October 11, 2008

• OUR CURCUMSTANCES vs. GOD'S PROMISES

  

  "Our circumstances are all in opposition to the promises of God. He promises us immortality: yet we are surrounded by mortality and corruption. He declares that He accounts us just: yet we are covered with sins. He testifies that He is propitious and benevolent toward us: yet outward signs threaten His wrath.

  What then are we to do? We must close our eyes, disregard ourselves and all things connected to us, so that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true."

  —John Calvin, commenting on Rom 4:20, in Thomas Schreiner and Ardel Canaday, The Race Set Before Us (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 282
  
  
  What do we do then, when we repent of our sins and still feel very sinful?  Have you felt that you cannot even come to God and ask for more forgiveness for the same sin over and over again?
  
  
  
  Rom 4:13  For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
  Rom 4:14  For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
  Rom 4:15  For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
  Rom 4:16  That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring--not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
  Rom 4:17  as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"--in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
  Rom 4:18  In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be."
  Rom 4:19  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.
  Rom 4:20  No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,
  Rom 4:21  fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
  Rom 4:22  That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness."
  Rom 4:23  But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone,
  Rom 4:24  but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,
  Rom 4:25  who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  • 4:10 pm
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