Exposition on select Bible verses: Romans 4:16-25

[Romans 4] Verse 16: Here we see anew God’s great kindness. He desired that all the seed of Abraham, whether Jewish or Gentile believers, might have security,—that the promise might be sure to all the seed. Now if you introduce man’s works (for man always says, “I must do my part”), you introduce an element of insecurity and uncertainty. For no man, trying to “do his part,” is ever certain that he has done, or will do, his “part.” Salvation is of God, not of man. It is of faith, and so, of grace; and thus, of God. For faith is unmixed with the vain promises and hopes of man to accomplish “his part”; but looks to what God has done, in sending His Son, to do a finished work on the cross; and to the fact that God has raised up Christ; and that Christ is our unfailing High Priest in heaven.

Abraham is declared to be “the father of us all,”—of all who believe. Believers will come from all nations of the earth, and Abraham is called “the heir of the world”; which he will be openly seen to be in the millennial kingdom that is shortly coming: “Ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:28).

Verse 17: (as it is written, I made thee father of many nations) in the sight, of Him whom he believed, even God [the God], who makes alive the dead, and calls things not existing, as existing. The words “Abraham, who is the father of us all” in verse 16, are to be connected with “before Him whom he believed” in verse 17, the intervening words being a parenthesis. There is a great household of faith! Whether believers realize it or not, they are sharing Abraham’s inheritance. The mighty promises of God to Abraham and to His Seed, Christ (Gal. 3:16), should be studied deeply and often by all Christians.

“For if ye are Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29).

God lodged the promises in Abraham: Christ fulfilled the conditions (of redemption), and we share the benefits! Abraham got us by promise; Christ bought us by blood. Abraham is the “father of all them that believe,” whether his earthly seed, Israel; or his heavenly seed, the Church; or any who shall ever believe. As to our regeneration, of course, God is the Father of all believers. But as to our relation in the household of faith, Abraham is our father: Abraham believed for us all. That is, he believed a promise that included us all.

Believers may indeed be said to have a three-fold fatherhood: (1) that of Abraham, of the whole household of faith; (2) that of the teacher of the gospel who was used to win them to Christ (“For though ye have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel”—I Cor. 4:15); (3) that of God, who is our actual Father, who begat us by the Holy Spirit through His Word. The first two fatherhoods, of course, are fatherhoods of relationship, so to speak; the last only is of life and reality. Yet the first two fatherhoods are also real, and should be recognized, —especially that of Abraham.

Let us hold fast in our hearts the great revelation about God which closes verse 17: “God, who makes alive the dead, and calls the things not existing as existing.” The translation in both the King James and the Revision Version surely comes short of the meaning here. The Greek literally is, God making alive dead ones, and calling things not being, being! It is as when God spoke to the darkness, back in Genesis One (Hebrew), the creative word, “Let light be!—and light was.” It shone, too, “out of darkness”—not a ray that was projected from already existing light! His word was a creative fiat; and, answering it, “out of darkness” sprang the heretofore nonexistent, now created, light!

Note that it is the God who makes alive* dead ones;—not those with some faint and feeble existence, but actually dead ones, those utterly gone! 

*This remarkable compound word (zoē, life, plus poieō, make) is translated in the King James Version by the poor word “quicken.” The Revised Version is right. The King James Version uses the same feeble word, “quicken” to translate the mighty word of Ephesians 2:5, a marvelous word of three components: a preposition, (“together with,”—sun)—plus our compound word, “make-alive,” of Romans 4:17, above,—the whole really meaning, “made-alive-together-along-with”—Christ’ God enlifes us in Him,—us who once were in the other Adam, dead in sins! “Quicken” is not only pitiful, but lamentable in such a verse, as it hides the fundamental truth of a believer’s union with Christ in life and position.

It is the God who calls non-existent things existent,—not, “as though” they existed, a translation which, not reaching the Divine view, really involves doubt. “Not being, being,” is what the text reads. It is as when God says of His words,

“I make all things new,”—“they are come to pass!” (Rev. 21:5, 6).

This is the God whose word Abraham trusted. It was in this character, that of Life-Giver to the dead, and the Caller of not-things existent, that he trusted Him. Thus Abraham was nothing (but dead), and the seed, non-existent! Yet Abraham believed God’s word that he should be “Father of a multitude”; and obediently changed his own name from Abram to Abraham!

Therefore the actual process and progress of Abraham’s life of faith in such a God, is vividly set before us as our pattern. We should study it over and over. The character of faith will be the same, with this consideration: Abraham believed on God in view of what He said He would do; we believe on Him who has raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.

