18  Abraham— Justified by Grace (4:9-17)

Is this blessing then upon the circumcised, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” How then was it reckoned? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be reckoned to them, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised. For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified; for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there violation. For this reason it is by faith, that it might be in accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, (as it is written, “A father of many nations have I made you”) in the sight of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. (4:9–17)

It is a terribly sad and oppressing experience to visit Catholic holy sites such as the Shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico. The shrine is built over the place where Mary supposedly appeared on one occasion. In the hope of her interceding for them with her Son, Jesus Christ, every year myriads of pilgrims crawl on their hands and knees for a quarter of a mile or so to the shrine. They then enter and light candles, one for each friend or relative for whom they seek to reduce the stay in purgatory.

Some years ago a missionary to India visited my office and showed me a recent copy of the major English-language Indian news magazine. The feature story was on a great Hindu religious festival called Maha Kumbh Mela, which is celebrated every twelve years at the confluence of the Ganga (Ganges) and Yamuna rivers, called the fabled waters of the Sangam. It is claimed to be the world’s largest single religious event.

Disregarding the difficult journey, the great expense, and the chilling waters, multitudes of the faithful are drawn to the celebration. Caste and economic class are temporarily set aside. The festival is led by a group of stark naked holy men who lead a procession of millions of pilgrims down to the water. Fakirs sit on beds of nails and walk over broken glass and lie down on hot coals. A common sight is to see worshipers taking long knives and piercing their tongues in order to sentence themselves to eternal silence as a way to appease their myriad gods. Some worshipers will stare at the sun until they are blinded. Others intentionally cause their limbs to atrophy in gestures of worship. One man had held his arm upright for eight years. Although his arm muscles had long since atrophied, his uncut fingernails had continued to grow and descended some two and a half feet below his hands.

One Hindu holy book declares, “Those who bathe at the conflux of the black and white river, the Ganga and the Yamuna, go to heaven.” Another sacred writing says that “the pilgrim who bathes at this place wins absolution for his whole family, and even if he has perpetrated a hundred crimes, he is redeemed the moment he touches the Ganga, whose waters wash away his sins.”

At this festival the waterfront is lined with countless shaving booths, in which the devoted strip themselves bare and have every hair on their bodies shaved off, including their eyebrows and eyelashes. Every shaved hair is collected and all the hair is then thrown into the filthy water. Hindu writings assure pilgrims that “for every hair thus thrown in, you are promised a million years residence in heaven.”

The article closed with the comment: “Millions who come with spiritual hunger depart with peace in their hearts and renewed faith.”

What a hellish, damning deception of Satan! But it perfectly illustrates the works-centered systems of religion that men create under Satan’s inspiration, all of which seek to convince people that they can be made right with God and guaranteed a place in heaven by performing certain rites and ceremonies. Some religions are much more sophisticated and humanly attractive than others, but all share the common false belief in works righteousness in some form or the other. The natural man instinctively believes that somehow he can make himself right with God by his own efforts.

Continuing his assault against works righteousness and establishing that Abraham, the supreme example of a godly man, was saved by faith rather than by works (Rom. 4:1–8), Paul next establishes that Abraham was saved through God’s grace and not by being circumcised or by keeping the law. His argument was that if Abraham, the greatest man in the old dispensation, was saved through faith by God’s grace, then every other person must be justified on the same basis. And, contrarily, if Abraham could not be justified by being circumcised or by keeping the law, then neither could any another person.

In Romans 4:9–17 Paul demonstrates three closely related truths: Abraham’s justifying faith did not come by his circumcision (vv. 9–12); it did not come by his keeping the law (vv. 13–15); but rather it came solely by God’s grace (vv. 16–17).

ABRAHAM WAS NOT JUSTIFIED BY CIRCUMCISION

Is this blessing then upon the circumcised, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” How then was it reckoned? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be reckoned to them, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised. (4:9–12)

Paul anticipated the question that Jews would be asking at this point in his argument: “If Abraham was justified by his faith alone, why did God demand circumcision of Abraham and all his descendants?”

