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.
For if they which [are] of law be heirs, faith is made vain, and the promise made of no effect.
Paul has just said that the promise to Abraham never came through law. It came through the righteousness of faith. This verse pushes that point to its edge: if the inheritance belongs to law-keepers, two things collapse at once — faith and promise.
Here is the challenge Paul faces. God gave the law later, so does the promise now belong only to the people who received the law?
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.
Law and promise are not two halves of one arrangement.
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.
The verse says faith is null. That is what happens when one nation claims the inheritance on the ground of law.
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.
Two things would fall together: man's faith and God's word.
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.
Compare the promise with the covenant made at Mount Sinai. Everything turns on who the outcome depends on.
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.
There is a positive side to all this. Because the ground is faith, the door does not stay inside one nation.
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.
Mixing law and promise is not only an old mistake.
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.
- Promise first. Abraham held the inheritance by faith before the law existed. A later law could not disinherit those God had already freely given the promise.
- Promise excludes law. Promise waits for God to fulfil it; law demands man's obedience. Each is admirable for its own purpose, but the two shut each other out.
- Promise emptied. If the law made men heirs, faith would be a vain, useless thing, and God's word as worthless as a wicked man's.
- Promise secured. Man could fail under a covenant and did; God could not fail, so the promise still stands sure to all who believe.
- Promise widened. Faith, being grace, opens the door to Gentiles as well as Jews — a reach law could never have given.
For law works wrath; but where no law is neither [is there] transgression.
Paul has just said the promise to Abraham never rested on law. Here he gives the reason: law meets a sinner and can only bring wrath. He also draws a careful line — no law means no transgression. So what is sin before any commandment is given?
The problem is not with the law but with the person it measures:
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.
There is a further reason. The law tells a man what he ought to be, but it gives him nothing to look at outside himself:
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 second half of the verse turns on one word. Behind "transgression" lies the picture of a boundary line:
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.
If sin simply were the breaking of the law, Paul's argument here collapses:
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.
This is why the verse settles the argument about who inherits:
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.
If law cannot bless, why was it given at all?
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.
The same purpose comes out in farming terms:
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.
- Cause. Law meets a sinner and can only bring wrath. It is a true measure: it proves the board short but cannot make it longer.
- Line. Transgression means stepping over a line that has been drawn. No commandment means no transgression — but never no sin.
- Depth. Sin is deeper than law-breaking. Treating the two as the same would blame the law for all the sin in the world and wreck Paul's argument.
- Barrier. Law brings wrath, not blessing, so no one can inherit under it. A promise cannot be collected under a sentence.
- Purpose. The law came in between the promise and its fulfilment. It broke the ground, convicted, and shut man up to mercy. The inheritance stayed where it began — with promise and grace.
Therefore [it is] on the principle of faith, that [it might be] according to grace, in order to the promise being sure to all the seed, not to that only which [is] of the law, but to that also which [is] of Abraham's faith, who is father of us all,
Verse 16 is Paul's conclusion about God's whole method. Why did God tie His promise to faith instead of to performance, and how far does that promise reach?
Faith earns nothing. God chose faith as the principle so that the promise would rest on grace. Wages for work done would be a debt, not a gift.
"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.
A promise is only as reliable as the one who makes it. Sinai's covenant had two parties, and one of them broke down; promise has one.
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.
What does faith itself contribute? Nothing. That is exactly how Abraham received both his righteousness and his promise.
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.
The verse names two groups: people under the law, and people who believe as Abraham believed. Which principle decides who is included?
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.
"All his offspring" is a wide phrase, and law would have narrowed it. Only faith is wide enough to hold every one of them.
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.
Chapter 4 calls Abraham a father three times. Each time means something different. The third belongs to this verse.
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).
Faith is not a small work standing in for a big one. It rests on work already finished, like hearing that someone else has paid your debt.
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.
- Sure — because of grace. Faith is God's chosen principle so that blessing comes as grace, not as wages owed for work.
- Sure — because of one party. Sinai depended on two parties and man failed; promise depends on God alone, who cannot fail.
- Sure — for all the seed. Only Israel could have attempted the law. Faith opens a wide door to Jew and Gentile alike, and leaves out none of the true seed.
- Sure — through one father. Abraham is father of three groups: those counted righteous by faith, the justified who walk separated to God, and all who inherit the promises by grace.
- Sure — and nothing added by us. Faith confesses having and being nothing; it receives a finished work, and no glory goes to the creature.
