Romans 4:1–16

In Romans 3 the Apostle set out to convince the Jew of his sinfulness. He showed that the Jew, just as much as the Gentile, stood under the judgment of God. He settled that argument by quoting what the law had said. Now the point is to prove that justification is by faith, with the deeds of the law shut out, and again he appeals to the Old Testament. Long ago the faith of the Gospel already showed itself ahead of time. That was true before the law was given, as with Abraham, and after it was given, as with David.

The Apostle turns to the history of Abraham to show the righteous condition in which God sees the believer. Every Jew would boast in Abraham as the man he descended from by natural birth. So if we can prove that Abraham was justified by faith, that would stop the Jew short. Such an argument would carry great weight with him. Now Scripture does state that Abraham was justified. How then was he justified? Was it by works? If so, says the Apostle, he has something to boast about — but not before God.

For a Jew this was powerful evidence that the flesh counted for nothing in the salvation of a man's soul. It was also very humbling to his pride, because he boasted of his descent from this great man.

To meet this case, the apostle now takes up the question of Abraham's blessing. God had blessed Abraham. That blessing came to him before the revelation of Jesus Christ. So how did he get it? Abraham's natural descendants were circumcised and kept the Law. Had it not always been God's way, then, to justify and bless His people on the ground of their own righteousness? Abraham had certainly found something. He had found favour and blessing.

The beginning and the perfection of Abraham's justification was that he believed God. God spoke to Abraham. He spoke to him about Himself, as the Giver of blessing — as the God of grace, who meets the ungodly with pure and absolute promise... God's righteousness was Abraham's righteousness... Receiving the word of grace, he received God, whose word it was.

If works had justified him, he would have had something to glory in — but not before God. Weigh those last two words. They show that the point of this passage is what counts before God, not what counts before men. Here lies an essential difference between this chapter and James 2, where the word is, "Show me your faith" (verse 18). Paul shows that the works of the law must be shut out; James insists that the works of faith must be brought in.

We may call this the typical case — the case that every other case must match. It is the case of the man who is called "the father of all who believe." So Abraham's justification is the pattern for the justification of Abraham's children. The principle on which he was justified is the principle on which all believers are justified.

Romans 4 then takes up two test cases to confirm the conclusion of Romans 3:28. The first of these is Abraham. This matters most of all to Jews. He is the father of Israel, and they made him their chief boast. God gave him all the promises of blessing first — to the nation Israel above all, but also to the Gentiles.

A Jew might admit that he had failed under the law, and then claim the privilege he enjoyed as a child of Abraham. Suppose we look at Abraham in that natural way — as the man whose privileges came down to his children as an inheritance. Suppose we take our place under him in that line to enjoy them. What principle does this put us on? The same principle of faith.

Had he been justified by works he would have had something to glory in, but not before God. Note those two words, for they show plainly what this passage is about: what counts before God, not what counts before men.

Abraham, then, in one sense, has something to glory in: not before God, but before the world. In God's presence he is dust and ashes. In that light his human glory turns out to be corruption, and he admits it. But before the world he is God's witness — a justified heir of grace, on the way to glory.

If justified by works, certainly the credit would be his; but this is never found before God. And Scripture agrees. It says nothing about his goodness before his call or his acceptance. It speaks plainly of one thing he did: he believed God's word, and that faith was counted to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). No Jew who bowed to the divine authority of the books of Moses could dispute this.

Abraham was a great man, and God was pleased to link His name with him. Yet whatever blessing was his, he was justified on the same principle as any other poor sinner. Scripture is definite enough on that point. He had no more to glory in than anyone else. He was as empty of works of righteousness as the rest of mankind.

The religions of the world move on the principle of works, but justification before God is not on the principle of works. This is the whole argument of this chapter. At the start it says Abraham might have had something to boast of if he had been justified on the principle of works. But he was justified on the principle of faith. So all Abraham's boast was in God and His abounding goodness.

In James the whole point is what is valid before man, as James 2:18 shows. A man has the right to ask us to show our faith by our works, and so to justify ourselves and our faith before him. In Romans the whole point is what is valid before God. The very words "before God" occur in Romans 4:2. Our faith is quite plain to His all-seeing eye. He does not have to wait for the works that grow out of faith to be sure that the faith is really there.

