Hope Against Hope
Intro:
As Israel’s ancestor, Abraham was regarded as the model for their faith; he was also regarded as the model proselyte (convert to Judaism), because he was considered a Gentile before his circumcision. Jewish readers believed that they had been chosen in Abraham and that virtually every Israelite would be saved by God’s grace if they maintained the covenant. Gentiles who wished to become part of the chosen community, however, had to be circumcised and join Israel in doing the righteous deeds of the law, as Abraham did.
Justification is the act of God whereby He declares that a sinful person is righteous, based on a belief and trust in Jesus Christ rather than in the person’s own good works. It is a change of state from guilt to righteousness.
Biblical Overview. The concept of justification has its background in the OT. The Hebrew term for to justify or to be righteous indicated that one was declared free from guilt. The idea carried legal connotations. This can be seen in usages where justification is contrasted with condemnation (see Deut 25:1; Prov 17:15; Isa 5:23). It can also be found in settings that imply a process of judgment (see Gen 18:25; Ps 143:2).
Justification was not merely an ethical quality of character. Rather, it emphasized being righteous; that is, having a right relationship to a certain standard. This standard was God’s very own nature and person. As such only He could could perfectly judge whether a person had lived up to the criterion for the relationship. Therefore justification in the OT involved declaring that a person had been faithful to the requirements of the relationship in accordance to the standard given by God.
The basis for a believer’s justification is the death of Jesus Christ. People are not able to justify themselves by performing good works (Rom 3:28; Gal 2:16). Christ was “made sin” (2 Cor 5:21) in the place of sinners, dying as their substitute. God’s justice was demonstrated by punishing sin through the death of Christ (Rom 3:21–26). In Christ’s death God justified Himself (by punishing sin), as well as justifying believing sinners (by crediting Christ’s righteousness to them).
The way a person receives God’s justification is through faith. Faith is an absolute reliance in Jesus Christ and His work for salvation. Faith should not be considered a good work (Rom 3:28), for it rests on grace (Rom 4:16) and excludes works (Eph 2:8–9). Faith is a condition that has no merit in itself; rather, it rests upon the merit of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Justification is something that is completely undeserved. It is not an attainment but the gracious gift of God. Not every sinner is justified, only those who believe in Jesus Christ.
4:18–25 Abraham believed “against all hope” (v. 18), i.e., in the face of contrary evidence, and “in hope” (v. 18), i.e., by resting on the hope of God’s sure promise. His faith in a God who brings life from the dead is then a paradigm for Christians, who also believe in a God who brought life to the dead body of Jesus.
παρʼ ἐλπίδα could be taken as “beyond hope” in the sense that it went beyond the outer limit of human hope. Most commentators take it to mean “against hope,” i.e., it flies in the face of what can be reasonably expected from a human standpoint. ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι means either “on the basis of hope” or “in an attitude of hope.”
The paradoxical quality of Abraham’s faith is seen in the contrasting prepositional phrases “against all hope” and “in hope.” From a human standpoint there was no hope that he would have descendants.70 Yet with God all things are possible (cf. Matt 19:26).
In classical literature ἐλπίς normally connoted uncertainty about the future. In the OT, however, it came to mean the confident expectation of that which would certainly come to pass. Like faith, it rested upon God’s integrity.
Barrett writes, “It is when human hope is exhausted that God-given hope (cf. 8:24f.) comes into effect” (Romans, 976). Calvin comments that “there is nothing more inimical to faith than to bind understanding to sight, so that we seek the substance of our hope from what we see” (The Epistle of Paul to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, trans. R. Mackenzie [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961], 96). Nygren notes that it is only when “without hope” and “yet with hope” stand over against each other that real faith is found (Romans, 160).
Therefore he believed what God said. His hope was not the invincible human spirit rising to the occasion against all odds but a deep inner confidence that God was absolutely true to his word. Faith is unreasonable only within a restricted worldview that denies God the right to intervene. His intervention is highly rational from the biblical perspective, which not only allows him to intervene but actually expects him to show concern for those he has created in his own image. Because Abraham believed, he became “the father of many nations.”
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 things that are not as though they were.
The God “who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” was clearly the object of the patriarch’s faith. It is fundamental that we understand that the object of one’s faith is most important. One’s faith, outstanding as it may be, will never benefit its owner if it has the wrong object.
