Romans #7

My favorite Romans study thus far! I'm a fan of Abraham.

Romans 4:13-25

May 25-30,2011

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.

·       Abraham had hope in the promise that God had given to him. God promised Abraham a son, and even when it seemed unlikely that he would be given the offspring that he and Sarah were promised, he had faith and hope.

·       So, he was not given a son through the law, it was through the righteousness of faith.

·       In Genesis, it says that he was given “the land,” not the world….but the Messiah came through him.

·       Law and Promise are in different categories. Abraham is an heir, therefore he was promised this. The law is void. Yet, the promise is still in tact.

15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

·       Humans are not able to keep the law…so it brings wrath.

·       Transgression is a deliberate trespass.

·       Transgression provokes God’s wrath.

·       So, no law: 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,

·       Grace gives and faith takes.

·       God’s gift of his son is nothing but gracious, and the only way we can respond is through faith.

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.

·       Abraham was justified by faith. His works, circumcision, and law were not what brought him justification.

·       Gen 17:5

·       He is our universal father.

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.”

·       Abraham had a hope in what he could not see. He trusted the promise.

·       We are to have the same hope in our Lord Jesus returning again. We can’t see it happening, but we know we were promised it.

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.

·       Faith goes beyond reason. It is reasonable to trust the Trustworthy!!!

·       Abraham did not consider his circumstance too great for His God. He was confident in what was promised to him.

·       Abraham had confidence in his Lord. He knew that he could NOT have a child with Sarah out of his own power. He understood that he was too old.

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.

·       Abraham glorified God by letting God be God.

·       Even when God told him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, He trusted. His faith was not in his circumstance.

·       While he could have turned from God, he disciplined and strengthen himself.

22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

·       He believed God’s promise.

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.

·       Abraham’s justification by faith was not a unique or special way to inherit salvation. It was the way that God planned it.

·       This passage is to teach. It’s not just a story about a man named Abraham that we can’t follow.

·       And the God that we are to trust and have faith in is not only the God of Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, but he is the God of Jesus Christ who cleansed us from our sins and made justification available to us!

·       We have no excuse for unbelief.