Romans Chapter 4
In the previous chapter, in dealing with the subject of the righteousness of God, Paul shows that the work is completed by God for human benefit and made available to man. In this chapter he shows the condition of men to which this revelation of God is applicable. The wrath of God is revealed against man apart from the law and against man under the law. The righteousness of God is shown to be also revealed toward man in both these categories. Abraham and David are taken to represent men who, in the highest sense, responded to God within the spheres of revelation in which they lived toward God. Abraham represents man alive to God apart from the law and David man alive under the law. Their revealed experiences illustrate the means and nature of justification.
Righteousness was in practice always acquired by grace through faith, apart from fleshly works. Paul then proceeds further to show that the fulfilment of the promise, to those who believe, was bound up with the question of righteousness. This therefore limits the present fulfilment of the promises to those who have and live by faith. What they are by nature has no part to play. Another great Jewish objection to the gospel is dealt with here. They said that the gospel of Paul made the law void and also set aside the promises given to Abraham, confirmed in the throne given to David. In fact the gospel establishes both things and brings out the true, that is, spiritual, meaning and significance.
The relationship of the gospel to God’s eternally purposeful dealing with man in the divine revelation in creation and in the law, is now being brought out. The experience of Abraham is so described as to exemplify how righteousness is acquired by man in the sphere of creation-revelation. Paul then proceeds to show the development of the law and the promises. He was declared righteous in uncircumcision and was given circumcision as a sign and seal of this. Thus he came to exemplify man in both these divine economies, nature and law, as the father of faith toward both. In fact Paul, by revelation, proceeds still further to show that Abraham became the father of faith to those who believe the gospel. God’s three economies or dispensations are shown to possess the same spiritual means whereby man acquired righteousness. It is by grace through faith, manifesting the activity of the same God toward all.
Verse 1 “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?”
The question here is about what Abraham found, what his experience was according to flesh, that is, human life in the world. This question would be addressed in particular to Jewish objectors. Such might have admitted failure under the law but pleaded privilege before God in having Abraham as forefather. Their case depended upon natural descent. Paul demolishes this. He shows that Abraham’s own experience was that the flesh, his own human nature, was unprofitable as to the eternal purpose for which God had called him.
What shall we say? What is the true, spiritual, interpretation of the life and experience of Abraham as recorded in the Word of God? Paul, acting in his apostolic ability, now interprets that which is recorded in Holy Scripture, the truth in its inward parts. The New Testament, written by the apostles of the Christian system, is the key to interpret the Old Testament. Abraham is declared by Paul, even after he had embraced Christianity, to be our forefather in this new faith. Everything depends upon what sense Abraham is regarded as being a father. He is to the Jews a natural forefather. He is, in spirit and in truth, the father of faith. The Word of God can be interpreted naturally or spiritually, from an earthly or a heavenly point of view.
Verse 2 “For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”
Paul first proposes the naturalistic, fleshly interpretation of Abraham’s life and experiences. If he had been justified on the principle of works, etc. This is one possible interpretation of the Word of God. This is that Abraham was a good man and did naturally good deeds. In fact, nothing is recorded in the Word of God whether this was the case or not. Thereby Abraham would have justified his human nature and its deeds. He would have justified his existence before men but not necessarily before God. The Jews believe that natural human life is purposeful and that men who live morally and socially good lives and perform naturally good deeds justify having lived in the present world.
Paul now, however, reveals that this is not so before God. This is not the situation as God views it in the present time, in the present spiritual state of man and of the world. Man can boast in his abilities and in what these produce in the present spiritual state in which creation is found. He cannot do so before God. He cannot make himself acceptable to God on the principle of works. The naturally good works of man in the flesh do not bring into being the eternally good conditions in creation which God has in mind.
Verse 3 “For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”
What does the Scripture say? Paul refers to the Scripture, rather than to tradition, to decide the manner by which Abraham acquired righteousness. The Jew is called upon to look afresh into holy oracles by Paul. The apostolic, or christian, interpretation of the Word of God sheds complete spiritual light upon it. This is the external proof of the truth presented by Paul.
Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him for, or unto, righteousness. In this chapter the word “reckon” occurs eleven times. It is God who does all the reckoning. In the case of the man in verse 4, who worked by the flesh, the reward is reckoned to be of death. Otherwise God reckons to men for good. Reckoning is how God interprets the situation and events. He counts things as being good or evil according to His assessment and acts accordingly.
