Romans 4

Anyone who preaches regularly on Paul knows that we have passed through a period of ferment in Pauline studies. Much of that ferment stems from the attempt of scholars to place Paul squarely in the traditions of Second Temple Judaism and to understand his thought as part and parcel of the Jewish thought of his day. Paul’s conversion was not his decision to embrace a new religion or a way of dealing with guilt; rather, Paul discovered that Jesus had fulfilled the deepest aspirations of his faith in a new, surprising way. As a result, Paul reexamined his Jewish past—especially the Scriptures—to see how his experience of the risen Christ transformed his past understanding. Paul’s transformation was a reorganization or reformulation of what was given to create something more than the apparent sum of its parts. The expected was now the accomplished; the hidden was now revealed; the accepted now questioned. Everything was different when it was cast in the light of Christ.

Sermons based on changes in scholarship tend to become more lecture than proclamation. Yet, people in the pews need to be informed when current scholarship indicates important new directions in interpretation. This type of instruction is particularly necessary when it involves a teaching as fundamental to Protestant theology as justification by faith. Romans 4 may offer an opportunity both to indicate how contemporary scholarship is reinterpreting Paul and, at the same time, to show that this reinterpretation may illumine what it means to be called a people. Our new perspective reveals unanticipated depths in the apostle’s thought. Examining the new interpretation of Abraham in Paul’s greatest letter encourages the congregation to think about old landmarks in a new way.

The book of Genesis falls naturally into two parts, with Abraham as the pivotal figure in the drama that begins with Adam’s disobedience. From Adam to Abraham, human sin dominated the story as people increasingly lived apart from God. The story turns the corner when God chooses Abraham to be the father of God’s people. From Abraham onward, God uses Abraham’s descendants as the vehicle of God’s revelation. Although sin remains a troubling presence, the biblical narratives after Genesis relate the experience of Abraham’s descendants as they pass through slavery, deliverance, the giving of the law, the establishment of the monarchy, and exile. The real actor in the story is God. No matter how far these children of Abraham drift, God is always faithful to the word that God spoke to Abraham.

For Paul, the cross and resurrection of Jesus cast this story in a new light. Abraham remains the pivotal figure, but the story of God’s promise becomes inclusive. God elected Abraham to be the father of all those who participate in the divine re-creation of the human race. The great story of Israel’s life and mission is not set aside, but that story becomes part of the greater story of Messiah’s rule.

Paul’s reinterpretation of Abraham begins by noting that God counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness (Gen 15:6) and then asking the rhetorical question: “How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised?” The answer to this question is obvious: “It was not after, but before he was circumcised” (Rom 4:10). The story of Abraham begins with the patriarch’s response to the promise and his willingness to depart from his homeland (Gen 12:1–3). Without this faith, there is no story. Consequently, Abraham’s trust in God’s word occurs before the patriarch and God enter into a covenant together, and the covenant, in fact, depends on Abraham’s decision to trust God (Gen 15:7–21). Thus, the covenant was a confirmation of the promise that Abraham had already heard and believed. The covenant itself becomes a sign of God’s faithfulness to the promise.

If so, then the mark of Abraham’s covenant, circumcision, is an important, but a secondary or derivative sign of God’s presence. Paul uses the interesting word “seal” to describe circumcision (Rom 4:11). Circumcision seals Abraham’s faith, giving it an outward mark, or identifying sign. Yet, just as a seal does not change the letter or deed to which it is attached, so circumcision does not change Abraham’s faith or God’s faithfulness. Belief in the promise remains the substance, and the seal only authenticates that reality. In Reformed theological terms, Paul has defined circumcision sacramentally. The ritual is an outward manifestation of an inward grace; where that grace is missing, circumcision is null and void or even witness against the bearer (cf. 1 Cor 11:29).

Paul’s position on circumcision is neither a rejection of the ritual nor a demotion of it. In an earlier chapter (Rom 3:1–2a), Paul argues, “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much, in every way.” Circumcision is the mark of the covenant faithfulness of God and not of the faithfulness or obedience of Israel. Even if every Jew proved unable to keep the law, circumcision would bear witness to God’s faithfulness. For Paul, this is, in fact, the case. Paul says that Israel, although marked by God and blessed with the covenants and the law, did not keep the law. The mark of the faithfulness of God bears witness against their unfaithfulness. Abraham remains the father of the circumcised—that Jewish affirmation was foundational to Paul’s theology—but the circumcised must also participate in the faith that was the foundation of Abraham’s own act of obedience. That faith is now faith in Abraham’s Lord, the Messiah.

This brings us to Paul’s main point in this chapter, that God intended to include both Jews and Gentiles in God’s work of redemption: “The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Rom 4:11b–12). In the next paragraph, Paul offers an important interpretative reading of the promise to Abraham. In Genesis, the promise refers to many nations or a specific land, but in Rom 4:13 Paul says that the promise was that Abraham’s descendants would inherit the world. The implicit parallel between Adam and Abraham is thus made explicit; the promise to Abraham is that the curse upon the children of Adam and Eve will be reversed through him. The promise is directed towards the renewed people of God called into being by Christ.

In short, the purpose of Paul’s long discussion of Abraham is not to establish the doctrine of justification by faith as much as it is to establish Paul’s teaching of inclusion by faith. What faith does is to bring both Gentiles and Jews together as the heirs of Abraham. As N. T. Wright argues, the faith that justifies Abraham is not that Abraham will be accepted by God—that has already happened when God chooses Abraham—but Abraham’s faith that he will be the father of many nations. ¹ This faith is faith in the God who “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom 4:17). Just as Abraham believed God’s promise that his barren flesh would produce a physical heir, so the patriarch believed God when God said he would be the father of many nations. This faith was reckoned to him as righteousness, just as those who follow him in faith are also reckoned as righteous.

This second look at Paul’s theology opens many vistas for the preacher. Perhaps the most important factor is the way that it enables the preacher to place the doctrine of justification by faith in a larger context. While a new reading of Paul remains emphatic that sins are forgiven and death defeated through faith, the focus is on the new community created by Christ, not on the forgiveness of the individual sinner. The sinner is forgiven, not only to be with Christ, but also to participate fully in the family of Abraham. Christ, the leader and vanguard, summons all children of Abraham out of the old cosmos, which is passing way, into the recreated world, the cosmos that God intended in creation. This new heaven and new earth is not yet fully present; the last enemy, death, is yet to be defeated, but the new creation is more than a promise. Together, circumcised and uncircumcised, the people of God journey towards the final victory, God’s triumph over “the last enemy,” which is death itself (1 Cor 15:20–26).