Down an Unfamiliar Road

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XIV)

Wesleyan scholar Adam Clarke shares his thoughts on God’s creation and resurrection powers: “God is the most proper object of trust and dependence; for being almighty, eternal, and unchangeable, He can even raise the dead to life and call those things which are not as though they were. He is the Creator, He made living things when there was none; He can infallibly assure the existence of those things which are not as if they were already actually in existence. And, on this account, He can never fail to accomplish whatever He has promised.”¹

Scottish Bible scholar Robert Haldane explains very well the phenomenon of the dual lines – natural and spiritual – of Abraham’s progeny: “According to the Apostle’s interpretation of this promise, it signifies numerous spiritual offspring, as well as numerous natural posterity. It is not by way of what is called modification that this is said; it is the real interpretation of the promise, whether Abraham himself understood it so or not. This interpretation of the Apostle is a key to all that is said on this subject. It shows that Abraham had a double seed, that the promise had a double meaning, and both are distinctly verified. Thus, each of the three promises made to Abraham had a double fulfillment: – Of a numerous posterity; of God being a God to his seed; and of an earthly and heavenly country. At that moment, when he stood in the presence of God whom he believed,² he was made the father of all his natural and spiritual posterity; and though he was not then actually a father, yet, being so in the purpose of God, it was made as sure to him as if it had already taken place. God now willed it, and the result would follow as surely as creation followed His word.”³

We should take note at this point that Isaac’s birth was a miracle since it came from a womb considered incapable of bearing an offspring because of Sarah’s advanced age. So every child that came into the world through Isaac was the result of that miracle. Those were the natural descendants who inherited the earthly Promised Land. Yet God said another miracle child would be born who would be Abraham’s spiritual descendant and through Him, the spiritual family would inherit a heavenly Promised Land. That promised child was Jesus, born of a miracle from a young woman named Mary who had never been intimate with a man. So Abraham produced a natural child named Isaac, while the Holy Spirit produced a supernatural child named Jesus. You may be a Jewish descendant of the natural child Isaac, but unless you can trace your spiritual birth back to Jesus, you have no promise of heaven in your destiny. That’s what Paul was trying to tell the church in Rome. It was true then, and it’s true now.

Frederic Godet points out: “The two divine attributes on which the faith of Abraham fastened at this decisive moment, were the power to quicken [make alive] and the power to create [make something out of nothing]. It was, indeed, in this twofold character that God presented Himself when He stated to Abraham these words: ‘I have made you‘ – here is the assurance of a resurrection, – ‘father of many nations‘ – here is the promise of a creation. Faith imagines nothing arbitrarily; it limits itself wholly to taking God as He presents Himself.”⁴

F. F. Bruce also comments on this subject: “Consider, too, the quality of Abraham’s faith. It was faith in the God who brings the dead to life, who calls non-existent things as though they really existed – and gives them real existence by doing so. When God told Abraham that he would have a vast multitude of descendants, he was still childless. Not only that, but he was beyond the age at which a man might reasonably hope to become a father, and Sarah his wife was even more certainly beyond the age of motherhood. Abraham did not shut his eyes to these unfavorable circumstances; he took them all into careful consideration. But, when he set over against them the promise of God, he found that the certainty of God’s ability and will to fulfill His promise outweighed them all. Having nothing to rest upon but the bare word of God, he relied on that, in the face of all the opposing indications which pressed on him from every side. In fact, his faith was strengthened by the very force of the obstacles which lay in its path. And his faith won him the favor of God.”⁵

Jewish writer David Stern shares: “That God quickens the dead is a major tenet of Judaism; the second benediction of the ‘Amidah,‘ the prayer recited three times every day in the synagogue, [which] reads: ‘You are mighty forever, Adonai. You cause the dead to live, You are great to save. With loving-kindness You sustain the living; with great mercy You cause the dead to live, support the falling, heal the sick, free the bound and keep faith with those who sleep in the dust. Who is like You, Master of mighty deeds? Who resembles You, O King? You cause death, You cause life, and You cause salvation to sprout forth, so You can be trusted to cause the dead to live. Blessed are You, Adonai, who causes the dead to live.’”⁶ That’s not only a prayer Jews can pray, but Christians as well.

Verse 18: Against all hope, Abraham continued trusting in hope that he would indeed become the father of many nations just as God told him, “You will have many descendants.”⁷

We cannot escape seeing the key factor in this verse where in spite of having hope he would have a child in his old age, nevertheless, Abraham kept the faith. That’s why the writer of Hebrews made it clear that faith is the substance of things hoped for.⁸ So it was Abraham’s faith that kept him going. This echoes the maxim expressed by King Solomon: “Hope that is delayed makes you sad, but a longing that comes true fills your life with joy.”⁹

Early church scholar Origen had this to say about faith and hope: “As always, when the Apostle Paul talks about faith, he adds hope as well, and rightly so, for hope and faith are inseparable… Just as Abraham believed against hope, so all believers do the same, for we all believe in the resurrection of the dead and the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven. These appear to go against hope as far as human nature is concerned, but when we take the power of God into consideration, there is no problem.”¹⁰

Then we read Ambrosiaster’s comments: “It is clear that since Abraham had no hope of having a son, he believed God and had faith against hope that he would have a son, knowing that with God all things are possible.¹¹ The quotation [by Paul] is from Genesis where God shows Abraham the stars of the sky and says: ‘So shall your descendants be,’¹² because in believing he was justified. For Abraham believed what seems impossible to the world because it does not occur in the order of nature that old people should have children and know that their seed will increase to such an extent that it will be impossible to count them. Therefore, faith is precious because it believes in the future, even against what it now sees or knows. For it consoles itself in this hope, that it is God who promises.”¹³

