Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Abraham and David, in Whom the Jews Specially Gloried, Accounted Righteous by Faith, not by Law or Works. Verses 1-8. Righteousness is also Apart from Ordinances (as Circumcision). Verses 9-12.

Abraham’s “Heirship of the World,” not at All by Law but by Promise; and So, Only, Believers Are All Made Certain of its Blessings. Verses 13-17.

The Way and Walk of faith Wondrously Exemplified in Abraham the Father of All Believers. Verses 18-22.

The Connection of Our Justification with Christ’s Resurrection. Verses 23-25.

1 What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh hath found? 2 For if Abraham was justified on the principle of works, he hath whereof to boast. 3 But [we find] he is unable to boast before God: For what saith the Scripture? And Abraham believed God, and it [his faith] was reckoned unto him as righteousness. 4 Now to him that worketh the reward is not reckoned as of grace but, on the contrary, as a matter of debt. 5 But to one not working, but believingupon the God that justifieth the ungodly,—his faith is reckoned for righteousness.

THE JEWS ESPECIALLY gloried in Abraham and David,—just as we all naturally glory in the assumed personal righteousness of great saints, as the ground of God’s favor to them. But whatever blessing, says Paul, Abraham obtained, Scripture forbade the thought that he could glory before God; because he simply believed what God told him, that his seed should be in number like the stars of heaven. (Read Genesis 15:6) Abraham gave God His proper glory as the God of truth. We cannot conceive of Abraham as boasting before his house and before the Hittites that he had performed an act creditable to himself in believing God!

Paul now answers Jewish objectors to the doctrine of justification by simple faith; and he uses as examples those two great men of faith whose names were constantly on Jewish tongues,—Abraham and David.

The question about Abraham, What has Abraham our fleshly forefather found? is practically the same as in Chapter Three, “What advantage, then, hath the Jew?” We do well, while standing absolutely with Paul, to
understand with sympathy the state of mind of the Jew, who had the Old
Testament Scriptures, and a national history of marvelous Divine
instruction and providence, and also remarkable religious prominence
everywhere, in Paul’s day. “To Israel pertained the fathers” (Romans 9:5); Paul here in Romans 4:1, places himself, therefore, among the Israelites, and says, “Abraham our forefather according to the flesh.”82

Verses 2, 3: Now argues Paul, if Abraham had been declared righteous before God on the works principle, he would indeed have had something to boast of! But the Scripture record showed there was nothing of which he could boast before God. For concerning Abraham more definitely and directly than of any other human being, God’s word was specific: Abraham
believed God, and it [his faith] was reckoned83to him as righteousness.

To discover that the greatest saints have no other standing than the
weakest saints, is a lesson that is difficult for all of us! So now for the Jew to find that great Abraham has nothing in the flesh, but must be justified by simple faith, like any sinner, is a great shock. There was no honor, no “merit,” in Abraham’s believing the faithful God, who cannot lie. The honor was God’s. When Abraham believed God, he did the one thing that a man can do without doing anything! God made the statement, the promise; and God undertook to fulfill it. Abraham believed in his heart that God told the truth. There was no effort here. Abraham’s faith was not an act, but an attitude. His heart was
turned completely away from himself to God and His promise. This left God free to fulfill that promise. Faith was neither a meritorious act by Abraham, nor a change of character or nature, in Abraham: he simply believed God would accomplish what He had promised: “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

Verses 4 and 5: Now to him that worketh the reward is not reckoned as a matter of grace, but, on the contrary, as a matter of debt. But to one not
working, but believing upon the God that justifieth the ungodly,—his
faith is reckoned for righteousness.

Here Paul writes two verses which every believer should commit to memory: for they state what no mind of fallen man ever imagines; for do not people naturally believe that the way to be saved is to “be good”?

To him that worketh—To a man that works for wages, the wages are due as a debt. That is a simple enough principle. But do not seek to apply it to
salvation! No one ever got righteousness by work or worth! Righteousness is not by doing right, strange and impossible as that may seem.