(according as it is written, I have made thee father of many nations,) before the God whom he believed, who quickens the dead, and calls the things which be not as being;
Paul reaches back to Genesis to show the God Abraham trusted. God promised him a vast family, and He spoke of it in the past tense before one child existed. Two things stand at the centre of the verse: a fatherhood wider than one nation, and a God whose power reaches into death and into nothing at all.
God told Abraham "I have made you" while he was still childless. One writer answers what that past tense means:
"Have made," when Abraham had no children — what did that mean? It was God who spoke and wrote it, and all was according to His settled counsel, and plan, and promise.
That leaves faith with only one thing to stand on, and it is enough:
People around Abraham might jeer at him for his readiness to believe. But Abraham knew the ground he was standing on, and took God at His word. The decree of God's word is sure ground for faith to rest on. Abraham looked away from himself and his circumstances to God, to His power and His truthfulness.
Why does the promise reach "many nations"? The answer lies in the principle it runs on:
Faith stands against works, and grace stands against law. The God who gave the promise gives grace, and grace opens the one wide door of faith to Gentiles as much as to Jews. If law had been the principle, only Israel could have made an effort, and even that effort would have been useless. Israel boasted of having the law, but was blind to breaking it and to its own greater exposure to wrath. But grace goes out to the Gentile as much as to the Jew — and the Jew could not limit Abraham's fatherhood of "many nations" to his own people.
Genesis ties Abraham's standing before God to what he believed about God:
"And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness." God credits righteousness to Abraham here because he believed in the Lord as the One who gives life to the dead. This is the character in which He reveals Himself in a world where death reigns. When a soul believes in Him as such, God counts that soul righteous. This shuts man out of any co-operation, for what can he do in a scene of death? Can he raise the dead? Can he open the gates of the grave?
The obstacle was real:
God had justified Abraham, separated him from the world, and given him the promise of a glorious inheritance. Yet in reality, death stood between the justified Abraham and the inheritance of glory.
The second phrase goes further than the first: God can speak of what has no being at all. One commentator reads this as the point where God's power enters the argument:
When Abraham received the promise, he was as good as dead. The God in whom he believed is above human failure and weakness... Now power comes in — God's power. He does not deal with man according to any good or capacity in him. He is the God who raises the dead, and by that power He calls things that are not as though they were. He can make them to be as He calls them. This applies to Abraham's case, to the Gentiles, and, as to the nature of the power, to Christ's resurrection.
Believers walk in Abraham's steps, but they look back at what Abraham looked forward to:
Abraham believed God before he had the son. He was completely sure that God could do what He had promised, and so God counted it to him as righteousness. But we believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. It is done already. Here it is not believing on Jesus, but believing on God. He has proved what He is to us by raising from the dead the One who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
God speaks of what is not yet as though it were finished, and that steadies the believer about the future:
He "calls into existence the things that do not exist." He chooses "things that are not." Things which do not exist for us, exist for Him. We are glorified in the purpose of God. The thing is as good as done, for His purpose is never overturned by any hostile power.
- Word first. God said "I have made you" while Abraham was childless. The promise came out of His settled purpose, so faith rests on His word, not on what it can see.
- Death no barrier. God credited righteousness to Abraham for believing in Him as the One who gives life to the dead. That power leaves no room for any human help.
- Nothing no barrier. He also calls what has no being into being. So the promise rests on His power, not on man's capacity.
- Nations included. The basis is grace and faith, not law. So "many nations" cannot mean Israel alone, and the door stands open to all who believe.
- Proof supplied. Abraham believed before the son was born. Believers now look back at the risen Christ, and in God's purpose they are already glorified.
who against hope believed in hope to his becoming father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be
God promised Abraham a son when there was no natural way to have one. This verse describes the faith that answered, and asks what Abraham had left to hope in — and why his case is written down at all.
The word "hope" here carries no hint of doubt. It points to something still ahead.
Contrary to all natural hope, he "believed in hope." That is, he fully trusted God, even though this faith could only look forward. The word "hope" does not suggest the least thought of doubt. He bowed to the spoken word of God and took it simply as that.
Abraham had no natural hope of children left. The hope he did have came from outside him.
Abraham was old and well advanced in years. As far as any hope of children was concerned, his own body was dead, and so was Sarah's womb. He had no natural hope. But God came in and promised that in his offspring all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Now he receives a hope given by God. And so against hope he believes in hope. Against natural impossibility he became divinely certain, standing on the sure ground of "what was spoken" — the sure word of God.
Take away the circumstances, and one thing remains: a sentence God had spoken to him. The verse points back to that and nothing else.
Long before the time God spoke, Abraham against hope believed in hope. What a pattern of faith! On the human side all was hopeless; on God's part there was simply His word. But Abraham believed, hoped, and was not ashamed. God could not fail to make good what He said: "So shall your offspring be."