Most Jews in New Testament times were thoroughly convinced that circumcision was not only the unique mark that set them apart from all other men as God’s chosen people but was also the means by which they became acceptable to God.

The Jewish apocryphal Book of Jubilees declares:

Many Jews believed that salvation was based on their obedience to God in being circumcised, and that, therefore, their eternal security rested in that rite. In his commentary on the Book of Moses, Rabbi Menachem wrote, “Our Rabbins [rabbis] have said that no circumcised man will ever see hell” (fol. 43, col. 3). Circumcision was considered such a mark of God’s favor that it was taught that if a Jew had practiced idolatry his circumcision must first be removed before he could go down to hell. Since it is humanly impossible to remove circumcision, presumably that would be accomplished by a direct act of God.

The Jalkut Rubem taught that “Circumcision saves from hell” (num. 1), and the Midrash Millim that “God swore to Abraham that no one who was circumcised should be sent to hell” (fol. 7, col. 2). The book Akedath Jizehak taught that “Abraham sits before the gate of hell, and does not allow that any circumcised Israelite should enter there” (fol. 54, col. 2).

Such beliefs were so strong in Judaism that many of them were carried over into Christianity by Jewish converts in the early church. Circumcision and following the law of Moses became such issues that a special council of the apostles and elders was called in Jerusalem to settle the matter. The unanimous decision, expressed in a letter sent to all the churches, was that obedience to Mosaic ritual, including circumcision, was not necessary for salvation (see Acts 15:19–29).

Paul had come out of a strongly legalistic Jewish background, being “circumcised the eighth day, … a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee” (Phil. 3:5). Yet the Holy Spirit had revealed to him, and the Jerusalem council had acknowledged, that neither circumcision nor any other ceremony or human act, no matter how divinely ordained, could bring salvation. Circumcision had never saved a Jew and it could never save a Gentile (Rom. 2:25–29). Paul therefore warned his fellow Christians, especially Jewish believers, to “beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:2–3). He gave a similar warning to believers in Galatia:

A person who trusts in circumcision, or in any other ceremony or work, nullifies the work of Christ on his behalf. He places himself under the law, and a person under the law must obey it with absolute perfection, which is humanly impossible. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6).

In the region of Phrygia, which bordered Galatia, the dominant pagan religion involved the worship of Cybele. The Cybelene priests normally castrated themselves as an act of sacrificial devotion, and that is perhaps the mutilation to which Paul refers in Galatians 5:12. If so, he was suggesting, in effect, that if the Judaizers thought the act of circumcision was such a religiously meritorious act, why did they not continue to the extreme self-mutilation of the Cybelene priests?

The Judaizers—those who claimed that a Christian, Gentile as well as Jew, had to keep the law of Moses in order to be saved (see Acts 15:5)—were such a persistent and powerful threat to the Galatian churches that in his closing words to them Paul reiterated his previous warnings. “Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ” (Gal. 6:12). In other words, even many of the Judaizers were hypocrites about circumcision, using it as a means of escaping persecution from fellow Jews.

Genesis 17:10–14 makes clear that the act of circumcision was a God-given mark of His covenant with Abraham and his descendants, the Jews. It was on the basis of that passage that the rabbis taught, and most Jews believed, that obedience to that rite was the means of pleasing God and becoming right with Him. But Paul uses that very passage to demonstrate that, to the contrary, Abraham was not made righteous before God by his circumcision but that when he was given the command of circumcision he had already been declared righteous.

Paul begins by asking, Is this blessing then upon the circumcised, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” How then was it reckoned? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised?

The relevance of this basic truth for our own day is great. Although few people, even Jews, now believe that circumcision brings salvation, countless millions firmly trust in some other form of religious ceremony or activity to make them right with God.

Among those claiming the name of Christ, the Roman Catholic church is by far the greatest offender. Throughout its history it has taught salvation by human works, made effective through the mediation of the Catholic priesthood.

