KJV versus JST: Faith Counted for Righteousness, Romans 4:2-5

 Welcome to another episode of KJV versus JST!  Today we're looking at a block of verses in Romans about how faith is counted for righteousness.

KJV:  Romans 4:2-5	JST:  Romans 4:2-5
2 For if Abraham were justified by works,  he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.	2 For if Abraham were justified by the law of works, he hath to glory in himself; but not of God.
3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.	3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.	4 Now to him who is justified by the law of works, is the reward reckoned, not of grace, but of debt.
5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.	5 But to him that seeketh not to be justified by the law of works, but believeth on him who justifieth not the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

One of the things the JST makes clear here in v4-5 is the issue is not between doing works and not doing works like the KJV makes it seem like it is.  The issue is what we believe about the role works have in our salvation.   It says that if we think we are justified by works (whether the law of Moses or the ordinances of the gospel or good works done to our fellowmen), we are going to think (even if only subconsciously) that God owes us for what we have done, that we have put God in our debt thereby.  There is no room for Christ in this way of thinking, which is why it is mistaken.

What is the alternative?  We have to start with the realization that we have sinned and Christ has paid for our sins, putting us in deep debt to Him.  Believing in the salvation He offers us, we repent of our sins.  Knowing that He will not justify the ungodly (those who continue to sin), we forsake sin, receive the ordinances, keep His commandments, and do good.  These works can never be enough to repay our debt to Christ, but we do them anyway because they are what He asks of us in return.

So “seeking not to be justified by the law of works” (v5) is not referring to stopping works.  It means that you know your works are not enough to pay the debt of your sins or the debt you owe to Christ who paid for those sins.  It means you’re just doing your best to serve Christ because you love Him for what He did and want to follow Him.

This is a really hard thing for us to grasp.  Somehow we are so used to thinking of debts as something we must try to pay off.  The problem in the case of our salvation debt is, the very moment we think of trying to pay it off, that’s the moment we have stopped trusting Christ and started trusting ourselves instead.  We must be content to be His debt slaves and do His bidding forever.  Serving with that attitude—that we are forever in His debt because of His atonement—is how our faith is counted for righteousness. 

He’s the best Master because the things He asks of us are calculated to make us more like Him, but not because we are able to do it on our own, but because as we do our best, He gives us the power (grace) to do those things.  Yes, the better we become, the more we are in His debt because of His enabling power of grace.

The Nephite law for unpaid debts

 Now if a man owed another, and he would not pay that which he did owe, he was complained of to the judge; and the judge executed authority, and sent forth officers that the man should be brought before him; and he judged the man according to the law and the evidences which were brought against him, and thus the man was compelled to pay that which he owed, or be stripped, or be cast out from among the people as a thief and a robber. (Alma 11:2)

Here we have a list of possible judgments for those who don’t pay their debts. 

1.     Those who have the means to pay can be compelled to pay what was owed.

2.     Those who don’t have liquid funds but do have tangible property that can go for the debt can be stripped of their possessions, probably to be sold to pay the debt.

3.     Those who have neither funds nor tangible property sufficient to cover the debt can be cast out from the people as a thief and a robber.

We might ask ourselves, why were those who had nothing to pay cast out?  It seems like a pretty tough judgment.  Well, you have to have someway of maintaining trust between people.  In a small community, people know who is trustworthy or not.  If the community is too large or people are moving in and out too quickly to get to know how trustworthy they are, it becomes very difficult to know who you can trust to repay debts and who you can’t.  (With our modern technology, we have credit ratings agencies now who do a lot of the work of tracking who pays and who doesn’t.)  If the number of people you can’t trust in a community becomes too great, then the burden of securing your goods becomes too great and real business and production suffers.  So, to minimize that burden, the untrustworthy people are expelled.

The next question we might ask is why the labels of “thief and robber”?   Would not one suffice?  It so happens that “thief” is different from “robber,” and a recalcitrant debtor shares characteristics of both.  A thief is one who steals without you knowing it and you find out later.  A robber is one who brazenly takes things from you to your face.   The dishonest debtor takes your money to your face (promising to pay but not intending to do so) and you find out later that their repayment of your money is missing.

I could make some comments about what our society might look like if Nephite laws were followed in our country, but it seems to me there is another lesson to take from it that is more personal.  That lesson comes as we realize that each of us is in debt to God.  We have incurred large debts because of our sins and those debts must be paid.  No tangible property can pay this debt because all we have belongs to God anyway.   Without Christ, each of the above penalties will be ours—we will be forced to pay our own debt, we will be stripped, and we will be cast out from the presence of God.   

Or we can reach out to our Savior and Mediator Jesus Christ to pay the debt for us and repent.  

