Justification by Faith – Abraham’s Story, part 1: 4:1-12

Romans S1 - E10 Transcript

Welcome back for Episode 10 of Series 1. We are coming towards the end of the Series 1.

Recap and Background

After a long explanation that Paul gives about the power of sin and how it affects all people, in all cultures, at all times, in many different ways, in our last episode we landed on Paul’s explanation of the gospel. Romans 3:21-26, is one of the most important passages in the whole New Testament to explain how the gospel works, what it means, and why it is such a revolutionary and radical new departure in God’s purposes. If you haven’t heard that episode, do go back and listen to it.

In that episode, Paul started by saying, ‘But now, a new era has come with Christ’. The whole of God’s salvation purposes move forward very dramatically. The problem of sin is being radically addressed. One way to describe this process of becoming a Christian, which is very central to Paul’s thinking, is justification by faith. This is the topic that he takes up during the next two episodes which will complete Series 1. He is going to try to explain to his readers and listeners what he means by justification by faith.

Martin’s Testimony

I am going to give an account of my own conversion to Christianity, which took place, as I speak to you, about 47 years ago - a long time. It is as vivid to me now as it was then, as a teenager. Previously, I had encountered Christianity as a traditional religion. I attended church as a child and found it very boring. As a teenager, I wanted to move away from this traditional religion and was experimenting with lots of different ideas and thinking about them. While I was at school, one of my teachers, who was a Christian, started talking to me about his faith and lending me books. I got interested in reading about Jesus and suddenly felt that Jesus was a real living person, not just an historical character, but someone who spoke to me today. I felt that the resurrection of Jesus actually happened as a physical event, that he had defied death and overcome it, and I became tremendously excited by this. But the crucial thing that changed my way of thinking was when I came to understand Jesus’ death on the cross in the way that I described in the last episode, as described by Paul in Romans 3: 21 - 26. I came to see that I myself was in the law court; I was the guilty person in need of help. I was the one who needed someone to sacrifice for my sins. I was the one who needed to escape from the slavery of sin. I felt myself caught up in this story, and then when I saw the power of what Jesus had done on the cross, it convinced me. That was the moment that I thought, ‘There could be a change. I don’t have to do it on my own. He has done it for me’. And I took a tentative step of faith. I prayed a prayer asking for forgiveness and believing that I had been forgiven. At that moment, I was at school, on my own, age 15. It was evening, I remember praying quietly. Immediately, I felt a sense of peace - that something had happened, something new was taking place in my life that was radical. I began to understand what I now see as ‘justification by faith’ I began to see that active faith, which essentially means trust, was the key. Sometimes the only way forward is to put your trust in God. We find that in in life generally, don’t we? Sometimes you can’t make a step forward in a situation unless you decide, ‘Am I going to trust this person or not? Am I going to join with them or not?’ In that moment, the Holy Spirit helped me to put my trust in what Jesus Christ had done. That miraculous process, by which an individual person wholly trusts God, is a remarkable thing.

Abraham - Our Example of Faith

This is what Paul tries to explain in the passage that we are going to study today. He is taking the story of Abraham. All the way through Romans 4, he tells aspects of the story of Abraham. He describes Abraham as the person who, in the Bible, first demonstrates this faith in God in a way that is very similar to the faith that we have today. He is our example from the Old Testament. Abraham is a very important character in Judaism because he is the founder of the Jewish faith and the Jewish people. He is a very important character in Islam because Abraham is honoured in the Quran and in Islamic teaching, as the father of both Isaac and Ishmael. Abraham is very important for Christians too, because when we look at him, we see the principle of justification by faith working in him, thousands of years ago, in a way that is very similar to us today. Paul will explain later that in a certain spiritual sense, he is our father; he is our ancestor.

‘What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about - but not before God. What does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”’

Romans 4:1-8, NIV

Something happened to Abraham. He exercised faith in a remarkable and a wonderful way. When Paul is telling this story, he has in mind the full story of Abraham as recorded in the book of Genesis. It starts at the end of Romans 11 and more than ten chapters describe aspects of Abraham’s life.

I want to describe one or two things that happened to Abraham, and what God called him to do, so we can get a feeling of what Paul is describing here when he describes the moment that he ‘believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness’.