John Bengel makes it clear that while Abraham was lacking any hope within himself, but he never lost hope in God. He goes on to say: “We grasp the same object both by faith and by hope: by faith, as a thing, which is truthfully proclaimed; by hope, as an object of joy, which certainly can and will be realized. He believed in the hope of the promise, against the hope of reason.”¹⁴

Robert Haldane writes:”The thing testified to Abraham was an object of hope, therefore, he is said beyond hope to believe in hope. This is explained by some as indicating that Abraham believed that he should become, that is, his becoming the father of many nations was the object of his belief. Others explain it, that he believed the promise in order that he might become; that is, his faith was the means through which the promise was to be made good to him. Both of these are true, but the last appears to be most agreeable to the expression and is the more important sense. He was made such a father through faith. Had he not believed the promise, he would not have been made such a father. This shows that Abraham’s expectation rested solely on the Divine promise. He had no ground to hope for so numerous a posterity, or any posterity at all, except on the surety of the promise of God. This he received in its true and obvious meaning, and did not, like many, explain away, modify, or fritter it down into something less wonderful. He hoped for the very thing which the words of the promise intimated, and to the very utmost extent of the meaning of these words, ‘So shall your seed be’.”¹⁵

Frederic Godet has this insight to offer: “The word hope is used here in two different senses, the one subjective: hope as a feeling (in the phrase: in hope), the other objective: hope to denote the motive for hoping (in the phrase: against hope)… The Apostle, therefore, means: without finding in the domain of sense or reason the least ground for hoping, he nevertheless believed, and that by an effort of hope proceeding from a fact which the eye did not see nor the reason comprehend, God and His promise.”¹⁶

Charles Ellicott gives this summary of verse 18: “It must be noticed that the relative here refers to Abraham, whereas in the previous verse it referred to God. Trusting in Hope. —The force of the preposition gives to the sentence the meaning of ‘grounded his faith upon hope’ – that internal subjective hope that was strong within him, though there were no objective grounds for hoping. That he would indeed become. —So as by exercise of faith to carry out God’s purpose.”¹⁷

In other words, Abraham’s trust and faith in what God said to him was so strong, that he was willing to accept as real what he could not see nor for which he had any evidence. As the writer of Hebrews rightly said, faith can be all we need to have hope that whatever God promised will come to pass even though we see no evidence of it yet.¹⁸ Of all things most pertinent to us today is the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ coming back to resurrect the believers who have died and transform those who are still living. So let us be like Abraham and have faith that although we may not see evidence it will happen today, it will come to pass.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), Poet Laureate of Great Britain, is best known for his excellent poetry. One of his poems I remember reading in High School was “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” But one that really stayed with me, and that I have used in sermons, was his famous “Crossing of the Bar.” But what many may not know is what he said as a prelude in memory to a dear college friend. Tennyson wrote: “Strong Son of God, immortal Love, whom we, that have not seen thy face, by faith, and faith alone, embrace, believing where we cannot prove.”

What was once a common occurrence in English poetry, where God, faith, trust in our divine purpose, has been replaced by a new form of poetry called, “Rap.” But the lyrics our young people hear in this secular genre say nothing about reverence for God, good morality, or respect for one another. Rather, vulgarity has become the new norm because it is supposed to be the reality in life. But thank God there is another reality, and that is the Kingdom of God where there is faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.¹ Love for God and love for each other.² – Dr. Robert R Seyda

DOES YOUR HEART HAVE CALLER ID?

I read this story and thought it had a great message for all of us. I hope you enjoy it.

One Saturday night, a pastor was working late in the church office getting ready for Sunday’s services. He decided to call his wife to let her know he would be home soon. It was quite late, and his wife didn’t answer the phone. The pastor let it ring many times. He decided to hang up and call again once he finished his work.

When he tried again, she answered right away, so he asked her why she hadn’t answered before? She said that the phone never rang. So they brushed it off. It wasn’t long before he was home and they were soon off to bed and sound asleep.

The following Monday, the pastor received a call at the church office. The caller was a man, and he wanted to know why the pastor called him late Saturday night. The pastor couldn’t remember making such a phone call. Then the man said that his phone rang again and again, but he decided not to answer.

It was then that the pastor realized that while calling his wife he had dialed the wrong number. He apologized to the man and asked his pardon for disturbing him at such a late hour. He explained that he was actually trying to call his wife but made a mistake.

The man was quick to say that he understood, but then said, “That’s okay. But let me tell you my story. You see, I was planning to commit suicide Saturday night, but before I did, I prayed, ‘God if you’re there, and you don’t want me to do this, give me a sign now.’ At that point, my phone started to ring. I looked at the caller ID, and it said, ‘Almighty God.’ I was shocked and afraid to answer!”

