Romans 4:1–12
“What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’
“Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,
‘Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.’
“Is this blessing then pronounced on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them. He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had in uncircumcision.”
Paul has said that “the law and the prophets” testify to the righteousness God has revealed through faith. He now turns to Abraham and asks what Israel’s own Scriptures say about the patriarch’s righteousness. His answer comes from Genesis 15:6: “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
The timing recorded in Genesis becomes crucial to Paul’s argument. Abraham was counted righteous in Genesis 15, while circumcision was given as the covenant sign in Genesis 17. Circumcision therefore marked and sealed the righteousness associated with the faith Abraham already possessed rather than becoming the means by which that righteousness was obtained. This allows Paul to identify Abraham as the father both of uncircumcised people who believe and of circumcised people who follow the faith Abraham possessed before receiving circumcision.
What Did Abraham Find?
Romans 4:1
“What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh?”
Abraham is an especially significant test of Paul’s argument because he stands at the beginning of Israel’s covenant history. God called him from his country, promised to make a great nation from him, established his covenant with him, and promised that blessing would extend through him to the nations.
Genesis 12:1–3
“Now Yahweh said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.’”
Abraham also lived before the giving of the Mosaic law and before receiving circumcision. His story therefore allows Paul to examine the questions raised at the end of Romans 3 from within the foundational history of Israel itself. If righteousness rests upon human works or possession of circumcision, Abraham’s own story should demonstrate it.
If Abraham Was Justified by Works
Romans 4:2
“For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God.”
The reference to boasting recalls Romans 3:27, where Paul declared that boasting is excluded by justification through faith. If Abraham had established his righteousness through his works, his achievement would provide a basis for boasting. Paul nevertheless denies that Abraham possesses such a claim before God.
The question is not whether Abraham obeyed God. Genesis records his obedience repeatedly. The question is whether that obedience established a claim upon God for a righteous verdict. Paul answers by appealing directly to the account of Abraham’s righteousness in Genesis.
What Does the Scripture Say?
Romans 4:3
“For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’”
The quotation comes from Genesis 15. God had promised Abraham descendants, yet Abraham remained childless. When Abraham raised the problem, God brought him outside and directed his attention toward the heavens:
Genesis 15:5–6
“Yahweh brought him outside, and said, ‘Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ He said to Abram, ‘So your offspring will be.’ He believed in Yahweh, who credited it to him for righteousness.”
Abraham’s faith is trust in God and in the promise God has spoken. Genesis does not describe Abraham presenting a sufficient record of righteous works and receiving a verdict corresponding to his achievement. Abraham believes God, and that faith is credited to him for righteousness.
The verb translated “accounted,” logizomai, can carry the sense of counting, reckoning, crediting, or taking something into account. Paul repeatedly uses the language of Genesis throughout Romans 4. Rather than importing a different explanation of Abraham’s righteousness into the passage, he builds his argument around the scriptural statement itself: Abraham believed God, and his faith was accounted for righteousness.
Grace or Debt
Romans 4:4–5
“Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.”
Paul explains the difference between works and faith through the ordinary relationship between labor and wages. When a worker receives payment for completed labor, the payment is not a gracious gift from the employer. It is owed because the worker has performed the work for which payment is due.
Righteousness received in that manner would therefore belong to the category of debt rather than grace. Paul instead describes the person who “doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly.” The contrast concerns the basis upon which the righteous verdict is received. The believer does not present works that place God under obligation to justify him; he trusts the God who justifies.
The description of God as the one “who justifies the ungodly” is particularly important. The person being justified is not introduced as someone whose moral achievement has already established his righteousness. He is ungodly and therefore needs the verdict he cannot secure by presenting a successful record before God.
This does not require God to disregard sin or pronounce evil good. Paul has just described Christ as the one whom God presented in his atoning death so that God might remain “just, and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.” The God who justifies the ungodly does so without abandoning his righteousness.
Faith therefore does not function as a superior work that earns the reward previously sought through other works. Paul places faith opposite the wage principle itself. The believer receives what God graciously gives rather than establishing a debt that God must pay.
David Describes the Same Blessing
Romans 4:6–8
“Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,
‘Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.’”
Paul places David beside Abraham by quoting Psalm 32:
Psalm 32:1–2
“Blessed is he whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom Yahweh doesn’t impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit.”
David describes the blessed person in terms of forgiven sin. His disobedience is forgiven, his sin is covered, and his iniquity is not counted against him. Paul identifies this as the blessing of the person “to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.”
The language of accounting connects David’s testimony with Abraham’s. Genesis says that Abraham’s faith was accounted for righteousness, while the psalm describes the person against whom God does not account sin. In both cases, the decisive action belongs to God rather than to a human being establishing a righteous standing through works.