Is faith, then, a new principle for being right with God? Was any child of Adam ever justified by works? Could human nature ever have boasted in God's presence? The apostle goes back to Abraham. How was he justified? If it had been by works, he could well have boasted. But that cannot be, for no one will boast in His presence. What then does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." However great a man Abraham was, however much God chose to link His name with his, and whatever blessing he had, he was justified on the same principle as any other poor sinner.

Abraham believed the Lord's word, though he was then an old man, and his wife an old woman. In the eyes of man this promise was impossible; but Abraham believed God, and God counted, or reckoned, this faith to him as righteousness. So the record goes in Genesis 15:5 and 6. Nothing could be more clear and more simple. It was by simple faith in a simple statement. Abraham did not look at the impossibility of the promise. He looked at the almighty power of the One who made it. … Remember that this happened 430 years before the law was given. Abraham had never heard of the law when God reckoned him righteous. It was all by grace. It was all by faith.

Read that chapter carefully and you will notice the words counted, imputed and reckoned several times. All three have the same force. They translate the same word, and the word reckoned comes closest to its meaning. "Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness." That is, God reckoned Abraham righteous, or held him to be righteous, because of his faith. The little word "for" can mislead. It may suggest that faith is a substitute for righteousness, something that can be turned into righteousness. "Reckoned to him as righteousness" gives the sense more closely.

Eleven passages in Scripture speak of imputing righteousness, or of imputing something for righteousness. In nine of them faith is imputed for righteousness. So here it is not the value of what was done that God imputes. Otherwise our faith would be the merit… Righteousness imputed to a man means the same thing as the man being accounted righteous.

A person may be fully and securely blessed, but only by grace, and so by faith. Faith gives the glory to God, and faith itself is His gift.

"For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Now this comes in Abraham's history many years before he "offered up" Isaac. The first is in Genesis 15:6, the second in Genesis 22. How completely distinct, then, is justification before God from justification before men.

Abraham accepted that when he could do nothing God would do everything, and that is just what he proved. Notice, God is able. We are utterly unable — God is completely able. This is where faith rests. There is this difference between Abraham and ourselves. He believed what God would do. We believe what God has done, for "we believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification."

If a man works, the reward is not seen as a gift, but as the wages owed to him. But suppose that, instead of working, he believes on Him who justifies the ungodly. What a magnificent proof and conclusion, that his faith is counted for righteousness! This is free grace, the very opposite of a debt under law. And this was the principle of God's dealings with their great forefather, in the account Moses wrote by inspiration.

If Abraham had been justified by his works, his justification would have been owed to him for what he had done. Wages are owed to workmen in the same way. There would have been no question of grace on God's side or faith on Abraham's. But in justifying, God acts in pure grace; for let us not forget that the believer in himself is "ungodly." So the righteous standing in which God views the believer is the result of pure grace. That grace does not look for or recognise any merit in the person justified. This is a very blessed and steadying truth: it frees the believer from any troubling thought that his standing rests on anything he has done or can do.

Now one who works for a reward does not at the end consider that it is given him by grace: he has earned it and would be most resentful if anyone suggested that it was a "gift of grace": his working has made his employer his debtor. Does God so employ men on this business basis? Men may suppose so, but their work is nothing to Him. He has given them no such contract. They are like men working, with no authoritative instruction, to build a railroad where no train will ever travel.

The apostle presses further the contrast between the principles he has been comparing. "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due." And the greatness of the reward does not change the principle involved: if you buy heaven cheap, you still buy it.

It is through grace, and through grace alone, that we come to know God. Suppose I could come to the door of heaven and ask to be let in on the ground of my own righteousness. Imagine for a moment that this were possible. How would I stand there? For "to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due." I might know God as the One who lived there. But it would be a cold entrance. I could not know Him as a God of love. What grace is shown in paying a man his wages for his work?

Verses 4 and 5 are aimed at the deep and natural link the mind makes between reward and work — between reward and debt. But Abraham did no work. "To him that works not" God reckons a reward. And what a reward! "I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." To the believer God reveals Himself as the reward of His own work. He works the poor sinner's salvation, and places the crown of that work, in Christ Jesus, on the head of the saved!

Did you ever weigh these words of the Spirit of God, dear self-righteous worker? "To the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due" (Rom. 4:4). If I work for you at £1 a week, it is only right and fair that you should pay me when the work is done; that is debt. But if I fail to do the work I should have done, and you then come and give me £5, that would be grace.

