Chapter 4 – One God Translation

Romans

   4 What then shall we say that Abraham,[904] our physical ancestor, has discovered? 2 If Abraham was made right by his works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God,[905] and it was credited to him as making him right.” 4 Now to a person who works, his wage is not credited as a gracious gift, but as his due. 5 But to a person who does not work, but believes in the One who makes the ungodly right, his faith is credited as making him right. 6 David also speaks of the blessing on the person whom God credits as right apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the one whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.”
    9 So is this blessing for the circumcised, or for the uncircumcised also? We have just said that faith was credited to Abraham as making him right. [906] 10 When was it credited? When Abraham was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while he was circumcised, but while he was still uncircumcised! 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of being made right by the faith which he had while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was that he would be the father of all the uncircumcised[907] who believe, and thus being right is credited to them. 12 He is also the father of the circumcised, who are not just circumcised but who also follow in the steps of the faith our father Abraham had while he was still uncircumcised.
    13 For the promise to Abraham and to his descendants that he would inherit the world[908] was not through the Law, but through being made right by believing.[909] 14 If the heirs[910] are those who follow the Law, then belief is made void and the promise is negated. 15 For the Law brings down God’s anger, but where there is no law, there is no violation of it.
    16 That is why inheriting the promise is based on belief,[911] so that it may rest on grace, and that way the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the spiritual father of us all. [912] 17 As it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations.” This was in the presence of the God he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they already are. [913] 18 Abraham hoped against hope and believed, and as a result he became the father of many nations, as had been promised: “So countless your descendants will be!” 19 His faith never became weak even though he considered his own body which was already worn out (he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20 Nevertheless, looking to the promise of God, he did not waver through unbelief, but grew strong in belief, giving glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that what God had promised He was able to do. 22 So that belief was credited to him as making him right. 23 The statement “it was credited to him” was not written for Abraham’s sake alone, 24 but also for our sake, to whom it will be credited, we who believe the One who raised Jesus our lord from the dead. 25 Jesus was delivered over for our sins, and was resurrected to make us right.

Romans

[904]

Abraham is the model of this new scheme of obedient faith in Messiah. Abraham is thus rightly the “father of the faithful” and true faith is called in 4:16 “the faith of Abraham.”

[905]

Cp. beginning our Christian life by obeying Jesus’ command to us to “believe the Gospel” about the Kingdom (Mk. 1:14-15). That is where the faith begins — with the words of Jesus (Heb. 2:3).

[906]

Abraham responded in obedient faith to God’s invitation that he leave the things nearest and dearest to him —country and family — and go in faith to a land he had not seen. This is exactly the challenge of Jesus to us all, when he summons us to believe the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and give up all in pursuit of the goal of the Kingdom, inheriting the land/earth (Mt. 5:5; Rev. 5:10).

[907]

That is, they are not circumcised in the flesh.

[908]

Certainly there is no promise here, or elsewhere, about going as a disembodied soul to heaven, or indeed ever about “heaven” as the reward. The promise is the inheritance of the world, exactly as Jesus promised the meek that they “will inherit the earth” (Mt. 5:5). This will happen when Jesus returns to rule on the earth (Rev. 5:10).

[909]

Abraham’s initial obedient faith is recorded in Gen. 12:1-4. This is a model of Christian faith in the Gospel of the Kingdom as preached first by Jesus (Mk. 1:14-15).

[910]

Heirs of the world (v. 13), the promise of the Kingdom or the earth, as promised by Jesus (Mt. 5:5; Rev. 5:10). Cp. Ps. 2:8; Isa. 9:7; 1 Cor. 3:21-22.

[911]

Starting with Jesus’ first summary command that we are to “repent and believe God’s Gospel about the Kingdom” (Mk. 1:14-15).

[912]

Again this shows that Christianity cannot be understood apart from a grasp of the faith and obedience of Abraham.

[913]

This text gives the important principle of the “past tense of prophecy,” by which God speaks of some events as past although they are predictions of the future. Thus “Unto us a child was born; unto us a son was given” (Isa. 9:6). The sense is of course that the child/Son will be given by God. Heb. 2:8 says that “all things have been put under the control of man…yet we do not yet see all things under man.” Jesus in John 17:5 spoke of receiving at the end of his ministry the glory which he “had” with God before the foundation of the world. In the same context that same glory “had already been given” to disciples not yet born! (17:22, 24). Paul can say that “we have” a glorified body (2 Cor. 5:1) but he means that it is promised to us by God for the future. Jesus spoke of us “having” (present tense) no reward with God if we pray in the wrong manner (Mt. 6:1). Rewards are promised to us, as they were to Jesus. They are said to be “with God,” stored up with Him to be bestowed in the future. Thus Jesus asked as his reward the glory which he “had with God,” i.e. promised by God, existing in promise and prospect (Jn. 17:5).