This kind of faith is reckoned by God as righteousness (4:3, 22). The more we thus believe in God, the greater is the sensation that God is pleased with us. This is the righteousness of God reckoned to us as the issue of our faith. As we saw in the last message, faith is the living Christ Himself. When Christ comes into us as the believing One, He is our faith. Then God reckons our faith as righteousness. Thus, we have both faith and righteousness. This means that we are gaining more of Christ. We have Him as our faith and our righteousness. He is the faith by which we believe in Him and the righteousness which God reckons to us. He is our everything. The more we believe in Him, the more we gain of Him. The more we believe in Him, the more God gives Him to us.
The faith reckoned to Abraham as righteousness did not depend on the outward form of circumcision, because circumcision came later. Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision (4:11). Circumcision, as an outward form, was a seal of the inward reality. If we do not have the reality, we should forget the outward form. If we have the reality, we may occasionally need an outward form as the seal. Circumcision was such a seal to Abraham. Moreover, it was a seal to the believing Gentiles, the uncircumcision, of whom Abraham was also the father.
Therefore, Abraham became the father of faith (Rom. 4:16; Gal. 3:7-9, 29). He was the father of the uncircumcision who have the same faith (4:1) and of the circumcision who walk in the steps of the same faith (4:12). Abraham was the father of two groups of people—the believing Jews and the believing Gentiles. If you believe in the Lord, Abraham is your father. All the believers in Christ are his descendants.
The promise was given to Abraham and his seed that they should be heirs of the world (4:13). This is a great matter. Abraham and his descendants have inherited God and they will also inherit the world. Let other people fight for the control of the world. The world will be ours. After the wars are over, God will say, “Let My people have the world.” This promise was not given through the works of the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Who will inherit the earth? Those who have been called and believe in the Lord Jesus, those who have Christ as their faith and as their righteousness. Be assured that the world will be ours. We do not need to fight or strive. We simply need to believe in the mighty acts of God. Every day I read the international news to see what God is doing, especially in the Middle East. It is wonderful to be living in this age, an age of God’s activity. God is not only acting on behalf of the Jews, but also on our behalf. One day the world will belong to all the believing heirs of Abraham.
Do you believe this? I have the complete confidence that one day we shall inherit the earth. We should expect to inherit the world. The Bible does assure us that we shall inherit the world. Christ Himself is eager to come back and recover the earth. He is far more interested in the earth than in the heavens. The Lord will return to take the earth not only for Himself, but also for us. We are the heirs of the promise and we shall inherit the world.
The proof of God’s justification is the resurrected Christ (4:22-25). I like the hymn which says,
Father God, Thou hast accepted
Jesus as our Substitute;
Judged the Just One for the unjust,
Couldst Thou change Thy attitude?
As a proof of perfect justice,
At Thine own right hand He sits;
He, as Thy full satisfaction,
Righteously Thy need befits.
Thus, the resurrected Christ who sits at the right hand of God is the evidence that we have been justified. The redeeming death of Christ as the ground for God to justify us has been fully accepted by God, and Christ has been resurrected from the dead as a proof of this. This is the proof of the justification God has given us.
The death of Christ has fully fulfilled and satisfied God’s righteous requirements, so that we are justified by God through His death (3:24). His resurrection is a proof that God is satisfied with His death for us and that we are justified by God because of His death and in Him, the resurrected One, we are accepted before God. Not only so, but, as the resurrected One, He is also in us to live for us a life that can be justified by God and is always acceptable to God. Therefore, Romans 4:25 says that He was raised because of our justification.