Abraham’s Journey

Abraham and his family lived in a country in the Middle East, called Mesopotamia, which was a long way from the land of Israel, and is modern day Iraq. His family lived there and his father, Terah, was called by God, along with Abraham, to leave the city where they lived comfortably and were quite wealthy, to travel to a land that God was going to give them, through a remarkable revelation. They simply left their home, took their possessions, took some servants, some animals, their camels, and they left. This was a very risky thing to do because they didn’t exactly know where they were going. God guided them along the way. They took a journey to the north and the west and stopped at a city called Haran, where Abraham’s father said he didn’t wanted to move Any more. By this time, they had travelled something in the region of 700 or 800 kilometres. It would have taken them weeks and weeks to travel. They had been using up their money and resources travelling. They had to find somewhere to stay. They were looking for open land in which to place their animals, and they started living in a new community with different people.

But still Abraham did not have the feeling that he had come to the place that God had promised. His father died and God spoke to him again, recorded in Genesis 12: 2 - 3, which we have looked at a number of times already, where God promised him that he would have a son - although he was currently without children; that he would have a tribe, or a family; that he would have a land; and would be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. After some time, Abraham travelled to the south and to the west. He ended up in a land which then was known as Canaan. When he got there, God told him that this was the land where he wanted them to stay. By this time, he had travelled another 700 kilometres or more, taking many weeks and with great uncertainty. Three years later, God spoke to him again and promised him that this was the land for him to own, and one day that his descendants would actually own the whole land. They were visitors at this point and just a little family group. But God said there would be many descendants and they would own the whole land, which seemed an incredible thing to say to him at the time.

The Process of Justification by Faith

Eight years later from the departure from Haran, God spoke to him again in Genesis 15. This is the passage that Paul quotes. Eight years after the events of moving and travelling, nothing had happened. He still didn’t have a son; he didn’t own any of the land; and he was living dangerously in a vulnerable situation. He was a foreigner in the country; he wasn’t necessarily accepted by everybody there. During that time, as recorded in Genesis 15 and referred to by Paul in this passage, Abraham had a remarkable experience and something happened in his heart. Paul uses this incident to describe the process of justification by faith and it applies to us too.

Genesis 15: 4 - 6:

‘Then the word of the Lord came to him:’ (speaking of his descendants God said,) “This man” (who Abraham was thinking about) “will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars - if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.’

In this incident, Abraham is asked to trust God for something very difficult - to trust God that he and his wife - who had not been able to have children for many years, and were getting old and past the years that Sarah would expect to be able to have a baby and become pregnant, would have a son. God speaks to him and says that his offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. He invites Abraham to count the stars. I wonder whether you have ever tried to count the stars on a clear night. I tried it as an experiment when I was preparing this passage. I often try and imagine what it is like for the people when God says strange things to them like that. It is not easy to do; on a clear night with not too much light around, you can see many, many stars in the sky - it would be very hard to count. God said to Abraham ‘You won’t just have one son; you are going to have numerous offspring. A whole nation is going to come from you and your wife Sarah.’ It was an incredible thing to say - so unlikely ever to happen and totally against human possibility and the physical capability of Abraham and Sarah.

But what did Abraham do? He believed the Lord. He trusted what God had promised. And God ‘credited it to him as righteousness’. We have looked at the word ‘righteousness’ earlier on in our studies. Paul has been speaking about God giving to us the righteousness of God as we see in Romans 1: 16 and 17, for example. The righteousness of God is God putting us right with him, putting us in a right relationship with him. Abraham’s decision on that day - to believe this impossible promise - put him in a right relationship with God, by faith. Did Abraham do anything to gain God’s favour and righteousness? Did he achieve anything? Did he work hard and want to get the wages from God for all the hard work he had done as Paul is talking about in this passage in Romans 4? Paul says, ‘No, no, no he didn’t. No’. The thing that Abraham did was, he simply trusted from his heart, and acted out his trust by talking to Sarah about what was going to happen, and preparing by making a plan for the future. The story of Abraham is a very powerful story that helps us understand justification by faith.