After he and the pastor then talked for a little while, and he invited the man to come see him or perhaps attend the service on Sunday. Then the Reverend explained to him why his caller ID listed that name. You see, the church that the minister pastored was called, “Almighty God Tabernacle.” – Dr. Robert R Seyda

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XIII)

Methodist scholar Adam Clarke gives his commentary on how God’s Promise to Abraham became ours: “On this account the promise is mercifully grounded, not on obedience to a law, but on the infinite goodness of God: and thus the promise is sure to all the seed – to all, both Jews and Gentiles, who, believing in Christ Jesus, have a right to all the blessings contained in the Abrahamic covenant. All the seed necessarily comprehends all mankind. Of the Gentiles there can be no doubt, for the promise was given to Abraham while he was a Gentile; and the salvation of the Jews may be inferred, because they all sprang from him after he became an heir of the righteousness or justification which is received by faith; for he is the father of us all, both Jews and Gentiles.”¹

Charles Hodge then adds his understanding: “The inheritance promised to Abraham and his seed must be either of the Law [of Moses], or of faith. It cannot be of the Law, for the Law works wrath. Therefore, it is of faith’.”² Then Hodge adds: “If salvation is in any form or to any degree dependent on the merit, the goodness, or the stability of man, it never can be sure, no, it must be utterly unattainable. Unless we are saved by grace, we cannot be saved at all. To reject, therefore, a gratuitous salvation, is to reject the only method of salvation available for sinners. Salvation being of grace, suspended on the simple condition of faith, without regard to parentage, to national or ecclesiastical connection, it is available for all classes of men.”³

Then, Frederic Godet gives his comments: “The last words [of verse 16]: ‘He is the father of us all,’ sum up all that has been developed in the previous context. Believing Jews and Gentiles, we all participate by faith not only in justification but also in the future possession of the world; for the true seed to whom this promise was made was that of faith, not that according to the Law [of Moses]. Abraham is, therefore, the sole stem from which proceed those two branches which form in him one and the same spiritual organism.”⁴

Jewish writer David Stern shares with us an important truth that shows how even great Jewish scholars in the past understood this principle. He asks the question: Can a Gentile speak of Abraham as his father? He offers the following condensed form the Rambam’s⁵ well-known “Letter to Obadiah the Proselyte.” He does so because its sentiments are so precisely appropriate when you imagine it as a letter written to a Gentile follower of Yeshua.

“You ask me if you are permitted to say in the prayers, ‘Our God’ and ‘God of our fathers,’ and ‘You who worked miracles for our fathers.’ Yes; you may say your blessing and prayer in the same way as every born Jew. This is because our father Abraham revealed the true faith and the unity of God, rejected idol-worship, and brought many children under the wings of the Sh’khinah [see Genesis 18:19]. Ever since then whoever adopts Judaism and confesses the unity of the Divine Name, as prescribed in the Torah, is counted among the disciples of our father Abraham, peace unto him. In the same way, as he converted his contemporaries through his words and teaching, he converts later generations through the testament he left his children and household after him. Thus our father Abraham is the father of his pious posterity who keep his ways and the father of his disciples and of all proselytes who adopt Judaism.

“Since you have come under the wings of the Sh’khinah and confessed the Lord, no difference exists between you and us, and all miracles done to us have been done, as it were, both to you and to us. Thus it is said in the book of Isaiah, ‘Let not the son of the stranger who follows Adonai say, “Adonai has completely separated me from his people”’ (Isaiah 56:3). There is no difference whatsoever between you and us.

“Know that our fathers, when they came out of Egypt, were mostly idolaters; they had mingled with the pagans in Egypt and imitated their way of life, until the Holy One, blessed be He, sent Moshe Rabbenu [Moses our teacher], who separated us from the nations, brought us under the wings of the Sh’khinah, us and all proselytes, and gave all of us one Law.

“Do not consider your origin as inferior. While we are the descendants of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, you derive from Him through whose word the world was created. As is said by Isaiah: “One shall say, I am the Lord’s, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob” (Is. 44:5).”⁶

Verse 17: As the Scriptures say, “I have made you a father of many nations.”⁷ This is true in God’s eyes, the One Abraham believed – the God who gives life to the dead and speaks of things that don’t yet exist as if they are real.

Now Paul makes another important point. It was not Moses with the Law who was the father of the faith, but Abraham without the Law of Moses who was given that honor by God. This is clearly articulated in the Torah: “Then Abram bowed down before God. God said to him, “This is my part of our agreement: I will make you the father of many nations. I will change your name from Abram⁸ to Abraham,⁹ because I am making you the father of many nations.”¹⁰

The Apostle Paul’s point here is that God has the ability and power to forecast things and with just a word say them as though they already existed. As the writer of Hebrews was inspired to say: “Abraham was so old he was almost dead. But from that one man came as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. So many people came from him that they are like grains of sand on the seashore.” When thinking of the nations that came from Abraham, we must look at those descendants of Abraham through Sarah, his maid Hagar,¹¹ and also his second wife, Keturah.¹² But Paul was thinking of those considered spiritual descendants. And if we counted all those from Abraham’s day, including those who became his spiritual descendants through Christ up unto this day, they certainly would fill the sky with stars.

