God’s Remedy for Sin    Romans 4:7,8       

Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- March 13, 2005

A number of years ago an ex-GI went into the Chase National Bank in New York to get a loan from their small loans department. Chase is one of the largest banks in the world negotiating loans of millions of dollars with some of the largest corporations in the world. But they also made small loans to ordinary people like this ex-GI.

The former soldier had to fill out all of the normal loan application papers. Because the government was guaranteeing the loan, he was required to return to the bank the next day to complete the process of application for the loan.

When he arrived at the bank the next day, the person assisting him kept him waiting a long time and then left saying he would be back in a few minutes.  Several other people were in line waiting to be seen, but the bank official was gone for more than ten minutes. About the time the ex-soldier was beginning to get a little impatient, there was a commotion behind him.

The President of the bank walked through the great lobby, came up to the G.I., introduced himself, and asked him to turn around for a photograph. Newspaper men were there, and the G.I. learned that his loan was very special.

The day before the records of the bank indicated that sometime the following day the total loans of the small loans department would reach the sum of one billion dollars. To publicize the fact that they also made small loans the bank officials decided that they would give as a gift the amount of any loan requested by the customer who happened to apply at the very moment that the one billion dollar figure was reached. The soldier was a very fortunate man.

He had signed all the papers and had obligated himself to repay the amount of the loan in a certain number of installments. But now, before the news cameras, he was given as a gift the amount of money in his loan and the note and his other papers were returned to him. The bank of course, received more than enough publicity to offset the transaction…

One could say, “O the blessedness of the G.I. to whom the Chase National Bank will not impute or debit his loan.” The bank effectively said, “This one is to be placed to our account. You will never have anything to pay.”

Our text for today is found in Romans 4:7, 8 and is a quote from the Book of Psalms (Psalm 32) “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”

We have been considering the fact that the “just shall live by faith.” over the past few weeks. Salvation is by God’s grace and the only thing God wants from us is for us to believe what He has said to us about Jesus, his death on the cross and the fact that he is the sacrifice for our sin.

When we believe that…we are counted among those who are called “they”. That is whom Paul is talking about here in this passage of Romans. The people who have their iniquities forgiven are those who believe God. It is not those who are trying to work their way to heaven or who think that they have something to offer God that will allow them into heaven. Paul picks up what David has said, and applies it to the body of believers, the true Church of Jesus Christ.

As he continues, Paul has something important to say to us about what God forgives: namely, iniquity and sin.

The sin that Paul has in view here is to be understood as a “missing of the mark”. Think of someone shoot arrows at a target. The goal is to hit the bull’s eye. However, the bull’s eye is hard to hit and is often missed. That missing of the bull’s eye is a “sin”. The standard that God has set for your life and mine is perfect righteousness. And I am sad to say, we have all missed the mark.

Mom tells her child that he or she is not to eat any of the cookies in the cookie jar before dinner. Shortly after mom leaves the kitchen, Junior takes a cookie; in fact, he takes several cookies and eats them. He is definitely disobedient. He has sinned…missed the mark of obedience to the standard mom has established…no cookies before dinner. Junior is guilty of a sin. There should be some punishment and correction for Junior once mom discovers that the cookies are gone. However, Junior is not taken to the electric chair or put in prison for life over the cookies. What he has done is a missing of the mark, and a sin, but it is not an iniquity.

We sometimes change meaning of a word by adding a prefix to it.
For example, a theist is someone who believes in God. If you add an “a” to the word you get the word “atheist” denoting a person who denies the reality of God. We have the words moral and amoral; possible and impossible. The meanings are changed to the opposite by the addition of those prefixes.

The Greeks in their language would change the meaning of a word by adding a prefix onto it, too. The word used here for “sin” is just such a word.  The root word is a word which means “to share” and by adding an “alpha” to it created idea of someone who by missing the mark…does not share in the prize. The sinner, who misses the mark, would not share in the blessing of God that He has for those who believe Him and obey Him.

The other word Paul uses here is a word for law, “nomos” to which an alpha is added to create the word “anomia” or lawlessness.

We could translate our verse in this manner:  “Blessed are they whose transgressions of God’s law are forgiven, and whose falling short of His righteousness is covered.

Now, there is also another comparison we need to make in words Paul uses here if we are to understand what he is trying to say to us here. He uses “forgiven” and “covered” when writing about our sin.