In his book Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1962), Dr. Ludwig Ott explains the cardinal teachings of Roman Catholicism in regard to salvation and spiritual blessing.

Ott defines a sacrament by the Roman Catechism (II 1,8) as “a thing perceptible to the senses, which on the ground of Divine institution possesses the power of effecting and signifying sanctity and righteousness” (p. 326). He goes on to say that the sacraments confer grace immediately without the mediation of a person’s faith (p. 326) and that the sacraments confer sanctifying grace on the receivers (p. 332). Since sacramental rites confer regeneration, forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life, “for the dispensing of this grace it is necessary that the minister accomplish the Sacramental Sign in the proper manner” (p. 343). Roman Catholicism maintains that neither orthodox belief nor moral worthiness on the part of the recipient is necessary for the validity of a sacrament (p. 345).

In the mid-sixteenth century the Council of Trent issued a statement that declared, “If anyone denies that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which is conferred in Baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away … let him be anathema” (p. 354).

Quoting from the apocryphal Letter of Barnabas, Ott reports that Catholics believe “we descend into the water [of baptism] full of sins and filth and we arise from it bearing fruit as we have in our hearts the fear of God, and our spirit hope in Jesus” (p. 355). Catholics teach that according to Scripture baptism has the power both of eradicating sin and effecting inner sanctification. “Baptism effects the forgiveness of all punishment of sin, both of the eternal and the temporal” (p. 355), and that baptism is “necessary for all men, without exception, for salvation” (p. 356).

Roman Catholicism holds that the sacrament of confirmation imparts the Holy Spirit to a person and increases sanctifying grace (p. 365). The sacrament of the Eucharist (the mass) unites the recipient with Christ (p. 390). As spiritual food, the mass “preserves and increases the supernatural life of the soul” (p. 395). Consequently, if a faithful Catholic in any part of the world is asked if he has received Christ, he will likely answer that he received Him at the last mass, and at every other mass he has attended.

The sacraments of penance, holy orders, marriage, and extreme unction also are claimed to impart, in and of themselves, other spiritual benefits of divine grace.

Some Protestant groups hold similar doctrines, believing, for example, that baptism places a person into the New Covenant, apart from any knowledge or faith on his own part. Consequently, the baptism of an infant is as valid as the baptism of a mature, professing adult.

But all such doctrines are forms of magic, in which neither the recipient nor the source of the desired result needs to be consciously involved. The result is conferred solely on the basis of the appropriate words being spoken or actions being performed. Even God is not involved directly in the efficacy of the sacraments. They operate not only without the recipients having faith but also without God directly imparting His grace. The power is in the formula of the rite.

That is exactly the kind of power the Jews of Paul’s day attached to circumcision. And because they believed that what was true for Abraham in regard to justification was true of every person, especially every Jew, Paul continues to use that patriarch as his model. Answering his own question about the time of Abraham’s being declared righteous, the apostle declares that it was not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.

The obvious chronology of Genesis proves it. When Abraham was circumcised, Ishmael was thirteen years old and Abraham was ninety-nine (see Gen. 17:23–25). But when Abraham was declared righteous by God (15:6), Ishmael had not yet been born or even conceived (16:2–4). When Ishmael was born, Abraham was eighty-six (see 16:16). Therefore Abraham was declared righteous by God at least fourteen years before he was circumcised.

Abraham was in God’s covenant and under His grace long before he was circumcised, whereas Ishmael, although circumcised, was never in the covenant. Circumcision became a mark of the covenant relationship between God and His people, but the covenant was not established on the basis of circumcision. When Abraham was first given the covenant promise, he was only seventy-five (Gen. 12:1–4). Circumcision came not only at least fourteen years after Abraham was declared righteous but also twenty-four years after he first entered into a covenant relationship with God. In addition to that, because there were no Jews at that time, when Abraham was declared righteous he was, as it were, an uncircumcised Gentile.

