Day 198

1 Chronicles 24:1–26:11; Romans 4:1-12; Psalm 13:1-6; Proverbs 19:15-16

AS WE MOVE our way through Romans, we see Paul deconstructing, or reverse engineering, certain aspects of his Jewish faith. The dismantling wasn’t to abolish his personal reverence for Judaism —or anyone else’s —but rather, to reframe it. This was what had Paul on the hot seat with his fellow Jews.

Paul’s reframe was fundamentally about whether a person could earn their way into God’s favor by their obedience to the Mosaic law —an idea that had been deeply embedded into the Hebrew culture. Essentially, Paul said out loud what had long been wrestled with —the fact that no one could obey the law perfectly. And this was a large reframe indeed, because the Jews believed that their adherence to the law was not only exclusive to Jewish people but also the path by which they would be saved.

Paul’s message was disruptive because it revealed a story that predated their understanding. They’d put the cart before the horse, as it were. And in doing so, they had forgotten the critical piece that was present before the Mosaic law.

To unpack this, Paul referenced two people in today’s reading whose presence was (and is) ubiquitous with the Jewish experience: Abraham and David.

Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”

Paul revealed that Abraham was not circumcised at the time he put his faith in God. And for Hebrew males, circumcision was an irreplaceable outward sign of obedience to the law. In other words, when Abraham met God, he wasn’t obeying the law because there was no law to obey. The essential and overlooked piece of the story was faith. It was faith that started everything, not the attempt to become perfect through behavior modification.

The reason this distinction was revolutionary was because it revealed that righteousness before God could not be achieved by adhering to a set of moral codes and ethics. It could be received only as a gift from God, by faith. And faith was the well from which behavior was informed and transformed. Paul explained it like this: “When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners” (Romans 4:4-5). Paul then referenced David in Psalm 32 to show that God’s forgiveness was a joy to be experienced as a gift.

Then Paul turned to the question of whether God was merciful to those who were not of the Jewish faith:

Now, is this blessing only for the Jews, or is it also for uncircumcised Gentiles? Well, we have been saying that Abraham was counted as righteous by God because of his faith. But how did this happen? Was he counted as righteous only after he was circumcised, or was it before he was circumcised? Clearly, God accepted Abraham before he was circumcised!

The awareness of an inclusive gospel and salvation through faith are as embedded into Christian belief as obedience to the Mosaic law was for the Jewish people of Paul’s time. But within that fabric, we still find ourselves struggling to be good so that God will pay attention to us. This is also putting the cart before the horse.

Everything we are is a gift from God, accessed through faith in its reality. There is nothing we can do to earn it. And yet this overwhelming act of mercy on God’s part should fundamentally change the way we look at the world and change our behavior on earth in response. God’s awe-inspiring love compels us to repent and turn away from our lowest selves, and this gift is available to everyone. Or as Paul put it, “Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They are counted as righteous because of their faith” (Romans 4:11).

WORSHIP:

But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the LORD because he is good to me.