Early church scholar Ambrosiaster comments: “Paul invites the Gentiles to share the faith of Abraham, who believed God while he was still uncircumcised. Now that that faith is preached in Christ, he has been raised from the dead, along with his wife. For when they were already very old, they sprang back to life so that Abraham did not doubt that he would have a son by Sarah, whom he knew to be sterile and who had long since ceased to have her menstrual period. Paul said this so that they would not worry about circumcision or uncircumcision but that they would respond eagerly because of their faith, secure in the knowledge that the One in whom they believe is no other than the One who gives life to the dead, who has the power to bring things which do not exist into being by His will.”¹³

Reformist John Calvin has an excellent way of putting what he finds here in Paul’s message. He writes: “We have here also a type and a pattern of the call of us all, by which our beginning is set before our eyes, not as to our first birth, but as to the hope of future life, — that when we are called by the Lord we emerge from nothing; for whatever we may seem to be we are not, no, not a spark of anything good, which can render us fit for the Kingdom of God. That we may indeed, on the other hand, be in a suitable state to hear the call of God, we must be altogether dead in ourselves. The character of the divine calling is, that they who are dead are raised by the Lord, that they who are nothing begin to be something through His power. The word ‘call’ ought not to be confined with preaching, but it is to be taken, according to the usage of Scripture, for raising up; and it is intended to set forth more fully the power of God, who raises up, as it were by a nod only, whom He wills.”¹⁴ In other words, since we were all dead in trespasses and sin, our new birth was, in fact, God calling us forth from the dead so that we could be alive in Christ.¹⁵

John Bengel makes this point: “The dead are not dead to God because to God things which don’t exist really do. The seed of Abraham did not yet exist, yet God said, “So shall your seed be.” The multiplication of the seed takes the existence of the seed for granted… God speaks to the light, while it is not around, as if it were, [and tells it] to come forth into existence. Think of the often-recurring ‘be,’ Genesis 1, which expresses the transition from non-existence to existence, produced by God’s summons.¹⁶”¹⁷ In other words, God does not need anything to already exist before He calls for its revelation. His words alone are powerful enough to create on the spot something that has never before existed except in His omniscience. That’s why He could say to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations before those nations were ever formed.

Henry Alford also addresses this concept. He writes: “Much difficulty has been found here: and principally owing to an idea that this clause (calls those things which are not as though they were) must minutely correspond with the former (who quickens the dead), to furnish [make possible] another instance of God’s creative Almightiness. Hence, commentators have given to call the sense which it has sometimes, ‘to summon into being,’ and have understood as though they were as if it were so as to be.” The use of old English by Alford makes this somewhat hard to understand. What the theologian is saying can be repeated this way: To summon something into existence, it must be understood that it already existed in that form before it was revealed. Alford goes on to say: “I see however in this latter clause not a repetition or expansion of the former, but a new attribute of God’s omnipotence and eternity, on which Abraham’s faith was fixed.”¹⁸ To rephrase, Alford is saying that the statement by Paul that God had the power to call forth from the dead should not be confused with His ability to call things into existence that, heretofore did not exist, such as a dead body would be needed to call someone back from death. That means although we were physically alive we were spiritually dead until we heard God’s call, and He made us spiritually alive, but only in Christ. Therefore, the only way to stay spiritually alive is in Christ.¹⁹

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XII)

Early church scholar Ambrosiaster gives an interesting commentary on verse 15: “In order to show that no man can be justified before God by the Law, nor can the promise be given through the Law, Paul says that ‘the Law brings punishment.’ It was given in order to make transgressors guilty. But faith is the gift of God’s mercy, so that those who have been made guilty by the Law may obtain forgiveness. Therefore, faith brings joy. Paul does not speak against the Law but gives priority to faith. It is not possible to be saved by the law, but we are saved by God’s grace through faith. Therefore, the Law itself is not punishment, but it brings punishment to the sinner, for punishment is born from sin. For this reason, Paul wants the Law to be abandoned so that the sinner will take refuge in faith, which forgives sins, that he may be saved.”¹

John Calvin offers a convincing argument on this point: “The Apostle teaches us, that faith will perish, unless the soul rests on the goodness of God. Faith then is not a naked knowledge either of God or of His truth; nor is it a simple persuasion that God is, that His Word is the truth; but a sure knowledge of God’s mercy, which is received from the Gospel, and brings peace of conscience with regard to God, and rest to the mind. The sum of the matter then is this, — that if salvation depends on the keeping of the law, the soul can entertain no confidence respecting it, yes, that all the promises offered to us by God will become void: we will then become wretched and lost if we are sent back to works to find out the cause or the certainty of salvation.”² Then Calvin adds: “But the Apostle speaks not of the mere transgression of what is right, from which no man is exempt; but he calls that a transgression, when man, having been taught what pleases and displeases God, knowingly and willfully passes over the boundaries fixed by God’s word; or, in other words, transgression here is not a mere act of sin, but a willful determination to violate what is right.”³

John Bengel rightly says that Promise and Faith complete the whole of God’s salvation plan and we need not add the Law as if it were something homogeneous that would make it better. Therefore, those who depend upon the Law must be told that because of the work and sacrifice of Christ, the Law has been made void in bringing salvation. Bengel goes on to say, that the entire purpose of the Law was to expose sin so that the need for a Savior is more clearly evident. Nowhere can we find where God said that the Law was part of the Promise and Faith.⁴

Adam Clarke puts it this way: “[Having] laws, necessarily subjects the transgressor to punishment; for where no law is – where no rule of duty is enacted and acknowledged, there is no transgression; and where there is no transgression there can be no punishment, for there is no law to enforce it. But the Jews have a law, which they have broken; and now they are exposed to the penal sanctions of that law; and, if the promises of pardon without the works of the law, do not extend to them, they will be miserable in the end because they have all broken the law, and the law exacts punishment.”⁵

Henry Alford explains why successfully following the Law would make faith unnecessary. The reason this is so is because righteousness comes freely by faith, not by obligation based on their legal standing. Alford then asks: “How and why so? The Apostle himself immediately gives the reason. For the Law brings about, gives occasion to, wrath (which from its very nature excludes promise, which is an act of grace, – and faith, which is an attribute of confidence).”⁶ In other words, while the Law shows the path to righteousness, it does not give the key to the gate that needs to be opened in order to enter into a right relationship with God. Only Christ has that key, and only He has the power and authority to use it.