"Working" stands opposite "believing on Him who justifies the ungodly." Do I work for justification? Or do I receive it freely by God's grace through faith in His Son? It is one or the other. There is no mixture: the two are distinct. But God cannot count righteousness to my account because of my works. Why? Because they are not perfect in righteousness. They carry far too much unrighteousness in them. The value of the work of Christ is a different thing: it is perfect, faultless, unmixed. On that ground God can freely count righteousness to the account of the one who believes in Jesus.

And who are we to believe in? The God "who justifies the ungodly." Who but God could do that? A human judge could not. He might let the guilty one off, or be merciful to him; but no human judge has the power to justify a guilty criminal. To justify him, he would have to clear him of every charge against him. If the man was guilty, he could not do that. But, blessed be His name, God can, and in a way perfectly consistent with His own perfect righteousness.

In human law courts it is impossible in strict justice to justify the guilty. But the work of Christ on the cross has such power, and He took our place of judgment there so completely, that God is able to justify the UNGODLY.

"You have never yet seen God's starting point. All these years you have been striving, more or less, to be godly, believing that God justifies the godly. You have never yet believed that God justifies the ungodly; that is the starting point. Godliness will come afterwards."

Abraham is the great example of what is meant (verse 3). He — and we — are held by God as righteous in view of faith. That is its simple meaning. Faith brings in all the justifying merits of the blood of Christ. These are the great basis of that righteousness. We may also safely say this: the first right thing in anyone's life, and the start of a right course, is when he turns to God as a sinner and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many never enter into peace with God and full assurance of salvation. The reason is that they are looking inside themselves for something that would make God bless them. They admit that their works give them no claim on Him. But they think their faith might give them that claim. So the quality or quantity of their faith fills their minds. What should fill them instead is the free grace of God, the power of the work of Christ, and the Word of God that cannot fail.

This is God counting righteousness apart from works. Yet it is the only principle that produces good works as its fruit. Oh, do not let the pride of unbelief blind you to how lost you really are. May you turn to God just as you are, a poor lost sinner, and find in the grace of Christ all you need.

The apostle brings forward two great witnesses against the idea that righteousness comes on the principle of law... God made the promises to Abraham, and he was the heir of the world. The throne and kingdom belonged to David... No Jew would have disputed the testimony of these two witnesses. One lived four hundred and thirty years before God gave the law, and he declares that justification was by faith. The other lived in the age of law, and he declares that justification was without works.

"David speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works." Whoever that person may be. What qualifies someone for this blessing is not birth or any other privilege. It is simply a sinner's capacity to receive God's mercy.

Nothing is said of David's works. Instead he spoke of his sins and his wrongdoing. No man in the Old Testament records fell lower than David in his sins against God and man, and yet we learn that his sins did not exclude him from the blessing... His sins were ten thousand times worse because he knew God's mercy. Even so, they did not shut him out of the blessing of justification. It is a blessing into which the works of the best man cannot bring him, and from which the sins of the worst man need not exclude him. It is altogether of and from God.

Imputed righteousness means the character or quality in which the person appears in God's sight. It is not the cause of his appearing that way... It is not only that He does not count the sin the man has done. He does not view him as in sin, but as in righteousness... So the word used for imputed righteousness is not the word for a righteous act, but the word for righteousness itself — not an act or a sum of things done, but a state. God reckons him to be in that state.

The word for forgiveness only appears once in the whole letter. It comes when the Apostle quotes David's words from Psalm 32... This shows us, however, that counting righteousness to a person — that is, justification — comes to the same thing here as forgiveness.

David had only the dim light of foreshadowings and prophecies. He could take comfort only from the negative side: the Lord will not count sin against the believer. Paul stands in the full light of Christ's redeeming work. He gives us the comfort of the positive side: "God counts righteousness apart from works." How good it is to see the fuller light coming out.

Upon what equitable basis is He able to impute righteousness to a man apart from works? Psalm 40 will answer. There we hear the Incarnate Son saying: "Sacrifice and offering you have not desired... Behold, I have come to do your will, O God." The atoning sacrifice of Calvary has replaced for ever all the offerings of the old sacrificial system. It enables God to pardon and justify, in full righteousness, every sinner who believes in Jesus.

It is clear then that not to have sin reckoned is, in other words, to be reckoned to be in a righteous condition. God would have every believer to know the blessedness of this in his own soul.

