Title: Faith of Abraham / Romans 4:1-5
We call today's society the 'information age'. It is not a question of how much skill you have, but rather a question of whether you can make and use information faster than anyone else. Having more information and more knowledge means you can get ahead of others. In this regard, the use of the Internet and information exchange through the Internet are occurring very rapidly.
But the problem is that the Bible is also considered as one of the information. For example, the fact that Bible studies are active today supports this proposition. I want to make heaven my own by using more information and more accurate information. Bible study means that the way to heaven is only recognized as the acquisition of information. So, if there is a good Bible study program, they are flocking to it as if they were flocking to the propaganda of medicine dealers.
But heaven is not given by the information we have. Even if there is no information about the kingdom of heaven, it is the kingdom of heaven that is given through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. In other words, the kingdom of heaven is not a country we can enter, but a country that the Lord has given us.
That is why we do not enter by human righteousness, our method, or the laws of this earth, but by the laws established in heaven, the methods the Lord allows us, and the righteousness that Jesus accomplished on the cross. It is declared in 3:21 that a righteousness of God has been revealed besides the law, and that righteousness is Jesus Christ alone.
If the new righteousness of Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God, does it apply only to the New Testament and not to the Old Testament before the coming of Jesus Christ? In other words, if it is a new righteousness of God that is completely different from the law, the apostle Paul is explaining God's salvation by raising the question of how salvation was accomplished in the Old Testament times.
Surprisingly, among church members, there are many believers in the Old Testament who are saved by the law and those in the New Testament are saved by faith. Of course, it is said that salvation is obtained through faith in the same way in the Old Testament and New Testament times, but in reality, the situation of the Korean church is to explain the quality of that faith differently or to say that the method of salvation is different.
Therefore, the contents of chapter 4 and below state that salvation is achieved not only by all people but also by the same method of salvation in all ages, whether in the Old Testament or New Testament times. The explanation is given by using Abraham as an example.
Verse 3 says, “What does the Bible say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.” Because Abraham believed in God, the righteousness of God was given to me. We think that God justified Abraham because he believed in God so easily in understanding this part. Abraham's belief in God does not mean that he believed in cover.
Here, this verse is found in Genesis 15:6, and in order to properly understand this verse, we must examine the background and context in which it was written. When we read Genesis, we should not look at it in terms of how God saves Abraham. This is because the Bible does not record from the point of view of soteriology how a person was saved.
Since the Bible is written from the point of view of the revelation theory of who God is, we need to see how God reveals Himself through Abraham. In this regard, we should not look at the account of Abraham in Genesis as just one part or one aspect of the events that happened to Abraham, but rather look at how God is revealed throughout Abraham's life.
Genesis 15 is the story of God making a covenant with Abraham. Here, God is working to confirm the promise to Abraham that he will give descendants by dividing the animals and passing through them through the covenant ceremony. Abraham may have at least believed in the fact that God's covenant was fulfilled through his descendants through his own body. However, he did not think that he was a descendant between himself and Sarah.
So Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. Nevertheless, God showed that even by having Abraham circumcised, the promise was not fulfilled by Abraham's own ability or human condition. Then he gives him Isaac and demands that he be sacrificed as a burnt offering when he has grown to a certain extent.
This was not to test Abraham's faith because God did not know what it was, but to definitively reveal God's own promise to Abraham. Through the burnt offering of Isaac's sacrifice, God showed that the reality of the covenant must come and sacrifice must be made. Of course, this does not mean that Abraham knew all about the fulfillment of the covenant in which Jesus Christ came and sacrificed Himself to die on the cross. But at least they knew that salvation was achieved through the victims of the covenant.
The victim of that covenant was not the son Isaac he offered, but the one who would come through the descendants of Isaac. Because of this, he knew that even Isaac could not become the Messiah, and he knew that the covenant given to Abraham would be fulfilled through the coming and sacrifice of the descendants of the covenant, so he looked and waited for it. This is what the New Testament says about this fact. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and when he saw it he was glad” (John 8:56).
So it is said that Abraham was saved by faith. In other words, it is not that Abraham was able to obtain salvation because he had faith and surrendered his faith to God, but that he saw that salvation would be accomplished through Jesus Christ, the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant. This is explained by the faith of Abraham. The Bible speaks of that faith with the same faith that we see today on the cross of Jesus Christ.
According to verse 1, “What then can we say, according to the flesh, that Abraham our father has gained?” This means that Abraham gained nothing in the flesh. Here, the flesh refers to everything that the world wants to depend on for God's salvation. In other words, it means that Abraham did not reach God's salvation just like he reached his goal by jumping over obstacles in an obstacle race with conditions he could depend on in the world.
Today, because we are from a Christian school, because of our mother's faith, because we were baptized in the past, because of our hard work at the CCC, because of our prayers or zealous service to the church, or because we believe in Jesus, It is not a matter of saying that God's salvation has been accomplished in me because of my disposition. Since Abraham's works were not the basis for his salvation, there is no reason for us to boast just as Abraham had nothing to boast about (v. 2).
Clearly, those who work are expected to be paid. It is a human being to expect a higher wage the more you do it. Therefore, God thoroughly denounces the sinful nature that does not regard God's grace as grace from the beginning. It is for this that Abraham was brought into existence. It is also the grace of God that introduces Abraham and makes him suffer to explain our faith to us. Those who know this grace of God are descendants of faith like Abraham.
Our faith must be to know that the ability or method to achieve salvation is not in ourselves, but in the other person. Only in God. Our faith is knowing and acknowledging that it comes through faith in Jesus Christ. How to deal with my sins, only God has the power to handle this. It is the heart of God that determines whether or not God uses these abilities. I have no way or power to take away the righteousness of God. The Bible requires us to cut off the root of all thoughts that believe that faith is the cause of controlling the power of others.
In other words, Abraham himself knew that God had been saved in Jesus Christ, in the Redeemer. The story of his faith does not appear as a condition of his salvation, but only as an expression to explain that even Abraham was saved through this substitute in Jesus Christ. It is difficult to take this as a cause.
Clearly, today we can learn more about Jesus Christ and the doctrine of salvation than the Old Testament saints. You can know more clearly about the cross. Knowing deeply and knowingly does not mean that more people can be saved and that salvation is more certain because they know more and more deeply. Salvation is not obtained because we can understand God and the way of salvation, but because we receive it through faith in Jesus. In other words, it is because it is obtained through the grace and gift of God.
If we know this clearly, the question cannot arise from us, 'How do the saints of the Old Testament get saved?' The reason this question arises is that we have this kind of information, so we can see and understand it, but the people of the Old Testament do not have enough information to think that there must be obstacles or difficulties in obtaining salvation.
Whether it is the Old Testament or the New Testament, it is the salvation that God achieves through grace. There is absolutely no basis for salvation on our part. For that reason, if Abraham had nothing to boast about, even more so for us. Instead of making my pride and living it with meaning, I hope that you will live so that only the cross, which is the core of God's grace, the core of God's grace, who has worked the same in the Old Testament and New Testament times, is extinguished every day.