Paul's Letter to Believers in Rome

by David M Pearce

Romans Chapter 4

The Case of Abraham

Paul continues with his questions. What better example of a good man could there be than Abraham, the father of the Jews! Paul homes in on what the scripture says about him.

Was Abraham credited with righteousness because he kept God’s commandments? Undoubtedly, he did keep them very well. But did that make him righteous? The answer is ‘No!’.

What the text says is that he believed what God had said. This was when Abraham had been married for many years, but still had no children. The angel took him out to look at the night sky. ‘Count the stars!’, he said, ‘that is how many offspring you will have!’ And Abraham believed God’s promise. At that point the scripture says his belief was counted for righteousness Genesis 15:6.

Once a worker has fulfilled his agreed hours, he has a legal right to his pay. His wages are not a gift, but his due.

When God justifies (declares sinless) a sinner, this is not a reward for obedience. It is a gift. Because he has shown faith in God, he can be counted righteous even though he was a sinner.

The Case of David

Now Paul invokes the case of David, another patriarch of the Jews. He had become a notorious sinner through his adultery with Bathsheba and the death of Uriah. He wrote Psalm 32 to record how God forgave him when he confessed his sin. There was nothing he could do to earn forgiveness. No sacrifice he could offer could atone for such iniquity. It was God’s mercy that spared him Psalm 32:1–2. Once he asked for forgiveness, his sins were covered by God’s grace, just as sinful Adam’s nakedness was covered by the skin of a slain animal in Genesis 3:21.

Circumcision Cannot Save

The Jews in the Roman congregation were proud of the fact they had been circumcised on the eighth day. It is time for another question. Does the ascription of righteousness because of faith belong only to people who have been circumcised? Paul checks the case of Father Abraham. When God said he was righteous because he had faith, was it after he was circumcised? The answer is ‘No! ’. He was only circumcised many years after God counted him righteous. You can work this out from the fact that it is in Genesis 15 that he showed his faith in the promise. In the next chapter his wife Sarah persuaded him to have a child by her handmaid. It says he was then 86 years old (Genesis 16:16). But he was not circumcised until he was 99 (Genesis 17:24).

So, Paul argues, circumcision did not make him righteous. It was only a sign of a righteousness Abraham already had. On that basis, Gentiles who have not been circumcised can also be counted righteous, so long as they have faith.

In fact, circumcised Jews can only be saved if they have the same quality of faith that Abraham had when he believed God. When Paul wrote his letter to the Galatian congregations, he gave an example to show the other apostles agreed with him on this point. He had decided to take Titus with him as a helper on his missionary journeys. Titus was a Gentile, and he was uncircumcised. But when they came to Jerusalem, neither James, Peter nor John, the great apostles, insisted that Titus should be circumcised. Galatians 2:1–3.

Abraham, Heir of the World

Paul here makes an extraordinary statement. He says Abraham will inherit the world! Many times, God appeared to the patriarch and promised him the land in which he lived in a tent. But here the apostle expands the promise to the entire world. Planet Earth We sometimes envy a son or daughter who inherits a large estate when their parent dies. But God owns the whole globe, and he has promised it to his son Jesus as his Kingdom. Abraham and his children will share it with Jesus. Later in his letter, Paul will say we, too, are ‘joint–heirs with Christ’ Romans 8:17. That is a huge promise. But it does not depend on our keeping the Law. It comes to us through the righteousness God grants us because of our faith.

The Law cannot confer a right to the Kingdom, Paul argues. All the Law can do is to make us sinners, because we break it all the time, leaving us subject to the wrath of God.

No, he says, the inheritance is given to us through God’s grace, and that means it is available not only to Jews but to Gentiles who have the faith that Abraham showed. If we have faith, we can be counted as Abraham’s descendants, whatever nation we come from.

Paul moves on to another promise God made to Abraham. This one came much later, when he had reached the age of one hundred. God told him he would become the father of many nations (Genesis 17:5). Paul now explains what God meant, Abraham was to become the father of the Jews, through his promised son Isaac, and he was the progenitor of the Arabs, through Ishmael, the son of Hagar’s handmaid. That makes two nations. But eventually people from many different countries would inherit the promises God made to him. They would also be counted as Abraham’s children. God had this long-range fulfilment in mind when he spoke to Abraham, for as Paul insists, God can see the future as if it has already happened.

For Abraham, the immediate fulfilment of God’s promise involved him having a son at the age of one hundred. Humanly speaking, that was impossible. Yet he still believed that God would make it happen.

with a supreme understatement, the apostle says Abraham was not weak in faith! He ‘was fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised’. It is interesting that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews adds that Sarah, too, ‘received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised’. Hebrews 11:11.

This statement belongs to Romans 15:6, but years later it is clear that Abraham still had the same faith.

Surprisingly, Paul argues the statement in Genesis 15 was written both for Abraham and for those of us who have come later. This implies that it was written down in the lifetime of Abraham. The book of Genesis was in circulation much earlier than we might have imagined.

In our case, the promise we must believe in is that Jesus died and was raised from the dead to save us from our sins. By God’s grace, we too can be counted righteous by faith.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

Publisher's email:[email protected]