Frederic Godet simply says: “Faith deprived of its object, the promise made void for those who are under the Law, why all this? Simply because the Law, when not fulfilled, brings upon man God’s condemnation and wrath, which renders it impossible on His part to fulfill the promise.”⁷ Christ was the only one who could meet the demands of the Law. Therefore, He is the only one through whom man can be saved because His work on the cross is the only sacrifice God is willing to accept as an atonement.

Charles Spurgeon preached it this way: “This is plain enough. You cannot break a law if there is none; and thus, through our sinfulness, the Law becomes a cause of sin, and never does it become the cause of justification. So that the Law is not for justification, but for condemnation. It is the Law that reveals sin, and that shows sin to be sin; so men can never become right with God by the Law.”⁸ Thus Spurgeon makes the necessity of Christ’s coming to earth even clearer in order to free those imprisoned by the Law. No wonder Paul was so upset that the Jewish leaders of the church in Rome insisted that the Law be a mandatory part of the plan of salvation.

Says Charles Ellicott: “This Messianic kingdom cannot have anything to do with Law; for if it had, faith and the promise would cease to have any office. Faith and Law cannot co-exist. They are the opposites of each other. The proper effect of law is punishment; for law only exposes sin. Faith, on the other hand, is the real key to the inheritance. It sets in motion grace; and grace, unlike law, excludes no one. It is open alike to the legal and to the spiritual descendants of Abraham; in other words (as the Scripture itself testifies), to all mankind, as the representative of whom Abraham stands before God.”⁹

Verse 16: So people get what God promised by having faith. This happens so that the promise can be a free gift. And if the promise is a free gift, then all of Abraham’s people will get that promise. The promise is not just for those who live under the Law of Moses. It is for all who live with faith as Abraham did. He is the father of us all.

With what Paul says here being true, this then makes us heirs to the Promise through Abraham’s faith as the father of our spiritual nation, not just the Israelites. Even though the Jews received the invitation first, the right given to us to call Jesus our Messiah is more than a second thought. Thank God for a Savior that was promised to us from the beginning, rather than being offered some rejected and discarded Redeemer from the spiritual trash heap of another religion. We are His, and He is ours by the will of the Father, not by some stroke of luck, good or bad.

Paul made this abundantly clear to the believers in Galatia: “You should know that the true children of Abraham are those who have faith. The Scriptures told what would happen in the future. These writings said that God would make the non-Jewish people right through their faith. God told this Good News to Abraham before it happened. God said to Abraham, ‘I will use you to bless all the people on earth.’ Abraham believed this, and because he believed, he was blessed. All people who believe are blessed the same as Abraham was.”¹⁰

This Promise of God to Abraham was the center of Paul’s argument. The writer of Hebrews saw it the same way: “God made a promise to Abraham. And there is no one greater than God, so He made the promise with an oath in His own name – an oath that He would do what He promised. He said, ‘I will surely bless you. I will give you many descendants’.”¹¹ And, another important factor is that this promise was made long before the Law was given. Therefore, the reason for the Law was not simply to help people live right, but to show them that it was impossible to do so without help, God’s help. Yet, even with God’s help, they failed, so a Savior was needed. Not one chosen at the last minute out of panic, but One chosen long before the Law came into effect. Unlike the theory of evolution, God’s plan of salvation did not come into existence by accident.

Early church scholar Pelagius makes this point: “The Law does not forgive sins but condemns them, and, therefore, it cannot make all nations children of Abraham, because in the end all must be punished since all are found under sin. But faith makes all believers children of Abraham because their sins have been forgiven by grace.”¹² This is followed by Theodoret who states: “Paul humbled the pride of the Jews by calling all those who imitated Abraham’s faith ‘the seed of Abraham,’ even if they were of a different race. For if the law punishes those who break it, grace gives forgiveness of sins and confirms the promise of God, giving a blessing to the Gentiles.”¹³

To put this another way, if we look at God’s promise to Abraham like a bank account, and that Abraham made a deposit in that account with a currency called “Faith.” Therefore, as children of Abraham, when shopping in God’s department store of blessings, items can only be obtained by using the currency of Faith. You cannot bring you own currency, nor can you charge it to some other account, nor can you debit it to be paid in installments. That’s not how Christ paid the price for our salvation. Otherwise, He would need to keep doing it over and over and over again, just like the sacrifices under the Law.

Reformist John Calvin sums up what Paul has been saying here: “If the heirship of salvation comes to us by works, then faith in it vanishes, the promise of it is abolished; but it is necessary that both these should be sure and certain; hence it comes to us by faith, so that its stability being based on the goodness of God alone, may be secured.”¹⁴ Then Calvin adds this: “See how the Apostle, regarding faith as a thing firm and certain, considers hesitancy and doubt as unbelief, by which faith is abolished, and the promise abrogated. And yet this doubting is what the schoolmen¹⁵ call a moral conjecture, and which, alas! they substitute for faith.”¹⁶

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XI)

Bible scholar Frederic Godet gives us his explanation on the promise to Abraham of possessing the whole world. To Godet, this had been promised to Abraham and his posterity in three forms: – “(1) From the prophetic and Messianic point of view, which dominated the history of the patriarchal family from the beginning, the land of Canaan was the emblem of the sanctified earth; it was the point of departure for the glorious realization of the latter. (2) Several other promises naturally led to the extension of the possession of the promised land to that of the whole world.¹ (3) Above all these particular promises there always rested the general promise of the Messianic kingdom, the announcement of that descendant of David to whom God had said: “I have given you the uttermost parts of the earth for an inheritance.²”³

