We have heard this week of the deaths of several significant people. Johnny Cochran died early this week. He was the lawyer who successfully defended OJ Simpson in his murder trial. Friday morning at 9 AM Terri Schiavo finally starved to death after 13 days of torture. And then yesterday afternoon at 2:37 pm our time, pope John Paul II died. John Paul made a significant contribution to life on this planet. He quieted some of the anti-Semitism when he declared that Jewish people were "our elder brothers." He developed better relationships with other religious without asking them to sacrifice their fundamental beliefs. He even brought American Catholics and evangelicals more together on issues like abortion and welfare reform. I find that with every death there is the tendency to ask the question, "I wonder if Johnny Cochran went to heaven? Terri Schiavo. You would think her’s would be an automatic because she suffered so much. How about Pope John Paul. Did he go to heaven? Is anyone today insulted by that question? Some of you are probably asking why anyone would even question the Pope’s salvation. "He’s the Pope. Why would he NOT go to heaven?"

Good question: why would he not go to heaven? Romans four paints a picture of how God operates His system of evaluation. Contrary to the popular "balance" system where our "good" works are balanced with our "evil" works, and which ever one is heavier wins, God operates on an "imbalance" system.

And Romans four is going to introduce us to three terrible misunderstandings that send people to hell.

A. Abraham was GOOD! He is our FATHER! He was the father of the Faithful. He was called the "friend of God." Pope John Paul II is called the "holy father," and is the head of the Roman branch of the Catholic church. But as pope he is not recognized by the eastern orthodox branch of the Catholic church, or the Russian branch, or the Bulgarian branch. But they all look up to Abraham as their "holy father." Three major religious of the world point to Abraham as their father, Jewish people, Christians, and Muslims. Question: Why was Abraham chosen as the father of us all? BECAUSE HE WAS SO GOOD, is the normal answer. Jewish scholars even thought that Abraham was the only righteous man of his generation, which was the primary reason he had been chosen to be the ancestor of the nation. "He was considered the first of seven men who, by their merits, brought back the Shekina, so that it could take up its abode in the tabernacle. We are told, more4over, that Abraham began to serve God at the age of three, and that his righteousness was made complete by his circumcision and his anticipatory fulfillment of the law" (Hendriksen, 145).

Here is The Prayer of Manasseh 8, "Therefore thou, O Lord, God of the righteous, hast not appointed repentance for the righteous, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who did not sin against thee, but thou hast appointed repentance for me, who am a sinner" (Hendriksen, 145).

And here is The Book of Jubilees, 23:10, written in about the 2^nd century BC: "Abraham was perfect in all his deeds with the Lord, and well-pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life (23:10)(Hendriksen, 145).

Abraham was good enough for heaven, wasn’t he? Paul’s response (and I’m sure Abraham’s response) is, "that’s just not true."

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 accounted to him for righteousness." If he had been chosen by God because of his goodness, he would have had something to be proud of, he could have boasted, because he accomplished something that no one else had ever done. But the truth is that he doesn’t have anything more to talk about than anyone else, because Abraham’s righteousness came as a gift from God..

B. Abraham wasn’t good enough. How do we know that one of the greatest holy fathers wasn’t good enough? Because his "righteousness" wasn’t his. He was a sinner, just like the Pope and Mother Theresa, and you and me. It may be a shock to realize that certain people are sinners and need salvation like the rest of us. Abraham is one of them. HE WAS NOT A RIGHTEOUS MAN. He was credited with that which he did not possess. He came from a family that worshiped other gods. His father probably worshiped the moon god, Nannar, in his neighborhood, Ur. There was a famous ziggurat, a giant tower down town where worship was given to Nannar. Ur was a very prosperous city in that time. Joshua said to his people in chapter 24 of his book: "Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods." Abraham did not come from a "holy" background. And he was not, in himself, holy.

