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‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.’
Rom_4:3
I. The relation in which Abraham stood towards God was one of harmony and friendship.—If he was a pilgrim and a stranger so far as earth was concerned, he evidently had a rest and a home in God; so much so, that God speaks of him as ‘Abraham, My beloved.’
II. On what grounds did Abraham enjoy this privilege?
(a) Abraham was a justified man (Rom_4:2). The Apostle, at the same moment that he declares that the justification of Abraham was not by works, implies also that he was justified, somehow or or other. The whole chapter involves this. Now ‘to justify’ is ‘to reckon, or to treat as just.’
(b) Abraham was justified freely by grace, not by law. Justification was his, not by equity, but by favour; and this gracious course of things was set a-going without any infringement on or impeachment of the rectitude of that which would have been simply an equitable course of things.
(c) Abraham was justified freely on grounds which were adequate to warrant his justification. God had made a great promise to Abraham (Rom_4:20; Gen_12:2-3). In that promise the Gospel was contained (Gal_3:8). All was included therein which laid the basis of Abraham’s justification—and of ours. The Apostle’s exposition of this point in Galatians 3 is exceedingly clear (Gal_3:8-18). The seed was Christ; the blessing was Justification.
(d) God having furnished the objective ground of Abraham’s justification, Abraham was justified actually the moment he believed! ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.’ There is no trace here of any ‘legal fiction,’ as some have thought; nor yet of the ‘imputed righteousness of Christ,’ which phrase is not a scriptural one; the scriptural form of expression is, ‘the righteousness which is of God by faith.’ By graciously assuming new relations to us, God creates a new righteousness. God gave Abraham the promise; Abraham received it, and was righteous before God. God offers us Christ (in and by Whom the promise is realised); we accept the ‘unspeakable gift,’ and are justified freely by His grace.
Illustration
‘To make justification a mere synonym for pardon is always inadequate. Justification is the contemplation and treatment of the penitent sinner, found in Christ, as righteous, as satisfactory to the Law, not merely as one whom the Law lets go. Is this a fiction? Not at all. It is vitally linked to two great spiritual facts. One is, that the sinner’s Friend has Himself dealt, in the sinner’s interests, with the Law, honouring its holy claim to the uttermost under the human conditions which he freely undertook. The other is that he has mysteriously, but really, joined the sinner to Himself, in faith, by the Spirit; joined him to Himself as limb, as branch, as bride. Christ and His disciples are really one in the order of spiritual life. And so the community between Him and them is real, the community of their debt on the one side, of His merit on the other.’