Romans 4:1-8, Commentary
Jun 23rd, 2009 by Micah Tillman | Start the Discussion |
[ Romans 1 | 2 | 3| 4: Intro, 1-8, 9-17, 18-25, Conclusion | 5 ]
1 What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5 But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6 So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”
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4:1-2 — Notice that Paul is still primarily talking to the Jewish members of his audience, to those for whom Abraham is an “ancestor according to the flesh.” However, he’s about to argue that Abraham’s true descendants are those who are righteous, and have become righteous in the same way as Abraham (through faith).
Notice that Paul presents Abraham as someone in need of justification, and says that works didn’t justify him. This is not really all that controversial a claim. If you break a law, starting to keep the law won’t erase the fact that you’re guilty of having broken the law.
But Abraham, like everyone else, had sinned. So he couldn’t erase that past sin by starting to act correctly. You can’t change the past. Thus, no one is justified by works, because everyone has already committed some sin or other (except, I would assume, small children — but that’s just because they haven’t really done anything at all; they’re still growing into their human agency), and simply doing more good things doesn’t change the fact that you did a bad thing in the past.
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4:3 — Here Paul quotes Genesis 15:6. The context is Abraham’s worry that his heir will be one of his slaves, since he has no child. (That’s an interesting inheritance tradition, isn’t it?)
In response to this worry, God promises Abraham that his heir will be his physical child, and that he will have descendants as numerous as the stars that Abraham could see in the sky (evidently it was night at the time, and there was probably much less of a light polution problem back then).
And then Abraham took God at His word, and thus was counted as being righteous — even though he didn’t say the Sinner’s Prayer, even though he’d never heard of Jesus or the Cross. He simply believed that God would do what God said God would do.
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But what God said God would do is give him a child of his own to be his heir, and to give him descendants as numerous as the stars. However, you have to see this promise in the context of Genesis 12:1-4, Genesis 18:16-19, and Genesis 22:16-18. The promise of descendants is one aspect of God’s promise to make Abraham a blessing to the entire world, especially through the blessing that his descendants will be to the entire world.
Now, we can take this in one or both of two ways. On the cultural side (philosophy, science, art, literature, etc.), the world certainly has been enormously blessed by Abraham’s descendants. Some of the greatest philosophers, scientists, artists, writers, etc. have been physical descendants of Abraham.
But also, on the religious side, as a Christian I have to point out that Jesus was a physical descendant of Abraham as well, and that He provides the ultimate blessing — the possibility of a life-the-way-it-was-supposed-to-be (i.e., the eternal kind of life) — to the world.
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So, Jesus is still “in there somewhere,” when we talk about Abraham being righteous because he believed God would give him an heir and descendants like God said He would — because that promise is part of a wider promise to make Abraham a blessing to the world, and the most important way in which Abraham has been a blessing to the world is by starting the family from which Jesus comes.
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4:4-5 — A worker earns wages for the works he performs. But our problem isn’t getting paid for the good stuff we do, but how to fix the bad stuff we’ve done.
The solution is that it’s God who fixes the bad stuff we’ve done. It’s God who “justifies the ungodly.” Therefore, all we have to do is accept that; all we have to do is believe that when God says He justifies us, that He’s not lying.
We just have to be willing to be justified by God (i.e., willing to have God make us not guilty of the since we committed), to have God fix our guilt for past wrongs for us.
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It’s really not that big of a deal on our end; there’s nothing elaborate about it. God does all the work, we just accept.
What’s a big deal is what happens — or doesn’t happen — next. Salvation isn’t a big deal from our end (i.e., getting saved is so easy anyone could do it, because you don’t have to do anything!); it’s working out your salvation that’s the big deal.
Being restored to life isn’t a big deal (i.e., God does all the work, you just sit back and relax); it’s abundantly living out that new life that’s the big deal (see John 10:10 and Romans 6).
Receiving grace isn’t a big deal (i.e., it’s a gift, and everyone loves gifts! It’s not that hard to accept a gift); it’s growing in grace that’s the big deal.
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To put it in theological language, justification isn’t a big deal, sanctification is. (I’m being deliberately provocative by putting it that way. Please read it in context :-)
Salvation (=justification) is just the beginning; it’s the moment of birth. Sanctification, growth, living life in an eternal (full, abundant, unstoppable) way is what we’re supposed to focus on. It’s what we’ll spend the rest of forever on.
Your birth gets you started, but the big deal is how you live out the life you’ve been given by your birth.
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Okay, so you may ask if living (not being born) is central, then why do our past sins have to be fixed? If we’re living correctly at the moment, what does it matter how we lived in the past?
The answer is, in part, that there is no “at the moment” for the God who created time. God doesn’t just see you as you are now, because that’s only part of you. God sees you in your totality, not just that sliver of you that exists in the present moment.
Your past has to be fixed because it’s part of you. You may think you leave it behind, but that’s just how things look from within time. In reality, you are a temporally-extended whole, not just the slice of that whole that exists in the present.
Therefore, you need to be fixed as a whole — past, present, and future. You need to be made the kind of thing that can deal (as a whole) with God — and that God can deal with as a whole — rather than the kind of thing that’s shaking hands with God in the present, and kicking God in the shins in the past (or future).
Salvation takes those past episodes of kicking God in the shins (and the current and future episodes!) and eliminates them, so that way God can deal with you as a whole, not just with that part of you that happens to exist at any given moment.
That’s one possible theory, anyway.
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4:6-8 — Here Paul quotes Psalm 32:1-2. David is forgiven in this Psalm simply for confessing his sin, not for doing any works. And it was a great relief to him, a great blessing.
“Blessed are those . . . whose sins are covered”: i.e., it’s awesome to be given big floppy, soft clown shoes so that when you kick God in the shins, it doesn’t hurt Him and therefore doesn’t interrupt your conversation with Him.
Or something like that.
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[ Romans 1 | 2 | 3| 4: Intro, 1-8, 9-17, 18-25, Conclusion | 5 ]
