God doesn't negotiate his righteousness God doesn't do away with his justice but he retains his justice he retains his righteousness and he truly punishes sin because there really was a cross and on that cross there was real propitiation where there was a real satisfaction for the requirements of God's justice but it was done vicariously this satisfaction for your sin if you're a believer was accomplished by Christ not by you do you know why it wasn't accomplished by you because you couldn't it required a sinless person and that eliminates most of us which would be the understatement of the year it eliminates all of us again if the Lord would mark iniquity who would stand not me not you but the glorious gospel is now the righteousness of God is revealed through that one whose righteousness is made available to all who believe who by his blood has been a propitiation for us on the cross whereas the boasting then Paul's asking not a why question of how question the who question or when question it's a where question it's a question of location looking around now I said where's the boasting if this is true well where do I hear the boasting from any buffs thing in here people who have earned their way into heaven where is it what's the Apostle say it's excluded you know that Christianity is an exclusive or legend it excludes things it excludes people it excludes unrepentant sinners from the family of God and it excludes boasting from the family of God it's also inclusive it includes everyone Jew or Greek black or white male or female whatever who puts their trust in Christ and in Christ alone now so Paul to further examine this and explain this he goes back to the Old Testament and he brings forth Exhibit A for our consideration who was father Abraham they said look at Abraham what the neighbor ahem do with respect to salvation and he goes back to Genesis 15 and he quotes it where God makes a covenant promise to Abraham and we read in Genesis 15 these words abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness and Paul goes on to labor the point that before Abraham offered Isaac on the altar before Abraham was circumcised before Abraham did a single act of obedience God counted him righteous you see that's justification by faith along with a vengeance that's justification by the imputation of righteousness it's justification by the assigning or the transferring legally of one person's righteousness to another last week in Washington at our seminar we had a Q&A session and somebody asked me this question from the floor mr. Darcy and what do you regard is the greatest threat to the evangelical church today right now and I said for me it's the whole new perspective on Paul actions going on throughout academic considerations in the so-called evangelical world because in the midst of this is a wider and wider and wider rejection of imputation of the righteousness of Christ as the grounds of our salvation this in circles that call themselves evangelical I said here's why it's so serious without imputation without the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to you by God by faith you don't have justification by faith because imputation is essential to the doctrine of justification by faith alone and without the doctrine of justification by faith alone you know what else you don't have you don't have the gospel so it's QED without imputation as far as I'm concerned there is no gospel and when this concept of imputation gets more and more obscured and eclipsed in our day look out for another Dark Ages where the gospel itself is eclipsed and people go back to some kind of works righteousness because that's the only alternative the justification by the imputation of somebody else's righteousness so Paul Labor's that it's through believing that Abraham was justified the moment he had faith not the moment after he had inherent righteousness not after he was sanctified not after he was made righteous but before it did anything except believe God God counted him as righteous and then he goes on to explain how the just are justified by faith and not works then he talks about the consequences of justification chapter five being justified therefore we have what peace with God and access into his presence that hostility that previously existed between an angry God against the rebellious creation where men are by nature enemies of God I mean you've been taught all your life that by nature you're a child of God no by nature you're child of Wrath only by super nature only by conversion do you become a child of God the only way you're a child of God is if God adopts you through His grace but your natural birthright is wrath and the only merit that you had to bring before God is your demerit even as Agustin said the best works of the greatest Saints never go beyond what he called splendid vices because even after conversion the best things that we ever do are always in every work tainted to some degree by the flesh that pound of flesh that we carry with us until the day that were glorified in heaven and so then Paul speaks about the marvelous benefits and consequences of being justified of being welcomed into the family of God and escape from the consequences of original sin and so on and then in Chapter six he asks a question well what should we say then what should our response be to the gospel if God accepts us while we were still sinners if Christ died for us while we were still sinners in fact where our sin abounded Paul said grace did that much more abound the more we sinned the greater the grace now how does the sinner get ahold of that statement and say well if the more I sin the more grace I get that sounds pretty cool Paul says what should we say then should we continue in sin that grace may abound