ROMANS CHAPTER 4: FATHER ABRAHAM’JUSTIFIED BY
FAITH

Almighty God and Father,

In Abraham You called forth the physical father of Your
Covenant people Israel and the spiritual father of all who in faith come to the
sacrament of Baptism in Jesus Christ.  He is the Old Testament model of obedient
faith as he cut himself off from all earthly ties to set out with his wife, at
Your command, for an unknown land and an unknown future.  This was Abram’s first
act of faith and it was renewed when he offered You his beloved son’the son of
Your promise.  For his unswerving faith and obedience You added grace to his
name and Abram became Abraham.  It was to this man of faith that Your chosen
people owed their existence and destiny’not only Abraham’s physical descendants
but all who, in virtue of this same faith, become his spiritual children with a
share in that promised destiny.  Send us Your Spirit, Lord, to guide us in our
study.  We pray in the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.
Father Abraham, pray for us!

 

+ + +

“Paul shows that the Jews, by trying to put the Gentiles
in their place, were insulting God’s glory by not allowing Him to be the God of
all.  But if God is God of all, then He takes care of all, and if He takes care
of all, then He saves all alike by faith.” St. John Chrysostom Bishop of
Constantinople, Homilies on Romans # 7

 

“How should the
law be upheld if not by righteousness?  By a righteousness, moreover, which is
of faith, for what could not be fulfilled through the law is fulfilled through
faith.  St. Augustine, Homilies on Romans

 

“Not only does Paul say that there is only one God for
both Jews and Gentiles, but he adds that this God is the one who justifies the
circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their
faith…. Neither the circumcision nor the uncircumcision enjoys any advantage
in this.  Origin, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans

 

In chapter 4 Paul
will use a Scriptural defense in support of the claim he makes that salvation is
a gift by faith and not only by works of the Old Covenant Law, and that the
justification of all mankind by grace through faith does not dismiss the Law of
Moses but upholds it.  Paul will present a Scriptural defense that points to an
inclusive covenant in the Gospel of Jesus Christ’a principle that was already
operative in the Old Testament.  In Romans chapter 1 Paul
maintained that God’s righteousness is revealed to all mankind both through
natural law’apart from the Law of Moses in the Sinai Covenant’and also to the
children of Israel through the Law of the Sinai Covenant.  In chapters 2 and
3 he pointed
out that this revelation was also revealed through the prophets who witnessed to
the truth in the Law of Moses [see Romans
3:21-23].  In both cases God’s Law worked in the lives of men beyond the
visual and the physical’the true believer is the one who offers his life as a
sacrifice to God’a sacrifice witnessed by a “circumcised heart” [Deuteronomy
10:16; 30:6;
Jeremiah
4:4].  Now Paul turns to Scripture to prove his argument in the figure of
the model of faith for all Old Covenant believers.

 

Question: Who is it in the Old Testament who is the
first model of faithful covenant obedience and in whom all future covenants
between God and man will be linked?

Answer: Father Abraham:

• “Remember the deeds performed by our ancestors, each in
  his own generation, and you will win great honor and everlasting renown.  Was
  not Abraham tested and found faithful, was that not considered in justifying
  him?”  1 Maccabees
  2:51-52
• “Abraham, the great ancestor of a host of nations, no one
  was ever his equal in glory.  He observed the Law of the Most High, and entered
  into a covenant with him.  He confirmed the covenant in his own flesh, and
  proved himself faithful under ordeal.  The Lord therefore promised him on oath
  to bless the nations through his descendants, to multiply him like the dust on
  the ground, to exalt his descendants like the stars, and to give them the land
  as their heritage from one sea to another from the River to the ends of the
  world.” Ecclesiasticus
  44:19 (20)-21 (23)

Paul will focus his argument on Genesis chapters 15-17.
It is in father Abraham that the Jews derive their special relationship with
Yahweh as His chosen people.  It is in father Abraham that the entire Jewish
identity and the promises of the Covenant with Yahweh are centered’promises that
all Jews believed would be fulfilled in the Messianic Age.

