I.
Abraham’s
faith and propositional revelation
The choice of Gen
15.6 shows that, for Paul, faith is neither a work nor an intuition, but
persuasion of the promises as they are summed up in Christ[1].
By drawing attention to the covenantal orientation of Abraham’s faith, Paul
shows that he understood the difference between “believing in God” and “believing
God”, between subjective faith and its objective content. It also implies that
he understood the relation of each to the other.
To argue, in contrast, that “Abraham believed in
God rather than in the promise itself” and that “he clung to the God who had
promised rather than what had been promised”[2]
is to introduce a false and misleading dichotomy…Commenting on Paul’s treatment
of Abraham’s faith, N.T. Wright says, “the nature of that faith (not in the
sense of an analysis of the act of believing but in the sense of an analysis of
what is believed) is of vital importance for his work.” The distinction is
important—the knowledge of God is mediated through his word.
Rom 4 makes clear that God’s self-disclosure
through the word of promise is the reason for Abraham’s subjective faith, and
that apart from it an analysis of his faith is impossible. The position has
been put like this: “According to the apostle, there were two facets to
Abraham’s faith. One was personal and the other propositional, the latter being
essential to the intelligibility of the former.”[3]
The propositional facet of Abraham’s faith is the
word of the covenantal promise (Gen 12.1ff;
15.1ff, and 17.1ff.), specifically, here, the promise of Gen 15.5 to which the citation [Rom 4.3; Gen 15.6] refers. This is the promise that Abraham would
be the father of numerous descendants, which, according to Paul, was the ground
of his justification. The implied logic is that, without the divine word, Abraham
could not have been justified because he could not have become a believer. From
the moment he spoke, God was no longer [the unknown God] and Abraham was no
longer [ungodly, pagan].
II.
The
dynamic faith
What does this mean for the propositional aspect of
Abraham’s faith? It means that not only did his faith require its appropriate
propositional content but that the propositional content was the dynamic of his
faith. He could say, on the one hand, that the promise came by faith (4.13) and, on the other, that faith
comes by hearing the promise, identified as the word of Christ (10.17).
This word of Christ is referred to in Rom 1.16 as the “power of God” and, in 1.2, as the gospel “promised beforehand.” This gospel
accounts for the existential fact and qualitative difference of Abraham’s faith
from other kinds of faith, distinguishing it from a religious intuition, a
sense of the numinous and an existential experience. It is “faith by hearing”
the promises.
III.
The object
of faith
The general proposition that Abraham believed the promises
demands closer analysis—which promises, in fact? Certainly, Paul is not
thinking of promises in general but those of the Abrahamic covenant. We have already
noted that his first port of call in attempting to understand Abraham’s faith
is the promise if a numerous posterity. Other promises of the covenant are also
alluded to. Virtually explicit is his reference to the land-inheritance promise
in 4.13. In addition, beneath the
surface and integral to his argument, is the promise of universal blessing
through Abraham’s seed[4].
1. Abraham’s
faith apprehended the historical and eschatological dimension of the
posterity-promise (Rom. 4.3, 9, 17, 18,
22)
Paul viewed Abraham’s faith as the divinely
appointed mechanism for appropriating the promise in its historical and
eschatological dimension. He laid hold of God’s purpose, to bless Israel and
the Gentiles in the fullness of time, through faith. By this means he is father
of Jew and Gentile according to promise. He believed in order that the intention
articulated in the promise might be realized—historically in the short and
eschatologically in the long term. Paul conveys this understanding by means of
a number of infinitive clauses in vv. 11,
16 and 18[5], depicting
Abraham as embracing a universal, undifferentiated, posterity consisting of all
who follow the pattern of his faith.
2. Abraham’s
faith apprehended the historical and eschatological dimension of the land
inheritance-promise (4.13)
As Kasemann observes, “the earthly promise is
applied eschatologically to the future world.”[6]
The expression “heir” refers to a fundamental element in the Jewish
consciousness of covenant relationship with God and is used “almost exclusively
in connection with the land…”[7]
[This points] to its importance for what Paul says about universal
justification. He understood, perhaps better than most, in light of his calling
to be apostle to the Gentiles, the universal implication of the
land-inheritance promise. God’s people were a universal people therefore his
parish the world. The significant point, however, is that he also ascribes this
understand to Abraham.