The natural question to be asked, therefore, would be, “Why circumcision? Why did God make that rite a binding law on all of Abraham’s descendants?” First of all, Paul says, circumcision was a sign.

Abraham received the sign of circumcision. Circumcision was the physical, racial mark of identity for His people. Even under the New Covenant, Paul had no objection to a Jew being circumcised, as long as the act was seen in this light. In fact Paul personally circumcised Timothy, who was only half Jewish, in order that Timothy might have better opportunity to witness to Jews near his home area who knew him (Acts 16:3).

Circumcision was also a mark of God’s covenant, setting Abraham’s descendants apart as uniquely His chosen people, the Hebrews, or Jews as they became known during the Babylonian Exile. During the wilderness wanderings in Sinai, circumcision was not performed by that disobedient generation, whom God allowed to die out before they could enter the Promised Land. But when God readied His people to enter the land, the mark of circumcision was reinstituted by Joshua under direct command from God (Josh. 5:2).

Second, circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he, that is, Abraham, had while uncircumcised. In other words, every time circumcision was performed God’s people were to be reminded of God’s righteousness that Abraham had, and all other believers have, through faith, completely apart from circumcision.

Although they convey similar ideas, a sign points to something, whereas a seal guarantees it. When an official seal was stamped on a letter or decree, for instance, its authenticity was guaranteed. In that sense, circumcision was the authentication that God’s covenant promises would be fulfilled. It pointed to the fact that God wanted to circumcise, that is, place His authenticating seal upon, His people’s hearts, not simply their bodies.

That was always God’s intent, and the Jews should have known it long before Paul pointed it out in his Roman letter. Moses had declared, “Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live” (Deut. 30:6). God had always wanted first of all to cut away the sin that covered the heart. “For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,” Jeremiah wrote, “Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds” (Jer. 4:3–4). Through that same prophet the Lord declared,

Every male child of Israel was a testimony that men’s hearts need spiritual circumcision, or cleansing.

In a similar way, baptism symbolizes a believer’s death and resurrection with Christ. Communion symbolizes His redemptive act on our behalf, which we are to commemorate until He comes again. Neither rite has any merit in itself, and the elements of water, bread, and wine certainly have no merit or power in themselves. Both baptism and communion are outward demonstrations and reminders of the inner reality of salvation through Jesus Christ.

As Paul had already made clear in this epistle, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God” (Rom. 2:28–29).

Contrary to the teaching in some churches today, infant baptism does not correspond to the circumcision of Jewish male infants. Even if it did, however, baptism would no more provide salvation than did circumcision.

The Passover meal, which has been celebrated by Jews for some three and one-half millennia, has never been considered a means of deliverance but only the symbol and reminder of it. For the Jew, Passover is a collective symbol of deliverance and circumcision is an individual symbol of justification. For the Christian, communion is the collective, corporate symbol of our relationship to Christ; baptism is the individual symbol of it.

Abraham received circumcision after he was reckoned righteous in order that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be reckoned to them, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.

Racially, Abraham is the father of all Jews; spiritually, he is the father of both believing Gentiles, who believe without being circumcised, and of believing Jews, who … are of the circumcision. Both groups of believers are reckoned righteous because of their faith in God through Jesus Christ, and they also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.

ABRAHAM WAS NOT JUSTIFIED BY THE LAW

For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified; for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is not law, neither is there violation. (4:13–15)

Paul’s second point in this passage is that Abraham not only was not justified by the rite of circumcision but also was justified by keeping the Mosaic law. Again the chronology of the Jewish Scriptures proves his point. As every Jew well knew, the law was not revealed to Moses until more than five hundred years after Abraham lived, and that patriarch obviously had no way of knowing what the law required.

Man has never been able to come to God by means of an outward ceremony or standard of conduct. When Abraham was declared right with God, he was neither circumcised nor in possession of the Mosaic law. Circumcision had not yet been required by God and the law had not yet been revealed by God. Therefore, the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.

