Romans 4:1-25

Faith-justification shown by Abraham’s Case to lie at the Foundation of the Jewish, as well as of the Christian, Church , Romans 4:1-25 .

Abraham himself was gratuitously justified by faith, (Romans 4:1-5;) with a justification whose blessedness is attested by David, (Romans 4:6-8;) and which was conferred upon him in his Gentilism, and afterward sealed by circumcision, (Romans 4:9-11;) rendering him the father of the faithful by faith, (Romans 4:12-17,) insomuch that from that faith sprang by miraculous birth the very race of Israel, (Romans 4:18-22;) a faith identical with justifying faith in Christ, (Romans 4:23-25.)

ABRAHAM was to the Jew the most nearly divine of all human names. His venerable form, to their imagination, rose loftily from the mists of an early antiquity as the founder of their race, securing it a divine preeminence in this world, and a certain salvation in the world to come. He connected their lineal pedigree with Adam, which was yet to culminate in the Messiah. Hence, when Paul identified the Christian faith with the Abrahamic, he based Christianity on the deepest possible foundations, and showed that a great epoch in sacred history had here commenced. (Note Acts 7:2.)