The fourth chapter of Romans, at first glance, seems to be a tangent of sorts. The theme of the chapter is Abraham. Having just laid out the glorious good news that the righteousness of God for sinful people has been revealed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, Paul’s attention now shifts to the person of Abraham. What do these two themes have to do with each other? Although it may not be apparent to our 21st century American minds, the two were intimately connected in Paul’s mind and in the minds of his readers in Rome. You see, the news of justification by faith (as laid out in Romans 3:21-31) would have caused Paul’s readers – particularly his Jewish readers – to ask some serious questions regarding the law and circumcision and, ultimately, Abraham. It seems like all of this talk of faith is a new breakthrough in many ways. Even if the Jews did not necessarily think they were saved by keeping the law, faith never played as prominent of a role as it does in the message they would hear from Paul. So, in Romans 4, Paul sets out to make clear a number of things about Abraham. He wants to make clear that Abraham was saved by faith. He wants to make clear that the paradigm for being counted righteous by faith was not set with Paul but with Abraham. And more than that, the promises made to Abraham way back in Genesis centered not on Abraham’s works but on his faith. Paul goes into this historical detail so that he might exhort his readers to persevere and grow strong in their own faith – just like their father Abraham did.
Paul begins his argument by bringing up the patriarch Abraham. Paul has just made a striking statement about the nature of righteousness for all people – it comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Particularly to Paul’s Jewish readers, this sounds like a new idea. In their minds, this is not the way things have been. But Paul brings up Abraham because he wants to make clear that this is actually not a new way of doing things. He brings up Abraham to strengthen his argument that God’s righteousness comes by faith. Paul begins with a question and an assumption: “What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about” (4:1-2a). So the question is whether or not Abraham was declared righteous by works, because if he was, he has something about which to boast. But Paul follows this up by making clear that Abraham was in no way justified by works. He writes, “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’” (4:2-3). So Paul’s first argument is that, like Paul’s readers, Abraham was declared righteous by faith. The quote is from Genesis 15:6 – Abraham, in response to God’s word, laments to God about his lack of a child. In response, God takes Abraham outside and shows him the stars as an example of how numerous his children will be. Abraham’s response was belief, and the result of that belief was that he was counted righteous.
Having pointed out that Abraham’s righteousness came by faith, Paul holds up the paradigm that is set by this reality. He writes, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (4:4-5). Paul uses a business-like analogy to point out that when something is earned, the person receiving what was earned does not see it as a gift but as their due. The problem, as Paul has presented it, is that the righteousness of God that is given to sinners is a gift – which inherently means that it is not earned. Rather, it comes to the one who “trusts him who justifies the ungodly,” and it comes as a gift. Paul wants to make clear that righteousness (and salvation and justification and eternal life, etc.) is never given to a person because it is owed to them. It is given to them as a gift. The picture is not of a factory on Friday afternoon payday; the picture is of a surprise birthday gift of immeasurable value. Paul further strengthens his argument by bringing up a quote from David. Paul writes, “just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin’” (4:6-8). This quote from David is from Psalm 32, a psalm in which David is declaring the goodness of the Lord who has forgiven his sin. Paul is pointing out that David’s view of righteousness was no different than that of Abraham. David understood that righteousness was a gift, because he understood that he was a sinner. David understood that the blessing of the Lord does not look like the exalting of those who have pleased him with good works. Rather, the blessing of the Lord looks like the covering of sins and the forgiveness of lawless deeds.
The next step Paul takes in his argument is to make clear that this blessing of being counted righteous by faith is available to all people who share the faith of Abraham. The first thing Paul deals with is the issue of circumcision. He writes, “Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised” (4:9-10). The argument is a chronological one. Abraham was counted righteous by faith in Genesis 15, and circumcision is not introduced until later in his life (Gen. 17). Paul’s point is that Abraham was counted righteous even when he was not circumcised. The logical conclusion, then, is that circumcision plays no part in a person being counted righteous. It does nothing to contribute to that reality. So what was its purpose? Paul writes, “He [Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised” (4:11a). So circumcision served a purpose, but that purpose had nothing to do with Abraham being declared righteous. But why is it such a big deal that Abraham was counted righteous before he was circumcised rather than after? Paul writes, “The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised” (4:11b-12). So Paul makes clear that this detail is important because it has to do with who is joined together with Abraham in receiving the blessings that God promised. We will look at the content of that promise a bit more in a moment, but Paul’s concern here is exactly who is connected to Abraham in such a way that the promise comes to them as well. Is it just those who are circumcised (meaning those who are part of Abraham’s physical descendants)? Paul’s answer is no; it is those who share the faith by which Abraham was counted righteous. The issue is not whether one is connected to Abraham physically but whether one is connected to Abraham spiritually. So, for those who are not physically descended from Abraham, they are not in a hopeless situation because they can become children of Abraham (figuratively) through faith. On the other hand, being a physical descendant of Abraham means absolutely nothing if an individual does not share the faith of Abraham. This is a striking reality that is not nearly as mind-boggling to us as it would have been to Paul’s Jewish readers. The point is that Abraham was counted righteous by faith. And this blessing of being counted righteous is available to all who share Abraham’s faith – no matter what their race, nationality, gender, age or anything else.
Beginning in verse 13, Paul shifts his focus a bit as he begins to talk about the promises that were made to Abraham. He writes, “For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith” (4:13). So Paul’s focus is still on the fact that faith is central, but he takes his argument even a step further. Not only are those who have faith like Abraham joined together with him as spiritual offspring but the promises that were made to Abraham will come to all of those who share his faith as well. In saying that the promises did not come “through the law,” Paul is saying that the promises do not come as some reward for those who have earned it through works. Rather, the promises that were originally given to Abraham come to all those who share in Abraham’s faith.