 

In using father Abraham as his model, it is necessary for
Paul to demonstrate that Abraham was justified in the eyes of God by his faith.
But Abraham is also a model of obedience and so Paul must achieve two points in
the representation of Abraham as a person first justified by faith.  He
must demonstrate that Abraham’s righteousness was not through nature or through
the Law but through the righteousness of faith and as a result the obedience of
Abraham’s faith is manifested through his deeds.  To succeed in this argument
Paul develops two themes:

1. Paul shows that sacred Scripture identifies Abraham first
   and foremost as a person of faith [see Romans 4:1-12],
   and
2. Paul demonstrates that it was upon the standing of Abraham’s
   initial justification by faith that he received for himself and for his
   descendants the blessings of the Covenant promises that are fulfilled in Jesus
   Christ [4:13-17].

 

In establishing these two themes Paul will be able to define
Abraham’s fatherhood to the Covenant people as Abraham the father of all New
Covenant believers’Jews and Gentiles’all who are justified on the basis of faith
in Jesus Christ.  It is in this theme that St. Irenaeus wrote in the late first
century: “We were prefigured in the Jews, and they are represented in us,
that is, in the Church, and they receive the reward for what they achieved.”
St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.22.2. Paul’s
intension then is nothing less than to present the true definition of Yahweh’s
eschatological people as the progeny of the Gentile Abraham and the rightful
heirs to the promised blessings of the world-wide inheritance of the Kingdom of
God!

 

Please read Romans 4:1-12,
Abraham is justified by faith:

“1 Then what do
we say about Abraham, the ancestor from whom we are descended physically?
2 If Abraham had been justified
because of what he had done, then he would have had something to boast about.
But not before God: does not Scripture say: 3 ‘Abraham put his faith in God and this was
reckoned to him as uprightness?’ 4 Now, when someone works, the wages for this are
not considered as a favor but as due; 5
however, when someone, without working puts faith in the one who
justifies the godless, it is this faith that is reckoned as uprightness.
6 David, too, says the same: he calls
someone blessed if God attributes uprightness to that person, apart from any
action undertaken: 7 ‘How blessed
are those whose offence is forgiven, whose sin is blotted out.
8 How blessed are those to
whom the Lord imputes no guilt.’ 9 Is this blessing only for the circumcised, or is
it said of the uncircumcised as well? Well, we said of Abraham that his faith
was reckoned to him as uprightness.  10
how did this come about?  When he was already circumcised, or before he
had been circumcised?  Not when he had been circumcised, but while he was still
uncircumcised; 11 and circumcision
was given to him later, as a sign and a guarantee that the faith which he had
while still uncircumcised was reckoned to him as uprightness.  In this way,
Abraham was to be the ancestor of all believers who are uncircumcised, so that
they might be reckoned as upright; 12
as well as the ancestor of those of the circumcision who not only have
their circumcision but who also follow our ancestor Abraham along the path of
faith that he trod before he was circumcised.”

 

In this passage Paul presents his argument in 3 stages:

1. Romans 4:3-5
   focuses on Genesis 15
   [quoting verse 6]
2. Romans 4:6-8
   focuses on Psalms
   32 [quoting verses 1-2]and King David’s justification
3. Romans 4:9-12
   focuses on Genesis 17
   [quoting verse 10] and Abraham’s righteousness which is not the result of
   circumcision because his faith preceded his circumcision.

 

Question: In Romans 4:1-2
Paul writes that if Abraham had been justified by his works then he would have
had something to boast about to men but not to God, “If Abraham had been
justified because of what he had done, then he would have had something to boast
about.  But not before God…” Why didn’t Abraham have something to boast
about before God?  What about before man?  What did Paul say about “boasting” in
Romans
3:23-28.?  What is the key phrase in this passage?

Answer: Abraham’s righteous works might have been
something to boast of to other men and women because his deeds were good and in
the eyes of others were worthy deeds, but Paul is linking this question to his
statements in 3:23-28 that
there is no room for boasting because “faith is what counts, since, as we see
it, a person is justified by faith and not by doing what the Law tells him to
do.” Paul’s point is that Abraham’s justification and the works that
resulted had their source in the first stage of the process of
justification’which is in the supernatural gift of faith’which comes from the
divine grace and favor of God [CCC# 153].

Question: Why might this be a hard teaching for Paul’s
Jewish audience?

