Original Meaning

IN THIS BRIEF PARAGRAPH, Paul moves from the vertical significance of Abraham’s faith (its meaning for our relationship to God) to its horizontal significance (its meaning for the relationship of Jew and Gentile in the people of God). Paul introduced Abraham at the beginning of the chapter in a typically Jewish way: “our forefather,” with the “our” referring to Paul and other Jewish Christians (4:1). Even there, however, Paul added a significant qualification (not translated in the NIV): “according to the flesh.” He now makes clear why that qualification was needed. For from the standpoint of faith, Abraham is far more than the ancestor of the Jewish people; he is the father of all who believe as he himself did. God’s people are determined not by biological descent from Abraham but by spiritual descent from him.

The “blessedness” Paul mentions in 4:9 refers to the blessing David pronounced on those “whose sin the Lord will never count against [them]” (4:7–8). That blessing is therefore acceptance before God. Is this acceptance, Paul asks, available only to “the circumcised,” that is, Jews—as most Jews believed? Or is it also available to the “uncircumcised,” that is, Gentiles? Before answering his question, Paul reminds us of the key text he is using to answer this question, namely, Genesis 15:6 (cf. Rom. 4:3), which he paraphrases in 4:9b.

In verse 10, Paul finds an answer to that question by noting the chronological relationship between God’s pronouncement of Abraham’s righteousness (Gen. 15:6) and the institution of circumcision (Gen. 17). The righteousness, Paul points out, came first—according to one rabbinic tradition, twenty-nine years before the circumcision.

But simple chronology is not a conclusive point. Paul goes on in 4:11 to explain the true significance of circumcision. Alluding to Genesis 17:11, Paul calls circumcision a “sign,” a “seal of the righteousness that he [Abraham] had by faith.” Circumcision, in Abraham’s case, was not the basis or even the condition for his righteous status before God. The rite simply put a seal on what was already true.

In verses 11b–12 Paul draws out the significance of what he has said in verse 11a. (1) Abraham is the “father of all who believe but have not been circumcised.” Gentiles who have faith can claim Abraham as their father. They believe as he did, and they receive, as he did, righteousness as a gift from God. They do not need to be circumcised to receive this gift. At this point, Paul’s argument moves well beyond the Old Testament. For in making circumcision a requirement for all males descended from Abraham, the Old Testament certainly implies that one can belong to the people of God only by accepting circumcision. But, as we will see in 4:16–17, there is another strand of teaching about Abraham in Genesis, a strand that emphasizes his role as the “father of many nations.” With insight gained through God’s revelation in Christ, Paul can now identify these other nations with Gentiles who believe and who can belong to Abraham’s spiritual family without being circumcised.

(2) Abraham is also “the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” As the NIV translates, Paul makes Abraham also the father of Jewish Christians—people who are circumcised and who also believe as Abraham did.

The Greek is capable of another interpretation. On this view, “the circumcised” is an initial broad category that Paul then breaks down into two components: those who are circumcised and those who believe as Abraham did. Paul would then be referring both to Jews generally and to Jewish-Christians particularly. Scholars who advocate this interpretation note that Paul will later affirm that God’s promise to the patriarchs continues to have relevance for the Jewish people as well as for the church (Rom. 9:5; 11:28).1 But Paul is not yet to this point in his argument. The structure of the sentence, taken overall, points to one group only in 4:12: those who are both circumcised and believe as Abraham did (i.e., Jewish Christians).

Bridging Contexts

CIRCUMCISION AND JUDAISM. In the Bridging Contexts section on 2:17–29, we sketched briefly the significance that circumcision came to have for Jews during the intertestamental period. The Jews, following strictly God’s command in Genesis 17, insisted on circumcision as an essential mark (for males, of course) of belonging to the Jewish people. Even Philo, who gave allegorical interpretations of most Jewish rituals, including circumcision, still insisted that the physical act was required. It is for this reason that Paul can use the word “circumcision” to refer to Jews and “uncircumcision” to Gentiles (Rom. 3:30; 4:9, 11–12).

