Living by Faith - Romans

Abraham Our Father

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 14-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 014

Dictation Name: RR311G14

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts, in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up. Let us pray.

Glory be to Thee oh God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who in Thy grace and mercy has ordered all things to fulfill Thy Holy purpose. We thank Thee that in Thy grace and mercy, Thou hast made us a part of Thy purpose, Thy kingdom. And we praise Thee our Father that Thou dost make all things work together for good, that all our sufferings, all our trials and our experiences, all our joys and our grief’s, are in Thine eternal plan, and are destined for our joy and our glory in Jesus Christ. In this confidence we come to Thee our Father, to cast our every care upon thee who careth for us, to trust in Thee, to wait on Thee, and to rejoice in Thee in Thy word and Thy Spirit. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is from Romans 4:18-25, and our subject: Abraham Our Father. Romans 4:18-2. Paul has been speaking of Abraham, and the first word in the 18th verse ‘who’ refers to Abraham, so we shall begin by using the name.

“18 (Abraham) who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:

20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

Paul writes in Romans and elsewhere against the misuse of the Old Testament, and in favor of the unity of Gods revelation before and after Christ. Hence we have the emphasis on Abraham as our Father, the Father of Jews and Gentiles, of all who believe. Paul stresses the need for the right kind of faith like Abrahams. Abraham we are told in the verse the Paul is using, “Believed in God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” The word ‘believed’ is in the Hebrew related to the word Amen. Abraham said Amen to God, Thy will be done, even though it appeared to meant the death of his son.

So Paul summons us to a like faith, and says all who so believe in the Lord are children of Abraham.

He begins in verse 18 with what is known as an oxymoron, a word I don’t like, but it describes a combination of opposites. Paul says that Abraham believed or against hope, believed in hope. To have a son was humanly impossible, yet he believed that he would have a son by Sarah. He was a hundred years old and he was impotent, and Sarah was in terms of modern thinking at least a couple of generations beyond the menopause.

Now Abraham believed, not because he still wanted it, but because God told him so. Abraham had long since adjusted to the situation, and accepted Ishmael as his heir. Sarah was now barren, they were both old; but Abraham trusted in Gods world, not in his personal hope; in Gods promise, not in his wishes.

Paul stresses the hopelessness of the situation in verse 19: “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead,” (That is, sexually dead) “when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:”

Now at this point it is important to stress something. Paul’s emphasis is Hebraic. We have all become Hebraic to the extent that we do not feel a sense of shock at reading this passage. To speak so plainly about matters of sexual impotence because of age was in Greco-Roman culture a subject for satire, for pornography, or for ridicule; it was emphatically not a philosophical nor a theological subject. In fact it was painful to the Greco-Roman mind to read something like this, and see on what a low level Christian thought was.

But Paul makes it precisely a theological subject, with a very, very different emphasis than Gentile readers or listeners would expect; and later on and to some extent to the present age, Gentile converts insisted on a higher, on a symbolic meaning to all these things. It was just painful to take it at its literal and face meaning. They read allegorical meanings into it, to weaken the force of the literal, the historical meaning.

So material a concern in revelation was to them disconcerting and beneath Gods dignity. For the Greco-Roman it was a matter for low comedy, essentially. But Pauline thinking compels the church to think Hebraically, although it did this with difficulty. Some of the church Fathers as they commented on this passage, did so with a fine sense of the Hebraic meaning; Saint John Chrysostom in his homilies on Romans dealt with it faithfully.

Saint Augustine in his City of God also dealt with this matter, and dealt with it accurately; but the Hellenism did creep out in Augustine a little later, when he came to commenting on Abrahams subsequent marriage to Keturah when Sarah died. And this upset Augustine, like a good Greco-Roman he felt, now that Abraham was so well advanced in years, he should think only philosophical thoughts rather than seeking a young bride. As a result he had to find some other meaning in it, and he said and I quote: “Far be it from us to suspect him, Abraham of incontinence; especially when he had reached such an age and such sanctity of faith.” So there had to be some other reason for the marriage, not that Abraham was lonely and had been physically rejuvenated by God’s grace, and therefore wanted to marry.

