THE FATHER OF FAITH

Bob Bonner
Romans 4:1-12
December 4, 1994

Amongst all of the religions of the world, Christianity stands alone as unique in the following area. All the other religions of the world, whether you point to a heretical branch of Christianity that some term “cults,” such as Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses or The Way or The World Wide Church of God, or if you point to other highly developed pagan religions or primitive animism, all of these religions hold one thing in common. Without exception, they all are founded on some form of a program whereby if you do certain things and avoid other things, you will try to please God and try to earn the right to commune with Him or live with Him forever. Somehow, through one’s own self effort we try to climb the ladder of enlightenment and holiness and acceptability before God.

However, it appears that only the Christians are willing to admit the obvious, that it is impossible to make oneself holy and acceptable to God. Therefore, they are fully ready and willing to accept God’s free gift of salvation and approval that only comes in Jesus Christ. Christianity is the only religion that recognizes the fact that we can’t reach God on our own. Furthermore, Christians also recognize that God understood our predicament and that’s why He came to earth to solve the problem caused by our sin, and gave us a savior through whom we could be reunited to God. As an old Christian t-shirt once stated “Jesus is the only bridge across the troubled waters between man and God.”

But as soon as we say that, there is the question of, “What about all of those people who live in the time before Jesus Christ? Could they still commune with God? Will they spend eternity with God? Were they able to be saved?”

The apostle Paul, in Romans 4, answers this question of how people were saved before Christ came to this earth. Furthermore, Paul’s purpose in this chapter is to more fully illustrate from the Old Testament, that what he has been teaching about justification and people being made righteous before God is not new. To drive home his point, Paul uses two of the most significant figures in the Old Testament, two of the greatest Jewish heroes, Abraham and David to illustrate how they were justified. Both of these men, David and Abraham were men of faith. If he could show the present day Jews that these men were made righteous the same way that we are today, then Paul would have two powerful witnesses for his case.

In verses 1-5, Paul begins with Abraham for two reasons, First, Abraham is considered by all Jews to be The Father of the faith. So, whatever was good or true for Abraham, must be good or true for other Jews.

Secondly, I believe the spirit of God moved Paul to use Abraham because of Abraham’s future significance in history. Today, Abraham is honored and revered throughout the world by three different faiths: Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Abraham is a man, who by anyone’s reckoning, stands head and shoulders above most of the human race. Hence, Abraham becomes an even more powerful witness to the truth which Paul has been expounding.

Let’s look at these first three verses. Paul writes, “What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about; but not before God. For what does the Scripture say ‘And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’”

The term “found”, in verse 1 has a double meaning here. First it refers to what Abraham found out about how one is made righteous and approved of by God, once and for all. In addition, it also refers to what Abraham personally obtained. This same expression is used in Genesis, for instance, when it states, “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:8) So, in other words, Paul is telling us what Abraham discovered about how one can be made righteous and approved of by God and Paul is telling us how Abraham himself became forever accepted by God.

According to these verses, Abraham discovered two possible ways that a person could try to gain a sense of worth or righteousness in this life. Two ways, a person could try to find approval from God. The first way is given to us in the words, “…For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about;…”

Abraham was a man who had performed many good deeds and religious works. If he hadn’t, the three major religions of the world would never have recognized him as a man of God. According to Genesis, when Abraham lived in the Ur of Chaldees, (which today is in modern Iraq) he, out of ignorance worshipped the moon goddess. It was in the midst of his seeking to know God through worshipping this moon goddess, that God revealed Himself to Abraham and spoke to him, telling him to move to a land that Abraham had never seen before and had no idea of where it was. So, by faith, Abraham did something good. He trusted God, and packed up his belongings and moved out. That was a good work.

What happens when you know that you have done something right or good? It naturally causes us to feel good about ourselves. It temporarily improves our sense of value. For a short period of time, it gives us something to boast about before other people. Today, we practice this form of boasting in many ways. Sometimes it’s plain ol’ outlandish bragging about our accomplishments, which nobody really likes. Now once in a while, amongst close friends or family, there is nothing wrong with sharing some of our latest accomplishments. But doing it all the time may reveal a serious self esteem problem.

Most of us know that. So we don’t want anyone to think we have any self esteem problems so we either don’t say anything at all or we are more subtle in our boasting. We do things like “name drop” or under the guise of religious “sharing” we boast about some spiritual accomplishment or good work we have done so that others might ask us more about it. Another subtle form of boasting or drawing attention to our accomplishments is fishing for compliments.