Answer: This is a hard teaching for Paul’s Jewish
audience, who through their tradition, have been preoccupied with Abraham
chiefly as a model of works of obedience no matter what the trial:

• 1 Maccabee
  2:51-52: “Remember the deeds performed by our ancestors, each in his
  generation, and you will win great honor and everlasting renown.  Was not
  Abraham tested and found faithful, was that not considered as justifying
  him?”
• Wisdom 10:5
  [Wisdom at work in Salvation history]: “Again, when, concurring in
  wickedness, the nations had been thrown into confusion, she singled out the
  upright man, preserved him blameless before God and fortified him against pity
  for his child.”
• Ecclesiasticus
  44:19 (20):“Abraham, the great ancestor of a host of nations, no one was
  ever his equal in glory.  He observed the Law of the Most High, and entered into
  a covenant with him.  He confirmed the covenant in his own flesh, and proved
  himself faithful under ordeal. 

 

But Paul’s point is that faith and obedience in deeds are so
interdependent that they cannot be separated and yet it is the gift of faith
that must come first in order for the works of faith to be generated.  The gift
of faith is the first step in obtaining justification/salvation: “The
necessity of faith: CCC# 161, Believing in
Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for
obtaining that salvation.  Since ‘without faith it is impossible to please
[God]’ and to attain to the fellowship of his Son, therefore without
faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal
life ‘but he who endures to the end.'” [quoting Dei Filius 3; Matthew
10:22; 3; 24:13; 3;
Hebrews
11:6; Council of Trent: DS 1532].  The Council of Trent stated that this
initial act of faith “moves the person to recognize God, to repent of his
sins, to put his trust and faith in God’s divine mercy and to love him above all
things; and to desire the sacraments and resolve to live a holy life..”  The
Council of Trent, De Justification, chapter 6.

 

In Romans 4:3 Paul
begins his Scriptural proof in support of Abraham’s initial justification by
faith by quoting from the key text in Genesis
15:6, “Abraham put his faith in God and this was reckoned as
uprightness…” Paul will quote Genesis 15:6
three times in Romans 4:3; 4:10; and in 4:22.  In
quoting this passage Paul asks a question:

Question: Why was Abraham’s faith reckoned as
righteousness?  Read Genesis
15:1-6 and Galatians
3:6-14.

Answer: Once again Paul is quoting from the Greek
Septuagint translation.  In Genesis 15:6
God made the promise of numerous descendants.  Abraham had no evidence to
support the validity of a promise that no mere human’s word could guarantee, but
he had faith in God’s promise.  In other words he accepted in trust the truth of
Yahweh’s word, and this faith was credited as uprightness with God.  This text
in Genesis supports Paul’s argument by making the link between faith and being
found righteous in God’s eyes.  God reckoned Abraham’s faith as something which
deserved to be rewarded.  It is faith that leads to justification and
justification renders a believer’s good works God’s works and meritorious of
eternal life.  In Galatians
3:6-14 Paul wrote that it was Abraham’s faith which had brought about the
events in the Church in the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ’Paul wrote,
“Abraham, you remember, put his faith in God, and this was reckoned to him as
uprightness.  Be sure, then, that it is people of faith who are the children of
Abraham.  And it was because Scripture foresaw that God would give saving
justice to the Gentiles through faith, that it announced the future Gospel to
Abraham in the words: ‘All nations will be blessed in you.’  So it is people of
faith who receive the same blessing as Abraham, the man of faith.” Galatians
3:6-14

 

Then in Romans 4:4-5
Paul takes an example from everyday life in an experience with which most of his
audience can relate: the right of an employee to receive just compensation for
work done and on the other hand, the lack of right to such compensation for one
who has failed to do any work.

Question: What is Paul’s point?  Hint: the phrase
“in the one who justifies the godless” or “in the one justifying the
godless” is an allusion to Exodus 23:7 and
Isaiah 5:23
in which it is forbidden in the spirit of justice for men to acquit the
guilty.

