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Romans 4:1-8. The justification of Abraham, considered in relation to the doctrine just expounded in Romans 3:21-31. The point to be made out is that the justification of Abraham does not traverse but illustrates the Pauline doctrine.

Romans 4:1 The force of οὖν seems to be that the case of Abraham, as commonly understood, has at least the appearance of inconsistency with the Pauline doctrine. “What, then, i.e., on the supposition that Romans 4:21-25 in chap. 3 are a true exposition of God’s method, shall we say of Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? Does not his case present a difficulty? For if he was justified by works (as one may assume), he has ground for boasting (whereas boasting, according to the previous argument, Romans 3:27, is excluded).” This seems to me by far the simplest interpretation of the passage. The speaker is a Jewish Christian, or the Apostle putting himself in the place of one. κατὰ σάρκα goes with τὸν προπάτορα ἡμῶν, because the contrast with another kind of fatherhood belonging to Abraham is already in the Apostle’s thoughts: see Romans 4:11. If the reading εὐρηκέναι be adopted (see critical note), no change is necessary in the interpretation. To take κατὰ σάρκα with εὑρηκέναι, as though the question were: What shall we say that our forefather Abraham found in the way of natural human effort, as opposed to the way of grace and faith? is to put a sense on κατὰ σάρκα which is both forced and irrelevant. The whole question is, What do you make of Abraham, with such a theory as that just described?

Romans 4:2 f. With ἀλλʼ οὐ πρὸς τὸν θεόν the Apostle summarily repels the objection. “You say he has ground of boasting? On the contrary, he has no ground of boasting in relation to God, For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to Him for righteousness.” The quotation is from Genesis 15:6, and is exactly as in the LXX, except that Paul writes ἐπίστευσεν δὲ τῷ θεῷ instead of καὶ ἐπίστευσεν τῷ θεῷ, which serves partly to bring out the contrast between the real mode of Abraham’s justification, and the mode suggested in Romans 4:2, partly to give prominence to faith, as that on which his argument turned. The reading ἐπίστευσεν δὲ is also found in Jam 1:23, Philo i. 605 (Mangey), as well as Clem. Rom., I., x., 6, and Just. Martyr, Dial., 92: so that it was probably current, and not introduced by Paul. It is assumed that something not in itself righteousness was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness; only on this assumption is boasting in his case excluded.

Romans 4:4 f. The faith of Abraham, in whatever way it may be more precisely determined by relation to its object, agrees with Christian faith in the essential characteristic, that it is not a work. To him who works—der mit Werken umgehet: Luther—the reward is reckoned, not by way of grace (as in Abraham’s case), but by way of debt. But to him who does not work, i.e., who does not make works his ground of hope toward God—but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness. Romans 4:5 describes the category under which Abraham falls, but is not a generalisation from his case. The ἀσεβὴς (Genesis 18:23, Proverbs 11:31, chap. Romans 5:6) is a person who has no claim to justification: if he is justified, it must be not on the ground of works, but freely, by God’s grace, on which he relies through faith. Of course to believe in this grace of God is to do something; in that sense it is a work; but it is to do something which involves a complete renunciation of hope in anything we can do without God. It excludes merit, boasting, justification ἐξ ἔργων. Cf. Philo, i., 486 (quoted in Mayor on Jam 1:21): δίκαιον γὰρ οὕτως οὐδὲν ὡς ἀκράτῳ καὶ ἀμιγεῖ τῇ πρὸς θεὸν μόνον πίστει κεχρῆσθαι … τὸ ἐπὶ μόνῳ τῷ ὄντι βεβαίως καὶ ἀκλινῶς ὁρμεῖν … δικαιοσύνης μόνον ἔργον. The whole Pauline gospel could be summed up in this one word—God who justifies the ungodly. Under that device, what room is there for any pretensions or claims of man? It is sometimes argued (on the ground that all God’s actions must be “ethical”) that God can only pronounce just, or treat as just, those who actually are just; but if this were so, what Gospel would there be for sinful men? This “ethical” gospel is identical with the Pharisaism in which Paul lived before he knew what Christ and faith were, and it led him to despair. It leads all men either to despair or to a temper which is that of the Pharisee rather than the publican of Luke 18. What it can never beget is the temper of the Gospel. The paradoxical phrase, Him that justifieth the ungodly, does not suggest that justification is a fiction, whether legal or of any other sort, but that it is a miracle. It is a thing that only God can achieve, and that calls into act and manifestation all the resources of the Divine nature. It is achieved through an unparalleled revelation of the judgment and the mercy of God. The miracle of the Gospel is that God comes to the ungodly, with a mercy which is righteous altogether, and enables them through faith, in spite of what they are, to enter into a new relation to Himself, in which goodness becomes possible for them. There can be no spiritual life at all for a sinful man unless he can get an initial assurance of an unchanging love of God deeper than sin, and he gets this at the Cross. He gets it by believing in Jesus, and it is justification by faith. The whole secret of New Testament Christianity, and of every revival of religion and reformation of the Church is in that laetum et ingens paradoxon, θεὸς ὁ δικαιῶν τὸν ἀσεβῆ.