But to him that worketh not—to him who “casts his deadly doing down”; who, seeing his guilt, and his entire inability to put it away, ceases wholly from all efforts to obtain God’s favor by his own doings, or self-denyings,—even by his prayers: but believeth on the God that declareth righteous the ungodly—not the godly or the good! But, you say, God cannot do that! God cannot declare a man godly if he is really ungodly. Now God did not say “godly,” but He said righteous,—“declareth righteous those ungodly who believe.” God can do that! For God can reckon to an ungodly man who dares cease trying to change himself, and relies on God just as he is, a sinner,—God can and
does reckon to such a one the glorious benefit of Christ’s death and resurrection on behalf of sinners. And of such a believing sinner, God declares his faith is counted as righteousness.

It cannot be too much emphasized that the words, “the ungodly,” in verse 5, wholly shut out any other class from justification. If we say, God, indeed,
has in some special cases justified notoriously, openly, evidently ungodly ones; while His general habit is, to justify the godly (which is what human reason demands), then we at once deny all Scripture. For God says, “There is no distinction; for all sinned; there is none righteous,—not one.” And if you claim that God justifies the godly, we ask, on what ground? If you say on the ground of their godliness, you have left out the blood of Christ,—on which ground alone God can deal with sinners; and you have really denied this so-called “godly” man to be a sinner before God at all, since he is to be justified on another ground than is the openly ungodly sinner,—the shed blood of Christ.

Do you not see that all this distinction between sinners is an abomination
before a holy God? What does it matter whether you are a nobleman or a
knave, if God has said He declares sinners righteous by Christ’s blood? What matter whether you are an honorable woman or a harlot, if God says you are a sinner (and He does!) and that the only ground of being declared righteous is the blood of His Son?

The burning question is, have you and I been so really convinced of the fact of our sinnerhood and guilt, and of our utter helplessness, and lost state, as
to be able to believe on a God who can and does “declare righteous the
ungodly—those who believe, as ungodly, on Him?

A child, without Christ, is “ungodly,” in this sense. “Ye were by nature
children of wrath,” is an awful word, but a true word,—going back to our mother’s womb, who, “in sin conceived us!” We were born into a lost, guilty race,—we were born part of that race! And it was written of all of us, concerning Adam’s sin: “Through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.”

We are all ungodly! And when we place our faith in the God who is in the business of declaring righteous the ungodly—who trust Him as they are,—on the sole ground of the shed blood of Christ,—then we are justified,—accounted righteous, by God.

No, it is not the regenerate, the born again man, who is declared righteous,—it is the ungodly. It is not the penitent man or the praying man, as such, but the ungodly. It is not the professing Christian who has “escaped the defilements of the world” (II Peter 2) through certain spiritual experiences (it may be of a high order), but the ungodly, who believes, as such, on the God who declares righteous the ungodly who believe on Him—AS SUCH!

And of course it is not the “church-member,”—Baptist, Methodist,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, or Plymouth Brother, as such,—but, the ungodly. This is not, either, putting a premium on ungodliness, but telling the truth! If you have not relied on God as an ungodly one, you have yet to be declared righteous; for He is the God who declares righteous the ungodly who believe on Him.84

So we have seen in verses four and five the working method and the believing method contrasted. What a place heaven would be if men were allowed to pay their way! They would boast all through eternity, one about this, another about that. But the works method and the grace method are
mutually exclusive. Each shuts out the other. Men must cease even seeking; they must cease all works—weeping, confessing, repenting, even earnest praying, and simply believe God laid their sins, their very own sins, all of them, on Christ at the cross. There comes a moment when a man ceases from his own works, hearing that Christ finished the work, paid the ransom, at the cross. Then he rests! Such a soul believes,—knowing himself to be a sinner, and ungodly,—but he ‘believes on God, just as he is, and knows he is welcome!

Note that Scripture does not say that God justifies the praying man, or the Bible reader, or the church member, but the ungodly. Have you yourself
believed on the God that accounts righteous the ungodly? Have you ever
really seen yourself in the ungodly class, a mere sinner, and as such trusted God, on only one ground, the blood of Christ?

6 Even as David also pronounceth blessing upon the man, unto whom God
reckoneth righteousness apart from works [saying], 7 Blessed are they
whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin.

Verses 6 and 7: Now David also, in the Spirit, sets his seal to this blessed doctrine with great joy: saying twice in the beautiful Hebrew of Psalm 32: Oh,
the blessednesses of the man! Of what man?

