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1. Larry James, Abram’s Altar in Canaan. 2005, oil, Abraham's Journey to Christ, accessed June 1, 2024, https://lsjames-studioart.weebly.com/abrahams-journey-to-christ-2005-by-ls-james.html
Abstract
Faith in God, exemplified by Abram, was expounded millenniums later by the Apostle Paul in a seminal letter to first century believers in Rome. For Paul, to believe God as Abram did - apart from circumcision, conduct and character - God credits righteousness to the ungodly who are defined as wicked, impious and irreverent according to Strong's Greek 765 ἀσεβής (asebés). Thus to Paul, the one who believes Jesus for his propitiation, death and resurrection as the Son of God is justified by faith, declared righteous and inherits the covenant promises made to Abraham if not for a better covenant in Christ based on better promises altogether.
Abram, having believed the LORD [Heb. יְהוָֹה] who said to him “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1 ESV), broke faith with his past (Joshua 24:3) and renounced city life for ‘God-knows-where’ bringing with him an entourage with “all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran.” Stepping into Canaan as nomadic shepherds where Amorites lived an agrarian life in the Middle Bronze age, “the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land” whereupon “Abram built an altar to the LORD” and “called on the name of the LORD” that gradually distinguished him from the polytheistic people of the Ancient Near East viz. “the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites” (Gen 15:18-21). As the tribe expanded via a detour in Egypt (12:10-13:4) Abram parted ways with his nephew Lot because the land could not contain their teeming flocks. While Abram settled in Hebron in concession to Lot, the latter “journeyed east” for “all the plain of Jordan” only to be eventually abducted by four Mesopotamian kings. Not to be outdone, Abram, his Amorite allies and his 318 trained servants defeated their foes, rescued Lot and retrieved their possessions which brings us to our text in Genesis 15:1.
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
For just when Abram feared his foes might regroup for revenge, the LORD (known as “a man of war” cf. Exodus 15:3) visited him via a vision customary to prophets and vouched Himself a militant and an “exceedingly great reward” to one who had denied himself the spoils of war from the king of Sodom (Gen 14:21-24). That “God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth” (14:17-23) condescended to a nomad as his “reward” Abram lamented instead for being ‘stripped of children’ (Strong’s 6185) for should he die, his servant Eliezer would inherit his livestock, silver, gold, trained men and all. What more, the stigma of a barren wife that blamed the divine in ancient culture likewise blamed Yahweh.
But the LORD challenged Abram that if he could number the stars in the Mediterranean night likewise would the seed from his aged loins be. Incredibly so, Abram “believed the LORD” for the infinite! Thus for this reason of faith alone the LORD “credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). Righteousness accorded with justice, as Louw & Nida's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament explains, is a ‘pattern of behavior of humans or deities that is in accordance to the requirements of the divine law and generally aimed at establishing or restoring this pattern as a standard, which in certain cases requires a victory over evil and results in prosperity and happiness—righteousness; justice; deliverance; victory; vindication; prosperity.’ Here then before the LORD was Abram: uncouth, uncircumcised and lawless yet blameless if not for the “righteousness of God” (Romans 3:22) imputed to him for a right standing with “God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth” (Gen 14:22).
But there was more to Abram’s faith, for being all but a wandering pilgrim, Abram “believed the LORD” for a chunk of the Ancient Near East carved “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (vv. 7-21). Once again, Abram’s trust in Yahweh preceded the latter sign which, to vouch for it, the LORD ‘walked through’ a blood-sacrifice to seal the ancient rites of covenant-keeping while Abram was all but ‘a sleeping partner.’ And horrific as the dream showed his future “offspring” enslaved, deliverance was assured, the Land was theirs “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” Abram, on the other hand, was promised a good long life to his last breath. In all these, unlike scoffers that mock “the things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10), Abram “believed the LORD” even though it was all but a dream coming from “deep sleep.”
Two millenniums later, the Apostle Paul, while in the Greek city of Corinth in AD 57 after his third missionary journey (Acts 18:23), woke up to a damning truth that “by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight” (Rom 3:20). Having been mentored by Gamaliel (Acts 5:34; 22:3) from the Pharisaic school of Hillel where justice and righteousness fused in covenant theology, Paul drafted his law-free “gospel” like a systematic essay-letter and, via the hand of Phoebe as scholars commonly suggest, pitched it shamelessly (Rom 1:16; 2:16; 16:1) to Roman believers as a primer to his visit but only after his trip to Jerusalem en route to Spain.
