Romans 4:9 - Meaning and Application

Paul is showing when and why Abraham was counted righteous. It was before Abraham was circumcised, and before the law was given, and each of those facts matters. He is answering the question, does this blessing belong only to the circumcised, or also to the uncircumcised? (Romans 4:9)

Abraham was accepted and forgiven while he was still uncircumcised. That would comfort uncircumcised Gentiles, because it showed they could also receive righteousness by faith. It would also humble the Jews, who boasted in circumcision as if it gave them a special claim to God’s favor. Abraham was counted righteous by faith while he was still uncircumcised, as Genesis 15:6 says, and he was not circumcised until later, in Genesis 17. Some say this was fourteen years later, and some say twenty-five.

One reason for this timing was that circumcision could then serve as a seal of the righteousness of faith. A seal confirms a promise that has already been made. So after Abraham had already been justified by faith for several years, God gave him circumcision as a confirming sign. Abraham received this bloody ordinance, meaning a ritual involving blood, as a special favor from God.

This helps us understand sacraments in general. They are signs that teach and picture spiritual truth, and seals that confirm God’s promises. They show God’s grace and favor, and they also mark our response to him. God seals to us that he will be our God, and we seal to him that we will be his people.

Circumcision had its own special meaning. It was the first covenant sign in the Old Testament. It pointed to the cutting away of our natural sinfulness, which is what spiritual circumcision does. It also remembered God’s covenant with Abraham, marked the difference between Jews and Gentiles, admitted a person into the visible church, and pointed forward to baptism, which has taken its place in the gospel age now that Christ’s blood has been shed and bloody ceremonies are no longer needed. It was an outward sign of an inward grace.

Circumcision was also a seal of the righteousness that comes by faith. In a broad sense, it sealed the covenant of grace. More especially, it sealed justification by faith, that is, being counted right with God through trusting him. If infants were then able to receive this seal of the covenant, that shows they were within that covenant. Those who reject the baptism of believers’ children need to explain why children were once admitted and now, they claim, excluded.

A second reason Abraham was justified while uncircumcised was that he might be the father of all who believe. Others were justified by faith before Abraham, but Abraham is the first in whom Scripture clearly sets out this fuller form of the covenant of grace. He is called the father of believers because he was such a striking example of faith and justification by faith.

He is the father of believing Gentiles, even when they are not circumcised. Zacchaeus the tax collector, if he believes, is counted as a son of Abraham (Luke 19:9). Since Abraham himself was justified before circumcision, uncircumcision can never be a barrier. That removes the Gentiles’ fear and shows that righteousness can be credited to them too (Colossians 3:11; Galatians 5:6).

He is also the father of believing Jews, but not merely because they are circumcised or descended from Abraham in the flesh. They must also believe. They are not just marked by the sign, but share the faith it pointed to. They are not only members of Abraham’s family by birth, but by walking in Abraham’s footsteps. The true heirs are not those who only carry a name, but those who follow the same faith and way of life.

The same is true for Christ’s people. The real children of Christ are not merely those who bear his name in outward profession, but those who walk in his steps. Abraham’s role as father came through this great promise being renewed to him.

Paul also says Abraham was justified before the law was given (Romans 4:13-16). This rebukes those who thought justification came through the law. The promise was made to Abraham long before Moses received the law (Galatians 3:17-18). The promise was that Abraham would be heir of the world, which may mean the land of Canaan, the best land in the world, or the many nations that came from him, or the blessings of life in this world. It also points to Christ, the promised seed (Galatians 3:16). Christ is the heir of the world, the one to whom the nations belong, and in him Abraham received the promise. It also looks back to God’s promise, “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

This promise came to Abraham not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. The law had not yet been given. The promise rested on Abraham’s trusting God, shown when he left his homeland at God’s command (Hebrews 11:8).

Since the promise comes by faith, it cannot come by the law. Paul proves this by showing the sharp difference between them, especially in Romans 4:14-15. If only those who are of the law are heirs, meaning if only people who keep the law perfectly can receive the promise, then faith has no value. In that case, the promise could never take effect, because the path to life by perfect obedience and complete sinlessness is shut to us. The law itself offers no other way.

Paul then explains why this is so. “The law works wrath.” It brings wrath in us toward God, because it stirs up the sinful mind that is hostile to him, like a dam that makes a stream swell. It also brings wrath from God against us, because our breaking of the law brings judgment. We can never expect to inherit what God promised through a law that only brings wrath. Paul sums this up briefly: “Where there is no law, there is no transgression.” That statement means if there is a law, there is also transgression, and that transgression provokes wrath.

Paul gives three reasons why the promise came by faith in Romans 4:16. First, it is so that it might be by grace, meaning by God’s free favor and not by debt or merit. Grace should receive all the honor in this building, especially the highest stone. Faith is connected to grace as receiving is connected to giving. The promise comes by grace, and therefore through faith (Ephesians 2:8). God will have every crown laid at the feet of free grace, and every song in heaven will praise him alone.

Second, the promise comes by faith so that it might be sure. The first covenant, the covenant of works, was not sure, because human failure cut off the blessings it offered. So, to make the new covenant secure, God chose another way, not by works. If it depended on works, the promise would not be sure, because human weakness and constant failure would always put it at risk. But faith receives everything from Christ and keeps depending on him, the great trustee of our salvation, in whose care it is safe. That is why the covenant is sure, because it is well ordered in every part (2 Samuel 23:5).

Third, it is by faith so that the promise might be sure to all the seed. If it had come by the law, it would have belonged only to the Jews, to whom the law and covenants were given (Romans 9:4). But by faith, Gentiles as well as Jews can share in it, along with all who are Abraham’s spiritual children. God arranged the promise this way to make it as wide as possible, so that circumcision and uncircumcision would not divide believers. For this reason Paul points us to Genesis 17:5, where God changed Abram’s name, meaning “high father,” to Abraham, meaning “father of a multitude.” God said, “I have made you a father of many nations.” That means all believers, both before and after Christ came in the flesh, should look to Abraham as their example and call him father. The Jews said Abraham was the father of all converts to their religion. In a larger sense, he is the father of the whole world gathered under the wings of God’s majesty.