First, of the man whose iniquities are forgiven—Forgiveness is more than mere remitting of penalty. Even a hard-hearted judge might remit a man’s fine if it were paid by someone else, but forgiveness involves the heart of the
forgiver. God’s forgiveness is the going forth of God’s infinite tenderness toward the object of His mercy. It is God folding the sinner, as the returning prodigal was folded, to His bosom. Such a one is blessed indeed!

Then, whose sins are covered—“Covered” is the Old Testament word, (Hebrews kaphar); for those sacrifices could never “take away” sins, but only “cover” from sight. “In those sacrifices there is a remembrance made [not a removal] of sins year by year” (Hebrews 10:11, 3). There was a type of Christ’s coming work, but the sins were yet there before God till Christ took them away on the cross. If then, one like David could pronounce blessed the man whose sins were “covered,” out of God’s sight in His mercy (though not yet removed), much more should we rejoice to know that Christ has been manifested “to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself”! (Hebrews 9:26).

Verse 8: The third element David here describes, in “righteousness without
works,” is the inflexible purpose of God never to bring up again the sin of the “blessed” man: Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin. (Again the Hebrew repeats “Oh, the blessednesses!”—Psalm 32:2). Many believers indeed, like David and Peter, have sinned deeply. But, as Nathan said to David on the very occasion of the announcement of both the King’s sin and its being “put away,” celebrated in this Psalm 32: “Jehovah hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.” So have many been forgiven. High offences were David’s indeed: adultery, hypocrisy and murder. But they were not “reckoned” against David. True, the king was chastened: “The sword shall never depart from thy house.” At Nathan’s parable David’s indignation (how righteously indignant we can become at our own sins when we see them in others!) called for a four-fold payment by the rich man who took the poor man’s lamb (II Samuel 12:5, 6). And God allowed four sons of David’s to be smitten: the child of Uriah’s wife, then his first-born, Amnon; then fair Absalom; and, last, goodly Adonijah. Nevertheless, God had not “reckoned” the guilt against him! No wonder he pronounces blessed the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works! 85

Next we have the fact that even Divine ordinances like circumcision have nothing to do with righteousness,—any more than have good works; that even Abraham’s circumcision was merely a seal of the righteousness of a faith he before had.

9 Is this blessing [of righteousness without works] pronounced upon the circumcision, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say, To Abraham [a circumcised man] his faith was reckoned as righteousness. 10 Under what circumstances, then, was it reckoned? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but, on the contrary, in uncircumcision! 11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision: that he might be the father of ALL them that believe, though they be in uncircumcision,—that righteousness might be reckoned unto them; 12 and the father of circumcision to them who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had in uncircumcision.

Verses 9 and 10: Paul had to have Jews in mind, just as we today have to have “professing Christians” in mind. The Jew relied upon and boasted in the
outward mark of circumcision (which God, in Genesis 17, prescribed to
Abraham and his fleshly seed), entirely forgetting that God, fourteen or fifteen years before circumcision (Genesis 15:6), had accounted Abraham
righteous wholly apart from circumcision.86 Circumcision was an outward
sign or symbol, both to Abraham and to the world about him: to Abraham, that God was his God; to the world, that Abraham was separated from the
world unto God. Just so baptism today is an outward sign that we are Christ’s in faith and identification, and that we no longer belong to the world: but how deadly is the delusion that baptism in itself amounts to anything before God!87

After the same manner with the Jews, the vast majority of those calling themselves Christians place reliance, alas, today, on some ordinance (or, as it is called, “sacrament”), saying, “Christ told us to repent and be baptized, did He not? Christ commanded us to take the Lord’s supper.” But remember that God justifies NOT those observing ordinances, but the ungodly who believe. If you are still regarding baptism, or the Lord’s supper, or “the mass,” or “christening,” or “confirmation,” as having anything whatever to do with God’s declaring you righteous, you do not understand being declared righteous as an ungodly one. And in the gospel, since the cross, you are not told first to cease being ungodly, and then believe; but, as ungodly, to believe!

Neither baptism nor the Lord’s supper (upon both of which, in distorted form,
thousands have rested, as “sacraments” commending them unto God), has
power to give any standing whatever before a righteous God: that belongs only to the shed blood of the Redeemer of guilty and hopeless ones such as are we all!