So, in His counsels and reckoning the believer, in Chapter Eight, is seen already glorified! Of course, in counting things not being as being, God is committed to bring into outward actuality all that He reckons; thus the believing ungodly not only is accounted righteous, but will one day be publicly manifested as the very “righteousness of God”! Indeed, justification involves God’s giving him life, as see 5:18. But that is not the ground of his being reckoned righteous—that some day he will be in experience as righteous as he is now reckoned—any more than that he is accounted righteous on the ground of his own good works. For justification is a sovereign, judicial—not creative-act of God, based wholly upon the death and resurrection of Christ. When a sinner is to be justified, then, righteous is that which he is not! But, he believing, God counts him, holds him as righteous. He has no more righteousness (as a quality) than when he a moment ago, believed. But he stands in all Christ’s acceptance by the act of God, the Judge! Though we have said, God will make this standing good in glorious manifestation, yet no degree of sanctification or glorification is the basis of his being declared righteous, but the blood of Christ only, and His resurrection,—the sacrifice of Christ and God’s sovereign act in view of it.

For God to call the things not being as being; to extend to a man the complete value of Christ’s atoning work and “reckon” him justified and glorified in His sight, although not yet so in manifestation, is God’s own business. Let us praise Him for His grace!

Here, then, in verses 18 to 25 we have the difficult, though blessed and glorious, yea, and God-glorifying path of faith, exemplified in Abraham. He kept on in hope, believing contrary to all human hopes! There were many trials to his faith, the essence of the difficulty, however, always being to “look unto the promise of God” alone, and not to circumstances, or to the impossibility, according to the flesh, of the promise’s being fulfilled.

We inherit what Abraham believed for and received. Mark down two points, naming the first “A” for Abraham; and the second, “C” for Christ. Now draw a line from “A” to “C” and then onward, and let that line represent the line of God’s blessing. The promises of blessing were lodged in Abraham, and all conditions of blessing were fulfilled by Christ; and you and I merely step into the line of blessing from Abraham through Christ. It is good to be born into a good family on earth; how blessed to be in the great family of faith, the family of God, along with Abraham!

Satan hates active faith in a believer’s heart, and opposes it with all his power. The world, of course, is unbelieving, and despises those who claim only “the righteousness of faith.” The example of professing Christians generally is also against the path of simple faith. Among the “seven abominations” that Bunyan said he still found in his heart, was “a secret inclining to unbelief.” “Against hope,” against reason, against “feeling,” against opinions of others, against all human possibilities whatever, we are to keep believing.

This is the very article and essence of faith, that it reckons as God does,—that is, upon God as described here, giving life not to the feeble, but to the dead, to those who cannot be “recovered” or “helped” or so wrought upon or patched up as to become something that they were not before; but who are absolutely hopeless, dead!

That God should call the things that are not as being, is what faith rejoices in! Only God could call things thus. Abraham becomes before our eyes the particular shining example of this.

Verse 19: His own body as in a dead condition—“he considered” it, and knew it to be thus, and was therefore wholly hopeless in himself. Moreover, Abraham knew Sarah was “past age,” unable to bear a child. He had before him, then, himself as dead, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. But he also had before him the promise of God: “Thou shalt become a father of many nations”; “So shall thy seed be.”

Verse 20: It was plainly and only a question of the veracity of God, and of His ability to carry out what He had promised. Abraham, therefore, believed in Jehovah (Gen. 15:5, 6); and he wavered not through unbelief, but became inwardly strengthened through faith, giving glory to God; and also even Sarah herself “counted Him faithful who had promised; and received power to conceive seed.”

We find in Genesis 17:17 that Abraham not only considered the natural deadness of his body, but also brought up the question before the Lord: “Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” But, Jehovah having answered his objection with a definite promise, Abraham thereafter refused to have his faith weakened by any natural thought of himself and Sarah, but set God’s promise only before his mind, without wavering, as “double-minded” people, in their doubting, do (James 1:6-8, R.V.). Indeed, his constancy was such that it evidently wrought upon the doubting Sarah, who learned that He was “faithful who had promised.” Sarah’s incredulous but eager laugh (Gen. 18:12, 13, 15) Jehovah charged her sternly with; for He had before when Abraham laughed (Gen. 17:16-19), named the son whom she was to bear “Isaac”—which means laughter! Thus both Abraham and Sarah thought this thing “too good to be true”; but God in faithfulness brought it to pass. And we remember the happy laughter into which Sarah finally entered:

“Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh; every one that heareth will laugh with me” (Gen. 21:5-7).

Every time she spoke the name “Isaac” she could remember her doubt, and how gracious Jehovah had been to her.

Verse 21: Being full of assurance that what He had promised. He was able to perform. What a blessed assurance of faith, resting wholly upon God’s performance of what He had promised,—how that puts us to shame! Since Abraham’s day we have the written Word; and Christ has come Yet how often we doubt!

