Bible Commentaries
Romans 4

Verses 1-25

The Example of Abraham (4:1-25)

Paul as a good Jew was particularly interested in Abraham. The main point of chapter 4 is that Abraham was "justified" by faith; in other words, that the reason for his standing with God —which no Jew would deny was a high one—was not that he was so good or obedient; his basic relation to God was one of faith. In 4:3 Abraham’s faith is described—"Abraham believed God." Paul is not claiming that Abraham was a Christian. He does claim that Abraham’s faith was the central feature of his relationship to God.

Abraham makes a first-class example, because you could take him as a type of both Jew and non-Jew. He was a Jew in the sense that he was the "father of his country," the original patri­arch, the founder of the race and the religion. Yet he was a Gentile in that he lived long before Moses, he came out of a non-Jewish background (where could he have found a Jewish back­ground?), his father had been an idol-worshiper (Joshua 24:2).

What had endeared Abraham to God? Not his keeping the Law; the Law had not yet been given. Not circumcision; when God first made a covenant with Abraham, the rite of circum­cision had not been performed. So, as Paul puts it, he was "the father of all who believe without being circumcised"—the Gen­tiles; "and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also follow the example of the faith which . . . Abraham had"—Jews who believe in Christ. Paul does not say that Abraham believed in Christ. What he does in­sist upon is that Abraham’s relation to God was not based on any­thing he had done, but on that simple trust in God, apart from any claims, which we call faith.

Note that Paul sometimes speaks of faith in Jesus (3:26) and sometimes of faith in God (4:24). This is another of the ways in which he almost merges God and Christ. At any rate, it would not be stretching the truth to say that for Paul, we are saved by faith in Jesus, or faith in God; it does not really matter which. How can you have faith in one without having faith in the other, he would ask.

A present-day Christian may wonder why Paul spends a whole chapter on Abraham, and why he repeats himself so often (for the argument is really finished with verse 12). This is be­cause of the kind of argument which Paul must have met in the synagogues many a time, and which he assumed would be raised at Rome. A Jew who could not see Paul’s point would think something like this: "See here, what is the difference between us Jews and the rest of the world? Why are we God’s Chosen Peo­ple? It is this: We are the People of the Law. We began by Law; we live by Law; we alone, of all the peoples of the earth, know what God wants and we alone do it. Yes, even Abraham, though he lived long before Moses, did as God commanded him. It’s perfectly simple: Obey God and he will reward you. All this talk Paul gives us about ’faith’ is morally upsetting. What you get from God depends on what you do, not on what you think."

Against that sort of argument, Paul is making these points:

(I) Faith is not a way of thinking. It is not a "believing-that," it Is a "believing-in." It is throwing oneself, so to speak, into the arms and the mercy of God. (2) If right relation with God de­pended on law, the Jews would get nowhere with it, because though they do know the Law after a fashion, they don’t keep It; and the Gentiles would get nowhere because they don’t even know the Law.

This is not all an old, forgotten debate. Don’t we know people who have no use for the Church because they "don’t need it"? Aren’t there people who think religion is not for the healthy-minded? They may not put it quite this way to themselves, but it boils down to this: "I suit myself all right. So God had better be suited with me, if he’s reasonable! I don’t want favors of God, 1 don’t ask for charity, all I want is my rights." Paul has already shown that this leaves us out in the dark. If we insist on "law"—that is, being good and doing good as a condition of God’s favor­able attitude toward us—we are sunk, because God’s standard is nothing short of perfection. So it’s either faith or nothing.

Of course there was still the objection that faith destroys law, that faith gives license to do as we please. Paul denies this in 3:31 and elsewhere; but the real case for the proposition that faith does not upset morals or throw character overboard is in all that Paul says, in this and other letters, about Christian con­duct. The life based on faith is actually of a higher quality than life based merely on law. But more of this later on. (See the com­ment on chapter 12 and following.)