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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Romans 4 Abraham
Justified By Faith (ch.
4:1-24) In
chapter 4 Paul brings Abraham into his defense of faith.
The Jews considered Abraham as the father of their nation, and
indeed he was. They considered
him to be as perfect as a man could be.
It is only logical that Paul would use him to defend his point.
It is also important because the book of Genesis speaks of Abraham
being a man of faith. Paul
says in verses 1 through 3 of chapter 4 that if Abraham had been justified
by works then he could boast, but in fact Abraham was not justified by
works at all. Paul quotes from
Gen. 15:6 where it says, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to
him as righteousness”. The
story is told in Gen. 15 that Abraham had no biological son.
God came to Abraham and told him that he would have a son that
would come from his own body, through his aging wife Sarah.
Abraham believed what God said and as a result God “reckoned”,
or “counted”, or declared, or “credited” Abraham as being
righteous. The story goes on
to show how God confirmed this in a covenant.
In those days there were certain rituals performed when making a
covenant. God followed these
rituals when he told Abraham to kill a heifer, a goat, a ram, a dove and a
pigeon. God also told him to
cut these animals in half and lay them on the ground, each half across
from the other half. At that
point the parties making the
covenant would walk between the dead animal parts as part of the covenant
ritual. In this case though
God put Abraham to sleep and God alone walked through the pieces of dead
animals. This signified that
God did not make the covenant with Abraham, but He made the covenant with
Himself. God promised, or made
a covenant with Himself to bless Abraham.
This is extremely important to note.
Paul, in other places in his writings says that this particular
covenant was meant to foretell salvation that is found in Jesus. (Rom.
4:24-25 and Gal. 3:15 to 4:31)
Paul says that the covenant made in Gen. 15 was to Abraham but had
far reaching implications that includes us today.
This means that our salvation is based on a covenant that God made
with Himself. We do not make a
covenant with God, neither does God make a covenant with us.
We simply enter into the pre-existing covenant that God has already
made with Himself. As a side point, we also do not make covenants with one
another as Christians, as some may suggest, except for the marriage
covenant. We
need to note one thing about the Abrahamic Covenant, and that is although
it was spoken to Abraham, it was directed to Paul
is plainly saying that Abraham did nothing to be counted as righteous.
He only believed in God‘s promise.
When it came to the covenant ritual with God, Abraham was not even
awake at the time in order to participate.
Abraham did absolutely nothing to be counted righteous, but to
trust in God . It
is important to note at this point what the word “credit” or the word
“reckon” means. What these
words mean in this context is this. God
has “counted us as righteous” even though we aren‘t.
He does not make us righteous.
He only views us as being righteous.
We are encouraged in Scripture to grow in righteousness once we
have come to Jesus and have been “counted as righteous”. In
verse 4 Paul says that when a man works, he gets paid for what he does.
This is in the form of a pay check.
It is not a gift. It is
something that he has earned. Then
he goes on to say in verse 5 that to the man who does not work for his
salvation, righteousness is given to him as a gift.
We
often see the word "work" as it relates to faith in the New
Testament. In connection with
salvation, work simply means "doing something in order to receive
salvation from God". What
we do can be anything. It can
be circumcision as was the case in Paul's day.
It can be infant baptism as in the case in our day.
It can be anything we do in order to be saved.
These works are meant to add to what Jesus has already done for us.
Such works are blasphemous. They
are telling Jesus that what He did for us is not good enough.
We need to improve on what He did by adding some of our own works.
What a sinful thought.
Paul
is simply saying that we are not to work for our righteousness before God.
We are to simply trust Him. That's
faith. Works, or doing
something to earn our salvation, actually shows a lack of trust or faith.
In
verses 6 through 8 Paul brings in another important Jewish person to
back up his point. He refers
to what David said in Psa. 32:1 and 2.
He quotes, “blessed is the man whose offenses have been forgiven,
and whose sins have been covered. Blessed
is the man whose sins the Lord will never count against him”.
David was keenly aware of his sinful state, unlike our Christian
world today. This is why he
felt so blessed. In
verse 8 Paul closes what David said by saying, "blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never
count against him." Just
think about that. Someday you
and I will see Jesus face to face. If
we have trusted Him for our salvation, He will look on us, as sinful as we
are, but will not accuse us of anything.
This almost too good to be true, as they say, but it is true.