Verse 22: Now God tells us that His word concerning Abraham, that “his faith was reckoned as righteousness,” was written not for him only, but for us, also,—for all Abraham’s children. There is no more striking description of the principle and process of faith than in this passage. Look at the “also” of verse 22: Wherefore also it was reckoned unto him as righteousness. That evidently looks toward Genesis 22; at the end of Abraham’s testing time, when he offered up Isaac. Let us see what is here:

(1) We are not told that Abraham was reckoned righteous because of the vision of the God of glory that was vouchsafed to him in Ur of the Chaldees (Acts 7:2). Nor do we read that he was reckoned righteous because he forsook his own land and was brought to the land of Canaan, nor because he built altars to Jehovah and worshipped him; nor because he had such high courage as to slaughter the kings and deliver Lot. All these things occurred before the amazing scene of Genesis 15: where God proposed to him something absolutely impossible of accomplishment, except in God Himself.

(2) Abraham was reckoned righteous when he “believed in Jehovah,” in His word, to bring about concerning Abraham something that could not humanly be—that he should be a “father of nations.” God came to him years after this (Genesis 17), commanding him to change his name from Abram, “high father” (but desolate, like a lonely peak), to Abraham, “father of a multitude.” And Abraham obeyed, and changed his name thus; although God had just rejected Ishmael, the only offspring he had in sight, from being the seed of promise and covenant!

(3) Abraham “gave glory to God,” because he counted on God’s bringing to pass His word, about that which only His glorious power could effect; a thing completely outside human possibility, but which all God’s faithfulness and truth were pledged to accomplish. Thus Abraham let God in upon the scene, to act according to His own truth and power. Probably at that time he was the only man on earth who was giving God His due praise as the God of truth, who has “magnified His Word above all His Name” (Ps. 138:2). Our reason, yea, and our conscience also, keep telling us that right living is essentially better than right believing; but both conscience and reason are wrong!

Ernest Gordon in the Sunday School Times says, “A French Unitarian preacher, M. Lauriol, in speaking at the recent synod of Agen, said, ‘Purity of heart and life is more important than correctness of opinion,’ to which Dean Doumergue answers shrewdly, ‘Healing is more important than the remedy, but without the remedy, there would be no healing.’” Faith is the only faculty by which we can lay hold of God. “Let him take hold of My strength,” is God’s command (Isa. 27:5). But we cannot reach His greatness—we are dust. We cannot look upon His face, for He dwelleth in light unapproachable. We cannot apprehend His wisdom, for it is infinite, incomprehensible ,—“reasonings of the wise, (regarding God) are vain,” Then how shall we lay hold of God at all? By believing Him! The weakest of men can believe what God tells him! Praise be to His Name! Faith, simple faith, connects us with the Mighty One! Paul says, “The faith of God’s elect” involves “the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness” (Titus 1:1). “Purity of heart and life” without the correct, accurate, constant teaching of doctrine,—“the doctrine which is according to godliness” (I Tim. 6:3)—is simply a philosopher’s speculation or a Romanist’s lie, or a “Modernist’s” imagination.

(4) Jehovah reckoned Abraham righteous not because he was either righteous or holy, but acting absolutely, and entirely according to Himself—who “giveth life to the dead” (Abraham was dead: he could beget no seed); and “calleth the things that are not” (Abraham was a sinner, not righteous in himself) “as though they were.”

(5) The purpose, then, of God concerning Abraham, Abraham thus allowed God to fulfil. Some day you will see Abraham just as righteous and holy in character and in evident fact, as His God, in that far day, reckoned him. It was not however, on the ground of what God would make him in the future that He reckoned Abraham righteous when he believed Him. The ground, as we see plainly in 3:25, was Christ set forth as a propitiation,—through faith in Christ’s blood. For “God set Him forth as a propitiation . . . because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime” (that is, by Abraham and by all who lived before Christ’s death).

God had His own foreknown ground, Christ, as the Lamb “without blemish and without spot,” foreknown “before the foundation of the world” (I Pet. 1:19, 20). We keep repeating these things because of the continual tendency of our wretched hearts to find some cause in ourselves, or in our own faithfulness, for God’s reckoning us righteous.

(6) Verses 23 and 24: Now it was not written for his sake only, that it was reckoned unto him, but for our sakes likewise, for it [our faith] will be reckoned [as righteousness] to us also who are believing on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. This is a blessed and sweet revelation for believers, that we, like Abraham, have righteousness reckoned to us; and that the story in Genesis was “written for our sake.” The Old Testament is a living book for God’s real saints!

But we must remember that God’s methods with faith are always the same. Abraham’s faith was tried: are not we also told to expect the trial of our faith?

