Romans 4:18–5:21 How Do Faith and Grace Work to Give Assurance?

How Does Faith & Grace Work to Give Assurance? 

Romans 4:18–5:21

Introduction: How easily we say the words, “We’re saved by grace.” We say we know what grace means: its God’s unmerited favor toward us. That’s nice. But what do you have to do to get it? What do you have to do to lose it? How do I know for sure when I have it? Those are the scary questions. Those are the questions Paul will answer in this chapter. 

1. Prelude: 4:18-25 
   1. You will notice that there is a parallel between verses 18-21, Abraham trusting God’s promise that his and Sarah’s dead bodies would produce life that would multiply like the stars of heaven and us who believe in God who raised Jesus from the dead, so that we also, though dead, may be given life. 
   2. Please understand, the primary point of the text is that we are the children of Abraham (4:12), and what is said of Abraham is also being said of us. 
   3. Paul does not bother with all the flaws in Abraham’s life, his lies about Sarah being his sister and the Hagar incident. No, that would have been an argument of “Abraham according to the flesh” (4:1). Instead, Abraham never wavered in faith, lived for God on the basis of that faith, and thus his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.
   4. Though we have not taken the time to examine 4:1-8, suffice that the explanation of being counted righteous is explained in 4:6-8 – “lawless deeds are forgiven, sins are covered, God does not count a man’s sins against him.” That is a quotation from Psalm 51, which David’s confessionary prayer for forgiveness in the matter of Bathsheba. Incredible.  
   5. Those words imply a clean slate, and that is what it means to be righteous. Is that the way you see yourself before God? Do you say to yourself, “I have fallen short of the glory of God today – not as patient, self-controlled, and godly as I should have been – and there are things I shouldn’t have done and need to correct, but God has not counted these sins against me. These sins are covered. These sins are forgiven?  
   6. You see, Abraham with all his flaws, had a loyalty to God’s project of filling the world with God’s image, of filling the world with God’s righteousness. And therefore Abraham lived by faith – he lived for God’s cause. That is faith. 
2. “Therefore, We Have Peace with God” 5:1-11 
   1. With the beginning of this text we immediately notice how Paul has changed his approach from Jew-Gentile and the means of salvation tot he personal results of being justified before God. “Therefore, since we have…” is the introductory key to chapters 5-8. 
   2. Verse 2 is the critical foundation. Notice the word “obtained.” We have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Each of these words should take away any doubts in our minds concerning what God will do.  
   3. Verse 5: Put us to shame.” Please understand, “hope” in biblical terms is a surety. There’s no doubt. It is absolutely going to take place. should be added to this thought: “hope does not. That is, we are relying completely on the hope of the glory of God. Will we in the end lose it and be put to shame in front of the whole world, who will be laughing at us. 
   4. Now notice that the word rejoice is used three times in the text: 
      1. Verse 2: we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. This grace has given us hope to obtain the glory of God. There is nothing higher. 
      2. Verse 3: we also rejoice in our sufferings. While there are multiple reasons, Paul’s primary reason is that suffering prepares us for glory because it produces endurance, character, and hope. Suffering pushes us to turn to God and rely on his strength. As Paul said, when I am weak, then I am strong. We should rejoice in suffering because their is no other way to be prepared for glory!  
      3. Verse 11: “More than that, we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” This third cause for rejoicing is understood in what God has done in verses 6-10.  
   5. There are three main principles that results in our rejoicing over what God has done: 
      1. Verses 6-8 Christ did not die for us because we were good or righteous people or in some way made galant appeals to him to save us. Look at the words: we were weak (6), ungodly (6), sinners (8), enemies (10). We need to get out of our minds that we did anything positive that would cause God to save us, much less die for us. God has done the unthinkable.
      2. Verse 9 introduces the phrase, “much more…” The idea is that since God has already done the difficult thing, that is, , how much more will God do something that would be absolutely obvious. In this verse, the obvious is this: if Jesus would die for us while weak, ungodly sinners, who had made ourselves his enemies, much more will we be saved from God’s wrath! The clear point is that it would be quite ridiculous for Jesus to go through that for us, but then we still had to worry about the wrath of God! Please consider the gravity of this: 
         1. 2:5 speaks of “storing up wrath for the day of wrath” (that was us!) 
         2. 2:8 speaks of wrath and fury on those who do not obey (that was us!) 
         3. 4:15 “The law brings wrath” (that was us!) Cf. Hebrews 7:24-25
   6. Verse 10 offers a second “much more.” “Now that we are reconciled even though we were enemies, “much more shall we be saved by his life.” His life is his resurrected life. But what about it? Later in 6:4, we are baptized into his death and raised to walk in newness of life. To truly feel the effect of this, the Hebrew writer says, “but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” .  
   7. There is an  here that we must pause and make. Paul’s description of what Jesus has done so that we can have reconciliation and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, is not an academic exercise. Verse 5 tells us that 
   8. God’s love should flood our hearts. Our Father, through Jesus Christ, did not do this so that we would take a few minutes every week to remember what he did. His extraordinary love was not poured out in our hearts so that we would live our lives for work, fun, and the accumulation of material possessions, while sprinkling in a little “church.” He did it so that he could transform us into his beautiful bride, to “present us to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that we would be holy and without blemish.” Are you feeling that? 
3. Grace Abounds (5:12-21) 
   1. We will not take the time to look at the details of this text, but instead see the one great point of this paragraph as a conclusion. 
   2. This text is so different from the previous where Paul beautifully tugged at our hearts as he described the love of God. But here, Paul sees the necessity of taking the work of Jesus toward us tot he next level. In chapters 1-3, Paul crushed us with the stark reality of what our sin has done. None righteous! He proclaimed. No not one! We have burned in our minds our hopelessness. How can we ever escape! We are so doomed! C. Now watch what Paul does: 
   3. Adam and Christ are placed side by side. Adam brought sin into the world and death reigned. Notice the words. He said it over and over: death reigned. The idea of “reigned” tells us that there is a kingdom of sin and death, and we are the inescapable citizens of it.  
   4. But then there is Christ. While it is true that one man’s disobedience made many sinners and brought death, and one man’s obedience made many righteous (19), that one man, Jesus Christ, did not just balance the sin, he blew it out of the water: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (19). 
   5. 21: But now watch: “so that” – “grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life.” Kingdoms collided, and the reign of death is no more! Grace reigns! Grace reigns! Grace reigns! Sin and death have been destroyed. Praise God. Praise God.

Berry Kercheville

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