Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Romans 4:17

"(as it is written, A father of many nations have I made thee) before him whom he believed, [even] God, who giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were." — Romans 4:17 (ASV)

The thought moves on to consider that Abraham’s justification was apart from any law or legal considerations. Paul speaks of a promise received by “Abraham and his offspring” that “he should be heir of the world.” Nothing so precise can be detected in the text of Genesis. So what does Paul mean? The theme of the chapter has not changed; it is still that vast influence of this man of faith on succeeding generations and peoples. The word “world” (GK 3180), therefore, denotes the multitude of those in future generations who will follow Abraham in terms of his faith as his rightful heirs. He will be their father in the sense that he is the father of their faith, since by that means they will be justified (cf. Genesis 12:3; 22:18).

But we must return to Paul’s main thrust, that the promise is not conditioned “through law.” The thought is not developed in quite the same way as in Gal 3:17–18 (see comments). Here Paul makes the point that if inheriting the promise comes to those “who live by law,” then faith is emptied of value and the promise has effectively been put out of operation. As soon as a promise is hedged about with conditional elements, it loses its value. Particularly is this true if these conditions are the law, with its inflexible character. As Paul puts it, “The law brings wrath.” In other words, if God’s promise had been conditioned by keeping the law, the human inability to observe the law with complete fidelity would have occasioned disobedience and consequently the operation of God’s wrath, resulting in forfeiture of what was promised. In summary, the need to keep the law as a condition for receiving the promise would have two disastrous effects. It would pit the God of grace over against the God of judgment (an intolerable impasse), and it would make the realization of the promise impossible for us, since no one has been able fully to keep the law (see vv.14– 15).

The promise, however, belongs to the realm of faith and grace (v.16). By mentioning faith first, Paul seems to put grace in a secondary position, but it cannot have been his intent to make grace depend on faith (cf. Ephesians 2:8). Rather, faith is put forward here to reaffirm v.13, after vv.14–15 have ruled out law— hence its prominence in the sentence. The only ground for certainty in relation to the promise is grace (as opposed to attempted legal obedience). This certainty (cf. the word “guaranteed” in v.16) is intended to apply to faith as well as to grace. In other words, the ultimate guarantee must be God and his faithfulness.

“Those who are of the law” are not excluded from Abraham’s offspring. This means that the Israelites who happened to live during the Mosaic era were not excluded from the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant, provided they had faith. The above expression cannot refer to legal obedience, for then Paul would be contradicting himself. And the blessing of Abraham is also for those who, though not belonging to the Mosaic epoch, yet share the faith of the patriarch. Both Jews and Gentiles, then, are in the statement “He is father of us all.” This is followed by an appeal to the prediction that Abraham would be a father of many nations (Genesis 17:5), a statement that cannot refer exclusively to the twelve tribes of Israel, since they constituted but one nation. Only God could foresee the course of history that was to include the coming of Christ, his finished work, his command to evangelize all nations (Matthew 28:19–20), and the response of faith to the Gospel around the world.

God is described by two terms. (1) He is one “who gives life to the dead.” It is perhaps natural to think of such an expression in terms of resurrection (vv.24– 25), but hardly with reference to receiving Isaac back, as it were, from the dead, when Abraham was ready to offer him to God (a subject pursued in Heb 11:19 but not mentioned here). The thought seems to move rather along the line of making it possible for Abraham and Sarah to have offspring despite their deadness as producers of offspring (cf. v.19, where the word “dead” occurs twice). (2) This conclusion is favored when we read that God is the one who “calls things that are not as though they were.” The word “calls” (GK 2813) in this case means to “summon” or “call into being,” a word that may be used for God’s creative activity. That is, Isaac was real in the thought and purpose of God before he was begotten.