Answer: Paul makes the point that someone who has
worked is entitled to receive a wage comparable to the work they have
completed’it is their just reward that they have earned for themselves through
their efforts.  However, if any benefit comes to an employee who has not worked
and has not earned the wage through his own efforts then their wage rests purely
on the favor or mercy of the employer.  Such an employee has no legitimate claim
to a wage.  For the Christian faith is “credited as righteousness” when one’s
faith is recognized by God as meriting His grace because one’s faith becomes the
advanced promise of the good deeds that will in the future be credited to the
believer’s righteousness.  It is the gift of faith that gives us, as it were,
the trust of the “employer” that the “employee” will live up to his obligations.
The “one who justifies the godless” is of course a liberty that belongs
to God Himself.  Man cannot purchase his salvation through good works like a
laborer works for a wage: “If anyone saith that man may be justified before
God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature or that
of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be
anathema” [Council of Trent, On Justification, canon I]. God in His
desire to bring man to salvation does not simply confirm the good deeds that
people may do but He takes the initiative to do for His children what they
cannot do for themselves to bring a sinful humanity into a right relationship
with Himself’and for our part, in the exercise of our free will, we cooperate
with His grace so that the “credit” is translated into acts of love and mercy.

 

Then in Romans 4:7-8
Paul equates this example of the employee who receives merciful compensation
over the just wage by linking justification by faith and salvation to David’s
beatitude in Psalm 32:1-2.
Paul is again quoting from the Greek Septuagint.  Please read Psalm
32:1-11

Question: What is the theme of David’s psalm?

Answer: David’s admission of sin and repentance and
Yahweh’s merciful reply.  This psalm is in essence a prayer of thanksgiving
expressing David’s faith in God’s forgiveness, healing, and restoration.  So
now, in addition to quoting from the “book of Moses”, Paul is also citing from
the Old Testament “writings” to illustrate his thesis’both Old Testament
fathers, Abraham and the great King David support Paul’s thesis of God’s grace
and justification/salvation through faith’a teaching, Paul tells his audience
which is upheld by inspired Scripture.

 

Question: What series of questions does Paul ask in Romans
4:9-10?

Answer: Paul asks if David’s blessing in Psalm 32:1-2 is
only for the circumcised or is it also for the uncircumcised. Circumcision was
to become the key sacrament of the covenant with Abraham which was transmitted
to all future covenants until the coming of Christ.  Please read Genesis chapter
17:1-27.

 

The circumcision
of Abraham at age 99 is the sign of the Abrahamic covenant: “You
for your part must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you,
generation after generation.  This is my covenant which you must keep between
myself and you, and your descendants after you: every one of your males must be
circumcised.  You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that will be
the sign of the covenant between myself and you.  As soon as he is eight
days old, every one of your males, generation after generation must be
circumcised, including slaves born within the household or bought from a
foreigner not of your descent.  Whether born within the household or bought,
they must be circumcised.  My covenant must be marked in your flesh as a
covenant in perpetuity.  The uncircumcised male, whose foreskin has not been
circumcised’that person must be cut off from his people: he has broken my
covenant.” Genesis
17:9-14

 

Circumcision was not unique to the people of Israel.  Many
other peoples of the region used circumcision as a rite of passage into manhood
and as a rite initiatory to marriage.  The oldest depiction of circumcision is
on a relief from the tomb of Ankhmahor, vizier of Pharaoh Teti from the
24^th century BC [circa 4-6 hundred years before Abraham], and the
oldest text reference is from an Egyptian inscription from 2300 BC.  Infant
circumcision was unique to the Israelites and the 8^th day prescribed
is also significant.

Question: What is the significance of the number 8 in
Scripture?  See the document The Significance of Numbers in Scripture in
the Documents section of Agape Bible Study.

Answer: 8 is the number of redemption, resurrection,
and regeneration.  8 people were saved in Noah’s ark and Jesus was raised from
the dead on Sunday which was not only the first day of a 7-day week but also in
sequence can be the 8^th day.  Recognizing this significance all of
the earliest Christian churches of the Byzantine era were 8-sided’including the
early church of the faithful who gathered in what had been Peter’s house in
Capernaum.

 

In Genesis chapter
17 circumcision becomes a “sign” like the covenant sign of the rainbow in Genesis
9:16-17, to remind Yahweh of His covenant commitment and humans of their
covenant obligations.  However, according to God’s plan, circumcision was
only an external sign of Abraham’s justification’not the cause! 

