{"id":1473,"date":"2010-01-21T20:55:33","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T02:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1473"},"modified":"2010-01-21T20:55:33","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T02:55:33","slug":"romans-422-unearned-credit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-422-unearned-credit\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 4:22 – Unearned Credit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 4:22<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

And therefore “It was accounted to him for righteousness.”<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Salvation is a gift which is credited to our account when we believe God\u2019s message in the Bible.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The word translated \u201ctherefore<\/span>\u201d is dio<\/span><\/em>. This is made up of dia<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cthrough, either positionally or instrumentally\u201d and the personal pronoun hos<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cwho, which, or what.\u201d Hence, dio<\/span><\/em> literally means \u201cthrough which.\u201d It can be translated as \u201ctherefore, wherefore, or consequently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAccounted<\/span>\u201d is a word that we looked at back in verse three of this chapter. It is the word logidzomai<\/span><\/em>, which means \u201cto count out as one would count out money when payment is being made\u201d or \u201cthe crediting to someone\u2019s account based on the payment made.\u201d The Hebrew word used in Genesis 15:6<\/span><\/strong>, which this verse quotes, is khashab<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto think, to reckon, to regard, to consider, or to be accounted.\u201d Therefore, based on the Hebrew word it is translating, logidzomai<\/span><\/em> means \u201cto put to one\u2019s account\u201d or \u201cto credit to someone.\u201d One way to think of this is that it is something which God marks in His record book.<\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember the therefore rule? Whenever you see a \u201ctherefore\u201d or a \u201cwherefore,\u201d you need to see what it\u2019s there for<\/strong>. In this case \u201ctherefore\u201d is in reference to the fact that Abraham was fully persuaded. That is, his faith was strong and unwavering. He completely believed God. And, because Abraham had a firm conviction that God would do what He promised He would do (make Abraham\u2019s descendents as numerous as the stars of the heavens and make Abraham the father of many nations), God credited that faith to him as righteousness. That is, it was marked in God\u2019s record book next to Abraham\u2019s name giving him credit for being righteous. He didn\u2019t earn it; it was simply credited to him as a gift.<\/p>\n

This is the crux of what we call salvation. God tells us that we are sinners condemned to suffer eternally in Hell. He tells us that we need salvation and that the only way for us to obtain salvation is to accept the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross in payment for our sins. So, first a person has to believe that he or she is a sinner. Next, we have to believe that we are going to be judged for our sins and that the punishment for our sins is eternity in hell. But how do we know these things? We know them because that\u2019s what God tells us in the Bible. If we don\u2019t believe the Bible is God\u2019s word, then we don\u2019t believe what God tells us in the Bible and there\u2019s no reason to believe in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

However, if we believe that we are sinners who are going to hell, then we must believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. How do we know that He is the Son of God who died on the cross to pay for our sins? We know this because God tells us in His message to mankind, the Bible. When we believe that we are sinners and that Jesus\u2019 blood was shed on the cross as payment for our sins, as a result of our faith, God credits righteousness to our account.<\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t earn salvation by believing; God simply gives us credit for it when we believe His message. That is, He credits us with righteousness. He doesn\u2019t owe it to us. It\u2019s His gift to us. <\/span>That\u2019s grace!<\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2010 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 4:22 And therefore “It was accounted to him for righteousness.” Truth to Learn Salvation is a gift which is credited to our account when we believe God\u2019s message in the Bible. Behind the Words The word translated \u201ctherefore\u201d is dio. This is made up of dia, meaning \u201cthrough, either positionally or instrumentally\u201d and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[644,645,646,75,97],"class_list":["post-1473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accounted","tag-credited","tag-imputer","tag-righteousness","tag-salvation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-nL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}