Note that here, first, human works are set aside as a ground of righteousness; and then Divine ordinances also are just as fully set aside. Circumcision had been commanded to the Jew. The Jew trusted in it, and became utterly blind to the fact that even Abraham, “the father of circumcision,” had been declared righteous on another principle,—by simple faith, years before his circumcision! Uncircumcised, then, a common sinner (a “Gentile”—if there had been at that time “Jews”), Abraham just believed God: gave Him the honor of being a God of truth. And be it so that God saw that one day He would make Abraham as righteous in glory as He in that past day reckoned him in grace; yet it remains that God reckoned him what he was not, as yet, in experience; and that Abraham stood before God thus
righteous the moment he believed! And not what Abraham would become,
but what Christ would do on the cross for him was the ground of God’s
reckoning!

Each year I live I become more impressed with the solitary grandeur of this great friend of God. Behold him! Late come from the very home of idolatry, he walks among the Hittites as a “Prince of God”—their name for him (Genesis 23:6). Behold him, to whom “the God of glory” had appeared in his old place, Ur of the Chaldees; and to which blessed God he is so drawn by the cords of trust and love, that his whole life is as God’s friend—walking with Him, ever learning of Him more and more; taking a mark of absolute separation to Him; ever building altars to Him, and calling on His name. Behold him, called to part with Isaac, his only son, readily giving him up to God!

Verses 11 and 12: It was in order to become the father of ALL them that believe that Abraham received the sign of circumcision: that is, he would have been the father of uncircumcised believers apart from his own circumcision (for he himself believed while uncircumcised); but God desired a circumcised separate nation, and so would have Abraham also the father of circumcision to those who not only had circumcision, but also (rare thing among the Jews!) should walk in the steps of that faith of their father Abraham which he had—while yet uncircumcised. 88 How few Jewish teachers or preachers can challenge Gentiles with the freedom and truth of the apostle Paul; “I beseech you, brethren, become as I, for I also am as ye” (Galatians 4:12). The Galatians were raw Gentiles, “without law.” Paul cries, “I am as ye are: I have no reliance on circumcision; if ye Gentiles receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing!”

The blessing of righteousness, then, comes not only without works, but also without ordinances, whether Jewish or Christian. And we see that only those Jews are really accounted circumcised in God’s sight, who have heart-belief, as mere sinners, in the Redeemer. Faith, like true circumcision, is “that of
the heart” (Romans 2:29 and 10:10). According to this, there are very few real Jews on earth; yea, and relatively few true Christians, also; if
righteousness be wholly by faith, apart from works, and apart from ordinances.

13 For not through law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world, but, on the contrary, through righteousness of faith. 14 For if they which are of law be heirs, faith is made empty, and the promise is made useless: 15 for law works out wrath [to sinful man]; but where there is not law [to transgress], there is no transgression [of it]. 16 On this account the inheritance is on the principle of faith, in order that it may be
according to grace: so that the promise [which could not be broken], might be made sure to all the seed [of Abraham]: not to that which was of the Law only, but also to that which [although not having had Moses’ Law] was yet of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of all of us [believers] 17 (as it is written, I made thee father of many nations) in the sight of Him whom he believed, even God [the God], who makes alive the dead, and calls things not existing, as existing.

Verses 13 to 17: Here the further question of Abraham’s “inheriting the world”
is considered, and this again is only through the righteousness of faith: this expression not meaning that faith is a righteous, meritorious thing, but that, as explained before faith, not law, is the Divine mode of blessing.

Verse 13: For not through law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world, but, on the contrary, through righteousness of faith. “Heir of the world”: Behold, then a new order of all things! Adam had failed, and his fleshly seed were fallen. Abraham has succeeded, to become the father of spiritual seed,—“of all them that believe”: it will be a believing seed, not a natural seed. This man and that seed shall enter into the inheritance Adam forfeited for headship! What can “heir of the world” 89 mean? Nay, what shall it not mean? “The meek shall inherit the earth.” And who are they? Not Adam’s but Abraham’s seed. Bishop Moule beautifully says: “Then and there, perhaps side by side with his Divine
Friend manifested in human form, Abraham is told to count the stars under the glorious canopy, the Syrian ‘night of stars’; and he hears the promise, ’So shall thy seed be.’ It was then and there, that as a man uncovenanted, unworthy, but called upon to take what God gave, he received the promise that he should be ‘heir of the world.’ In his ‘seed,’—that childless senior was to be a King of Men, Monarch of continents and oceans. ‘All nations,’ ‘all the kindreds of the earth’ were to be blessed in him, as their patriarchal Chief, their Head, in covenant with God.”

