The Promise Realized Through Faith
THE PROMISE REALIZED THROUGH FAITH
ROMANS 4:13-16
Paul presses home his point about the Law.
Paul insists again on the global nature of the promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18). If Abraham’s covenanted heritage was to be confined to his own nationals, then its geographical limits were closely defined (Genesis 15:18-21 in specific terms, and in more general terms at Genesis 13:14f., see Joshua 1:24). The Old Testament, however, contains the hint of a wider posterity, which the New Testament takes up and claims (Hebrews 11:10, and notice Paul’s point at Galatians 3:16 and 3:29 where he claims Christ, and therefore Christ’s people, as the true posterity of the patriarch).
This covenant, he has shown, rested on faith. If the Law, given over four centuries later (Galatians 3:17), is to be the permanent way of salvation, a covenant is annulled twice over. First, what was universal is decisively confined to one nation, and secondly and more seriously, “faith is null and void” (4:14). A new principle is introduced. To inherit the promise people must keep the Law, and since to keep it is impossible, the race, which had known God’s grace in the promise to Abraham, and had learned from him to move out in trust, passes under the shadow of wrath.
In 4:15, Paul digresses a little to develop this argument. He is to return to it later, and it has a place in the letter to the Galatian wanderers. He is always a little anxious lest he should appear to say that the Law was an unnecessary intrusion. The debates with the rabbis had shown him how necessary it was to make this point. The Law had its place and purpose. It did not negate the promise to Abraham. It prepared the way for the consummation of that promise, by closely defining sin. It could not cure. It could not save. Grace all along had been the way.