The promise to Abraham was embodied in God’s covenant with Abraham, in which the patriarch was told that his descendants would be heirs of the world (Gen. 12:3; 15:5; 18:18; 22:18). In analyzing God’s promise to Abraham, four significant factors emerge.

First, the promise involved a land (see Gen. 15:18–21) in which Abraham would live but that would not be possessed until some five centuries later, when Joshua led the Israelites in their conquest of Canaan.

Second, the promise also involved a people, who would be so numerous that they could not be numbered, like the dust of the earth and the stars in the sky (Gen. 13:16; 15:5). Eventually, Abraham would become the “father of many nations” (Gen. 17:5; cf. Rom. 4:17).

Third, the promise involved a blessing of the entire world through Abraham’s descendants (Gen. 12:3).

Fourth, the promise would be fulfilled in the giving of a Redeemer, who would be a descendant of Abraham through whom the whole world would be blessed by the provision of salvation. That promise to Abraham was, in essence, a preaching to him of the gospel (Gal. 3:8). Abraham believed that gospel, and even when Isaac, the sole divinely-promised heir, was about to be offered as a sacrifice, Abraham trusted that somehow God would “provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering” (Gen. 22:8). Through the writer of Hebrews, the Lord gives a beautiful revelation of the extent of Abraham’s understanding and faith. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said,’In Isaac your descendants shall be called.’ He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back as a type” (Heb. 11:17–19).

Jesus told the unbelieving Jewish religious leaders, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). In a way that is not explained, Abraham foresaw the coming of the Messiah, who would be born as one of his promised descendants. It was through that descended Messiah, the Christ, that Abraham would bless the entire world and be heir of the world. Referring to the Hebrew text of Genesis 22:17 and 18, Paul gives God’s exegesis of His own Word, declaring that “the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, And to seeds,’as referring to many, but rather to one, And to your seed,’ that is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). Later in that same chapter the apostle says of all believers, Gentile as well as Jew, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (v. 29). In Him they become part of that single spiritual seed, “that is, Christ.”

All believers are one in Jesus Christ, “one spirit with Him” (1 Cor. 6:17). Because they are identified with God’s only begotten Son, believers become themselves children of God. “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God,” Paul declares later in the book of Romans, “and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:16–17).

It is not human descent from Abraham but spiritual descent from him, by following his example of faith, that makes a believer an heir both with Abraham and with Christ. As Paul reminded the Corinthian believers, most of whom doubtless were Gentiles, human descent means nothing as far as a person’s standing before God is concerned. “So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God” (1 Cor. 3:21–23). On the other hand, Jesus told the unbelieving Jewish leaders that, although they physically descended from Abraham, spiritually they were sons of their “father the devil” (John 8:44).

Justification has never been through the Law, just as it has never been through circumcision. The Greek of that phrase is anarthrous, that is, it has no definite article, the being inserted by translators. Paul therefore was speaking not only of the Mosaic law but of God’s Law in its broadest sense, referring to all of God’s commandments and standards. He was also speaking of the general principle of human lawkeeping, in which many Jews trusted for their salvation.

As Paul clarifies later in the epistle, God’s law “is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12; cf. Gal. 3:21). But the law was never given as a means of salvation, even for Jews. “For as many as are of the works of the Law,” that is, seek to justify themselves on the basis of keeping the law, “are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them’” (Gal. 3:10). The person who trusts in his ability to save himself by lawkeeping is cursed because of the impossibility of perfectly keeping God’s law. Paul counted his own previous efforts at lawkeeping as spiritual debits, as loss and rubbish (Phil. 3:7–8).

The purpose of the Law was to reveal God’s perfect standards of righteousness and to show men that they are unable in their own power to live up to those standards. Awareness of that inability should drive men to God in faith. The law was given as a “tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).

God has never recognized any righteousness but the righteousness of faith in Him, and that righteousness, like His imparted and imputed righteousness, comes by means of His own gracious provision. Jesus Christ not only is the object of our faith but is also its “author and perfecter” (Heb. 12:2).

