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§10 Abraham as the Model of Faith (Rom. 4:1–12)

Chapter 4 is a test case of righteousness by faith. In 3:21–31 Paul presented a position statement on salvation through faith in Christ’s sacrifice of atonement. In chapter 4 he sends the class to the laboratory, as it were, to test that thesis. Here we find the compressed and nuclear thesis of 3:21–31 developed in the discursive style of Jewish midrash. Midrash was the name given to a form of rabbinic exposition in ancient Palestine which sought to penetrate the meaning of Scripture and deduce principles from it.

The thesis under consideration is that of 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” The crucial terms are “by faith” and “apart from law.” Paul invokes a daring example to verify his thesis—Abraham, the patriarch of Israel. Abraham figures more prominently in the epistles of Paul than any other figure except for Jesus. Abraham’s introduction serves three purposes: first, that he was justified by faith and not by works (vv. 1–8); second, that his justification took place before he was circumcised (thus proving that righteousness is for Gentiles as well as Jews, vv. 9–12); and finally, that the promise of God to Abraham was fulfilled not through law but through faith (vv. 13–25). Abraham was thus not only the father of Israel, he is the prototype of Christian faith. Because Abraham trusted in God, God counted him righteous even before he was circumcised and before the law was given. Once the primacy of faith is established, the position of the law is clarified. The law is subsequent to faith and is rightly understood only in light of faith, as Paul stated in 3:31.

4:1 / Resuming the rhetorical style now familiar to readers of Romans, Paul adduces Abraham as conclusive evidence that righteousness comes by faith and not by works. Verse 1 is awkward in Greek and has been altered somewhat in the NIV. A literal translation might read, “What therefore shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh has found?” The word translated discovered (Gk. heurēkenai, “has found”) seems oddly suited to the verse and may derive from 1 Maccabees 2:52 and Sirach 44:19–20, which utilize the same word. The language suggests that Paul is appealing to a Promethean figure in Israelite tradition whose name has long been encoded in formulaic phraseology. Abraham was a brave choice on Paul’s part because Paul hoped to prove by his example a point quite at variance from the established rabbinic understanding of him. The rabbis believed that Abraham was counted righteous because of his works; Paul endeavors to show that he was justified solely by his faith, apart from works.

It would be difficult to overestimate Abraham’s importance in Judaism. A hero who worshipped the one true God in the midst of idolatrous peoples, Abraham’s legacy had been polished with a rich patina of miracle and legend. Indeed, in the nearly two millennia since his death he had been elevated to a quasi-divine status. His grave (actually a cenotaph) in Hebron was honored as a holy place. He was believed to have obeyed perfectly God’s commandments before they were given, and he was extolled as the embodiment of Psalm 1. Rabbis spoke of God’s having ordained the Torah before the foundation of the world “for Abraham’s sake,” and, along with Isaac and Jacob, he was regarded as “one who has not sinned against Thee.” A familiar passage in the Greek OT eulogized his life in these words,

Abraham, the father of a multitude of nations, suffered no blemish to his honor and had no equal in glory, observed the commandments of the Most High and entered into a covenant with Him. God was near to him in his flesh and faithful to him in his temptations. Therefore God swore a firm oath with him, that in his offspring he would bless nations, and that their possession would stretch from sea to sea, from the river Euphrates to the ends of the earth (Sir. 44:19–21, Charlesworth, OTP).

As a reward for his meritorious life Abraham was called the friend of God (Isa. 41:8) and a helper for salvation to later generations of Israel.

4:2 / In light of such credentials, both real and imagined, it was no wonder that Jews were proud to be known as “children of Abraham” (see Matt. 3:9). When they appealed to “Abraham our forefather” (v. 1) they identified, to be sure, with his righteousness, but also with the fame and honor which attended it. People are flattered to think that the achievements and renown of their ancestors convey like qualities to themselves—and deny them to others. There is a point, however, at which self-esteem overripens into pride, desiring to prove itself better than others. It is this pride which Paul addresses in verse 2. He does not say that Abraham had nothing to boast of. If Abraham chose to present his credentials as a pretext for God’s favor, then he was, as we say, a “self-made man,” and he need not give credit to God, for his justification was his desert, not God’s gift. This was how first-century Judaism regarded Abraham. The rabbis taught that God’s favor had been a reward to Abraham for his observance of Torah, even before it had been given. A common proof-text was Genesis 26:4–5, which said that God would give the patriarch the blessings of numerous descendants and lands “because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws.”

