How were the OT saints saved? Were works necessary or was it by faith alone? Did they have eternal security?
We’re totally going to answer all these questions beyond any reasonable doubt!
STOP what you’re doing and READ the entire chapter of Romans 4.
Seriously.
Read Romans 4. I’m not kidding.
Are you done?
Don’t pretend like you read Romans 4 and continue reading this article. READ IT!
Did you really read it?
Don’t play games with me. Read it!
Okay.
Romans 4 is in the midst of a 3-chapter section of Romans, 3-5, in which Paul goes through the entire process of our justification by faith. In chapter 3, Christ was set forth as a propitiation for our sins. In chapter 4, Christ was raised again for our justification, and in chapter 5, he says in verse 1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” The result of our faith in the fact that Christ was a propitiation for our sins and raised again for our justification is that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ with a sure standing in His grace and the hope of a coming glory.
Plopped right in the middle of this 3-chapter section, Paul seems to address Jewish objectors to justification by faith by giving examples of two great men of faith – Abraham and David.
He starts with Abraham.
Beginning in verse 2, Paul writes, “For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”
First, Abraham believed God. Paul doesn’t write that Abraham believed IN God. He believed GOD. He placed his faith in the good news from God at the time.
Here’s a question. What does it mean exactly – counted unto him for righteousness?
The word, counted, is the same Greek word translated as imputed in vs. 22 when he says, “it was imputed to him for righteousness.” So righteousness was imputed to Abraham. Well what does that mean? What does “impute” mean? To impute something is to write it down, to have it credited to your account. When God imputes righteousness, He writes His righteousness onto your account, which means you are saved and sealed in Him forevermore.
The very phrase “imputed to him for righteousness” means that that person has eternal security. Just as it is for us, so it was for them in time past, that there is nothing anyone can do to get that righteousness unimputed or to have God’s righteousness removed from your account once you are declared righteous by faith in His Word. To have His righteousness imputed to you has always been a declaration by God that you stand righteous in God’s sight because of your faith, and nothing you can say or do can ever take that away from you.
What is righteousness? Righteousness is simply the rightness of God, His moral standard of holy perfection in everything He wills and does. Now – anything unrighteous is anything that falls short of the holiness of God, which is His crowning glory. Which begs the question – what’s the difference between righteousness and holiness? You might say His holiness is the purity of His nature being free from all iniquity whereas His righteousness is the rightness with which He acts. He acts righteously because He is holy. You might remember in Isaiah 6, when Isaiah was catapulted into the presence of the Lord, the Seraphims were always singing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” They sing of His holiness, because His holiness IS His glory, the crowning attribute of His divine nature. This is why we’re all sinners, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” We’ve all fallen short of His crowning glory, which is His holiness, and thus, we are all sinners in need of redemption.
You have to be careful when reading the word “righteousness,” especially in the OT, because righteousness does not always mean salvation. Righteousness is simply the rightness of God, and it can also mean that one is simply acting rightly as God would have that person to act, that one is exhibiting God’s righteous ways in the outliving of his faith.
But some who advocate salvation by works in the OT may point to verses like Psa. 15:1 in which David said, “LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.”
Did this mean that one had to do works to obtain righteousness?
Absolutely not.
“For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” and he is “the father of ALL who believe.” Like Abraham, all who believed God’s Word would have His righteousness imputed to them.
So what’s David saying?
He’s saying that those who lived righteously would abide in His tabernacle and His holy hill because there were consequences for sin in the flesh even after you were saved in the OT. If you were saved, meaning you had God’s righteousness imputed to you for your faith in His Word just like Abraham, and then later you lived like a heathen, you would not be allowed into His tabernacle or His holy hill. There were consequences for sin under the law in the OT.
If you’d like to talk about OT salvation in the book of Psalms, how about the epic story of Phinehas in Psa. 106:28-31? The story of Phinehas is AWESOME. Numbers 25. A man had led Israel into whoredom, and God had begun to put a plague on the entire nation.
So what did Phinehas do?
He took a javelin. He chased that man into his tent and thrust him with the javelin and also his harlot who was standing right behind him, which stayed the plague. And David tells us that “that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore.”
Did the act of killing a man and a woman save the soul of Phinehas? If that’s what it took to get saved most of Israel would be dead because they’d all be killing each other!
No.
Phinehas was a man of faith. He was one of the children of Abraham. It was Phinehas believing what God told them and it was his proper response to God’s Words. As a result, his faith was counted for righteousness, not temporarily, but unto all generations FOREVERMORE – just like faithful Abraham.
Here’s a verse. Moses said in Deu_6:25 “And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us.” Does this mean that they would obtain salvation by obeying the law? How is that possible? Their works observing the law would only be accepted by God if those works were done out of faith. There were consequences for sin in the flesh on the earth under the law, but nothing could ever unsave you once you’re declared righteous for your faith before God.
