[Does] this blessedness then [rest] on the circumcision, or also on the uncircumcision? For we say that faith has been reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.
Paul has just described the man God counts righteous apart from works. Now he asks who that blessing is for — and the question unsettles anyone who thought God's favour belonged to one nation by birth.
The phrase looks back to what Paul has already said about faith and righteousness. It names a standing God gives, not a quality He finds in us.
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.
Paul does not answer with theory. He sends the reader back to Abraham's own history. The order of events settles it.
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.
The verse says faith was counted for righteousness. Some picture that as a set amount of righteousness moved into a person's account. A look at every passage where the word appears points a different way.
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 was the physical sign God gave to Abraham and his descendants. It was never a way of earning anything. Its meaning was the opposite of the boast people built on it.
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.
The order of Abraham's life settles a question people still ask about ceremonies. If the sign came after the righteousness, no sign can produce it.
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.
The uncircumcised believer is not a late exception. God set the order of Abraham's life to make room for him.
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.
- Blessedness. The word covers the man God accounts righteous in view of his faith — a standing He gives, not a feeling we achieve.
- Reckoned. To have righteousness imputed is to be accounted righteous by God. Faith is not the merit. It is the contact with the work of Christ, where all the merit lies.
- Before. God counted Abraham righteous while he was still uncircumcised. To argue otherwise, you have to turn the facts of history upside down.
- Sign, not source. Circumcision came afterwards as a seal. It marked the end of the flesh before God. So no ceremony can give anyone salvation.
- Father of all. God set the order so that Abraham could be the father of every believer, circumcised or not. Righteousness is reckoned to them all on the same terms.
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.