In
verses 9 through 12 Paul makes another important point to back up his
thinking that righteousness by faith is for all mankind, and not just for
the circumcised Jew. He notes
that when Abraham was counted as being righteous by God, he was not yet
circumcised. Circumcision came
later as a sign of righteousness that God gave him while being
uncircumcised. Therefore
circumcision had nothing to do with receiving this gift of righteousness.
If this is the case, then all of the Gentiles who were not given
circumcision could also be made righteous by faith as well.
It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it. Also
in verse 11 Paul says something that would have driven the Jews crazy.
He says that Abraham is then the father of all who believe.
The Jews claimed that Abraham was their father and that no one else
could ever make such a claim. This
in part fulfills God's promise to Abraham that he would be the father of
many nations. The other part
of the promise will be fulfilled when Jesus returns, claims the promised
land, and rules from That
being said, we should not forget that Abraham is the father of Gentile
Christians because we have the same faith as he had.
In once sense of the word then, Gentile Christians are Jews.
Yet there is still an eternal distinction between the Jew and the
Gentile, even the Christian Gentile.
God's eternal promises to Abraham grants In
John 8:39 and 41 the Jews claim that Abraham and even God were their
fathers. This shows you how
they thought concerning Abraham. Yet
in John 8:44 Jesus in His boldness tells them that their father was in
fact the devil. Jesus was
saying that they had no right calling Abraham their father because they
did not do as Abraham did, neither did they believe in Him.
In the Old Testament if any man in Here
in Romans Paul says that people who have faith in Jesus can claim Abraham
as their father. The only
reason why you would want to do this is to copy Abraham in his faith. We
have the same faith as he did, and as a result of this faith God “counts
us as righteous“ as well. So
in one sense of the word, Gentile Christians are Jews.
At
this point I want to quote from James concerning Abraham and his faith.
James quotes the same verse as Paul quotes, “Abraham believed God
and it was credited to him as righteousness” (James 2:23, from Gen.
15:6). What does James say about this verse?
In James 2:24 he says, “You see that a person is justified by
what he does and not by faith alone”.
This appears to be a direct contradiction to what we have just seen
Paul say, when he says that righteousness is by faith alone.
How can we reconcile this apparent
discrepancy. In
James 2:18 he says, “.. show me your faith without deeds, and I will
show you my faith by what I do”. James
is saying that “true faith will produce good works”.
If you have true faith it will be evident in the way you live.
A false claim to faith produces nothing.
A false faith makes no one righteous.
James is stressing the idea that good deeds will follow true faith.
Paul is stressing the idea that faith saves you, not good deeds,
yet once having faith Paul would agree that good works will follow.
(Eph. 2:10) Paul would
not have any problem with James saying that good deeds would follow true
faith. James is trying to show
the difference between true faith and false faith. Paul is showing the
difference between salvation by faith and salvation by works.
This is my explanation of this apparent discrepancy.
In
verse 13 Paul continues the story of Abraham.
He moves away from circumcision as being the way to salvation to
the Law of Moses as the means of salvation. He says that Abraham and his
offspring was “promised” to be heir of the world.
This had nothing to do with the Law of Moses because
the Law of Moses was not even in existence at the time.
This promise was based on Abraham believing what God told him,
which was confirmed in the covenant ritual that God made with Himself to
bless Abraham. Note
the word "offspring" and the word "heir" in verse 13.
Both words are singular. In
Galatians 3 Paul spends some important time on the point that because the
word "offspring" is singular, that refers to Jesus.
When the Scripture says, as it does here in verse 13 that "the
offspring will be the heir of the world", that means Jesus will be
the heir of the world. This
will happen when He returns to earth at the end of this age.
Note also though that Paul says Abraham will be the heir of the
world too. Abraham, along with
all Christian Jews will be joint-heirs with Jesus, and that goes to all
believers, even the Gentile sons of Abraham.
Just
to clarify things, Abraham received a promise by God to be the father of
many nations. So all who
believe become children of Abraham, thus in part fulfilling God’s
promise to Abraham as being a father of many nations.
So Gentile Christians are a part of God’s fulfilled promise to
Abraham. About 14 years after
Abraham was given this promise he was circumcised.
Therefore circumcision had nothing to do with the promise‘s
fulfillment. Circumcision was
to be a seal, or a sign of his faith, knowing that God would keep His
promise. Then when it comes to
the Law, Abraham was long gone. The
Law came to Moses and therefore has nothing to do with Abraham being
justified, or the promise given to him.