Abraham never denied his situation. He left it out of his reckoning, because God had left it out of the promise.
The word of promise never mentions Abraham's dead body or Sarah's barren womb. So the heart of faith never takes them into account. Abraham believed God, and so he hoped. The promise spoke of life, and he looked for its fulfilment to the living God.
Faith is only as strong as the One it rests on. Abraham's rested on God at one particular point.
Abraham's faith had this peculiarity, that it was centred in God as the One who was able to raise the dead. If we turn to Genesis 15 we discover that he believed God when the promise was made about the birth of Isaac. He believed that God would raise up a living child from parents who were dead as far as having children was concerned. He believed in hope when it was against all natural hope that such a thing should be.
The promise Abraham believed was not narrow. The words "many nations" will not shrink to fit one people.
Faith stands opposed to works, and grace stands opposed to law. The God who gave the promise gave it in grace, and that grace opens the one door of faith — a wide door, open to Gentiles no less than to Jews. If law had been the principle, only Israel could even have made the attempt, and it would have been in vain. Israel boasted of having the law, yet was blind to how often they broke it and to the greater wrath they were exposed to because of it. But grace goes out to the Gentile no less than to the Jew, who could hardly limit Abraham's fatherhood of "many nations" to his own people.
Abraham's story might look too extraordinary to be a model for anyone else. Scripture itself says otherwise.
But is it true that the cases recorded in holy Scripture are so special and extraordinary that they give us no precedent? By no means. If any case could be regarded that way, it is surely Abraham's. Yet of him we read: "It was not written for his sake alone, that righteousness was counted to him; but for us also, to whom it will be counted, if we believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification."
- Hopeless. Every natural ground for expecting a son was gone — his body and Sarah's womb were as good as dead. That emptiness is the starting point, not an obstacle to it.
- Given. Abraham did not manufacture his hope. God handed it to him in one sentence: "So shall your offspring be."
- Certain. Because the promise never mentioned his body, faith never considered it. Divine hope has no element of uncertainty in it.
- Wide. The promise made him father of many nations. Grace, not law, opens that door — to Gentile as well as Jew.
- Yours. The record was not written for Abraham's sake alone. God counts righteousness the same way to everyone who believes in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
and not being weak in faith, he considered not his own body already become dead, being about a hundred years old, and the deadening of Sarah's womb,
Paul takes Abraham at his weakest moment. He was about a hundred years old, and Sarah was long past childbearing. Paul calls this the point where his faith was strongest. So the verse asks a simple question: when God's promise and your own body disagree, which one do you look at? (Note: several quotes below use an older translation, which reads "he considered not his own body now dead".)
The word behind "the barrenness of Sarah's womb" does not describe a corpse. It describes a power of life that has drained away.
The word has a passive, or rather a neutral, sense as well as an active one. It does not simply mean deadness. It is not the state of death, but the act of dying. In Romans 4 it is not simply death, as if Sarah were dead. It is the loss of the power of life that had taken place: he did not think about Sarah's womb losing its vital powers.
Abraham had nothing in himself to build on. His faith was not a feeling. It was a matter of what he chose to look at.
"Abraham believed God." Here was divine faith. It was not a question of feeling. Indeed, if Abraham had let his feelings guide him, he would have been a doubter instead of a believer. For what did he have to build on in himself? "His own body now dead." That was a poor ground on which to build his faith in the promise of countless descendants. But we are told, "He considered not his own body now dead." What, then, did he consider? He considered the word of the living God, and on that he rested.
Judged by himself and Sarah, the promise was hopeless. Faith starts somewhere else.
If he reasoned from himself and Sarah, the promise of God was beyond hope, and even contrary to it. Yet he believed in hope, because God had said he would have descendants as many as the stars and the sand. Faith reasons from God and His word, not from self or circumstances.
Strength here was not natural confidence. It was the refusal to lean on any human resource at all — his own or anyone else's.
He was not weak in faith. He accepted the Word of God as true and unbreakable, without weighing the circumstances at all — whether his own dead body or "the deadness of Sarah's womb." He knew that God did not depend on natural strength, either in himself or in anyone else he might be inclined to lean on. Faith in the living God always means refusing all confidence in flesh.
The Genesis record is not as smooth as this verse sounds. One writer notes that the facts still pressed on Abraham's mind, even while he refused to weigh them.
"His own body now dead and the deadness of Sarah's womb" must have weighed on his mind a great deal, even though, in the main, "he considered them not."
