MDB 21: Romans 4

Romans 4:10
"How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised?"

Paul finds a lot of significance in the distance between Genesis 15 and Genesis 17. Those two chapters, separated by 15 or so years, record the pronouncement of Abraham's righteousness (the "it" referred to in Romans 4:10) and his circumcision, respectively. Paul is wondering, "Which came first, justification or circumcision?" and his answer is a matter of fact available to any familiar with the Genesis narrative. Abraham was declared righteous before he was circumcised, which in Paul's language, was a "seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised" (verse 11).

There is more than mere chronology at stake. Paul's main point is not a lesson in God's timing; instead, he is getting at the heart of his understanding of justification. His question is more focused than "When." Instead, he asks the question, "How?" How is it that Abraham was justified? And the resounding negation is that it could not have come by means of circumcision because he was justified well before he was circumcised. Here was an uncircumcised man who was righteous before God.

What is his point? At least in part, Paul is stripping away the argument that the external sign of circumcision was itself a means of communicating the blessing. Circumcision could not be the vehicle for making one right before God because Abraham was righteous before he was circumcised. In Murray's helpful phrase, it could not even be considered a "determining factor" or a "necessary condition."

Such an ordering reminds us the great Protestant understanding of justification by faith alone to be sure, but we might also notice the logic of the sign as well. Why then was the justified Abraham circumcised? In order that the previously appointed relationship, ratified by a covenant, might have an external sign and seal of the promise. Abraham was wavering in his belief about the veracity of the promises of God. From one point of view, he had good reason to doubt, being an old man with no offspring. But God in his mercy, out of a desire to assure Abraham of the promise, signifies and seals those promises through the events of Genesis 17. Is Abraham already justified? Chapter 15 says just that. But is his faith on shaky ground? Very much so. What is God's solution? Carved up animal carcasses and removed foreskins. A covenant and its sign, to assure Abraham of the promise.