Boasting about our accomplishments does momentarily make us feel better about ourselves and sometimes does bring us temporarily worth in the eyes of others; but never before God. And Abraham knew that, God is not impressed with our one or two good works because He is not looking on the outward appearance of things. He knows our hearts; the selfishness, the greed, the grasping for self-glory and the impure motives behind much of our good works. Furthermore, God also sees all of the worthless and wicked things we do. So, He’s never much impressed with our efforts to do or look good.

Abraham, although he knew of his many good works, also was very much aware of his weaknesses and failure. He lived an ungodly life at times. For instance: during a famine, when Abraham fled to Egypt, he almost caused his wife to commit adultery with Pharaoh merely to protect his own hid. Then, twenty years later, he repeated the same sin. Abraham was an idolater, a man controlled by fear, and who was willing to compromise his own wife to save his own skin.

Hence, Abraham knew that about himself and knew that trying to earn God’s approval would never come through his own performance; the same is true for us. Although my good works may out measure yours, my good works will never out weigh that which is wicked in my life. And since, God not only works on a scale of perfection, not bad works allowed,…if good works is the only way to earn God’s approval, we are all sunk! Abraham knew that.

Yet, many of the Jews, who point to Abraham as not just being a great man, but almost as though he were perfect have not been honest with the text. As a result, many of the Jews and Muslims have misrepresented Abraham’s life, what he believed and how it is that God came to approve of Abraham and accepted Abraham.

Quite frankly, this is one reason why I struggle so much with many of the biographies of Christian leaders. Often the person being remembered is painted in such glowing terms that that person becomes the ideal or comes across as almost sinless. As a friend of mine once said, “I am convinced that anytime a biography is written about a man, his wife or a close family member ought to edit it and add their views.” It would certainly help the rest of us who struggle with spiritual battles and failure not to fall into Satan’s trap of comparison and in turn, into depression due to discouragement or pridefulness, because we think we are better.

So, what’s the second way that Abraham learned one can be made righteous and fully approved of God? What is the way that Abraham was accepted by God? How did he come to understand that it was only God’s approval that should matter and did matter to him? Paul hints at the answer to that when he asks us in our text, “What does the scripture say?” And then he makes reference back to Genesis 15:5 when he says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

Now what does the writer mean by “Abraham believed God?” What is it, exactly, that Abraham believed?

Do you see the word “descendants”? There is two important facts you must understand about this word “descendants” if you are going to understand Paul’s argument and what God promised Abraham and if you are going to understand what Abraham believed. First of all, this word “descendants” is the same word translated elsewhere in the Old Testament as “seed.”

Notice this word, “seed”. It is what’s known as a “collective noun”; meaning that this one word can refer to just one seed, or it can refer to many seeds. It is similar to our English word “fish” or “sheep”.

When Dan Perkins hauls in a 24” steelhead on a tiny number 16 size fly, he’s going to say, “That’s a mighty big fish.” In that statement, the word fish refers to just one big fish. But when Dan’s fishing for Fall steelhead just below the spawning salmon, and there are a lot of salmon swimming around him, he may say, “There are a lot of fish around here.” He doesn’t say “There are a lot of fishes” because that’s not a correct use of the word. So, like the word “fish”, “seed” or the word for “descendants” can refer to either one descendant or many descendants whether this word means one or more descendants.

Here, in Genesis 15:5, this term refers to several descendants. Furthermore, from verse 15, we see that God promised that not only did God promise Abraham to have several descendants, but He also promised Abraham, that because he believed or trusted in God’s promise, Abraham would be made righteous by God.

However, it is important for us to understand, that what we see here in Genesis 15:5, is not all that God promised Abraham on that night. This account, like many Old Testament accounts, is highly condensed as to all that God had promised Abraham that night. In other words, in Genesis 15, we have only part of the discussion that took place between God and Abraham on that night. The rest of the details of that discussion are to be filled in from other portions of scripture that refer back to this very night.

Let’s go look at some other portions of scripture that deal with that passage. Holding your finger in chapter 15, look over at Genesis 22:17-18. Here again, we have at a later date, God reaffirming to Abraham what God had already promised to Abraham. Except, here in Genesis 22, is included more details of what took place during that first discussion back in Genesis 15. Let’s read these verses together. As we do, notice that three times in these verses, the term “seed”. It is the same term that was used for descendants over in Genesis 15. Here, God says to Abraham, “Indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. [literally and more accurately as the KJV has it, “His enemies.”] And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” Notice, that this promise states nothing about righteousness as did Genesis 15:5. Instead the stress of this section is on the seed.