From chapter 3:21 Paul first gives the means of justification. Now he shows the manner in which it comes to man and the end it produces. The manner, like the means (faith in His blood), remains constant throughout all ages. Faith in God and the admission of spiritual failure by man puts the onus upon God to justify the ungodlike man. Abraham believed God when God communicated His intentions to him. Thereby he came to know that there is a true and purposeful God, for faith gives spiritual intelligence. God saw and honoured this spiritual power which He had produced in Abraham. He reckoned that such a man was acceptable to Him as to the purpose for which He had communicated truth to him. The belief which justifies a man as to the way in which he responds to divine activity is not centred upon man but is God-centred.
Verse 4 “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt.”
In contrast to the truth of God set forth in Abraham’s experience, to him that works the reward is reckoned of debt. His wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. He works to improve his state and the state of the world by his own inherent powers. He is rewarded by bringing natural good and wealth to himself and to the nation. He does not receive God’s eternal reward for such efforts. God had promised Abraham that He would bless him. Abraham did not proceed to make it his objective to bless himself. He so acted in response to God as to receive from Him that which was promised. God honours faith and its ability to perceive that which is eternal. The man who responds to God in his own power does not receive grace, God’s unmerited favour. He does not receive the present benefits which already result from God’s work for the fulfilment of the promises. He merely accumulates that which is of nature and this is purposeless and unprofitable as to divine calling.
Verse 5 “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly; his faith is counted for righteousness.”
The power of faith believes God and works not. It believes in the goodness of God and accepts the essential spiritual failure of man. It relies upon God and not upon man for the coming and enjoyment of God’s blessings on earth. The production of such faith in man is the basic work of God. Where it is present it shows that God is effectively working in man for good and not that man is working for ultimate eternal good on earth. In our day many speak of having faith when they mean that they have hope in the face of great difficulties. Such hope trusts that things will turn out alright. Faith knows how God’s eternal purpose shall be accomplished. The man who, as a response to God, works amongst the present intractable human problems, thereby takes upon human nature the onus of bringing peace and prosperity into creation. In this he condemns himself spiritually, for thereby he is denying that the grace of God alone can perform this task.
A man of spiritual insight believes on Him who justifies the ungodly. Such a man accepts God’s condemnation of himself but also His justification of himself. “Ungodly” describes man in his state before God in the world after having become involved in the power of spiritual evil. This makes him ungodlike. Abraham represented humanity in that state originally. Now, however, the power of eternal good has come into the world. By it God justifies those who believe in it, even after they had been immersed in the power of spiritual evil. The debt is the amount by which sin in man causes him to fall short of God’s glory, and of the eternally purposeful work which he might perform if he had responded aright to God originally.
Verse 6 “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.”
David’s experience is then brought forward by Paul to illustrate the spiritual principles of his gospel. David’s recorded experience is contrasted with Abraham’s. In chapter 3 the redemptive work whereby God justifies is presented to man as being already completed in Christ. Abraham’s experience with God lay in accepting the justification effected and presented by God to faith. David’s experience is used by Paul to present the effects which this divine work produces in man and for man. Abraham saw the blessedness in God. David saw it in the man in whom God had wrought. Abraham and David are advocated by Paul as representing man at his best. If human merit was a factor in making man righteous, it would have been found in their experience. David declares the blessedness which God had produced in him apart from, and even in spite of, his works. The blessedness lay in God causing him to realise that He counted him righteous.
Verse 7 “Saying, ‘blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered’.”
Paul quotes from Psalm 32:1,2. David’s response to receiving justifying faith was directed to realising the spiritual nature and perfection of the work in the man on whom it was executed. The work of God has a bilateral effect. Firstly it has to do with the sins and secondly with the sinner. The sins are passed over. The sinner is constituted and declared to be righteous by God.
Blessed are they whose lawless deeds have been forgiven. Such are regarded as having acted toward God in performing unlawful works. By the spiritual enlightenment of faith, David came to realise that man’s fleshly works in literal, moralistic, obedience to the letter represented a lawless way of responding to God. Yet he realised that God had acted toward men in their spiritually illegal activities to confer His blessedness upon them. God caused man to become involved in the spirit of evil in order that He might involve him subsequently in spiritual, supernatural good.
