로마서 4:25 주석

The great gospel doctrine of justification by faith without the works of the law was so very contrary to the notions the Jews had learnt from those that sat in Moses' chair, that it would hardly go down with them; and therefore the apostle insists very largely upon it, and labours much in the confirmation and illustration of it. He had before proved it by reason and argument, now in this chapter he proves it by example, which in some places serves for confirmation as well as illustration. The example he pitches upon is that of Abraham, whom he chooses to mention because the Jews gloried much in their relation to Abraham, put it in the first rank of their external privileges that they were Abraham's seed, and truly they had Abraham for their father. Therefore this instance was likely to be more taking and convincing to the Jews than any other. His argument stands thus: "All that are saved are justified in the same way as Abraham was; but Abraham was justified by faith, and not by works; therefore all that are saved are so justified;" for it would easily be acknowledged that Abraham was the father of the faithful. Now this is an argument, not only pari - from an equal case, as they say, but fortiori - from a stronger case. If Abraham, a man so famous for works, so eminent in holiness and obedience, was nevertheless justified by faith only, and not by those works, how much less can any other, especially any of those that spring from him, and come so far short of him in works, set up for a justification by their own works? And it proves likewise, ex abundanti - the more abundantly, as some observe, that we are not justified, no not by those good works which flow from faith, as the matter of our righteousness; for such were Abraham's works, and are we better than he? The whole chapter is taken up with his discourse upon this instance, and there is this in it, which hath a particular reference to the close of the foregoing chapter, where he has asserted that, in the business of justification, Jews and Gentiles stand upon the same level. Now in this chapter, with a great deal of cogency of argument, I. He proves that Abraham was justified not by works, but by faith (Rom 4:1-8). II. He observes when and why he was so justified (Rom 4:9-17). III. He describes and commends that faith of his (Rom 4:17-22). IV. He applies all this to us (Rom 4:22-25). And, if he had now been in the school of Tyrannus, he could not have disputed more argumentatively.

INTRODUCTION TO ROMANS 4 The apostle having, in the preceding chapters, proved that there is no justification before God by the works of the law, partly from the depraved state and condition that all men are in by nature, both Jews and Gentiles; and partly from the nature of the law itself, which discovers sin, arraigns men for it, and convicts of it, and pronounces guilty before God for it; as also by showing, that it is by another righteousness, which he describes, that men are justified in the sight of God; proceeds in this to confirm the same by an example; and that which he pitches upon is the most appropriate and pertinent he could have thought of, namely, that of Abraham, the father of the Jews, Rom 4:1, for in whatsoever way he was justified, his sons surely could not imagine but it must be the right way, nor should they seek another: now that Abraham was not justified by works, he proves Rom 4:2, from an absurdity following upon it, that he would have just reason to glory; whereas no man ought to glory before God, but only in the Lord: and by a passage of Scripture, Rom 4:3, to which he appeals, he makes it clearly appear that he was justified by faith, for that says, his faith was counted for righteousness. This case of accounting anything to another for righteousness, is illustrated by two sorts of persons, who have different things accounted to them, and in a different manner; to the worker, the reward is reckoned of debt, and not of grace, Rom 4:4, but to the believer that works not, his faith, as Abraham's was, is counted for righteousness; whence it follows, that not the worker is justified by his works, but the believer by the righteousness of faith; and this is confirmed by a testimony of David in Psa 32:1, by which the apostle proves the imputation of righteousness without works, in which the happiness of men consists, Rom 4:6, and shows, that this happiness does not belong to circumcised persons only, but to the uncircumcised also; and therefore is not by circumcision, but by faith, Rom 4:9, and which he proves by observing the time when faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness; not when he was circumcised, but before, Rom 4:10, the use of which circumcision to him was to assure him, that he should be the father of uncircumcised Gentiles that believed, to whom righteousness should be imputed, as to him when he was uncircumcised, Rom 4:11, who are described by their imitation of his faith, which he had, and exercised before his circumcision, Rom 4:12. And this leads on to a fresh argument, proving justification to be by faith, and not by the works of the law, since the promise made to Abraham, and his seed, was not through the law, but the righteousness of faith; and consequently both his and their justification were not by the one, but by the other, Rom 4:13, or, if otherwise, both the faithfulness of God, and the faith of his people, would be void, and the promise of grace of no effect, Rom 4:14. And this is still further argued from the effect of the law working wrath, which, if justification was by it, it would never do, Rom 4:15. The wisdom and goodness of God in giving faith, and not works, a concern in justification, are observed, Rom 4:16, whereby it appears to be of free grace, faith only being a recipient, and what gives all the glory to God; and also the promise of eternal life through justification by free grace becomes sure to all the spiritual seed; who are distributed into two sorts, the believing Jews under the legal dispensation, and the believing Gentiles, under the Gospel dispensation; of both which Abraham was father; which is confirmed by a testimony out of Gen 17:4, whose faith is described by the object of it, the omnipotent God that quickens the dead, and calls things that are not, as though they were, Rom 4:17, and by the nature of it, Rom 4:18, believing in hope against hope, resting on the promise of God; and by the strength of it, being not at all weakened by considering, either his own case, or that of his wife's, Rom 4:19, and was so far from being staggered through unbelief at these things, that it was strong in exercise, thereby glorifying God, the object of it, Rom 4:20, nay, it rose up to a plerophory, a full assurance, Rom 4:21, being built upon the power of a promising God; hence, as before observed, his faith was reckoned to him for righteousness, Rom 4:22, And now in the same way that he was justified, all his children, his spiritual seed, are justified, whether they be Jews or Gentiles; for what is said concerning the imputation of the righteousness of faith to him, does not concern him only, Rom 4:23, but all true believers also; whose faith is described by the object of it, him that raised up Christ from the dead, that is, God the Father, Rom 4:24, who is supposed hereby to have been dead, and is represented as the Lord and Saviour of his people; and of whom a further account is given, Rom 4:25, as being delivered into the hands of men, of justice, and of death, for the sins of his people, which he took upon him, and bore, and made satisfaction for, and as being raised again for their justification; so that this is a benefit owing not to the works of men, but to what Christ has done and suffered in the room and stead of his people; which is what the apostle meant to bring this point unto; the blessed effects and consequences of which he relates in the next chapter.