Coping Techniques for Economic Cycles Planned into the Law of Moses

In modern times economists have noted a cycle that seems to occur every so often, about ever three to five years. There is a boom with prosperity and ready money and plenty of employment and good things, and then soon after there is a bust in which there is a surplus of over-production and then many people lose their jobs as it takes a while for the surplus to be used up. Keep this in mind as you read the following:

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord.
3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;
4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
5 That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
6 And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,
7 And for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat. (Leviticus 25:2-7)

20 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:
21 Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.
22 And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store. (Leviticus 25: 20-22)

This scripture suggested to me that Heavenly Father was well aware of this cycle and had His own way of handling it and even planned it into the religious observance of His ancient covenant people so that they would think of it not as a bad thing, but as a thing to be planned for and even an opportunity to become closer to the Lord and to increase personal righteousness through exerting faith and demonstrating charity.

I had an interesting realization. We’ve been counseled by the prophets for many many years that we should build up a year’s supply and a financial reserve. It may be that this is not just meant to save us from a sudden cataclysmic event that wipes out farms and transportation systems that bring us our food. It may be that this is how Heavenly Father has provided for us to deal with the boom-bust cycle of the economy so that we can be prepared and not fear during the periodic ups and downs. If we think of it this way, we can see that we need to be saving up and using the boom times to prepare for the bust times that will immediately follow.

Here’s something else I found.

8 ¶ And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.
9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
11 A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.
12 For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.
13 In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.
14 And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another:
15 According to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee:
16 According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee.
17 Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God.
18 ¶ Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.
19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. (Leviticus 25:8-19)

Not only does it seem that Heavenly Father was aware of economic cycles, but it seems that Heavenly Father was well aware of the tendency for excessive debt to pile up over a few generations and since He is very interested in promoting freedom from bondage of all kinds, He appointed the 49th year as a jubilee with releasing from debts and reverting of lands, giving the downtrodden a fresh start. (There’s more on the specifics of Jubilee in Leviticus 25: 23-55, if you’re curious.)

The Jubilee year was a codified act of slate-clearing to return some equity to the people, since there was a tendency for the poor to get so deep into debt that they couldn’t get out and wealth would become more and more concentrated in the hands of a few. Other ancient nations had the practice of periodically “clearing the slate”, but it was usually at the whim of the ruler. The innovation of the Law of Moses to codify the slate clearing was that it could be planned for and anticipated, thereby being fair to both creditors and debtors. It was highly practical, not utopic.

The promise that the Lord gave for living the law of the Sabbath year and the Jubilee year was:

• the people would dwell in the land safely,
• the land would yield her fruit, and
• the people would eat their fill.
  

That sounds similar to what we’ve been promised for building a year’s supply of food and a financial reserve, doesn’t it?

The Lord wants us to be free to be HIS servants. We can’t fully serve the Lord if we are in debt or bondage. The intent of all of this is to preserve our self-reliance so that we can serve the Lord freely, rather than be serving our debt.

It’s easy to think that a Jubilee is only something of an ancient practice and hasn’t been done it modern times, but I ran across a paragraph in the booklet “Our Heritage: A Brief History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” on page 96 that said differently:

On 6 April 1880, Church members celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the Church. They called it a Jubilee Year, as the ancient Israelites had named every fiftieth year. President Taylor forgave many of the debts owed to the Church by its needy members. The Church also contributed 300 cows and 2,000 sheep to be distributed among its “deserving poor.” The Church’s Relief Society sisters donated almost 35,000 bushels of wheat to those in need. President Taylor also urged Church members to forgive individual debt, especially among the distressed. “It is the time of Jubilee!” he declared. A spirit of forgiveness and joy was strongly felt among the Latter-day Saints.

What do you think? Do you think the Latter-day Saints could do a Jubilee year in the present day?

Some observations on the economy

10 ¶ For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness:
thou hast said, None seeth me.
Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee;
and thou hast said in thine heart,
I am, and none else beside me.
11 ¶ Therefore shall evil come upon thee;
thou shalt not know from whence it riseth:
and mischief shall fall upon thee;
thou shalt not be able to put it off:
and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly,
which thou shalt not know.
12 Stand now with thine enchantments,
and with the multitude of thy sorceries,
wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth;
if so be thou shalt be able to profit,
if so be thou mayest prevail.
13 Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels.
Let now the astrologers,
the stargazers,
the monthly prognosticators, stand up,
and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.
(Isaiah 47:10-13)

For some reason this scripture makes me think of the economic crisis.

Verse 11 reminds me a lot of a certain CEO, who insisted at a Congressional hearing that up to five days before, he had no idea that his company was going to go down.

As I have watched the banking industry thrash around and try to escape the credit crisis and I see all the different things they’ve been trying to do, like buy out each other’s debt, and raise more capital, and sell off assets and ask for bailouts, I can’t help but remember how they insisted that debt securitization was safe, because it was diluting the risk, how they advertised home equity loans for “living better”, and the credit default swaps..and so on.