Blessed are they whose sins have been covered. It is in the past tense, declaring that such sinful activity is, to the sight of God, a thing of the past. By His redemptive, justifying work, God has closed the past and, positively, has conferred divine blessedness upon man also in His saving activity. Thereafter man will live and act toward God as being possessed of this positive, spiritual virtue produced in him. In his original, naturalistic, response to the law David had missed the mark. From this, sinful deeds resulted which militated against the purpose for which the law was given. In such a situation God acted in David’s experience to cover, to bury away, his sins. We have holy oracles written as a result of David’s experience, the Psalms of David. These can now be fully understood as a result of the teachings of the apostles.
Verse 8 “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”
David then reveals the fact of a man being blessed to whom the Lord does not reckon sin. Now it is not a question of God forgiving specific acts of sin. The work which God performs in a man whom He reckons righteous, confers such blessedness upon him that the Lord sees sin in him no longer. He may remain a sinner at a natural level according to man’s reckoning. He is not so spiritually according to God’s reckoning. He no longer lives before God in a sinful nature for this is covered over by the work of God. Man was made more guilty than ever by receiving the law, when sin acted in him toward God in the things of God. The case of David shows this but it also shows that eternal provision was made by God for such a contingency. Faith-righteousness in fact preceded the law. It was incorporated into it as the only means by which man can stand before God, even under law.
Verse 9 “Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also? For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.”
The next objection raised against the gospel is that involved in circumcision. Granted that faith-righteousness is the only means of salvation, it remained true, in the cases used by Paul to set this forth, that they were both circumcised. So, is not circumcision the hallmark of righteousness? Does this blessedness rest on the circumcision? The problem is that if it were on uncircumcision also, then it would be difficult to see the point in circumcision. Paul shows, however, that the true purpose of circumcision is made clearer when the truth of the gospel is perceived. The apostles say that faith had been reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. The truth preached by Paul finds confirmation and not denial in the Old Testament. Paul preached that faith alone justifies. If this were so then the Jews had completely misunderstood the true significance of that which they believed to be the Word of God. Their belief, the ‘faith’ of the fleshly minded Jew, will not bear the light which the gospel shed upon the Old Testament. They had believed in vain.
Verse 10 “How was it then reckoned? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.”
How then has it been reckoned? Paul is showing the nature of the fundamental Jewish outlook as well as setting forth the truth of the gospel. If the Jewish interpretation of divine truth is correct it would have been reckoned in circumcision. They saw advantage and profit in circumcision at a worldly level. They believed that Abraham had received a divine ethic which enabled him to be righteous in a way which man could perceive and which God would honour. To their appreciation, circumcision denoted that God had chosen and marked off Abraham and his seed so that they might respond faithfully in a worldly, natural way to Him. They thought that the ethic made Jewish flesh more significant to God than the ordinary human life of the Gentiles. Paul, therefore, here poses the truly significant question: how was Abraham’s faith reckoned as righteousness by God? They had to enquire from the Scriptures rather than tradition. Their spiritual failure arose from taking it for granted that naturalistic Judaism is of God in truth.
God revealed that His reckoning of Abraham to be righteous was not in circumcision. He was justified by God in order to be circumcised, rather than circumcised in order to justify himself by subsequent works. God declared him to be righteous by faith, by the ability which He had conferred upon him to realise the true significance of the revelation given in uncircumcision. He was yet a Gentile when God so acted toward him.
Verse 11 “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.”
The question then remains as to why circumcision was given to Abraham to mark him off and not retained until the law came by Moses. God gave circumcision to Abraham and not to Moses so as not to narrow faith-righteousness to the Jew. The implications of their divine work are far wider than the building up of the Jewish nation into a state and position of worldly importance amongst the nations.
Circumcision is revealed to be both a sign and a seal to all who have the same faith. Circumcision signifies the end of the flesh in God’s sight. It seals His work by which He confers faith which justifies upon man. It involves the rejection of the old nature and the response of the new nature. Abraham was justified by God to qualify him to bear these hallmarks on earth. God thus certified, in a form which man could see and in a way which those who have faith could understand, that He had by His own work alone acquired a seed who could perform externally significant service to Himself. Abraham was made the father of faith by the divine work which constituted him righteous rather than by circumcision. Justification, i.e. man living by faith which constitutes him righteous in the sight of God, is thus shown to be basic. If man is to be purposeful to God, then he must know that what he is by nature is cut off by God and a life which is righteous is conferred by the same work of God. Thereafter there will follow the works of faith by which effective service is rendered to the purpose for which God has justified man. Circumcision is concerned with this rather than with the justifying work of God.
