Romans 4:13–22

Original Meaning

Faith, Not Law, Secures the Promise (4:13–15)

THE STORY OF God’s promise to Abraham, first issued when God called him to leave his home in Haran (Gen. 12:1–3) and renewed and elaborated on several occasions, was certainly familiar to the Roman Christians. What is interesting here, however, is how Paul defines that promise: that Abraham should be the “heir of the world.” Genesis repeatedly mentions the fact that Abraham will be a blessing to all the world, but the focus tends to be on his biological descendants and the land God promised them. Jewish interpreters highlighted this ethnic element in the promise. Thus Paul’s focus on “the world” may have a polemical intent, carrying on his insistence that Abraham is the father of all who believe (Rom. 4:11–12).

The introduction of “law” (v. 13) also has a polemical purpose. As we have noted, many of Paul’s Jewish contemporaries taught that Abraham’s stature and role had much to do with his obedience to the law of Moses. Paul wants to make clear that this is not the case. In Galatians 3, where he engages in a similar argument, he focuses on chronology: the promise to Abraham could have nothing to do with the law of Moses, because that law was given 430 years after Abraham (Gal. 3:17). Here Paul says nothing about timing; rather, he speaks more principally: The promise did not come because people obeyed the law, but “through the righteousness that comes by faith.”

Verses 14–15 explain why Abraham and those who came after him could never have inherited God’s promised blessings through the law. The phrase “those who live by law” describes people who might try to base their hope of blessing on doing what the Mosaic law demanded. Were such people to inherit the blessing, Paul points out, “faith has no value and the promise is worthless.” Paul may mean that bringing law into this matter eviscerates the very meaning of “faith” and “promise.” How can the blessing truly be, from God’s side, a matter of his sheer promise and, from the human side, a matter of faith if people can earn it through their obedience to the law (cf. the distinction between faith and works in 4:4–5)?3 However, Paul is more likely making a simpler point: If the fulfillment of the promise depends on obedience to the law, it will never happen, for people can never obey the law adequately.4

In the first part of verse 15, Paul substantiates the point he made in verse 14 by showing what the law does as opposed to what it cannot do: The law “brings wrath.” This assertion is part of an important motif developed in the earlier chapters of Romans (see esp. 3:20; 5:20; 7:5). It is a startling assertion when we remember that Jews typically viewed the Mosaic law as one of the greatest blessings they possessed. How can Paul claim that the law has produced wrath? The end of verse 15 implicitly provides the answer: “Where there is no law there is no transgression.”

A few commentators think Paul is formulating a general statement about law here: Only where God has revealed his will to people can he accuse them of committing sins.5 But this interpretation does not do justice to the meaning of a key word that Paul uses here: “transgression” (parabasis). Paul only uses this word to depict the disobedience to a law or a commandment that a person has directly been made responsible for (see also 2:23; 5:14; Gal. 3:19; 1 Tim. 2:14). Transgression, therefore, is a sin. But not all sin is transgression. Anytime we fall short of conformity to God’s image, we sin; but only when we directly violate a commandment God has given us do we commit a transgression. For this reason, then, transgression is also a more serious form of sin, meriting greater judgment.

If my teenage children stay out later than they generally are supposed to, they will be punished. But if they stay out past the time that I have clearly established with them before they leave home, the punishment will probably be more severe. So it is that God’s law, paradoxically, can “bring wrath.” By setting down in detail his expectations of Israel, God has heightened the degree of accountability. Then when Israel sinned, the punishment was greater than it would have been otherwise.

Bridging Contexts

JEWISH TRADITIONS BEHIND 4:13–22. In my Bridging Contexts sections, I usually describe texts, traditions, or customs that existed in the first century and that provide the context in which we must read Paul’s teaching. I hope I have not given the impression that we cannot understand the basic message of the Bible unless we know these contexts. Not at all. The Reformers wanted to put the Bible into the hands of every believer because they were firmly convinced of its “perspicuity”—through the ministry of the Spirit, every believer can understand the essential message of Scripture. What Paul says about faith, promise, and Abraham in 4:13–22 should be obvious to the person who knows nothing at all about Jewish tradition or first-century Christianity.

