Faith of Abraham
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Last week:
We saw that whether we followed the Law or not, none of us are righteous.
Remember we read in Romans 3:20
20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
and then we read in Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
So knowing that no one is justified by the law, but only by faith, we will see today that righteousness is by faith, not by any works that we have done.
1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?
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 credited to him as righteousness.”
4 Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due.
5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,
6 just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered.
8 “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”
Romans 4 (NASB95)
1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?
What has Abraham found??
Paul here, calls Abraham our forefather. This is Paul on the back of what he talked about in chapter 3, that the Jews are not justified by the law but by faith.
Now, Paul addresses the issue of Abraham being their father. Why? Because being a child of Abraham now gives them a position of entitlement.
Remember what we read in Romans 3:1-2
1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?
2 Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.
So the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God, but Paul just showed us that one is not justified by the Law, but by faith.
But what else gave the Jew an advantage? Its that they were children of Abraham!! Descendants of the promise.
Look at the interaction Jesus has with the Jews in John 8:31-40
31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
35 “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.
36 “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
37 “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.
38 “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.”
39 They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham.
40 “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.
They tell Jesus that they are children of Abraham, but yet, Jesus says that if you are children of Abraham, you would do what Abraham did. What did Abraham do? He believed God. But what are the Jews trying to do… they are trying to kill Jesus, something Abraham never did. But the interaction continues in John 8:52-58
52 The Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.’
53 “Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?”
54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’;
55 and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.
56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
57 So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”
Abraham rejoiced in the day of Jesus, and saw it!! When? In Genesis 18:1-3
1 Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day.
2 When he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth,
3 and said, “My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by.
So Abraham saw Jesus face to face, a Christophony, or the preincarnate Jesus Christ.
This is the forefather, according to the flesh. What has he found?
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 credited to him as righteousness.”
This is what Abraham found… GRACE!!!
Paul is referring to the story we read in Genesis 15:1-6
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.”
2 Abram said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
3 And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.”
4 Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”
5 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
6 Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Abraham believed God, He trusted that what He said He would do would happen. What a contrast to those we read about in Romans 1:18
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
Those who didn’t believe God, in fact, they suppressed the truth in their unbelief.
But not Abraham, He believed God. I love how Jon Courson commentates this reality:
Jon Courson’s Application Commentary (Chapter 4)
Was it when Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees—a place of real sophistication and wealth—that God declared Abraham righteous? No. Was it when Abraham took his son Isaac to Mount Moriah in order to offer him as a sacrifice that God declared him justified? No. God declared Abraham righteous when Abraham simply believed Him
To these Jews who knew Scripture well, Paul said, “Think about it. Abraham was not pronounced righteous when he was doing something spiritual or sacrificial. He was pronounced righteous when he simply believed God.”
This is what I love about this scripture, because even if Abraham had something to boast about, that isn’t where his righteousness came from . It came from His belief.
That is where we are too. When we believe God, when we believe that all our sins are covered by the finished work of Jesus Christ, we are declared righteous.
We don’t have to say a certain prayer, we don’t have to do some sort of penance, we don’t have to make any sacrifice, we don’t need to go get baptized, we don’t need to observe any ritual or rite… We just need to believe, and God credits that to us as righteousness.
4 Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due.
5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,
This is a stumbling block to many people, because we just want to know, “What must I do? I want to earn more favor and earn more grace in my life.”
This is what Jesus talks about in Matthew 20:1-16
1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
2 “When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3 “And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place;
4 and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went.
5 “Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing.
6 “And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’
7 “They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’
9 “When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.
10 “When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.
11 “When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner,
12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?
14 ‘Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.
15 ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last shall be first, and the first last.”
Grace, that is what the Lord gives. And this can be very offensive to us. Just like the first laborers, the ones Paul refer to here in Romans 4:4, they felt cheated by the grace of God.
But look at what we read in these next verses:
6 just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered.
8 “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”
David speaks of a blessing to all whose sins are forgiven by grace.
Again, I have seen many who want their sins to be forgiven by what they do. Whether a 12 step program or saying a bunch of Hail Mary’s, maybe depriving themselves of things in this life, with a hope that they will find righteousness through their own efforts.
