Sr. Pastor Mark Stafford

Last week I talked about a story of scandalous grace – the story of Rahab the prostitute.  God’s grace was radical beyond measure!  When God extended grace to Rahab, He reached down into a situation that was so immoral and He poured out so much mercy on Rahab that it is nothing short of shocking.  You could call it “scandalous grace.”

James suggested that her saving faith was put on display when she received the spies and hid them from the king’s messengers.  When she hid the spies, her actions were an act of treason against her own people and an act of faith in God.  She stood with God’s people and she stood up against her own culture.

James 2:25 asks, “was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?”

It brings up an interesting question that many believers have:  How did people in the Old Testament receive salvation?  In order to answer that question, it is helpful to look at what both James and Paul have to say about Abraham.

Have you ever heard of Dr. Harry Ironside?   Dr. Harry Ironside was the pastor at Moody Church in Chicago for 18 years.  One weekend
while he was on vacation, he told a story about visiting another church and attending their Sunday school class.  The teacher of the class asked the group, “How were people in the Old Testament saved?

After a bit of a pause, one man piped up and said, “By keeping the Law.”

“That’s right” said the teacher, but Dr. Ironside interrupted and said, “My Bible says that by deeds of the law no man shall be justified.”(Romans 3:20)

The teacher was a bit embarrassed so he said, “Well, does anybody else have an idea how people in the Old Testament were saved?”

Another student replied, “By bringing sacrifices to God.”

“Yes, that’s right!” the teacher exclaimed and tried to go on with the lesson.  But… Dr. Ironside interrupted again and said, “My Bible says that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin.” (Hebrews 10:4)

By this time the unprepared teacher realized that the visitor to his class knew more about the Bible than he did and said to Dr. Ironside, “Well then, could you please tell us how people in the Old Testament were saved…”

Dr. Ironside explained that they were saved by faith – the exact same way people are saved today!

All people are saved through faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone – James 2:19-24, Eph. 2:8-10, Romans 4:1-3, 11, Genesis 15:6

Our passage today talks about Abraham’s saving faith. Look at James 2:21-24,

“²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

It is a common misconception in the church today that people in the Old Testament were saved by obeying the law and people in the New Testament are saved by grace.  In the era when the New Testament was written, many of the Pharisees were teaching that salvation came through the observation of the law.  They taught that a Jew could earn his way to heaven through his works.

They even added that any man who was not circumcised could never share in God’s promises or in God’s covenants to His people.

In this point, both James and Paul are standing back to back and defending 2 sides of the same truth.

• James argues that saving faith always results in works of righteousness.  He’s not confused… He know that it is faith that saves and our works prove the presence of faith.
• Paul argues that we are saved by grace through faith alone, apart from works but that a saved person walks in good works

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Keep a finger in James 2 and turn in your Bibles to Romans 4

In Romans chapter 4, Paul makes the point that salvation is by faith in Jesus the Messiah.  Works are the result of faith but not the cause of faith.

Last week I shared this slide, “The root of justification is by FAITH.  The FRUIT of justification is by WORKS.” 

God justifies people according to their faith, not according to their good works and not according to their circumcision.  Paul proved his point by using the Old Testament example of Abraham.

It is a brilliant argument.  Abraham was the father of the Jewish nation.  He was the original Jew.  The nation of Israel began when God promised to make Abraham’s descendants into a great nation.  Abraham was the father of the Jews both physically and spiritually.  They would have been compelled to follow his example very carefully.

Review: Paul had just spent the first three chapters of Romans arguing that we are not saved by the merit of our nationality nor are we saved by our works.  He now begins chapter 4 by addressing the false claim that Abraham was justified by works and not by faith.  Let’s pick up the text in verse 1:

4 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.”

What Paul means is that Abraham was not justified by works apart from faith.  He was justified by faith and that faith resulted in works.  Paul and James are defending the same truth using two slightly different approaches to it.

Abraham was a man of means and a man of action.  When God told Abraham to circumcise all the men in his household, he did it.  When God told Abraham to offer his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, Abraham obeyed (until God intervened and provided a ram as a substitute).

• Some people might be tempted to conclude that Abraham was righteous before God because he obeyed God or to think that Abraham’s good works earned him salvation.
• If Abraham earned his salvation, then it would be a perfectly logical conclusion that he had “something to boast about.”
• If salvation is the result of works, then you and I and Abraham could be our own saviors.  We would be the authors of our own salvation and there would be need for the cross.

The problem with that belief is that it is exactly the opposite of what the Bible says.  Look at verse 2 “² For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.”  In other words, Abraham can’t stand before God and boast about his own righteousness based on his good works.

