Abraham, the Promise, and Faith in the God Who Gives Life

Paul widens Abraham’s promise toward inheritance of the world and contrasts promise received by faith with a system that would make the promise depend on law-performance. He quotes God’s declaration that Abraham would become father of many nations and remembers the impossible circumstances of Genesis 17: Abraham’s age and Sarah’s barrenness.

Abraham’s faith is described as hope against hope because it rests in the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that do not exist as though they did. Paul then turns from Abraham to his readers: the righteousness-counting pattern concerns those who believe in the God who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.