https://youtu.be/eC2jIuXvwn8
In our verse by verse study when we stopped last time we were on the last word of Rom 4:14; that is translated as "is nullified;" in the NASB. It is translated from the perfect passive indicative "katargew" (cancel, nullify or abrogate). The perfect tense is a consummative perfect that emphasizes a process that has been completed.
However, existing results are not entirely ruled out since the writer has in mind both the past action and present reality. This is very similar to a culminative aorist except that it places equal stress on what has happened in past and the consequences of that action.
The passive voice that describes the promise of blessing from God's justice receives the action of the verb; it is cancelled. The indicative mood is a potential indicative, the condition used as a part of debater's technique.
The principle being explained by Paul using the debater's technique is that legalism cancels blessing from God's justice.
Rom 4:14; Expanded Translation: "For if they by means of the law are heirs (and we assume they are), then that faith has been voided with the result that it is permanently invalidated, and that promise has been cancelled."
We see from this that legalism and grace are mutually exclusive. They cannot co-exist because works always cancel grace.
We also see that works cancel grace so legalism cancels direct blessing from God's justice.
Trying to use the law as an instrument for adjustment to God's justice produces arrogance that motivates a system of self-righteousness. Arrogance and self-righteousness are tandems that always travel together.
That means that God's righteousness that is one half of His integrity that is imputed on the basis of faith, and man's self-righteousness that are the product of human works are mutually exclusive.
There is no place in salvation adjustment to God's justice for man's self-righteousness or righteous works from compliance with the Mosaic Law.
There is no place in rebound or maturity adjustment to God's justice for man's self-righteousness or righteous works from compliance with the Mosaic Law.
The point is that being a good person doesn't make you a good person from God's point of view because only good works that are produced under the filling ministry of the Holy Spirit are divine good.
Self-righteousness directed toward God is the blasphemous legalistic assumption that the imputation of God's righteousness is not sufficient and man must add righteous works from the keeping the law to it.
It is blasphemy to assume that either man's self-righteousness or righteous works from the law can promote God's integrity. God's integrity has eternally existed in the status of infinite perfection so no creature's works can improve on God's perfect integrity.
Since integrity demands integrity, holiness demands holiness, righteousness demands righteousness, and justice demands justice, self-righteousness or works righteousness from keeping the law is totally excluded from the grace mechanics of any of the adjustments to God's justice.
This verse describes two systems of grace mechanics so two systems of adjustment to God's justice are explained here.
The first system is "faith" in Christ as the grace mechanic of salvation adjustment to God's justice. The word "promise" introduces the second system that refers to blessings from maturity adjustment to God's justice from the function of the post salvation spiritual life
God's justice demands integrity for blessing. This integrity includes God's imputed righteousness at salvation that is combined with maximum doctrine resident in the soul's stream of consciousness under the filling ministry of the Holy Spirit for spiritual maturity.
God in His grace provides all that His integrity demands. Imputed righteousness at salvation, rebound and spirituality for grace perception, and living life under the filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit combined with the recall and application of Bible doctrine as the means of attaining maturity adjustment to God's justice.
God's integrity has always existed in a state of absolute perfection. Man is a creature of time. God's integrity is a part of His eternal existence so there is nothing man can do in self-righteousness or righteous works that adds or subtracts from God's perfect eternal integrity.
Man's self-righteousness or righteous work does not glorify or impress God. Actually God's righteousness rejects the righteousness of man and God's justice condemns and at the various judgments destroys man's legalistic works.
There is no point in history where God's integrity gains anything from man's self-righteousness or works of the law. God can add something to our integrity but we cannot add anything to God's integrity.
The faith that saves is the exclusive principle whereby the human race enters into a relationship with God's integrity through salvation adjustment to God's justice by simply believing in Jesus Christ.
There is no merit in faith; all of the merit belongs exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the object of faith.
All of the believing in the world receives nothing but condemnation from God's justice but the smallest amount of faith in Jesus Christ secures God's righteousness and eternal salvation.
Therefore faith is not something we do. It is the channel whereby we appropriate what God has done for us through Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus' work on the cross is how God found a way to bless us from His perfect integrity without compromising His perfect essence.
Under the principle of legalism, self-righteousness or the works of the law, man strives for a status of humanly produced righteousness that he falsely assumes pleases God.
Striving for works righteousness actually backfires because it cancels faith in Jesus Christ and rejects God's integrity thereby canceling God's direct blessing.
Only that grace provision that is sourced from God's integrity is compatible with God's essence and His attributes. Self-righteousness through keeping the law is a principle of works that is totally incompatible with God's perfect integrity.
Justification by faith recognizes both God's integrity and the fact that God loves His own integrity and God's integrity completely excludes human works.
The principle of righteousness by works of the law is an evil satanic principle that was presented to man in the Garden of Eden as the alternative to God's perfect environment. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the presentation of the satanic plan of good and evils as being superior to God's perfect environment.
Perfect environment is from God's justice as the result of God's perfect creation by God's perfect integrity. In the Garden of Eden the works of the law were described as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Good refers to human good from self-righteousness and evil refers to satan's plan that functions in opposition to God. This means that under the law of works good and evil are synonyms because the "good" that is actually human good being that is produced is evil so human good is evil.
The purpose of the law is to condemn mankind, not commend him. The law eliminates human self-righteousness and condemns arrogance that is the source of human self-righteousness.
The law confirms man's sinfulness and resultant spiritual death therefore the law reveals the need for salvation adjustment to God's justice by believing in Jesus Christ.
While the law cannot save it can provide awareness of the need for salvation as well as the information regarding the means of salvation that is faith in Jesus Christ alone.
In Gal 3:24; the law is described as a tutor or school bus that brings us to salvation. It is not the instrument of salvation; it carries us to the point where we can understand the issue of salvation and believe it.
Therefore the law is an instrument of condemnation and a means of evangelization.
The fact that millions of Jews used the law properly in recognizing their condemnation and turning to Jesus Christ for salvation emphasizes the fact that every Jew did not distort the law.
In fact, throughout history the Mosaic Law has been employed with compatibility with God's purpose by condemning and evangelizing by bringing people to the point of salvation adjustment to God's justice by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.