Nevertheless, I maintain that acquaintance with the world of the first century can heighten our appreciation of what Scripture means and introduce nuances into it that we may otherwise miss. Such, I think, is the case with 4:13–22. By knowing about some of the traditions behind this passage, we will be able to hear the text more like the first readers would have.

As Paul exposits the meaning of God’s promise to Abraham, he interacts in virtually every verse with another viewpoint with which his readers were familiar. Paul’s insistence on faith rather than the law as the basis for inheriting what God had promised (4:13–17) shows he is anxious to contradict the tendency of Jewish interpreters to focus on Abraham’s obedience to the law as the foundation for the promise (see Bridging Contexts section on 4:1–8). Paul’s original readers were probably accustomed to thinking of Abraham in terms of faith, obedience, and law—all jumbled together. Paul’s reading of the Genesis narrative in light of Christ, however, has convinced him that distinctions among these aspects of Abraham’s relationship to God are fundamental to an appreciation of the gospel. Thus, he goes to some lengths to make these distinctions clear.

One verse that takes on added significance in light of the background is Romans 4:17. Here Paul quotes Genesis 17:5: “I have made you a father of many nations.” In context, “nations” clearly is interchangeable with “offspring” (or “seed”) in Romans 4:16. We would probably pass over this point without noting anything interesting about it. But when read against the Old Testament and Jewish background, we suddenly realize Paul is making a significant theological point. For Jewish interpreters of the Old Testament tended to restrict Abraham’s “seed” to Israel and “the nations” to physical descendants of Abraham.8

To be sure, the covenant with Abraham always included ultimate blessing, in some form, for the nations (e.g., Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4). But a distinction between Abraham’s seed or descendants, who become participants in the covenant, and the nations, who receive benefits through Abraham in some unspecified way, seems strictly to be maintained.9 Paul now breaks down that distinction: Gentiles are included along with Jews in Abraham’s “offspring.” They are now equal recipients with the Jews of God’s covenant blessings.

Another verse in which we find a particularly rich allusion to specific Jewish traditions is 4:17, where Paul characterizes the God in whom Abraham believed as “the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.”10 Particularly relevant to this verse is 1 Samuel 2:5–6:

Those who were full hire themselves out for food,

but those who were hungry hunger no more.

She who was barren has borne seven children,

but she who has had many sons pines away.

The LORD brings death and makes alive;

he brings down to the grave and raises up. (italics added)

Here the Lord’s life-giving power is linked to the removal of a woman’s barrenness. Those knowledgeable about the Old Testament knew that the speaker of these words is Hannah, who herself was barren but was given a son (Samuel) destined to play a significant role in salvation history. So this description of God sets off a series of associations in the minds of Paul’s readers that places God’s “giving life” to Abraham and Sarah in a wider context.

We commented above on the possible meaning of the description of God as one “who calls things that are not as though they were.” We eventually decided that the phrase probably refers in this context to God’s “address” of descendants of Abraham who were not yet born. But Paul’s readers would still detect in the phrase overtones of the common use of this phrase to refer to God’s creative power—specifically, his ability to create something “out of nothing” (creation ex nihilo). The Jewish philosopher Philo was especially fond of this idea and speaks of God in these terms throughout his writings. Special Laws 4.187 is particularly close to Paul’s wording: “For this is to follow God since He too can do both but wills the good only. This was shown both in the creation and in the ordering of the world. He called the non-existent into existence and produced order from disorder….”