4:3 / Paul confronts this preening attitude with a proof-text which he used more than once in his battle over faith and works, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; see also 4:9, 22; Gal. 3:6). Ironically, this verse played a prominent role in Jewish discussions of Abraham, being used to show the merit of faith, i.e., that Abraham’s faith was itself a work of obedience and thus a ground for justification. It was a bold venture for Paul to cite a verse which his opponents assumed supported their position, and by it to demonstrate a diametrically opposite view.

In mounting his counterattack Paul emphasizes two words: believed and credited. Abraham was justified because he believed, not because he did something (v. 2). Paul’s Jewish contemporaries understood the word believed as an act of faithfulness, which was itself a meritorious work. Paul, conversely, understood believed as radical trust in God. It was common in Jewish midrash to take a verse (sometimes out of context) to try to prove one point or another. On the basis of Genesis 15:6 alone it would be quite impossible to say whether Paul or his opponents were right. But in considering the life of Abraham as a whole (Gen. 12–25) one is struck by the fact that Abraham repeatedly stood before the dilemma of believing in God’s promise of a son in spite of circumstances to the contrary: Abraham’s old age, Sarah’s barrenness, Eliezer’s ineligibility, Ishmael’s rejection, and always, the interminable waiting. And yet, despite the obstacles and setbacks, Abraham is nonetheless called by God to believe. There is nothing that Abraham can do—although he tries in vain to assist the fulfillment of the promise in the Eliezer (Gen. 15) and Hagar (Gen. 16) episodes. The only avenue open to him was faith. How telling that Paul says simply that Abraham believed. Paul does not say that he believed this or that as a quantum of faith, but that Abraham believed God, personally and completely. Considering that Abraham was the first person summoned into the drama of salvation history, his achievements—forsaking the civilized world of Ur for the nomadic stretches of Canaan; his long and perilous journeys; his great herds, many servants, and victorious battles; his intercession for Sodom; his willingness to sacrifice a beloved son to a largely unknown God—were utterly remarkable. But worthy and noble as these things were, they were of no consequence in realizing God’s promise. Abraham stood before the awful choice of trusting in the credibility of God, despite howling evidence to the contrary. His faith was not a work, not a virtue, not an expression of the heroic will, but a resignation in weakness, a powerlessness in the face of overwhelming opposition to the sovereign word of God. God’s promises to Abraham were not a reward for his obedience, for God called Abraham and promised him land, progeny, and blessing before he had obeyed (Gen. 12:1–3). It was God’s word alone which created and determined Abraham’s existence, and to which he relinquished himself by a commitment of trust.

Faith is a form of poverty, says Ernst Käsemann, in which the believer must wait for blessing. “It is the place where the Creator alone can and will act as such” (Romans, p. 111). Calvin adds that faith is “deriving from another what is wanting in oneself” (Romans, p. 155). Faith is born only where personal hopes are exhausted and God’s word is expected, where personal claims and doubts give way in humble submission, “May it be to me as you have said” (Luke 1:38). It is an attitude of resigning and receiving, and consequently Paul cannot speak of Abraham’s having earned or deserved God’s righteousness. He says rather that Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. The word logizomai, here rendered credited, can also mean “to reckon” or “impute.” It occurs 11 times in this chapter and is the second key word in verse 3. The passive voice it was credited is a divine passive, meaning actually “God credited it.” This is an essential nuance in Paul’s argument. Righteousness was not Abraham’s due but God’s determination, “the act of a gracious will,” in the words of Bengel (Gnomon, p. 55). Righteousness is God’s attribute, not Abraham’s, and if Abraham is to participate in it he must receive it solely as a gift from the kindness of God. But faith is not a substitute for works, for if it were, then it would be a condition or work itself. There is indeed a work of righteousness—the death of Jesus Christ as a “sacrifice of atonement” (3:25). The ground of righteousness is the work of Christ alone, and this righteousness can only be appropriated by faith.

The question is not, what men are in themselves, but how God regards them? not that purity of conscience and integrity of life are to be separated from the gratuitous favour of God; but that when the reason is asked, why God loves us and owns us as just, it is necessary that Christ should come forth as the one who clothes us with his own righteousness (Calvin, Romans, p. 157).

