Romans 4--Righteousness By Believing God

Romans 2 and Romans 3 explain what righteousness is not: not morality (Ro 2) and not good deeds (Ro 3). Romans 4 explains what righteousness is--believing God.

Ro 4 gives Abraham as an example of a man who believed God and "it was imputed to him for righteousness." (Ro 4:22). God told Abraham that his wife Sarah would give birth to their son. At the time Abraham was about 100 years old and Sarah was 90. Yet Abraham believed God could and would do what He had said.

Anyone declared righteousness by God comes into right-standing with God and is no longer subject to the wrath of God when He judges and condemns sinners. To be declared righteous, a person must believe what God says. In His Word God has said:

1. All men are sinners by nature, separated from God by sin and condemned to hell (Ro 3:23). The wages of sin are death (Ro 6:23).
2. Jesus was God. He was sinless and did not have to die for His own sins like other men.
3. Yet Jesus did die physically, by choice, in order to accept the penalty for sin that would otherwise have condemned all men. He swapped places with the sinner who believes and that believer, instead of receiving the wrath of God in condemnation, receives the righteousness of Jesus by imputation.
4. God accepted this substitution. God's approval is demonstrated by Jesus being resurrected from the dead. Because of Jesus' death and resurrection, some (believers) are saved from condemnation.
5. Those that are saved are the ones who have received Jesus as Lord and Savior (John 1:12).

A person wanting to consider whether he believes what God has said can ask himself if he believes these Biblical truths:

1. I am a sinner, separated from God's grace and condemned by His wrath because of my sin.
2. I cannot work my way into His good grace because my very nature as a human is sinful. Moral behavior and good deeds in the eyes of mankind do not cover up my sinful nature in the eyes of God.
3. Jesus was sinless. Jesus stood in my place and received the penalty coming to me so that I could receive the righteousness that is His.
4. Jesus, being God, is my Creator as well as my Savior and my Lord. My life belongs to Him. I am to obey His Word, the Holy Bible. He gives me power to live righteously--truly righteously--and not just present a superficial righteousness created by men in order to approve one another.