There is also a beautiful message in the literal rendering of verse 24, that can scarcely be supplied in English: It was on account of us also, unto whom it [righteousness] is about to be reckoned, to those who believe—as if God were eager (as indeed He is) to write down righteous those who believe His testimony concerning His Son!

Note two things here: First, it is upon God we believe. The very God who was, in the opening chapters of the Epistle, bringing all of us under His judgment, without righteousness and helpless to attain it, is here believed on; as our Lord Jesus indeed said in John 12:44:

“He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me.”

But, second, it is upon Him as having raised Jesus our Lord from the dead that we believe on God in verse 24. It is not merely on the God who set forth Christ to be a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, but it is on the God who has set a public seal to the truth of our Lord’s last words,

“It is finished,”

by raising Him from the dead.

“He is not here, but is risen,”

was the angel’s word that thrilled those saints early at His tomb. And since then He has been received up in glory, and the Holy Spirit has come, witnessing to the amazing fact that the One who hung on a Roman cross, numbered with transgressors by men, and forsaken of God in the just judgment of our sins, was raised and glorified by the same God who forsook Him on Calvary. This glorious fact should be held fast by our hearts. For not only does God’s raising up Christ prove our sins to have been put away; but a Risen Christ becomes a new place for us! We were justified from all things by His blood; we are now set by God in Christ Risen!

And thus we are prepared for the last great verse in this blessed chapter.

Verse 25: Who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justifying. Here we have Jesus our Lord delivered up for our offences. Now the Greek word for “delivered up” occurs again in Chapter 8:32:

“God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”

The meaning is evident: on account of our trespasses, of what you and I have done, our Lord was delivered up by a holy God to bear our sin, with its guilt and penalty, even to God’s forsaking His Son: for He must otherwise have forsaken us forever!—yea, to His smiting our Substitute instead of smiting us:

“He was bruised for our iniquities.”

And was raised for our justifying—This must be the sense here: for we are not justified till we believe. Furthermore, if Christ’s resurrection was merely to prove that we had been justified (as some teach), a verb-construction would have been used, which would signify, on account of our having been justified. But God uses the noun-construction (dikaiōsis) meaning, “the act of justifying”; showing that Christ’s resurrection was for the purpose of justifying us, positively, in a Risen Christ, (Compare 5:10)

["For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."]

Matthew Henry says: “In Christ’s death He paid our debt; in His resurrection, He took out our acquittance.” But Scripture goes much further in this matter of justification than the satisfaction of all claims of God’s justice against us. We are set in a new place of acceptance, the Risen Christ, that has nothing to do with our old place. God will now go on to “create us in Christ Jesus.” It will be “justification of life,” as we shall see in Chapter Five.

Only, we repeat, let us always remember that we are justified as ungodly, and now we are “new creatures in Christ Jesus.’ Here, indeed, is a great mystery. God does not declare us righteous as connected with the old Adam—old creatures, we might say. Nor does He declare us righteous because we are new creatures. But God that calleth the things not existing as existing, acts in justification, declaring the ungodly who believe on Him, righteous: not because of any process of His operation upon the creature, but by His own fiat, reckoning to the beliving one the whole work of Christ on his behalf. This involves God’s giving this ungodly believing one a standing in Christ Risen; and God will go on by an act of creation, to cause him to share Christ’s risen life, which is justification of life. But it is as ungodly that he is declared righteous. We must hold fast to this, the first point of the gospel (I Cor. 15:3).

We are indeed said to be justified by or in His blood (5:9), but if there had been no resurrection, His death would have availed us nothing. So Paul says that both Peter and he were “justified in Christ” (Gal. 2:17): that is, in the Risen Christ, in view, of course, of His finished work on the cross. When our Lord said, “It is finished,” He announced the penalty paid for every believer that shall be. But He lay under the power of death for three days and nights, His body in Joseph’s tomb and His spirit in Paradise.

Now justification involves not only, negatively, the putting away of our guilt; but, positively, a new place and standing. For the old Adam was utterly condemned, as his history, and the law, and finally the cross, fully showed. If I am a sinner, and my sins are transferred to the head of Christ my Substitute, and He bears the penalty of them in death, then where am I, if Christ be not raised? His death and resurrection are one and inseparable as regards justification. Christ being raised up, God announces to me, “Not only were your sins put away by Christ’s blood, so that you are justified from all things; but I have also raised up Christ; and you shall have your standing in Him. I have given you this faith in a Risen Christ, and announce to you that in Him alone now is your place and standing. Judgment is forever past for you, both as concerns your sin, and as concerns My demand that you have a standing of holiness and righteousness of your own before Me. All this is past. Christ is now your standing! He is your life and your righteousness; and you need nothing of your own forever. I made Christ to become sin on your ‘behalf, identified Him with all that you were, in order that you might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

William R. Newell

Romans Verse by Verse
Chapter 4



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