If good works are not good enough, what is God looking for?  Romans 4:3 and James 2:23 are both a direct quote from Genesis 15:6 which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Skipping ahead to Romans 4:11, it says that Abraham’s faith was counted to him as righteousness way before he took the sign of circumcision.  [He was saved through his faith approximately 14 years before he was circumcised]  Verse 11 says, “¹¹ He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.”

Remember that faith is something totally other than mere belief.  It was not just that Abraham believed that God exists.  James says in James 2:19,

“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”  For our series in James, we’ve been using this definition of faith:  

Faith is “Trusting that God will Fulfill His Promises.”  It might be illustrated by a sky diver.

The guy in this picture can sit on the edge of the door of the plane and claim that he believes a parachute can save him if he jumps out of a plane.

Let’s ask a few questions about that belief:

• Does he really believe in parachutes if he were to take the parachute off, jump out of the plane, and try to save himself by flapping his arms?  It would be impressive if he could pull it off– He would have something to brag about.  But trying to do so would not be faith – it would be foolishness.  The object of our faith is only as good as it is trustworthy.  No matter how hard this man tries to fly, it is nothing but a dead work.  He Can’t Fly by Himself!  He needs something more reliable than his own ability.  He needs a real, proven parachute
• Does his belief in the life saving ability of parachutes equal faith in parachutes?  Not in itself!!  That man’s faith in a parachute is proven the day that he puts on the parachute, climbs into the plane and with no other back up plan, jumps out of that door – relying on the parachute alone to get him safely to the ground.

And it’s not the parachute plus his good works.  It would be pointless for this man to flap his arms on the way down and to think his extra effort going to help out the saving power of the parachute.

It is the ability of the parachute alone that is able to deliver this man safely to the ground.

Salvation is the same way.

• We can believe that God exists.  That’s not faith.
• We can believe that God exists while trying to save ourselves through our good works.  That’s not faith either – that just foolishness.  (Like flapping our arms)
•  Faith is “Trusting that God will Fulfill His Promises.”  It is being fully convinced that God is able to do what He has promised and then fully relying on Him to get it done. 

Faith is not irrational superstition – 1 John 1:5, 1 Peter 2:9

There is a common misconception in the world that saving faith is taking a blind leap into the darkness and just hoping for the best.

Some people think that people of faith leave reason at the door and take a leap out into the darkness and pray that Jesus will be there to catch them.  Hoping for the best is not faith.  That is superstition.  (It’s even a little stupid.)  Faith is not a blind leap.  We trust a God who is able to fulfill His promises because He has proven to be trustworthy.  The object of our faith is only as good as it is trustworthy.

The Bible NEVER asks us to jump into the darkness.  God is never described as dark.  Do you know how he’s described?  As light!  In Notes: 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

• Sin is darkness.
• Sin is uncertain.
• Sin provides a terribly unstable foundation.

BUT… the upward call of Christ is calling us to step out of darkness and into the light.  It’s calling us away from the tyrannical grip of the evil slave master called sin so that we can experience the freedom of following Jesus.

Peter says that God’s people are a “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)  That’s not blind faith.  Faith is “Trusting that God will Fulfill His Promises.”  We are able to trust Him because He is powerful and He only tells us truth!

• Jesus never asks us to abandon our minds and believe the absurd.
• Faith in Jesus is not a blind belief in fairy tales.
• Christian faith is not for the foolish or the uneducated.  Quite the opposite.

Throughout history, secular people have been putting their trust in made up entities that are known to be unreliable and even deceitful.  Non-Christian people have historically relied on untrustworthy foundations.  In the past, secular people have made up some pretty wild belief systems that included gods like Zeus, Ra and Baal.

We might be too sophisticated to believe in Zeus anymore, but our modern American culture is still trusting in false gods.  Just to name a few: they are trusting in:

• man’s wisdom and
• evolutionary science and
• materialism and
• secular humanism

…all of which have been proven over and over again to be less than reliable.

Faith in this fallen world is insanity!  All the evidence and all the reason indicate that man’s wisdom is deceptive, self-serving and destructive.

The man or woman of faith is not trusting in the absurd when they trust in the one True God who has been proven to be faithful. They are trusting in a God who, throughout the centuries, has proven to be supremely trustworthy!  He is a God who can and does and must deliver on His promises.

Biblical faith trusts that God tells the truth and that He is able to fulfill His promises – Jeremiah 32:17, James 2:23, Romans 4:17, 21

The Bible says that God made the heavens and the earth in six days by speaking them into existence.

• This God is a Being with power that is unfathomable and unmatched anywhere else in the universe.
• This God is the Creator of life and the One who developed the very essence of existence.  We are because He is!

Jeremiah exclaims (in Jeremiah 32:17), “ ‘Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.”  Faith believes that nothing we can imagine is impossible for a God who wields unlimited power and wisdom and strength.

