Through the Righteousness of Faith

13For 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. 14For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect. 15For the law produces wrath, for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience. 16For 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. 17As 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. 18Besides 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.” 19Without 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. 20Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God, 21and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. 22Therefore it also was “credited to him for righteousness.” 23Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, 24but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead, 25who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.

On a road where the limit is 100 km/h, driving at 200 km/h does more than invite an accident; it breaks the law, and that is an offense. On a road with no such limit, however, going faster breaks no law at all. Laws are made to prevent accidents, and in the same way, had God not given the law, people would have lived by their own desires without ever knowing it was sin. He gave the law to make us realize that, however hard we try to keep it, we are sinners who can never reach the holy character of God. Human effort cannot win the forgiveness of sins; to be forgiven we must go to Christ, and this is what the law brought to light. Those who came to see that no amount of striving could keep the whole law came, through the prophets, to believe that Christ would come. The people of faith in Old Testament times never met the Messiah in their lifetime, yet by faith they saw it from afar, welcomed it, and believed that they were God’s people.

Romans 4:13

13For 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.

God made his covenant with Abraham 430 years before the law. Galatians 3:15 says that even a man’s covenant, once it has been confirmed, can be neither made void nor added to by anyone; how much less can a law that came 430 years later cancel a covenant already given. Abraham’s faith was pure, unmixed with human judgment and decision. At God’s command he set out for Canaan, a land wholly unknown to him, and when he met Melchizedek, king of Salem, he gave a true tithe. He trusted God’s promise of a son without doubting. Of course, he also sinned: anxious and driven by desire, he fathered Ishmael. He even spoke foolishly to God, proposing to make Eliezer of Damascus his heir. Yet even knowing that his body and Sarah’s were as good as dead and could not bear a child, he believed God’s word that he would have a son.

Abraham seems to have fathered Ishmael because the son was slow in coming, and in his anxiety he turned to human effort. Children are like this. When their mother tells them she will give them the present she has bought a little later, they cannot wait and search the whole house for it. Finding something that looks like it, they ask whether this is the one, and get scolded for it. Abraham was much the same. Because God had said he would give him a son, he wrestled in a very human way: should he make Eliezer his heir, or, when Sarah offered him her maid Hagar, was this really how the son was to be born? It shows that he did not yet have the mature faith that trusts God to give in his own time. Through these experiences Abraham came to realize that only God could give the son he had promised. Even when he turned to human means, he had thought hard before deciding, and when it all came to nothing he must have learned how futile human effort is. People resort to human methods because they are weak.

Having realized that God himself fulfills God’s promises, Abraham also learned from his life that those promises have their appointed time. It was on this deep faith that he was able to offer his son Isaac to God. Here I want to pause and look at Abraham’s heart as he offered Isaac. When God told him that the Messiah would come, Abraham showed that he believed that word with all his heart.

Romans 4:23-24

23Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, 24but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead,

The righteousness God credits is faith in Jesus Christ, who atoned for our sins, and faith in God, who raised Jesus from the dead. Abraham’s faith is for the sake of our faith now.

Romans 4:17

17As 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.

Abraham believed that God is almighty. He did not raise the knife over Isaac because some shallow faith told him that God would not really kill his son but would simply spare him. In the same way, when believers give an offering, they do not give it with the thought that this gift will surely bring them more wealth. As Isaac lay on the altar of burnt offering, the angel of Yahweh called to Abraham urgently from heaven, telling him not to lay his hand on the boy or do anything to him. That shows that Abraham’s heart was in earnest.

God does not accept human sacrifice, and so he had a ram ready in the thicket beforehand; but Abraham knew nothing of that plan. Knowing from Scripture that Isaac lived, we read this scene and think Abraham offered him easily. But would it have felt that way to a father who had to give up as a burnt offering the son born to him at a hundred? I hope you will consider how your own heart would feel if you met a trouble too heavy to bear, or lost the person or the possession dearest to you. Because we know that God does not accept human sacrifice, and that he spared Isaac, we may not dwell on what Abraham felt as a father when he was told to offer his son. But suppose God said to you, Give me your son. Could you obey without a struggle? I hope you will weigh that question now.

I believe that Abraham, being spiritually mature, had an obedient faith at the root of him; still, I wanted to understand the heart of a human father who had to kill his son. For a parent, losing a child may be like having one’s heart cut out. Even so, he laid Isaac on the altar and raised the knife. Faced with having to send his child away by his own hand, what must he have felt? If I could not understand this heart, could I say that I understood Abraham’s faith at all? That question troubled me, and I wrestled with it. My pain cannot compare with his, but to help you understand, let me share a brief testimony of my own.

