Romans 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul takes up Abraham as the test case for his argument that God counts a person right with himself through faith rather than through works. He points out that Abraham was counted right before he was circumcised, which makes him the father of both circumcised and uncircumcised believers, and he quotes David to the same effect. He argues that the promise that Abraham would inherit the world came through faith and not through the law, and describes Abraham's confidence in God's promise despite his age. The chapter closes by applying the same credit to those who believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • The speaker asks what shall be said that Abraham, our father according to the flesh, has found.
2. 4:2
   • If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.
   • Abraham has nothing to boast about before God.
3. 4:3
   • The speaker asks what the scripture says.
   • The scripture says Abraham believed God.
   • The scripture says it was counted to Abraham for righteousness.
4. 4:4
   • To the one who works, the wage is not counted as a favor.
   • To the one who works, the wage is counted as a debt owed.
5. 4:5
   • There is one who justifies the ungodly.
   • To the one who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
6. 4:6
   • David also speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.
7. 4:7
   • Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven.
   • Blessed are those whose sins are covered.
8. 4:8
   • Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not count sin.
9. 4:9
   • The speaker asks whether this blessedness comes on the circumcised only or on the uncircumcised also.
   • The speaker says that faith was counted to Abraham for righteousness.
10. 4:10
    • The speaker asks how it was counted, whether when Abraham was in circumcision or in uncircumcision.
    • It was not counted while Abraham was circumcised.
    • It was counted while Abraham was uncircumcised.
11. 4:11
    • Abraham received the sign of circumcision.
    • The sign of circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of the faith he had while uncircumcised.
    • The purpose was that Abraham might be the father of all who believe while uncircumcised.
    • The purpose was that righteousness might be counted to those who believe while uncircumcised.
12. 4:12
    • Abraham is also the father of circumcision to those who are not of the circumcision only.
    • Abraham is the father of those who also walk in the steps of the faith our father Abraham had while he was uncircumcised.
13. 4:13
    • The promise that Abraham should be heir of the world was given to Abraham and to his seed.
    • That promise was not given through the law.
    • That promise was given through the righteousness of faith.
14. 4:14
    • If those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void.
    • If those who are of the law are heirs, the promise is made of no effect.
15. 4:15
    • The law produces wrath.
    • Where there is no law, there is no transgression.
16. 4:16
    • It is of faith so that it might be by grace.
    • The purpose is that the promise might be sure to all the seed.
    • The promise is sure not only to the seed that is of the law.
    • The promise is also sure to the seed that is of the faith of Abraham.
    • Abraham is the father of us all.
17. 4:17
    • It is written that God has made Abraham a father of many nations.
    • Abraham believed God.
    • God gives life to the dead.
    • God calls things that do not exist as though they existed.
18. 4:18
    • Abraham believed in hope against hope.
    • Abraham believed so that he might become the father of many nations.
    • It had been spoken to Abraham, 'So shall your seed be.'
19. 4:19
    • Abraham was not weak in faith.
    • Abraham did not consider his own body, now dead.
    • Abraham was about a hundred years old.
    • Abraham did not consider the deadness of Sarah's womb.
20. 4:20
    • Abraham did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief.
    • Abraham was strengthened in faith.
    • Abraham gave glory to God.
21. 4:21
    • Abraham was fully persuaded that what God had promised, God was also able to perform.
22. 4:22
    • Therefore it was counted to Abraham for righteousness.
23. 4:23
    • The words that it was counted to him were not written for Abraham's sake alone.
24. 4:24
    • The words were written for us also.
    • It shall be counted to us.
    • It shall be counted to us if we believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
    • God raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
25. 4:25
    • Jesus was delivered up because of our offences.
    • Jesus was raised again because of our justification.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

Abraham is the figure in Genesis whom the Jewish people traced their descent from: God promised him land, countless descendants, and a blessing that would reach every nation. The King James "as pertaining to the flesh" means by physical descent, by blood. "What shall we say then" is a debating formula Paul uses repeatedly in this letter to raise the next objection.