• Deuteronomy
  10:16: “Circumcise your heart then and be obstinate no longer; for Yahweh
  your God is God of gods and Lord of lords…”
• Jeremiah
  4:4: “Circumcise yourselves for Yahweh, apply circumcision to your
  hearts, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.”
• Jeremiah
  9:24-25 [25-26]: “Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I
  shall punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh: Egypt, Judah, Edom, the
  Ammonites, Moab, and all the men with shaven temples who live in the desert.
  For all those nations and the whole House of Israel too, are uncircumcised at
  heart.”

 

Paul insists that the blessing in Psalms 32:1-2 is
not limited to the circumcised Jews.  The force of Paul’s questions center on
Abraham and whether he was circumcised when he was first justified by faith. He
was not.  Abraham was justified by his faith in Genesis chapter
15 but was not circumcised until chapter 17.
Paul argues the status of the individual depends on his uprightness before
God’whether or not he came to God in faith’because in Abraham’s case
justification came about through faith and not by “deeds of the Law” like
circumcision.  It is, as Paul explains in Romans 4:11,
the “sign and a guarantee that the faith which he had while still
uncircumcised was reckoned to him as uprightness.”  It is the time sequence
that is Paul’s focus in the Genesis story.  Abraham was judged as righteous in
Genesis 15
but was not circumcised until Genesis 17;
therefore, circumcision had nothing to do with Abraham being reckoned as
upright.  Circumcision was a “sign” to seal the Covenant with Yahweh to be
handed on to Abraham’s posterity, but it was a sign given to Abraham as a
person of faith. Abraham, through the gift of faith, believed in God and
God made a covenant with him, and circumcision became a sign of that covenant
and a seal of his justification through faith!

 

Question: And so in Romans 4:11-12,
according to Paul whose father does Abraham become?

Answer: Abraham’s spiritual paternity is as important
as his physical paternity and it is the spiritual paternity that makes him the
father of all believers who imitate his faith and turn to faith in Jesus Christ
whether they are circumcised in the flesh or not.

 

Please read Romans 4:13-17,
Justification is not through obedience to the Law of Moses:

13 “For the promise to
Abraham and his descendants that he should inherit the world was not through the
Law, but through the uprightness of faith.  14 For if it is those who live by the Law who will
gain the inheritance, faith is worthless and the promise is without force;
15 for the Law produces nothing but
God’s retribution, and it is only where there is no Law that it is possible to
live without breaking the Law. 16
That is why the promise is to faith, so that I comes as a free gift and is
secure for all the descendants, not only those who rely on the Law but all those
others who rely on the faith of Abraham, the ancestor of us all 17 (as Scripture says: I have made you the father
of many nations).  Abraham is our father in the eyes of God, in whom he put his
faith, and who brings the dead to life and calls into existence what does not
yet exist.”

 

Romans 4:13-14,
“For the promise to Abraham and his descendants that he should inherit the
world was not through the Law, but through the uprightness of faith.  For if it
is those who live by the Law who will gain the inheritance, faith is worthless
and the promise is without force…”

Question: If salvation was only through the observance
of the Law of Moses what would be the result?

Answer: The result would be that faith as a
supernatural gift of God would have no role in God’s plan of salvation for
humanity.  Faith would be “null and void” of any meaning or impact and God’s
promise of justifying Abraham’s faith could not be fulfilled.  The “uprightness
of faith” that Paul mentions is the obedience of faith that is evidenced by a
living and active faith in Abraham’s life.  God awarded the promises to Abraham
in Genesis
12:1-3 because of his faith.  It was an inheritance that wasn’t
given as a reward for a duty performed or as a contract fulfilled [Abraham
hadn’t even left for Canaan] but was given in faith to be redeemed by faith in
the saving work of Jesus Christ.

 

In Romans 4:15
Paul is repeating what he introduced in Romans 1:18 and
then taught more fully in 3:19-20,
“Now we are well aware that whatever the Law says is said for those who are
subject to the Law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world
brought under the judgment of God.  So then, no human being can be found upright
at the tribunal of God by keeping the Law; all that the Law does is to tell us
what is sinful.”

Question: What point is Paul repeating?  How is the
Law of Moses limited?

Answer: The Law was given to identify sin; it
cannot eliminate sin nor can the Law bring about salvation.

 

Then in completing his thought in Romans 4:15
Paul makes a curious statement.  He writes, “…it is only where there is no
Law that it is possible to live without breaking the Law”, which can also be
translated as “but where there is no law, there is no transgression.”

