Chapter 4
4:1-5- Paul now turns to Scripture (Old Testament) to show how Abraham, the father of their faith, was justified before God. Was it because of his good works or his ability to keep God’s moral code flawlessly? Not at all. This is no new concept Paul is presenting. Rather, it can be found all throughout the Old Testament and Paul uses Gen. 15:6 to illustrate his point. Rabbis of the day would have understood this verse as an example of faith as a meritorious act, or in other words, “faithfulness” to God by his keeping God’s moral precepts is what justified him. One might even point to Gen. 26:5 to substantiate that claim. “because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (ESV). What is important to understand is the timeline of events. God first established a covenant with Abraham on the basis of faith, not on the basis of past works. Gen. 26:5 essentially shows us the “fruits” of Abraham’s genuine faith. To quote F.F. Bruce, “For Abraham’s good works, his obedience to the divine commandments, were the fruit of his unquestioning faith in God; had he not first believed the promises of God he would never have conducted his life from then on in the light of what he knew of God’s will.”
In other words, justification by faith came first, followed by continual faithfulness and good works. Or, as in the context of James 2:21-24, good works are proof of genuine faith. Despite the seemingly contradictory nature of how James and Paul use Gen. 15:6 in their respective epistles, both apostles are actually in alignment. Context is the biggest thing to consider. Robert Mounce states: “For Paul, Abraham was credited with righteousness when he believed God’s promise of an offering. For James, that faith was confirmed when Abraham offered his son on the altar. Paul was concerned with the basis for justification; James, with its practical expression in conduct.”
The main point of verses 4-5 is simply that if we were justified by our good works, God would then “owe” us eternal life. This would not be by God’s grace, but by our own strength (see 11:6). Grant Osborne rightly concludes, “The point is that if righteousness could be earned by a person’s good works, then God is under debt to that person and no longer sovereign. We would control our own salvation, earning it by our works, a view certainly argued by Pelagius but rightly labeled heresy.”
4:6-8- David is someone who knows what it’s like to receive unadulterated mercy and grace from God not because of some good works he had done, but completely apart from them. Paul quotes from Psalm 32, a Psalm in which David is wasting away because of his guilt and unconfessed sin. The solution to this was a sincere confession of sin and repentance before the Lord. David had relied on nothing of his own power for forgiveness of sins. Only faith in the grace of God. What we see in Psalm 51 and Psalm 32 is someone who is acutely aware of their abhorrent sin against God and the genuine joy and gratitude of having their sins forgiven by a merciful, righteous and holy God. This same attitude is something even Jesus addresses in Luke 7:47 with the woman whose “sins were many,” but came to Jesus in humility. “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little. (ESV).
4:9-12- Is this blessing only for the circumcised (as David was), or, like Paul has shown with Abraham, is it not also available to uncircumcised Gentiles as well? God had declared Abraham righteous before circumcision. Circumcision was only a sign or “seal” of the faith he had. In other words, it was a sign that pointed to his being made righteous by God through his faith. So then, Abraham is indeed the father to all the Jewish people (circumcised), but since he was made righteous by God before he was in covenant with God, he is also a father (or model) to all Gentiles of how to be declared righteous before the true and living God. Paul is illustrating in these verses that despite not being God’s chosen people, when Gentiles come to faith in God through Christ, we are actually following in Abraham’s footsteps! Everett Harrison states that, “The nature of Abraham’s faith was essentially the same as that of the NT believer despite the difference in time (Abraham looked forward to something God would do whereas the Christian looks back to what God provided in Christ).” This teaching would be highly offensive to many Jews of Paul’s day and as we see in Acts 15 (and throughout Paul’s ministry), this is a teaching that was hard to accept for even some Christian Jews.
Craig Keener writes:
“Many Jewish ears would recoil at Paul’s argument, which makes Gentile Christians full heirs of Abraham without either circumcision or ethnic descent from Abraham. It is one thing to say that uncircumcised Gentiles could be saved if they kept basic Noahide laws, as many Jews believed (especially avoiding idolatry and immorality); it is quite another to put them on the same level as the Jewish people–apparently treating them as prostylites without circumcision.”
4:13-15- Paul points out that the promise that Abraham would be “heirs of the world” was not based on the Law (written hundreds of years later), but a promise made because of his faith. Paul makes clear here that if the point of the Law was to fulfill the promise made to Abraham and his descendants, the promise would in fact never be fulfilled due to man’s inability to keep the Law. The Law only serves to bring about the knowledge of sin and to show just how far away from God’s holiness we are. As verse 15 points out, the Law will inevitably impose penalties for failure to uphold it. Beyond that, as Mounce states, “It would rob the promise of meaning.” If keeping the law brought about the promise, the basis would no longer be faith through grace, but a reward based on human merit.
