Rom 4.13-25
abraham’s faith and ours
Romans 4.13-25
Jason Procopio
There is a good podcast I know many of you have listened to called “Ask Pastor John.” In that podcast, John Piper answers questions about the Bible that listeners send in by email.
In 2007, he answered a question that is very simple and very difficult at the same time.
The question was this:
“If I believe that Jesus is the Son of God the same way that I believe that Vladimir Putin is the leader of Russia, have I fulfilled the conditions needed to be saved? Or is there more to belief than that?”
Here was the first sentence of Dr. Piper’s answer: “We know that it doesn't fulfill the conditions, because the devil believes it.”
Few things could be more conclusive. The devil, as we see in multiple places in the Bible, believes that Jesus is the Son of God. He believes in who Christ is, and he hates him for it.
Biblical belief in other words, is much more than simple intellectual assent. This is surprising even for many Christians, when they hear it. We have so often heard or inferred that to believe something is to accept its reality. But there’s more to it than that. My dad used to give this good example. He took a chair—whatever chair happened to be around—and he described the chair: it’s made of metal, there are two hinges that make it fold, there is a seat and a back, etc. Looking at the chair, examining the chair, it’s pretty easy to conclude that it’s solid.
But the only way to know for sure is to sit in it: when you sit in a chair, you trust that it will hold you in a different way than you did when you only looked at it.
Trust is the vital component to biblical faith. There has to be intellectual assent, absolutely; but if you stop there, and don’t trust in Christ, then you don’t truly, fully believe in him.
This trust, this fundamental aspect of faith, is at the center of today’s text.
Righteousness by Faith, Faith by Grace (v. 13-15)
In today’s text, which runs from verse 13 of Romans 4 until the end of the chapter, Paul is going to continue the argument he made last time, but he’s going to go deeper. We remember that Paul has been showing us that all human beings have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and have been justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (3.23-24). Justification is a legal reality—we stand before God, our Judge, and he gives a verdict concerning us—in which two fundamental things happen: God removes our sin, our rebellion, our corruption; and he gives us righteousness. He takes our sin, and places it on Christ, and punishes him for it on the cross; and he takes the perfect life Christ lived, and he gives it to us, and declares us righteous.
God gave Jesus Christ as a propitiation for our sins: that is, he offered Christ as a sacrifice that totally absorbed God’s wrath against our sin; and now, we are saved purely through faith in the perfect sacrifice that Christ is.
And the example Paul gave to show that salvation have always been by grace, through faith, is Abraham. He shows that Abraham had the physical marker of God’s people—circumcision—but that he had faith in God before he received that sign. Abraham believed God, we see in v. 3, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
So in v. 13, Paul continues with his example of Abraham, and deepens his argument. V. 13:
13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
So you can see that Paul has gone from talking about circumcision to talking about “the law”—that is, the law of Moses. He’s bringing the argument to bear on his Jewish readers; circumcision is a kind of shorthand for the whole law. What he says in v. 13 is simply another way of saying that it isn’t circumcision that saved Abraham, it’s not his following the law that validated the promise, but rather, what saved Abraham was the righteousness that he received by faith.
And of course that makes sense, because if human beings could be declared righteous by keeping the law, then there’s no point in the promise.
So Abraham was not declared righteous by keeping the law, and he couldn’t have been. Why not? V. 15:
For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
This is a very difficult sentence. The first part is easy: the law brings wrath. He said this earlier in chapter 3, verse 20, when he said that through the law comes the knowledge of sin. The law shows us the perfect standard of God’s holiness, and proves us guilty before God, and deserving of his punishment.
The difficult part comes after: where there is no law, there is no transgression.
Really? The Law of Moses isn’t given until the second book in the Bible. Or, if you count circumcision as the beginning of the Law, Genesis 17. But I seem to remember something about a huge flood that was God’s judgment against sinful man. Surely there was transgression before the law.
True. But remember what he said all the way back in chapter 1, verses 18-21: God has put in every human heart an instinctive knowledge of his existence, and an expectation that they honor him as Creator. And every one of us have failed to live up to this expectation and follow that knowledge.