C. Abraham’s goodness came by way of a gift. It was "accounted to him." That word "accounted" appears 11 times in the chapter and provides a key to understanding God’s system of relating with His creations – what I mentioned earlier as "God’s imbalance system." It means to add or transfer something to one’s account. It speaks of God placing credit on Abraham’s account which was not his. Whatever is "reckoned" to a person cannot have been there originally or naturally. "Reckoning" adds something that doesn’t belong, that is not a part of the person’s natural life. When God entered Abraham’s life, He brought in His righteousness, He erased Abraham’s sin debt and placed positive righteousness on his account.

As a result of that transaction, Abraham could be declared "Righteous." He, perhaps, did not feel any different, or act any different, but he could be declared righteous because of what had been placed on his account.

Suppose one of you generous people decides to place a quantity of money on my Chevy Chase bank account, which is # 05632 - - -! And, let’s say, you put a sizable amount in, let’s say a BILLION dollars. Thanks, I can hear everyone lining up already to make contributions! What happens when my bank account suddenly reads $1 billion? My title changes. I am now declared to be a billionaire! I may not feel any different or look or act any differently, but I am declared a billionaire.

In the same way Abraham was declared righteous. The fact that he was declared righteous didn’t mean that he would never make a mistake after that. Just read what happened to him after he was declared righteous in Genesis 15. But God’s plan was to teach Abraham to become what he was, to actually become righteous.

Do you see how someone can be declared righteous when they are not necessarily any different than they were before? When a person trusts in Christ, God transfers to their account, Christ’s righteousness. He can then declare them righteous. His plan is to make them righteous as they go on through life, as they grow and as He sanctifies them. That’s the difference between righteousness that is declared and righteousness that is developed in one’s life.

D. Abraham’s goodness came by way of FAITH. How did Abraham receive this righteousness that wasn’t his? He "believed" God; took God at His word. God said to him late one night, "your children are going to be numberless, just like the stars." And Abraham, who had no children, and was quite old, believed Him. He took God at His word. He accepted what God said as the true description of reality, or what reality would be like in the future.

And that act of believing what God said was the instrument in his justification. What did Abraham "DO?" Nothing. He simply accepted God’s gift. And God’s gift was given in a specific statement that described what Abraham’s future was going to look like; "your seed is going to be as numberless as the stars." He accepted that as a fact, believing that God meant what He said.

Thus there was nothing on Abraham’s part that merited anything. Any actions that Abraham may have taken were not meritorious actions, but simply actions of reception. When you offer a beggar a loaf of bread, he may hold out his hand to take the bread, but that action of holding out his hand does not merit him the bread. It is a gift. In the same way Abraham accept the promise of God’s blessing.

There two normal ways to receive something – by gift and by earning. You can work enough to get paid. Or someone can give it to you as a gift. Now, if you try to pay for a gift, guess what, it is no longer a gift. If it is going to be a gift, you can’t do anything to earn it. The moment you make one move to earn it, it is no longer in the category of gift. Now if you don’t work for it, then you are depending totally on the goodness of the giver.

The normal way people "work" is to say to God, "I’ll be good." "If you will heal my brother, I will serve you the rest of my days." "If you will get me out of this foxhole and safely home, I will go to church every Sunday." That’s a deal that promises to pay God for the gift. Once you promise to pay for the gift, then it is no longer a gift, God can’t give it to you, because He only gives it as a gift, because no one can do enough to earn what He is giving away.

In reality, God’s gifts have absolutely nothing to do with what we CAN DO. This is why His method works best with those who are hopeless. Only when a person comes to the realization that he can do nothing is he a candidate for Grace. The problem worldwide is self-sufficient people. We think we are smart enough, good enough to pass the entrance exam. As long as we are confident that God will be pleased with a couple of little tweaks, or some adjustments to our moral diet, or a promise to go on the South Beach morality diet, we will never find His righteousness. Because His Righteousness can only come from the outside. It cannot come from us. It has nothing to do with what we can get done.

"Work" here in verses four and five does not mean "work enough," as if to say, "but to him who can’t work enough," or "to him who is not perfect in his life." The point is that the sinner does not work at all for his pardon. "It is not that he does not perform all the works that he ought, but that for justification he does nothing. (Haldane, 165).