Romans 4:6 ff. καθάπερ καὶ Δαβὶδ: David is not a new illustration of this doctrine, but a new witness to it. The argument just based on Genesis 15:6 is in agreement with what he says in the 32nd Psalm. The quotation exactly reproduces the LXX. λέγει τὸν μακαρισμὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου: “pronounceth blessing upon the man,” etc. (R.V.): or, speaks the felicitation of the man. He does so in the exclamation with which the Psalm opens. Obviously to impute righteousness without works, and freely to forgive sins, are to Paul one and the same thing. Yet the former is not a merely negative idea: there is in it an actual bestowment of grace, an actual acceptance with God, as unlike as possible to the establishment of an unprejudiced neutrality between God and man, to which the forgiveness of sins is sometimes reduced.

Romans 4:9-12. In these verses the justification of Abraham appears in a new light. In virtue of its ground in his faith, he is not only a forefather κατὰ σάρκα (i.e., the natural ancestor of the Jews), but he is the spiritual ancestor of all believers. The faith which was imputed to him for righteousness constitutes him such; it is the same in essence as Christian faith; and so it is a vital bond between him and all who believe, whether they be Jews or Gentiles. God’s method has been the same through all history.

Romans 4:9. ὁ μακαρισμὸς οὖν οὗτος: This felicitation, then, what is its extent? Does it apply to the circumcision only, or to the uncircumcision also? Just as Romans 4:1-8 correspond to Romans 3:27 f., so do Romans 4:9-12 correspond to Romans 3:29-31. God is not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also, and the Apostle’s purpose here is to show that the felicitation of the justified in Psalms 32 is not limited by circumcision. λέγομεν γὰρ κ.τ.λ.: for our proposition is, that his faith was reckoned, etc.

Romans 4:10. πῶς οὖν ἐλογίσθη; To say that his faith was reckoned as righteousness, without mentioning circumcision, suggests that the latter was at least not indispensable; still it is not decisive, and so the further question must be asked, How—i.e., under what conditions—was his faith thus reckoned to him? Was it when he was circumcised or when he was uncircumcised? History enables Paul to answer, Not when he was circumcised, but when he was uncircumcised. Abraham’s justification is narrated in Genesis 15, his circumcision not till Genesis 17, some fourteen years later: hence it was not his circumcision on which he depended for acceptance with God.