Really, they do not see it coming, because they have made a perversion of debt. So now, they will try to work magic on their balance sheets to make the mess go away, or they will try to prevail upon the government to save them. I read that so many people in Washington and New York have been working 7 days a week for the last month or so trying to find a way out of the mess. They really are “wearied in the multitude of [their] counsels”. And we look to the market forecasters and economists to predict when things are expected to get better.

15 Because ye have said,
We have made a covenant with death,
and with hell are we at agreement;
when the overflowing scourge shall pass through,
it shall not come unto us:
for we have made lies our refuge,
and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 ¶ Therefore thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone,
a tried stone,
a precious corner stone,
a sure foundation:
he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line,
and righteousness to the plummet:
and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies,
and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 ¶ And your covenant with death shall be disannulled,
and your agreement with hell shall not stand;
when the overflowing scourge shall pass through,
then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you:
for morning by morning shall it pass over,
by day and by night:
and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
(Isaiah 28:15-19)

I take courage from verse 16 above, which seems to say that before the disaster happens, the Lord laid a safe foundation to build upon. The main foundation, of course, is Christ, and He gives us a safe financial foundation to build on. We have known for many years that safe foundation is 1) paying our tithing 2) getting out of debt 3) living within our means 4) having a year’s supply of food and 5) having an emergency cash reserve. If we believed in these measures and followed them we will not need to panic or be in a hurry or “make haste”, because we will already be prepared.

Verse 15 is significant because it says that the Lord will lay judgment and righteousness to the line and plummet, meaning that He is testing everyone, even the righteous. If we have built on that safe foundation, we will be able to withstand the hail and the overflowing waters (the financial storms), when otherwise we would be swept away and overthrown. And certainly it will be vexing only to hear what is going on.

8 Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre,
the crowning city,
whose merchants are princes,
whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth?
9 The Lord of hosts hath purposed it,
to stain the pride of all glory,
and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth.
(Isaiah 23:8-9)

I think we’re starting to see some humiliation and contempt..

When will the lesson about the perils of greed be learned?

And her merchandise
and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord:
it shall not be treasured nor laid up;
for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the Lord,
to eat sufficiently,
and for durable clothing.
(Isaiah 23:18)

When we have learned how much is really enough and learned to donate our surplus to others in need, then we will begin to climb out of these troubles.

What are the prophets warning us about?

Behold, the former things are come to pass,
and new things do I declare:
before they spring forth I tell you of them.
(Isaiah 42:9)

Do you remember all the conference talks earlier in this decade that mentioned that we should get out of debt and get a year’s supply? We are beginning to see why. Who would have anticipated that so many people would default on their mortgage loans? (It’s not just the subprime anymore) Who would have suspected that prices of food and gas would go up as high as they have? “The former things are come to pass” indeed.

But Heavenly Father does not stand still; He moves on to tell us about the next threat we should prepare for. “new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them”. If we examine the recent messages of the prophet and apostles we can see the next thing that is coming. Lately they have been harping on strengthening the family. Therefore we can soon expect a massive assault upon the foundation of the family, which is marriage between a man and a woman. It’s already beginning.

How do we strengthen the family? We must teach the doctrine of the family often enough that it becomes stuck in our minds and the minds of our children. The true doctrine of the family will fortify our minds against the false ideas the world spreads. It will keep us strong even if we find ourselves surrounded by people who reject it and practice something else.

Are you preparing your son to tell his peers that he knows marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God when they accuse him of homosexuality?
Are you preparing your daughter to stand up for what is right if another girl expresses same-sex attraction for her?

Are you helping your daughter look forward to and prepare to marry a good man? Are you helping your son anticipate and prepare himself for the woman he will marry?

Is your marriage the kind of marriage that you want your children to want and look forward to? Is it the kind of marriage that shows your children that marriage between a man and a woman really is ordained of God?

Back to the debt issue - I used to wonder why the prophet and apostles didn’t come right out and say that there was going to be lots of foreclosures and high prices and so on, but I started thinking about it and I realized some things. If they had told us about that in the midst of the boom period, we would have thought they had gone off their rocker. And those of us who believed it would have been terribly alarmed for a while, and then decided it wasn’t really going to happen. If we are alarmed, that really doesn’t do any good, because then we end up doing silly, crazy, and stupid things. (Yes, scared people tend to do foolish things.)

The Lord’s way to warn us is to teach us the correct principles and to tell us to do things that will prepare us and fortify us ahead of time, so that we can put all our energy into doing what will actually help us. Then, if we are prepared, we will not fear what comes. The world is alarming enough as it is, but God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of love and a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)