Romans 4:17-21 “Normal”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁷Just as it is written that “I have made you a father of many peoples,” he believed, in the sight of whom—of God, who gives life to dead ones and calls the things not being as being, ¹⁸who believed from hope upon hope that he [was] to be a father of many nations according to what was spoken, “Thus will be your descendants.” ¹⁹and not being weakened in the faith, he discerned his own body [to be] already deadened, being about 100 years old, and the deadness of the womb of Sarah, ²⁰but he did not hesitate in unbelief into the promise of God but was strengthened in the faith, giving glory to God, ²¹and being fully convinced that what He had promised He is also able to do. Wherefore, “It was counted to him into righteousness.”

In the last post, I sought to assert that we should not try to dissect Abraham’s faith but rather see it as a living whole. That was particularly in light of the (supposed) scholarly debate questioning how the faith portrayed could really be saving faith. People ask, “How can believing he would have lots of descendants be saving faith?” Again, I think those people miss the fact that you cannot dissect real faith. It is not “the sum of its parts.” It simply is. When the soul suddenly awakens to see that God is there and when it welcomes His presence, then to understand, believe, and embrace the whole message of the Gospel is simply an expression of that same faith itself.

Having said all of that, however, I would like to inject a thought: I believe Abraham understood far more than just what was written down for us to read. I personally believe that, from the time God promised to Adam and Eve that one day “the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent,” godly people anticipated the Messiah. I personally believe each generation from Adam to Seth to Enosh and on to Noah, then Shem, and clear to Abraham knew they were carrying the promise of the Messiah. That is one reason why the birthright was so important and why it was so monstrously evil for Esau to treat it as nothing more than a bargaining chip for a bowl of soup. I further believe that is why Satan seemed to work overtime beating up on poor Joseph—he thought because of Jacob’s favoritism and Joseph’s giftedness that he was certainly heir to the Promise. It was late in Jacob’s life when it was finally revealed that “The scepter will not depart from Judah, until Shiloh (‘He to whom it belongs’) comes” (Gen. 49:10). Only then did Satan learn that it would be Judah, not Joseph, whose family would carry the promise of the Messiah. I would suggest to you that the very reason why Abraham “believed God’s promise” of descendants was because he already had embraced the promise of a Messiah. I believe when the Lord told him, “All nations of the earth shall be blessed through you,” Abraham understood exactly what He meant, that part of that promise was that his family would someday produce the Messiah.

And so, while not wishing at all to dissect Abraham’s faith, I would suggest that whether it is said so in so many words or not, a part of Abraham’s faith was, in fact, his belief in the promise of the Messiah. For us who are hopelessly addicted to linear logic and who can’t exist without dissecting the entire universe, maybe that will make us all feel better--to be assured that Abraham’s faith did include the Messianic promise. Brings back the “warm fuzzy” to our linear little hearts, yes?

And so, faith. Obviously, what the Lord would have us do in this passage in Romans is to stop and ponder and consider this thing that Abraham possessed. Faith. Can I once again step back and consider the big picture of what we see here? This is what I would like to suggest: Faith is something far bigger than just a particular religious creed or our own particular formula for salvation. Faith is part of the reality of all human existence. We are created beings. We were created by the ever-living God. We were created to need Him. We do need Him. We are incomplete without Him. We are incomplete if He is not an active, very present reality in our lives. Real faith is when we as human beings realize He is there, realize we need Him, and welcome His presence into the totality of our human existence. “Without Me,” Jesus said, “You can do nothing.” Faith agrees.

To try to live without Him is not just sinful. It’s actually absurd. For most of us, we have to come “to the end of ourselves” before we can see just how true it is that we need Him, but however the Lord gets us there, it will be “better late than never.” I wish that young people could get a hold of this truth and then, like Daniel, actually live a lifetime in a real relationship with God. We need Him growing up. We need Him in school. We need Him in our courtships and marriage. We need Him at our jobs. We need Him in our families. We need Him in our communities and our nation and our church and our sports and our Butterfly Collectors Club. Faith is not some religious appendage we may or may not attach to our lives. It is an essential element of our existence. We’re only “whole” when we live all day every day in the presence of God.

See then that Abraham isn’t just a case study of a “religious” man. He’s actually normal. (Maybe not typical, but still normal). Abraham was a man who had figured out who he was and how to be everything he was born to be. His faith wasn’t a matter of being religious. It was a matter of being sane. His relationship with God wasn’t just “practicing his religion.” It was a matter of living in the real world. It is nothing short of ludicrous for the rest of us humans to think we don’t need God in our lives or that “religion” is just some appendage we might add if we want to.

Here’s the deal and we see it play out in Abraham’s life: Life is hard and one way or another you and I are constantly faced with the impossible. In spite of everything I may do, still, everywhere I look, I see things—important things—I cannot control. I cannot stop people from dying. I can’t make someone give me a good job. I can’t make that beautiful girl want to marry me. We may or may not get that house we really want. We may or may not be able to conceive children. I’m faced with bills I do not know how I’ll pay. I cannot stop my children or grandchildren from making bad decisions. I can’t control the stock market, or the weather, or who does or does not get elected. I can’t even control the price of milk! Basically, we live in a world literally swimming (drowning?) in an ocean of both opportunities and threats over which, in the end, we actually have little to no control. How am I, as a mere man, to survive (much less prosper) in such a world? I can live in fear. I can be a control freak. I can resolve at all costs to get very, very rich—imagining that if I was just rich enough, I could buy whatever it is I desire. I can push, shove, manipulate, lie, steal, kill, or just give it all up and go live in an asylum.

Or I could just acknowledge I’ve come to the end of myself and admit something in my life is terribly missing. Something is terribly missing as I would try to live in this hard, threatening, impossible world. “And Abraham was called ‘the friend of God’” (Isa. 41:8, James 2:23). Abraham had it figured out. What he needed in his life was Someone who specializes in the impossible! Look again here at Romans chapter 4. Back in verse 17, who was it Abraham was believing in? “The God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.” In verse 18 and 19, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead…” And verses 20 and 21 sum it up, “Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to do.”

Can I assert again, this isn’t a matter of “being religious.” This is living in a real world. Like us, Abraham lived in a world of the impossible. The difference is that he welcomed into his life the God of the impossible. What Abraham portrays for us then is not some amazingly religious man but simply a man—a normal man, a man who’d figured it out. He had nothing going for him that was somehow beyond you or me. What does the Scripture say? “It is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith we are proclaiming” (Rom. 10:8). It’s that close. It’s already in our mouth and in our heart. If we’ll only open those hearts, we all already know that “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). That is why Paul says of Abraham, “He is the father of us all.”

As you and I would ponder here in Romans this man Abraham, may we not see someone who had something far beyond us. May we see in him an example of the person we each can be, should be, must be. May we see that drawing near the God of the impossible is the most sane, reasonable, essential thing we can do. Faith isn’t a fantasy. It isn’t just being religious. It’s being normal.

God help us.