Take again the testimony of David. Does he agree with the gospel, or contradict Moses, who gave the law? David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, confirms both. He calls blessed the very people whom the law could only curse... This is clearly justification, not by good works, but despite evil ones. It is God's grace blessing, not His law cursing, where there was no righteousness, but only lawlessness and sin.

On the other hand, David says nothing about his works. Instead he speaks of his iniquities and his sins. No man in the Old Testament record fell lower than David in his sins against God and man. Yet we learn that his sins did not exclude him from the blessing... It is a blessing into which the works of the best man cannot bring him. It is a blessing from which the sins of the worst man need not exclude him.

The transgression is FORGIVEN. Here the word means to lift away from. The great burden is removed: it no longer weighs upon the soul and conscience before God. How great is the blessedness of being forgiven! The sin is COVERED, it is concealed, blotted out of God's sight, so as to offend Him no more.

The Hebrew word employed is Kaphar, which means to cover. It is only by the death of Christ, by His atoning blood, that sin is covered, and its consequences averted. So we read, "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Psalm 32:1)... "For it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul" (Leviticus 17:11). How beautifully the New Testament answers to all this: "the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

But this assumes the man is a sinner, not righteous in himself. The question is what God is in grace toward such a man, not what the man is toward God... His blessedness was that God did not impute to him the sins he had committed. It was not that he was righteous in himself before God. For man, righteousness lay in the grace of God. Here that righteousness amounts to God not imputing sins to a man guilty of committing them. He imputes no sin at all.

Our first need, as sinners, is forgiveness; and there is forgiveness with God... This blessedness is a present possession: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses" (Ephesians 1:7). And this portion belongs to the simplest believer as much as to the most advanced. We read, "I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake" (1 John 2:12).

Abraham and David were the two men a Jew would accept as authority beyond dispute.

Nothing is said about David's works; instead, he spoke of his iniquities and his sins. No man in the Old Testament records fell lower than David in his sins against God and man. Yet his sins did not exclude him from the blessing… The works of the best man cannot bring him into this blessing, and the sins of the worst man need not shut him out of it.

But this assumes the man is a sinner and not righteous in himself. The question was what God was in grace to such a person, not what he was toward God… His blessedness was not that he was righteous in himself before God. It was that God did not charge him with the sins he had committed. Righteousness for man was found in the grace of God.

Sin was plainly there. Yet when the enemy tried to curse them, what was Balaam forced to say? "He has not looked on iniquity in Jacob, nor has He seen perverseness in Israel." The iniquity was there, but God said, "I do not look on it." The perverseness was obvious, but God said, "I do not see it." We know on what ground God could say that of Israel, and does say it of us — the blood of the Lamb.

It is not that they are counted righteous because they never sinned, for all have sinned. Their sins have been covered and their iniquities forgiven. And it is not only their past sins that Christ's atoning death has covered. Infinite grace says more, and says it in perfect righteousness: "The Lord shall not at all reckon sin."

God forsook Him during the three hours of darkness, when His soul was made an offering for sin. No doubt it was then that the great question of sin was gone into and settled forever, condemned at the cross… He bore all the judgment of God due to us and died, and therefore nothing can be imputed to us who believe.

Our failure will never in the least impair the relationships that God has established between us and Himself, because He has established them in Christ. So until sin can be imputed to Christ, it cannot be imputed to the believer.

If a believer does sin, he loses his communion and becomes very unhappy. The Lord will deal with him about that sin, as one who belongs to Him, but the sin is not counted against him in the eternal sense.

David, in the dim light of pictures and prophecies, could only take comfort from the negative: the Lord will NOT impute sin to the believer. Paul, in the full light of the redemptive work of Christ, gives us the comfort of the positive: "God imputes RIGHTEOUSNESS without works."

We get the expression, "this blessedness," in verse 9. It refers to faith being "counted for righteousness," or "reckoned for righteousness." It also refers to righteousness being "imputed." ... Whether referring to Abraham or David or to ourselves who believe today, they mean that God accounts us as righteous before Him in view of our faith. We must not imagine that all the virtue is in our faith. It is not. But faith makes contact with the work of Christ, and all the virtue is there. In that sense faith justifies.

