As You Are

Romans 4:4-5 AS You Are

Contrasted ways of Justification

Here is two sorts of persons who have different things accounted to them, and in a different manner. The one is represented as working, the other not. not of grace: for grace and works can never agree together (Gill) The "worker" is put in contrast to the "one who.believes" (Dunagan) The line of demarcation between wages and a gift is work. When one works they get what they deserve- wages come as an obligation. When one does not work, there is no obligation to be given anything. Anything that they receive originates in grace and is delivered as a gift. (Boa) Verse 4 is a general principle in regard to contracts and obligations, that where a man fulfils them he is entitled to the reward as what is due to him, and which he can claim. This is well understood in all the transactions among people. Where a man has fulfilled the terms of a contract, to pay him is not a matter of favor; he has earned it; and we are bound to pay him. So says the apostle, it would be, if a man were justified by his works. He would have a claim on God. It would be wrong not to justify him. (Barnes) In verse 5 there is shift in the term works – it refers to a person who does not perform law-works, works that he sees as building up merit for him in the sight of God. The contrast is not the worker or the non-worker (Paul is not condoning laziness), but the one who trusts in works and the one who trusts in God. The trusting person does not stand before God in the capacity of a paid laborer, receiving his due for work done, but as a believer. He has no good works to plead None. His trust is in God who justifies the ungodly. He declares the guilty to be innocent. (Morris) It's either grace or works. (Rom 11:6) It can't be both, one or the other. If you did something to earn your salvation it wouldn't be grace it would be wages. If you worked for it, God would owe it to you. But salvation comes by grace, free absolute favor on the part of God. It was not something Abraham had earned, but something he was given by grace. It is not that man cannot do good works of any kind. He cannot do saving works of any kind. He cannot do meritorious good works of any kind. He can do nothing to make himself right with God. There are Four kinds of Works (John Gerstner) 1) bad-bad works, unsaved people can't do anything good morally, ethically before God that can bring them into right relationship with Him. These are the works of the non-Christian. 2) good-bad works. they're bad works in the sense that they cannot earn salvation but they're good in the sense that they're philanthropy, they're nice. So, this is non-Christian niceness. So, good-bad works are just non-Christians doing nice things. But that doesn't make them right with God. 3) bad-good works. These are the activities of hypocrites. They attempt to do good works, religious works, godly works but they're bad-good works. And that isn't going to save them either. Then there are good-good works. Theses works are impossible for a man to do in order to bring him into a redemptive relationship with God. And so, because man is incapacitated- to do good (Rom 3:9-14, 23Is 64:6). So faith then is not somebody doing good-good works for which they are rewarded with salvation, but it is somebody who knows they can only do bad-bad works, good-bad works or bad-good works, and in desperation they cry out to God to redeem them from their incapacity and in faith embracing the work that Jesus did not any work that you have done. So, salvation comes by grace. There are four reasons that you couldn't be saved by your works, 1), no matter how generous, sacrificial, and beneficent ones works might be, he cannot atone for his sins. 2) fallen creatures cannot produce the divine standard of righteousness which is absolute perfection. 3), if someone says they are redeemed by works then Christ's death is utterly needless. And then 4), if someone could save themselves then God's glory would be eclipsed by the glory of man. (Mac Arthur) Gk ergazomai,. It means "to do that which brings results." If we received righteousness because of some work of our own doing, then there would be no grace involved, it would just be merit. It would just be like going to work, putting in your eight hours, collecting your check at the end of the week. You don't go to your boss and say, "Hey, I've given a full week, please be gracious and pay me." You don't want grace, you want pay for your works; he's in debt to you. And God is not. God is in the debt of no man. You can earn no saving wages. God owes you absolutely nothing. Because the intended purpose, you see, of all men and all creation and everything that is to give God Glory, and if men were redeemed by works, it would violate the intended purpose of the universe. (Stott)

Condition that demands Justification

Unaccredited v. 4

This text is one of the most important verse in the whole Bible from the stand point of evangelism. In 3:26 It says that he might be the just and justifier of him who believes in Jesus. But here it goes father. He justifies the ungodly. The apostle tells us two things about this man who is justified. Frist that he doesn’t work (v5), he doesn’t produce any works. It is in contrast to the one who works (v 4) Here is a man who has no good works to show, he has nothing to recommend himself, his resume is empty. He cannot present an account or a bill because he has done no work to “earn” Wages. He has done nothing. He is a failure, he has not worked and therefore has no works to show.