4:2

"Justified" is a courtroom word. It means declared to be in the right by a judge, acquitted, rather than made good. In Greek "justify," "righteous" and "righteousness" are all one word family; English splits them between a Latin-based verb and an Anglo-Saxon adjective, so the link Paul keeps pressing is much harder to see in translation than it was for his first readers. The King James "glory" here means boast or brag, not praise.

4:3

The quotation is Genesis 15:6. "Counted" translates a Greek bookkeeping term meaning to enter an amount in someone's account. The same verb runs through this whole chapter, appearing in the King James as counted, reckoned and imputed; they are one word, not three.

4:5

"Him that justifieth the ungodly" is a deliberately shocking phrase. Acquitting a guilty party was exactly what a judge was forbidden to do: Exodus 23:7 warns against it and Proverbs 17:15 calls it detestable. Paul is using the language of a corrupt verdict on purpose.

4:6

The quotation that follows is Psalm 32:1-2. Ancient readers commonly referred to a psalm by its traditional author, so "David says" functions roughly as a citation.

4:7

"Iniquities" in the King James means acts of lawlessness, breaches of the law. "Covered" is the image of the Hebrew psalm: the offense is put out of sight rather than left on display.

4:9

Circumcision is the cutting away of the foreskin, commanded in Genesis 17 as the physical mark of God's agreement with Abraham and his male descendants, performed on infants at eight days old. "The circumcision" and "the uncircumcision" in the King James are not acts but groups of people: they are everyday shorthand for Jews and non-Jews.

4:10

The question is about the order of two events in Genesis. Abraham's faith was credited to him in Genesis 15; the command to be circumcised came in Genesis 17, when he was ninety-nine. On the chronology of Genesis, years separate them.

4:11

A seal was the impression a signet ring made in wax or soft clay, stamped on a document to authenticate it or on a container to certify the contents. A seal does not create what it marks; it confirms something already there. That is the whole force of the word here.

4:12

The Greek of this verse is genuinely awkward, with an extra definite article that, read strictly, would make the second group a different set of people from the first. Most translators take Paul to mean one group described twice, as the rendering does, but the roughness is in the original and not in the English.

4:13

"The law" means the law of Moses, the commands given at Sinai, which in the Genesis account came centuries after Abraham. "Seed" in the King James is a singular collective noun meaning offspring or descendants, not one individual. "Heir of the world" is Paul's summary rather than a phrase from Genesis, where the promises were of land, of descendants beyond counting, and of blessing for all nations.

4:15

"Wrath" here is a judicial term for God's settled response to wrongdoing, closer to a sentence handed down than to a fit of temper. "Transgression" means specifically stepping across a line that has been drawn; it is not a general word for doing wrong, which is why it requires a law to exist first.

4:16

"Grace" translates a word meaning a gift freely given, a favor shown to someone who has no claim on it. Its opposite in this argument is wages, something the recipient can demand.

4:17

The quotation is Genesis 17:5, the verse where his name is changed from Abram to Abraham, a name understood to mean "father of a multitude." The King James "quickeneth" is old English for makes alive, brings to life.

4:18

"So shall thy seed be" quotes Genesis 15:5, where God takes Abraham outside at night, tells him to count the stars, and says his descendants will be like that.

4:19

Sarah was Abraham's wife. In Genesis she is ninety at this point and he is a hundred, and they have been childless their whole married life. "Dead" and "deadness" in the King James are used of bodies past the age of producing children, not of corpses.

4:20

The KJV's "staggered not" uses stagger in its older sense of wavering, hesitating, going back and forth over a decision, not physically stumbling.

4:25

"Delivered" means handed over, the word used for handing a prisoner to the authorities; it echoes the Greek version of Isaiah 53. The two phrases "for our offences" and "for our justification" use the same preposition in Greek, which can mean either "because of" or "for the sake of." Translators have to choose, and the choice is disputed: the line can be read as handed over because of our wrongs and raised so that we could be declared right, or with both halves looking backward, as the rendering takes it.