This blessedness comes by grace, and it comes to sinners. So can circumcision give a claim to it that the uncircumcised do not have? Look once more at the history. Faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness — but when? While he was circumcised, or while he was still uncircumcised? ... His own father Abraham was an uncircumcised man when he had the faith by which God justified him. And circumcision, the sign of God's covenant with him, was the seal of that faith! ... To make his argument work, the Jew has to turn the facts of history upside down.

Eleven passages in Scripture speak of imputing righteousness, or of imputing something for righteousness. In nine of them, faith is imputed for righteousness. So here it does not mean that the value of the thing done is imputed. If it did, our faith would be the merit. ... So a person is reckoned to be in a state he is not actually in. But imputed righteousness does not mean a quantity of righteousness held outside him and put to his account. It means the state in God's sight of the person so accounted righteous. Righteousness imputed to a man is the same as the man's being accounted righteous.

Circumcision simply meant that, if God justifies a man by faith, that is the end of the flesh before God; it has no standing in His presence. ... It showed that God could not put Himself into relationship with the flesh. If He took up Abraham, and justified him, and placed him in relationship with Himself, the mark of death must be in the flesh. It must be set aside.

Here we have the best possible argument that ordinances, or what people call sacraments, have no part in giving salvation to anyone. Baptism is called "a sacrament," and ritualistic Christians hold that it is needed in order to receive the blessing of forgiveness.

We see, then, in this old and decisive example of Abraham that, by the will and declaration of God, the faith of an uncircumcised man is reckoned to him for righteousness. Circumcision was given to Abraham afterwards, as a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had while still uncircumcised. God did this so that Abraham might be the father of all who believe. He is the father of the uncircumcised, so that righteousness might be reckoned to them too, as it was to him. And he is the father of the circumcised as well.

The question raised in verse 9 is this: is this blessedness for the Jew only, or is it also for the Gentile who believes? The Apostle knew very well how firmly the bigoted Jew tried to put all the condemnation on the Gentile and keep all the blessing for himself. The answer is that the case of Abraham, in whom they so much boasted, proves that it is for ALL. Abraham was justified before he was circumcised. If the order had been reversed, the Jew might have had some ground for that claim. As things stood, he had none.

So when the Jew pointed to Abraham, the scriptural record forced him to admit something. This case shows the grace of God in justifying the nations more strongly, if that is possible, than in the case of his own circumcised descendants. God could have brought Abraham under circumcision first and justified him afterward, if He had wished. But He chose to do the exact opposite.

God counted Abraham's faith to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6) 14 years before He gave him circumcision as a sign of separation from the world to God.

God justified Abraham without law, and also apart from that great sign of putting the flesh to death. Circumcision began with Abraham, yet it clearly had nothing to do with his righteousness. At best it was only the seal of the righteousness of faith which he already had while uncircumcised. So it could not be the source or the means of his righteousness.

A person is counted to be in a state he is not actually in. But imputed righteousness does not mean that some amount of righteousness lying outside him is credited to him. It means the state before God of the person who is counted righteous. Righteousness imputed to a man is the same as the man being counted righteous.

Circumcision meant this: if God justifies a man by faith, that is the end of the flesh before God. The flesh has no standing in His presence. Circumcision is the end of the flesh. This is what really took place at the cross. There God's judgment brought the flesh to a complete end, and circumcision was a picture of this. It showed that God could not put Himself in relationship with the flesh. If He was to take up Abraham, justify him and place him in relationship with Himself, the mark of death had to be in the flesh. It had to be set aside.

He was uncircumcised, practically a Gentile, and circumcision was a sign and seal of the righteousness of faith. All this shows the wisdom of God. God arranged it so that Abraham would be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that is, of Gentiles, so that righteousness would be counted to them too. … Here we have the best possible argument that ordinances, or sacraments as people call them, have no part in giving salvation to anyone.

So in Abraham, of all people, we have an uncircumcised man justified by faith. Circumcision was only a seal of the righteousness he already had while uncircumcised. So he became the father of all who believe, even those who are not circumcised, like believing Gentiles, so that they too might be counted righteous through faith.

If He had pleased, God could have justified Abraham only after bringing him under the rite of circumcision. But He chose to do the exact opposite. God reckoned faith to Abraham as righteousness, and beyond dispute He did it while Abraham was still uncircumcised. Circumcision was in no way a means of the grace that justifies. It was a seal of the righteousness God reckoned to him long before He gave that sign.

God reckoned Abraham's faith to him for righteousness (Gen. 15:6). That was fourteen years before He gave him circumcision as a sign of separation from the world to God.