Romans 4:11 f. On the contrary, he received a sign in circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised. Both sign (אוֹת) and seal (חוֹתָם) are frequently used by Rabbinical writers to describe circumcision as a symbol or pledge that one is in covenant with God. So even of heathens: “Og was circumcised, and Moses feared מפני אות ברית שׁלו, propter signum foederis ejus”. But usually of Jews: “Jonah shewed Leviathan sigillum (חותמו) Abrahami patris nostri”. See Schoettgen, Wetstein, or Delitzsch, ad loc περιτομῆς (for which W. and H. have in margin περιτομήν) must be a genitive of apposition. With εἰς τὸ εἶναι the Divine purpose in this relation of circumcision to justification in the case of Abraham is explained. Things were ordered as has been described that he might be father of all that believe while uncircumcised (as he himself did)—that the righteousness in question might be imputed to them; and father of circumcision (i.e., of persons circumcised) in the case of those who are not only circumcised, but also walk in the steps of the faith which he had while not circumcised. It was God’s intention that Abraham should be the representative and typical believer, in whom all believers without distinction should recognise their spiritual father; the Divine method of justification was to be inaugurated and illustrated in him, as it should hold good for all who were to be justified: accordingly the whole process took place antecedent to his circumcision, and in no circumstances has circumcision any essential relation to this great blessing. For its true meaning and advantage see on Romans 2:25. On οὐκ ἐκ περιτομῆς μόνον, see Simcox, Language of the N.T., 184. The grammar in Romans 4:12 is faulty, and Westcott and Hort suspect a primitive error. Either τοῖς before στοιχοῦσιν must be omitted, or it must be changed, as Hort suggests, into αὐτοῖς, if we are to express the meaning correctly. The sense required by the context is not open to doubt. For διʼ ἀκροβυστίας cf. Romans 2:27. For the dative τοῖς ἴχνεσιν see Philipp. Romans 3:16, Galatians 5:16; Galatians 5:25. But cf. also Winer, p. 274.

Romans 4:13-15. The argument of Romans 4:9-12 is reiterated and confirmed here in other terms. Abraham is the father of all believers: for it is not through law that the promise is given to him or his seed, that he should be heir of the world—a condition which would limit the inheritance to the Jews, but through the righteousness of faith—a condition which extends it to all who believe. We might have expected a quasi-historical proof of this proposition, similar to the proof given in 10 f. that Abraham’s justification did not depend on circumcision. But the Apostle takes another and more speculative line. Instead of arguing from the O.T. narrative, as he does in Galatians 3:14-17, that the promise was given to a justified man before the (Mosaic) law was heard of, and therefore must be fulfilled to all independently of law, he argues that law and promise are mutually exclusive ideas. For (Romans 4:14) if those who are of law, i.e., Jews only, as partisans of law, are heirs, then faith (the correlative of promise) has been made vain, and the promise of no effect. And this incompatibility of law and promise in idea is supported by the actual effect of the law in human experience. For the law works wrath—the very opposite of promise. But where there is not law, there is not even transgression, still less the wrath which transgression provokes. Here, then, the other series of conceptions finds its sphere: the world is ruled by grace, promise and faith. This is the world in which Abraham lived, and in which all believers live; and as its typical citizen, he is father of them all.

Romans 4:13. ἡ ἐπαγγελία is the Divine promise, which is identical with salvation in the widest sense. The word implies that the promise is held out by God of his own motion. The peculiar content here assigned to the promise, that Abraham should be heir of the world, is not found in so many words in the O.T. Schoettgen, on Romans 4:3, quotes Mechilta, fol. 25, 2. “Sic quoque de Abrahamo legimus, quod mundum hunc et mundum futurum non nisi ea de causa consecutus sit, quia in Deum credidit, q.d., Genesis 15:6. And Wetstein, Tanchuma, 165, 1: Abrahamo patri meo Deus possidendum dedit cælum et terram. These passages prove that the idea was not unfamiliar, and it may be regarded as an extension of the promises contained in Genesis 12:7; Genesis 17:8; Genesis 22:17. But what precisely did it mean? Possibly participation in the sovereignty of the Messiah. Abraham and his seed would then be heirs of the world in the sense of 1 Corinthians 6:2, 2 Timothy 2:12. So Meyer and many others. In the connection in which the words stand, however, this seems strained; and the “rationalising” interpretation, which makes the world Abraham’s inheritance through the spread of Abraham’s faith, and the multiplication of his spiritual children, is probably to be preferred. The religion which is conquering the world is descended from him, its power lies in that faith which he also had, and in proportion as it spreads he inherits the world. τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ: not Christ, as in Galatians 3:16, but Abraham’s descendants in the widest sense. διὰ δικαιοσύνης πίστεως: it was not as one under law, but as one justified by faith, that Abraham had the promise given to him. In the narrative, indeed, the promise (Genesis 12:7) antedates the justification (Genesis 15:6), but it is repeated at later periods (see above): and as Romans 4:14 argues, promise, faith and justification are parts of one spiritual whole.