Question: What is Paul’s point?

Answer: A “transgression”, or “breaking of the Law”
implies an act that violates the law that has been prescribed.  So, if there is
no law prescribed then there can be no violation of the law’and yet if there is
no law at all sin abounds even when it is not labeled as sin.  Paul will develop
this further in Romans
5:11-13

 

Romans 4:16,
“That is why the promise is to faith, so that it comes as a free gift and is
secure for all the descendants, not only those who rely on the Law but all those
others who rely on the faith of Abraham, the ancestor of us all..”

Paul is presenting the alternative to disobedience to the Law
which leads to transgression of the Law and God’s wrathful judgment through
God’s promise of salvation in the gift of unmerited grace and faith.

The Law àtransgressionàwrath

God’s promisesàunmerited graceàfaith

 

God’s power to make us godly is greater than the power of
concupiscence that calls us into sin.  [see CCC#405; 1264; 2515-16].

 

Romans 4:17:
“as Scripture says: I have made you the father of many nations..” Paul is
citing Genesis
17:5 according to the Septuagint.  The term “many nations” is a term for the
Gentile peoples in general who will become the children of Abraham through faith
in Jesus Christ. In other words, Paul tells his audience, while they may have
assumed God’s promise to be in the physical sense, the promise was intended to
have a fuller more profound spiritual fulfillment.  Scripture, anticipating that
God would justify the Gentile nations through faith in Jesus,  records the
preaching of the Gospel in advance to Abraham with Yahweh’s promise “I have
made you the father of many nations.”

 

Question: In Romans 4:13-17
what does Paul establish as the consequence of the “spiritual fatherhood” of
Abraham?

Answer: It fulfills the promise God made to Abraham
that is an intrinsic aspect of God’s salvific plan for all humanity’the
world-wide blessing through Abraham which is repeated 5 times in Genesis 12:3;
18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14 and
which is fulfilled in the spiritual descendants of Abraham who are New Covenant
believers living in one end of the world to the other.  Now both Jews and
Gentile come to God through the Lord Jesus Christ and are incorporated into one
family’the universal Catholic Church.

 

In Romans 4:17
Paul writes, “Abraham is our father in the eye of God, in whom he put his
faith, and who brings the dead to life and calls into existence what does not
yet exist”, Question: What significant link is Paul making between
revelation of God in the Old and New Testaments in this passage?

Answer: Paul is providing his hearers with the link
between the miracle of Creation and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ which will
generate a new Creation’Jesus is resurrected on the same day that according to
Jewish tradition the first Creation took place’the first day of the week, Sunday
[you will recall that Sunday, the Sabbath, is the 7^th day].

 

Please read Romans 4:18-25,
Father Abraham’s faith is a model for Christian faith:

18 “Though there
seemed no hope, he hoped and believed that he was to become father of many
nations in fulfillment of the promise: ‘Just so will your descendants be.’
19 Even the thought that his body was
as good as dead’he was about a hundred years old’and that Sarah’s womb was dead
too did not shake his faith. 20
Counting on the promise of God, he did not doubt or disbelieve, but drew
strength from faith and gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that whatever God promised he
has the power to perform.  22 This is
the faith that was reckoned to him as uprightness.  23 And the word ‘reckoned’ in Scripture applies
not only to him; 24 it is there for
our sake too’our faith, too, will be ‘reckoned’ 25 because we believe in him who raised from the
dead our Lord Jesus who was handed over to death for our sins and raised to life
for our justification.”

 

Question: Why would there seem to be no hope for the
fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham?  What was the necessary condition
that had to be completed for the promises to be fulfilled?  See chart of
promises from Genesis chapter
12 and read Genesis chapter
17:1-22

3 BLESSINGS PROMISED TO ABRAM FOR FAITHFUL OBEDIENCE

1. “I shall make you a great nation”: This is the promise of a nation that will belong to Abram’s descendants and over which they will rule.

2. “I shall bless you and make your name famous”: This is the promised of the blessing of descendants.  A man’s name was carried on by his offspring.

3. “All the nations on earth will bless themselves by your descendants”:  This is the promise of a world-wide blessing that will come from the children of Abram.