This same kind of language was also applied to the conversion of Gentiles. A book written at about the time of Paul, Joseph and Aseneth, describes how Joseph converted Aseneth, his Egyptian wife, to Judaism. Note the language of 8:9, where Joseph prays for Aseneth: “Lord God of my father Israel, the Most High, the Powerful One of Jacob, who gave life to all things and called them from the darkness to the light … make her alive again by your life….” While we do not think Paul is using the language just this way, he may well have been alluding to this idea. God is one who can create something out of nothing. He can create faith in the heart of a Gentile. The relevance of this idea to Paul’s discussion of Gentiles who are joined to the people of God by faith is obvious.

Contemporary Significance

FAITH. FEW WORDS are more important to Christians than the term faith. This is as it should be. For, as Paul explains the gospel in Romans, faith is at the heart of the matter. But faith can be something we talk about without really understanding. Some Christians seem to equate “faith” with agreeing to a set of doctrinal statements. Others think that allowing themselves to be baptized and participating regularly in communion is faith. Still others view faith as an emotion that they can stir up as a way of getting what they want from God. We cannot give here a full biblical view of faith or deal with all the current perversions of the word. But Paul says three things about faith in 4:13–22 that go a long way toward filling out for us its meaning.

(1) Faith is distinct from the law (4:13–14). Paul here reiterates a point he has already made several times in the letter (see 3:20, 27–28; 4:4–5). The law is something that must be “done,” commandments that are to be obeyed. Faith, by contrast, is an attitude, a willingness to receive. Calvin likens faith to “open hands.” Believing means that we stretch out our arms and open our hands to receive the gift God wants to give us. We can take no credit for accepting a gift, nor can we take any credit for our faith. For faith is not exactly something that we “do.” Some extreme Lutheran theologians were so anxious to distinguish faith from what we do that they spoke of God believing through us. But God calls on us to believe. We believe, even if God creates the situation in which our faith is possible. But our faith is a response to God, not a “work” that puts him in our debt.

In our achievement-oriented world, giving faith its necessary central place in our lives is not always easy to do. We are tempted to ground our relationship to God in what we do and to begin to think that our “doing” is so impressive that God will be forced to bless us for it. Such an attitude toward God breeds serious problems. One of my former students is a counselor in a church located in a part of North America where hard work and human achievement are greatly admired. He is constantly counseling believers who are in despair about their ability to “live up to God’s expectations of them.” His message to them can be summed up in one word: faith. God accepts us not because of what we do but because we have humbled ourselves before him and have received from him the gift of salvation. Doing God’s will is a necessary result of faith, but it must never be put in its place as the mainstay of our relationship to God.

(2) Faith has power not in itself but because of the one in whom we place our faith. One of the most famous lines in all sports history is Al Michaels’s rhetorical question toward the end of the 1980 Olympic hockey match between the United States and the USSR: “Do you believe in miracles?” Believing in miracles has become a common way of speaking. Its popularity owes much to the current fad in religion: a belief in some kind of supernatural power that has a positive influence in people’s lives. Preoccupation with angels, as witnessed by at least one popular television program, is another indicator of this fad. But the Bible does not talk about belief in miracles; it talks about belief in the God who works miracles.

This is just the way Paul speaks about God in the midst of describing Abraham’s faith in 4:17–21. Abraham recognized in God the One who can give life to things that are dead and can speak about things that do not exist as if they did. These points had specific application to Abraham’s own situation. He needed to believe that God could bring life, a son, out of the deadness of Sarah’s womb and his own impotence. He had to believe that the things God promised him were so sure that God could address them as if they already existed. God’s character and person guides our faith and channels its expectations.

(3) Faith is based on God’s Word, not on the evidence of our senses. Abraham fully confronted the physical impossibility that he and Sarah would ever have children, but this did not keep him from believing God would do exactly as he promised. Even when a son had been born to him and he had been ordered to kill the child, Abraham did not doubt God would fulfill his promise to create for him a great people through that child. For, Hebrews tells us, Abraham believed that “God could raise the dead” (Heb. 11:19).

