Abraham, my Friend 27

Particular responsibility and a look at the accounts

This week’s devotional is a little more ‘technical’ and a little longer. We are going to see how Paul expounds Abraham’s experience. Please don’t be discouraged by that; these are vital truths which will more than repay your having to think a little.

Distinction without separation

 And he believed in Jehovah; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.  (Gen 15:6 ASV)

Did you notice that our verse has two ‘he’s? 

So we have two named individuals who each perform an action. There is no confusion between the individuals; the first ‘he’ is Abraham, the second ‘he’ is Jehovah. There is no confusion either between the different contributions that each ‘he’ makes to this statement. (If you are tempted to think that this is ‘pedantry gone mad’ please accept my apologies.) I want to make clear beyond all possibility of confusion that in this verse Abraham had a responsibility which ‘he’ fulfilled, and Jehovah had a responsibility which ‘He’ fulfilled. Abraham ‘believed’ and that was his part ‘done’. From that point onwards the responsibility switches in its entirety to Jehovah.

Let me state this in a negative form. Abraham did not contribute any ‘righteousness’ to this process, and Jehovah did not contribute any ‘faith’. We have said before that God needs nothing, other than what He has committed Himself to use. In the earliest verses of the Bible we find that God spoke and it was done. Think in terms of the links of a chain; the first link is God’s word; the second is God’s action. There is no intrinsic need for any further link between the two in this chain. 

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. (Gen 1:3 ASV)

But there are times when God has decided to separate the two links and then another link becomes necessary — the link that God has determined must be in place. The ‘necessary’ link is often a human contribution; God does not ‘need’ it but He has decided that this is how the process must now move from its beginning to its end. Let’s repeat the statement that Abraham contributed no ‘righteousness’ towards this process; his contribution was his act of believing, his faith.

he believed… He reckoned…

In our verse we are told that the first ‘he’, Abraham, believed in Jehovah. Abraham had had earlier experiences with this ‘god’ called Jehovah; Abraham knew who was speaking to him, and he knew who he was putting his faith in. Jehovah could not move from the spoken word to the completed action until Abraham provided the missing link, because God has decreed that Abraham will be ‘saved by grace, through faith’. As the North American folks like to say, ‘awesome’! 

Thomas Newberry, author of the Newberry Bible, drew some interesting thoughts from the way the Hebrew tenses are used. He describes the word ‘believed’ as an ‘Aoristic action’. Properly speaking Hebrew does not have an Aorist tense, but Newberry sees an Aorist mood in the word ‘believed’. The Aorist tense is a tense that is often used in Greek to give a sense of a completed act; in this sense Abraham’s ‘believing’ was a single act in which he looked away from all other considerations and fixed his gaze upon the ‘god’ he knew as Jehovah. It was a response complete in itself; the act was done! 

But Newberry also observed that the verb used of God, ‘reckoned/counted’, was not in this single act mode, but in a mode which indicated the permanence of the action. 

This is all a little bit complex, so let me ‘cut to the chase’ by saying that Newberry saw the verse as giving the implication that a single act of Abraham resulted in a permanent response from God; Abraham ‘believed’ God in a moment of time, and God permanently changed the way He thought about things and changed the record. He reckoned it.  The King James Version has ‘he counted it’. The KJV is often anxious to translate words as fully as possible by using different English words to translate the same Hebrew or Greek word; this is good but it sometimes loses the power of simple repetition. The best ‘all-round’ single word translation here, for God’s action, would be ‘reckoned’. If you are able, try to trace the Hebrew word ‘chashab’ (Strong’s Number Hebrew 2803) through your Old Testament. It is used to describe the way in which someone ‘thinks’ about something which then affects the way they behave. Their way of ‘seeing’ something alters their judgement about something.

The gospel according to Paul

The great theme of Romans is really found in its earliest verses: 

 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. (Rom 1:16 NKJV)

It is often said that ‘God’s love is unconditional’ and it is, but ‘Salvation is absolutely conditional!’ Salvation is not conditioned by racial history; it is available to both Jew and Greek. It is not achieved by merit; it is the result of God’s power made available to every believer. It is not difficult to identify Paul’s focus in the epistle to the Romans. He uses the word ‘faith’ 40 times and the word ‘believe’ 21 times. To illustrate from his letter to the Ephesians:

 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Eph 2:8–9 NKJV)

God has determined that the human link will be ‘faith’. Romans 4 is a vital foundation in New Testament teaching. Paul asks the question, ‘what was Abraham’s experience?’ His answer is simple; Abraham found that when he believed God-wards, his faith was reckoned to him for righteousness (Rom 4:3-5). Abraham’s only contribution was his faith.

