Romans 4:13–25
“For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he should be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect. For the law produces wrath, for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience. “For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations.’ This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not as though they were. “Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, ‘So will your offspring be.’ Without being weakened in faith, he didn’t consider his own body, already having been worn out, he being about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. Therefore also it was ‘credited to him for righteousness.’ “Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.”
Having established that Abraham was counted righteous before circumcision, Paul turns to the promise Abraham believed. The inheritance did not come through the Mosaic law but through the righteousness of faith, and Paul presses the distinction further: if inheritance depends upon law, faith is emptied and the promise is nullified, because law confronts transgression with wrath.
The character of Abraham’s faith becomes increasingly important as the passage develops. God promised descendants to a man approaching a hundred years old through a woman whose childbearing years had passed. Abraham trusted neither his circumstances nor his own ability to produce what God had promised. He trusted the God who gives life to the dead. Paul then carries that description directly into Christian faith: righteousness is also accounted to those who believe in the God who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
The Promise Was Not Through the Law
Romans 4:13
“For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he should be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.”
Paul describes the Abrahamic promise in expansive terms: Abraham and his offspring would be “heir of the world.” Genesis does not contain that exact expression, but the description gathers together promises made throughout Abraham’s story. God promised him land, innumerable descendants, many nations, kings, and blessing extending to all the families of the earth.
Genesis 12:2–3
“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.”
Genesis 17:4–6
“As for me, behold, my covenant is with you. You will be the father of a multitude of nations. Your name will no more be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you. Kings will come out of you.”
Paul’s expression fits the outward movement already present in those promises. What begins with Abraham reaches beyond one man and ultimately beyond one nation.
The law given through Moses came centuries after Abraham and therefore cannot be the means through which the promise was originally received. Paul makes the chronological point explicitly in Galatians:
Galatians 3:17–18
“Now I say this. A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by promise.”
Romans 4, however, goes beyond chronology. Paul is concerned with what happens to the character of the promise if inheritance is made dependent upon law.
If Those of the Law Are Heirs
Romans 4:14–15
“For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect. For the law produces wrath, for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience.”
If inheritance comes through the law, the principle on which Abraham received the promise has been changed. Faith becomes empty and promise loses its effect because inheritance now depends upon the performance of those who stand under law.
The problem is intensified by what the law actually does in relation to sinful humanity: “the law produces wrath.” Law identifies transgression and renders the lawbreaker accountable. Rather than providing sinners with the righteousness required for inheritance, it exposes their disobedience to judgment.
Paul’s statement that “where there is no law, neither is there disobedience” does not mean that sin exists only where the Mosaic law exists. Gentiles without that law have already been included under sin in Romans, and Paul will soon state explicitly that sin existed before Sinai:
Romans 5:13–14
“For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience.”
The point concerns transgression as violation of a known command. Law identifies the boundary and therefore makes its violation explicit. An inheritance dependent upon that principle would confront the sinner not with the certainty of promise but with wrath.
According to Grace
Romans 4:16
“For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”
The connection between faith and grace follows directly from Paul’s contrast. Faith receives what God promises rather than transforming inheritance into payment owed for successful performance. The certainty of the promise consequently rests upon God’s grace rather than upon the ability of Abraham’s offspring to secure it through law.
Its scope follows from the same principle. Abraham’s offspring cannot be restricted to those who possess the Mosaic law because the promise also embraces those who share Abraham’s faith. Paul can therefore call Abraham “the father of us all,” a claim grounded in God’s own words to Abraham.
A Father of Many Nations
Romans 4:17
“As it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations.’ This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not as though they were.”
Paul quotes Genesis 17:5:
Genesis 17:5
“Your name will no more be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.”
God spoke of Abraham as the father of many nations before the promised multitude was visible in Abraham’s circumstances. Paul’s description emphasizes the character and power of the God Abraham believed. He “gives life to the dead” and “calls the things that are not as though they were.” God can speak of what does not yet exist with the certainty of accomplished reality because fulfillment depends upon his power and faithfulness rather than upon present appearances.
That description prepares for the condition of Abraham and Sarah in the following verses. The promised offspring would come when their natural capacity to produce a child had reached its end. The promise could therefore be trusted only if the God who made it was able to overcome what humanly appeared to be the end of the possibility.
In Hope He Believed
Romans 4:18
“Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, ‘So will your offspring be.’”
Measured by Abraham’s circumstances, there were no ordinary grounds for expecting the promise to be fulfilled. Yet Abraham believed “in hope” because his expectation rested upon what God had spoken.
Paul returns to Genesis 15:
Genesis 15:5
“Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.... So your offspring will be.”
The contrast is not between faith and awareness of reality. Abraham’s hope exists precisely where his circumstances provide no independent reason for it. What gives him reason to hope is the promise of God.
