Best of Romans Chapter Four

 

Chapter Four

The author continues in chapter four with the differences between the Jew and the Gentile, with the differences between works and faith. The immediate conclusion is that the works of the Jews are a matter of indebtedness while the faith of the Gentiles is counted as righteousness after the manner of Abraham, the father of the Jews.

The author presents the witness of Genesis fifteen verse six which basically says what the author says, that Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. The author, by this, is showing the Jew, with his own scriptures, that faith counts more with God than the physical deeds of man. Like a lawyer laying out his case, the author of Romans goes on to call a second witness, Psalms thirty-two verses one and two. What is meant to be seen in this is that justification of man is not the work of man but the work of God.

“Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” The question is asked, does this blessed state, if faith is counted as righteousness, come only to the Jews and not also to the gentiles who believe? The author suggests that the blessed state, in Abraham's case, came first – in other words, Abraham believed while he was uncircumcised, God counted his belief as righteousness, then Abraham received the seal of circumcision.

The author concludes that Abraham is not only the father of those who are circumcised but also of those who are not circumcised. Abraham is the father of all believers, Jew and Gentile, and by the work which is God's alone, God counts all faith in God, anywhere and in anyone, as righteousness. No one is exempt from God's work of grace.

Next, the author turns his attention to the promise God made to Abraham in chapter seventeen of Genesis. God promised, in perpetuity, that Abraham would be heir to the earth – he and his children in their generations. Abraham would be the father of many nations, not just the nation of the Jews. Like Abraham, all his descendants who believed would receive the mark of circumcision as the sign, or seal, of their faith.

The reasoning goes like this: the promise to Abraham and his seed came before the establishment of the Law through Moses. It came not through the law but through the faith and belief evinced in Abraham. If the promise came by way of the law, that would negate the word of God that he counted Abraham's faith as righteousness. It would also negate the justification of man as the work of God only. That would make God's promise to Abraham null and void.

The thing about the law is this: it achieves offense, indignation, and punishment. The author suggests that where there is no law, there is no transgression of the law. The author's conclusion is that the promise may only be sure to all the seed of Abraham through the faith of Abraham, so that the promise may be given as the grace of God.

It is certain in the author's expression, “who is the father of us all”, that the author counted himself in a scope broader than the Jewish people and the law.

The author's reasoning hinges on Abraham. The claim is made that it was not written for Abraham's sake that his faith was counted as righteousness. It was written for the sake of those who would follow. It was written for those who would be found in a faith like that of Abraham's, whose very nature and being shouted faith. At nearly one hundred years of age, he did not consider himself dead, nor the womb of his wife. He fully relied on the word of God. He did not stagger under the weighty responsibility that God's promise imposed. Rather, he was strong and steadfast in his faith, giving the glory to God.

Abraham was fully persuaded that anything God promised, he was able to deliver on, and that was exactly the kind of faith for which God imputed righteousness to Abraham.

The author's closing argument is that we, the seed of Abraham, the father of many nations, must use the same kind of 'fully persuaded' faith that Abraham used, to fully believe the word of God in regard to his son Jesus Christ. We must be fully persuaded that God raised his son from the grave, his only begotten son, who was delivered to the law for our offenses and raised again for our justification.