The use of Psalm 32 also prevents justification from becoming an abstract accounting exercise detached from the sinner’s actual condition. The person David calls blessed has committed sin requiring forgiveness. Paul’s argument concerns how guilty people can stand righteous before God, not how already-righteous people receive recognition for their accomplishments.
Does This Blessing Belong Only to the Circumcised?
Romans 4:9–10
“Is this blessing then pronounced on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.”
Paul’s quotation of Genesis provides an answer that depends upon the chronology of Abraham’s life. Genesis 15:6 declares that Abraham believed God and was counted righteous. Circumcision was not commanded until Genesis 17.
This sequence matters because circumcision was not merely a human tradition attached to Abraham by his descendants. God himself commanded it as the sign of his covenant:
Genesis 17:10–11
“This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. It will be a token of the covenant between me and you.”
Paul does not minimize the divine origin of circumcision. He uses its actual place within Abraham’s history to determine what it could and could not have accomplished. Since Abraham had already been counted righteous before receiving circumcision, circumcision cannot be the act by which he obtained that righteousness.
The same Abraham who later bore the covenant sign had first stood before God as an uncircumcised man who believed God’s promise.
A Sign and Seal of the Righteousness of Faith
Romans 4:11
“He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision.”
Paul describes circumcision as both a “sign” and a “seal.” The language of sign corresponds directly to Genesis 17, where circumcision is given as the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham. Paul’s description of it as a seal explains its relationship to the righteousness already mentioned in Genesis 15: it confirmed “the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision.”
The statement concerns the role circumcision played in Abraham’s own history. Paul is not treating the sign as meaningless simply because Abraham was not justified by receiving it. Circumcision genuinely marked the covenant God established with Abraham. Yet its significance cannot be made into the cause of a righteousness Scripture says Abraham possessed beforehand through faith.
Paul’s distinction preserves both parts of the Genesis account. Abraham’s righteousness through faith is affirmed without diminishing the covenant sign God subsequently commanded, while the divine origin of circumcision does not allow the sign to replace the faith that preceded it.
The Father of All Who Believe
Romans 4:11
“that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them.”
Abraham’s justification before circumcision has consequences for the Gentiles. If Abraham himself was counted righteous while uncircumcised, physical circumcision cannot be required before an uncircumcised person can share the righteousness associated with Abraham’s faith.
That conclusion fits the promise with which Abraham’s story began:
Genesis 12:3
“All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
The promise already extended beyond Abraham’s physical descendants to the nations. Paul elsewhere makes the connection explicit:
Galatians 3:6–9
“Even as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.’ Know therefore that those who are of faith are children of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you all the nations will be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham.”
The Gentile does not need to acquire Abraham’s ethnicity or receive circumcision in order to become one of the believing children represented by him. Abraham himself establishes the precedent: while uncircumcised, he believed God and was counted righteous.
The Father of the Circumcised Who Walk by Faith
Romans 4:12
“He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had in uncircumcision.”
Abraham’s fatherhood includes the circumcised, but Paul adds a qualification. They must not merely possess circumcision; they must “walk in the steps” of Abraham’s faith.
This corresponds closely to Paul’s earlier treatment of circumcision:
Romans 2:28–29
“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.”
Physical circumcision therefore neither excludes the Jew nor gives physical descent an independent ground of righteousness. Paul describes Abraham as father of circumcised people who share his faith and of uncircumcised people who believe. Both relationships are defined through the faith Abraham possessed before circumcision distinguished him physically.
The result is a single pattern of righteousness rather than separate principles for Jew and Gentile. Circumcision remains part of Abraham’s covenant history, but the righteous standing Paul finds in that history comes through faith.
Abraham, Faith, and Circumcision
Paul asked what Scripture says about Abraham and allowed the sequence of Genesis to answer. Abraham believed God, and his faith was accounted for righteousness. Paul interprets that accounting through the distinction between grace and debt: the person who works for a wage receives what is owed, while the ungodly person who believes receives righteousness from the God who justifies.
David’s words in Psalm 32 describe the same blessing from the perspective of forgiven sin. The blessed person is not the one who has established a claim upon God through works, but the one whose sin God does not count against him.
The chronology of Abraham’s life then answers the question of circumcision. His righteousness was accounted in Genesis 15, while circumcision was given in Genesis 17 as a sign and seal. Abraham can consequently be father of uncircumcised people who believe as well as circumcised people who walk in the steps of his faith. Neither physical condition supplies an alternative ground of righteousness.
Paul’s appeal to Israel’s patriarch therefore confirms the testimony he finds in Israel’s Scriptures. Before Abraham bore the covenant sign, and long before the law was given at Sinai, Scripture had already recorded the principle on which Paul builds his argument:
“Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”