Charles Ellicott comments: “Abraham was the father of all who walk in his steps. For all this, is not limited by the Law any more than it is limited by circumcision. The promise of that worldwide inheritance was not given through the agency of the Law (which at that time did not exist) but as an effect of the righteousness which proceeds from faith. Heir of the world. – This promise was explained by the Jews as the universal sovereignty of the Messiah. Through the righteousness of faith, – As a further consequence of that (imputed) righteousness which proceeds from faith. Three stages are indicated: (1) faith, (2) imputed righteousness, (3) access [by everyone] to the Messianic kingdom with all its privileges.”⁴ In other words, that the Messiah would be Lord of all because without such sovereignty He would not be Lord at all. His Lordship would not be restricted to the Jews but would include all the nations of the earth.

Consequently, there is no doubt but that the promise of the Messiah is the key factor in how all of these promises made to Abraham were to be enjoyed by non-Jews around the world. It would have been impossible for all of them to convert to Judaism because making converts was not a Jewish priority, and to some, it was a disgrace. Therefore, it would take the coming of the Messiah for this to happen. This, then, establishes our spiritual relationship with Abraham through Jesus the Messiah.

Verses 14-15: If people could get God’s promise by following the Law, then faith is worthless. And God’s promise to Abraham is worthless because the Law can only bring God’s punishment for those who disobey it. But if there is no Law, then there is nothing to disobey.

Now Paul brings down the hammer, so to speak, on any forced inclusion of the Law as a necessary part of acquiring salvation.⁵ The Law was meant to show the need for redemption and freedom from the slavery of sin but had no intrinsic power to bring about that liberation.⁶ Paul made this crystal clear to the Judaizers in Galatia who were proposing such a doctrine. He wrote: “I am not the one destroying the meaning of God’s grace. If following the Law is how people are made right with God, then Christ’s death was pointless.”⁷ When we replace “the Law” with “Church law,” the principle against granting salvation and freedom from sin’s bondage is the same.

Paul had already shared the same point with the Galatian believers that he is sharing here with the Romans: “Does this mean that the Law works against God’s promises? Of course not. The Law was never God’s way of giving new life to people. If it were, then we could be made right with God by following the Law. But this is not possible. The Scriptures put the whole world in prison under the control of sin, so that the only way for people to get what God promised would be through faith in Jesus Christ. It is given to those who believe in Him.”⁸ In the same way, being part of a Church does not mitigate against receiving the promises of God. Where the error comes in is when an ecclesiastical organization is substituted and given the same power as the spiritual body of Christ.

Apparently, Paul had concerns about the Philippians following the same error, that’s why he wrote to them: “In Christ, I am right with God, but my being right does not come from following the Law. It comes from God through faith. God uses my faith in Christ to make me right with Him.”⁹ And the writer of Hebrews found cause to make the same point to his readers: “The Law of Moses could not make anything perfect. But now a better hope has been given to us. And with that hope we can come near to God.”¹⁰ He goes on then to say: “After the Law, God spoke the oath that made His Son high priest. And that Son, made perfect through suffering, will serve forever.”¹¹

Early church scholar Origen sees a lesson in this aspect of faith’s role in obtaining the promise for Gentile believers as much as it was for the Jews. He writes: “Paul says that the promise given to Abraham that he should inherit the world did not come from the Law but by faith, which was reckoned to him as righteousness. It doubtless follows that everyone who hopes that God’s righteousness will be imputed to him hopes for this by faith and not by the Law.”¹² In other words, all of our good deeds in the name of Christ will not buy us the promise of everlasting life that is already guaranteed by faith. Our works are done by faith to please God and do His will, not to earn a reward.

We see this expressed in Chrysostom’s preaching: “To prevent anyone from saying that it is possible to have faith and to keep the Law at the same time, Paul shows that this is impracticable. For one who clings to the Law as if it were of saving force dishonors the power of faith. This is why Paul says that faith is made void, i.e., that there is no need of salvation by grace.… And without faith, there is no promise of inheritance, which is what scared the Jews most of all, because that is what they really wanted. For the promise was that they should be heirs of the entire world.”¹³ Belonging to a church can bring a person many blessings, but it cannot guarantee salvation and everlasting life.

Then Paul adds, even more, weight to his argument about how foolish it was to expect the Law to do what it was not designed to do because that would make what God did through Christ of no value and without purpose. But this was not how God did things. He made that clear to the children of Israel: “When My words leave My mouth, they don’t come back without results. My words make the things happen that I want to happen. They succeed in doing what I send them to do.”¹⁴

Paul also wanted his Jewish readers to be reminded that God means what He says by establishing consequences if His laws are not followed. Back when the Law was given, Moses made it abundantly clear what would happen to those who said: I know what the Law says, but I’m satisfied with the way I live. Nothing bad will happen to me. Moses declared: “That attitude will bring total disaster. The Lord will not forgive them for that. No, the Lord will be angry and upset with them and punish them. The Lord will separate them from the tribes of Israel. He will completely destroy them. All the afflictions that are written in this book will happen to them.”¹⁵ This may sound harsh to some, but if there is no condemnation, then there is no need for salvation. Also, the same condemnation is in store for those who claim to be followers of Christ but avoid any involvement in His body the church. Otherwise, how can we claim to love one another, support each other, motivate and strengthen one another? We will become potted plants instead of fruit-bearing vines.

