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Abraham's Revelation Of Jesus; The Light Of The World (Romans 4:1-25)
Mick Mooney, April 14, 2010Part of the Romans series, preached at a Web message service
An in depth study of Paul's letter to the Romans
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DownloadRomans 4
4:1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. (ESV)
Hiya, just been listening to your ephesians (enjoyed romans – very much) cos I’m studying ephesians and I came across this teaching which really blessed me in reading eph 1 and thought I’d share it with you too, it also linked with Gal 3:24- Gal 4:7.
In our culture when we talk about the adoption of a son we are actually talking about taking a non biological child and including it as part of your family. That’s a wonderful practice but that’s not what the bible means when it talks about adoption and it’s important we understand this. When the bible speaks about adoption it speaks about a father having his own biological son. What happened in those days was a father would take his son and would contract tutors and teachers to teach that child in certain areas to become effective in those areas. Once the Father was happy with the development of the Son he would then call a ceremony which was called the adoption ceremony. It was the acknowledgement of the young child now becoming mature, and in that moment the father identified the son as his heir. (The Jews still have a similar ceremony, BHAMITZVA where he becomes a son of the law, he has accomplished his learning).
The words then which the son is referred to changes, what he was always referred to was nepios meaning a little child, one that doesn’t have legal standing yet (Gal 4:1), but the reference then changes to a different word, Huios , meaning sonship, a mature son an Heir, one that can inherit.
If we can understand this meaning of sonship then you know you have been included not that you have to try to become, and we can take hold of our full inheritance.
At this adoption ceremony two important things happened the first thing is that the father prepared a cloak or robe for his child. A cloak was a very important thing in biblical times because it referred to your identity. It revealed who you are, just like a uniform identifies your status in society today. For example if you were a king you had a king’s cloak, a priest; a priest’s cloak, a butcher; a butcher’s cloak and so on.
The father prepared a robe for his son that would identify him as an inheritor, whenever he put on this robe everyone would know that he is now an heir.
The second important thing at the ceremony was that the father would shout out publicly “This is my Son” (still done at Bhamitzva’s) .
This information is helpful in understanding our identity as ‘adopted sons’ and our inheritance both of which the bible speaks a lot of.
WOW! Enjoy love from rachel.
That’s awesome Rachel, thanks so much for explaning this, it gave me some well needed enlightment on our heavenly Father’s perspective and intention in His act of adoption towards us, Kingdom kids. Thanks again, and be blessed abundantly.
Keeper.
Thanks brother -:) I am listing now..
Great; enjoy the good news!
Enjoyed listing….Thanks for sharing. Blessings
Thanks for listening Hagere
Glad to hear you enjoyed the message.
Mick, i just started listening to Romans 1:1-31. It's wonderful to know i don't have to judge people. My church is talking about the need of accountibility partners. Isn't that the same thing as judging one another? You are a blessing to me. Agnes Grace
Romans 5,1-11 was just mindblowingly amazing Mick! I feel like looking for more synonyms for 'good' as I run out of adjectives to describe Jesus… haha
Amen, Love you all!