His Own Body and Sarah’s Womb
Romans 4:19–20
“Without being weakened in faith, he didn’t consider his own body, already having been worn out, he being about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God.”
Abraham’s age and Sarah’s inability to bear children establish the human impossibility against which the promise stood.
Genesis 18:11
“Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.”
Paul does not portray faith as ignorance of those circumstances. Abraham knows the condition of his own body and Sarah’s womb. His faith consists in refusing to treat those conditions as the final measure of what God is able to accomplish.
Genesis records moments when both Abraham and Sarah responded to the promise with laughter. Paul’s description therefore need not be turned into a claim that Abraham never questioned, hesitated, or responded imperfectly. He is describing the governing character of Abraham’s response to the promise. Abraham did not finally reject God’s word as impossible simply because its fulfillment exceeded natural human ability.
To trust the promise under those circumstances was to give glory to God because it acknowledged that God’s ability, rather than Abraham’s, would determine whether the promise could be fulfilled.
Fully Assured That God Was Able
Romans 4:21
“and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform.”
Abraham’s confidence rests upon his estimate of God rather than upon confidence in himself. If fulfillment depends upon what Abraham and Sarah can accomplish naturally, the promise has no humanly plausible future. Abraham instead becomes persuaded that the one who made the promise possesses the ability to perform it.
Hebrews describes the birth of Isaac in similar terms:
Hebrews 11:11
“By faith even Sarah herself received power to conceive, and she bore a child when she was past age, since she counted him faithful who had promised.”
The object of faith is decisive. Biblical faith is not confidence that whatever a person strongly hopes for will occur. Abraham possesses a specific promise spoken by God and trusts the God who spoke it. His assurance is grounded in the faithfulness and ability of the one who promised.
It Was Accounted to Him for Righteousness
Romans 4:22
“Therefore also it was ‘credited to him for righteousness.’”
The “therefore” returns the discussion to Genesis 15:6 and connects the character of Abraham’s faith with the accounting Paul has discussed throughout Romans 4. Abraham’s faith was neither meritorious performance nor vague religious optimism. He relied upon the promise of God because he was persuaded that God could accomplish what he had spoken.
Paul’s discussion of Abraham’s later circumstances has therefore clarified what Genesis means when it says that Abraham “believed God.” His faith was directed toward the God whose promise remained trustworthy even when fulfillment lay beyond Abraham’s natural ability.
Written for Our Sake Also
Romans 4:23–24
“Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”
The statement about Abraham was preserved in Scripture “for our sake also.” Paul does not mean that Christians must reproduce Abraham’s circumstances or receive his particular promise concerning Isaac. The correspondence lies in the God who is believed.
Abraham trusted the God “who gives life to the dead.” Christians believe in the God “who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” What Abraham trusted God to be able to do has its decisive expression for Christian faith in the resurrection of Christ.
The connection is stronger than a general similarity between two acts of divine power. Paul identifies the God of Abraham with the God proclaimed in the gospel. The faith through which righteousness is accounted has continuity because its object is the same faithful, life-giving God, now known through his act of raising Jesus from the dead.
Delivered for Our Trespasses and Raised for Our Justification
Romans 4:25
“who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.”
Jesus was “delivered up for our trespasses,” locating his death directly within the problem of human sin that has occupied the opening chapters of Romans. Paul uses the same language later when describing the Father’s giving of the Son:
Romans 8:32
“He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?”
Paul joins that saving death immediately to resurrection: Jesus “was raised for our justification.” The resurrection is not merely an appendix to a saving work completed independently at the cross. Death and resurrection belong together within the saving work of Christ.
Romans itself guards against separating them. Paul will speak in Romans 5:9 of believers being “justified by his blood,” while Romans 4:25 says Christ was “raised for our justification.” The statements describe complementary dimensions of the same saving event rather than competing explanations of when justification was accomplished. The one delivered because of human trespasses is the crucified Lord whom God raised from death.
Paul’s account of Abraham therefore reaches its Christian destination here. The faith credited to Abraham was trust in the God who gives life to the dead. The faith to which righteousness is now accounted is directed toward that same God, who has acted in history by raising Jesus our Lord.
Abraham, Promise, and Resurrection Faith
Abraham’s story does not provide Paul merely with an ancient example of someone who possessed unusually strong faith. The force of the story lies in the God Abraham believed. The promise confronted Abraham with a future he could not produce, and faith rested that future upon the ability and faithfulness of God.
That is why Paul can move from Abraham to the resurrection without changing the fundamental object of faith. The God who promised life where Abraham and Sarah could not produce it is the God who raised Jesus from actual death. Christian faith does not imitate Abraham by attempting to believe impossible things strongly enough. It follows Abraham by trusting what God has actually promised and accomplished.
Genesis 15:6 was therefore written “for our sake also.” The God who accounted Abraham’s faith for righteousness is the God in whom Christians believe: the one who raised Jesus our Lord, who was delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification.