JULY 18, 2021 LESSON
BACKGROUND SCRIPTURE Romans 4
A VERSE TO REMEMBER
“Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
(Rom. 4:3b)
THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM
STEPPING INTO THE WORD
Daily Bible Readings
M Jul. 12 Gen. 15:1-8 God’s Covenant with Abraham T Jul. 13 Gen. 12:1-9 All World’s Families Blessed
Through Abraham
W Jul. 14 Rom. 4:13-15 Promise Realized by Faith Not Law
Th Jul. 15 Rom. 4:16-18 For All Who Share Abraham’s Faith
F Jul. 16 Rom. 4:19-21 Abraham Believed Despite Impossible Odds Sa July 17 Rom. 4:22-25 In Christ, Believers Share
Abraham's Faith
I
n Romans 3 and 4, one of the most recognizable and debated concepts of Paul appears frequently: the idea of being saved and justified by faith rather th an works. Key words appear repeatedly in Romans and in other letters: “faith” (in Romans, over 40 times; Galatians, 22); “justification” (Rom., 12; Gal., 7); “grace” (Rom., 21; Gal., 8; 1 and 2 Cor., 16); “righteousness” (Rom., 29); “Abraham” (Rom., 9; Gal., 8; also numerous times in Luke, John, Acts, and Hebrews).
In Romans 4:3, referring to Genesis 15:6, Paul writes,
“Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righ
teousness (see 4:11, 22). Since Abraham was considered to be the father of the Hebrew faith and the progenitor of all the nations, what happened to him provides a model for Christian believers to follow. Abraham’s promise was not realized through obedience to the Hebrew law but through the grace (gift) of God (Romans 4:16). Abraham’s (and Sarah’s) faith that he could have a son in his old age was such a prime example of strong faith that Paul characterizes it as “hoping against hope” (4:18). It showed that “no distrust made him
waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised" (4:20-22). Paul develops this compelling value of faith further when he shows how it is extended to all believers in Jesus Christ. This justification and forgiveness from God was not given merely to Abraham and his descendants, but to all “who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our tres
passes and was raised for our justification” (4:24-25).
Dear God, help us to see that we are part of the lineage of Abraham, that the promises made to him are also ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SCRIPTURE Romans 4:1-12
4.1
What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our• J.
ancestor according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due.
sBut to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righ
teousness apart from works:
7“Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;
8blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”
9Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circum
cised, or also o n th e un circumcised? We say, “Faith was recko ned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. uHe 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 ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.
COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM AND US
P
aul’s understanding of the true nature of Abraham’s faith and his relationship with God is built on an interpretation of Old Testament Scriptures that was new for the apostle. Paul was raised as a Jew (Rom. 11:1) and was a member of the Pharisaic party that persecuted Christians (Gal. 1:13). According to Acts 23:6, he said, “I am a Ph arisee, a son of Pharisees.” Because of his direct encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus road (Acts 9) he began an entirely new life and became a leader of the church rather than its persecutor or tormentor.When Paul reread the story of Abraham’s relationship with God, he began to see it in light of the nature of covenant. The concept of covenant was based on the ancient arrangement that a king would make with his subjects or a landowner with his people. The king or the landowner would make a contract with the people under him: If they did what they were commanded, they would prosper and be protected. If they disobeyed, they would suffer punishment.
Paul’s understanding of God’s covenant with Abraham was derived from Genesis 12:1-3 where it is promised that if Abraham leaves his home area and goes to another land, he will be blessed.
The covenant is developed more fully in Genesis 17:2, 5-7 where God tells Abraham that he will become the ancestor of a multi
tude of nations, and an everlasting covenant will be made with him and his offspring. Abraham agrees to God’s promise and carries out a subsequent o rder to circumcise all males as a sign of the contract.
In Romans 4 and Galatians 3 and 4, Paul argues strongly that this contract is not based on what Abraham did or others do—
follow the works of the Jewish law—but through faith in God.
Although some Jews argued that righteousness and justification only came through circumcision, Paul states clearly that Abraham was given the promise of covenant before circumcision, not after (Rom. 4:10-12).
Paul argues that a new form of the Abrahamic covenant has been continued in faith in Christ. All who believe that Jesus was crucified for their sin and that God raised him are justified. Faith is now our trust in what Jesus did, not what we accomplished or failed to accomplish. As Romans 8:27 states, it is “a matter of the heart,” an inward and spiritual commitment.
How is this forgiveness achieved? It is stated concisely in Romans 10:9: “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
1. As quoted in Earl S. Johnson, Jr.,Witness without Parallel:
Eight Biblical Texts That Make Us Presbyterian (Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Knox
Press, 2003), 21-22,120.
Are we close to God by the power of the Spirit who searches our hearts (Rom. 8:26-27) or by the keeping of some written or unwritten laws?
THE LIBERATION OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH
P
aul's revolutionary idea that those who believe in Christ no longer have to feel guilty if they are unable to keep the Ten Commandments or the more than six hundred laws in the Old Testament perfectly has offered freedom to many Christians throughout history. He puts it this way in Galatians 5:1: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” In Romans 5:5, he again draws attention to the inner peace and hope that is produced: “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”Over the years we have witnessed truly moving expressions of this freedom of the heart. The Protestant reformer Martin Luther had his eyes opened to abuses of works righteousness by the Roman Catholic Church in his day. When he read Romans 1:16-17 he wrote, “Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates." At the beginning of the twentieth century the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, writing just months after the carnage of Word War 1, said history was “between the times” and a new generation of Christians was needed to renew a correct understanding of the relationship between law and gospel. What he found in Romans blew him away: “something quite surprising and strange.” “It was often as though I caught a breath from afar .. . something primeval. .. indefinably sunny, wild, original that somehow is hidden behind these sentences."1
These comments about the importance of Romans may give us pause, especially if we have not read it recently or at all. The crisis that Paul faced demanded powerful words. Some of his opponents argued that in order for Gentiles to come inside the church they had to observe Jewish standards of the law, espe
cially the rite of circumcision. But when Paul insisted that even this physical act was really sp iritual, he allowed Jews and Gentiles to appreciate the newness that comes with faith: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for any
2. Jouette M.
Bassler, Navigating Paul: An Introduction to Key Theological Concepts (Louisville, KY:
Geneva Press, 2007), 66.
thing; the only thing that counts is faith working through love”
(Gal. 5:6).
This freedom that Paul had and offered to all others in Christ has opened new vistas of faith for readers throughout the ages and can create new avenues of action and belief for us as well.
According to Jouette M. Bassler, Paul grounded his gospel on the concept that God’s saving righteousness must be equally avail
able to all: “It was a brilliant piece of rhetoric and a breathtaking theological vision.”2
Does reading Romans open new doors of faith for you in today's world? What are they?
STEPPING INTO THE WORLD
I
t is worthwhile to consider God’s covenant with Abraham in relation to our own faith and actions. The concept of a contract with God does not start with Abraham, of course, but with Noah. After the flood, God tells Noah and his sons, “I am estab
lishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you,” and gives the rainbow as a sign of the promise (Gen. 9:9-17). In Genesis 12, Abram is given a contract with God that is restated in chapter 17 and numerous times following.
In today’s world, we are familiar with covenants and contracts.
One primary covenant is marriage, although statistics prove that many Americans find it difficult to maintain these life-long promises. We also make covenants when we sign work contracts, enter college or university, and take out mortgages and car loans, and we know that there are penalties when we do not fulfill our agreements.
In Romans, Paul acknowledges how difficult it is for us to keep our promises to God in Christ. All people are under the power of sin (3:9); all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (3:23). As he continues to write, Paul admits that it is possible that sin can still dominate our lives, even those of us who believe (6:12), and he urges his readers not to present themselves as instruments of wickedness. But the great thing is that even though we are not perfect in keeping God’s commandments and the law of love, we are still forgiven in Jesus Christ. Who will rescue us from the domination of sin? “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (7:25).
Although these covenants are very fundamental, we know that when we violate our promises to God, we are still loved and forgiven, which is one reason why most churches include a Prayer of Confession in their services of worship. One well known confession from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer helps us to admit our situation succinctly: “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us.”
To put it in modern terms, we can admit that we continually need to see a spiritual cardiologist, perhaps even to have a heart transplant. The words of Psalm 51 remind us of our needs:
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit with me.
Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
(Psalm 51:10-12)
What covenants have you broken recently? Do you need to be restored in love to a neighbor, to a friend, or to God?
SCRIPTURE NOTES
The following notes provide additional information about today's Scripture that may be helpful for your study.
1. Paul asks, “What does the scripture say?” This phrase was commonly used by the Jews when questioning practices that seemed contrary to Scripture. Paul produces verification from Scripture (Gen. 15:6), proving that Abraham was justified by faith and not by works.
2. Paul asserts that Abraham was justified by faith, and his faith was counted as righteousness. Further, Paul explains that if people were to be justified by works, faith would be of no use and the promises of God would have no effect.
3. The Jews place great value in the fact that Abraham was the father and founder of Israel. Paul knew that an argument drawn from his example or conduct would be especially powerful to Christians of Jewish background in the church at Rome.