The apostle also knows what kind of God he has ascribed to us, when he writes: "If God spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us, how did He not with Him also give us all things? " You see how divine Wisdom has murdered even her own proper, first-born and only Son, who is certainly about to live, nay, to bring back the others also into life. I can say with the Wisdom of God; It is Christ who gave Himself up for our offences. Already has Wisdom butchered herself also.

Paul says this in order to show that we ought to hate and reject the things for which Christ died. For if we believe that he was sacrificed for our sins, how can we not consider every sin to be alien and hostile to us, considering that our Lord was handed over to death because of it?…If we have risen together with Christ, who is our justification, and we now walk in newness of life and live according to righteousness, then Christ has risen for the purpose of our justification. But if we have not yet cast off the old man with all his works but instead live in unrighteousness, I dare to suggest that Christ has not yet risen for our justification, nor has he been sacrificed for our sins.

See how after mentioning the cause of His death, he makes the same cause likewise a demonstration of the resurrection. For why, he means, was He crucified? Not for any sin of His own. And this is plain from the Resurrection. For if He were a sinner, how should He have risen? But if He rose, it is quite plain that He was not a sinner. But if He was not a sinner, how came He to be crucified?-For others,-and if for others, then surely he rose again. Now to prevent your saying, How, when liable for so great sins, came we to be justified? he points out One that blotteth out all sins, that both from Abraham's faith, whereby he was justified, and from the Saviour's Passion, whereby we were freed from our sins, he might confirm what he had said. And after mentioning His Death, he speaks also of His Resurrection. For the purpose of His dying was not that He might hold us liable to punishment and in condemnation, but that He might do good unto us. For for this cause He both died and rose again, that He might make us righteous.

Those who were baptized before Christ’s passion received only the remission of their sins.… But after the resurrection both those who were baptized before and those who were baptized after were all justified by the set form of faith in the Trinity, and they received the Holy Spirit, who is the sign of believers that they are children of God.… For by the Savior’s passion death is vanquished. Once it was dominant because of sin, but it does not dare to hang on to those who have been justified by God.

Christ underwent suffering for our sins in order to pay our debt and so that his resurrection might prefigure the general resurrection of us all.

Christ wiped away our sins by his death, and, rising again in the same state as the one in which he died, he appeared to believers in order to confirm their righteousness.

If you doubt how you can be justified, then picture in your soul Jesus, Who blotted out all your sins, Who died not for His own sin, but for the sin of the world. Since He died without having sin, He justly rose again. For how could He Who had no sin be held in Hades? Thus, He died and rose again precisely so that He might both free us from sins and make us righteous. Therefore, just as Abraham believed that his already deadened body would become fruitful, so you too believe that Jesus died and rose again, and it will be reckoned to you as righteousness, just as it was to your forefather Abraham.