Another writer points to what Paul leaves out, and reads that silence as grace.
Abraham believed that God could bring life from the dead. He believed that God had the power to touch a grave and bring life out of it… From Genesis we know that he was also weak in faith and that he acted in unbelief. But God graciously passes this by. He had, so to speak, forgotten his unbelief and remembered it no more.
Neither Abraham nor Sarah had any natural power left. That closed off every explanation for the child except one.
If they were really his children, they must receive everything from God, on a ground that guarantees the promise to all the seed, Gentile as well as Jewish. This is all the more clear because in his case and Sarah's they were as good as dead, and they could not fulfil the promise themselves. So God alone could be looked to as the One able to give life to the dead. We Christians believe in the same way: not simply on Jesus, but on Him who raised Jesus our Lord from among the dead, who was delivered for our offences and raised for our justification.
Abraham looked ahead to what God could do. We look back at what God has done.
Abraham was called to believe in the power of God that can raise the dead. The believer today is called to believe in the power of God that has raised the dead. God has shown this mighty power by raising Jesus our Lord.
- Death first. The verse describes a loss of the power of life, not a corpse. That loss stood on both sides, so nature could take no credit for the child.
- Look away. Abraham had nothing in himself to build on, so he considered the word of the living God instead. Faith reasons from God to the circumstances, never from the circumstances to God.
- Strength follows. Being "not weak in faith" meant refusing all confidence in the flesh, his own or anyone else's. God does not depend on natural strength.
- Grace covers. Genesis shows Abraham faltering, and the facts did weigh on him. Paul passes it by, because God had already remembered it no more.
- Resurrection now. Abraham believed God could raise the dead. We believe in the God who has: He raised Jesus, who was delivered for our offences and raised for our justification.
and hesitated not at the promise of God through unbelief; but found strength in faith, giving glory to God;
Paul is still proving that God counted Abraham righteous for believing, not for working. So what kept Abraham from wavering when everything in sight said the promise was impossible, and why does trusting God give Him glory?
(Several writers below quote an older translation: "he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.")
Abraham had nothing in himself to build on. What he did have was a word from God, and that is where he rested.
"Abraham believed God." Here was divine faith. It was not a question of feeling. Indeed, if Abraham had been influenced by his feelings, he would have been a doubter instead of a believer. For what had he to build upon in himself? "His own body now dead." A poor ground surely on which to build his faith in the promise of an innumerable seed. But, we are told, "He considered not his own body now dead." What, then, did he consider? He considered the word of the living God, and on that he rested. Now this is faith. And note what the apostle says: "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief" (for unbelief is always a staggerer).
Unbelief has another form: doubting that God's grace could really be that generous.
"He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief". He did not doubt or limit the grace of God, and say, "This is too good to be true".
Strength here is not about what faith can achieve. It is about who faith leans on.
Had Abraham been weak in faith he would have considered all the circumstances, which were against it. He would have felt that the promise was too great and so would have staggered at it. He did neither. He took God at His word with the simplicity of a little child... And this, note it, is what here is called strong faith. Strong faith, then, is not so much the faith that performs miracles. It is the faith that simply trusts God to do what He has said, even though all appearances, reason and precedent are against it.
Commentators observe that the manuscripts differ in verse 19, and the difference changes the picture slightly — though not the argument.
If οὐ is an addition, the meaning would be that Abraham, instead of ignoring the obstacles, took full account of them all (Gen. 17:17), yet as regards the promise of God had no hesitation through unbelief, but on the contrary was inwardly strengthened in faith. If the ordinary reading is right, the meaning is that, far from being weak in faith, he paid no attention to the facts before his eyes whether in himself or in his wife, nor staggered at the promise of God through unbelief, but found strength in faith, giving glory to Him and satisfied that He was able also to perform the promise.
The verse links strength and glory. Hesitation would have meant shrinking God down to the size of what a man can manage.
Only unbelief, and limiting God to what man can do, would have made Abraham hesitate. Instead, he "was strong in faith, giving glory to God." What blessed simplicity! What blessed reality! Yet it is the only proper attitude for any creature, let us note it well. To "give glory to God" is the very reason for our existence. If we do not practise "the obedience of faith," we are robbing God of His glory: we neither take our own proper place, nor give Him His.
Strong faith is sometimes mistaken for pride, and doubt for humility. The opposite is true.
God never calls it lowliness and meekness to doubt the truth of His word, or the effectiveness of Christ's work. On the contrary, He counts it pride and presumption... Abraham was commended, not because he questioned God's truth, but because he trusted it... And what was the effect? Did it puff him up? Just the opposite. Because he was "strong in faith" he gave "glory to God." The very fact that there was no power in himself only magnified God's grace.
