Romans: The Glory of the Gospelಮಾದರಿ

By Faith from Beginning to End

We’ve heard the bad news—nothing we do can make us right in God’s eyes. Having faced this reality, we can receive the good news of the gospel with great joy because we see how much we need it. The heart of the gospel is found in the passage we’re studying today. Here we see that since we have no righteousness of our own, God provided it for us by sending his very own Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for our sins through his death on the cross. And the way we receive it is simply by faith. This isn’t the first time Paul has told us this good news; in fact, he’s been telling us the gospel truth from the beginning of the letter. His emphasis on the gospel just goes to show that we need to hear it again and again. The more we hear it, the more it grips us and shapes us. Paul is keen to reach the skeptics of his day, particularly the Jews who believed that their heritage as God’s chosen people guaranteed their spiritual security. In this section of the letter, he employs a wise strategy for breaking through their hard hearts, showing that two of the greatest Israelites in history—the patriarch Abraham and the mighty King David—were both saved by faith and not by their greatness. Today, we read a lot about the nature of genuine faith, and we can examine our own hearts in light of what we learn.

In this section, Paul makes a crucial point, one he will make again, and in more detail, later in the letter. Here he frames it with a question: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Romans 3:31, ESV). His point is, just because we are saved by faith doesn’t mean obedience to God’s law doesn’t matter. To the contrary, the law is written on our hearts so that we desire to please God with our obedience. Paul is simply emphasizing the truth that obedience doesn’t save us, but if we are truly saved, we will obey.

The reason God’s law brings wrath is that no one is able to keep it! Facing up to the reality of our inadequacy helps us understand what Paul says next:

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law [the Jew] but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham [the non-Jew], who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. (Romans 4:16–17, ESV)

It’s all grace! That’s Paul’s point. The gift of salvation—of faith itself—comes to us by grace, which, we recall, is God’s mercy and blessing given to those who deserve only wrath. And here we begin to get a glimpse inside the faith of Abraham himself, why he trusted God’s promise of offspring even though Abraham was long past child-bearing years: God can create life where no chance of life exists.

Reflection: Abraham focused on God and his promises rather than on his circumstances—a beautiful picture of active faith. How does his example strengthen your own faith, either in a particular circumstance or in general?