Circumcision was a sign, though — and only a sign. He received it as an identifying seal of the righteousness of faith he already had. It meant the cutting off of the flesh, and it taught that this righteousness was not mixed with any activity or merit of the flesh. On all such effort circumcision put the outward stamp of death.

God says, in giving Abraham circumcision, "You must carry in your body the sign that your flesh is worthless. You must have in yourself the sign that the sentence of judgment is on the flesh. You must accept a mark that means this: faith is the principle on which you stand in relationship with Me."

In Romans 4 Paul gives special attention to one point. God credited righteousness to Abraham before he received the ordinance of circumcision. This is the great principle of Scripture. Ordinances follow justification and rest on it. They never lead to it, for that would reverse God's order.

Here we have the best possible argument that ordinances — or sacraments, as people call them — have no part in giving salvation to anyone. Baptism is called "a sacrament," and ritualistic Christians hold that it is necessary to receive the blessing of forgiveness.

Here is something remarkable: a fuller revelation of God follows immediately after circumcision (Genesis 17). Abraham did not need to be circumcised first to receive mercy in forgiveness or grace in God's decree. But he did need it to walk with God as a friend, to be trusted with God's plans, and to pray for others as a priest.

God gave this sign and seal to Abraham as a man who already had the righteousness of faith. It made him the father of all who believe — the pattern man of faith. He is the pattern and example of all believers, whoever they are and wherever they are found. So just as God reckoned righteousness to him by faith, He reckons it to them also.

So the Jew could not appeal to Abraham without the scriptural record forcing him to admit one thing. This precedent shows the grace of God in justifying the nations even more strongly, if that is possible, than in justifying his own circumcised, direct descendants.

Even in the matter of justification by faith, Romans 4 makes this difference between Abraham and us. He believed that God was able to perform His promise. We believe on Him who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, after He accomplished His work in death for our offence. The Old Testament had promise; we rest on accomplishment.

Abraham is here called father of circumcision, or of true separation to God. He is the father of this separation because he is the person in whom this order of separating man for God began. It was in him that God brought in this new principle of His intervention, in the middle of evil, by setting man apart for Himself. From that time on, in God's later ways with man, this principle of separation has been much developed. Abraham is the father of circumcision in the same sense in which science has made Hippocrates the father of medicine.

Romans 4:12. — The real meaning is, father of circumcision, that is, of true separation to God, not only to the persons characterised by circumcision, but also to those who walk in the steps, and so on.

In Abraham's case no one could deny that circumcision added nothing to the righteousness that was already his before it. To get his argument, the Jew must reverse the facts of history. As those facts stand, Abraham appears as the father of all who believe, even though they are uncircumcised, so that God may consistently reckon righteousness to them also. He is also the father of circumcision — the one in whom that separation to God began which circumcision implied. And he is that father to those who did not merely have the mark in the flesh, but who also walked in the steps of that faith of their father Abraham, the faith he had while still uncircumcised.

Both words are used for walking by or in the Spirit, Galatians 5:16 and Galatians 5:25; but stoicheō (from steichō, "to go in order") is restricted to walking well. In Romans 4:12 "in the steps of the faith of Abraham"; by a godly rule, Galatians 6:16; Philippians 3:16; and it is once translated "walk orderly," Acts 21:24. These passages are the only ones in which stoicheō occurs.

So Abraham is said to be "the father of all who believe", and "the father of circumcision" to all believers who "walk in the steps" of Abraham. As "the father of all who believe" he sets out the righteous condition in which God views the believer. As "the father of circumcision" he sets out the holy and separate walk that suits those who are reckoned righteous.

Circumcision was given as the "seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised". This surely shows that the one who is reckoned to be in a righteous condition before God must from now on refuse the activities of the flesh. If he is in a righteous condition before God, he must walk in a righteous way before men. Righteousness of faith before God will put a "seal" or stamp on a man, and that stamp will show in a life before men that refuses the flesh and the world. This refusal of the flesh, we know, can only be in the power of the Spirit who is given to those who believe. Separation from the world and a walk in practical righteousness will be the outcome of being in a righteous condition before God.

Law assumes obedience from man as the condition for receiving the gift in question. It was not so in God's dealings with Abraham or his seed. There was not a word about His law when God gave the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, and to his seed in Genesis 22. The promise implies God's fulfilment of it; the law claimed man's obedience to its demands. So they are completely different, and each shuts the other out — though each is excellent for its own purpose.