But how about a Gentile who wanted to become a Jew? A few scholars think that some Jews in Paul’s day were relaxing the requirement that Gentiles undergo circumcision in order to convert to Judaism. They base this conclusion on an intriguing passage in the Jewish historian Josephus about the conversion of a pagan king named Izates (Ant. 20.17–48). But there is no doubt that the prevalent view was that only circumcised Gentiles could be considered genuine converts.2

As a result of this requirement, few Gentile men, however attracted to Judaism they may have been, became converts. Circumcision was a physical, even painful, barrier to Gentiles who wanted to identify with God’s people. They were excluded and undoubtedly felt that exclusion. No matter how much they identified with Jewish teaching and morals, they were still outside. Paul speaks directly of this kind of alienation in Ephesians 2:11–12:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

When we read Romans 4:9–12 today, we might not appreciate what it meant for Gentiles to be offered the opportunity to become full members in God’s people, with equal rights with those who were Jewish by birth. By faith they, along with Jews, can call Abraham their “father” and enjoy the privileges and blessings promised to his descendants.

Contemporary Significance

CIRCUMCISION AND BAPTISM? Finding relevance in a text like this one is a challenge for the modern Christian reader or preacher. The focus is on what happened long ago, and the topic—the religious value of circumcision—is one that seems to have no significance for the church today. Faced with this problem, the usual approach is to find analogies in the text to contemporary situations or practices.

A few commentators have taken just such an approach with circumcision. Their starting point is the contention that several texts in Paul suggest that he viewed baptism and circumcision as similar rites. Circumcision, after all, was a sign that a person belonged to God’s old covenant people, while baptism seems to be the equivalent new covenant sign. Note, for instance, the connection between baptism and circumcision implied by Colossians 2:11–13:

In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. (italics added)

Further reason to think our text may have an allusion to baptism is found in the word “seal.” Second-century Christians applied this word to baptism (see Hermas, Similitudes 8.6.3; 1 Clement 7:6; 8:6), and Paul may himself be alluding to baptism in several other places where he uses the word (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13; 4:30). Perhaps, then, we can get some relevance out of Romans 4:9–12 by applying some of what Paul says here to baptism.3

But our desire to be relevant should never outrun the evidence from the text. I warn my exegesis students about what I call “homiletical expediency”: the tendency to determine the meaning of a text based on how it will preach. But we cannot (or at least we should not!) preach what is not there. It is unlikely that there is anything about baptism in Romans 4:9–12.4 Colossians 2 is not a good basis to argue that Paul thinks baptism corresponds to circumcision. In that text, Paul uses circumcision as a metaphor for conversion and then associates baptism with that conversion. The connection between seal and baptism in Paul is so tenuous that we can base nothing on that argument either.

What relevance, then, does this passage have? Paul’s main concern is clearly to show how faith enables both Jew and Gentile to become descendants of Abraham, to belong on the same footing, in other words, to the people of God. Taken with many other passages in Romans on the same theme (e.g., 3:29–30; 4:16–17; 10:9–13), these verses embody the principle of a single people of God that embraces all kinds of individuals. If Gentiles can be granted admission to God’s people, the way is open for anyone to have that same access. No longer is God the God of Jews in an ethnically restricted way. Paul himself draws out the implications of the inclusion of Gentiles in a text similar to Romans 4, concluding with the words:

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal. 3:26–29)

What we find, therefore, is that the inclusion of Gentiles into God’s people becomes the leading edge of a broader principle: the removal of all outward distinctions in the face of God’s grace and the universal offer of the gospel. The implications for the church are far-reaching. The church is called to be a genuinely “countercultural” institution, in which the usual barriers to association—race, national background, economic status, etc.—have no relevance at all.

Yet while the church broadly defined may look like this, individual churches rarely do. For what appear to be good reasons, our churches tend to be monochromatic: suburban, middle-and upper-class white, inner city black, Hispanic, Korean, etc. One understands the natural tendency to feel comfortable worshiping with people who are like us. But one of the purposes of the church is to force us out of our comfort zones so that we can benefit from association with people who are like us in their faith in Christ but different from us in every other way. By breaking down the barrier separating Jew and Gentile, Christ shows that he wants to build a real “rainbow coalition” among his people. Unfortunately, we can stifle that intention by insisting on building local churches that target only one kind of person.