Scripture Daily

Context No. 365 of 4322 · Romans

Context · Reflection

Romans 4:9-15: in context

9Is this blessing then pronounced only on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. 10How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. 11He 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. 12He 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. 13For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would 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.

Paul is doing something careful with the story of Abraham, and it hinges on a sequence most readers never think about. When was Abraham declared righteous, Paul asks: before he was circumcised, or after? And the answer, from the order of events in Genesis, is that Abraham was counted righteous by his faith while he was still uncircumcised, years before he received the mark of circumcision at all. The faith came first, and the credential came afterward, as a seal, Paul says, on a righteousness Abraham already possessed by believing.

This matters enormously for who gets counted as belonging to God. Because Abraham was justified before he bore the mark, Paul argues, he can be the father of two kinds of people at once: those who carry the outward credential, yes, but also all those who simply share his faith without it, the uncircumcised, the outsiders, the ones the insiders assumed were excluded. The mark did not create Abraham's standing with God; his faith did, and the mark only sealed it. So the family of Abraham turns out to be defined by faith, not by the credential, which means it is far wider than the credentialed insiders had drawn the lines. The promise that Abraham would inherit the world, Paul adds, came through the righteousness of faith, not through law, because if it depended on law-keeping, faith would be emptied and the promise voided.

The passage quietly dismantles a very natural way of thinking. We tend to treat the outward markers, the religious credentials and the visible belonging, as the thing that makes a person acceptable to God, and we draw the family lines around whoever has them. Paul says faith came first and defines the family, which makes it much larger than the insiders assumed. Have I been drawing the circle of who belongs to God around the credentials and the markers, when the faith that actually counts came first and opens the family to people I had quietly left outside?

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