4:16-22- It is for this very reason, says Paul, that faith together with grace is the means by which Jews and Gentiles inherit the promise made to Abraham. As has been illustrated, Abraham is not just the father of the nation of Israel, but we as Gentiles find our lineage of faith in God in him as well. He is the father of all who live by faith. The immediate context of verse 17 is Gen. 17:5 (NIV), “...for I have made you a father of many nations.” God, the author of life, the Creator of heavens and earth, “calls into being that which does not exist.” In the context of Abraham, the promise to make him a father of many nations pragmatically looked hopeless as Abraham and Sarah were not only childless, but old in age. Sarah was even past the age of child bearing. But if the Creator of heavens and earth made everything from nothing, he could make Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars despite his present reality. Heb. 11:3 (ESV), “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”
Abraham put his faith in God’s word despite what he assumed was a physical impossibility. His own body “was as good as dead” and so was Sarah’s womb. He believed that what God had promised He was able to bring to reality. This same faith in God extended even deeper when Abraham was tested by the command to sacrifice his only son, Issac. The very son whom God had promised Abraham would have all his descendants through! So great was Abraham’s trust and faith in God’s promises, that Heb. 11:19 tells us “He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead.” We see this in Gen. 22:5 as Abraham confidently assured his servants that after he and Isaac went to worship, both of them would return. Ray Stedman notes, “He reasoned that God was in full control of both death and life; he could restore as well as take.” Simply put, Abraham’s obedience stemmed from his great, unwavering faith in God.
4:23-25- Paul points out that righteousness was bestowed upon Abraham not just in his unique circumstance, but it was also written in reference to us. When we place our faith in Jesus, we are exercising the same faith Abraham did. Scholars point out that verse 25 seems to be, or at least reflect an early Christian confessional creed. Both 24 and 25 show the very basic gospel message. We will be credited as righteous before God if we place our faith in the risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who was delivered to death for our sins and raised from the dead for our justification. As we’ve looked at in a previous chapter, the theological grounding from the Old Testament comes from Isaiah 53.
I’ll end with a summary from Thomas Schreiner: “Both the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are necessary for forgiveness of sins and justification. When God the Father raised Christ from the dead, it was a demonstration that He accepted Christ’s suffering and death as full payment for sin, and that the Father’s favor, no longer His wrath against sin, was directed toward Christ, and through Christ toward those who believe. Since Paul sees Christians united with Christ in His death and resurrection (6:6, 8-11; Eph. 2-6; Col. 2:12, 3:1), God’s approval of Christ at the resurrection results in God’s approval also of all who are united with Christ, and in this way results in their ‘justification’.”
Excursus: (Christus Victor)
Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplished multiple things. One of the elements as discussed in chapter 3 (see: Excursus-Christ’s Atonement/Propitiation) was to make atonement for our sins and to satisfy the justice of God against sin through propitiation. Another element to what Christ accomplished is what scholars refer to as “Christus Victor.” That is, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, He is victorious over sin and death. Adam Harwood says of this concept, “The death of Jesus was the ultimate expression of cosmic conflict, in which Christ conquers the forces of sin and Satan by his life, death, and resurrection.” This can be seen as a result of Christ offering a sacrifice of atonement. That is, victory over sin and death! This is found in the promise made by God in Gen. 3:15, where the woman’s offspring (the Messiah) would crush the head of the serpent.
1 John 3:8b (NIV), “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”
Col. 2:15 (NIV), "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Heb. 2:14-15 (NIV), “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Christ rising from the dead completed this victory over death. The sins of those who would place their faith in Him were atoned for and death was defeated with His resurrection. Because of this victory, Paul says in 8:11 that if we have the same life giving Spirit living in us, we will also have life eternal! This is also why Paul concludes 1 Cor. 15 by saying, “thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” -1 Cor. 15:57 Specifically of our passage in Rom. 4:25, Albert Barnes states that “He submitted to death as a sacrifice, and it was needful that he should rise, and thus conquer death and subdue our enemies, that the work which he had undertaken might be complete. His resurrection was a proof that his work was accepted by the Father. What he had done, in order that sinners might be saved, was approved. Our justification, therefore, became sure, as it was for this that he had given himself up to death.” “because I live, you will live also” says our Lord and Savior in John 14:19. It’s important to understand how crucial the resurrection of Christ is and the victory He won by His sacrifice on the cross.
Bibliography (Works Cited):
-F.F. Bruce: The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, TNTC, 1983
-Robert H. Mounce: Romans, NAC, 1995
-Grant R. Osborne: Romans, IVPNTC, 2004
-Everett F. Harrison: The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 10, Romans, 1976
-Craig Keener: The IVP Bible Background Commentary, New Testament (Romans)
-Ray C. Stedman: Hebrews, IVPNTC, p.126
-Thomas Schreiner: ESV Study Bible, Romans
-Adam Harwood: Christian Theology: Biblical, Historical, and Systematic (p. 448)
-Albert Barnes: Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible (Romans)