The key to a full-bodied Christian experience is the ability to keep believing, day in and day out, that the ultimate reality is not what we see around us but what we cannot see—the spiritual realm. Paul calls this spiritual realm “the heavenly realms,” a key idea in his letter to the Ephesians, for just this reason. Like Abraham, therefore, we need to believe “against all hope”: trusting in God and his promises even when the evidence goes against it.

But Paul also says that Abraham believed “in hope.” By this he means that Abraham’s faith was based on the hope that God had given him through a specific promise. In order to highlight the fact that faith often goes against the evidence of our senses, some theologians have called faith “a leap in the dark.” But this is not accurate. Abraham did not arbitrarily and without any basis put his faith in the God of Israel or think that he would have a son with Sarah. God had spoken to him, and his word was the basis of Abraham’s faith.

Similarly, we must also realize that our faith is based on the solid reality of God’s written Word to us in the Scripture and of his living Word, Jesus Christ, active to capture our hearts for himself. We must carefully read Scripture and seek to understand the working of God’s Spirit in the world so that our faith is not misdirected. I think here of the many Christians who are convinced that God has promised them health, or wealth, or a particular job, or a particular man or woman to marry, and so on. Their faith, while often noble, probably has no basis in God’s Word. As our faith must be directed to the God in whom we believe, so also it must be directed by what he revealed to us.

Original Meaning

Because Faith Secures the Promise, Both Jew and Gentile Can Benefit from It (4:16–17)

PAUL HAS INTRODUCED a ruling antithesis in verse 13: The promise comes “not through law” but “through the righteousness that comes by faith.” Verses 14–15 explain “not through law”; verses 16–17 now elaborate the significance of “through the righteousness that comes by faith.” But, reflecting a key emphasis throughout this section (see also 3:29–30; 4:11–12), Paul focuses on one consequence in particular, that the promised blessing can be guaranteed to all Abraham’s “offspring.”

“Offspring” translates the Greek sperma (lit., seed), a word important in both the Genesis promise passages (Gen. 12:7; 13:15–16; 15:5, 18; 16:10; 17:7–12, 19; 21:12) and in Paul (Rom. 9:7, 8; Gal. 3:16, 19, 29). It is a collective word, usually referring to one’s physical descendants. But Paul has given that notion a spiritual significance in Romans 4:11–12, where Abraham has been cited as the father of believers. At the end of 4:16, Paul specifies the two groups that make up this spiritual seed of Abraham: “those who are of the law” and “those who are of the faith of Abraham.”

By putting it this way, Paul might be indicating that he is thinking of both Jews generally (i.e., “those of the law”) and of Gentile believers.6 It is true that in Romans 9–11, Paul considers Israel as a whole still a beneficiary of God’s promise. But in the present context, his concern is to show that the promise to Abraham is valid for all believers. Almost certainly, then, he is referring to Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. At the end of 4:16, Paul affirms that Abraham “is the father of us all,” and he follows this claim up with scriptural attestation in verse 17a: “I have made you a father of many nations.” This quotation comes from Genesis 17:5, which brings to expression a key part of the promise. It is not clear in the Genesis text whether the reference is physical or spiritual, but Paul interprets it spiritually.

The end of verse 17 consists of a rather awkward addition that characterizes the God in whom Abraham believed as “the God who gives life to the dead.” In light of 4:18–20, this phrase almost certainly alludes to the miracle by which God brought life out of the “dead” womb (v. 19) of Sarah. But what Paul means by describing God as the one who “calls things that are not as though they were” is not so clear. Since the verb “call” (kaleo) can be used to depict God’s creative activity (Isa. 41:4; 48:13), Paul may be referring to God’s ability to create something out of nothing—as he has done in creating faith among the Gentiles.7 But the verb more likely means here simply “to name, address.” Paul is describing from another angle the miracle that God wrought in bringing children to Abraham and Sarah. Even before they had children, God spoke of the “many nations” that would come from them as if they already existed.