Abraham was justified because he believed God’s promise, and, as Paul has already declared in this epistle, that belief “was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3; cf. Gen. 15:6). In exactly the same way, when a person believes God’s promise of salvation through trust in His Son Jesus Christ, that act of faith is reckoned to him as Christ’s own righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21).

Abraham’s trust was not in what he possessed but in what he was promised.

Abraham’s faith was exemplified in his willingness to go to a land he had never seen, which was a promised inheritance he would never possess. Abraham journeyed to that land and was satisfied to live there as an alien, because his ultimate hope was in the inheritance of “the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Paul continues to explain, For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified. If men were able to keep God’s Law perfectly they would indeed be heirs of God. That, of course, is impossible, but if it were true it would make faith … void and would make God’s promise … nullified.

Faith is able to receive anything God promises. If, on the other hand, God’s promise is only to be received through obedience to a law which neither Abraham nor his children could keep, then faith is cancelled. In other words, to predicate a promise on an impossible condition is to nullify the promise.

The law cannot save because the Law brings about wrath. The more a person seeks to justify himself by keeping God’s Law, the more he proves his inability to do so because of his sinfulness and the more judgment and wrath he brings upon himself. Just as surely as the law reveals God’s righteousness so it also exposes man’s sinfulness.

As Paul comments later in Romans,

“Why the law then?” Paul rhetorically asked the Galatian believers. “It was added,” he explains, “because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed should come to whom the promise had been made” (Gal. 3:19). As already noted, the law was not given to save us but to be “our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).

ABRAHAM WAS JUSTIFIED BY GOD’S GRACE

For this reason it is by faith, that it might be in accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, (as it is written, “A father of many nations have I made you”) in the sight of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. (4:16–17)

The crux of this passage is verse 16. God reckons the believer’s faith as righteousness in order that salvation might be in accordance with grace. Were it not for God’s sovereign grace providing a way of salvation, even a person’s faith could not save him. That is why faith is not simply another form of human works, as some theologians throughout the centuries have maintained. The power of salvation, or justification, is in God’s grace, not in man’s faith. Abraham’s faith was not in itself righteousness but was reckoned to him as righteousness on the basis of the One who would Himself graciously provide for believers, including Abraham, the righteousness they could never attain by themselves.

Grace is the divine power that brings justification in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants. That Paul is here speaking of spiritual, not physical, descendants, is made clear by his going on to say, not only to those who are of the Law, that is, Jews, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

As noted above, when Abraham was called in Ur of the Chaldeans, he was an idolatrous pagan. Before God’s covenant with Abraham, there were no Jews and therefore no Gentiles, strictly speaking. But Paul’s point here is that God reckoned Abraham’s faith as righteousness before any such distinctions were made. It was for that reason that Abraham’s faith was a universal faith that applies to all mankind, not merely to Jews, those who are of the Law. And it was for that reason that Abraham became the father of us all, that is, of all who trust in Jesus Christ, regardless of racial or religious heritage. Abraham was the spiritual prototype of every genuine believer. He was a pagan, idolatrous, ungodly sinner who trusted not in his own efforts but in God’s gracious promise.

As always, Paul’s defense is scriptural. As it is written, refers to Genesis 17:5, which Paul here renders as, “A father of many nations have I made you.” The promise to Abraham was fulfilled in the sight of Him whom he believed, even God. Lest there be any doubt about what God he was speaking about, Paul gives two qualifications. First, this God is the one who gives life to the dead. Abraham had experienced first-hand that power of God. He was miraculously given Isaac, the son of promise, long after Sarah had passed her child-bearing years and after Abraham was “as good as dead” as far as his fathering a child was concerned (Heb. 11:11–12).

Second, this God is the one who calls into being that which does not exist. Paul here obviously refers to God’s power as expressed through creation, in which “what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3). He is the one true God who calls people, places, and events into existence solely by His divine and sovereign determination.