Eternity Daily Bible Study: No. 518 Romans 1-8 - A Righteousness That Is By Faith Verses: Romans 4:23-25 Topic: Righteousness For Us Too Date: 4th October 2005 Romans 4:23-25 HCSB Now it was credited to him was not written for Abraham alone, (24) but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. (25) He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Yesterday we saw that God wants people to trust Him as a God who does the impossible. For instance He was delighted when Abraham believed that God would give him children when both Abraham and Sarah were at a very advanced age. Now just about the most impossible thing is coming back from the dead. So God is also delighted when we believe in Him as a wonder-working, impossible-thing doing God, the God who had the power to raised Jesus from the dead. It will be credited to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. We are not required to believe a mere doctrine - that God raised Jesus from the dead. Rather we are required to believe in "the God who.." raised Jesus from the dead. That is we are required to personally trust a God who does such things. The faith is not in the fact, but in the God who accomplished the fact. This astonishing resurrection of Christ was in two movements. In the downward movement Jesus bore our sins in His body on the cross. This accomplished forgiveness of sins. In the second movement He was raised from the dead as a declaration that the full price of sin had been paid, that the sacrifice had been accepted and a Man (Christ Jesus) was now right before God - and that many more men and women would follow! Faith and promise are closely related. We have faith in a promise of God and that faith in the promise unlocks a blessing. Just as Abraham believed the promise regarding having numerous descendants and that unlocked a blessing - the gift of righteousness. Now Christ has secured a vast range of promises for us - including forgiveness and justification and the gift of eternal life. In fact He has secured "every blessing in the heavenly realms" for us: Ephesians 1:3 HCSB Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, in Christ; So Paul says this gift of righteousness through faith was not just for Abraham but for all "true believers". Including us, who believe in the God who raised Christ Jesus from the dead. "It will be credited to us who believe" - in other words, God credits our individual heavenly account books, with the "righteousness that is by faith" when we truly believe in Him. This awarding of credit to our account is only on the basis of our faith, that is our trusting attitude toward God, and not on account of any religious works we may or may not have done. This righteousness is the same righteousness that Abraham had and which David's Psalm described earlier on in chapter 4: Romans 4:7-8 MKJV "Blessed are those whose lawlessnesses are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; (8) blessed is the man to whom the Lord will in no way impute sin." In other words our faith brings us into a blessed state in which our lawlessnesses are forgiven, our sins are covered, and the Lord will "in no way" ever impute sin to us! In other words we are made like "Teflon" - no sin can be stuck on to us! Our past is taken care of: Our lawlessnesses are forgiven! Our present is OK: Our sins are covered! Our future is secure: The Lord will in no way impute sin to us! If you decide to walk with God and trust God implicitly and love Him deeply, He wipes the slate clean and never allows another bad thing to be said about you to Him! The decision to turn away from a selfish and independent lifestyle and embrace God is what we call repentance and faith. God is gentle and merciful and joyfully responds to being loved by us - by totally forgiving us. God is like the Father of the prodigal son who rejoices when we come home and wipes away all our past offenses and secures our future. It should be clear by now the sort of faith that God responds to is personal trust from the heart. It is the sort of faith that enters into personal friendship with God. It is trusting in God's character, God's promises and God's actions on our behalf. It is a lot more than believing a bunch of Sunday school stories. It is entering into the Story yourself! Your redemption is a story that the Lord wants to tell. And for this story to have a happy ending you must enter into the tale itself with God as your Lord and partner in the journey. Your life must be connected to the life of Heaven through Christ and the very energy of God the indwelling Holy Spirit must enter into the crevices of your life and the corners of your soul and you must trust His work in you and on behalf of you. This sort of faith has many names - opening up to God, personal renewal, standing on the promises, being a true believer, pilgrimage, the journey of faith, and so forth. They all describe a two-way relationship where we trust God and He enters into our life and circumstances. Basically as we decide to really trust God and relate to Him, then He opens the doors of Heaven to us and for us. As we love and trust God we are changed by the spiritual relationship and become better people. We are not changed by the law but by love and faith-filled spiritual relationship. God can safely forgive us because He knows what his love will do to us and in us. In His love He will first of all declare us righteous, then in His love He will truly make us righteous and holy and good, far better than religion or Law ever could make us. Once we start really walking with God in faith, sin no longer matters. It is forgiven, forgotten, never charged to us and eventually uprooted from us and eradicated from us. In fact we become "dead to sin" (Romans 6:5-11). It is no longer a permanent factor in the spiritual life. Blessings, John Edmiston (johned@aibi.ph) REFER OTHERS: If this devotional is a blessing to you, maybe you have a friend or family member that would like to start receiving this daily bible study. 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