I once faced something I simply could not bear. Sadly, it was an unhappy matter that I had no choice but to resolve with my own hands. For three days I sat in one place, refusing food and drink and staying up through the nights, thinking over and over why this had happened and what way of resolving it would be good; as the human anguish went on, I lost five kilograms. Perhaps Abraham, too, passed through such a time before offering Isaac. As I wept and prayed again and again through those painful hours, I went through something words cannot describe. In the body, a tearing pain wrapped my whole frame, and yet my spirit began to grow calm, until I felt as though flesh and spirit had come apart. My heart ached as if it would burst, while my spirit lay at peace, settled and still; to be honest, I still do not know what that feeling was. It seemed that a space like a vacuum had opened above my soul. In that space I was fixed on God alone, as if there were no one but God and me. What had happened came into sharp focus, I came to see its cause, and my spirit was so wholly turned toward God that no other thought could squeeze in. In that space I sensed another me, besides the one who had a body. My flesh kept asking whether, in such pain, I really had to preach tomorrow, and for whose sake I was preaching at all while my limbs were being torn apart.

Abraham, too, probably knew this human conflict between obedience and pain. Who could know such suffering? He was taking up his calling as the father of faith, yet the reality before him was the cruel one of having to kill his son, and the pain of it is hard to imagine. At that moment I felt my body being pressed down hard by something. My spirit drew still nearer to God, and I thought that if I were to put off this body today and meet him, I might be able to give an answer to this problem. I say this because I thought then that I might die this way.

Between the voice of my flesh, struggling as any human being would, and the calling God had given me as a pastor, I kept asking myself which choice would be the answer that could fill this space where God and I were alone. Strangely, I came to feel that my strengthened spirit was governing my despairing flesh, and the flesh was gradually growing steady. As I grew strong in spirit, I felt the flesh being held in check, though it still cried out that I ought to make the human choice. Abraham the father, who humanly longed for his son to live, and Abraham the prophet, who had heard the word that God would hang his Son on a cross and make him the atonement for the sins of all humanity, would have been torn by tremendous conflict. It was by overcoming that conflict, I imagine, that he came to the resolve to offer Isaac.

When Absalom, who had risen against him, was killed, David wailed and called out his son’s name again and again. Assuming that parents’ hearts are much the same, I have thought that Abraham would have been no different. I have also wondered, cautiously, whether it was not because the Holy Spirit worked powerfully, leaving him looking to God alone, that he could lay his son on the altar. If anyone were to mock his human pain at having to kill his son, God would not forgive them. How could anyone resolve to kill their own child? As Stephen was being stoned to death, he saw Christ opening his arms toward him from the throne, cast off his fear, and his face became like the face of an angel. In the same way, once Abraham was wholly gripped by God, he would have been able to offer Isaac.

Seeing Abraham’s faith, God made him the father of faith. Abraham may well have heard that he would become the father of faith, and known it, without truly feeling it. His suffering was immense, but because he had heard of the great plan of Christ that God had revealed to him, he could make his decision. God, too, nailed his Son to the cross for sinners, yet no one tried to understand that pain and sacrifice, and no one shared the cross with him. Still, to save sinners, he bore the suffering himself.

Pure faith enables us to serve God wholly as our Father. Children do not acknowledge their father only after being shown some proof; just so, Abraham believed that God alone was his Father and the Creator who had given him life. In overcoming such conflict, Abraham grew spiritually. Seeing him struggle like this, one might think he lacked faith. Yet to wrestle and agonize in this way and still make the good decision is the very process of being sanctified.

To the Jews who stressed works, the apostle Paul declared that if those who are of the law were heirs, faith would be made void and the promise made of no effect. His reason was this: if salvation came by keeping the law, God would have had no reason to count as righteous the faith Abraham showed several hundred years before the law. And if salvation came by keeping the law, Abraham could not be the father of the Gentiles who believe in Christ. God promised Abraham that he would bless those who blessed him and curse the one who cursed him, and that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him. This word of promise was fulfilled through Jesus Christ, who came into this world as Abraham’s offspring.