How hardly do we banish the thought of human “merit” in God’s great saints! (“Merit” is a Romish term: away with it!) Faith is the ground of God’s blessing. Abraham was a blessed man, indeed, but he became heir of the world on another principle entirely—simple faith. 90

Verse 14: For if they which are of law be heirs, faith is made empty, and the promise is annulled—Here Paul enlarges, that for God to bless the merit-folks,91 would make God’s promise-method impossible, and so our faith in His promises, empty and void. 92 Faith and law are contradictory principles, the apostle shows: absolutely diverse means of blessing.

Verse 15: Law, Paul explains, given to sinners, simply brings forth God’s
wrath,—for sinners in the nature of the case will transgress. Law gives
no life, and has no power over the flesh. So Paul calls law a “ministration of death and condemnation” (II Corinthians 3:7, 9). Alford well says, “From its very nature, law excludes promise,—which is an act of grace, and faith, which is an attribute of confidence.” Where law is not, neither is there transgression. This brings out several things: First, that it takes law to bring forth transgression of it,—though sin may be present. There can be no transgression of a law which exists not. The absence of law is the absence of transgression. The entrance of law (in the case of a fallen being) is the entrance of transgression. Second that there may be Divine dispensations where law is not the principle of relationship with God. Third, that to come into a spiritual place where there will be “no transgression,” men must be
removed completely from under the principle of law. (This will appear in Chapters Six and Seven. God indeed has an entirely different manner of life for those in Christ than being under the principle of law!) Fourth, that only the place of freedom from law is the place of the inheritance.

Verse 16: Here we see anew God’s great kindness. He desired that all the seed of Abraham, whether Jewish or Gentile believers, might have security,—that the promise might be sure to all the seed. Now if you introduce man’s works (for man always says, “I must do my part”), you introduce an element of insecurity and uncertainty. For no man, trying to “do his part,” is ever certain that he has done, or will do, his “part.” Salvation is of God, not of man. It is of faith, and so, of grace; and thus, of God. For faith is unmixed with the vain promises and hopes of man to accomplish “his part”; but looks to what God has done, in sending His Son, to do a finished work on the cross; and to the fact that God has raised up Christ; and that Christ is our unfailing High Priest in heaven.

Abraham is declared to be “the father of us all,”—of all who believe. Believers
will come from all nations of the earth, and Abraham is called “the heir of the world”; which he will be openly seen to be in the millennial kingdom that is shortly coming: “Ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:28).

Verse 17: (as it is written, I made thee father of many nations) in the
sight, of Him whom he believed, even God [the God], who makes alive the
dead, and calls things not existing, as existing. The words “Abraham, who is the father of us all” in verse 16, are to be connected with “before Him whom he believed” in verse 17, the intervening words being a parenthesis. There is a great household of faith! Whether believers realize it or not, they are sharing Abraham’s inheritance. The mighty promises of God to Abraham and to His Seed, Christ (Galatians 3:16), should be studied deeply and often by all Christians. “For if ye are Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). God lodged the promises in Abraham: Christ fulfilled the conditions (of redemption), and we share the benefits! Abraham got us by promise; Christ bought us by blood. Abraham is the “father of all them that believe,” whether his earthly seed, Israel; or his heavenly seed, the Church; or any who shall ever believe. As to our regeneration, of course, God is the Father of all believers. But as to our relation in the household of faith, Abraham is our father: Abraham believed for us all. That is, he believed a promise that included us all.

Believers may indeed be said to have a three-fold fatherhood: (1) that of
Abraham, of the whole household of faith; (2) that of the teacher of the gospel who was used to win them to Christ (“For though ye have ten
thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel”—I Corinthians 4:15); (3) that of God, who is our actual Father, who begat us by the Holy Spirit through His Word. The first two fatherhoods, of course, are fatherhoods of relationship, so to speak; the last only is of life and reality. Yet the first two fatherhoods are also real, and should be recognized, —especially that of Abraham.

