Romans Series Message #43

Happy Are Those Whose Sins Are Covered & Whose Sin
The Lord Will Not Take Into Account!
Romans 4:7b-8

One of the most exciting aspects of the New Covenant, which God promised in Jeremiah 31 and then instituted through Jesus Christ and His finished, completed, victorious, atoning work at the cross is that God does not remember the sins of those people regardless of whether they are Jews or Gentiles who enter into this covenant through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Look at it. Its in Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Now that covenant and that aspect of God not remembering our sins anymore is reiterated in Isaiah 43:25. Look at it.

In Isaiah 38:17, Hezekiah in talking to God, put it this way—“For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.”

The prophet Micah communicated the same thought when he wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit of God in Miach 7:19, speaking of God, that:

He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You [God] will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

David, the psalmist, restated the covenantal promise in Psalm 103:12 when he wrote: “As far as the East is from the West—so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

And then we see the promise reiterated in Hebrews 8:12 and 10:17.

Now, what part of “not remembering our sins anymore” do we not understand?

Or—maybe, I should rephrase my question to, “Which part of ‘God not remembering our sins anymore’, do we not believe?”

That is the issue—isn’t it?

Well, God knew that we who can grasp the doctrines of grace oftentimes can’t get a grip on His grace.

And so—let’s go back to Romans 4:6-8 and continue on with where we left off last Sunday—and let’s see if we can’t be persuaded to believe that God really has separated our sins from us and will not ever bring them back for us to face or deal with again.

We left off in the middle of verse 7.

The second part of verse 7 is not simply reiterating or restating the thought of the first part of the verse.

It, while still talking about how God views the believer and his sin is bringing up a different aspect from what was previously said.

Whereas, in v. 7a, the point is that in justification God separates the believer’s lawless deeds from him—here in v. 7b, the idea is that in addition to separating the violations of God’s law from the believer, God also covers the sin.

Thus, God first separates the sin from the person and then deals with it by covering it with something.

It is important to understand then that the sin had to be separated from the person in order to deal with it. Thus, our sin cannot be effectively dealt with until it is removed from us—that is separated from us so that its connection with us is broken.

And we know from 2 Corinthians 5:21 that our sin was separated from us and placed upon Chirst—that is imputed to His account.

And the reason for this is because it was to be judged by God in Christ.

Thus, it was to be dealt with while imputed to His account rather than imputed to our account.

Now please understand that once your sin has been imputed to Christ’s account—once all your sin has been imputed to Christ’s account—it is no longer on yours.

Thus, it is no longer a part of your ledger—so to speak.

And the only way it ever could be—would be for God to impute it back to your account—but that is an utter impossibility.

Thus, to think that you still have sin to answer for when you get to heaven means that God either did not impute all your sin to Christ’s account to pay for or He imputed it back to your account once it was paid for.

Besides both of these scenarios being impossibilities—they are also heresies.

OK, so God in v. 7a separated your sins from you and then in v. 7b, He covers all of your sins.

And what He covers all your sins with is the blood of Christ that was shed for our sins. Look at Hebrews 9:22.

Christ’s blood is what God covered our sins with—all of them—every single one of them—without any exceptions. Therefore, if God were to look at your sin—what He would see is blood—the precious blood of His Son that was shed at the cross for those sins and specifically as the payment for those sins because of God’s great love for the sinner.

This whole idea of God covering the sinner’s sins with the blood of His Son is pictured for us in the OT Day of Atonement.

On that day, the high priest took the blood of the sacrifice, which was made just moments before in the Temple courtyard, and he sprinkled it on mercy seat, which covered the Ark of The Covenant.

The Ark of The Covenant contained the Law of God, which the sinner had broken.

Without the blood being sprinkled upon the Mercy Seat—the broken law demands judgment from the sinner.

But when the broken law inside the Ark was covered by the blood of the sacrifice—God’s judgment was turned aside and His love and mercy were released to the sinner and the sinner was released from the burden, guilt, shame, and punishment of his sin.

This is what David is speaking of here in the second part of verse 7.

And there is a contrast of sorts found in Psalm 32 where this quote comes from.

Turn there if you will.

In Psalm 32:3-4, David admits that he had been trying to cover up his own sin but it was not until he confessed his sin and turned to God for forgiveness that his sin was really covered.

And what Paul is trying to communicate to us in using David’s words is that because sin has actually and truly been punished in Jesus, sinners can find relief from sin’s burden, guilt, shame, and punishment if they will come to Christ for salvation.