This warning against denying God and desecrating His Word and offer of salvation did not end with the Old Testament. It became part of the New Testament as well. The Apostle John made this clear in his Gospel where he said: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. But those who do not obey the Son will never have that life. They cannot get away from God’s punishment.”¹⁶ And Jesus Himself left no place for alibis or excuses: “If I had not come and spoken to the people of the world, they would not be guilty of sin. But now I have spoken to them. So they have no excuse for their sin.”¹⁷

When the Apostle Paul was in Athens, He spoke to the Areopagus Council concerning God’s patience and grace. He said: “In the past, people did not understand God, and He overlooked this. But now He is telling everyone in the world to change and turn to Him. He has decided on a day when He will judge all the people in the world in a way that is fair. To do this, He will use a man He chose long ago. And He has proved to everyone that this is the Man to do it. He proved it by raising Him from death!”¹⁸ In other words, God was not overlooking man’s disobedience in order to keep from destroying him but was looking over man’s disobedience in order to find a way to save him. Furthermore, in order for Him to judge the whole world, the whole world will need to hear the Gospel.

Therefore, the law was given so that mankind could not only become aware of their sins but also their need for a Savior to liberate them from the punishment for sin. Paul told the Corinthians: “Death’s power to hurt is sin, and the power of sin is the Law. But we thank God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”¹⁹ Then Paul goes on to write: “The old agreement that brought death, written with words on stone, came with God’s glory… So surely the new agreement that comes from the life-giving Spirit has even more glory. This is what I mean: That old agreement judged people guilty of sin, but it had glory. So surely the new agreement that makes people right with God has much greater glory.”²⁰ That’s why Paul wanted the Messianic Jewish leaders in Rome to see what he was trying to get the Corinthians to see: “That old agreement had glory. But it really loses its glory when it is compared to the much greater glory of the new agreement.”²¹

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson X)

Verse 13: Abraham and his descendants received the promise that they would inherit the whole earth, but not because he followed the law. He received that promise because of his being right with God through faith.

Paul continues his quest of showing the Messianic Jews in Rome that they have erroneously incorporated obedience to the Law as a requirement to their Christian faith, thereby making them superior believers. Again, he points to all that God promised Abraham long before the Law was given to Moses. We find that even before Abram left his home country in Mesopotamia, God told him that he would be the father of a great nation and that through him all the people of the earth would be better off.¹

To show His commitment to His promise, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham as part of their agreement. He told him: “I will make you the father of many nations… I will give you many descendants. New nations and kings will come from you. And I will prepare an agreement between me and you. This agreement will also be for all your descendants. It will continue forever. I will be your God and the God of all your descendants.”² So the Apostle Paul could see in this promise that those new nations and many descendants would of necessity involve more than the Jewish people as part of this agreement. In fact, they were chosen first in order to spread the word of this agreement throughout the world. But in that promise, God made sure that Abraham understood that all descendants would call Sarah their mother.³

This concept that the descendants of Abraham would inherit the whole world can also be found in the writings of the Rabbis. For instance, we read in the Talmud: “When the Rabbis departed from the school of Rabbi Ammi — some say, of Rabbi Hanina — they blessed him, saying: May you see your needs provided in your lifetime, and may your latter end be for the future world.”⁴ In other words, that his teaching would extend to the whole world.

In fact, there is a Jewish parable that goes like this: “Once there was a king who was seeking to build a palace. He began to dig, going further down, to lay a foundation, but he found only swampy soil. And so it was in many places. He was not able to build until he dug in one place, and there he found bedrock That’s when he said, ‘I am building and placing the foundation here,’ and he built. So too, the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to create the world. He was sitting and scrutinizing the generation of Enoch and the generation of the flood, and He said, ‘Why should I create the world and let those wicked men arise and vex me?’ But when the Holy One, blessed be He, saw Abraham arise in the future, He said, ‘Behold, I have found a rock to build upon and to lay the foundation of the world.’ Thus he called Abraham ‘Rock,’ as it says, ‘Look to the rock from which you were carved.’⁵”⁶

There were also a group of Rabbis who were discussing various Psalms, and the subject of Psalm 136 came up. So Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asked: “To what do these twenty-six ‘Give thanks’ correspond? To the twenty-six generations which the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world; though He did not give them the Torah, He sustained them by His love.”⁷ Say Jewish scholars: There were twenty-six generations from Adam until Moses. Lacking the Torah, they could not be sustained through their own merit but only through God’s love. So the Apostle Paul was not introducing here some radical idea that caught his Jewish readers in Rome by surprise.

It was when Abraham obeyed God’s request that he sacrifice his son Isaac, that God then said to him: “Since you did this for Me, I make you this promise: I, the LORD, promise that I will surely bless you and give you as many descendants as the stars in the sky. There will be as many people as sand on the seashore… Every nation on the earth will be blessed through your descendants. I will do this because you obeyed Me.”⁸ Again, this all happened before the Law was given on Mount Horeb in the Sinai wilderness.