One of the favorite books around our house is the Guinness Book of World Records. It has been on our shelf for years. Now and then I see one of my boys reading it to stock up on trivia. How much did the heaviest man weigh? (1,069 pounds.) How tall was the tallest man of modern times? (8’11”. He wore a size 37AA shoe.) What is the world’s record for bearing children? (Sixty-nine. The record was set by a Russian peasant woman who achieved great honor in her country. She had eight sets of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quads.) This is terribly important information for the trivia buff, hence our valued dog-eared copy! But, alas, I did find an error in the esteemed Guinness Book because it states that the oldest mother on record gave birth in October 1956 at the age of fifty-seven, thus setting the world record. However, this is entirely wrong!
The final value of Abraham in respect to justification is that his faith becomes the standard for all believers. “Against all hope,” this man believed. In view of his “deadened” condition (and that of Sarah likewise) because of advanced age, the situation seemed past hope. Nevertheless, he believed the promise of God that offspring would be given. “In hope” takes account of the great change that came over his outlook due to the pledge God gave him. After making the original promise (Gen 15:5), God waited until it was physically impossible for this couple to have children. Then he repeated his pledge (Gen 17:5). Abraham’s act of faith was essentially the same as on the previous occasion, but meanwhile circumstances had made the fulfillment of the promise impossible apart from supernatural intervention. He was shut up to God and was able to rest his faith there.
4:18. Though humanly there was no hope of ever having a child, the old patriarch believed God’s Word. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. God honored his faith, and he became the father (ancestor) of many nations. This was in accord with God’s promise, So shall your offspring be (a quotation of Gen. 15:5).
4:19. Verses 19–21 restate in specific details the first part of verse 18 about Abraham’s hope. Abraham without weakening in his faith … faced the fact (lit., “considered carefully”) that his body was as good as dead (some Gr. mss. add the word “already”), a reference to the patriarch’s advanced age (Gen. 17:17; 21:5). Abraham also considered carefully that Sarah’s womb was also dead. She was unable to conceive a child, as had been demonstrated through their life together (cf. Gen. 16:1–2; 18:11) and as was certainly true for her at age 90 (Gen. 17:17).
4:20–21. In spite of the humanly impossible situation, Abraham did not waver through (lit., “by”) unbelief. “Waver” (diekrithē) means “to be divided” (sometimes trans. “doubt,” as in James 1:6). The patriarch was strengthened in his faith (lit., “was empowered [enedynamōthē, from endynamoō] by means of faith”). God, responding to Abraham’s faith, empowered him and Sarah physically to generate the child of promise. Also he gave glory to God, that is, he praised God by exalting or exclaiming His attributes. Abraham was fully persuaded that God had power (dynatos, “spiritual ability”) to do what He had promised. What confidence in God this spiritual forefather possessed! He “in hope believed” (Rom. 4:18); he was not weak in faith despite insuperable odds (v. 19); he was not divided in his thinking by unbelief (v. 20a); he was empowered by faith (v. 20b); and he was fully persuaded God has the ability to do what He had said (v. 21).
Abraham looked ahead to the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises (Heb 11:13). Christians can look ahead to this consummation with even greater assurance because we also look back at the climactic fulfillment of God’s promises in Jesus.
4:17. Judaism agreed that God could speak things into being (e.g., Gen 1:3). Paul says that God’s promise to Abraham was thus enough to transform Gentiles into his children (especially because God decreed Abraham father of many nations just before telling him to be circumcised—Gen 17:5).
4:18–22. Faith as defined in Abraham’s experience is not passive assent to what God says; it is an enduring dependence on God’s promise, on which one stakes one’s life and lives accordingly. On the level of meaning, Paul and James (Jas 2:14–26) would agree. It is possible, although far from certain, that Paul’s analogy here alludes to the offering and survival of Isaac, Abraham’s son (Gen 22).
Good works do not procure justification. Works, however, are the way people demonstrate that they are justified by faith (Jas 2:18).
4:13 not through the law. In Gal 3:15–18, Paul points out that God gave the law of Moses “430 years” (Gal 3:17) after his promise to Abraham. Here Paul focuses on the law’s intrinsic inability to bring sinful humans into the state of righteousness. heir of the world. The OT focuses on the land of Israel as the “inheritance” that Abraham and his descendants would receive (Gen 12:7; 13:14–15; 15:7, 18–21; 17:8; see Exod 32:13). But from the beginning, God promised that Abraham would be the means by which “all peoples on earth [would] be blessed” (Gen 12:3). Later parts of the OT (e.g., Isa 11:10–14; 55:3–5) and some Jewish traditions (in the Apocrypha, see Sirach 44:21; in the OT pseudepigrapha, see Jubilees 19:21; 2 Baruch 14:13; 51:3) stress that God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants is universal. Paul, reflecting certain OT texts (e.g., Isa 65:17–25), pushes this universalization further, suggesting that the entire cosmos has replaced the promise of a particular land on this earth (see the language of “new creation” in 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; see also the “new heaven” and “new earth” of Rev 21:1–5).
