IRRESISTIBLE POWER IN IRREPRESSIBLE
FAITH
IN GOD ALMIGHTY THROUGH JESUS CHRIST
HE GIVES IT; HE DOES IT
Romans 4 – 5:1
1.
The Site and the Situation Romans 3:27-4:2
The
circuit of salvation, repentance, conviction, conversion on the human side, and
redemption, propitiation and the blood of sacrifice on the divine side, makes
entry workless. Is this against the law of the Old
Testament
?
2.
Old Testament Examples of FAITH as the criterion
of the workless wonder of salvation: Abraham and David –
Romans 4:3-8
Scarcely,
for both Abraham (Genesis 15) and David (Psalm 32) entered by the same door,
route and reality – yes and realism!
3.
Ceremony or not, It’s the faith you’ve got
Romans 4:4-12
Abraham BELIEVED and was given the gift of divine
RIGHTEOUSNESS as his cover, BEFORE he was even circumcised, but then became
ancestral to those who were, so that his faith was operative in BOTH ways, and
also relative to our vision.
4.
Multiple Example in Abraham Romans 4:13-16
Did the LAW give Abraham his blessed condition and position ? Not at all, it preceded it! Was it not PROMISE
received by FAITH, from that blessed deity whose grace is boundless!
5.
Unwithering Faith in the
Dauntless God
Romans 4:17-22
Abraham was strengthened in faith, giving glory to
God: and consider Christ who at
As time went on, no child, a land not
yet founded,
his faith did not waiver, nor did it founder, but was irrepressible, founded on the unequivocal
word of God in whom he TRUSTED actively, practically in his pilgrimage. We are
not in this different: each has to be founded, to avoid being confounded, each has to receive commission for service of
the Lord, and to know His will and in the large dimension, DO IT. This is
normal to children of a great Father; and in this case, we gain it by change of
nature, status and dynamic, being insured by Him who assures us (Romans
6.
The Focus, the Fulcrum, the Shattering and the Peace
What the promise held, we gain who grasp it.
When Abraham believed the promise of the coming child
who would be king, blessing to all the earth, his faith was ACCOUNTED for
righteousness. Already, in germ, the Gospel was there and believing, he
received its gracious benefits (Genesis 15:6). We now have the flower, for the
faith’s object and objective, the Messiah, the Saviour,
the Lord in flesh, hidden not at all, open to heal, to help, to speak, to die,
to crush death, to amplify eternity to man, and provide the simplicity of
simplicities, the Gospel, even ventured into the hell fire of wickedness, not
to do evil, but to take and break it, for us who believe.
Raised in innocence that death could not hold (Acts
2:34, I Peter 2:21-25), He imparts
eternity to us who are part of His body, for whom He is to come (Isaiah 26:19,
I Thessalonians 4, Matthew 24, Acts 1, Titus
2:12-14), in whom even now there is a peace, growing from the fact that He
is our peace, our peace offering, our gracious presence received within
(Colossians 1:27), our ground of justification and our whole desire.
This is doctrine, but it is also dynamic, for life IS
dynamic, and the Divine Creator, now in you and at peace with you who believe,
has no limit to His grace, no end to His pardon (Romans 5:1-11), through the
life for life divine donation of a blood which needs no supplement, as does
that of hospital banks, for this bank has unsearchable riches.
See it in Ephesians 3:8-10, and rejoice!
“To me, who am less than the least of all
the saints, this grace was given,
that I should preach among the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ,
and to make all see what is the
fellowship of the mystery,
which from the beginning of the ages has been
hidden in God
who created all things through Jesus Christ;
to the intent that now the manifold wisdom
of God might be made known
by the church to the principalities and
powers in the heavenly places …”