Ungodly Second, he is actually ungodly. The term ungodly means not only a sinner, but the open defiant sinner. Every human heart is capable of that. Abraham, “the friend of God”, was a sinner. David, the man after God’s own heart, was an ungodly sinner (Ps 51) and Paul calls himself the “chief” of sinners and thus ungodly. (Moule)

Here he alludes to Abraham as well as the entire human race. We are all ungodly. Even the most moral people are in reality is ungodly. This was affirmed in the pervious chapter. (Rom 3). By comparison Abraham was a very good man, but by nature was ungodly. There are many people who perceive that they are good and please God. Many who think they worship God but who are really worshiping themselves, worshiping their own goodness. The have made a god of their own, and when they are truly confronted by God as he has manifested himself in the word, they dislike him. When God declares them so sinful and so hopeless they can not save themselves, they resent it. When God tells them that nothing, but the death of his son can redeem them they feel it is a personal insult. To them the cross is an offence. Now that is to be ungodly. The apostle’s statement if that God justifies such people. God doesn’t first make us godly and then justifies us. God justifies the ungodly, not the ungodly made godly, not the unrighteous made righteous. They are justified as they are, without works and still ungodly. We are justified while we are still ungodly (Rom 8:5) There is a prisoner at the bar; he is guilty before the law. He has no plea whatsoever to offer, nothing to say for himself. It is he as he is, standing in the dock, who is acquitted and who is pronounced free and righteous. (Lloyd Jones) The point of the word "ungodly" here is to stress that faith is not our righteousness. Faith believes in him who justifies the ungodly. God can justify the ungodly because his Son died for the ungodly. (Rom 5:6) When faith is born, we are still ungodly. Faith will begin to overcome our ungodliness. But in the beginning of the Christian life - where justification happens - we are all ungodly. Godly works do not begin to have a role in our lives until we are justified. We are declared righteous by faith alone while we are still ungodly. And that is the only way any of us can have hope that God is on our side so that we can now make headway in the fight against ungodliness. (Piper)

God does not justify them because he sees them to be or regards them to be righteous; but knowing that they are in fact polluted. He does not first esteem them, to be pure; but knowing that they are polluted, and that they deserve no favor, he resolves to forgive them, and to treat them as his friends (Barnes)

Confession

God justifies the ungodly. And inherent in that concept is that you see yourself as ungodly. If you don't see yourself as a sinner, there's no salvation for you. Unless you believe on Him that justifies the ungodly, there's no accounting righteousness to you. So, until a person confesses that he is ungodly, he is not a candidate for salvation, because he still trusts his own goodness. Those who are righteous in their own eyes have no part in God’s redemptive work of grace. To the one that knows in his heart that he can't work his way into God's kingdom by his own self-effort, to the one who knows in his heart he must abandon the self-righteous route, to the one in his heart who knows that he is ungodly, unacceptable to God, and by faith embraces the One who justifies the ungodly, there is saving grace. You can't justify yourself. what you must do to be saved is to do the very opposite and affirm that you are ungodly, that you are utterly ungodly. God only justifies one kind of person. He justifies the ungodly. God can only justify the ungodly. That's why when anyone thinks they're okay the way they are, they're unredeemable. End of conversation, because He justifies only the ungodly. Because the Pharisees never were willing to accept that estimation of themselves, they rejected Jesus Christ. "I haven't come for the people that are well, I've come for the people that are sick.” (Matt 9) Since you don't think you're sick I can't help you. Anyone who ever came to Jesus Christ came knowing he was a sinner. Paul said, That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. The only kind of people He can save, the ungodly (Jude 14). And until you face the reality of your ungodliness and your incapacity, you're irredeemable.(Mac Arthur) But believes on him, etc. This is a very important sentence, in which he expresses the substance and nature both of faith and of righteousness. He indeed clearly shews that faith brings us righteousness, not because it is a meritorious act, but because it obtains for us the favor of God. (Hodges)

Change Gk Logizomai means to credit or reckon when used in a financial or commercial context. It signifies to put something on someone’s account. (Phil 18). There are two different ways in which money can be credited to your account, wages – which is earned, or as a gift which is free and unearned and the two are incompatible. The contrast between the two types of crediting should be clear. In a business context, those who work have their wages credited to them as a right, a debt, an obligation, for they have earned them. In the context of justification, to those who do no work, and therefore have no right to payment, but who instead put their truest in God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited to them as righteousness, they are given righteousness as a free and unearned gift of grace by faith. So the crediting of the free gift is not an earned wage, an that is happens not to those who work but to those who trust, and indeed who trust the God who, far from justifying people because they are godly, actually justifies people when they are ungodly (Rom 5;8). (Stott) Men are ungodly in themselves, though, as soon as they are justified, they cease to be ungodly. They are ungodly till they believe; but in the moment that they receive the gift of faith, they are thereby united to the Savior, and are instantly invested with the robe of righteousness, They then pass from death to life, — a transition in which there is no medium; they are turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; for till then, being without Christ, they are the children of the devil. They cannot at the same time be both dead and alive — under the power of God, and under the power of the devil; they must in every instant of their existence be either under the one or the other. In that moment, then, in which they believe, they are justified; (Haldene) The faith which justifies is not mere assent, it is an act of trust. The believer confides upon God for justification. He believes that God will justify him, although ungodly; for the object of the faith or confidence here expressed is he who justifies the ungodly. Faith therefore is appropriating; it is an act of confidence in reference to our own acceptance with God. To him who thus believes, faith is counted for righteousness, i.e. it is imputed in order to his becoming righteous. speaks of God as justifying the ungodly. (Hodges) The good news is that God, in his great love, has made a righteousness available to all who find their confidence for life in Jesus Christ. We cannot work for this gift so as to earn it, merit it, or deserve it; but it is there for everyone who hopes in Christ. The good news is that there is free acquittal for the guilty who stop trying to impress God and men but instead rest in Jesus. (Piper).