Romans 4:2,6 - Compare All Versions

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If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God.

David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works

If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way.

David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it

If Abraham was justified  by works,  he has something to boast about — but not before God.

Likewise, David also speaks of the blessing of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works

For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works

So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we’re given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.”

David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man: Fortunate those whose crimes are whisked away, whose sins are wiped clean from the slate. Fortunate the person against whom the Lord does not keep score. Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don’t we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about; but not before God.

just as David also speaks of the blessing of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works

For if Abraham was justified [that is, acquitted from the guilt of his sins] by works [those things he did that were good], he has something to boast about, but not before God.

And in this same way David speaks of the blessing on the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works

For if Abraham was declared righteous by the works of the law, he has something to boast about – but not before God.

So even David himself speaks regarding the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works