Romans 4:1-12

So, two weeks ago, we looked at a basic overview of Romans 4. We are going to look deeper at this chapter this week. We will break the chapter down into two sections. I will cover the first section and Jacob will cover the second one. Please remember that we will not be having regular service next week, but will be working Pierce Township’s Police Night Out.

Also, after we finish Romans 4, we are going to take a break on Romans and move to the Old Testament for a few weeks, looking at the book of Esther. Then, we’ll pick back up with Romans 5.

So, let’s look at this passage, and dive in.

Romans 4:1–12 ESV

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” 9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

So, as a reminder: Paul was writing to a church in Rome that was dealing with issues related to Jewish pride versus the Gentiles. Jews felt like they were superior. That is a large part of the context here. Jews felt that the Messiah was solely for them, and did not like the idea of inviting the Gentiles to the party. We see this even with Peter. In Acts, Peter is astonished by God’s vision to him, by the salvation of Cornelius, etc. Look at Acts 10:28

Acts 10:28 ESV

28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.

Acts 10:34–35 ESV

34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

And look at his report back to the church at Jerusalem in Acts 11.

Acts 11:1–4 ESV

1 Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, 3 “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” 4 But Peter began and explained it to them in order:

Acts 11:17–18 ESV

17 If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” 18 When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

You see, the Jewish Christians truly felt that they were the true working out of God’s plan. God had, from the beginning, planned to send Jesus as the Messiah. Most of the Jews missed Him, because they were looking for the Messiah to be a conquering king, not a humble servant. Those Jews who rightly understood Christ as the Messiah felt like they were the ones who truly understood scripture from start to finish.

But the problem most of them had (see Peter in Acts 10) was their reliance on their heritage not on Christ. They were still not fully trusting in God to save them through Jesus, but instead they were relying on their DNA, their “Jewishness” to be a major factor in their salvation.

And look, if you had been told your whole life that God chose you and your people, you probably would have that sense of racial pride as well.

I remember when I taught in Louisiana, I worked at a school that was 99% African American. The students were black. The teachers were black. I think we had 3 non-Black staff members there the whole time I was there. And I learned a lot of things about urban black culture while I was there. One of the biggest issues some of the students (and teachers) had was when one of the other students/teachers/whatever was not “black enough.” It was a bit bizarre. If you didn’t talk the right way, or listen to the right music, or whatever, you were shunned. There was colorism too. The “light-skins” were not as “truly black,” and many of them were looked down upon.

Now, we know that the Jews did the exact same thing in Jesus’ day, because Samaria existed. Literally, these Samaritans were Jewish descendants, but they were not 100% Jews. Their parents had intermarried. They were not full-bloods. This is the same stuff that you read in Harry Potter, when they talk about the “mudbloods.” And look, when we look forward from Paul and backwards from us, we see that Adolf Hitler used the same playbook the ancient Jews did, just in reverse. If you were Jewish, you were a stain to good Germans.

So, in all of this, Paul is looking at the racial heritage and wanting to move the church past this reliance on being a Jew.

Romans 4:1–3 ESV

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

See, Paul hits them with the heritage, but then pulls the rug out.

“What should we say about Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Granddaddy Abraham? Nothing!”

Paul tells them that in the flesh, in Abraham’s strength, he has nothing to boast about. At least, not before God.

Acts thru Corinthians The Precedent of Faith (4:1–8)

Paul’s question (4:1) is intriguing: How, exactly, was Abraham justified by God? The Jews had grown so accustomed to thinking that adherence to the law was the way to God’s favor that they could hardly conceive of any other way. But by using Abraham—someone they all had the highest respect for—as an example Paul transports them to a time more than four centuries before God had provided the law. If Abraham could find God’s favor without the law, so could other people.

You see, the law was after Abraham. It was after Isaac. It was after Jacob. It was after Joseph, who led his father’s house to Egypt to escape famine, and there they became enslaved over the course of time. It was from there that God brought Moses and Aaron up, to lead God’s people out of slavery and give them the Law.

Paul is quoting from Genesis 15 here. God makes His covenant with Abraham and tells him that the people will be in bondage for 400 years. But after that, God will bring them back to the land that God had given to Abraham.

God doesn’t institute circumcision until Genesis 17, 13 years after Abraham had fathered Ishmael.

Abraham lived more than 400 years before the Law. If God counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness, before the law, before the advent of circumcision, then there is hope that the promise is not for the Jews alone.

