Romans #19 The Nature of Justifying Faith

For the last couple of weeks we have been looking at Paul's use of the Old Testament patriarch, Abraham, as an example of faith. He does this in Romans 4. Specifically, as we have worked our through most of this chapter, what we have seen is that Paul points to Abraham to show how God justifies sinners not on the basis of things that they do but through the faith that they have in Jesus. Justification comes by grace alone through faith alone and Abraham demonstrates that.

If anyone is going to be accepted by God, forgiven of sins, and justified in His sight, it will be through faith alone—it will be through trust Jesus Christ as Lord and depending on who He is and what He has done. Your works cannot save you. Your good intentions cannot save you before God. Only Jesus can save you and the only way that He will save you is as you turn away from yourself and turn to Him in faith. True faith. Saving faith. The kind of faith that Abraham had.

To be a spiritual child of Abraham is to have the same kind of faith that he had. So Paul gives us a profile of Abraham's faith in the last part of Romans 4, which is our text for today.

Let's look at the way that Abraham's faith is described for us in Romans 4:18-25.