God acted upon Abraham in conferring faith-righteousness upon him so that he might become the father of all that believe in uncircumcision. The experience of Abraham with God is recorded so as to show how God justified man in uncircumcision. God first acts toward man when he is found in this state spiritually in His sight. Man by nature and in nature is uncircumcised in heart and not merely in flesh. He lives in a life which can only perform unacceptable work toward God.
Verse 12 “And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.”
In this verse Paul proceeds to show God’s purpose in giving circumcision to justified humanity as a sign and seal. Abraham was also made father of circumcision. A new race emanated from the work which God performed in Abraham. This race is comprised of the circumcised in the true, Godward, spiritual sense. They have responded aright to the basic work of God exemplified in their father Abraham’s case. They know of the end of the flesh in God’s sight and the gift of righteousness. Such are made effectively aware of the eternal issues involved in Abraham’s experience with God.
Abraham is revealed to be the father of circumcision not only to those who are of circumcision, i.e. the true Jew who is one inwardly. He has become father to those who walk in the steps of the faith, during circumcision. This shows that circumcision is really a spiritual act and state. Now the question of man’s work arises. Such humanity walks in the steps of the faith of father Abraham. They believe and now also they walk according to the beliefs which they have thus acquired. Abraham had to walk in response to receiving divine revelation. He had to leave his country and his father’s house to live and act in a new land. Again, this is of spiritual and not merely of natural significance. God called Abraham and gifted him through faith to respond to His call to leave the natural realm of human activity. He was to live in a new spiritual realm in which he was to be governed by revealed truth in the true land of divine promise and purpose. He walked in these steps of faith not knowing whither he went but knowing why he went.
This also exemplifies the true response to God and His work by a man who has been justified by faith. It does so even during uncircumcision. Gentiles can walk in such steps of faith. A Gentile now justified by the faith of the gospel can respond in a spiritual, supernatural way as a result of having his sins forgiven and of having received new life. Natural circumcision has now become irrelevant to the outworkings of divine purpose. Abraham’s true response to circumcision has produced the heavenly effects which God commanded. It has produced a father whose spiritual work has given birth to a true seed of faith.
Abraham received faith-righteousness and circumcision
a. that he might be the father of all who believe,
b. that such might walk in the steps of faith, and
c. that he might be the heir of the world.
Man is given faith-righteousness that he might serve divine purpose. This is the work of faith which justifies man, as is revealed by James. Abraham’s response to God’s basic work justified God on earth for having so acted. The ultimate significance of circumcision, the sign and seal given by God to man, is manifested by the gospel. The putting-off of the body of the flesh upon the cross in Christ’s ‘circumcision’ was God’s sign upon Him. He was the last Adam in God’s reckoning. Put to death in the flesh, however, He was made alive in the Spirit. He confers the Holy Spirit upon those who believe. This is the seal of His circumcision in that He ascended on high in glorified humanity and poured forth the Spirit upon men. Far from refuting the gospel, by it circumcision is set forth in its true, eternal significance. Righteousness is now known to lie in the death of the old nature in the sight of God and in the begetting of a new life in man by God.
Verse 13 “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.”
Another Jewish objection to the gospel was that it revoked the promises given to Abraham according to Jewish interpretation of them. God promised to Abraham, and to his seed, that he should be heir of the world. So the Jews believed themselves to be the heirs of God’s promises in being the seed of Abraham and by being under the law. They were sure that God had committed Himself to Abraham’s seed in a natural sense for the realising and fulfilment of the promises to them and through their works under the law. Paul disputes the truth of their beliefs and the claims they made upon God as a result. The promise was given to Abraham as the father of those who have faith before the law was given. God did not originally attach conditions to the promises He gave to Abraham or to his seed. It was not through law, not by means of or in a state of, law. When the promise was conferred, no response was demanded of Abraham or of his seed.