It’s like if I were to suddenly get hyper over sunlight. And I would argue that we need to become more serious about working for the light we enjoy. We need to pray more for the sun. We need to develop church dances that will please whoever needs to be pleased so that the sun does not die out. You know that we may not have much longer with the sun. It’s burning at a high temperature. We could follow the Aztecs and sacrifice the hearts of living people to keep the sun alive. We could come up with another religion that does some enormous effort to keep the sun alive. But the simple point is that there is nothing we can do. There is no way we can earn the light of the sun. It is too far beyond us. All we can do is accept it and thank God for it. But what if God doesn’t keep it alive? There is nothing we can do. And everything we do or try to do simply takes us away from the actual truth, that the sun along with all its benefits is free to us.

We see multiple religions that get people involved in doing all of these good things to make themselves acceptable to God and to find righteousness. Almost every religion in the world is anti-faith. Instead of trusting God, they have ritual; they have commands; they have things you can earn; they have bells and whistles and robes and gurus and writings and sacrifices and mantras and incantations and special prayers and quotes and holy places and special rocks and potions and blessings and cursings – all to achieve what no one can achieve.

Righteousness either has to come from God as a gift, or you go to hell. The sun has to be sustained by God, or we freeze in darkness. There is nothing we can do to keep it going. The oxygen He supplies at just the right mix every day? There is nothing we can do to buy it or to preserve it. The rain, the food, the body that works most of the time. Can you pay for this? NONE of it. God is always the unpaid giver (Matt 5:45). Have you ever thought about why we don’t pay God, why we can’t? Maybe it is all an object lesson from Him, to show us that what He supplies physically He can and wants to supply spiritually.

Faith means that you are turning away from anything you can do. You are turning away from your religion, from the trust you have had all your life in your ability, your capability, your ingenuity, your goodness to trust God for what He alone can supply – His Righteousness. Good people do not go to heaven apart from God’s gift in Christ Jesus, because they aren’t good enough.

Think of the worst person you know or know about. Is it possible that that person could go to heaven? Adolf Hitler. Ted Bundy. Jeffrey Dahlmer, who not only killed young boys, but ate them. All those people are in hell today, aren’t they? That question reveals the same thinking process that leads us to conclude that good people go to heaven.

David is not introduced here because he is a bad person. David is presented in the Old Testament as a good guy. He is the great king at the greatest time of Israel’s history. God promised to him that his throne would be established forever; Messiah would be called the Son of David. He is the man after God’s heart. He is the sweet psalmist who wrote half of all the Psalms in the book. He killed the giant, he unified the two parts of the nation, he made the preparations for the beautiful temple that Solomon later built by saving up at least $20 billion.

B. David sinned greatly.

But there is another side to David. This is a man who sinned after he had received hundreds of blessings from God, after God promised to establish his rulership forever, after he had conquered all his enemies and brought peace to Israel, after he had great success, after he had brought glory to the nation of Israel. THEN he sinned. And it wasn’t anything small. It was adultery with a beautiful woman named Bathsheba, it was manipulation in trying to get her legitimate husband drunk, and it resulted in murdering her husband to get him out of the way, so David could do his thing.

Does God forgive murder, when a person knows better? When a person has been blessed of God? Have you ever sinned in a way that caused you to wonder if God would ever forgive you? "Could someone like Adolf Hitler ever go to heaven?" How about a cannibal like Jeffrey Dahlmer?

These are the kinds of questions that come from the assumption that some people are TOO BAD for the Grace of God. And/or there are some sins that take you out of the running, or that God cannot forgive. Hitler, for example, was so evil, and ruined so many people that he doesn’t deserve anything more than hell. That’s absolutely true. The problem is that I don’t deserve anything more than hell either – neither do you. No one does. That’s what is so spectacular about God’s Grace – it is a gift to those who don’t deserve it.

I think David is in here to emphasize the fact that God forgives sin, not because a person deserves it, but by faith. David had killed a man. And it wasn’t just any man. He had intentionally killed one of his most faithful soldiers. And he had done it solely to cover for his own lust and corruption. Now I am sure that if Bathsheba were your wife, you wouldn’t be interested in forgiving this lustful maniac king who had destroyed your family.

6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: 7 "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; 8 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin."