4:4–8 / It remains for Paul to demonstrate that his understanding of faith is the proper one. He does this in verses 4–5 by a lesson in logic: When one works, argues Paul, compensation is calculated in terms of wages or earnings; but if one is justified without working, then compensation as such is excluded, and justification is a free gift. Paul reduces the difference to the following formulas: traditional Judaism accepted the continuum works—credited—obligation (v. 4); but Paul argues otherwise for trust—credited—righteousness (v. 5). For Paul the difference is between grace and rewards, and there exists an unbridgeable chasm between the two. The mentality of rewards denies that it is “under sin” (3:9), it affirms that God’s values are more or less the same as human values, indeed, that God is essentially a personification of the moral law. Paul finds this stereotypical picture of God rancorous because it denies God’s sovereignty, and with it his grace, making of God a cosmic automaton whose reactions are determined by human causes and moral systems. Paul faulted the accepted Jewish interpretation of Genesis 15:6 as identifying God too closely with human judgments, and thus being in danger of making God in humanity’s image.

Only the latter way of thinking, the mentality of faith, opens up the possibility of grace. But grace is offensive, as we noted in the discussion of 3:22. The problem is repeated and intensified when Paul says that God … justifies the wicked (v. 5). That phrase posed an utter contradiction for Paul’s Jewish contemporaries. In Judaism God justifies only those within the covenant, whereas the wicked stand outside the covenant and thus outside the possibility of salvation. To acquit, much less justify, the ungodly was abhorrent to the morally conscientious (Exod. 23:7; Prov. 17:15; Isa. 5:23). Paul, however, understood wickedness or “ungodliness,” as the Greek asebēs could also be rendered, far more radically than did normative Judaism, for, as he argued in 3:9–20, not just the morally reprobate, not just Gentiles, but all humanity stood “under sin.” Ungodliness was a description of the human condition—a condition, indeed, which included Abraham! This was assuredly an incendiary statement in a milieu in which, at least in some circles, Abraham was accepted as sinless.

Paul did not regard Abraham as sinless any more than he regarded Israel as sinless. In its reflective moments Israel realized that God had chosen it not because it was more numerous or powerful or important than other peoples, but from a deeper, more mysterious inclination called grace. “The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous … but because the Lord loved you” (Deut. 7:7–8). Neither Abraham nor Israel had meritorious checks written against their accounts. Luther rightly recognized that “God does not accept a person on account of his works, but the works on account of the person, and the person before the works” (Lectures on Romans, p. 123).

In verses 6–8 Paul continues with the thought of justification. This is shown by the repetition of verse 3 in verse 6, God credits righteousness apart from works. This truth is illustrated by King David as well as by Abraham. If there were any doubt about Abraham’s sin, there could be none about David’s (cf. 2 Sam. 11). The quotation in verses 7–8 comes from the opening lines of Psalm 32, which was believed to have been written by David. The purpose of the quotation is to contrast blessedness (mentioned three times) with sins (also mentioned three times). Paul, of course, does not say that David did no good works. Like Abraham, any number of laudable things could be said of him. But his works were insufficient to cover his sins. That he could speak from a condition of blessedness was due to the forgiveness of his sins which were remitted solely by grace. Here particularly Paul interprets righteousness apart from works by the forgiveness of sins (vv. 7–8), thereby implying that reckoning righteousness and not imputing sin are essentially the same thing.

4:9–10 / Thus, (1) Abraham was justified by faith, and (2) his faith was itself not a work. There remains yet one objection which could be raised against the thesis that Abraham—and with him the whole OT—advocates justification by faith. The objection is found in verses 9–10. Paul’s kinsfolk would naturally have understood Psalm 32 and the forgiveness of sins therein to apply exclusively to Israel. The text itself almost shouts out a rejoinder, “Of course Abraham was accounted righteous, as was David forgiven, because they were Jews!” A midrash on Psalm 32, in fact, reads, “On the day of atonement God cleanses Israel and atones for her guilt, as it says, ‘For on this day atonement will be made for you.…’ And if you would ask, ‘Does [God] cleanse any other nation?’ Know this, ‘No, only Israel.… Only Israel does he forgive.’ ”

In light of this Paul returns to Genesis 15:6 in verse 9 and raises the question of circumcision. If it can be shown that God’s promise came to one who was circumcised (i.e., a Jew), then his argument is scuttled, for Paul would only have demonstrated righteousness by Judaism, not righteousness by faith.