I find it interesting that on the Day of Atonement, prior to the priest sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice on the mercy seat so as to signify sin being covered by the blood of Christ—another goat—the scape goat—had been brought to the priest and he had confessed the sins of the people over the head of this goat and then the goat was sent away into the wilderness.

Do you see the picture? Before the sins could be covered—they had to be separated from the sinner—which is exactly what Paul is teaching us in Romans 7.

First, our sins were separated from us and then they were covered by the blood of God’s perfect sacrifice—the Lamb of God—Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

And then in verse 8, Paul again quotes David. The quote is from Psalm 32:2.

In Psalm 32:2, the actual words are: “How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity.”

What David is actually saying is that since God has already removed the sins form the believer and covered them with the blood of the sacrifice that the only way a man could ever be held accountable for them again could only be possible if God were to impute them back to the sinner again.

Knowing that this is impossible, David simply makes the point that it is impossible for the man whose sin has been removed from him and covered by the blood to ever have his sins re-imputed to his account so as to be responsible and answerable for them again.

But, oh how we sometimes act, pray, feel, and live as though this were possible.

Listen, if you are still answerable for your sins—then you are still accountable for your sins, which means you are still responsible for your sins, which can mean only one of two possible things—either God did not separate your sins from you or after separating them from you and covering them by the blood of Christ—He re-imputed them to your account.

Both of which would be considered blatant heresy in any ancient church counsel.

Now let’s look at how Paul rendered the quote in Romans 4:8
“Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD will not take into account.”

The reason why, Paul renders David’s quote this way is because this is what David’s words mean—if God will not re-impute your sin back to your account—there is no sin to take into account when God looks at your life.

Listen, if your sin was removed from you and covered by the blood of Christ—there is simply no more sin to deal with—it has all been dealt with by God in Christ at the cross forever.

Which is why God says in Jeremiah 31:34b—“I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Now, Look back at verse 8. The actual word that the NASV translates as “not” is “never”. “Not” means “never”.

And “Never” means “never”. And it, like every other word in Scripture, must be taken literally and at face value.

Once God has forgiven our sin through Christ—what this verse is telling us is that He will never, never bring it up again.

He will never again bring it up in this life and He will never bring it up in the day of judgment.

And that is why David and Paul say that the person who sees this and believes this is “happy”.

So—if you don’t accept this and persist in the belief that your sin will be taken into account by the Lord on a future day—you won’t be happy—in fact, you can’t be.

Now, I understand that there are believers who really struggle with what we are talking about because they believe that at the Judgment Seat of Christ they will have to give an account for their actions after salvation, which obviously would include their sins.

Their real problem is that they don’t understand the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Whereas, most believers realize that the Judgment Seat of Christ is not about qualifying them for heaven or losing their salvation—they do think the believers' judgment is going to be having to answer for and lose rewards for the sins they committed after they were saved.

I love what John MacArthur says about this very concern.
“If that's true folks . . . . [the] Best thing to do is to live your whole life ungodly, get saved the minute before you die and then you're all right [because then there won’t be any sins after your salvation to be judged for or give an account for.”

Other believers have concluded that the Judgment Seat of Christ is where believers will be judged for unconfessed sins. In other words, the sins you forgot about and didn’t confess or didn't confess willfully will have to be paid for and you'll have to get zapped.

Again, let me cite MacArthur in answering this one.

“The Bible doesn't say that. That betrays a lack of understanding of confession. Confession has nothing to do with forgiveness. Forgiveness has already taken place. Confession is homologeo, to say the same thing. To agree with God you're a sinner and thank Him that He already forgave you.”

Then MacArthur goes on to explain what the Judgment Seat of Christ is all about.
“It is simply a place of rewards. There will be no condemnation. You see every believer will have praise. There won't be anybody condemned. There won't be anybody shipped back to hell from heaven. There will be no one who will have to be punished. Christ bore all punishment. There will only be praise, but there will be varying degrees of praise depending upon the work of your life, you see. When it says in 2 Corinthians 5, "We shall all appear before the judgment seat," it's the word bema in the Greek. It refers not to a tribunal or a court. It refers to the Olympic stadium which was outside Corinth.

And whether it was a garland or a Loral wreath or an oak left cluster or whatever was the award, the winners went up and ascended the bema and there were rewarded for the victories. Every believer will be at the bema, which means everybody's going to get an award or a reward, a prize. Everybody will have praise, some more than others. Some will be more highly honored than others because some will have lasting and eternal work. Others will have worthless effort, but all will be saved. That's this judgment.”