The description is generous — more generous than Abraham's actual record in Genesis.
From Genesis we know that he was also weak in faith and that he acted in unbelief. But this is graciously passed by. God, so to speak, had forgotten his unbelief and remembered it no more.
God asks the same faith of us. One writer notes that our part is simpler.
In Abraham's case he believed that God would raise up life out of death. We are not asked to believe that God will do it, but that He has done it, by raising up Jesus our Lord from the dead. How much simpler to believe that He has done it, when He has done it, than to believe that He will do it, when as yet He has not done it.
- Look away. Abraham did not build on his feelings or his own dead body. He rested on the word of the living God. Unbelief is what makes a person stagger.
- Look up. Strong faith is not miracle-working faith. It is child-like faith that takes God at His word against all appearances.
- Give glory. Hesitation would have shrunk God to human limits. Believing Him is the only attitude that fits a creature. God calls doubt pride, not humility.
- Be covered. Genesis shows Abraham's weak moments. God passes them by and remembers them no more.
- Believe now. Abraham trusted God for what He would do. We trust Him for what He has already done — He raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
and being fully persuaded that what he has promised he is able also to do;
The picture of Abraham's faith ends in one settled conviction: not that God might keep His word, but that He was able to do it. His own body was as good as dead. So where did that certainty come from, and can we have it too?
Older translations render "fully convinced" as "fully persuaded." The same word appears again elsewhere in the New Testament, and one writer follows it to show where a settled mind looks.
Scripture says of Abraham that he was "fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised." And again: "Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind." The moment the soul has laid hold of Jesus it is set free from itself. It ought to be fully convinced that everything it needs is found in the object set before it — Jesus Himself.
Abraham counted on one specific ability in God. The promise needed a God who gives life where life has ended.
Abraham was called to believe in the power of God that can raise the dead. The believer today is called to believe in the power of God that has raised the dead. God displayed that mighty power when He raised Jesus our Lord... Now we have the power of God that will bring those He has justified into the glorious inheritance.
Abraham's own condition gave him nothing to stand on. (The writer quotes an older translation here, which reads that Abraham "considered not his own body now dead.")
"Abraham believed God." Here was divine faith. It was not a question of feeling. Indeed, if Abraham had been influenced by his feelings, he would have been a doubter instead of a believer. For what had he to build on in himself? "His own body now dead." A poor ground surely on which to build his faith in the promise of countless descendants. But we are told, "He considered not his own body now dead." What, then, did he consider? He considered the word of the living God, and on that he rested.
Many people treat doubt about God's promises as humility. One writer calls that a mistake, and shows what full confidence did to Abraham.
God never calls it humility or gentleness to doubt the truth of His word, or the effectiveness of Christ's work. On the contrary, He counts it pride and presumption... Abraham was commended, not because he questioned God's truth, but because he trusted it... And what was the effect? Did it puff him up? Just the opposite. Because he was "strong in faith" he gave "glory to God." The very fact that there was no power in himself only magnified God's grace.
Later the promise itself seemed to be at stake. Abraham's confidence in God's power held, and stretched further.
Isaac was a son given to Abraham by God's promise in his old age. Could he ever have expected that God would one day call him to give that son back, by offering him up as a burnt offering?... As at Isaac's birth he was "fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised," so now he could go forth, "accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead."
One writer sets Abraham's faith beside ours. Abraham trusted God for what was still ahead; we trust Him for what He has already done.
Abraham believed God's promise about his descendants — "So shall your offspring be." So he trusted God as the God who can give life to the dead. We are to believe God's testimony about the death and resurrection of His Son, having faith in Him as the One who raises the dead... God counted righteousness to Abraham. He counts righteousness to us on the same principle — the principle of faith.
- Word. Abraham rested on what God said, not on what he felt or saw in himself. The word of the living God was his only ground.
- Persuasion. Being "fully convinced" sets the soul free from watching itself. It looks instead at Jesus, and finds all it needs in Him.
- Power. What he was convinced of was God's ability to bring life out of death. God has displayed that same power by raising Jesus.
- Glory. Confidence in that power gave God glory. Doubt is not humility; it slights His word.
- Righteousness. Because he believed, God counted him righteous. God counts righteousness the same way to everyone who believes Him about His risen Son.
wherefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
Paul has just described Abraham facing a promise that nature could not fulfil, and verse 22 draws the conclusion — "that is why." The question is what God did when He counted faith as righteousness, and whether faith itself earned it.