Third, at who was delivered up for our sins, he assigns the cause why faith in the resurrection of Christ justifies, saying, who, namely, Christ, was delivered up, namely to death, by God the Father: he that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all (Rom 8:32), by himself: he gave himself up for us (Eph 5:25), by Judas: he who delivered me to you has the greater sin (John 19:11), and by the Jews: they will deliver him to the gentiles to be mocked (Matt 20:19). And rose again for our justification, i.e., to justify us by rising: that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4). That he was put to death for our sins seems plain from the fact that by his death he merited the remission of our sins, but he did not merit by rising, because in the risen state he was not a pilgrim but one who had arrived. Therefore, it must be said that Christ's death was salutary for us not only by way of merit but also by way of effecting it. For since Christ's human nature was somehow the instrument of his divinity, as Damascene says, all the acts and sufferings of his human nature were salutary for us, considering that they flowed from the power of his divinity. But because an effect has to some extent a similarity to its cause, the Apostle says that Christ's death, by which mortal life was extinguished in him, is the cause of extinguishing our sins. But his resurrection, by which he returns to a new life of glory, he calls the cause of our justification, by which we return to the new life of justice.

Who was delivered for our offenses - Who was delivered up to death as a sacrifice for our sins; for in what other way, or for what other purpose could He, who is innocence itself, be delivered for our offenses? And was raised again for our justification - He was raised that we might have the fullest assurance that the death of Christ had accomplished the end for which it took place; viz. our reconciliation to God, and giving us a title to that eternal life, into which he has entered, and taken with him our human nature, as the first-fruits of the resurrection of mankind. 1. From a careful examination of the Divine oracles it appears that the death of Christ was an atonement or expiation for the sin of the world: For him hath God set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in His Blood, Rom 3:25. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ Died For the Ungodly, Rom 5:6. And when we were Enemies, we were Reconciled to God by the Death of his Son, Rom 5:10. In whom we have Redemption Through His Blood, the Forgiveness of Sins, Eph 1:7. Christ hath loved us, and Given Himself for Us, an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour, Eph 5:2. In whom we have Redemption Through His Blood, the Forgiveness of Sins, Col 1:14. And having made Peace Through the Blood of his Cross, in the Body of His Flesh, through Death, Col 1:20, Col 1:22. Who Gave Himself a Ransom for all, Ti1 2:6. Who Gave Himself for Us, that he might Redeem us from all iniquity, Tit 2:14. By which will we are sanctified, through the Offering of the Body of Jesus Christ, Heb 10:10. So Christ was once Offered to Bear the Sins of many, Heb 9:28. See also Eph 2:13, Eph 2:16; Pe1 1:18, Pe1 1:19; Rev 5:9. But it would be transcribing a very considerable part of the New Testament to set down all the texts that refer to this most important and glorious truth. 2. And as his death was an atonement for our sins, so his resurrection was the proof and pledge of our eternal life. See Co1 15:17; Pe1 1:3; Eph 1:13, Eph 1:14, etc.,etc. 3. The doctrine of justification by faith, which is so nobly proved in the preceding chapter, is one of the grandest displays of the mercy of God to mankind. It is so very plain that all may comprehend it; and so free that all may attain it. What more simple than this? Thou art a sinner, in consequence condemned to perdition, and utterly unable to save thy own soul. All are in the same state with thyself, and no man can give a ransom for the soul of his neighbor. God, in his mercy, has provided a Savior for thee. As thy life was forfeited to death because of thy transgressions, Jesus Christ has redeemed thy life by giving up his own; he died in thy stead, and has made an atonement to God for thy transgressions; and offers thee the pardon he has thus purchased, on the simple condition, that thou believe that his death is a sufficient sacrifice, ransom, and oblation for thy sin; and that thou bring it as such, by confident faith, to the throne of God, and plead it in thy own behalf there. When thou dost so, thy faith in that sacrifice shall be imputed to thee for righteousness; i.e. it shall be the means of receiving that salvation which Christ has bought by his blood. 4. The doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ, as held by many, will not be readily found in this chapter, where it has been supposed to exist in all its proofs. It is repeatedly said that Faith is imputed for righteousness; but in no place here, that Christ's obedience to the moral law is imputed to any man. The truth is, the moral law was broken, and did not now require obedience; it required this before it was broken; but, after it was broken, it required death. Either the sinner must die, or some one in his stead: but there was none whose death could have been an equivalent for the transgressions of the world but Jesus Christ. Jesus therefore died for man; and it is through his blood, the merit of his passion and death, that we have redemption; and not by his obedience to the moral law in our stead. Our salvation was obtained at a much higher price. Jesus could not but be righteous and obedient; this is consequent on the immaculate purity of his nature: but his death was not a necessary consequent. As the law of God can claim only the death of a transgressor - for such only forfeit their right to life - it is the greatest miracle of all that Christ could die, whose life was never forfeited. Here we see the indescribable demerit of sin, that it required such a death; and here we see the stupendous mercy of God, in providing the sacrifice required. It is therefore by Jesus Christ's death, or obedience unto death, that we are saved, and not by his fulfilling any moral law. That he fulfilled the moral law we know; without which he could not have been qualified to be our mediator; but we must take heed lest we attribute that to obedience (which was the necessary consequence of his immaculate nature) which belongs to his passion and death. These were free-will offerings of eternal goodness, and not even a necessary consequence of his incarnation. 5. This doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ is capable of great abuse. To say that Christ's personal righteousness is imputed to every true believer, is not Scriptural: to say that he has fulfilled all righteousness for us, or in our stead, if by this is meant his fulfillment of all moral duties, is neither Scriptural nor true: that he has died in our stead, is a great, glorious, and Scriptural truth: that there is no redemption but through his blood is asserted beyond all contradiction; in the oracles of God. But there are a multitude of duties which the moral law requires which Christ never fulfilled in our stead, and never could. We have various duties of a domestic kind which belong solely to ourselves, in the relation of parents, husbands, wives, servants, etc., in which relations Christ never stood. He has fulfilled none of these duties for us, but he furnishes grace to every true believer to fulfill them to God's glory, the edification of his neighbor, and his own eternal profit. The salvation which we receive from God's free mercy, through Christ, binds us to live in a strict conformity to the moral law; that law which prescribes our manners, and the spirit by which they should be regulated, and in which they should be performed. He who lives not in the due performance of every Christian duty, whatever faith he may profess, is either a vile hypocrite, or a scandalous Antinomian.

