Devotional
“For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not comwe through the law but throught the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heir, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.” – Romans 4:13-15
It is fascinating to me to consider the relational dynamic between God and man before the installation of the Law. By Paul’s own words, where there is no law there is no transgression. This passage helps to clarify the reality that prior to the law, the interrelatedness of God and man was not void of structure or form. The Edenic sin mandated that a proverbial bridge be formed between God and man, since the sin of the latter was intolerable in the presence of the former. God, therefore, before the law, the prophets, the kings, and the judges, instituted a relational framework that transcends the covenants (as in, permeates each covenant). This structure can be summarized with a single word: faith.
This is precisely Paul’s point. Before the law, Abraham’s faith was credited toward him as righteousness. In further pressing his point, Paul identifies that “He [Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the rigtheousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.” In other words, before the covenantal institution of circumcision that coincided the Law, Abraham was credited righteousness by faith. This is the reason, Paul says, he can truly be the father of all nations. This relational dynamic was prototypical of that instilled and perfected by Christ – salvation by grace alone through faith alone by Christ alone. As such, since Abraham was prototypical, he would reap the benefits of Christ despite having been born before his life, death, burial and resurrection. Paul writes,
“…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” – Romans 3:23-26
The death of Jesus and the propitiation by his blood – being the perfect, spotless and fully effectual sacrificial lamb – was “…to show God’s righteousness.” Why? “…because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” Abraham, Noah, and David were all sinners, born and subjected to a system that determined their guilt and in their sin, ascribed unto them the due punishment of death. But God, being rich in mercy, did not give them what they deserved. In essence, he looked but for a brief moment as if he were unjust. But God’s righteousness was shown in the cross because God Fathered in the fathers of our faith. By the cross, these figures were saved. The “pre-nomian” covenantal system was that of faith, because ultimately the law would be fulfilled by the instillation and institution of a covenantal system operating off of grace through faith in Christ.