The phrase points back to everything said about Abraham just before. One writer traces that description and shows where Abraham fixed his eyes:
Notice how God said, "I have made you the father of many nations," even before Abraham had a child at all. The thing is so sure with God that He, with whom future things are as though present, could speak of it as a fact. Abraham believed God "in hope." That is, the promise was still future. His eye was not on himself, or upon Sarah, but upon God. So we read that he believed, he did not consider, he did not waver, he was fully persuaded. The power of nature could not make the promise good. Still he believed God, and counted on God's own power to keep it.
Much depends on what the counting means. One writer weighs two possible senses of the phrase:
Does it mean a set quantity of righteousness moved over into a man's account? Or does it mean holding a man to be righteous — reckoning or accounting him such? I say that in Scripture it always means the second... There is no question at all of a quantity of righteousness existing and then put to their account. The point is that righteousness itself is reckoned to them. This is clearer still, because all the apostle's reasoning rests on one sentence: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"... that is, God accounted him righteous because of his faith. This passage governs the rest — every other use of the phrase comes from it.
If faith is what God counted, faith can look like a small payment God takes in place of a large one. Writers warn against that idea:
Faith counted as righteousness means one thing for Abraham, for David, and for us who believe today. It means that God accounts us as righteous before Him in view of our faith. We must not imagine that all the virtue resides in our faith. It does not. But faith establishes contact with the work of Christ, in which all the virtue does reside. In that sense faith justifies.
Another writer answers a popular explanation: that God takes our faith in place of the righteousness we lack.
In this explanation it is something of our own — "our faith" — that God accepts. In the word it is not so. God has accepted Christ, and the work He has accomplished, and it is believing that... God raised Christ from the dead for our justification. That is a very different thing from accepting our faith.
What did Abraham's faith take hold of? One writer points to God Himself:
What characterizes faith in Abraham, then, is his laying hold upon God as the One who gives life to the dead. Believing in Him as the God of resurrection, he believed He was able to perform what He promised. The character of God was the guarantee of His word.
God's verdict is not a passing favour. It settles where Abraham stands for good:
God imputes righteousness to him. As Judge He declares that the man is not only no longer in his sins, but is in righteousness. He sets him before His face in righteousness. Because righteousness is imputed in this way, he is never to be charged with his sins. God never will charge them to him, nor will He listen to anyone who would presume to do it. Abraham is from now on before the face of God in unchangeable righteousness.
One writer sets Abraham's faith beside ours, and marks the likeness and the difference:
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."
- That is why — the verdict follows Abraham's faith. His eye was not on himself but on God's power to keep the promise.
- Counted — God held Abraham to be righteous. He did not move a stock of righteousness into his account.
- Not merit — faith carries no virtue of its own; it makes contact with the work of Christ, where all the virtue lies.
- Resurrection — Abraham's faith laid hold of God as the One who gives life to the dead. God's character guaranteed His word.
- Settled — the man God counts righteous stands before Him in unchangeable righteousness, and God will never charge his sins to him. Abraham believed what God would do; we believe what God has done.
Now it was not written on his account alone that it was reckoned to him,
Paul has spent a whole chapter on one line from Genesis, where God counted Abraham righteous. Here he explains why that line stands in Scripture at all. The claim is startling: Moses wrote it with people he had never met in view.
The point of the verse is not that Abraham's case was unimportant, but that it was never meant to stop with him.
Our apostle now tells us that the record of God's imputing faith to Abraham for righteousness was not written for him merely. It was written for him surely, but it was written for his seed as well — for "all who believe" — for those who have his faith. So the apostle goes on to say, "but for us also."
The alternative to reading Abraham this way is treating his story as a fine example belonging to someone else's life. One writer presses that the record was made with a future event already in view.
Are we to be satisfied with just admiring Abram and praising his faith? Are we to read his history as something that does not concern us? No... The gospel of the grace of God was no afterthought in God's mind. When Moses, by the Holy Spirit, wrote that chapter of the patriarch's life, God was looking on to the death and resurrection of His Son.
The word carries a specific sense, and it is not the transfer of a measured quantity of merit from one account to another.
There are eleven passages in Scripture which speak of imputing righteousness or 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, or our faith would be the merit... A person may be reckoned to be in a state he is not in fact in. Even so, imputed righteousness does not mean a quantity of righteousness lying ready 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 being accounted righteous.
Abraham trusted God for something still ahead of him. We look back on something finished, and that makes believing easier, not harder.
There is however one important difference. In Abraham's case he believed that God would raise up life out of death. We are not asked to believe that God will do it, but that He has done it, by raising up Jesus our Lord from the dead. How much simpler to believe that He has done it, when He has done it, than to believe that He will do it, when as yet He has not done it.