This concept of the promises that were made to Abraham is an interesting one because Paul says that the promise to Abraham and his offspring was “that he would be heir of the world.” Such a promise does not exist – the promises God made to Abraham were that he would have a vast number of descendants, that he would possess land, that he would have a great name and that he would be a blessing to all nations. So we cannot go to a specific scripture that says Abraham would be an heir of the whole world. Rather, Paul’s wording here is more of an amalgamation of all of those promises into one grand promise. As you read the Old Testament, it becomes clear that God’s intention is really much grander than just national Israel. Through the trials, tribulations, and miraculous deliverances and victories of Israel, God is foreshadowing something bigger. This reality was exemplified in the Garden of Eden – a world in which God is obeyed and honored by a people who are faithful to him. But that was lost, and God chose Israel as the people through whom he would begin to bring about restoring that which was lost. So, we can see from the very beginning of Israel’s history – in the promises to Abraham – that the goal was to include all the nations, and not just Israel. The goal was not just that Israel would honor the Lord but that they would be a means of leading other nations to do the same thing. The promises to Abraham were greater than they might first appear on the surface.
So, understanding the vast extent of those promises, Paul labors to point out that those promises come to the one who has faith and not the one who keeps the law. He goes on to point out that if the promises came to those who kept the law, then the promises would never come at all. He writes, “For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression” (4:14-15). But the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the promises do come to people; they come to those people who have faith. Paul closes his argument in this section by saying, “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring – not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’ – in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (4:16-17). So not only are those who share the faith of Abraham counted righteous like him but they also receive the promises like him. In fact, at the very beginning, when God called Abraham, his purpose was to make Abraham the father of many nations. That is, God’s purpose was to see that the promises and blessings that were going to come to Abraham would also come to Abraham’s (spiritual – “by faith”) children who would come from every tongue and tribe and people and nation. The promises come by faith.
All of this talk about Abraham’s faith and the results it brought about as well as the talk about the blessing that will come to those who share this faith should really come as no surprise to those of us who read 3:21-31 last week. That text made clear that God’s righteousness to sinful human beings comes only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul’s goal in these verses today is to point out that salvation came in that same way for Abraham. In closing the text this morning, Paul takes a closer look at the essence and nature of Abraham’s faith so as to exhort his readers to the same type of faith. So let us look at Abraham’s faith.
Paul writes, “In hope he [Abraham] believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb” (4:18-19). So the first thing Paul points out about Abraham’s faith was that it was not built on the things that he could see. It was not built on his own wisdom. It would not have been ludicrous for Abraham to look at his own age and Sarah’s age and believe that what God had promised was impossible. In fact, this could very well have been the most rational thing, from a human perspective, that he could have done.
But that is the very point that Paul is trying to make. He points out that Abraham did not act based on his own rationality. His response was based entirely on what he knew to be true about his God. Paul writes, “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was ‘counted to him as righteousness” (4:20-22). So there is the answer. What was Abraham’s faith like? If we need to share in his faith, we need to know what it was like. Abraham’s faith was a complete trust in the fact that God was able to do whatever he had promised, regardless of how well those promises fit with Abraham’s perception of reality. Rather than holding up God’s promises and words to the test of the way he viewed reality, Abraham submitted all of his own doubts and fears and shortcomings to the fact that God had declared certain things to him and was sure to do those things. Rather than doubting, he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.
The account of Abraham’s faith and the results it brought about was written so that we might know how to believe. Paul writes, “But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (4:23-25). Abraham had any number of reasons to disbelieve the words of God. We have any number of reasons to disbelieve the words of God. But the reality of our situation is that God sent his son into the world and that son was delivered up for our trespasses. On top of that, God raised him from the dead for our justification. This is the message of the gospel and we can choose to believe it or disbelieve it. But the example of Abraham should tell us that the very fact that this message of the gospel comes from God should cause us not to waver in any sort of distrust. Though we may wonder how such a reality can be true and why God would choose to do such a thing, we are not responsible for understanding every reality but for believing. Abraham was not asked to explain or understand the way everything was going to work out. In fact, he was to believe in spite of not having such things explained to him. He threw himself entirely upon the God whom he knew to be true and trusted that God would do what he had said. We – in like manner – need to labor to throw ourselves in faith on the God who has created us.
And Paul’s concern is not just an initial act of faith. He goes out of his way to point out the continuous nature of Abraham’s faith. Abraham “did not weaken in faith” and “no distrust made him waver.” Rather, he “grew strong in his faith” and Paul says that is why his faith was counted as righteousness. So, for us, as we look around at the circumstances that make up our lives, do those circumstances cause us to question the purposes and promises of God? If they do, we need to look to Christ. Because the reality of this entire text is that the promises made to Abraham are inherently tied to Christ. Paul makes clear in Galatians that the true “offspring” of Abraham is Jesus Christ. So the promises made to Abraham are fully and totally given to Christ. And all of those who are in Christ receive those promises and blessings as well – including Abraham and all of his children. Paul writes, “…if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29).
So, as we come to the table, we come remembering that the only reason anyone’s faith (including ours or Abraham’s) is counted as righteousness is because of Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. Without this reality, faith would be pointless because it would have no foundation. As it is, Christ “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Therefore, our faith is counted to us as righteousness because, by faith, we are joined together with Christ. Let us rejoice as we remember again the very foundation of our salvation and the very object of our faith – the person of Jesus Christ. By his death we live. Because of his sacrifice, we are counted righteous through our faith. Amen.