Circumcision in fact precluded the flesh, even in the case of Abraham himself, from the enjoyment of the promise. Abraham and his seed had the promise but did not live to enjoy its fulfilment in the flesh. The promise was that he should be heir of the world. He did not, in fact, come to inherit even the land itself in his life in the flesh. The world of which God speaks is the eternally blissful world to come. He enjoyed its blessings in a spiritual way. So also he was the spiritual heir of that world, even during his lifetime on earth. This was enjoyed through the righteousness of faith within him. It introduced him into the spiritual realm in which God lives and acts in self-revelation.
Verse 14 “For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of none effect.”
Thus Abraham was not only the father of faith, being the first to receive it, but was also the heir of the promised world, a world in which dwelleth righteousness. The heirs of that world are so through faith-righteousness and not through legal merit. There were two characteristic things in Abraham’s life and experience with God. He had the birthright and the blessing which he transmitted to his seed. These correspond to the faith and the promises. To make the right to the inheritance depend upon obedience to the law, as the Jew did, was to make void the faith and the promises originally established by God. The gospel, unlike the Jewish insistence upon legal obedience and observances, provides a means by which the promises can be truly appreciated and hence enjoyed spiritually.
The question raised is that of citizenship in the city of God. Abraham looked for a city which has foundations. According to Jewish understanding of the kingdom of God, right of access into it depended upon circumcision and obedience to the law. If this was so, then Abraham did not possess the necessary qualifications. This Jewish belief made faith vain. It denied what the Word of God said to be true in, and characteristic of, Abraham’s experience. The Jewish conception made faith purposeless and so must necessarily be ill-conceived. It made the promise of no effect. The true effect of the promise given was to introduce men of faith into the spiritual realm of revelation. The Jewish insistence upon their law concentrated their minds upon that which is merely natural. They sought to build the kingdom of God on earth by devoted human effort.
Verse 15 “Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.”
Promises were indeed held out to men under the law. These were associated, however, with a blessing and a cursing depending upon man’s understanding and obedience. “For the law works wrath”. God gave the law to set forth His righteous demands upon men, who would render effective service to the eternal purpose for which the promises were given. It brought wrath upon ordinary Jewish nature. The law was given deliberately to manifest God’s exclusion of the flesh from the realm of the promises. Only faith-righteousness can fit man to dwell in that realm. The law makes demands upon ordinary human nature which it cannot meet. The Jews failed to realise this paradox in the law, seeing they failed to appreciate Abraham’s recorded, basic experience aright. Divine wrath, rather than righteousness, was incurred by the way in which the Jews understood the law.
“Where no law is” sets forth the position in which Abraham found himself according to the flesh, as in verse 1. God involved him in divine purpose but did so without law. In such a state nothing came between Abraham and God to incur wrath. Everything depended upon the work of God in Abraham and for him on earth. In the realm in which Abraham lived toward God transgression was not possible. God showed in Abraham’s experience the spiritual perfection which His provisions were capable of producing.
Verse 16 “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all.”
The conclusion of Paul’s argument so far is that the promise is of faith according to grace. Faith is the spirit of wisdom and understanding which God can produce in man by His effective work. He works in grace to do so. He came down to the level in which Abraham was originally found in spiritual failure amongst the nations. God acted from within Himself, according to His own thoughts and desires, to ensure that the promise would be fulfilled to all the seed. The success of God’s eternal work on earth is dependent wholly and solely upon His ability to be faithful to His given Word. Everything was invested and secured in Abraham before the law was given. By His intervention, God has produced a seed committed to blessing them and to blessing all the nations in them. This is a seed of faith and not of flesh, of revelation and note of nature.
The law does not in fact preclude the coming of divine blessing. Grace, however, ensures that it will come to the seed of faith who never come under the law. The seed which is of the law are ensured of blessing by the very nature of God’s work even before the law was given. The divine purpose served in God having a seed which is of the law is not the ensuring of the promises. That God dealt with Abraham in a state of no-law signifies that there are two seeds, that of faith as well as that of law. Abraham’s living by faith apart from law is the crucial factor which the Jews failed to grasp. Abraham is the father of us all spiritually. He fathered a spiritual as well as a fleshly seed. The seed of the flesh ultimately came under the law to bring to light God’s rejection of the flesh as such and to declare the spiritual basis upon which God would respond to the seed who understood the law through faith. The giving and establishing of man in the promise was not by law (verse 13) neither was the realising of the promise to come about by the law (verse 16).
Verse 17 “As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before Him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.”