Romans 4:17 recalls the promise God made to Abraham.  It says, “’…I have made you the father of many nations…”

Faith does go beyond what is naturally possible, but it firmly places its trust on a real, powerful God who is fully capable of doing the extraordinary.  In Genesis 15, we read how God came to Abraham and told him the he would have a son.

Abraham was one hundred years old.  In the natural, it was biologically impossible for him to have a son.  Even worse, his wife, Sarah, was 80 years old and well beyond the age of being able to have a child.  To put it bluntly, her womb was dead.

Abraham was fully aware of their situation.  He was not ignoring the facts.  He could have looked at Sarah and said, “How could we believe that God could possibly ever fulfill that promise.”  But that’s not what he said.  He was fully aware that God’s promise was impossible naturally and biologically.  BUT… He had Faith.  He believed that God would follow through on His promises.

He trusted in a God who created life.  If God made the womb in the first place, He is totally capable of creating life from an infertile man and a post-menopausal woman.

Genesis 15:18 says,  “¹⁸ In hope he {Abraham} 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 unbelief 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 looked at the character and the trustworthiness and the power of the God who made the promise and instantly realized that there was nothing to be hopeless about.

• It is impossible for God to lie.
• It is impossible for God to break a promise.
• Therefore it is impossible for God to leave His promise unfulfilled.

Abraham believed God… He believed that God was able to do what He had promised.  AND both Paul and James declare that his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” (Verse 22)  Faith that fully trusts in God’s promises is the same kind of faith that saves.  Faith is not the same thing as obedience.  Faith leads to obedience, but it is not obedience. Paul gives us the proper formula for faith in Romans 4:21 when Paul says that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”   Faith is “Trusting that God will Fulfill His Promises.”.

• Faith is the end of us trying to earn our own salvation
• Faith begins when you and I trust in Christ alone .

Saved people are not trying to earn their way to heaven all the time.  They are no longer trusting in obedience to God’s law as a means to be saved.  On the contrary – the true disciple realizes that the more they know about God’s law, the more they see that they could never be good enough to earn God’s favor.  Romans 3:20 says, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”  Disciples trust in God apart from their own efforts.  It is a transfer of trust.  Disciples of Jesus:

• Stop trusting in themselves
• They start trusting in Jesus the Messiah
• The result is that Christ’s righteousness is credited to their account.

That’s what Paul is referring to in verses 4-5 when he says, “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” {The term “counted” in verse 5 is an accounting term that means something was placed in the account that wasn’t earned}

In Abraham’s example, God delayed in fulfilling His promise until all of Abraham’s and all of Sarah’s natural strength was in complete decline.  There was no way they could do it on their own.  But, what they had was complete confidence that God has the power to fulfill promises and He never promises something that He does not fulfill.  When all natural hope was gone, they looked to the God who makes massive breakthroughs in supernatural ways.  Then…when God came through, against all conceivable odds, He received all the glory for the miracles He produced.

Abraham did not stop at believing in God.  His belief was counted as righteousness.  Once his faith was firmly established in God alone, he then began to bear fruit.  His faith led to good works that honored God!

Once a person is saved, their salvation is proven by what they do and how they live.  PLUS… God rewards His children for following his commands.

Application

So how were people in the OT saved?

All of the Old Testament pointed to the fact that none of our ancestors could earn their salvation.  The OT law was pointing ahead to Jesus and it showed people their desperate need for a Savior.  Old Testament people were saved by grace through faith in the sacrifice of the coming Messiah.

New Testament people are looking backward to the finished work of Jesus on the cross and just like everyone who came before us, we are saved by faith alone, through grace alone, in Jesus (the Messiah) alone.

Our works will never be enough to make us right with God.  Only Jesus can make us right with God.  That’s why it says in Romans 4:16 “¹⁶ That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring….”

• If salvation depends on my works, then I have no guarantee because I’m not totally good all the time.
• If salvation depends on Jesus’ finished work on the cross, then there is no way it can fail.

God always fulfills His promises.  God is totally trustworthy.  When God makes a covenant with His people, He always follows through!  Trusting in Jesus for salvation leads to confidence and boldness and assurance!

Saving faith results when a person finally abandons the hope of saving themselves.  If you or I are trying to earn our way into heaven, we’d have something to boast about if we ever achieved that goal.  But God’s Word says that the very purpose of the law was to show us so utterly unable to save ourselves that we would see our desperate need for Jesus.  The law shows us that Jesus needed to purchase our salvation for us.

Saving faith is a transfer of trust.  It removes all hope of trying to earn God’s approval ourselves and simply trusts in Jesus as Master and Savior.

Saving faith freely receives God’s free gift of salvation and then goes on to prove itself authentic by obeying God.