Let us hold fast in our hearts the great revelation about God which closes verse 17: “God, who makes alive the dead, and calls the things not existing as existing.” The translation in both the King James and the Revision Version surely comes short of the meaning here. The Greek literally is, God making
alive dead ones, and calling things not being, being! It is as when God spoke to the darkness, back in Genesis One (Hebrew), the creative word, “Let light be!—and light was.” It shone, too, “out of darkness”—not a ray that was projected from already existing light! His word was a creative fiat; and, answering it, “out of darkness” sprang the heretofore nonexistent, now created, light!

Note that it is the God who makes alive93 dead ones;—not those with some faint and feeble existence, but actually dead ones, those utterly gone! It is the God who calls non-existent things existent,—not, “as though” they
existed, a translation which, not reaching the Divine view, really involves doubt. “Not being, being,” is what the text reads. It is as when God says of His words, “I make all things new,”—“they are come to pass!” (Revelation 21:5, 6). This is the God whose word Abraham trusted. It was in this character, that of Life-Giver to the dead, and the Caller of not-things existent, that he trusted Him. Thus Abraham was nothing (but dead), and the seed, non-existent! Yet Abraham believed God’s word that he should be “Father of a multitude”; and obediently changed his own name from Abram to Abraham!

Therefore the actual process and progress of Abraham’s life of faith in such a God, is vividly set before us as our pattern. We should study it over and over. The character of faith will be the same, with this consideration: Abraham
believed on God in view of what He said He would do; we believe on Him who has raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.

So, in His counsels and reckoning the believer, in Chapter Eight, is seen already glorified! Of course, in counting things not being as being, God is
committed to bring into outward actuality all that He reckons; thus the
believing ungodly not only is accounted righteous, but will one day be
publicly manifested as the very “righteousness of God”! Indeed,
justification involves God’s giving him life, as see 5:18. But that is not the ground of his being reckoned righteous—that some day he will be in experience as righteous as he is now reckoned—any more than that he is accounted righteous on the ground of his own good works. For justification is a sovereign, judicial—not creative-act of God, based wholly upon the death and resurrection of Christ. When a sinner is to be justified, then, righteous is that which he is not! But, he believing, God counts him, holds him as righteous. He has no more righteousness (as a quality) than when he a moment ago, believed. But he stands in all Christ’s acceptance by the act of God, the Judge! Though we have said, God will make this standing good in glorious manifestation, yet no degree of sanctification or glorification is the
basis of his being declared righteous, but the blood of Christ only, and His resurrection,—the sacrifice of Christ and God’s sovereign act in view of it.

For God to call the things not being as being; to extend to a man the complete value of Christ’s atoning work and “reckon” him justified and glorified in His sight, although not yet so in manifestation, is God’s own business. Let us praise Him for His grace!

18 Who against hope in hope kept on believing, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to what was spoken: So shall thy seed be! 19 And not at all weakened in his faith, he took full account of his own body, as in a dead condition (he being about a hundred years old), and also the deadness of Sarah’s womb, 20 but, looking unto God’s promise, he wavered not through unbelief, but on the contrary became inwardly strengthened through faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being full of assurance that what He had promised. He was able to perform. 22 Therefore also it [his faith] was reckoned to him as righteousness. 23 Now this was not written for his sake only, that it [his faith] was thus reckoned to him: 24 but for our sakes likewise; for it [our faith] will be reckoned [for righteousness] to us also who are believing on Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justifying.

Here, then, in verses 18 to 25 we have the difficult, though blessed and glorious, yea, and God-glorifying path of faith, exemplified in Abraham. He kept on in hope, believing contrary to all human hopes! There were many trials to his faith, the essence of the difficulty, however, always being to
“look unto the promise of God” alone, and not to circumstances, or to the impossibility, according to the flesh, of the promise’s being fulfilled.

We inherit what Abraham believed for and received. Mark down two points, naming the first “A” for Abraham; and the second, “C” for Christ. Now draw a line from “A” to “C” and then onward, and let that line represent the line of God’s blessing. The promises of blessing were lodged in Abraham, and all conditions of blessing were fulfilled by Christ; and you and I merely step into the line of blessing from Abraham through Christ. It is good to be born into a good family on earth; how blessed to be in the great family of faith, the family of God, along with Abraham!