"Just as" connects the story of David with the story of Abraham. The same way Abraham, who had "never done anything wrong" received righteousness only by faith, so David who had botched it royally, received forgiveness apart from anything that he could do.

David is pronouncing "blessing" on certain people – those with lawless deeds, like himself. How would someone like that be blessed, and happy? Because God has put righteousness on his account, and forgiven him his lawless deeds. David had received a righteousness that didn’t belong to him. It was "imputed" and it had nothing to do with David’s ability to be righteous.

Verse eight promises that God is not going to tally up sin to his account. This sounds dangerous to me. When you have a guy who believes this, that God is not going to charge his sin to his account, you have a guy who will believe that he can do anything and get away with it. And yet this statement comes as David confesses and wants to forsake his sin.

Maybe the analogy will help here. When God adds $1 billion to your spiritual bank account, should that encourage you to say, "Oh, boy, now I can go back and live in poverty again." If you were a slave that was freed by the emancipation proclamation of August 28, 1863, do you think that you would then say, "Oh, great, now I am free to go back and live in slavery all that I want."

Sin is not something that is desirable. We are talking about the curse of humans, the garbage of the ages that can do nothing but stink up and ruin everyone’s life. Who would not be delighted to be free from that? And be able to walk in the riches of God’s Grace?

The point is that no one is too bad to miss the Grace of God. In fact that is what Grace is – God giving His best to people who don’t deserve it.

So what is faith? We have mentioned the word "faith" several times. What is it? It is sincerely doing your best, isn’t it? It is believing in God and believing in what the church says and doing your best, right?

A. Abraham was justified apart from a religious ritual. For the Jewish male the religious ritual that set him apart was his circumcision. This ritual had been passed down from family to family since the time of Abraham. Thus the normal Jewish assumption was that Abraham was righteous because he had been circumcised. How did he show his faith in God? By getting circumcised. Jewish people did not realize what this conclusion said to the rest of the uncircumcised world. It said, "sorry you guys, but you can’t get saved until you get circumcised." However, the startling truth of the matter is that Abraham was saved BEFORE he was circumcised.

10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. 11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, 12 and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

The issue is timing. When did Abraham discover this huge deposit in his moral bank account? Was it AFTER he sincerely went through the ritual of circumcision and showed his sincerity by being circumcised? or before? BEFORE. How long before? He was given righteousness in chapter 15 and he wasn’t circumcised until chapter 17, 14 years later.

What’s so significant about this? Abraham was uncircumcised when he received the Grace of God, just like all the Gentiles in the world. That’s an important statement for those of us who aren’t Jewish. Abraham was saved – if you can say it this way – before he was Jewish! Jewish people tended to think that their circumcision was a badge of their status as chosen members of a superior race. They tended to look down on the rest of the uncircumcised world which lacked what they had. But instead of being a badge of status it was a testimony of God’s Grace to outsiders (like their Father, Abraham – who was declared righteous when he was uncircumcised), when he was as bad as all the rest of us.

Instead of being a badge that he was special, circumcision was a sign to Abraham THAT HE HAD BEEN JUSTIFIED. It wasn’t what caused the justification. It came after the blessing, it was a sign that he had been blessed. Circumcision was a sign of the reality, not the reality. It was a sign of a privileged position that God had given Abraham because of his faith.

It’s like the ring on the finger of the married couple. The ring is a sign that they are married, that they have committed themselves to each other for life. Does that mean that everyone who has a ring is married? No. Does that mean that all couples who have rings on their fingers have good marriages? No. Then what is the purpose of a ring? It is a sign that says publically, "I belong to someone else."

It’s sort of like asking Michael Schiavo, "are you married to Terri?" And he answers "yes." How do we know you are married to Terri?" "Because I have a ring." "But aren’t you living with someone else, and have two children by her?" "Yes, but I still have the ring." "And you love her, right?" "Yes, that’s what the ring says." "That’s why you put her to death, and refused to let her family attend the funeral, etc.?"

There are times when the sign has nothing to do with reality. Michael may have worn Terri’s ring and have claimed to love Terri, but none of his actions said that his love for Terri was real.