Abraham was to become the father of many nations. The kingdom of God on earth was to be characterised by the experience of Abraham with God:
a. it is comprised of those who have faith-righteousness
b. he was to live and work in that faith and remain and pilgrim and stranger in the present world, and
c. he had to live in the assurance that God would ultimately fulfil the promises to him unconditionally.
The kingdom of God thus being established on earth was, in the course of its development, to have different forms. There would be many nations as a result of God’s work in Abraham. That which is physical or bodily, the soulish or moral and the spiritual or eternal was involved. Nature, the law and the gospel all represent a divine means to an eternal end. The work which ensures the coming of divine blessing at all levels was begun in Abraham. Abraham became the father of all who were separated to God from the flesh to form the kingdom of God in its various and necessary stages of development. As a result, when this divine work is completed, the kingdom (or rule) of God will be established in universal blessing. Abraham’s fatherhood was to be seen as being of all who were ever to become the seed of God. He was this before God. Abraham’s fatherhood associated the seed of God with the God of Abraham.
Paul then reveals the character and nature of the God of Abraham and how Abraham rightly responded to Him. The God in whom Abraham believed and on whom he hoped was
a. such a God that raised the dead, and
b. who called things into existence which did not then exist in man’s sphere on earth naturally.
Resurrection is the secret and power which ensures the realising of divine purpose. This is what Abraham realised, in contrast to the fleshly-minded Jews. By faith he knew that the promises would not be fulfilled, to him or to man, in his present fleshly life in the chaotic and evil state of this world. The fact that the called and gifted seed died in the flesh did not frustrate the purpose for which God has a seed.
For the present realising of His purpose, God now calls the things which are not as though they are. The wisdom and power of God to effect His purpose is so great the He calls upon eternal powers which had as then no existence on earth. By His calling He is bringing about the world to come, the heirs of the promise already have entered spiritually into that eternal, uncreated stated of existence.
Verse 18 “Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations: according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be.”
By believing in such a God, in circumstances which set aside human hope or prospect, Abraham became the father of many nations. God had produced hope in Abraham as well as faith and he lived and acted in this divine hope. Through faith he was fitted spiritually to receive the promises. This developed a hope in him which was of God’s forming. He not only knew the future but came to realise how God would secure the future. He knew a God who had hidden means at His disposal on earth, a God who would by His special intervention bring into being a seed which did not then exist. It was the promised, unbegotten seed. Knowing this caused Abraham to believe in hope, against hope. His faith was fixed in the hope of the promise. Not only had he the Word of God which declared him to be righteous through faith but now he also had the Word of God which opened up the future to him.
Abraham then, believed in hope. This meant that he refused to believe in mere natural hope. In fact he had none. This is demonstrated by his laughter at being told by Sarah of the promise. Abraham did not have his hope fixed upon worldly things and events as to the realising of the promises. He spent his life waiting for God to intervene in supernatural power to call unbegotten things into being on earth. As a result of this response of spiritual hope, against natural hope, he became the father of many nations. He did not work or reproduce by his own powers but by a divine work which transcended nature. Thus he fathered many nations in fulfilment of the prophetic scripture given to him. God acted, knowing what sort of response He would evoke in the faithful Abraham by giving His Word to him.
So shall thy seed by (Gen.15:5). His true seed was to be God-given, in contrast to the fleshly seed which he had already begotten. It was not a fruit of nature but of heavenly intervention on earth. The many nations, the multitudinous seed begotten, was seen by Abraham to follow his life on earth. He received only one son from God for His purpose but as a result lived in a certain hope which this embodied. This was an eternal proof that such hope is sure.
Verse 19 “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb.”
The work of God for him and in him caused him to consider not his own body. When the time came for the promises to be fulfilled he was weak in the flesh but not weak in faith. God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. Abraham’s experience was that his body was as weak as any other body of the same age. For His purpose God had not made him better or greater than any other being. Yet this presented no difficulty to the hope of Abraham, for he was not weak in faith. The wisdom of faith regards a power which cannot be appreciated by the wisdom which is from beneath. His body had already become dead reproductively. God waited until this time came and acted upon a body already become dead in figure. Abraham was asked to set no store upon that which he and Sarah were by nature. God acted upon a dead body and upon a dead womb for the sake of eternal purpose. He was called to live in hope of God’s special intervention in his experience against natural hope. God works upon dead flesh to beget the true seed of the promise. The realising of divine purpose is wholly dependent upon the exercise of divine power and not upon the flesh.