Hebrews 11 is called the Faith Hall of Fame, not the Faith Plus Works Hall of Fame!
We say in our church, “that the law was not a means of justification but of sanctification.” THIS is what Moses meant. If they observed His law, they would exhibit His righteousness in their lives, living rightly as God would have them to live, by which they would be His people set apart from all the nations, a glory to God and a witness to the world of His existence. They could only be true witnesses for God if they lived righteously by faith. Hab 2:4, “The just shall live by his faith.” The justified, the righteous man, is defined by his faith alone!
Look at Romans 4:23. “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”
First, Paul says, “Now it was not written for his sake alone…” The story of Abraham was written for our sakes, too, because we’re saved by faith like Abraham and we’re sealed forever like Abraham and THAT makes him our father, the father of all who believe even today. How amazing it is that the story of Abraham wasn’t written about us or to us, but it was always written FOR US. God always had us in mind even when He had Moses pen the story of Abraham. He elected to have Abraham saved by faith before he was circumcised so that Abraham could be our father as well, because God wants us to know that we are part of His entire family. When Paul tells us that we are accepted in the beloved, God wants us to know that we are part of His whole family of beloved saints and that Abraham is our father, too.
The same thing that that happened to Abraham when he got saved, when God imputed His righteousness to him for his faith, is the same thing that happens to us. Paul shows us that the method of justification has always been the same; however, what Abraham believed to earn God’s righteousness was different than what we must believe today. Abraham simply believed what God told him at the time when He said, “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing…” and He properly responded in faith by leaving the Ur of the Chaldees.
Today, we believe what God tells us now that the Lord Jesus Christ was “delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification,” and we properly respond in faith by accepting His payment for our sins by faith and then we make ourselves living sacrifices to God.But while the good news that had to be believed was different, the method of salvation by faith alone was always the same. “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”
Not only that, but Paul tells us in vs. 16, as well as 3 other times in this chapter, that Abraham is the father of ALL who believe. Paul said in Gal. 3:7 “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” Gal. 3:9 “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” The method of salvation has been true for everyone across all ages as it was true for Abraham. If you believed God’s words, then you would become a child of Abraham, blessed with faithful Abraham in that your faith would be counted for righteousness just as it was for Abraham.
I’ve heard it said many times that OT saints really didn’t know how to be saved, which makes no sense to me at all. How could they not know how to be saved when God lifted up Abraham’s faith and showed them that “This is how you are saved!” The Jews could never ever say to God that they didn’t know how to be individually saved. They were all absolutely without excuse. If they knew the story of Abraham, then they knew how to be saved, and what Jew wouldn’t know the story of Abraham?
A few words about circumcision.
It is evident from this whole chapter that no work of any kind could have ever saved anyone. “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” Circumcision did not justify Abraham. It was merely a “sign,” a token, “a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised” (Ver.11). Thus, he became “the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised” (Ver. 11). Abraham became “the father of circumcision,” not to those who merely submitted to the rite of circumcision but “who also walk in the steps of that faith,” which Abraham had “being yet uncircumcised.”
So what if someone believed but didn’t get circumcised? He would still be saved but would lose out on future rewards for his failure to obey. True, one could also ask if he truly believed, because if he truly believed he would have properly responded to God’s instructions, but God knoweth them that are His.
I’ve heard it said so many times that for a Gentile to become saved, he had to become a proselyte.
No.
To be saved, he had to show the faith of Abram. Period.
Then he’d get circumcised, which was only “a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised.” Faith alone saves, but of course, the proper response by faith was to become circumcised. Did circumcision make anyone saved? No, it was faith and faith alone. Circumcision was only a sign that they were sealed in their righteousness by faith, just as we are sealed by His Spirit and we’re the circumcised with the circumcision made without hands.
Works of any kind in any age in time past or in any age to come will never save a soul because faith alone is what brings glory to God. When Abraham believed God, he did the one thing a man can do without doing anything. God made a promise. Abraham believed in his heart God told him the truth. Then God undertook to fulfill His promise. “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” Abraham’s heart was turned completely away from himself and his idols, and his heart was turned completely toward God and His promises.
God said of Abraham, as it were: “He believes Me. I will honor his faith. I will count him righteous, and I will fulfill my promise.” As God chose Paul to demonstrate His grace to sinners, so Paul chose Abraham to demonstrate justification by faith. Even though Abraham did not know it at the time, God was justified in counting his faith for righteousness because God knew that the future death of His Son would cover all sin for all man for all time. In God’s mind before the foundation of the world, the act of redemption was as good as done. We, like Abraham, have righteousness imputed to us for exhibiting faith in what God tells us today about His Son’s sacrifice and resurrection as the ultimate payment for our sins. And we may now celebrate as King David celebrated, who described “the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.”