Another writer draws the difference with a picture from prison.
If we were in prison, and the authorities gave us the promise of setting us free at a certain time, we could no doubt enjoy that promise with assurance. But how different our condition would be once we were free!
Some readers stall here, assuming Abraham was a special case with a special revelation. The answer given is that the condition attached in the next verse rules out anything internal as the ground.
"Now it was not written for his sake alone... but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if" — if what? If we feel, realise, or experience something in ourselves? No, but "if we believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead."
(The "if" here comes from an older translation. Newer versions, including the ESV, read the next verse as a plain statement.)
Notice where faith aims.
Abraham believed God. This is faith in its groundwork. God is believed. Next, in its object, not only did he believe in the resurrection, but in the God who raised. So with us; we do not merely believe in Jesus, who rose from the dead, but in the God who raised Him.
The principle stretches beyond this one story into how we read the rest of Scripture.
Apply that principle as widely as Scripture will let you. You come to a promise — a statement of the believer's blessing, of present grace and of future glory — and you can say, "It was written for my sake." It reminds one of Ruth, who gathered leftover grain in the fields of Boaz, never guessing that the handfuls of golden grain had been "let fall on purpose" for her.
- For us — the record. God wrote that record for Abraham — and for everyone who shares his faith.
- For us — the plan. When Moses wrote that line, God already had the death and resurrection of His Son in view.
- For us — the reckoning. Imputed righteousness is not a stock of merit handed to you. It is God accounting you righteous.
- For us — the fact. Abraham believed God would raise up life from death; we believe He has, which is the simpler thing to believe.
- For us — the page. Read every promise the same way, gleaning grain that was dropped on purpose for you.
but on ours also, to whom, believing on him who has raised from among [the] dead Jesus our Lord,
Paul has just retold how God counted Abraham righteous. Now he turns to his readers. That old record was written with us in view, and this verse says who "us" means: everyone who trusts the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
One writer says God was already looking far ahead when Moses first wrote Abraham's story down.
Should we be satisfied with only admiring Abram and praising his faith, while we read his history as something that does not concern us? No. The gospel of the grace of God was no afterthought in God's mind. Moses wrote that chapter of Abraham's life by the Holy Spirit. Even then God was looking on to the death and resurrection of His Son, and to the coming of the Holy Spirit. After that, the gospel could be preached.
So what has changed between Abraham's day and ours?
The same principles apply exactly. There is, however, one important difference. In Abraham's case he believed that God would raise up life out of death. We are not asked to believe that God will do it, but that He has done it, by raising up Jesus our Lord from the dead. How much simpler it is to believe that He has done it, now that He has done it. That is far easier than believing He will do it, while He has not yet done it.
That difference changes the whole ground a person stands on before God.
The gospel is not promise, but accomplishment. It is so complete that if the work were not already done in the cross, in the death and resurrection of Him who hung there, it never can be done — not even by Him.
Notice carefully who is named as the object of faith here. The verse does not say "believe on Jesus"; it says believe on the God who raised Him.
The same faith shall be counted to us also for righteousness: faith in God as the One who raised up Jesus from the dead. Faith here is not faith in Jesus, but in Him who came in power into the realm of death. Jesus lay there because of our sins, and God brought Him out by His power. This was the mighty activity of the love of God. Jesus had already borne all the punishment of our sins, and God brought Him out from under all their consequences. So by believing God who has done this, we take in the whole extent of His work, with the grace and power shown in it. We come to know God. Our God is the God who has done this.
This changes how God stands toward the believer.
I know the love of God in giving Christ. I know that all my sins are gone, and that God Himself is my Saviour. He is not here in the character of Judge. This is not faith in Christ before God. It is faith in God Himself, who has raised Christ from the dead. So it takes in everything between myself and God.
Why should raising Jesus be the thing faith fastens on? Because of what the empty tomb proves about the offences He carried.
If we want settled peace, we must believe in God as the One who raised up Jesus from the dead. In doing so He proved Himself friendly to us. He also proved His infinite satisfaction in the work of the cross. Jesus was delivered up for our offences. He could not be where He now is if a single one of those offences remained unatoned for.
What does it mean that righteousness is "counted" to us? Older translations say "imputed." One writer starts by saying what the word does not mean.
A person can be reckoned to be in a state that he is not in fact in. Even so, imputed righteousness does not mean a stock of righteousness lying outside him and credited to him. It means the state, in God's sight, of the person who is accounted righteous. To impute righteousness to a man is the same as to account that man righteous.
