Having talked about the righteousness that comes from faith and, thus, excludes any boasting, Paul needs now to show how it works concretely, and Abraham provides the best example. Abraham was considered by all Jews as the father of their faith and nation, and a model of how to live before God. Jews are naturally proud of the patriarch, the father of their nation and bearer of that seal of circumcision that marks out the Jews as a special people. Rather than something Abraham could boast about—which the Jews were sure was the case—Paul now shows that Scriptures (Gen 15:6—"Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness"—which he cites in v3) intself implies that Abraham was justified, i.e., counted righteous, apart from works. Paul examines the implications of this verse that this was how God had always worked (and intended to work) with the Jews from the beginning. In now preaching a righteousness by faith, Paul was not preaching something new; it was the very characteristic of Abrahamic faith; in all the hopeless circumstances in which Abraham found himself he "hoped against hope" and believed God in His promise. "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." But what has this got to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Well, Paul says, "The words 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification" (v23-25). The gospel is, therefore, not a departure from or an alien appenditure to the Abrahamic faith of the Jews but the simple unfolding of it as it was intended to.
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