THE FOREGOING DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ILLUSTRATED FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. (Rom. 4:1-25) What shall we say then that Abraham, our father as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?--that is, (as the order in the original shows), "hath found, as pertaining to ('according to,' or 'through') the flesh"; meaning, "by all his natural efforts or legal obedience."

Who was delivered for--"on account of." our offences--that is, in order to expiate them by His blood. and raised again for--"on account of," that is, in order to. our justification--As His resurrection was the divine assurance that He had "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself," and the crowning of His whole work, our justification is fitly connected with that glorious act. Note, (1) The doctrine of justification by works, as it generates self-exaltation, is contrary to the first principles of all true religion (Rom 4:2; and see on Rom 3:21-26, Note 1). (2) The way of a sinner's justification has been the same in all time, and the testimony of the Old Testament on this subject is one with that of the New (Rom 4:3, &c., and see on Rom 3:27-31, Note 1). (3) Faith and works, in the matter of justification, are opposite and irreconcilable, even as grace and debt (Rom 4:4-5; and see on Rom 11:6). If God "justifies the ungodly," works cannot be, in any sense or to any degree, the ground of justification. For the same reason, the first requisite, in order to justification, must be (under the conviction that we are "ungodly") to despair of it by works; and the next, to "believe in Him that justifieth the ungodly"--that hath a justifying righteousness to bestow, and is ready to bestow it upon those who deserve none, and to embrace it accordingly. (4) The sacraments of the Church were never intended, and are not adapted, to confer grace, or the blessings of salvation, upon men. Their proper use is to set a divine seal upon a state already existing, and so, they presuppose, and do not create it (Rom 4:8-12). As circumcision merely "sealed" Abraham's already existing acceptance with God, so with the sacraments of the New Testament. (5) As Abraham is "the heir of the world," all nations being blessed in him, through his Seed Christ Jesus, and justified solely according to the pattern of his faith, so the transmission of the true religion and all the salvation which the world will ever experience shall yet be traced back with wonder, gratitude, and joy, to that morning dawn when "the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran," Act 7:2 (Rom 4:13). (6) Nothing gives more glory to God than simple faith in His word, especially when all things seem to render the fulfilment of it hopeless (Rom 4:18-21). (7) All the Scripture examples of faith were recorded on purpose to beget and encourage the like faith in every succeeding age (Rom 4:23-24; and compare Rom 15:4). (8) Justification, in this argument, cannot be taken--as Romanists and other errorists insist--to mean a change upon men's character; for besides that this is to confound it with Sanctification, which has its appropriate place in this Epistle, the whole argument of the present chapter--and nearly all its more important clauses, expressions, and words--would in that case be unsuitable, and fitted only to mislead. Beyond all doubt it means exclusively a change upon men's state or relation to God; or, in scientific language, it is an objective, not a subjective change--a change from guilt and condemnation to acquittal and acceptance. And the best evidence that this is the key to the whole argument is, that it opens all the wards of the many-chambered lock with which the apostle has enriched us in this Epistle. Next: Romans Chapter 5