For Neo-Platonism, and for Greco-Roman thinking as a whole, a high religious faith and a happy delight in marital sex were incompatible. Paul thus was forcing Gentile Christians to think in non-Gentile terms, and this has always been resented. Hence the undercurrent of hostility in the church very often to Paul.

Paul now in verse 20 brings the issue to a head. He tells us: “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;”

We have here the radical nature of Biblical language. The climatic point of Paul’s argument. Think of it in Greco-Roman terms. Here is a nomadic herder who moves in faith that God would give him an heir, through whom he would be the father of many nations. What a coarse and crude pivotal point to an argument. There is a telling difference here between the Bible and the writings of all other religions.

First of all, the basic texts of other religions often give general philosophical abstractions; vague, moral, noble sentiments, not law. They do give us some ritual requirements, but no all-embracing law for man and society, except in those religions which have derived their faith from scripture.

Non-Christian religions show their nobility by being above law, above politics, above mundane and practical concerns.

Then second, if these non-Biblical faith claim to give history, their writings give essentially the divine ancestry of their rulers. They have legends concerning God ancestors. This of course is the entire substance of the Japanese Kojiki Nihongi; it is a large part of the Greek and Roman tales concerning the Gods.

And third, where men are dealt with in non-Christian religions, it is to exalt them as heroic, as demi Gods. The candid account of the Bible is alien to other religions, and the Bible gives us the men of faith with all their warts, as it were; to use Cromwell’s term. It gives us the men with their sins and shortcomings.

The essence of paganism I think was best summed up by one who caught the flavor of it and manifested it in all its supposedly heroic masochism, Wagner’s Operas. There you have the spirit of paganism, and stupidity.

Then in verse 21 we are told: ‘Abraham being fully persuaded that what He, God, had promised He was able also to perform.’ The emphasis moves us from Abraham to God. Abraham waits patiently for Gods miracle. He is old, he is impotent, and only God can alter that fact. He is rejuvenated. After Sarah’s death he remarried and fathered six more sons, Genesis 25:1-2 tells us, with Keturah.

Of course, here again some church fathers as I indicated earlier, felt apparently that Abraham should after Sarah’s death turn monk. But God blessed Abraham for the Messiahs sake and Abrahams sake, with years of vigor and joy and pleasure. And yet many church fathers turn Keturah into an allegory, in fact you can find that to a degree in our time in the Scofield Bible Notes, because Scofield insists that Keturah was a symbol of natural Israel’s fertility.

But what was wrong with God blessing Abraham in this way? Is it wrong for God to give his man of faith happiness, physical and spiritual? Calvin said of verse 20 and I quote: “All things around us are in opposition to the promises of God. He promises immortality, we are surrounded with mortality and corruption. He testifies that He is propitious and kind to us; outward judgments threaten his wrath. What then is to be done? We must with closed eyes pass by ourselves, and all things connected with us, that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true.”

What was Calvin saying? That we, as we face situations where our faith is tested as Abrahams was, must pass by ourselves, our thinking, the logic of our thinking, because the logic of our thinking leaves God out; and we must say: “God is true, and God makes all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” So as John said, here we are. Here is our thinking and our logic and our vision, and we have got to pass by ourselves; and say amen to God, Thy will be done. And we must bear in mind also the psalmists words when he says in Psalm 47:4 “He, (God) shall choose our inheritance for us.” We all have our ideas about the inheritance we want, but He shall choose our inheritance for us.

Abraham was not wedded to his will, but to Gods. If God is glorified, as Augustine said after Paul, through faith hope and love; He is also insulted, as Luther said, by unbelief, despair, and hatred.

Then in verse 22: “And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.” Paul uses the word ‘impute’ again as he does elsewhere, and in verse 23, and verse 24. It means to reckon, to charge to a person’s account. Jesus Christ made atonement for our sins and rose again from the dead, to set forth what is ours in Him. What does this mean? As (San Dayun Hedlum?) said at the beginning of this century concerning the meaning of Paul’s words here concerning the resurrection: “First the resurrection demonstrated Christ’s deity, as we are told also in Acts 17:31, Romans 1:4, and 1st Corinthians 15:14-15. Second, it confirmed the atoning nature of His death, He was not only very man of very man, but also very God of very God. And this we are told also in 1st Corinthians 15:17. And third, the resurrection completed the atonement; it showed God accepted the sacrifice on the cross, and replaced judgement with acceptance by raising Christ from the death. Paul speaks of this also in Romans 3:25-26, and in Romans 6:7-10. Then fourth, Christ’s resurrection guarantees our resurrection as Paul stresses in 1st Corinthians 15:20 following, 2 Corinthians 4:14, Romans 8:11, Colossians 1:18, and elsewhere. And fifth, the Resurrection has for us two aspects; our future rising again in the body, and our present rising from the death of sin to the life of righteousness or justice. Paul deals with this at length in Romans 6:1-11.”

