How then has it been reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.
The whole weight of Paul's argument here rests on a date. He asks when God counted Abraham's faith as righteousness. The answer comes from Israel's own records, and it decides whether God's blessing belongs to one nation or to everyone who believes.
Paul is not raising a technical point about ancient history. He is answering a claim about who gets in.
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.
The sequence was not an accident of timing. God could have done it the other way, and chose not to.
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.
The gap between the two moments was not days but years.
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.
Because righteousness came first, circumcision can only confirm what was already there. It cannot produce it.
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.
The verse asks how God counted it. The word does not mean a quantity of merit moved into Abraham's account.
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 cut flesh away. The sign carried its own message about the flesh.
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.
The same principle covers more than circumcision. It covers every ceremony people trust for salvation.
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.
The result is that Abraham himself becomes father to believers who were never circumcised.
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.
- Timing — God counted Abraham's faith as righteousness fourteen years before He gave him circumcision. He chose that order on purpose.
- Seal — Circumcision came later, as a seal on righteousness Abraham already had. A seal cannot be the source of what it seals.
- Counted — Imputed righteousness is not a measured amount of merit handed over. It means God counts the person righteous.
- Flesh — The sign itself declared the end of the flesh before God. It pictured what took place at the cross.
- Reach — No ceremony gives salvation. Abraham is father of all who believe, circumcised or not.
And he received [the] sign of circumcision [as] seal of the righteousness of faith which [he had] being in uncircumcision, that he might be [the] father of all them that believe being in uncircumcision, that righteousness might be reckoned to them also;
Genesis says God counted Abraham righteous the moment he believed. Paul now asks what the later mark of circumcision added, and he answers by pointing at the calendar.
The whole argument turns on a date. Abraham had righteousness before he carried any mark in his body. God could have arranged it the other way.
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.
The gap was not a matter of days.
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 no reward for achievement. The cutting away of flesh carried its own message about human effort.
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.
Another writer sets out what God was saying to Abraham through that mark.
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."
A seal goes on a document that is already valid. That order matters far beyond Abraham.
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.
So can a religious rite save anyone? People still argue about it.
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.
The sign added nothing to Abraham's justification, but it did open a closer place with God.
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.
The verse states God's purpose. Abraham was to be the father of everyone who believes without being circumcised.
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.
Abraham was the man the Jewish people boasted in. That boast now turns against them.
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.
Abraham and believers today do not believe exactly the same thing.
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.
- Sequence. Righteousness came first. The sign came fourteen years later. Reverse that order and you reverse God's way of blessing.
- Sign. The mark said the flesh is worthless and under sentence of death. It was never the merit people later took it for.
- Seal. A seal confirms what is already true. Circumcision confirmed a righteousness Abraham already had. So no ordinance, baptism included, can produce forgiveness.
- Purpose. God timed it so Abraham would be the pattern for every believer, whatever their background. Righteousness comes to them on the same terms it came to him.
- Result. The nation's own ancestor is now the clearest proof that God justifies the outsider. And our faith rests on a finished work, not on a promise still waiting.
and father of circumcision, not only to those who are of [the] circumcision, but to those also who walk in the steps of the faith, during uncircumcision, of our father Abraham.
Paul has just shown that God counted Abraham righteous years before Abraham received circumcision. Now comes the second half of the argument: Abraham is father of the circumcised, but only of those who also walk in the steps of his faith.
The title is not about a ceremony. It names Abraham as the head of something God began in him:
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.
The same reading is given more briefly elsewhere: the phrase points to the reality, not the rite.
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.
The verse does not stop at the circumcised as a group. This fatherhood reaches those whose walk matches Abraham's faith, not those who only carry the mark:
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.
The New Testament uses two Greek words for walking. The one in this verse is the narrower of the two:
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.
The two titles do not say the same thing twice. One is about what a person is before God, the other about how he lives:
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 sealed a faith Abraham already had, and a seal makes a claim on the life that follows:
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.
- Separation, not ceremony. "Father of circumcision" means father of true separation to God. God began that principle in Abraham, as science calls Hippocrates the father of medicine.
- Faith first. God counted Abraham righteous while he was still uncircumcised. Any claim that the mark earns righteousness has to reverse that history.
- Steps, not birth. The verse reaches those who did more than carry the mark in the flesh. They walked as Abraham walked, and the Greek word means to go in order, to walk well.
- Two fatherhoods. As father of all who believe, Abraham pictures the righteous condition God gives. As father of circumcision, he pictures the separate walk that fits it.
- Seal outward. Righteousness before God stamps a man. The stamp shows in a life that refuses the flesh and the world, by the power of the Spirit.
For [it was] not by law that the promise was to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be heir of [the] world, but by righteousness of faith.
Paul points back to Abraham to settle one question: on what basis does God give His inheritance? The answer is that the promise of world-wide heirship came with no law attached. It rested on a righteousness that came by faith.
The verse sets two principles side by side. One asks something of man; the other pledges something from 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.
The little word "through" is doing real work in the sentence. It marks not the tool used but the whole character of how the promise came.
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.
So what did the promise rest on?
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.
Only one side of this arrangement ever had to keep its word.
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.
Genesis never uses this exact phrase. So where does it come from?
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.
How far does that inheritance reach?
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.
This also carries the promise beyond Israel to the Gentiles — the nations outside it.
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.
Abraham held the title, yet he owned no ground in Canaan. He had to buy even a grave.
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"!
- Not by law. The promise came with no law in sight. Law asks obedience from man; promise pledges action from God. The two do not mix.
- By righteousness. The heirship followed a righteousness that faith had already settled — not one that works still had to earn.
- Therefore certain. Only one party has to keep this covenant, and that One cannot fail. So nothing can cancel the promise.
- Therefore wide. Grace can hand the inheritance to a Gentile. So the promise is sure to all Abraham's offspring, not just to the nation that had the law.
- Therefore Christ. "Heir of the world" comes from the blessing promised in Abraham's offspring. That offspring is Christ, who will yet hold the whole earth.