4:17 as it is written. Quoted from Gen. 17:5 gives life to the dead. Abraham had experienced this firsthand (Heb. 11:11, 12; cf. Rom. 4:19). calls those things which do not exist as though they did. This is another reference to the forensic nature of justification. God can declare believing sinners to be righteous even though they are not, by imputing His righteousness to them, just as God made or declared Jesus “sin” and punished Him, though He was not a sinner. Those whom He justifies, He will conform to the image of His Son (8:29, 30).
4:18 contrary to hope. From the human perspective, it seemed impossible (cf. v. 19). Cf. Gen. 17:5. what was spoken. Quoted from Gen. 15:5.
4:19 weak in faith. When doubt erodes one’s confidence in God’s Word. the deadness of Sarah’s womb. She was only 10 years younger than Abraham (Gen. 17:17), 90 years old (well past childbearing age) when they received the promise of Isaac.
He was justified by Resurrection power, not human effort (vv. 18–25). These verses are an expansion of one phrase in Romans 4:17: “who quickeneth the dead.” Paul saw the rejuvenation of Abraham’s body as a picture of resurrection from the dead; and then he related it to the resurrection of Christ.
One reason why God delayed in sending Abraham and Sarah a son was to permit all their natural strength to decline and then disappear. It was unthinkable that a man ninety-nine years old could beget a child in the womb of his wife who was eighty-nine years old! From a reproductive point of view, both of them were dead.
But Abraham did not walk by sight; he walked by faith. What God promises, He performs. All we need do is believe. Abraham’s initial faith in God as recorded in Genesis 15 did not diminish in the years that followed. In Genesis 17–18, Abraham was “strong in faith.” It was this faith that gave him strength to beget a son in his old age.
The application to salvation is clear: God must wait until the sinner is “dead” and unable to help himself before He can release His saving power. As long as the lost sinner thinks he is strong enough to do anything to please God, he cannot be saved by grace. It was when Abraham admitted that he was “dead” that God’s power went to work in his body. It is when the lost sinner confesses that he is spiritually dead and unable to help himself that God can save him.
All of these facts make Abraham’s faith that much more wonderful. He did not have a Bible to read; he had only the simple promise of God. He was almost alone as a believer, surrounded by heathen unbelievers. He could not look back at a long record of faith; in fact, he was helping to write that record. Yet Abraham believed God. People today have a complete Bible to read and study. They have a church fellowship, and can look back at centuries of faith as recorded in church history and the Bible. Yet many refuse to believe!
It must have been something when Abraham gave Sarah the news. I can imagine Sarah saying, “Where have you been?” Perhaps he said, “I have been outside having my devotions.” And Sarah asked, “How was it?” Abraham may have replied, “It was great! I had a conversation with God. He told me something amazing.” She replied, “What was it?” And he blurted out, as only a man will, “Well, you’re going to have a baby!” I would like to have heard what Sarah said then.
4. Ray C. Stedman, From Guilt to Glory, Volume 1 (Waco, TX: Word, 1981), p. 10.
4:20 the promise. Of the birth of a son (Gen. 15:4; 17:16; 18:10). giving glory to God. Believing God affirms His existence and character and thus gives Him glory (cf. Heb. 11:6; 1 John 5:10).
That he really trusted God for the fulfillment of the promise is seen in his readiness to proceed with circumcision for himself and his household before Isaac was conceived (Gen 17:23–27). This act in itself could be construed as giving “glory to God,” an expression of trust in the power of the Almighty to make good his promise. Moreover, it was an open testimony to others of his trust in God’s faithfulness to his word. If God should fail in this matter, Abraham would be an object of pity by some, of ridicule by others.
ἐνεδυναμώθη is a divine passive. Abraham was strengthened by God (1) “in respect to [his] faith” (taking τῇ πίστει as a dative of respect), or (2) “by means of [his] faith” (taking the dative as instrumental). Newman and Nida write that “because of the contrast between the first and second parts of v. 20, one may introduce the latter part by some adversative conjunction—for example, ‘but rather his faith filled him with power’ ” (Romans, 88). Murray says this interpretation is not unreasonable but goes on to argue against it (Romans, 1:150–51).
Abraham’s faith was strengthened through the ordeal. As muscles develop when kept in tension, so was Abraham’s faith strengthened by the experience he was going through. His faith rose to the occasion, and Abraham “gave glory to God.”79 He praised him for who he was and what he would do.