Paul thus unites us to Abraham our father, and Abraham unites us to Christ. Paul seeks to prevent a division between Jewish and Gentile Christians; almost all the New Testament writers were Judeans, they all wrote with a full acceptance of the Old Testament. Their quarrel with their people was first their failure to acknowledge their own messiah, Jesus; second, their break with the trust in the law for justification rather than for sanctification. They having broken with this insisted that all Jews should break with any faith in the law for salvation.

The Jewish Christians felt they understood the meaning of the sacrificial system above all others; they continued to attend the temple until it fell, as did Paul. And third the apostles were intensely concerned with the salvation of Israel, with bringing Jew and Gentile together in Christ. Paul in Romans 10:1 says: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.” The apostles did not see themselves as heretical Jews, rather they pleaded with Israel not to deny their own prophets, reject their own Messiah, and to cut themselves off from the true Israel of God.

Abrahams other seed was now coming into the kingdom, would old Israel not come in? this was Paul’s concern, and together with that concern, his concern that the gentile believers recognize that Abraham was the father of all faithful, that the church is the Israel of God, the new Israel; to stress the unity of the faith, not to destroy it.

It is a sorry fact that antinomians have worked against Paul here. It is not surprising that someone should tell me that he was asked in one such church not to teach the book of Romans to the adult Bible class. The antinomians can only use Paul occasionally, a verse here and there as a pretext; they cannot go through Paul systematically, and affirm the whole of what Paul says; because it militates against everything they affirm.

Paul thus speaks as one whose concern is that the church be faithful to the whole revelation of God. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee that Thou hast spoken to us through Thy prophets of old and Thine apostles. Give us hearing ears that we may hear and obey, that we may rejoice, that we may know indeed that Abraham is our Father, that Moses, David, Isaiah and Jeremiah, our prophets; Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, our brothers, our teachers, our prophets in the faith. Make us ever joyful that we have been made sons of Abraham by Thy grace, and given the power to pass by ourselves and our own logic, and to trust in Thee; to say amen, Thy will be done. “And lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do Thy will oh God.” Bless us in Thy service, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson? Yes.

[Audience Member] I am fascinated about the fact that Paul and the other apostles still attended the temple, how would they do this and still, would they follow the normal procedures in the temple? I am thinking of sacrifice and the other items that have been changed since Christ’s coming.

[Rushdoony] Yes, first of all they went there, and very often in the temple, not within the temple proper, but in the temple environs would witness to their friends and relatives: “This is now the meaning of all these things.” And of course, the book of Hebrews is devoted to precisely that fact, teaching the Hebrews that the whole sacrificial system now finds its expression in what Christ did.

However, they knew of course that the temple was going to be destroyed; because our Lord in Matthew 24 speaks of the fact that not one stone would be left standing upon another. We are told moreover that they sold their properties in Jerusalem, nowhere else; so the idea that this was primitive communism in the early church is nonsense. Those who remained sold their properties to dedicate them to working among their friends and relatives, because they knew that the property soon would have no value when the city was destroyed. They were prepared to leave at a moments notice, and we are told that not a single Christian died when Jerusalem fell, because at the very outbreak of the war they recognized: “This is the end of Jerusalem.” And left, long before the siege began.

[Audience Member] How do we know all those details?

[Rushdoony] We know that because in spite of the general idea that we have very few records, we have a great deal. And we know this from some of the comments of the earliest Christian writings. Any other questions or comments?

If not let us bow our heads in prayer. Oh Lord our God, in whose hands are all things, in whose hands are our lives, our hopes, joys, sorrows, who dost know the very number of the hairs of our head; we thank Thee that Thy purpose shall prevail, and Thy ways are righteous and true altogether. Give us grace therefore to take hands off our lives and to commit them into Thy keeping. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.