Romans 4:18-20

18Besides 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.” 19Without 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. 20Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God,

When Paul says that Abraham, besides hope, in hope believed, he means this: though he and Sarah had bodies that could not possibly conceive a child, God had promised to give him a son, and on that promise he waited in faith. It is true that Abraham made wrong choices even after receiving the promise. He was only human. In a frightening situation he lied that his wife was his sister, in his impatience he fathered Ishmael, and failing to grasp God’s will, he prayed that he might adopt his servant Eliezer as his heir. Yet looked at in light of the fact that Abraham was counted righteous, it seems that, having heard God say he would give him an heir, he could not wait patiently until it was given and acted on human reasoning to bring the promise about himself. He believed God would give him a son, but because he and Sarah were old, fear and human haste drove him to try to have one. He did not go wrong because he failed to trust God; his mistakes came precisely from his belief that it would surely happen. We too know that God will help us, yet in our haste we think up ways to settle things ourselves and make wrong choices. God declared such flawed people righteous because he saw the faith toward him that runs through their hearts.

Abraham believed God, but to his eyes his circumstances would have looked bleak indeed. When God showed him the stars of heaven and told him that his offspring would be like them, he may have thought it would all come to pass before long. His failing becomes quite understandable when we look at the confession the apostle Paul made.

Romans 7:22-25

22For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, 23but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, the sin’s law.

No one who has a body of flesh can overcome sin. The only way to overcome it is to trust wholly in Jesus Christ, who conquered death for us, and to lean on him. Abraham, too, believed the promise, but like Paul he likely found it hard to master his weak human feelings each time temptation came. Even so, the two of them strove to live by faith, and they held to it to the end, to overcome the flesh and give glory to God. When Abraham told Isaac to lie down on the altar, Isaac lay down willingly because he respected his father’s faith; that tells us what kind of life Abraham lived day by day. Isaac obeyed his father even knowing he would die, which suggests that Abraham had taught him well about God and salvation.

Like a rubber band tied to a post, human greed stretches out and snaps back, over and over. In the same way, Abraham learned through his life that he could not live apart from God’s grace, and he matured in spirit until he could offer Isaac.

Having faith does not mean we will not suffer. When we discover the wisdom of God at work in suffering, we gain the discernment to live thoughtfully even when we suffer unjustly, asking which choice is right and what fruit God wants. Abraham could not wait even after receiving the promise because he had set the time himself; it was the result of failing to overcome the desires of the flesh. If we truly believe God, our faith grows stronger with every hardship, and we can turn each one into an opportunity to show people who Jesus Christ is.

God permits trials in order to build up our perseverance. Only when we believe that God is leading us by a good plan do we learn perseverance through suffering and grow into the people he means us to be. Paul says that God counted Abraham righteous in order to save the people of faith who would follow through his faith. He is telling us that God always works with a purpose.

Psalms 102:17-21

17He has responded to the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer. 18This will be written for the generation to come. A people which will be created will praise Yah. 19For he has looked down from the height of his sanctuary. From heaven, Yahweh saw the earth; 20to hear the groans of the prisoner; to free those who are condemned to death; 21that men may declare Yahweh’s name in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

God, in other words, always has a purpose in what he does. He hears and answers the prayers of his people so that he may hear the praise of the many who confess their faith. He looks down from the height of his sanctuary and watches over the earth to hear the groans of the prisoner held captive by sin and to free those condemned to death. If those who have received such love do not serve Yahweh, but boast of their own righteousness and try to pay the price of salvation by their works, they will never be forgiven.

There is no way out of sin except to believe in the risen Christ. Abraham and the people of the Old Testament were saved by believing a promise yet to be fulfilled; those who live in New Testament times believe in Jesus Christ, who has accomplished the atonement. Anyone who knows this and still says that they worked, were godly, and strove to keep the law is, by that very claim, a sinner who does not know God.

There is no clearer love than Jesus rising from the dead. Through the cross God showed how much he hates sin, and how great is the love that gave itself up to death to save people. Before such a God we must ask ourselves whether we still have anything to boast of. Jesus’ death is not merely a symbol; it truly takes away our sin, and Christ’s resurrection is the ground of our righteousness. You who receive such love—what kind of life are you living now? He has shown a love that threw itself into death, and if you still cannot overcome the flesh that craves the world, God too will let go of your hand. I hope you will now take firm hold of the Lord’s nail-scarred hand and run. May you fix your mind on God as though there were no one in the world but God and you. Then a brilliant light will break into a heart as dark as night, and you will know how to live in this world and what God’s will is. My hope is that you will follow the faith of Abraham, who offered his son to make God’s will known to the world, living as God’s people who take up the calling of light and salt, and that you will hold a holy faith that God approves.