Already this would be enough to condemn us—as Paul said, we are without excuse.
But when the law came, the guilt of his people was intensified, because now the transgression was named. It was identified. This is why the law brings wrath: God’s commands, clearly identified, point to the one who fails to obey, and declares him guilty.
So Paul is speaking here in a legal sense; if we wanted to rephrase the second part of v. 15, we could say, “Because you have the law, you can see that you have sinned against God.”
Now, why does he bring this up? He brings it up to emphasize once again that the law cannot save you—not because the law is bad or weak, but because you are. The law can’t save you because you can’t follow it. If you want to be saved, you don’t turn to the law; you turn to him. If you want to be saved, you need his grace.
And the extraordinary news that Paul gives us here is that God has always had the intention of saving his people by grace, through faith. V. 16:
16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
There are two extraordinary things we see here. The first is related to the example he gave of Abraham earlier. Paul tells us that because our salvation does not depend on the law but on faith, every man and every woman and every child who has faith in Christ are “offspring of Abraham”, whether we’re Jewish or not, whether we’re physical, biological descendants of Abraham or not.
We saw this two weeks ago: if we share Abraham’s faith, we have been adopted into his family. We are his descendants. We have been brought into a story much bigger than our own.
The second amazing thing Paul draws our attention to here is the power of God to make this happen. Abraham received the promise in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
It can be very easy to doubt that God would save us—why would he? We know we don’t deserve it, we know we can’t earn it by our obedience, because our obedience could never be complete enough.
But it doesn’t matter. Because as far as we are from God, as deep as our sin runs in our hearts, God’s power is infinitely greater. Our God is the Creator of all things. He created the world with a word. He created everything that exists. And he has absolute power over his creation, which includes our own hearts and souls. God is powerful enough to give life to the dead, and call into existence the things that do not exist. Our sin is no match for God’s power; the struggle between the two is the most inequitable struggle in history.
We believe because God is powerful, and if he decides to save someone, he won’t fail. He is powerful to bring sinful men and women, who have been born both inside and outside of his people, and save them all, and bring them all together under one banner: the family of God.
Abraham’s Faith and Ours (v. 18-25)
Now at this point I’m sure you’ve noticed that many times in this message and in the message from two weeks ago I have used a specific phrase: “If we share the faith of Abraham.” If we share the faith of Abraham, we are his descendants. If we share the faith of Abraham, we are saved.
But how can this be? Our faith is in Jesus Christ, and Abraham didn’t know who Jesus was; he lived centuries before Christ ever came on the scene.
That’s true. I used the word “share” the faith of Abraham as shorthand. Paul is actually more specific than that; he says in 4.12 that Abraham is the father of those who walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had.
So it’s not that Abraham’s faith was exactly the same as ours—he didn’t know who Jesus was—but rather that his faith had a very specific quality that our faith will have if it is true faith. And that quality is hopeful belief in the promises of God.
V. 18:
18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.
The promise Abraham received from God is that he would become the father of many nations. It’s subtle here, but much more explicit elsewhere in the letter: we are living God’s fulfillment of his promise to Abraham. This week on Slack I asked you all to help me make a list of all the countries or territories represented in our church; I had somewhere between ten and fifteen in mind. But your answers astounded me: there are at least 42 nations or territories represented in our church:
The two countries with the most representation in our church are France and Madagascar. However, we also have (in no particular order):
• Mauritius,
• Russia,
• Ukraine,
• Madagascar,
• Egypt,
• Cameroon,
• Tunisia,
• Vietnam,
• Hong Kong,
• Taiwan,
• the Hmong People,
• Sri Lanka,
• Spain,
• the Republic of Congo,
• Congo Kinshasa,
• Romania,
• the United States,
• Switzerland,
• Holland,
• Portugal,
• Cambodia,
• China,
• Swaziland,
• the Republic of Nauru,
• East Timor,
• Liechtenstein,
• Gabon,
• Australia,
• Malaysia,
• Wales,
• England,
• Scotland,
• Germany,
• Rwanda,
• Serbia,
• Algeria,
• the Dominican Republic,
• Mexico,
• Senegal,
• Ethiopia,
• and Italy
And through our faith in Christ, we have been brought into Abraham’s family: God has done what he has said. He made Abraham the father of many nations.
