Romans 4:13-15 - Exposition

For not through law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be the heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith, For if they which are of law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. For the Law worketh wrath: for where no law is, neither is there transgression . The point of the argument is that the principle of law is essentially different from that on which Abraham was justified, and which is hence to be understood in the fulfilment of the promise to him and his seed. How this is so is shortly intimated in Romans 4:15 , the idea being more fully expounded in Romans 7:1-25 . The idea is (as has been already explained) that law simply declares what is right, and requires conformity to it; it does not give either power to obey, or atonement for not obeying. Hence, in itself, it worketh, not righteousness, but wrath; for man becomes fully liable to wrath when he comes to know, through law, the difference between right and wrong (cf. John 9:41 , "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin"). Exactly the same view of the impossibility of the Mosaic Law being the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham is found in Galatians 3:1-29 ., where also the real purpose of the Law, intervening thus between the promise and its fulfilment, is further explained. The expression in Galatians 3:13 , "that he should be the heir of the world," has reference to the ultimate scope of the Abrahamic promises (see Genesis 12:2 , Genesis 12:3 ; Genesis 13:14-16 ; Genesis 15:5 , Genesis 15:6 , Genesis 15:18 ; Genesis 17:2-9 ; Genesis 18:18 ; Genesis 22:17 , Genesis 22:18 ). Now, it is true that in some of these promises the language used seems to denote no more than the temporal possession by Israel of the promised land, with dominion (actually realized under David and Solomon) over the whole country from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, as in Genesis 13:14 , Genesis 13:15 ; Genesis 15:18 , etc. But their full scope transcends any such limited fulfilment, as where it is said that the promised seed should be as the stars of heaven, and as the dust of the earth that cannot be numbered, and that in it all the nations of the earth should be blessed. The prophets accordingly recognized a far larger ultimate fulfilment in their frequent pictures of the Messiah's universal dominion; and there was no need for the apostle to prove here what the Jews already understood. The only difference between the view current among them and his would be that they would mostly have in view a universal worldly sovereignty with its local centre on the throne of David at Jerusalem, while he interpreted spirttually, seeing beyond the outward framework of prophetic visions to the ideal they imply. " Heres mundi idem est quod pater omnium gentium, benedictionem accipientium. Totus mundus promissus est Abrahae et semini ejus per totum mundum conjunctim. Abrahamo obtigit terra Canaan, et sic aliis alia pars; atque corporalia sunt specimen spiritualium . Christus beres mundi, et omuium ( Hebrews 1:2 ; Hebrews 2:5 ; Revelation 11:15 ), et qui in eum credunt Abrahae exemplo ( Matthew 5:5 ) (Bengel). It is to be observed that, though Abraham himself in Genesis 15:13 is spoken of as "the heir of the world," yet the preceding expression, "to Abrabam or to his seed," sufficiently intimates that it is in his seed, identified with him, that he is conceived as so inheriting.