How these house churches thrived, most of whom Paul never met (16:3-15), scholars have credited to the missional work of ethnic groups at Pentecost, the Diaspora ignited by Stephen’s martyrdom and Claudius Caesar’s expulsion of Jews in 49 AD (Acts 2:1-11; 8:1-4; 18:2) which left Gentile Christians behind if only to flourish under the policy of Pax Romana spanning from 27 BC to 180 AD. Thus when Messianics returned five years later, hostilities inflamed a predominantly Gentile church which Paul purposed to reconcile, via discourse, certain “disputable matters” (Rom 2:17-3:2, 9; 4:1-22; 11:13-25; 14:1).
Paul thus pitched a sobering truth to Jew and Gentile: that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against” every soul depraved by named and nuanced sins “who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them” (1:18-32). As such, mankind is altogether worthless save for “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (3:22). Justified by faith alone and “declared righteous” (4:6 NLT), Paul’s gospel (2:16) not only extolled Jewish covenant theology that equated justice with righteousness but echoed the four Gospels and eulogized Abraham whose God is “the justifier of the one who has faith” apart from circumcision (3:26; 4:2-11).
Paul also evoked David who, infamous as “a man of war and have shed blood” (cf. Ex 15:3; Deut 32: 39-43; Chr 28:3), was overjoyed to be justified by faith to the point of envy. For to him “whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed [Strong’s 3107 makários: happy; to be envied] is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin” (Rom 4:7-8 cf. Ps 32:1-2) and possibly muttering in so many words: “..that despite my bloodbaths, treachery and lawlessness, my transgressions are forgiven, my sins concealed from filth and, not imputed with iniquity, I celebrate the fact I am judicially pardoned, acquitted and absolved of all sin, thus being effectually blameless before the LORD.”
To think this forgiveness was gifted to a few “lawless” antinomians needless of atonement, restitution or reason, God credits the same “to him who does not work [nor toil for forgiveness and salvation] but believes in him who justifies the ungodly [defined as wicked, impious and irreverent], his faith is counted as righteousness” (4:5). If such grace seemed to betray the LORD who once proclaimed “..I will not justify the wicked” (Ex 23:7) and later declared “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD” (Prov 17:15), Paul pitched in on sovereign election to plainly say, ”Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?” (Rom 8:28-30; 9:21 cf. Ex 7:3, 13, 14, 23).
CONCLUSION
Justified by faith out of sheer believe, saints throughout history like the fallible host named in Hebrews 11, have nothing to boast in and of themselves (Rom 4:1-3; 5:17) but for the righteousness of God imputed to them. It reasons then that every pilgrim bedeviled by depravity (7:7-25) on this side of heaven appears before the LORD blameless; for by faith alone i.e. believing the Lord’s propitiation, death and resurrection, one is made right with God (4:2-8) and inherits the promises God made to Abraham regardless of circumcision, conduct and character let alone the 613 commandments of the Mosaic Law (3:26; 4:2-11). These promises, expanded in the letter to the Hebrews, speaks of “a better covenant” in Christ based on “better promises” (Heb 8:6) and assures the justified an eternity with God in the heavenly city of Zion.