Both circumcision and the Law should be excluded from the
discussion of God’s promise to Abraham. In
order for Abraham to be the father of many nations, he first needed to
have a son. This was a problem
because both he and his wife Sarah were to old to have children.
As Romans 4:21 and 22 says, “he was fully persuaded”
that God would follow through on His promise.
As a result of this assurance Abraham “was counted as being
righteous”, and indeed became the father of many nations, through the
birth of his biological son. Then
as a result of our faith in Jesus, we too are part of Abraham‘s family.
In
verse 14 Paul states that if living by the Law of Moses makes one become
heirs, or joint-heirs with Jesus, that would nullify faith.
That only makes sense. One can't be heirs, can't be recipients of
God's promises by two ways. It's
only by faith or by works, and Paul is proving here that it can't be by
works. Therefore it must be by
faith. There is no sense thinking Abraham could receive what God promised
him by works when God already told him that he would receive it because
Abraham trusted Him.
Verse
15 might be hard for some to understand.
Paul says that "where there is no law, there is no
wrath". That simply means
that someone, including God, can't be angry at someone, if there is no law
for someone to break. For example, if a parent does not say a child can't
have a cookie, then when the child eats a cookie, the parent can't be
upset with the child because the parent never told the child not to eat
the cookie. When it comes to
God and the believer, law has nothing to do with salvation, therefore God
will not be angry with us because it is as if He has not given us any law,
so if we break a certain law, He can't be upset with us.
Paul confirms this point in the last part of the verse.
He says, "where there is no law, there is no
transgression." Simply
put, we can't break a law that doesn't exist.
For the believer, there is no law concerning salvation.
Paul
therefore concludes in verse 16 that all mankind can receive the promises
of God, not just the Jew who has the Law of Moses.
Anyone who has faith in God, as Abraham had, can receive God's
promises, because the Law has nothing to do with receiving His promises.
That only makes sense. Paul is very logical.
Concerning
verse 17, I need to make a comment. Paul
says that God calls things that are not as though they were.
Many Christians, especially those in the hyper faith movement
misunderstand this verse. They
use this to say that we are to believe, claim, and act as if we already
have what we want from God. That
is, we should call things that aren't, that is, the things we want but
don't have, as though they are, that is, as if we already have them.
For example, if we ask for good eye sight, we throw away our
glasses and live as though we can see well, even though we can't. This is
not the meaning of Paul's words. The
things that are not in this verse, are the Gentiles that weren't a part of
the family of Abraham, but now are. The
context explains the meaning of these words.
God calls the Gentiles, those who weren't as those who are, that
is, part of the descendents of Abraham.
This verse has nothing to do with hyper faith and claiming things
that we want. That is a new age concept that has infiltrated the church.
Verse
17 restates one of the promises God spoke to Abraham.
God told Abraham that he would become the father of many nations.
Abraham believed God. The
way in which God made this come true is that all the many nations of the
world could now be a part of Abraham if people in those nations gave
themselves to Abraham's offspring which was Jesus.
In
verses 18 through 20 Paul says, "against all hope Abraham became the
father of many nations'. Abraham
believed God while in a hopeless situation. He did not even have a
biological son through his wife. How
could he even one descendent, let alone nations of descendents.
This is the kind of faith God wants us to have.
We believe even when things look unbelievable.
Inv
verses 21 through 25 Paul closes chapter 4 by saying that the words “it
was credited to him” (Abraham) was not just written for Abraham alone
but for us as well. We who
have the same trust in God as Abraham had and therefore can be blessed
with righteousness as he was. We
who “believe that God raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead” have
the same promise of salvation as Abraham had.
This is why we say that salvation has always been by faith, in both
Old and New Testaments. In the
Old Testament people put their faith in a future fulfillment of God’s
promise. In New
Testament times we put our faith in the past fulfillment of the promise,
which came about at the cross of Christ.
The
last thing that Paul says in chapter 4 is that Jesus died for our sins and
rose for our justification. That
means that when Jesus died, He was punished for our sins, so that we would
not have to be punished. That
means we are forgiven. But it
does not end there. The
resurrection of Jesus provided our justification.
That means God views us as being perfect, just as He Himself is
perfect. The resurrection is
just as important as the cross.
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