Verse 20 “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.”
He became spiritually effective in possessing a faith and hope which hesitated not at the promise of God. He laid hold upon the promises in that he realised what God promised to perform and how it could be brought about. In this work of faith he was involved in the outworking of divine purpose on earth. He was not governed by human reasoning nor by his feelings concerning himself and external difficulties. He responded to God in the strengthened wisdom of the new life in him. There was no unbelief in him that the Word of God might not be true even if it denied the natural facts of life.
He found strength in faith. He was strengthened with divine might in the inner man and not made strong in the flesh for the purpose whereunto God had called him.
He glorified the God who had acted toward him by so responding. He did so first of all by seeking righteousness in Him when there was none in himself. Here also he had no power in which he could boast before God. He found power in his faith and hope in God and thereby he found strength to live and act in an eternally purposeful way. The main of faith glorifies God by availing himself of His provisions and thus acquires eternal power in fleshly weakness.
Verse 21 “And being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to perform.”
In this inward strength, Abraham was fully persuaded concerning the feasibility of this spiritual work of God. The assurance that God will achieve His declared ends rests in the fact that by His present work He makes the man of faith strong enough spiritually to comprehend what He is doing. Abraham was fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able to perform. God had already done His effective, eternal work in Abraham in introducing him into the spiritual realm of revelation. This is the present miraculous work of God. He fully persuades men of this. “This is the work of God, that ye believe in Him whom God has sent”. ‘Our sufficiency unto these things is of God.’
Verse 22 “And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.”
This gave Abraham a second occasion for his faith to be reckoned unto him for righteousness. The first had to do with the birthright. He thereby became the father of faith. This had to do with the coming of promised blessings. He became the father of many nations by the works of his faith. He begat a heavenly seed, “the stars of the heavens and a seed on earth as the sand of the sea” for the outworking of the purpose for which God was acquiring a new seed.
Verse 23 “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him.”
That which Abraham found in his experience with God is our finding also, by means of the gospel. This was not written for his sake only, that it was reckoned unto him. We have in the Christian system the revealed Word of God and we have it in association with the true seed, the antitypical Isaac, the Christ of promise and of resurrection. To believe in the Word of God is to be wholly dependent upon the faithfulness of the God of self-revelation. By this we are reckoned to be righteous by Him. We see ourselves as perfectly fitted spiritually for His presence and for divine purpose. We are the seed of the completed work of God in the Christ in flesh and fruit of His resurrection from among the dead.
Verse 24 “But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.”
That which Abraham found as to the flesh and as to faith is written on our account also. What Abraham experienced came to be recorded in Scripture. God acted in him to bless him and raise up a seed for His purpose. This came to form part of the Word of God so that we might appreciate the true nature and significance of the work of God for us and in us. If God desired only to bless Abraham by communicating with him and acting toward him subsequently, then the Word would thereby have been completed. There would have been no need for the written Word if divine purpose had been completed when the Word was originally given oracularly.
Paul then sets forth the character of the place into which God has set us spiritually by producing faith and hope in us by the gospel. We are made aware of the eternal, heavenly realities on earth. We have also become those to whom it will be reckoned.
By the gospel we believe on Him who raised from among the dead our Lord. We know of a God who has raised up a Man out of death, in antitypical reality. God has established, in raising our Lord Jesus Christ from among the dead, the eternal power by which He will realise all His declared eternal intentions. God has by this work demonstrated that He has fulfilled divine purpose and completed His work in our Lord in this new Christian system of approach to God.
Verse 25 “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”
This purposeful power of God acted upon the dead body of the Christ to raise it out of death, uniquely and selectively. Our faith is centred upon a God who raised Jesus from the place of death into which He was delivered for our offences. He ceased to be the Christ after the flesh, by means of a death which had to do with the offences of those who were to be justified by faith. By such a work, God made Himself answerable for them and dealt with them. It is the power which delivered Christ and then raised Him up, which acts in us unto our justification.
The fact that God raised Christ out of such a death into which He had purposefully delivered Him, causes us to be fully persuaded that our offences, our spiritual shortcomings, have been removed by a divine work. That God has accepted this work is made manifest by God having raised Him out of the realm of death and judgment. The work which has secured our justification before God is complete and perfect, for it is God’s own work.