And the very word rules out any contribution from us.
If righteousness is imputed, it needs no argument to prove that the one to whom it is imputed had no hand in it. It comes by faith, and not by works.
- Written — Moses wrote Abraham's story for a wider audience than Abraham. God was already looking ahead to the death and resurrection of His Son.
- Believed — faith works the same way it did for Abraham, but ours is simpler. He trusted God for what would be done. We trust Him for what has been done.
- Raised — the object of faith named here is God Himself, the One who came into the realm of death and brought Jesus out of it.
- Reckoned — to be counted righteous is a verdict about you before God, not a store of merit handed over from somewhere else. You had no hand in it.
- Result — Jesus could not be where He now is if one offence were left unatoned. So the risen Christ is the ground of settled peace.
who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification, it will be reckoned.
Paul ends his long argument about Abraham with two events: Jesus handed over to death, and Jesus raised from the dead. The word "our" ties both to us — so who handed Him over, whose sins were in view, and why is justification tied to the resurrection and not only to the cross?
This verse closes a chapter about Abraham. He believed a promise God had not yet kept; we believe a work God has now finished.
Now God Himself comes forth to raise from the dead the One who was, as believers can say, "delivered for our offences." By the very act of raising Him from the dead, God shows that our sins have been put away for ever… Believing in God, and receiving the testimony He gives to His beloved Son, we are justified. Faith is reckoned for righteousness. God not only clears away our sins; He also counts every believer as a righteous person. That is justification… Abraham was justified when he believed that God would do what He had promised. We are justified when we believe what God has done in raising Jesus our Lord from the dead.
The verse does not say who handed Jesus over to death. That is the first question to settle.
"Was delivered": He was given up to death and judgment. Who delivered Him? God… It was an act of God on our behalf.
Romans speaks of Christ's death here for the first time as being for our sins. Earlier the letter looks at that death from God's side.
Propitiation is what we may call the Godward side of the death of Christ. It deals with the most basic matter of all: meeting God's claims against sin. Meeting the sinner's need must come second to that. So when Paul unfolds the gospel in his letter to the Romans, the first mention of the death of Christ is "a propitiation through faith in His blood" (Romans 3:25). We do not find substitution stated plainly until Romans 4:25, where we read of Him as "delivered for our offences."
Older translations read "our offences" where the ESV reads "our trespasses." Either way, the list is not a partial one, and the timing of the sins makes no difference.
Now let us ask, for what was the precious Saviour delivered? "For our offences." For how many? For all, most surely. When Jesus hung on the cross, all the believer's offences were laid on Him and charged to Him. Yes, all. Every one of them was still future when Christ bore them. Yet with Him who spans eternity as a moment, there is no such distinction as past, present or future… Christ forsaken on the cross because our sins were laid on Him. Christ crowned on the throne because our sins are put away.
The cross paid the debt of sin. The resurrection tells the believer how God received that payment.
The death of Christ paid the mighty debt of sin. God's raising Him from the dead is God's acknowledgement that the debt is paid. The resurrection of Christ proves to the believer that his sins are gone for ever, for He was "raised for our justification." In 1 Corinthians 15:17 we find the opposite: "if Christ has not been raised… you are still in your sins." It does not say, "If Christ has not died," but "if Christ has not been raised." But He is raised. Then what is the blessed conclusion for believers to draw? You are not in your sins.
Does this mean God justified us before we ever believed? One writer answers that plainly.
As surely as He was nailed to that cross to bear our sins, for our offences, so surely God raised Him from the dead for our justification. (It is not correct to say on account of our justification. That would imply we were justified before we believed God. It would contradict the word, "all that believe are justified.")… The title deed of his justification is this: God raised up his Substitute from the dead, to be his righteousness and his justification.
Because He acted as our Representative, His present position settles ours.
"For our justification": these words give the bearing of His resurrection on us who believe. Keep in mind that He represents us, if you want to grasp their meaning. Has He come out free from the dominion of death? Then we are free. Is He cleared in triumph from the burden of our offences? Then we are clear — as clear as He is. We stand or fall by our Representative. His position is our position. If death and judgment are behind Him, they are behind us.
- God gave. God gave Jesus up to death and judgment, and He did it on our behalf.
- God charged. Every offence of the believer — past, present and future — was laid on Christ at the cross.
- God proved. The resurrection is God's acknowledgement that the debt is paid. If Christ were not raised, we would still be in our sins.
- God justifies. The risen Christ is the title deed of justification. Abraham believed a promise; we believe what God has done in raising Jesus.
- God secures. Our Representative is clear of death and judgment, so we stand as clear as He is.