In fact to make the point beyond any confusion Paul refers to God as Him that justifieth the ungodly (Rom 4:5). It is an audacious statement that excites me every time I read it. The construction is one which describes someone’s characteristic behaviour; the ‘god’ we are referring to is the ‘god’ who is ‘The Justifier of the Ungodly’. Abraham’s life story comes before the Law of Moses so his sin was not quantifiable; sin cannot be ‘reckoned’ when there is no law. 

…Because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. (Rom 4:15 NKJV)

(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law….)  (Rom 5:13 NKJV)

It is an interesting confirmation of the precision of God’s revelation in Scripture that the narrative of Abraham’s life never charges him with sin. However, the fact that sin was not recorded does not mean that sin did not occur. It is just that before the law there was no measurement of sin; it could not be ‘scored’. Abraham, for all his greatness, was not a ‘godly’ man. He had not acquired ‘righteousness’ that could be put to his account. If he had, God’s acceptance of him would not have been on the basis of grace but of merit. But Abraham has no merit with which he can earn God’s acceptance; his acceptance follows his faith; he believes. The same construction which gave us ‘The Justifier of the Ungodly’ describes Abraham’s characteristic behaviour; he is not a worker, but a ‘believer on’ The Justifier of the Ungodly. His confidence is not in his achievements but in God alone. God alone will provide the righteousness, Abraham must provide the faith.

But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. (Rom 4:5 NKJV)

Checking the accounts

Paul uses the Greek word logizoōmai which Thayer defines as to reckon, count, compute, calculate, count over. We are using the language of numbers, the language of the accountant. Where Abraham’s account should have shown a massive overdraft it is found to be infinitely in credit. Where has the overdraft gone and where has this immeasurable wealth come from? This is the ongoing miracle of ‘justification by faith’. An amazing two-way transfer of funds has taken place; the debt has gone and a credit Abraham never earned has appeared in his account.

The Roman Catholic church teaches that its ‘saints’ have not only provided sufficient ‘righteousnesses’ for their own acceptance but have acquired an excess which can be used to off-set the debt of others; these righteous works of the ‘saints’ are known as works of supererogation. These credits are administered by the Roman priesthood as a means of reducing time spent in purgatory. This was the theological basis of ‘indulgences’ offered on payment of cash by the Roman priesthood in the Middle Ages. It was Luther’s rediscovery of God’s own righteousness ‘reckoned/imputed’ to our account on the occasion of our faith that triggered the Reformation. If our acceptance with God were based on personal righteousness, the ‘saints’ would not have had sufficient to repay their own debts and there would have been no surplus for others. In any case, why would I need the righteousness of Saint Francis when the righteousness of God has been credited to my account?

Outside the covenant

There is another important point that Paul draws from Abraham’s discovery; Abraham was not in covenant with God when this amazing transfer took place. In Bible language, he was ‘uncircumcised’. Circumcision came to be one of the covenant signs of faith for God’s people. The natural descendants of Abraham came to rely upon their historical connections. They were sure that they were accepted with God because they were Abraham’s descendants. Paul makes another audacious statement; God reckoned Abraham’s faith as righteousness before Abraham had been circumcised. In simple terms, while he was still Gentile.

The implications of this were far-reaching. 

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed… (Rom 3:21–25 NKJV)

There is no difference, says Paul, on this level between Jew and Gentile (Rom 3:22, 10:12). Acceptance with God is entirely on the basis of faith on our part, and God reckoning that faith as righteousness on His part.

How can God justify the guilty and still be just himself?

How can God do this thing? His love is a holy love; He can’t close His eyes and pretend He can’t see. How can God, at one and the same time, 

…be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom 3:26 NKJV)

Is it important to know the answer to such questions? Do we need to understand such things before we are accepted with God? ‘Yes’, it is important to know because God has revealed the legal basis on which He has procured our salvation. And ‘No’, we don’t need to understand before we are accepted. As far as we know Abraham did not understand, and that certainly did not prevent his discovery that God had reckoned righteousness to his account. However, the Scripture does speak of the ‘full assurance of understanding’ (Col 2:2) so in the next couple of devotionals we will see how God has worked and its implications for the way we live our lives, and pray that God will use these meditations to settle us in a full assurance.