The “for” at the beginning of v.13 refers back to v.12, showing that he is still explaining
the meaning of justification by faith. The land-inheritance promise somehow
figures in the content of justifying faith because it also came to Abraham “through
the righteousness of faith” (4.13b).
It is, for Paul, an element in the objective content of Abraham’s faith—does he
also imply that it is an element in Christian faith too?
Why he included this particular promise in the content
of Abraham’s faith can be explained by reference to the link between Jewish
identity and possession of the land. Perhaps he wanted to refuse the idea that
Abraham received the land-inheritance promise as a reward for faith understood
as a work[8].
This, not withstanding, he was at one with the Rabbis in accepting
eschatological interpretation of the promise which, as we have seen, he
attributes to Abraham. In a manner comparable to the author of Hebrews, he
appears to say that Abraham lived in Canaan as in “a foreign land…” desiring “a
better country, that is, a heavenly one.”[9]
3. Abraham’s
faith apprehended the promise of universal blessing through his seed
In the parallel passage in Gal 3.6-9 the promise of universal blessing through the seed is
clearly present and just as essential to the argument of Rom 4 because it enables Paul to extend the scope of the
posterity-promise to include the Gentiles. The Gentile mission[10],
which compelled him to accept the idea of one, undifferentiated people of God,
and the doctrine of universal justification by faith, have their scriptural
basis in the promise that God would bless the nations through Abraham’s seed[11]…Nowhere
is this made clearer than in Rom 4.11-12.
From this it can be seen that Paul wants his readers to understand that this is
not merely inference which they are expected to draw but the promise that Abraham
himself believed in order that God’s full purpose might come to pass.
God revealed his plan to reconcile humanity to
himself by means of a covenantal statement of intent. The three promises form
part of this statement of intent but clearly as means to the grand end. The
restoration of the broken relationship between God and man as promised in the
words “and I will be their God” (Gen
17.8) is served by the posterity, land-inheritance and universal blessing
promises as the divine modus operandi
for its accomplishment.
IV.
Implication
As if by instinct, Christmas continue to read Rom 4 christologically, not
theologically[12],
even though Christ is hardly mentioned and Paul concentrates on the covenant as
God’s modus operandi…Is Abraham’s faith, then, the paradigm of Christian faith?
Is he actually saying that faith in Jesus is the same as faith in the promises?
According to D.J. Hooper, “What becomes progressively clearer in what might be
termed Pauls’ underlying argument, is that not only must Abraham be viewed as the
prototype and pattern, in continuity, for all who would be right with God, but
also the objects of his faith, both personal propositional, are the same for
New Testament believers present and future.”[13]
This takes us a step beyond where most are prepared to go. He is saying not
only that Abraham is a paradigm of believers but that his faith is a paradigm
of Christian faith.
The conclusion seems to be justified by the evidence…In
fact, Paul puts the matter beyond doubt in Rom
15.8-9…Abraham’s faith in the promises and faith in Christ are essentially
the same…The former is prospective, the latter retrospective but not fully
realized. Christ is God’s “Yes” to the promises.[14]
Retrospective Christian faith is fuller than the prospective faith of Abraham
because it embraces the confirmation and partial fulfillment of the covenant.
But Christian faith is itself also prospective, since the climax of the
covenant consists not in Christ’s first advent but his second.[15]
[1] Compare Ernts Kasemann’s observation
that “faith is neither a virtue, a religious attitude, nor an experience. It is
faith by hearing. It enters into the promise of salvation and becomes obedient
to it.” Commentary on Romans, p 107.
[2] Franz J. Leenhardt, The Epistle to the Romans, p 126.