First of all, let’s look at the word “forgiven”. In the New Testament Greek text there are fourteen words that are used for the idea of “send” and “sent”. Our word forgiven in this passage is one of those.

In Matthew 13:36 Jesus was speaking in parables. He preached to the multitude of people who had gathered to listen to him from a boat. When he was done Matthew says that Jesus sent the multitude away and then went into the house. The word “sent away” is the word that Paul uses in our text for today. “Blessed is he whose iniquities are sent away.”

God has made it possible to separate the sin from the sinner and to deal with the two separately in such a way that the sin can be forgiven and the sinner restored in his or her relationship with God. We can’t do that. We take the sinner and if his sin is bad enough, we lock him up and make him pay for his sins. Once he has paid his debt to society, we say, he is to be set free.

God has taken the sins and iniquity from the sinner who believes Him, and who trusts Jesus to be his Savior and Lord of his life and has placed those sins on Jesus Christ. It was there on the cross that God did this and punished Jesus instead of us, the sinners. Because of that the believer’s sins have been dealt with.

One of our great hymns contains these words:  “Living, He loved me, Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far away.”

The concept we are discussing leads us back into the Old Testament. The High Priest took two goats and one of them was killed there in the temple area where sacrifices were made. The blood of the goat that was killed was an atonement for the sins of God’s people Israel. They then brought the other goat to Aaron. Aaron laid his hands upon the head of the second goat and confessed over the goat all the sins and iniquities of the people. He put the sins of the people on the goat and then was to send it away out into the wilderness. This was the scapegoat. By sending it out into the wilderness, the image was presented of sins sent away, removed forever without possibility of returning. The guilt has been completely forgiven.

This is a picture of Jesus. He was our scapegoat, the bearer of all our sins. In John 1:29 we have the announcement about Jesus, “Behold, the lamb of God which takes (or bears) away the sin of the world.”

The Psalmist tells us that our sins are removed from us as far as the east is from the west. (Ps 103:2).

The second picture Paul gives us of our sin is that it is covered. This is an Old Testament word and this is the only place in the New Testament where you will find it. What does it say to us?

In the Old Testament, sins were covered. The reason this word is not normally used in the New Testament is that in the New Testament, since Jesus died for our sin, rose from the dead on the third day, sins are not covered, they have been put on Jesus there on the cross and dealt with once and for all, forever.

Before Jesus came God treated sins differently.  The people like Abraham, Moses and David are in heaven because they believed God when he said what he was going to do to provide for our salvation. Jesus was going to die on the cross to deal with sin. They believed God when he said he would deal with sin before Jesus actually came into our world to deal with sin. So their sin was covered over so as not to come into view, that is, they were pardoned.

Their sin was covered until the time of Jesus Christ. Their sin was covered, but the day came when it was uncovered and placed on Jesus. And when Jesus died for our sin God was completely satisfied with the sacrifice he made there on the cross and because of that, we can come to Him and be freely accepted.

When we believe God’s Word about Jesus and his death on the cross, God no longer credits sin to our account. No, we get righteousness credited to our account. The debt is paid in full and we no longer have to pay it.

For us as believers, it is as if, we are that G.I. whose debt was cancelled through a gift given. We have been given a gift…eternal life through Jesus Christ because we have believed God’s Word about Jesus.  God cancels the debt by paying for it for us.

As Christians we have unlimited access to God’s credit line of grace.
And we get to spend on our Savior’s account. What joy to know that we can spend the blessings of Christ, which he freely gives to us! We’re able to spend on his forgiveness! Whenever we confess our sins to God, we charge on his account! That means we can take our fears, frustrations, anger, and disappointments to Christ and charge them to his account, and his forgiveness will cover our debt of sin every time!

We can charge on Jesus’ credit line of peace. Whenever worry or loneliness assails you, know that your Savior is always with you. Nothing can separate you from his love. And knowing that provides the ultimate sense of peace! This is the peace Christ has earned for us with his Father. Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection have made us one with God. We are now his children. We have free access to God’s peace.

This account of grace can never be overdrawn or emptied. Access to God’s grace is ours through faith.
       ~ It is a free gift from God.
       ~ We don’t have to apply for approval.
~ We don’t have to go through the right steps or appeal to the right people in order to    gain access to God’s grace.
~ His grace is ours simply when we believe and trust in his forgiveness and love.
~ Even our faith – the ability to believe – is a gift from God. Faith is nothing more than a hand that grabs onto God’s promises.

--Dennis Gleason