Someone says to you, "are you saved?" And you say, "I walked forward in a church service, and cried and shook the preacher’s hand." That’s the ritual. That’s the ring. That’s like getting circumcised. The question is have you walked in the steps of faith that Abraham walked in while he was still uncircumcised? Have you actually trusted Christ? Have you come to Him, personally, honestly, as a helpless sinner, and pleaded with Him to forgive and save you?

B. Abraham was justified apart from obedience to the Law (13-16). The common misconception thinks that faith works better with "good" people. When someone sincerely wants to be good, when they are doing their best, that’s when God can save them.

13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect.

Some may view God as saying, "I’m going to save Abraham and give him My righteousness, because he is really trying to be good; he is trying to obey the law and be the best he can be. Why did Abraham receive a promise that he would be heir of the world? Because he promised that he would be good and obey all the Law? That’s impossible, for two reasons: (1) there was no law at that time; (2) if there had been a Law, Abraham could not have kept it anyway. Furthermore, if Abraham had kept the Law, he would not have been able to receive as a gift, God’s Grace.

You say, "I’m sincerely doing the best I can." The "best you can" by the best person in the world is not good enough. "Sincerely doing your best" is worthy only of God’s judgment and hell. Isaiah 64:6 claims that, "all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags."

Suppose I were to throw out filthy rags into the audience today. They had just been taken from the garbage pail and were full of maggots and oily slosh. How would you respond if one hit you? Isaiah seems to suggest that God’s responds that way to our "best." We just don’t understand at all the gap between our righteousness and His. It’s sort of like a five year old giving you his best. That may be his best, but it is on a different level from what you would require.

Christians think that faith has to be exercised the way they did it when they came to Christ, because they really got saved. I was in a church service when I trusted Christ, actually in the basement of a church. And at the end of the service the preacher asked us to raise our hands if we wanted to be saved, and then asked those who raised their hands to come forward and got about five or six of us around in a circle and had each one of us pray and ask Christ to come into our hearts. I prayed that prayer and Jesus came into my heart. And I knew that I was different. So why do I not do it that way on Sunday morning? Have people raise their hands, and have them come forward and get them in a circle and have each person pray to receive Christ? Nothing wrong with that. But that is the ritual. How many people I have met who have gone forward and prayed the prayer and aren’t saved. How many people I have met who wonder if another ritual is needed to get them "really" saved. "Maybe if I go forward and weep more; or pray longer with more intensity; maybe if I humble myself more by making a scene publically and embarrassing myself, then the Lord will know that I am serious. Maybe if I get baptized, maybe if I give more money, maybe if I go on a missions trip." All of these are placing the emphasis on the ritual rather than the Grace of God through faith.

The key is, have you turned to Jesus Christ personally? as a helpless sinner? You can do that anywhere. There is someone in this church who turned to Christ sitting in his car on the side of the road. There is someone else who turned to Christ in a prison cell with a bunch of other prisoners all around him. The thief on the cross said, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom" – nine words in Greek as well as English. How could nine words be enough to earn heaven? They aren’t. Nine million words aren’t enough to earn heaven. It isn’t the words; it isn’t the ritual; it’s the Person to whom the words were addressed. He said them to Christ as he was dying, knowing that he had only a few minutes before he entered hell for his sins. And he heard, to his surprise, the response, "today you will be with Me in paradise!"

Good news indeed! I am convinced that in a group of people of this size, there are some who think they are saved and aren’t. They prayed a prayer, they went forward, they got baptized, they joined the church, they went through the prescribed ritual, but they never believed God. They have improved their lives, they have gotten better, they are sincere, they have turned over new leaves, they are sincerely doing their best, but they have never come to a person; they never addressed the Lamb of God who loved them so much that He died for them. They never came in their absolutely horrible state, as a hopeless, hell-bent sinner, to receive a gift. You can do that today and receive the incredible gift of God’s Righteousness.

Is Pope John II in heaven today? I don’t know, but I think so, because I think that he trusted Christ as his Savior from sin. But there’s a more important question – will you be there?

04/03/05, BBC am