[3] D.J. Hooper, “The Continuity of the
Abrahamic Covenant from the Old Testament to the New Testament” p 289. Hooper
has produced a considerable amount of unpublished material on the importance of
the Abrahamic covenant, especially in relation to Biblical hermeneutics. A more
recent work on a related subject is “Covenant and Promise in the Epistle to the
Hebrews” (1992). In addition, to his contributions others in his circle have
produced academic theses on such themes as “The Language of Covenant” (1980),
P.J. Naylor; “The Theology of the Abrahamic Covenant: A Study and
Interpretation of the Abrahamic Covenant and Deliverance as the means of
Covenant Implementation” (1993), P. Davies; “From Glory to Glory: Continuity in
the Relationship between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant with Reference
to 2 Corinthians 3” (1994), A.J. Bentley-Taylor; “Christology and Covenant: The
Relation of Covenant Theology to Aspects of Paul’s Christology” (1995), C.R.H.
Holst.
[4] Fully articulated in Gal 3.16 but necessary
here in order to justify the argument that Abraham is “the father of us all” in
Rom 4.16.
[5] Verse 11: The first infinitive
clause is final and states the purpose for which Abraham received circumcision.
The second is better taken as consecutive, “so that righteousness might be
reckoned to them [Christian believers]” indicating the result of Abraham’s
faith as well as their own: with Ernst Kasemann, Perspectives on Paul (1969) 116; C.E.B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans—A Critical and
Exegetical Commentary (1980) 237; Wilckens, Romer (1979) 265.
Verse 16: The infinitive clause is co-ordinate with “that
according to grace” and should probably be taken as final; stating that the land-inheritance
promise is based on faith and grace in order to “guarantee that the promise
comprises all the seed, that is to say, all who believe, whether they be Jews
or Gentile.” See John Murray, The Epistle
to the Romans (1965) 144.
Verse 18: This can be understood in several ways: (i) as
referring to the content of Abraham’s
faith—he believed that he would become the father of many: so Bultmann, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
VI (1968), 206; (ii) as referring to the purpose of Abraham’s faith—he believed in order that…: so J.
Murray, Romans 148; J.D.G. Dunn, Romans, vol. 1 (1991) 219; (iii) as
referring to the result of Abraham’s
faith—he believed so that he might become…; (Kasemann, Perspectives on Paul, 124; Cranfield, Romans, 246. The choice is difficult, though possibly the accent
should fall mostly on result.
[6] Kasemann, Romans, 120.
[7] Dunn, Romans, 213.
[8] “Therefore he assured him by an oath…that
he would…cause them to inherit from sea to sea.” (Sir 44.21); “So you find that
our father Abraham became heir of this and the coming world simply by merit of
the faith with which he believed the LORD, as it is written: ‘He believed the
LORD, and he counted it to him for righteousness’” Mekilta 40b (Ex 14.31).
[9] Heb 11.8-16.
[10] Not to speak of his own call on the
Damascus road.
[11] The words, “the father of many
nations”, cannot be restricted in meaning to the nations outside Israel who
were originally descended from Abraham (Moab & Edom). Paul is a covenantal
universalist. The “many nations” of the posterity-promise are the nations blessed
in Abraham, specifically in his “seed”, Jesus, through the preaching of the
gospel.
[12] The same point could be made about
the epistle as a whole. Paul is discussing “a righteousness of God” in the
context of which he must necessarily expound Christ’s person and work. But
there is never any doubt that faith is in the God of Abraham and that the
ensuing status is equated with membership of Israel. In other words, the
Abrahamic motif extends well beyond the chapter 4.
[13] N.T. Wright, Climax, 289.
[14] 2Cor 1.20…the New Covenant serves
the interests of the Abrahamic by means of its provision for a single offering
for sin (the accomplishment of redemption) and the writing of God’s law on the
heart (the application of redemption) consistent with the primary aim of the
Abrahamic Covenant.
[15] Against N.T. Wright, who argues that
“Christ and the law in Paul’s theology form two closely related segments of the
story of the covenant, and of how, in Paul’s view it reached its climax.” (my italics) Climax, 258.
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