that we may be pure as Christ is pure (1 John 3:1-3). Hope is cultivated in the Christian walk through trials and perseverance. "Hope does not disappoint," Paul tells us (Rom. 5:5). It develops a deeply satisfying confidence within that all of God's promises in the gospel, all of the inheritance that belongs to us in Christ will be fulfilled. With that kind of hope, the believer is motivated toward faith and obedience.
Paul's oxymoron is found in the second use of hope: "In hope against hope he believed." The first hope, as we have noted, is the confidence placed in God's effective work in fulfilling His promises. The second hope is from a completely different angle. "Against hope" means that Abraham went through some wrestling along the way as he learned to rely wholly on the Lord. It was okay for him to look at the impossibility of having a son, just as it is okay for you to look at the impossibility of creating enough personal righteousness to make you acceptable with God. You need to explore the impossibility so that you run to the promise of God.
"Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb." God told Abraham that he would have a son. Yet the promise went unfulfilled. Abraham and Sarah were well past childbearing years when God assured them that His promise would be right on schedule. So he "contemplated his own body…and the deadness of Sarah's womb."
'How does it look Abraham?'
'If it depends on me, I'm sunk! But it doesn't depend on me! This is God's promise and what He promises He also fulfills!'
He did contemplate human impossibility but more importantly, he shifted that contemplation to realization of God's promise to him by believing.
"In hope against hope he believed." Even though everything looked bleak and impossible, Abraham believed God. Have you ever been there with your own spiritual life? Have you looked at your sin and looked at the weakness of your flesh and confessed, 'if it depends on me, I'm sunk'? Then you are right where you need to be! You're in the same position that Abraham, the father and model of faith for righteousness found himself. You look at your impossibility of drumming up enough righteousness to please God. Confess it! Admit your spiritual inadequacy to God. Then shift away from contemplating yourself to anticipating the faithfulness of God to fulfill His promise in the gospel.
Again, Paul capsules the gospel promise in the reason that Abraham believed: "he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, 'so shall your descendants be'." Keep in mind the focal point of this promise as Paul has expounded it in Romans 4. The aim was not to have lots of children and grandchildren. That would be part of the blessing but the focal point was two-fold. First, that the "seed" promised to Abraham would be the source of blessing for all the families of the earth. Of course, that seed is Christ! Second, because of that promised "seed," or descendant, then Abraham would be the spiritual father of "many nations." He would become the father of faith for all that believe in Christ. Consequently, "he believed." Faith realizes God's promise in the gospel. Faith transfers the bare promise written on paper or uttered in a sermon or shared in a gospel conversation into flaming, life-transforming, passionate reality. Hope focuses the heart on God's faithfulness to His promise; faith lays claim to its effectiveness.
Faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9) and not something that you work up because you happen to be more intelligent or better than someone else. How can one who is "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1) have enough life to believe? He cannot do it if he is dead. That's why faith comes as a regenerating gift of God, the very evidence of Spirit-implanted life in the heart. We understand that theologically as we analyze the biblical treatment of regeneration. But the person hearing the gospel probably does not understand any of that. He just knows his desperate need for Christ, his own helplessness to save himself, and the sufficiency of Christ in the gospel so that he believes. Later, his worship and his walk intensifies as he comes to grapple with the grace of God manifested at every detail of his salvation; yet for the moment, he just sees his need and looks to Christ. Yet having said this, how does this gift of faith operate at the point of need?
After Abraham contemplated the impossibility of childbearing for him and Sarah, he latched on to God's promise. Notice how Paul puts it, "Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform." The "promise" was not a vague idea that Abraham dreamed up. It came from God. It came by revelation. It contained the great "I will" of certainty by which God assured Abraham of his future (Gen. 12:1-3; 17:1-8). The repetition in Genesis of "I will" characterizes all that God does in salvation. It's the same in the New Covenant promises (Heb. 8, 10). It's not a matter of God needing our help when it comes to salvation. It's a matter of God's promise and action.
Abraham "did not waver in unbelief," literally, he did not go back and forth, thinking maybe, maybe not. Did that mean that he never had any doubts? Absolutely not, since we find in the Genesis record that Abraham had his struggles with faith. Yet the resolute action of his mind, heart, and will focused on clinging to God's promise. And why could he do this? He was "fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform." How did Abraham have this kind of assurance? The language helps us a bit to see this. It indicates that Abraham's assurance came outside of himself (passive voice shows this to be true). It came as he quit contemplating his old age and started contemplating the character and power of God.