Satan hates active faith in a believer’s heart, and opposes it with all his power. The world, of course, is unbelieving, and despises those who claim only “the righteousness of faith.” The example of professing Christians generally is also against the path of simple faith. Among the “seven
abominations” that Bunyan said he still found in his heart, was “a secret inclining to unbelief.” “Against hope,” against reason, against “feeling,” against opinions of others, against all human possibilities whatever, we are to keep believing.

This is the very article and essence of faith,94 that it reckons as God does,—that is, upon God as described here, giving life not to the feeble, but to the dead, to those who cannot be “recovered” or “helped” or so wrought upon or
patched up as to become something that they were not before; but who
are absolutely hopeless, dead!

That God should call the things that are not as being, is what faith rejoices in! Only God could call things thus. Abraham becomes before our eyes the particular shining example of this.

Verse 19: His own body as in a dead condition—“he considered”95 it, and knew it to be thus, and was therefore wholly hopeless in himself. Moreover, Abraham knew Sarah was “past age,” unable to bear a child. He had before him, then, himself as dead, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. But he also had before him the promise of God: “Thou shalt become a father of many nations”; “So shall thy seed be.”

Verse 20: It was plainly and only a question of the veracity of God, and of His ability to carry out what He had promised. Abraham, therefore, believed96 in Jehovah (Genesis 15:5, 6); and he wavered not through unbelief, but became inwardly strengthened through faith, giving glory to God; and also even Sarah herself “counted Him faithful who had promised; and received power to conceive seed.”

We find in Genesis 17:17 that Abraham not only considered the natural deadness of his body, but also brought up the question before the Lord: “Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” But, Jehovah having answered his objection with a definite promise, Abraham thereafter refused to have his faith weakened by any natural thought of himself and Sarah, but set God’s promise only before his mind, without wavering,97 as “double-minded” people, in their doubting, do (James 1:6-8, R.V.). Indeed, his constancy was such that it evidently wrought upon the doubting Sarah, who learned that He was “faithful who had promised.”98 Sarah’s incredulous but eager laugh
(Genesis 18:12, 13, 15) Jehovah charged her sternly with; for He had before when Abraham laughed (Genesis 17:16-19), named the son whom she was
to bear “Isaac”—which means laughter! Thus both Abraham and Sarah
thought this thing “too good to be true”; but God in faithfulness brought it to pass. And we remember the happy laughter into which Sarah finally entered: “Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh; every one that heareth will laugh with me” (Genesis 21:5-7). Every time she spoke the name “Isaac” she could remember her doubt, and how gracious Jehovah had been to her.

Verse 21: Being full of assurance that what He had promised. He was able to perform. What a blessed assurance of faith, resting wholly upon God’s performance of what He had promised,—how that puts us to shame! Since Abraham’s day we have the written Word; and Christ has come Yet how often we doubt! 99

Verse 22: Now God tells us that His word concerning Abraham, that “his faith
was reckoned as righteousness,” was written not for him only, but for us, also,—for all Abraham’s children. There is no more striking description of the principle and process of faith than in this passage. Look at the “also” of verse 22: Wherefore also it was reckoned unto him as righteousness. That evidently looks toward Genesis 22; at the end of Abraham’s testing time, when he offered up Isaac. Let us see what is here:

(1) We are not told that Abraham was reckoned righteous because of the vision of the God of glory that was vouchsafed to him in Ur of the Chaldees (Acts 7:2). Nor do we read that he was reckoned righteous because he forsook his own land and was brought to the land of Canaan, nor because he built altars to Jehovah and worshipped him; nor because he had such high courage as to slaughter the kings and deliver Lot. All these things occurred before the amazing scene of Genesis 15: where God proposed to him something absolutely impossible of accomplishment, except in God Himself.

(2) Abraham was reckoned righteous when he “believed in Jehovah,” in His word, to bring about concerning Abraham something that could not humanly be—that he should be a “father of nations.” God came to him years after this
(Genesis 17), commanding him to change his name from Abram, “high father” (but desolate, like a lonely peak), to Abraham, “father of a multitude.” And Abraham obeyed, and changed his name thus; although God had just rejected Ishmael, the only offspring he had in sight, from being the seed of promise and covenant!