Righteousness

‘Righteousness’ is like somebody putting money in your bank account that you didn’t earn; it is a gift. Your bank account shows you have very little money and the next day you look at it and there has been a large amount of money deposited. It is an undeserved gift. ‘Righteousness’ is a gift from God. It puts us right with him and brings us into the sphere of his blessing. Paul thought that Abraham was a vivid example that his Jewish readers particularly would be very interested in, as an explanation about justification by faith. I wonder whether you sometimes think that this is all too simple. It is tremendously simple. Christ died for us and we have to wholly put our trust in him. It involves one thing which is difficult, and that is, humility. Stop trying, stop justifying yourself, and stop resisting the grace of God. Stop providing an alternative, stop running away. We just have to say, “Lord, you are right. I need you and you are available to me if I truly put my trust in you.” The beautiful thing about Abraham was that he continued to trust God through his life. He made a few mistakes but, in general, he trusted God.

Circumcision or Uncircumcised?

‘Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he’s also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham that he had before he was circumcised.’

Romans 4:9-12, NIV

We talked about circumcision in an earlier episode, and the fact that the Jews had tremendous pride in circumcision. It was like the badge of God’s favour on them, and some people believed it was a key for them earning eternal life. Paul points out here, that Abraham believed in God and received righteousness before he was circumcised. At a later stage God commanded him to be circumcised and for every male in his house to be circumcised. It was some years later that circumcision came in.

Circumcision is only a sign of a living faith that exists apart from circumcision. In Romans 2, Paul argued that Jewish faith in the importance of circumcision, is no longer valid in the time of the Christian gospel. Circumcision is a sign that God had made a covenant with Abraham. It is a symbol, a sign. Nothing more than that. Abraham teaches us about justification by faith whether we are Jews, who have been circumcised, or Gentiles who have not been circumcised.

Reflections

Circumcision was the sign of the covenant for the Jews. The other sign they had was the Sabbath Day. Those were two things that were special to the Jews. They no longer have any significance and power in the time of the new covenant. But we do have signs of the new covenant. There are two signs of great importance that we should honour and respect: one is baptism of believers and the other is communion or the Eucharist, or the breaking of bread. These were things that Jesus Christ commanded and instituted his followers to follow and adopt and use: baptism, to indicate faith and joining the Christian community; and Holy Communion to indicate being part of that community, as a living family. The Jews had circumcision and the Sabbath as their key signs. The church has baptism and communion as the key signs. But, baptism in itself doesn’t save us, in the same way that circumcision in itself didn’t save the Jewish person in the old covenant. It is faith that saves us - justification by faith - which brings the righteousness of God to us; we become made right with God.

The second reflection, is the place of time in the Christian life. Abraham’s story covers many years. The remarkable things that happened to him did not happen in a short period of time. The circumcision covenant probably took place more than 20 years after Abraham had been called and had come to the Promised Land. When we have faith in Christ, it doesn’t mean that all our problems are solved, everything is clear, we know what to do, and all God’s purposes are fulfilled in us quickly. No, we have to exercise faith, over time. Paul understood justification by faith as not just a beginning, but a continuing process that goes on through all our life, where we trust God wholly. I first trusted God about 47 years ago but I still need to do the same today. And so do you, if you are a believer, even if you have been a believer for a long time.

The final thought is to think of Abraham as our spiritual father. Most of the people listening to this talk will, like me, not be Jewish people. We are not biologically connected by race to Abraham. But Paul says very clearly in this passage, we are spiritually connected to Abraham, because the family of God started out with Abraham’s family. The Jewish people were Abraham’s family. He was the founder of that family but now God’s family has extended to the Church, and so he is the founder of that family. The Church is a continuation of the faithful part of Israel. In some cultures, we very much respect our ancestors, our forefathers, tribal elders, or tribal ancestors but there is a greater family than the tribe, or the nation, or the human family, that you and I are part of. That is the spiritual family of God - the greatest family on earth which goes on into the eternal world. It consists of people from all nations, tribes, languages, and tongues. All of us can say equally, Abraham is our father, because of his faith and God’s calling on his life.

Our next episode has more on the story of Abraham, but we will tell you that story when we meet again.