Tuesday September 3 2024 (word count 1508, less Abstract)
Footnotes
LORD YHWH Biblical tradition attributes the foundation of Hebrew Yahwism to the Patriarchal Period. To be sure, Yahwe had been known in the remote past (Gen. 4:26) but his monotheism, as associated with his people, dates from Abraham. This is in general borne out by extra-biblical sources. Thus Yahwistic personal names of the so-called Amorites occur on Babylonian tablets prior to Abraham's time. On the other hand, it is now clear that the monotheistic crystallization which took place in the patriarchal period fits into a historic context when monotheism was in the air internationally. From prehistoric antiquity the polytheistic Semites had a god par excellence; 'el as a common noun designated any "god" but as a proper noun meant the supreme "God". Gordon, Cyrus H. “The Patriarchal Age.” Journal of Bible and Religion, vol. 21, no. 4, 1953, pp. 238–43, accessed May 30, 2024, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1457963
God-knows-where By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8 ESV; Deuteronomy 26:5
ANE Van, De Mieroop, Marc. A History of the Ancient near East, Ca. 3000-323 BC, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015, accessed June 3, 2024, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=2065776
the king of Sodom "Genesis 15," Bible Hub, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary, accessed May 29, 2024, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/genesis/1.html
trained men and all Gordon, Cyrus H. “Biblical Customs and the Nuzu Tablets.” The Biblical Archaeologist 3, no. 1 (1940): 1–12, accessed June 16, 2024, https://doi.org/10.2307/3209317
barren wife Adelman, Rachel. "Barren Women in the Bible." Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 23 June 2021. Jewish Women's Archive, accessed June 6, 2024, https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/barren-women-in-the-bible
Alone Luther added the word allein ("alone" in German) to Romans 3:28 controversially so that it read: "So now we hold, that man is justified without the help of the works of the law, alone through faith". The word "alone" does not appear in the Greek manuscripts and Luther acknowledged this fact, but he defended his translation by maintaining that the adverb "alone" was required by idiomatic German: Wikipedia contributors, "Sola fide," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, accessed June 10, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sola_fide&oldid=1225214948
Righteousness accorded with justice Louw, Johannes P. et Nida, Eugene A. (eds.) Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, United Bible Societies, accessed June 11, 2024, https://semanticdictionary.org/semdic.php?databaseType=SDBH&language=en
Deep sleep BDB, s.v. “תַּרְדֵּמָה” — deep sleep, usually with נָפַל + עַל person, and usually by supernatural agency: עַל ׳ת ׳א ׳וַיַמֵּל י Genesis 2:21 (J; ᵐ5 ἔκστασις), נָָֽפְלָח עַל ׳ת Genesis 15:12 (J; ᵐ5 id.), Job 4:13 = Job 33:15 (ᵐ5 [δεινὸς], φόβος), so ׳תַּרְדֵּמַת י 1 Samuel 26:12 (ᵐ5 θάμβος, result of slothfulness (על and person omitted) Proverbs 19:15; figurative for insensibility of spirit, ׳רוּחַ ת ׳נָסַךְ עֲלֵיכֶם י Isaiah 29:10. “Genesis 15,” Bible Hub, Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, accessed June 1, 2024, https://biblehub.com/bdb/8639.htm
Covenant theology "What were the Shammaite and Hillelite interpretations of Jewish Law?," Got Questions Ministries, accessed June 13, 2024, https://www.gotquestions.org/what-happens-after-death.html. See also this essay adapted from the article, Fred Zaspel, “Four Aspects of Divine Righteousness,” Reformation & Revival Journal, Volume 6, Number 4, Winter 1997, accessed June 13, 2024, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-righteousness-of-god/ cf. Gn 18:25; Jb 37:23; Ps 33:4-6; 99:4; 106:3; Prv 21:3; Is 5:16; 9:7; 30:18; 56:1; Jer 9:24; 22:3; 23:25 [messianic]; Am 5:24; Mt 23:23; Lk 18:7; 2 Tm 4:8
Pax Romana “Pax Romana, a state of comparative tranquility throughout Classical antiquity and the Mediterranean world from the reign of Augustus (27 BCE–14 CE) to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161 –180 CE).” Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Pax Romana." Encyclopedia Britannica, June 29, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/event/Pax-Romana; Goldsworthy, Adrian. 2016. Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World. New York: Yale University Press. Accessed June 29, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central.
12 disputable matters Tuck, Gary. Romans, 2021, accessed 3 June, 2024, https://beta.garytuck.com/docs/Rom.htm#outline; MaGee, Greg. The Origins of the Church in Rome. March 13, 2008, accessed June 15 2024, https://bible.org/article/origins-church-rome;
four Gospels Matthew 18:1-6; Mark 5:21-36; 9:14-24 John 9: 35-38; 11:25-27; Acts [by Luke] 16:30, 31
blameless before the LORD. "Romans 4," Bible Hub, Matthew Poole's Commentary, accessed June 11, 2024, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/poole/romans/4.htm
Hebrews 11 Samples justified by faith: Heb 11; Gen 6:1-8; Jgs 13:1-8; 2 Kgs 5; Mt 8:5-13; 12-13:1; Mk 7:1-30; 10:17, 18; Acts 9:1-30; 10.
613 Judaism: The 613 Mitzvot (Commandments) n.d., accessed June 15, 2024, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-613-mitzvot-commandments
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