The key question to be asked and answered here, if we are going to correctly understand what it was that God had promised Abraham and what it was that Abraham believed that made him righteous, is to what does this term “seed” in verses 17-18 refer? Does it refer to Abraham’s many descendants? The answer is no, as I will show you in a minute. Different from Genesis 15, here the term “seed” refers to something else. So then, to what does it refer? The answer is given to us over in the New Testament, by the apostle Paul, who writing under the inspiration of the Holy Sprit, tells us what it means.

Holding your fingers in both of those passages, now turn over to Galatians 3:5, 16. Here, in Galatians 3, the apostle Paul ties together both of these occurrences of Genesis 15 and 22. In this Galatians passage, (that goes from verses 6-29), the subject matter is the very same as in our Romans passage and Genesis. It is dealing with the promises that God made to Abraham that first night, in Genesis 15 of only which part was recorded in 15 and the rest is in 22. Here, Paul makes them one promise which deals with Abraham being made righteous, with the promise of the “seed” as well as the promise of Him having many descendants.

In Galatians 3:6, Paul once again is using Abraham as his illustration. He says, “Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Then, Paul, down in verse 16 writes, “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.” He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, “Christ.”

What we have here is Paul showing us that both promises were made to Abraham: One promise that he would have as many descendants and that he was made righteous; and secondly that his “seed,” which is in the singular person all three times in 22:17-18, n the original language, not seeds, refers not to many descendants, but specifically to one descendant, mainly, Jesus Christ, the seed.

Hang in there with me as we turn to one more passage in John’s gospel 8:39, 56. John, in his gospel, records what Jesus has to say about Abraham’s descendants. He tells us that there are really two types of descendants that come from Abraham—the believers like Abraham and then those who are merely Jewish non-believers. Turn there, and let’s read this together. The text states, “They [the Jewish leaders] answered and said to Him, [Jesus] ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you are Abraham’s children, [if you truly are the descendants who were spoken of in Genesis, to whom the promise referred] do the deeds of Abraham.’” And then in verse 56, “If Abraham were your father, [in one sense, Abraham was their physically genetic father, but Jesus nor the promise refers to that. In this case, “father” refers to spiritual father] you would believe me because… Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” What did Abraham see way back then and put his total confidence in? He saw ahead of time the day when Jesus Christ would come. God gave him a preview of the suffering messiah dying on the cross for sin. In fact, Galatians 3:8, tells us that Abraham not only saw Christ day, but he had the Gospel fully given to him.

Now, what does this all mean? Let’s put all of these brush strokes of scripture to the spiritual canvas and look at the picture that they are painting. Back in Romans 4:3, when God said that Abraham believed God, what did Abraham believe? It means that he believed: 1) that he would have many descendants. 2) one of those descendants would be the “seed” or messiah, he did see Jesus’ day, in that he knew Jesus would come, die, be the propitiation for our sin. Hence, 3) Abraham put his trust in what Jesus would do in the future and as a result, Abraham was right then made righteous by his faith, not his works. The very same way we are made righteous by his faith, not his works. The only difference is that he was looking forward to Christ’s coming and we today look back at his having come.

To further drive home this point, Paul stresses in Romans 4:4-5, “Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.”

Abraham didn’t earn his acceptance or approval by God. If he had earned his righteousness, it would have been considered a wage. But this was a gift, based on belief. It was something “reckoned” which is a legal and accounting term to say that someone places something legally into your account. In this case, it is a one-sided transaction. Abraham didn’t do anything. He simply believed what God said He would do and God did it.

In Romans 4:6-8 Paul now turns to his second Old Testament life example David. When Paul chose to use Abraham as an example, he stressed from Abraham’s life the faith side of the formula for justification. And here with David, He is going to stress that justification is not by personally works.

These verses in Romans come from Psalm 32:1, 2. This Psalm was written by David in reference to himself and his confession of his personal wickedness concerning his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband. Paul writes, “…just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

Notice that David, the sinner, considers himself blessed. Why? Because he certainly did not earn God’s forgiveness or approval based upon his works. David was reckoned or made righteous by God as David put trust in the coming messiah.