(3) Abraham “gave glory to God,” because he counted on God’s bringing to pass His word, about that which only His glorious power could effect; a thing
completely outside human possibility, but which all God’s faithfulness and truth were pledged to accomplish. Thus Abraham let God in upon the scene, to act according to His own truth and power. Probably at that time he was the only man on earth who was giving God His due praise as the God of truth, who has “magnified His Word above all His Name” (Psalm 138:2). Our reason, yea, and our conscience also, keep telling us that right living is essentially better than right believing; but both conscience and reason are wrong! 100

(4) Jehovah reckoned Abraham righteous not because he was either righteous or holy, but acting absolutely, and entirely according to Himself—who “giveth life to the dead” (Abraham was dead: he could beget no seed); and “calleth the things that are not” (Abraham was a sinner, not righteous in
himself) “as though they were.”

(5) The purpose, then, of God concerning Abraham, Abraham thus allowed God to fulfil. Some day you will see Abraham just as righteous and holy in character and in evident fact, as His God, in that far day, reckoned him. It was not however, on the ground of what God would make him in the future that He reckoned Abraham righteous when he believed Him. The ground, as we see plainly in 3:25, was Christ set forth as a propitiation,—through faith in
Christ’s blood. For “God set Him forth as a propitiation . . . because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime” (that is, by Abraham and by all who lived before Christ’s death).

God had His own foreknown ground, Christ, as the Lamb “without blemish and without spot,” foreknown “before the foundation of the world” (I Peter 1:19, 20). We keep repeating these things because of the continual tendency
of our wretched hearts to find some cause in ourselves, or in our own
faithfulness, for God’s reckoning us righteous.

(6) Verses 23 and 24: Now it was not written for his sake only, that it was reckoned unto him, but for our sakes likewise, for it [our faith] will be
reckoned [as righteousness] to us also who are believing on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. This is a blessed and sweet revelation for believers, that we, like Abraham, have righteousness reckoned to us; and that the story in Genesis was “written for our sake.” The Old Testament is a living book for God’s real saints!

But we must remember that God’s methods with faith are always the same.
Abraham’s faith was tried: are not we also told to expect the trial of our faith?101

There is also a beautiful message in the literal rendering of verse 24, that can scarcely be supplied in English: It was on account of us also, unto whom it [righteousness] is about to be reckoned, to those who believe—as if God were eager (as indeed He is) to write down righteous those who believe His testimony concerning His Son!

Note two things here: First, it is upon God we believe. The very God who was, in the opening chapters of the Epistle, bringing all of us under His judgment, without righteousness and helpless to attain it, is here believed on; as our Lord Jesus indeed said in John 12:44: “He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me.”

But, second, it is upon Him as having raised Jesus our Lord from the dead that we believe on God in verse 24. It is not merely on the God who set forth Christ to be a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, but it is on the God who has set a public seal to the truth of our Lord’s last words, “It is finished,” by raising Him from the dead. “He is not here, but is risen,” was the angel’s word that thrilled those saints early at His tomb. And since then He has been
received up in glory, and the Holy Spirit has come, witnessing to the amazing fact that the One who hung on a Roman cross, numbered with transgressors by men, and forsaken of God in the just judgment of our sins, was raised and glorified by the same God who forsook Him on Calvary. This glorious fact should be held fast by our hearts. For not only does God’s raising up Christ prove our sins to have been put away; but a Risen Christ becomes a new place for us! We were justified from all things by His blood; we are now set by God in Christ Risen!

And thus we are prepared for the last great verse in this blessed chapter.

Verse 25: Who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our
justifying. Here we have Jesus our Lord delivered up for our offences. Now the Greek word for “delivered up” occurs again in Chapter 8:32: “God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” The meaning is evident: on account of our trespasses, of what you and I have done, our Lord was delivered up by a holy God to bear our sin, with its guilt and penalty, even to God’s forsaking His Son: for He must otherwise have forsaken us forever!—yea, to His smiting our Substitute instead of smiting us: “He was bruised for our iniquities.”

And was raised for our justifying—This must be the sense here: for we are
not justified till we believe. Furthermore, if Christ’s resurrection was merely to prove that we had been justified (as some teach), a verb-construction would have been used, which would signify, on account of our having been justified. But God uses the noun-construction (dikaiōsis) meaning, “the act of justifying”; showing that Christ’s resurrection was for the purpose of justifying us, positively, in a Risen Christ, (Compare 5:10)