Blessed are those who their righteousness was given by faith and not by an attempt of their own works.
9 Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, “Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.”
Here, Paul asks a great question… who is this righteousness through faith for? Was this just for the Jews? Was it for those who adhered to the Law? Was it for those who were descendants of Abraham? Look at how he answers:
10 How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised;
First, Abraham received the promise BEFORE being circumcised (V.10)
This means that it wasn’t because of circumcision that Abraham received the blessing, but rather, the other way around. In fact, it wasn’t till at least 13 years after what we read in Genesis 15, probably longer, that Abraham even received the covenant of circumcision.
11 and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them,
The sign of Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith. We read in Genesis 17:9-11
9 God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.
10 “This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised.
11 “And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you.
We remember what Paul says in Romans 2:29
29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.
True circumcision is of the heart, and we even read in Deuteronomy 10:16
16 “So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.
Paul tells us about our own circumcision in Colossians 2:11-12
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;
12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
We have a circumcision of the heart, one that removes the flesh away.
Abraham had the seal of circumcision, we have a different seal of God’s promise… The Holy Spirit
Ephesians 1:13- 14 says
13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,
14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
And then in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 it says:
21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God,
22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.
The Holy Spirit is our seal of salvation.
“so that he might be the father of all who believe”
The promise isn’t just for those who are circumcised, it is for ALL those who believe.
If that is the truth, then what does it mean for us??
Again, I like how Jon Coursen put it:
“When is a man saved? Not when he follows God’s call obediently or even offers himself sacrificially, but when, like Abraham, he simply says, “Lord, I believe You”
We receive salvation because of grace, not any of our works or efforts. And not only that, we also receive His blessing not according to our merit, but according to His promise.
12 and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.
13 For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.
This promise of righteousness through faith is not to Abrahams descendants of the flesh, but to everyone who believes.
14 For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified;
15 for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation.
16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
17 (as it is written, “A father of many nations have I made you”) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
So that it may be in accordance with grace.
Not earned or worked for, not given as a wage, but given as a favor, a favor of grace
So that it can be guaranteed to all
This is guaranteed to all Abraham’s descendants, not according to works, not according to the law, not according to the flesh, but according to faith.
18 In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”
Hope against hope he believed
We are given this wonderful story of Abraham in Hebrews 11:8-19
Hebrews 11:8–19 (NASB95)
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;
10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11 By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.
13 All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.
15 And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son;
18 it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.”
19 He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
Its not as everything was handed to Abraham on a silver platter. This wasn’t just God giving Abraham easy things to believe, but Abraham had hope against hope. He believed God, even though he was an alien, an outcast. Even though both him and Sarah were old, even though God promised many descendants. Even when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he believed God that He would resurrect the dead. We see all this in the next couple verses… but first:
So he could become the Father of many nations
Being a father of many nations was not only through the blood, but through faith.
Because he believed God, and he became righteous, now all who believe have that same promise and become heirs of it
19 Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb;
20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God,
21 and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.
22 Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness.
This is the faith that God wants us to have. To simply believe Him at His word.
We read in Psalm 125:1
1 Those who trust in the Lord Are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever.
23 Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him,
24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,
25 He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.
Here is the kicker for this whole thing… this was not just written for him, but for all of us.
Abraham wasn’t a special case, he wasn’t the only one who was found righteous because of faith. All of us are.
We don’t have to be Jewish, we don’t have to follow the law, we don’t have to be circumcised… All of us will be found righteous because of our faith. Whether you are a Jew or Gentile, Greek or Barbarian. Just as Paul says in Galatians 3:28
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Just like Abraham, his descendants according to the flesh weren’t found righteous because of that, neither are we righteous just because our parents or grandparents believed. Every person needs to make that decision on their own, every one of them need believe that God is, and the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The question in v.1, What did Abraham find??
Just like Genesis 15:6 says, that He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And since he is the father of many nations, that same righteousness is imputed to all of us who believe as well. And that is the grace the Abraham has found, not just for himself, but all who believe God.