David
Let’s just bask for a moment in the beauty of these verses about David in Romans 4:
4:4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. 4:6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, 4:7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 4:8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
King David, under the law!
King David, who committed adultery and murder!
If ever there was an OT saint who should’ve lost his salvation, been stoned to death, and sent straight to hell, it was King David.
But he wasn’t.
His salvation was never in doubt.
Here, Paul quotes Psalms 32 in which David sings of the blessedness of the man to whom is imputed righteousness without works. It’s such a beautiful Psalm, too. He opens with the theme of his song, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity…” This is followed by David’s efforts to cover up his sin. He said, “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.” And then we have the Lord’s hand being “heavy” upon him “day and night” so that his “moisture” was turned to “the drought of summer”.
Finally, He confesses all to the Lord, who readily forgives “the iniquity” of his “sin”. Then, at the end, David pulls out all the stops in praising God. “Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.”
David never talks about how he WISHES men were imputed righteousness without works. He talks about the blessedness of the man who IS imputed righteousness without works. Why should King David, who was under the law, talk about imputation of righteousness without works if that was never the method of salvation in the OT? Where did he even get the idea that OT saints were saved without works? I’ll tell you where. “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” David knew, just as Paul teaches us, that all men in all ages obtained salvation by faith alone… just like Abraham.
I would suggest that David’s point about “the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works” was the rule for all ages. Isaiah said in Isa 38:17 “…but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” Why were all his sins cast behind the Lord’s back? Because his faith was counted for righteousness. The method of Isaiah’s salvation was true for him just as it was true for Abraham just as it was true for David just as it was true for all men. God’s righteousness is imputed to all by faith alone, which covers all sins. What David was at risk of experiencing was not the loss of his salvation but rather the full consequence under the law for His sins of adultery and murder. He should’ve been stoned to death, but God chose a different punishment. God chose to punish David by taking the life of his illegitimate son, as we all know. David also suffered mightily through his children, particularly Amnon and Absalom. David suffered mightily, and I’d say God’s punishment was absolutely just.
I know what some people are thinking? What about James? Didn’t James say Abraham was justified by works?
STOP what you’re doing and READ James 2:14-24
We know that whereas Paul writes to us, James is writing to the twelve tribes scattered abroad, to the kingdom saints, which is a completely different program.
You have the point in vs. 14-16, of the faithful not helping destitute brothers and sisters, which is to ask the question: “What is the point of faith if you do not act righteously as God would have you to act?”
He says, faith without works is dead, which I’d suggest is a timeless principle. If you have faith, then live according to your faith! If you’re not living according to your faith, then your faith is dead, so get back to being faithful and doing good works!
But how do you explain this seeming contradiction between Paul and James about justification by works? Pastor Joel Finck in his commentary on Romans said that the solution is to recognize the dispensational change, that “Paul takes his illustration before his circumcision and James takes his illustration after his circumcision.” I admit, I struggle with that view. Both Paul and James are talking about the same event – Abraham’s justification.
Abraham was only justified once by faith, which was before he was circumcised.
So how does one reconcile this seeming contradiction about justification by works? I’d suggest the answer is in the context. Look at vs. 18. “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” This is the theme of the chapter. This is the sum of all the points James makes here – seeing someone’s faith in the kingdom program by their works.
Works was an integral part of the kingdom program. If God calls you to leave the Ur of Chaldees and you believe Him but you do not leave was that really faith? What is the proper response to His calling? The proper response is obedience of faith, to do what God has called you to do. The act of leaving the Ur of Chaldees was merely an outward demonstration of Abraham’s faith, because leaving the Ur of Chaldees, in and of itself, wouldn’t save anyone. “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” It’s responding in faith to what God says that matters. THEN they had to act. The OT saints could’ve never acted if they FIRST didn’t have faith.
James quotes the same verse as Paul when it came to Abraham’s justification. “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23). Believing God, not the act of leaving, is what saved Abraham’s soul, which allowed his faith to be counted for righteousness.
James is basically asking the question here in this chapter, “How do we know that Abraham was sincere in his faith? Because he left the Ur of Chaldees.” He says in vs. 22, “Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” In other words, his work was the instrument of his faith, which is how they could SEE that he was saved. God recorded at least 10 tests of faith to prove that Abraham really did believe God; that his faith was a heart trust, rather than mere intellectual assent. Faith was not the ground of Abraham’s justification. It was merely the response. God’s Word was the ground upon which his faith rested and his actions were the proper response to God’s Words.
I also think that in vs. 24, when James says, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only,” he is only making the point of seeing how a man had been justified by seeing his works, which is the same point he made in vs. 22, that works was merely the demonstration of his faith, that works was the proper response by faith to whatever God had told him at the time, and that works was HOW they COULD SEE that a man had been justified by his faith.