But Abraham, at the time, didn’t see all that. He didn’t know how this would happen. He had a promise from God, and in hope he believed against hope that God was telling the truth, and would do what he promised, no matter how unlikely it seemed.
As you get older, you take certain things for granted. I’m 41. I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll never again be able to ride a roller coaster without it hurting my neck. I’ll never again be able to eat an entire bag of candy without feeling horrible. I used to be quite agile on a trampoline—I could do double flips and everything. Not anymore.
Abraham had long since given up the idea of having children: he’s old—Paul says that his body was “as good as dead”—and his wife has always been barren, and is now old herself. The idea that he and his wife might have a baby as senior citizens was as ridiculous as the idea that I could fly like Superman.
Abraham had plenty of very good reasons to not believe, to not have hope.
Even so, these legitimate reasons for disbelief did not cause Abraham to disbelieve. V. 20:
20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
So you see, Abraham’s belief was focused on a very specific promise: that God would make him the father of many nations. He did have questions—we can see it in Genesis 17, when he asks God to let Ishmael, his other son with another woman, be the son of the promise. But when it came down to it, when God said, “No, I will do this my way, and give you a son through Sarah,” Abraham believed him. And after Isaac was finally born, when God commanded that Abraham offer him up as a sacrifice, Abraham believed that even if he did it, God would raise Isaac from the dead.
Why? Because he believed that God would do what he promised. God said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named,” and Abraham said, “Okay. I trust you.”
So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the promise of God in which we are called to believe, like Abraham did? V. 22 again:
22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Many people have suggested that v. 25 is a credal statement that Paul has adopted, but in the end it doesn’t matter: he has fully adopted it and integrated it into his argument. This, brothers and sisters, is the promise, in which we are called to believe: Jesus Christ was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
And both parts of this sentence are important.
Jesus our Lord was delivered up for our trespasses. Who delivered him up for our trespasses? God did.
Remember what the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 53.5-6 (to which this part of v. 25 is probably referring):
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Or what Paul himself said just a few verses earlier, in Romans 3.25:
God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
Remember what that word means. A “propitiation” is a sacrifice that removes wrath. Christ was a propitiation in that he became a sacrifice on behalf of God’s people, and his sacrifice absorbed all of God’s wrath against our sin. His sacrifice was sufficient. Every last drop of the wrath God had against our sin, he poured out on Christ. That is why he sent Christ in the first place. God sent Christ so that he would suffer everything we deserve to suffer for our rebellion against God.
God is a just God, who does not punish the same sin twice: once his punishment is dealt, justice has been done. God punished Christ, for our sin—so now his wrath is satisfied. It is gone, because justice has been done. The punishment has fallen—it just fell on Christ instead of us.
So he was delivered up for our trespasses…and he was raised for our justification.
We talked about this earlier. When God justifies us, he doesn’t just declare us innocent of wrongdoing; he declares us righteous—not because of our own righteousness (which is very incomplete and imperfect), but because of Christ’s perfect righteousness, given to us.
But the way Paul phrases this is curious: Christ delivered up for our trespasses, and raised for our justification. Does Paul mean that Christ’s death secured our forgiveness, and that his resurrection secured our justification? We split hairs about it, but Paul probably wasn’t trying giving a doctrinal statement to describe the minutiae of salvation.
By saying it this way, he is trying to show us two things: that Christ’s death and resurrection are inseparable—you can’t talk about one without including the other; and that, as Thomas Schreiner says, “his resurrection authenticates and confirms that our justification has been secured”.
I hope you realize what this means. This means that in regards to your salvation, if you have placed your faith in Christ, there is no longer any reason to doubt. The question of whether you are saved, or whether you will stay saved, is no longer a question you need to ask. You needn’t doubt, not because you are good enough to be justified, but because Christ was raised from the dead.
This is both our assurance in the present, and our hope for the rest of our lives on this earth. This is our confidence in our present standing with God, and it is our confidence in the hope that we will continually become more like Christ.
