You know your weaknesses, that you can’t live life the right way on your own, that you’re “prone to wander.” You’ve been dead in sins and trespasses, captive to sins of the flesh, trapped in Satan’s lies and unable to break free. People may have told you that you were “born this way,” and you know you can’t change on your own. Those are the “facts.”
But what good news this is: by believing the message about Abraham’s greater Son, that He came to this earth, lived perfectly in your place, died your death and rose from the dead, you are justified!
Think again about the timing of Abraham’s experience. Abraham lived before the Law was given, so it wasn’t Abraham’s obedience to the Law that made him righteous. No, he just had to believe God regarding life from the dead, and he was declared righteous! He was justified!
You and I, likewise, find our righteousness “apart from the law” (see Romans 3:21).
In Romans 4:19-25, Paul uses the experience with Abraham being declared righteous by faith as a teaching tool for us. “The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Romans 4:23-24 NIV).
Let this truth sink into your heart and life; it’s “for us!” No matter that you and I have not lived perfectly, have not kept God’s Law, have not measured up to God’s righteous requirements, we are declared righteous when we believe the gospel! When we believe that Jesus died for our transgressions and that God raised Him for our justification, our faith is counted as righteousness for us.
What amazingly good news this is, right? Are you a past pornographer who was in bondage to the disobedience of lust? You, as a believer, are now righteous! Have you committed adultery? You, as a believer, are now righteous! Have you previously been involved in the perversions and lies and lust of our culture? You, as a believer, are now righteous! Have you previously believed the lie of Satan that you can never change? That you will always be as you have always been? You, as a believer, are now righteous!
And why are you righteous?
Question 7. Please write out Romans 4:25, using the word “my” instead of the word “our”:
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