You know, I can tell some of you this until I’m blue in the face but it doesn’t sink in unless and until you hear a big name like John MacArthur say the same thing.
I think it’s the two witness thing—you need to hear it from more than just me.
Well, regardless of what I think or John MacArthur thinks—what’s important is what the Bible says so turn to 1 Corinthians 4:1-5.

Paul, here, makes the point that he is not at all concerned about how others perceive and judge him. In fact, he does not even try to examine himself. Rather, he is content to leave the examination of his ministry and his works to the Lord.
Then in verse 5, he makes the point that at the Judgment Seat of Christ when and where Christ examines our works as believers that this judgment will examine our motives and heart attitudes and that when the judgment is completed—each person will receive varying degrees of praise from God.

There is nothing said there about being judged for sin that no longer exists and there is nothing said about rebuke or punishment or shame or exposure.
The word that is mentioned is praise.

Now take a look for just a moment at 1 Corinthians 3:8, 13-14. The focus in these verses regarding the Bema Seat is “rewards” not judgment.

Look at 2 Corinthians 5:10. The word “recompense” in the NASV or “receive” in the KJV comes from the Greek word, komisetai, which means: to receive back what is due or to be paid back what has been lost. In other words, it is a time in which Christ reimburses us for what we have lost in pursuing risk and sacrifice for His cause as well as rewards us for the quality of our service to Him.

The word “bad” is the Greek word, phaulon. It does not mean evil or sinful or wickedness or immorality as the Greek words, kakos and poneros do.

Rather the Greek word, phaulon means that which is “worthless, useless, or simply good-for-nothing”.

The word describes activities that are neither sinful or necessarily having eternal value—they are in effect, morally neutral and could be such things as taking a walk, taking a drive, watching a good family-friendly video, going shopping, eating, pursuing a hobby, playing a game, working on the house, etc. in which such activities were undertaken with no thought of glorifying God in them.

In other words, the Christian family that simply spends every evening of the week watching and enjoying good family programming may find themselves experiencing very little in the way of rewards at the Bema Seat.

On the other hand, the Christian who is out of the home every chance he can get working in some Christian ministry or endeavor in order to make himself look good or out of a sense of duty or just guilt rather than a desire to make much of Christ may find himself coming up short on rewards at the Bema Seat as well.

You see, the recompense for activities and endeavors that are not done for the purpose of making much of Christ is simply “no reward” or “a lack of reward”.
It is not punishment or embarrassment or public exposure and shame—it is just a loss of rewards and with that a certain amount of regret for the wasted time and effort on things that did not glorify God.

When I was in Jr. High School every May we had a school award assembly in which we received academic and athletic awards.

And we all sat there excited at the prospect of being called up to receive a certificate or better yet, a ribbon, or even better than that, a medal, or best of all—a trophy.

And even though everyone who was involved in sports or attempted to study was recognized for something not everyone received the same awards or praise.
But, no one, not a single person was brought up to be shamed or disgraced or judged or made to look bad.

That wasn’t what this was all about—and neither is the Judgment Seat of Christ.
The Judgment Seat of Christ is about rewarding and praising us not exposing and shaming us.

And it is about rewarding us and praising us for our work in His Kingdom.
Look at 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 again.

"Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire. And the fire shall test every man's work of what sort it is."

There's coming a day when everybody's work is going to be tested.
Why? So God can determine of what value your service to Him as a Christian was so that He can what—Punish you? No, the passage specifically says—reward you not punish you.

Every man shall have praise. You may only have a little piece of precious stone and a little hunk of gold left in your little pile when the fire's done and God will say here's your reward.

You were faithful in that little. And that is what you will be rewarded for.
But keep in mind everyone shall have praise and every believer shall receive a reward for something.

And no one—absolutely no one is being shamed or having sin exposed or being punished—because their sin was already removed from them and punished in Christ Jesus on the cross of Calvary.

So relax and serve God out of joy for His marvelous grace rather than out of fear in which you are trying to make up for the false expectation of judgment and shame you think you will receive.

CONCLUSION

You know, I wonder what God has to do to get us to believe that He really loves us and has our best interests in mind?

Kill His own Son to save us! Consider Romans 5:8.

He who did not spare His own Son for us—will He not freely give us all things?!
Oh when will we quit doubting Him and His promises and His Word and His Love for us?

When will we finally take Him at His Word and believe Him that our sins are gone—forever removed from us as far as the east is from the west?

I cannot wonder if the greater sin is not the breaking of His Law as much as it is the breaking of His heart when we doubt the integrity of His love for us as the very ones He gave His Son to die for?

But praise the Lord—even if that is the sin you are committing this morning as you are listening to me and thinking—“this is just too good to be true”—He paid for this one too and you’ll never have to answer for it.