It makes perfect sense to me to make works integral to the kingdom program, because when the Messiah arrives, they will literally have to roll up their sleeves and get to work to establish the kingdom here on earth. They needed to get to work to become the priests God always said they would be in order to bless the whole world about Christ in His kingdom on Earth. They needed to get to work to help fellow kinsman in the flesh believe. They needed to get to work because, if the kingdom truly was at hand, and it was, then they needed to give up all their possessions to follow Christ.
If all Israel had to be converted before the kingdom would be established, how would they know a kinsman after the flesh had been saved?
Seeing their works.
Say, for example, when the apostles had to get the word out in Israel about the kingdom at hand to convert the whole nation, to persuade them into accepting Christ as their Messiah for the sake of establishing His kingdom here on Earth, how did they know that someone was saved?
Seeing their works.
Let’s say they saw a man they knew who was rich and he had repented and was baptized of water, and he gave up all his possessions to follow Christ. Well, in that case, they definitely knew beyond any doubt that that man was sincere in his faith by his works, and they could move on to the next man and get on with the conversion of the whole nation to bring about the kingdom. I don’t think James is saying that Abraham was justified by works, but the context of the chapter is about seeing that someone has been saved by seeing their works, which was the instruments of their faith, in the context of the kingdom program.
The doing didn’t save anyone. Only their faith saved them.
Let me ask some questions.
How many of the Lord’s commands did they have to obey to prove the sincerity of their faith in order to be saved?
You had to repent and be baptized.
You had to give up all your possessions and follow Christ. In Matt 19, the Lord told the rich man, “if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” and then He lists 6 of the 10 commandments. Is that all you had to do to get eternal life? Obey 6 of the 10 commandments?
No, of course not.
I love the story of the rich man. I think Jesus knew the rich man felt he kept the law perfectly, and the Lord simply used the law against him listing 6 commandments the rich man had knowingly broke to bring him to the realization that he could not keep the commandments, that he needed a savior, and that savior was standing right in front of him.
What we see in that story is the law in action showing a man he’s a sinner.
So how many of the Lord’s commands did they have to obey to prove the sincerity of their faith in order to be saved?
For anyone who would quote Mark 16:16, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned,” I could also quote Mar 5:34 in which the Lord spoke to the woman with plagues who touched Him. “And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace…”
She hadn’t even been water baptized! Yet, her faith made her whole and Christ told her she could go live in peace.
What saved her?
Her faith saved her. What did she believe? That Christ was their Messiah. As a result, she was reconciled to God. She was at peace with God, because her faith was counted for righteousness.
Consider Joh 3:18, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” The Jews were to believe in the name of Christ. They were to believe that Christ was all He said He was, the Messiah, the Son of God.
The kingdom saints were saved by faith alone, BUT how well they obeyed the words of the Lord would determine their placement, their positions, inside the kingdom.
Let’s say a rich man repented and was baptized BUT he didn’t give up all of his possessions to follow Christ. Did that mean he was never saved or that he lost his salvation?
No.
It meant that he was saved if he truly believed but his lack of obedience would impact his placement inside the kingdom.
What if a disciple failed to forgive a brother, meaning that God the Father would not forgive him as Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:14-15)? Does that mean he was never saved or that he’d lose his salvation?
No.
It meant that his lack of obedience regarding forgiveness brought about an eternal consequence in terms of reward and position in God’s kingdom. ETERNAL consequence! If you believed but you neglected to submit to water baptism or failed to obey many of the Lord’s other commands, you would be saved but your neglect would impact your placement in the kingdom.
Remember, the woman with plagues was made whole by her faith alone. How do we know this? Because the Lord knew her heart and the genuineness of her faith. He alone could declare her whole by her faith because He was the Son of God.
They had eternal security.
What happened to Abraham when he believed, happened to all the Jews during the Lord’s earthly ministry. Their faith was counted for righteousness and nothing would ever unimpute God’s righteous once God had declared them righteous by their faith.
Consider Jude 1:1 and how the faithful remnant are preserved in Jesus Christ, kept in Jesus Christ and make no mistake, they were kept in Christ forever.
When Christ prayed to God the Father in John 17, He said, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.” Later He prays, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” Their salvation and eternal security was never in doubt. What was needed was sanctification in their walk so they might glorify God the Father.
Closing
Keep in mind that when God introduces His law and covenants in the OT, things get wonderfully complicated. Distinctions have to be made between individual salvation vs. corporate salvation, imputed righteousness vs. living righteously, salvation of the soul vs. Israel’s deliverance from enemies, etc. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that individual salvation was exemplified to all through Abraham, who is the father of all who believe. “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”
SUPPLY OF GRACE 