Romans 4:13 is a simple case of the general rule... "through law" was the character or way of his getting the promise. So "through righteousness of faith." It was not by law. The case is a very simple one.

God promised Abraham that he would be heir of the world. That promise did not come by law, so it did not depend on his obedience to law. It came by the righteousness of faith. That is, it came as the result of a righteousness already fully settled — not a righteousness that future works still had to establish. So the promise could not be challenged. There was no possibility that it could fail.

The promise stood completely apart from law or condition. It was God speaking out of His own abundant goodness. It was a covenant with only one party to it, and that One cannot fail. He who credited righteousness to Abraham by faith gave him the promise in the same way. For what is faith? It is the confession that we have nothing and are nothing, so that we must turn to God for everything. So righteousness came to the man who knew he had none, and the promise came to the man who could promise nothing himself.

The Old Testament records no promise in these exact words, that Abraham should be "the heir of the world." But this is clearly the sense and meaning of "in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:18). Galatians 3:16 tells us with authority that "your offspring" meant Christ. The promise then looks on to that future time when Christ will exercise His sovereignty over all the kingdoms of this world.

There can be no denying that God promised the possession of the world both to Abraham and to his seed. In Genesis 12 God said to him, "so that you will be a blessing… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." That implied Abraham's possession of the earth — not just Canaan, but all the earth. The promise of an heir in Genesis 15 implied it too. Clearly it is through this heir, who is Christ, that Abraham inherits all that the promise involved, whether earthly things or heavenly things.

Promise, and faith in it, went together. Law was man's work, and on God's part a requirement from man, not a promise to him... But the inheritance is of faith, not of law, so that it might be by grace. Faith just believes the grace shown. So the promise is sure to all the seed. Grace can give it to a Gentile, and faith in a Gentile can receive it.

He weighed out the purchase money, four hundred shekels of silver in the currency merchants used, and handed it over. Then the sons of Heth made the field and the cave in it sure to Abraham as a possession for a burial place. And there Abraham buried Sarah. How strange a proceeding for "the heir of the world"!

A Jew would object here: "God did give the law afterward. And once He gave the law, the promise would belong only to the people who received it." The apostle's answer to this is: "For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void." But the promise is free and completely unconditional. The law, given later, could not set aside an unconditional promise. It could not disinherit those to whom God had freely given the promise. Abraham's spiritual seed — those who were of faith — were heirs to his inheritance even while under the law. It was not law that made them heirs. They were heirs by faith, not by works of law.

The promise implies God's fulfilment of it; the law claimed man's obedience to its demands. Each is admirable for its own purpose, yet the two are completely different and shut each other out. The promised inheritance does not come by law. It comes by another kind of righteousness. It was attached to faith. This is so true that if those who stand on law are the heirs, there is no room left for faith, and the promise comes to nothing.

Making Israel the only heir, as a people under the law, destroyed the principle by which Abraham had the inheritance. He had it by faith, and not by any law at all. Promise is not law. To base the inheritance on law, and give it to Israel because of the law, made the promise of no effect. Promise, and faith in it, went together. Law was man's work, and on God's part a requirement from man, not a promise to him.

Suppose, as the Jew would argue, that only those who are of the law have title to the inheritance. Then faith would be a vain, useless thing, and God's promise would be as worthless and powerless as the word of a wicked man.

The covenant of Sinai stood in direct contrast with promise. Under it the blessing depended on man's obedience, and man failed completely to keep the covenant. Man could fail under a covenant and so lose all claim on the ground of works — and he did fail. But God could not fail, therefore the promise still stands sure, to all who believe.

Faith is opposed to works, and grace is opposed to law. The grace of God who gave the promise opens the one door, and a wide one, the door of faith, for Gentiles no less than Jews. If law had been the principle, only Israel could have made an effort, and even that effort would have failed. They boasted of having the law, yet they were blind to their own breaking of it and to the greater wrath they were exposed to.

Perhaps nothing has so corrupted the truth of the gospel as the common practice of blending the law with it. Few things are more unlike, and Scripture keeps few things more distinct. Yet people today so often mix them together that they destroy the simplicity and truth of both law and gospel.

