<\/p>
Several earlier posts have dealt with the fact that Abraham, according to the Genesis account, was a worshiper of God and a man of faith prior to being declared just in Genesis 15. I have taken that as evidence that Paul is not primarily concerned with \u201cworks righteousness\u201d in a generic sense, but with whether one can be considered \u201crighteous\u201d without doing the \u201cworks of Torah\u201d in particular (not in Dunn\u2019s sense; \u201cworks of Torah\u201d refers to the whole range of things that Torah requires). <\/p>\n
I need to qualify that statement, however. In Rom 4:1-8, Paul is quoting Gen 15 with its context in mind, and what the text shows is this: Although Abraham was an obedient worshiper before he was declared just, the text does NOT say that he was considered righteous because of his good actions. The text says that he was considered righteous because of his faith in God\u2019s promise. Paul is addressing this issue in the first part of Romans 4, insisting that being justified means having sins forgiven and that justification is not on the basis of works. In short, he seems to be rebutting Jewish claims concerning the merit of the fathers, showing that the Scripture says that even Abraham the man of obedience and true worship was justified not by his true worship but by his faith. A Jewish opponent might bring this objection to Paul: \u201cYes, indeed, Abraham was declared righteous, but that was because he WAS righteous ?Ejust look at Gen 12-13!\u201d Paul would say, \u201cYes, indeed, Abraham was righteous, doing what God required. But look at Gen 15:6; it says that even righteous Abraham was justified by faith.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several earlier posts have dealt with the fact that Abraham, according to the Genesis account, was a worshiper of God and a man of faith prior to being declared just in Genesis 15. I have taken that as evidence that Paul is not primarily concerned with \u201cworks righteousness\u201d in a generic sense, but with whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-nt-romans"],"yoast_head":"\n