But Paul denies that forgiveness of sins in Psalm 32—and God’s grace in general—are limited to Israel. The opposite is the case. Returning to a rhetorical style, Paul asks, Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? (v. 9). That is to say, under what circumstances was righteousness credited to Abraham? Was Abraham declared righteous after he was circumcised or before? The answer, of course, is that “God credited to him righteousness” before he was circumcised. Abraham’s justification is recorded in Genesis 15:6; his circumcision not until Genesis 17:10ff. According to rabbinic calculations, Abraham received the promise of Genesis 15:6 at age 70, but he was not circumcised until age 99. Thus, circumcision cannot be a prerequisite for righteousness. Otto Michel correctly notes that Paul’s strategy here is exactly the opposite of that at 3:10–18: there he faced the danger that the Jews would shift the sentence of judgment exclusively onto the Gentiles; here he faces the danger that Israel will reserve God’s blessings solely for itself (Der Brief an die Römer, p. 119).

The conclusion that Abraham was blessed before he was circumcised was like a sonic boom in a china cupboard. If God had called and justified Abraham before he had a son, then he was not at the time a patriarch; and if God had justified him before he was circumcised, then he was not at the time a Jew! In other words, Abraham was an uncircumcised (and therefore, unrighteous) Gentile when he was reckoned righteous by God! The logic of grace may be offensive but it is irrefutable; the same logic will prompt Paul to exclaim, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (5:8).

4:11–12 / Since Abraham was justified before he was circumcised, his circumcision was a sign of righteousness, not a cause of it. Whereas Judaism came to regard circumcision as a good work, as something achieved, Paul refers to it as something received (v. 11). Judaism emphasized the doer of the act; Paul emphasizes the Giver of the sign. Circumcision is a seal of the righteousness that Abraham had by faith, i.e., a visible corroboration of righteousness already granted to Abraham through his trust in God. Circumcision was not an acknowledgment of Abraham’s observance of Torah, as the rabbis taught, but a guarantee of his righteous standing with God. If circumcision was an acknowledgment of Abraham’s moral rectitude, then it was in fact a reward, a payment, an “obligation” of God (v. 4). But circumcision was not God’s duty to Abraham, it was a sign of his grace to him.

One way of grasping Paul’s distinction between faith and works is to compare the use of father in verses 1 and 12. When Paul speaks of “Abraham our forefather” (v. 1) he speaks as a Jew. Only Jews (or proselytes who had undergone circumcision) spoke of Abraham as “our forefather,” and in Abraham’s circumcision Jews saw the inauguration of the covenant of salvation which included themselves. Paul argues, however, that circumcision is not merely a “sign of the covenant” (Gen. 17:11), but a seal of righteousness, which is something more primary and fundamental. Abraham was reckoned righteous not by circumcision, but by faith, which preceded his being circumcised. The consequence of this is portentous, even if not at first apparent: Abraham was the father of Gentile believers before he was the father of Jewish believers, for he was the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised before he was the father of the covenant. His becoming forefather of the Jews was a subsequent specification of an original fatherhood of all who believe, namely, of Gentiles. Thus, both Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians (and in that order!) may appeal to Abraham as father.

Six times in this section Paul affirms that “righteousness is credited to them” by faith (vv. 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11). Its repetition assures its veracity, that by faith believers receive from God what is lacking in themselves. Because Abraham was counted righteous by faith he is the father of uncircumcised (Gentiles) and circumcised (Jews) believers. Both groups are included in Abraham’s fatherhood of faith, and neither is pitted against the other. There is not one way for Jews to be saved and another for Gentiles, but all have Abraham as their father, who is the prototype of saving faith. God did not institute salvation by law in the first covenant and salvation through Christ in the second covenant, but salvation through faith in both covenants. Justification by faith is not a late idea, not an emergency measure instituted when a crisis developed in the original plan, but the oldest and truest idea of redemption, conceived by God in love before the foundation of the world, exemplified by Abraham of old, and consummated by Jesus in the fulness of time. “ ‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’ ” (John 8:58).