Elsewhere in scripture, both Abraham and David were given unique titles to their names. Abraham was called “the friend of God” and David, “a man after God’s own heart.” Both David and Abraham model for us what it takes for any of us to be called “a friend of God” or “a person after God’s own heart.” Both of these men remind us that what people in each of their generations longed for, an intimate fellowship with God, to be approved of …to be a friend of God’s. And that designation, “being a friend” of God can only come through faith in Jesus Christ.

So, in these first 8 verses, Paul tells us that justification is by faith, not works. In verses 1-5, Abraham’s life example stressed the faith side of the principle of how one is made righteous or acceptable to God. In verses 6-8, David’s life example stressed the “not works” side of the principle of how one is made righteous.

In verses 9-12, Paul continues his argument by answering the question of when, specifically Abraham was made righteous, because that adds another piece to the puzzle that explains how one is made righteous. Paul writes, “Is this blessing then upon the circumcised, [Jews] or upon the uncircumcised [non-Jews] also? For we say, ‘Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.’ How then was it reckoned? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised…”

When was Abraham circumcised, according to these verses? According to Genesis, Abraham was circumcised 14 years after he was pronounced righteous by faith and declared a friend of God. Hence, Paul’s point is that religious rites or rituals have no saving value and no value as to earning more of God’s approval. Being made right with God, being approved of by God, being justified has nothing to do with rites. Justification is by faith alone.

However, to say that religious rites have nothing to do with making us righteous before God, does not mean that these religious rites that God sets down through history do not have a purpose. And Paul wants us to understand that circumcision had a purpose. He give us here, two purposes of circumcision. First is to be a sign and second it was to be a seal to the Jewish believers.

A sign and a seal were two different things. A sign “points to something that is different from and greater than itself.” In this case, it was a sign that pointed to the promises that God had made to Abraham as being guaranteed. The promises that he would have many descendants and that the messiah would come from his family line. But most importantly, that because he put his trust in the future messiah who had yet to come, he was made righteous in God’s eyes.

A seal, on the other hand, during Paul’s day, indicates or authenticates ownership and authority over something. Similar to a notary’s seal today, or a seal on a diploma. But what that diploma represents is true, whether the seal is on it or not!

In this case, Abraham had proof, 14 years later as to what was already true for him; that is, that he was God’s property and that God had authority over his life, not Satan or anyone else. Abraham was secure.

One other thing about the nature of a seal. Once something is sealed, it is meant to be permanent. In the case of circumcision, that is a procedure that can never be reversed. And likewise, neither can a person’s righteousness be reversed. Once you are made righteous and saved, made fully approved before God, you are always righteous, save, approved or accepted by God.

In the rest of verses 11-12, Paul closes out this segment explaining why God required Abraham to be circumcise after he had been made righteous by stating, “…that he [Abraham] might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be reckoned to them, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.” In other words, Abraham was going to be the spiritual father of all believers, circumcised (Jews) and uncircumcised (all the non-Jews in history). Hence, there is only once savior and he is for everybody.

Which leads us into wrapping up the application and implications of these truths for us today. First, there can be only one way for someone to be made righteous. And that way is alike for everybody. It is never through works, but it is only by faith in what Jesus Christ has done. It is that way today, and it has always been that way, even 2,000 years before Jesus Christ was ever born.

The second implication that can be drawn from this text is that Jesus Christ is not the savior of the righteous (because they have no need for a savior), but of the self admitted failure and unrighteous. I meet people often, who feel because of their failure, sin, atrocious ways they have treated people, you name it, they are afraid to come in to the presence of the God. They say things like, “But I have been so bad or sinful. I have failed too much for God to ever allow me to be in His presence.”

Yet, the truth is, nobody will ever see your sins or your failures when you get to heaven. That’s why Hebrews 11 is such a great chapter. Did you ever notice that no one word is said in that chapter about the failures of all those Old Testament hall of famers? Did Abraham fail? Yes, but you don’t find it mentioned in Hebrews 11. Did David fail? Yes, but you don’t find it mention in Hebrews 11. Did Moses fail God? You bet, but you won’t find it listed in Hebrews 11. Why? Because Jeremiah tells us, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” The Psalmist tells us, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

Because God’s anger has been satisfied, our sin has been forgiven and will be remembered by God no more. Furthermore, God’s only present response to the believer is love. He will never be angry with us again. He hates sin, but never the believer.

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