For this OT expression see 1 Sam 6:5; 1 Chr 16:28. Cranfield writes that “a man gives glory to God when he acknowledges God’s truthfulness and goodness and submits to His authority” (Romans, 1: 249). Luther cites Augustine as saying that God is glorified through faith, hope, and love, and then refers to the fact that God is directly insulted by three sins: unbelief, despair and hatred (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, trans. J. T. Mueller [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954], 71).
Abraham’s faith faced two obstacles. The obvious barrier to his believing God would give him a child was the biological impossibility due to Sarah’s and his age.
The less obvious obstacle was the staggering nature of the promise. That is, the promise was so wonderful, it was hard to believe—it was too good to be true!
Some argue convincingly that verse 21 is one of the best definitions of faith in the Bible as it describes Abraham as “being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.” May we glorify God in the same way, taking him at his word.
4:23–25. Paul begins to apply his exposition about Abraham to his readers (the application carries through 5:11). Ancient teachers (Jewish and Greco-Roman) often used examples to exhort their hearers or readers to think and act differently.
4:17 many nations. Gen 17:5 (which Paul quotes here) probably includes Gentiles; Paul certainly applies it this way. the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. Paul probably intends four related ideas: (1) “Calls into being things that were not” alludes to God’s creating all things from nothing (ex nihilo; cf. Isa 41:4; 48:13). (2) Jews used the phrase “gives life to the dead” to refer to conversion from paganism (especially in the OT pseudepigrapha, Joseph and Asenath). (3) God gave “life” to the “dead” body of Abraham and the “dead” womb of Sarah in the miraculous birth of Isaac (v. 19). (4) God also gave “life” to the dead body of Jesus by raising him from the dead (v. 24).
The same God who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead quickened the “dead” body of Abraham so as to make parenthood possible.
Nygren writes that “when our own possibilities fail, faith increases; for it does not rest on ourselves and our own adequacy, but on God and His promise” (Romans, 181).
Where God is present, there is nothing that lies outside the realm of possibility. The church of Jesus Christ is in desperate need of those who will insist that God is able to bring to pass anything that is consistent with his nature and in concert with his redemptive purposes. “Your God Is Too Small” is a sad epitaph inscribed on all too many ecclesiastical groups who, strange as it may seem, claim to worship the Almighty.
Abraham was “fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (v. 21). This statement epitomizes what it means to believe in God. It is complete confidence in his ability and integrity
Harrison makes the interesting comment that “as far as Abraham was concerned, he was not taking a chance. He was ‘fully persuaded’ that God’s power would match his promise” (“Romans,” 53).
Abraham grasped two massive concepts about God. First, he understood that God “gives life to the dead.” Although there had been no recorded resurrection at this point in history, and although God had not revealed any doctrine of resurrection, Abraham believed in God’s resurrection power! This was borne out when he obediently raised the knife above Isaac. He knew that if Isaac died, God could resurrect him (cf. Genesis 22:5).
Robert Dick Wilson was one of the great professors at Princeton Theological Seminary. One of his students had been invited to preach in Miller Chapel twelve years after his graduation. Old Dr. Wilson came in and sat down near the front. At the close of the meeting, the old professor came up to his former student, cocked his head to one side in his characteristic way, extended his hand, and said, “If you come back again, I will not come to hear you preach. I only come once. I am glad that you are a big-godder. When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big-godders or little-godders, and then I know what their ministry will be.” His former student asked him to explain, and he replied, “Well, some men have a little god, and they are always in trouble with him. He can’t do any miracles. He can’t take care of the inspiration and transmission of the Scripture to us. He doesn’t intervene on behalf of his people. They have a little god and I call them little-godders. Then, there are those who have a great God. He speaks and it is done. He commands and it stands fast. He knows how to show himself strong on behalf of them that fear him. You have a great God; and he will bless your ministry.” He paused a moment, smiled, said, “God bless you,” and turned and walked out.
If our view of God is as exalted as Abraham’s, if we see God as so vast that he creates ex nihilo and gives life to the dead, if you and I really believe this, if we are “big-godders,” it will make an equally immense difference in our faith and approach to life. Two questions are relevant here: 1) Is God the object of our faith? 2) How do we perceive the object of our faith?
How did Abraham come to such a massive exercise of faith? He weighed the human impossibility of becoming a father against the divine impossibility of God being able to break his word and decided that if God was God, nothing is impossible. As F. F. Bruce says, the patriarch believed “the bare word of God.” Genesis 17 reveals that God appeared before him and spoke directly to him, revealing himself as El Shaddai, the God of bounty and reproduction. And amidst involuntary laughter Abraham believed.