This is consistent with what Paul teaches later on in chapter 10: "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (10:17). The more we listen to and contemplate the gospel, the more we think about who God is, how God displays faithfulness throughout the ages, then consequently, the more we find assurance growing in our hearts. I have been amazed through the years at how this very simple truth is overlooked by so many professing Christians. I've had people tell me that they struggled with assurance. I've asked, 'are you reading the Word?' Inevitably, most tell me that they are not. Occasionally, I tell them, well I cannot help you! If you get your assurance from me then it will be easily lost. You must get it by reading and contemplating the Word of God.
Faith looks outside one's ability and power to rely upon God's ability and power. What He promises, "He [is] able also to perform." The word perform is quite simple. It's usually translated as "to do." God does what He promises because He is "able," that is, He has all of the power necessary to accomplish what He promises. The God that created the world, that suspends the stars in each solar system, that controls the weather, that feeds the sparrows, that raises up and brings down empires and kingdoms; yes that same God is able to do what He says. Doubt your ability to do what you say. That is normal but cast no doubts upon the power of God to save to the uttermost!
How do we know that God is able? Aside from seeing the ample examples found in Scripture and from meditating on His nature as God, the one big reason that we can have confidence in God's power to save is that He raised Jesus from the dead. You are called to "believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." As Romans 8:11 declares, "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." There is the certainty in God's ability to accomplish what He promises.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones calls that phrase, "giving glory to God," "the very essence of faith." He writes, "Faith, ultimately, is that which gives glory to God" [Romans: Atonement & Justification, Romans 3:20-4:25, 221]. Abraham "grew strong in faith" or was empowered by God in his faith as he gave glory to God. It's the call to abandon all self-trust and self-effort to God's glory alone. It's the confession that all the glory belongs to God for every stitch of detail in my salvation. I have no boast! It is all of God.
Think about what you are doing when you believe in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ in His death to atone for your sins, to propitiate God with reference to His wrath, to reconcile you to God, to adopt you into His family, and to impute to you His righteousness. You are "giving glory to God." You are declaring that the living God through Christ has done what the collective human race could never do. None could ever create righteousness but God has imputed the righteousness of Christ to believing sinners. None could reconcile us to God yet Christ has done that through His death. When you believe you glorify God as altogether wise and sufficient for eternity.
For the third time in this chapter Paul repeats, "Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness." He draws the point of faith to that of righteousness credited to Abraham. The word "credited" is in the passive voice, indicating that it is God doing the crediting. We've translated it as imputed to indicate that God places on our accounts the righteousness of His Son whom we believe.
But was that only for Abraham and what we now consider an extraordinary faith? No, that's the point of the whole argument in chapter 4. Abraham merely set the example for us so that we come to understand that as we hear the promise of God in the gospel of Christ and believe, that He imputes the perfect righteousness of His Son to us. He no longer sees us as the filthy sinners that we are but as the righteousness of God! Paul drives the point home. "Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited [or imputed] to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." It's not just Abraham—the promise belongs to us as well! What Moses recorded about Abraham's story was not just for him but for us to see how God provides the means of righteousness, offers it by way of the gospel promise, and then imputes it to us by faith, who believe in Him. Christ has done the work of securing righteousness through His perfect obedience in fulfilling the law, and consequently, His all-sufficient death that assuaged the wrath of God and satisfied every detail needed for the God of love to grant us forgiveness and sonship. Faith is the means that the transaction takes place. God credits us with Christ's righteousness as we believe in Him.
Just in case we think that this is a generic belief in God, the same kind that the demons of hell exercise (James 2:19), let's close this study by seeing the particular focus of believing. We "believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead," and he further explains what he means about this Jesus raised from the dead: "He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and raised because of our justification." We do not just believe in God as Creator—though that is certainly important. We believe in the same God that raised Jesus from the dead! The same God that sent Jesus to die in our place before His wrath at the cross is the same God that raised Him from the dead.
That's the emphasis in verse 25. God "delivered over" His Son. It was deliberate; planned before the Creation. Our transgressions—our breaking God's law and defying Him, left us condemned. Yet God delivered Christ over to death at the cross to deliver us from the judgment we deserve. Peter preached the same thing at Pentecost. "This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power" (Acts 2:23-24). Roman guards crucified Christ at the instigation of a Jewish mob but it was God the Father that planned it and delivered Him over for our sakes. Do you believe in Him who did this out of mercy and love for those He would redeem?
God also raised Christ "because of our justification," that is, because our justification had been settled. How do we know that God accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ at the cross as sufficient payment for our transgressions? Look at the empty tomb! He raised Jesus from the dead, signaling to all that the debt had been paid, the righteousness secured, and sinners justified who have faith in Christ.
Have you believed in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead? God has promised righteousness for sinners who cling to Him through the simple means of faith.
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