Because that is Paul’s argument: The law came after God counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness.

And we have to understand that phrase:

Romans 4:3 ESV

3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

What does it mean to be “counted to him as righteousness?”

The word counted there has the connotation of being credited to him.

Acts thru Corinthians The Precedent of Faith (4:1–8)

To have something credited means the recipient does nothing to earn what is received—just the opposite of working to get a paycheck (4:4–5).

It doesn’t say that Abraham earned righteousness. It says God credited or counted to him righteousness.

See, Paul is like a lawyer building his case here. And Abraham is his star witness. Abraham didn’t do anything to earn righteousness, but God credited him with it because of Abraham’s belief.

Romans 4:4–5 ESV

4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

See, Paul makes that point here. If Abraham had worked for his righteousness, it would have been given as a wage. But we know the only wages we get are death, because of sin. Instead, God credits righteousness to us as a gift when we believe. Because we believe in God, who has the power to justify us, we are credited, or mercifully given, righteousness. It is imputed to us. Now, you may have heard the term, “imputed righteousness,” and you may not know what that means.

R.C. Sproul gave a great (and fairly short) explanation:

We look to the Scriptures and see that when Paul explains the doctrine of justification, he goes back to the Old Testament to Genesis 15. There the Scriptures say of Abraham, “He believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).

When Paul develops the doctrine of justification by faith alone, he is saying that when God counts somebody righteous on the basis of faith, it is not because He looks at them and sees that they are inherently righteous. Rather, they have been clothed by the imputation, or transfer, of the righteousness of Christ to that person by faith.

This is why we say that the single meritorious cause of our salvation is the transfer, or counting, of Jesus’ righteousness for me. Not only did He die to pay the penalty for my sins, but He lived a perfect life of obedience and fulfilled the law for those who put their trust in Him. This is what we’re talking about in imputation. That was the single, central, most important point of the sixteenth century Reformation.

In bearing out this point, Paul also looks to David:

Romans 4:6–8 ESV

6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

When we look at Jews in the first century and earlier, there are only a handful of people they put all of their stock behind. One was Abraham. The other was David. Paul uses both of them to prove his point. This idea that God will credit righteousness to those who are unrighteous because of faith is the undergirding factor.

Now we see the shift from looking at the law to looking at circumcision.

Romans 4:9–10 ESV

9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

Paul leaves no room for debate by asking the question. “Is membership into the kingdom for the circumcised only?”

See, first century Jews would know the story of Abraham. They wouldn’t need this reminder. But Paul points it out because they hadn’t thought through the implications of it.

Acts thru Corinthians The Principle of Faith (4:9–17)

Paul’s first-century readers would have been more familiar with the facts of the story (4:9–10) than most modern readers, so he didn’t need to spell out for them that God had declared Abraham righteous prior to the birth of Ishmael, at which time he was eighty-six (Genesis 16:16). Yet God did not instruct Abraham to receive the mark of circumcision until just prior to the birth of Isaac, when the patriarch was ninety-nine (Genesis 17:1, 11; 21:5). So Abraham’s circumcision had no direct connection to his righteousness before God.

See, circumcision was fine. There is nothing wrong with it. But circumcision isn’t the main idea.

Romans 4:11–12 ESV

11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

One commentary states:

Acts thru Corinthians The Principle of Faith (4:9–17)

There was no problem with circumcision being a sign of Jewishness, and the Jews could continue to honor Abraham as their father (4:12). But circumcision was not proof of a person’s righteous standing before God, and Abraham was also to be the father of those who came to God by faith and were not circumcised (4:11).

That was the point. That is why God made the covenant with Abraham before the circumcision. God didn’t just “think that up.” He purposefully put the covenant before the sign. Verse 11 says that “the sign of circumcision” comes after as the “seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.”

God made His promise to Abraham before He sealed it with circumcision. God’s promise of the covenant took effect immediately. God’s seal, the sign of circumcision, came later as a reminder to Abraham that God still held His covenant.

The point of it all was that Abraham was the father of all who believe in Christ, who was the fulfillment of God’s promise. The whole point is that circumcision, while a Jewish symbol of the covenant, was not the covenant. The covenant was that Abraham believed God before he could see the promise.

The covenant was not just for the Jews. It was for anyone who would believe. It is for all who “walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” (v12)

That is why it is important to understand. Salvation comes by faith. Not by works. Faith. Sola Fide.