The law cannot be the ground of life for a fallen creature, and it cannot be his rule of life. It cannot be the ground of righteousness, and it cannot be the power of sanctification. "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). That one passage settles both. No one can be justified before God by the law. And how can I ever become holy by the very thing that only shows me my ungodliness? If I measure a short board with a true measure, I must prove it short. A true measure cannot make a short board the right length. It can only show what it is. It is the same with the law and the sinner. Again, "the law brings wrath" (Rom. 4:15). How is this? Because it is pure and I am impure.

Man is under the evil. The law demands good in him which is not there, and it shows him all the evil which is in him. It presses the evil on him, and its consequences in judgment. As to the good it demands in him, it only makes him aware that the good is not there. Further, it sets no good before his soul as an object. To make the difference clear: it demands good in him — loving God and his neighbour, for example. But it presents no good to him. It reveals no object that can produce good in him, or be his good in living power. So it produces wrath.

The law indeed only works wrath, as verse 15 says. There was plenty of sin before the law came in, but there was not transgression. To transgress is to offend by stepping over a clearly defined and forbidden boundary. When the law came, the boundary was drawn, and sin became transgression.

Many claim, from a wrong translation of a familiar passage, that sin is "the transgression of the law." If that were so, the apostle's words here would make no sense at all, and total moral confusion would follow. The law would then be to blame for all the sin in the world, and the law must have existed from the beginning… But the apostle says there was as yet "no law" to make the promise void — no condition attached to it that could be broken, no line drawn that could be crossed. That is exactly what transgression means: stepping over a line that has been drawn. Sin is a deeper thing.

But this is not all, for law brings wrath. So it is impossible to inherit any blessing under it. Where there is no law, there might be an inheritance; but not where there is law, if law is to have its force. Where there is no law there is no transgression — that is, no breaking of a given commandment; but where law is laid on people, the flesh is certain to transgress, and wrath follows. To inherit under wrath is impossible.

The promise by itself does not raise the question of sin. God has promised; He will do it. But it must all be done by grace. So between the promise given and the promise fulfilled, God brings in the law. The law raises the question of sin and righteousness, and this gives grace its occasion.

By giving the law, then, God was shutting man up to mercy. He was running the plowshare into the soil to prepare it for the seed of the gospel. He was not by it saving: He was convicting and condemning.

"That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace." Had it been by works, it would have been a matter of debt and not grace, as verse 4 told us. On the principle of faith and grace the blessing is "guaranteed to all his offspring" — that is, Abraham's true spiritual offspring, in other words, true believers. For Abraham is "the father of us all." Note it: US all — ALL true believers.

Promise depended on God alone, and God gave it to Abraham long before the law. So it could not come through the law. It came through the righteousness of faith. The covenant of Sinai was the direct opposite of promise. There the blessing depended on man's obedience, and man failed completely to keep it. Man could fail under covenant, and so forfeit all claim on the ground of works; and he did fail. But God could not fail, therefore the promise still stands sure, to all who believe.

The promise stood completely apart from law or condition. It was God speaking out of His own abundant goodness — a covenant with only one party to it, and that One cannot fail... For what is faith but the confession of having and being nothing, so that we turn to God of necessity for all? Righteousness came to the man who knew he had none. The promise came to the man who could promise nothing himself.

Faith stands opposed to works, and grace stands opposed to law. The God who gave the promise opens by His grace the one door of faith — and it is a wide door — to Gentiles just as much as to Jews. If law had been the principle, only Israel could have tried, and tried in vain. Israel boasted of having the law, yet was blind to their breaking of it and to their own greater exposure to wrath. But grace goes out to the Gentile just as much as to the Jew, who could hardly limit Abraham's fatherhood of "many nations" to his own people.

None of Abraham's true seed is left out. Some would be, if the promise came on the principle of law. Faith is the only ground on which all the seed could be blessed. At the same time, this principle leaves them all depending on the grace of God as the only source of blessing.

So Abraham is the father of all who are counted righteous on the principle of faith (verse 11). He is the father of all the justified who walk in true separation to God (verse 12). And he is the father of all who inherit the promises by grace on the principle of faith (verse 16).

By faith we receive all the promises in Christ. By faith we find everything done. It is only to believe... Your believing produces joy and gladness in your heart, no doubt. But of course it does nothing to pay off the debt. So it is with salvation. The debt is paid, Christ has finished the work, and the believing soul enters into all the blessed results... None of the glory goes to man. It is a person depending on the truth of God.