Romans 4:17-22

The Jewish Race-Church was born by Miracle from Abraham’s Faith , Romans 4:17-22 .

It was a wonderful fact that not only Abraham’s spiritual seed, but even his bodily posterity, was born of his faith, and but for that faith had never existed.

In patriarchal times, as already remarked, great was a great paternity. To be a bountiful mother was the glory of a woman, (Genesis 30:1;) to be father of a family the power of a man. To be father of a tribe was power; to be father of a nation was greatness; to be father of many nations was the greatest of greatness. What higher honour did man then know than to be hailed by nations as their progenitor and founder, the head of their multitudinous pedigree, all springing and diverging in magnificent lines from his own body! Hence the details of birth were thought of in their true wonderfulness with reverence. (Note on Luke 1:37.)

The great promise had, then, been given to Abraham that he should be father of many nations. The stars of the firmament indicated their number and prefigured their glory. But a direful stoppage was in the way. The multitudinous streams of generations were dry at the fountain head. The birth of the future Church and its Messiah was naturally impossible. But Abraham was no mere naturalist. He believed in a God above nature, a God of holiness and truth; he held fast to the divine promise, and left to the divine will the question of the How. And so by divine miracle was Israel born: a miracle dimly shadowing the miracle of the generation of Israel’s Messiah, and the miracle of the regeneration through the Messiah. (Note Romans 9:8.)