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Promise and Law
“For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Rom. 4:13).
In this verse, “promise” and “law” are contrasted. Paul is seeking to establish an Old Testament base for his teaching of righteousness by faith. He finds an example in Abraham, whom all the Jews accepted as their ancestor. Acceptance or justification had come to Abraham quite apart from law. God made a promise to Abraham that he was to be “heir of the world.” Abraham believed this promise; that is, he accepted the role that it implied. As a result God accepted him and worked through him to save the world. This remains a powerful example of how grace was operating in the Old Testament, which is no doubt why Paul used it.
Read Romans 4:14–17. How does Paul here continue showing how salvation by faith was central to the Old Testament? See also Gal. 3:7–9.
It’s important to remember, as we said in the beginning, to whom Paul is writing. These Jewish believers were immersed in Old Testament law, and many came to believe that their salvation rested on how well they kept the law, even though that was not what the Old Testament taught.
In seeking to remedy this misconception, Paul argued that Abraham, even prior to the law at Sinai, received the promises, not by works of the law (which would have been hard, since the law—the whole Torah and ceremonial system—was not in place yet) but by faith.
If Paul here were referring to the moral law exclusively, which existed in principle even before Sinai, the point remains the same. Perhaps even more so! Seeking to receive God’s promises through the law, he said, makes faith void, even useless. Those are strong words, but his point is that faith saves, and the law condemns. He’s trying to teach about the futility of seeking salvation by the very thing that leads to condemnation, because we all, Jew and Gentile, have violated the law, and, hence, we all need the same thing as Abraham did: the saving righteousness of Jesus credited to us by faith.
| TUESDAY | July 27 |
“For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Rom. 4:13).
In this verse, “promise” and “law” are contrasted. Paul is seeking to establish an Old Testament base for his teaching of righteousness by faith. He finds an example in Abraham, whom all the Jews accepted as their ancestor. Acceptance or justification had come to Abraham quite apart from law. God made a promise to Abraham that he was to be “heir of the world.” Abraham believed this promise; that is, he accepted the role that it implied. As a result God accepted him and worked through him to save the world. This remains a powerful example of how grace was operating in the Old Testament, which is no doubt why Paul used it.
Read Romans 4:14–17. How does Paul here continue showing how salvation by faith was central to the Old Testament? See also Gal. 3:7–9.
It’s important to remember, as we said in the beginning, to whom Paul is writing. These Jewish believers were immersed in Old Testament law, and many came to believe that their salvation rested on how well they kept the law, even though that was not what the Old Testament taught.
In seeking to remedy this misconception, Paul argued that Abraham, even prior to the law at Sinai, received the promises, not by works of the law (which would have been hard, since the law—the whole Torah and ceremonial system—was not in place yet) but by faith.
If Paul here were referring to the moral law exclusively, which existed in principle even before Sinai, the point remains the same. Perhaps even more so! Seeking to receive God’s promises through the law, he said, makes faith void, even useless. Those are strong words, but his point is that faith saves, and the law condemns. He’s trying to teach about the futility of seeking salvation by the very thing that leads to condemnation, because we all, Jew and Gentile, have violated the law, and, hence, we all need the same thing as Abraham did: the saving righteousness of Jesus credited to us by faith.
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