The Apostle Paul continues with the theme that it is not work that justifies us, but faith. He points out that God made His great promises to Abraham in a time before the law was given, proving that God blessed Abraham not for his works but for his faith.
There was nothing wrong with the law, but there was something wrong with man. As Paul informed us earlier in the book of Romans, the purpose of the law was to reveal to man his sinfulness. This was intended to lead man to God by faith for the justification that man could not earn for himself. Though man could not keep the law, many in Paul's day elevated the importance of the law over the importance of faith. Paul is not speaking against the law; he has a great deal of respect for the law and will say to his friend Timothy, "We know that the law is good if one uses it properly." (1 Timothy 1:8)
But as we saw in our recent study of the gospel according to Luke, Jesus concluded that the religious leaders were not using the law properly. They upheld laws that permitted a person to withhold mercy, such as the practice of allowing a son to devote funds to the temple that he should have used to support his destitute parents, thus allowing a son to break the commandment that says he must honor his father and mother. Another example of their hypocrisy is that they placed a greater value on keeping the Sabbath than on keeping God's command to love their neighbor, for they hotly criticized Jesus for healing those in need on the Sabbath. The religious leaders of Jesus' day and of Paul's day were trying desperately to uphold the letter of the law but they had lost the spirit of the law. Their intense focus on a law they could not perfectly keep had caused them to take their focus off the Lord. Their obsession with studying and interpreting and arguing matters of law had caused them to put their trust in themselves rather than in the Lord.
Paul reminds his readers that God made great promises to Abraham before the law was given. If justification is obtained through the law, then why did God bless Abraham so much? If justification must be earned, then why did God credit Abraham with righteousness because of his faith? "It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression." (Romans 4:13-15) Abraham was heir to the world because God told him that all nations would be blessed by his offspring (his offspring being his descendant Jesus Christ). If the faithful of each nation can be called a child of Abraham, then the promise is based on faith, not on law, for the law was not given to the Gentiles. Paul is asking, "Why trust in a law no one can keep? We would almost be better off if we had no law, for then we couldn't be guilty of breaking it. But we are lawbreakers, and because we are lawbreakers we need a means of being found righteous in the eyes of God. And that means is faith, the kind of faith Abraham had."
"Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring---not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: 'I have made you a father of many nations.' He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed---the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not." (Romans 4:16-17) Abraham didn't even have a child of his own when God promised him he would become the father of many nations. Abraham and his wife were both past the age of conceiving a child. It would have been easy for this man to scoff at the idea of becoming a father to a child of his own, much less becoming the father to many nations. But he believed God! He didn't know when or how or why God was going to do these awesome things for him, but he believed!
"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.' Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead---since he was about a hundred years old---and that Sarah's womb was also dead." (Romans 4:18-19) Abraham wasn't living in denial about his childless state. He and Sarah had given up long ago on conceiving a child, seeing that Sarah was about forty years past the age of childbearing. They had come to the conclusion many years earlier that one or both of them was infertile, so Abraham isn't fooling himself by still clinging to the hope that he and his wife might someday produce a child. Abraham looks the truth in the eye and sees his situation for what it is, but he believes God can do what He says He can do. The God who created man from the dust of the ground and who created woman from the rib of the man can surely renew some cells within the bodies of a man and a woman. The God who spoke into the darkness and created all things can certainly create a child for a couple who is too old to conceive a child on their own.
Abraham looked the truth in the eye, but at the same time he had faith in God. Our situations sometimes look impossible. And maybe they are impossible if they depend on the strength of man, but they depend on the strength of God. Abraham sets a beautiful example for us by looking honestly on what he can see while trusting in the One he can't see. "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised." (Romans 4:20-21)
This is what faith is: being fully persuaded that God has the power to do what He has promised. We can't keep the law perfectly. We can't even keep the ten commandments perfectly, much less all the points of the law. We can only be justified by faith in the One who is able to grant us absolution. We can only be credited with righteousness by trusting in the One who provides for us a means of atonement. "This is why 'it was credited to him as righteousness.' The words 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness---for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." (Romans 4:22-24)
How is righteousness credited to our account? In the same way it was credited to Abraham's account---through faith. Abraham believed God would do what He promised. Let's follow the example of our father Abraham and believe God will keep all His promises to us.
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