Romans 4:6-8 - The Non-Imputation of Sin

Romans 4:6-8 - 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered.8 “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

Message: Sin is not put onto the account of man God has blessed with righteousness.

Time: The date of the book is probably 60 A.D. written from Corinth on Paul's third missionary journey. The church in Rome seems to be established and Romans does not speak of any one error in the church that he is addressing. The church had a large Jewish element, but also filled with Gentile converts from paganism, both free as well as slaves. 

What the Lord is Saying: Paul is in the middle of relaying the events or lives of two witnesses of the Gospel by faith, not works, of two Jewish patriarchs. Verses 1-5 spoke of Abraham being saved by faith and then being credited righteousness. Now verse 6-8 speak of David. 

It is interesting that, in these verses, are examples of apologetic from Paul. He is defending the faith to the people that are in the church. However, it could be that those individuals are already Christians and he is helping them know how to be a witness to those in their community. 

Verse 6 states the purpose of these verses: to show the man who God credits righteousness apart from works. And what man has received is a blessing or a gift (John 3:16). To be blessed is to have the greatest joy of man. Blessing means that between you and God all is well (John Piper).

Preceptaustin.org states that, "In the case of Abraham, righteousness was credited (logizomai from Romans 4:5) to him, apart from works, on the basis of faith. In the case of David obviously no good work is involved, but on the contrary, iniquity has been committed but is not "imputed" (from the Septuagint of Psalm 32:2, also logizomai) to the man who has received the awesome gift of justification." Using the Jewish interpretive principle gezerah shavah, which links different texts containing the same key word or phrase, Paul uses the same word to interpret the other. Paul is telling his readers and us to reflect on our position in Christ and to place two things into our spiritual bank account: (1) We are "dead to sin" (verse 8) and (2) we are "alive to God in Christ Jesus" (verse 3).

From Tabletalk: The word logizomai is a bookkeeping term that means “to put on one’s record” or “to credit to one’s account.” In the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), the term often appears where individuals must treat a person or object as if it were something other than what it is inherently. For example, when the Levites received tithes, they were not to treat these tithes as actual tithes that had already been devoted to the Lord. Instead, they had to regard these tithes as their income and then pay a tithe to the Lord themselves from what had been given to them. Inherently, what the people gave were tithes. But the Levites reckoned them as income (Numbers 18:25-32). So, in this instance, here in Romans 4, to credit something to a person's account and regard that person not according to what he has done or who he is but according to what is credited to his account. The credit from Abraham was righteousness on the basis of faith. The credit from David here is a sinner not being seen as a sinner but being seen as dead to sin. 

What I found very interesting from these verses is Paul is saying that the message that God makes man righteous or credits man with righteous can be seen in the idea from David that God sees man as being dead to sin. Thus, righteousness again is not on the basis of deeds or works. When someone is declared righteous there are being declared dead to sin. This is a huge contrast to the message of many in churches and other religious thought which state is is through adherence to laws of the church or belonging to a certain church that makes us or gives us cause to receive God's salvation or grace or righteousness. The problem with that thinking is how can good works in life have anything to do with being made righteous when Paul states that faith makes a person righteous and righteousness means people are dead to sin. People are bringing the notion of good works into the equation when it is clearly not there. 

Promise: From Tabletalk: God knows that man has sinned, but when we stand before God in Christ, though he knows we have sinned, he does not regard us as unrighteous (evil), but as righteous (good). We receive eternal life according to Christ's righteousness, not our own.