It is our safeguard. If we do not believe that our salvation is sure because Christ was raised from the dead, we will not grow to be like him. Because we will be perpetually unsteady on our feet; we’ll always have the feeling that we’re missing something. We’ll always feel like we need to do something for the wrong reason—we’ll feel like we have to obey, not out of gratitude for the grace of God in Christ, but in order to be good enough to obtain salvation.
But we’ll quickly see that we’re not good enough, and we’ll think, What’s the point?
The death and the resurrection of Christ is our safeguard against such fatalism. Because God, the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, raised Jesus from the dead, we can know that he has declared righteous all those who place their faith in him. And because we are sure of our justification, we can be sure that he will conform us to the image of his Son.
Douglas Moo says this: “As Jesus’ death provides the necessary grounds on which God’s justifying action can proceed, so his resurrection, by vindicating Christ and freeing him forever from the influence of sin (cf. 6:10), provides for the ongoing power over sins experienced by the believer in union with Christ.”
He was delivered for our trespasses, and raised for our justification. This it the promise we believe, and it is for this reason that our faith, like Abraham’s, is counted to us as righteousness.
we believe because we know him
I said a minute ago that if we have placed our faith in Christ, we no longer have any reason to doubt. But the thing is, we do doubt; we doubt all the time, and there are many possible reasons for doubt. It could be shame—Paul had to insist in chapter 1 that he is not ashamed of the gospel. It could be difficulty accepting that the supernatural could be real. Very often, it’s our own sin: we doubt because we have difficulty accepting God would be willing to save someone like us.
In light of these reasons for disbelief, what reasons do we have to believe?
We find the most basic and fundamental reason for belief in v. 24: we can believe, because our God is the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
This happened.
A lot of ink has been spilled about how much historical evidence we have to support the claim that Christ was raised from the dead—most notably, a multitude of eyewitness testimonies that support the gospels. I won’t go over that again, because there’s no need; even if there were no historical evidence, that wouldn’t be an obstacle.
I’ve always been wary of salespeople, because I don’t trust them: I know it’s their job to convince me to buy whatever it is they’re selling, and some of them will use any and all means to convince me.
But that is not how trust works in any healthy relationship. There is no one I trust more in this world than my wife. But it’s not because of her gifts of persuasion or her magnetic personality that I trust her. I trust her because I’ve spent nearly twenty years with her. I know her. She hasn’t had to try to convince me of anything; I’ve seen, over many experiences and many years, that she is trustworthy. I’ve seen that when she says something, she is telling the truth.
It sounds simplistic to say this, but it’s not: we believe God, not because he has given us proof, but because we know him.
God revealed himself to Abraham, and gave him faith. And on the basis of that revelation—because Abraham knew God now—he believed. Remember, belief is not understanding how God’s going to do something; belief is trusting that he will do it.
For those of us who belong to him, God has revealed himself to us too, through his Word and by his Spirit. And on the basis of that revelation, he calls us to trust him. He hasn’t showed us everything, but he has showed us enough to convince us that he exists, and that he will do what he says he will do.
Maybe you have valid reasons to doubt today. But these reasons, whatever they are, are nothing compared to the power of God to bring the dead to life, to create something from nothing.
So we believe. We hope against hope, and make the decision to trust him. And as we walk in this trust, we learn from experience, over time, that he really is as good as he says, that he really does do what he says he will do. And when life breaks us into a thousand pieces, and gives us new and spectacular reasons to doubt, we look in the rearview mirror, and we remember his faithfulness, and we trust him again.
We trust that the chair will hold us, so we sit, and find ourselves held, and safe.
And if you don’t belong to Christ today, if you aren’t following him, remember this. Through this text today, God is calling you to the same response as the rest of us. You do have reasons for disbelief. But those reasons for disbelief change nothing about who God is, or what he has done in Christ. So God is calling you to turn to him and believe. To trust that he will do what he promised: that if you place your faith in Christ, and repent of your sin, you will be saved too, and counted among the descendants of Abraham, children of God.
Why? Because our Lord Christ Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Come to him. Turn to him in faith. Believe.
