At the end of Chapter 3, Paul was saying that by believing in Jesus Christ, we are saved from God’s righteous anger against sinfulness. He picks this discussion up again very powerfully in Chapter 5. In the meantime, he wants us to learn a lesson from Abraham.
The Jews knew very well who Abraham was. They regarded him as the ‘father of the Jewish nation’ and believed that they were his direct descendants—see for example the conversation that Jesus has with the Pharisees in John 8: 31-59. (The non-Jews may have wondered why Abraham was relevant at all.)
Paul talks about the Jewish ‘Law’. And as he pointed out in Chapter 2, everyone has a ‘law’ of some kind.
Verses 1-3
Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? 2 If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. 3 For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”
The Book of Genesis, especially after Chapter 12, tells the story of Abraham and his family, and of God’s promises to them. These promises are repeated several times in the form of a ‘covenant’ and are:
Genesis 17: 5-8
You will be the father of many nations. 6 I will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them!7 “I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 And I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.”
Genesis tells the story of how this is worked out in the lives of his children and grandchildren, and the rest of the Old Testament—the Jewish Scriptures—show how these promises were worked out in the nation of Israel over the following 1800 or so years.
So, to Jews, Abraham was a big deal: the founder of their nation. He wasn’t made ‘right with God’ by doing good things—in fact, he messed up badly from time to time, but:
Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. (see also Genesis 15: 6)
So, let’s talk about this for a couple of minutes:
- What is God looking for in people?
When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. 5 But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. 6 David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it:7 “Oh, what joy for those
whose disobedience is forgiven,
whose sins are put out of sight.
8 Yes, what joy for those
whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”
Most people think that they can get to heaven by ‘serving’ God, or by ‘doing good things’. By obeying rules. It’s basic, but it’s ‘the knowledge of good and evil’. That won’t get us anywhere. If it did, we wouldn’t need faith to be right with God, we would just follow the instructions.
(v.5) But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners.
This is the key. Paul explains how it worked with Abraham…
Verses 9-12
Now, is this blessing only for the Jews, or is it also for uncircumcised Gentiles? Well, we have been saying that Abraham was counted as righteous by God because of his faith. 10 But how did this happen? Was he counted as righteous only after he was circumcised, or was it before he was circumcised? Clearly, God accepted Abraham before he was circumcised!11 Circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous—even before he was circumcised. So Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They are counted as righteous because of their faith. 12 And Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was circumcised.
If you’re anything like me, all this talk of circumcision is a bit squirmy. It’s pretty uncomfortable.
But here’s the relief!
God told Abraham to circumcise the males in his family as a sign of his obedience. (We might think a gold star or a badge might be nicer, but hey… It was a sign that all Abraham’s descendants had that symbolised his obedience. Being Jewish meant—and still means—'I belong to Abraham, who walked with God by faith.’)
Abraham’s circumcision was a sign of his righteousness, but…
- How did Abraham get to be righteous in the first place?
Verses 13-19
Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. 14 If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. 15 For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!)16 So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. 17 That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, “I have made you the father of many nations.” This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.18 Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, “That’s how many descendants you will have!” 19 And Abraham’s faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead—and so was Sarah’s womb.
God made massive promises to Abraham and to his descendants. But far from having ‘descendants’, at the age of 100, he didn’t even have one child.
Verse 17:
Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.
We could say, ‘What choice did he have?’
He had several choices.
- He could have taken another wife, one who was more fertile than Sarah.
- He could have promised his inheritance to one of his relatives—Lot, maybe.
- Or, maybe to Eleazar of Damascus, who was his chief servant.
- He could have had sex with a slave (he tried that).
But in the end, he always came back, sometimes a bit grumpily or reluctantly, to believing God. And God kept on repeating the promise.
- What choices must we make to live by faith?
Verses 20-25
Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. 22 And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. 23 And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded 24 for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.
Abraham is there as an example of faith for everyone, Jews and non-Jews alike. Verse 21:
[Abraham] was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises.
Finally, Paul brings it back to the Good News about Christ. The gospel. God’s promises to Abraham were hard for him to understand – based on having a child in old-age and investing in a future that he couldn’t see, but we are right with God when we believe in Jesus.
We need rules, obviously; society would not work without them, but Paul says very clearly that this isn’t enough to make us righteous before God.
- What is the problem with having a religious Law?
- What can we learn from Abraham’s faith?
No comments:
Post a Comment