Later on, when Jacob and his family wound up in Egypt because of a famine back in Canaan, the time came for him to bless his sons. After laying hands on Judah, Jacob said: “Men from Judah’s family will be kings. The sign that his family rules will not leave his family before the real King comes. Then many people will obey and serve Him.”⁹ Here we see where before the Law was given to Moses, the Messiah, the One who would fulfill the Law and bring a new agreement based on faith, not works, was announced as coming through the tribe of Judah.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul references this revelation: “God made promises to Abraham and his Descendant. The Scripture does not say, ‘and to your descendants.’ That would mean many people. But it says, ‘and to your Descendant.’¹⁰ That means only one, and that one is Christ. This is what I mean: The agreement that God gave to Abraham was made official long before the law came. The law came 430 years later. So the law could not replace the agreement and change God’s promise.”¹¹

Here’s how Reformer John Calvin sees this verse: “Though the ungodly swallow up the riches of the world, they can call nothing as their own; but rather, they snatch them as if it were by stealing; for they possess them under the curse of God. It is indeed a great comfort to the godly in their poverty, that though they exist with little, yet they steal nothing of what belongs to another, but receive their lawful allowance from the hand of their celestial Father, until they enter into the full possession of their inheritance, when all creatures shall be made subservient to their glory; for both heaven and earth shall be renewed for this end, — that according to their measure they may contribute to making the Kingdom of God glorious.”¹²

John Bengel points out that when the Scriptures say that the promise of Abraham was not extended through the law, it means that no person can acquire righteousness by simply obeying the law. This is clearly pointed out by the fact that Abraham was consider righteous before the law was given. Therefore, how could he gain righteousness through the law when there was no law? It was only by faith in believing what God said and told him to do. Bengel goes on to say: “This constitutes the foundation of the consequence derived from Abraham to all believers, and, therefore, to all persons and things.¹³ Heir of the world, is the same as father of all the nations, who accept the blessing. The whole world was promised to Abraham and to his seed collectively throughout the whole world. The land of Canaan fell to the lot of Abraham, and so one part was allotted to one, and another to another. So also physical things are a representative of spiritual things. Christ is heir of the world, and of all things,¹⁴ and so also are they who believe in Him according to the example of Abraham.”¹⁵

Adam Clarke notes: “This promise suggests that he [Abraham] should be the medium through whom the mercy of God should be communicated to the world, to both Jews and Gentiles; and the manner in which he was justified, be the rule and manner according to which all men should expect this blessing. Abraham is here represented as having all the world given to him as his inheritance; because in him all nations of the earth are blessed: this must, therefore, relate to their being interested in the Abrahamic covenant; and every person, now that the covenant is fully explained, has the privilege of claiming justification through faith, by the blood of the Lamb, in virtue of this original grant.”¹⁶

Robert Haldane explains the difference between righteousness through the law and righteousness by way of faith: “The righteousness of faith is a concise expression, meaning the righteousness which is received by faith. This is the only way in which the promise, in order to prove effectual, could be given. ‘If there had been a law given which could have supplied life, that means righteousness should have come by the law; but the Scripture has concluded all are under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.’ It was, therefore, to receive its accomplishment only by virtue of, and through the communication of, the righteousness received by faith. This is that righteousness which was counted or imputed to Abraham, when, upon the promise being made to him of numerous seed, he believed in the Lord.¹⁷ The inheritance comes solely in virtue of this righteousness to those who by it are ‘made righteous.’ ‘They shall be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.’¹⁸ ‘Thy people shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever.’¹⁹”²⁰

Henry Alford puts all of what Paul says here into context: “The actual promise,²¹ was the possession of the land of Canaan. But the Rabbis had already seen, and St. Paul, who had been brought up in their learning, held fast the truth, – that much more was intended in the words which accompany this promise, ‘In you (or in your seed), shall all families of the earth be blessed,’ than the mere possession of Canaan. They distinctly trace the fifth of the world [population] to Abraham to this promise… The inheritance of the world then is not the possession of Canaan merely either literally, or as a type of a better possession, – but that ultimate lordship over the whole world which Abraham, as the father of the faithful in all peoples, and Christ, as the Seed of Promise, shall possess.”²² In other words, the Good News of a coming Savior was not meant just for the Jews, but to all who would believe around the world. We should all rejoice for this provision

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson IX)

Verse 12: And Abraham is also the father of those who have been circumcised. But it is not their circumcision that makes him their father. He is their father only if they live following the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

It is clear that Paul is trying to get Messianic Jews in Rome to understand that having a spiritual father supersedes a genealogical father when it comes to faith. The Jews were making the claim based solely on kinship related to their human nature through Abraham. But when it came to their spiritual nature, they needed to establish a connection with Abraham on a spiritual level. This then, opened the door for the non-Jews to be just as related to Abraham and God as they were.

This was the same point John the Baptizer tried to pound into the heads of his Jewish opponents.¹ This disconnect between claiming Abraham as an earthly father while not following his example as a heavenly father is seen clearly in the story Jesus told about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. Although the rich man called out, “Father Abraham!” in Hades, he learned very quickly there was an impassable canyon between them. All the pleas of the rich man failed, even his request that his brothers be warned about coming there. And Abraham ended their conversation with this dire conclusion: “If your brothers won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen to someone who comes back from the dead.”²

Later, Jesus would have a conversation with some of the doubting Jews who came to believe in Him as the Messiah. He encouraged them to continue accepting and obeying His teachings. By doing so, Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”³ Then, just like some of these Messianic Jews in Roman, they were offended that Jesus would suggest that somehow they had been living as slaves. So they quickly informed Jesus that as descendants of Abraham, they had never been slaves. Of course, they were only speaking of themselves, not Israel as a whole who were slaves for 450 years in Egypt.

But they missed the point. Jesus was not talking about slavery in the natural sense but in the spiritual sense. He said to them: “The truth is, everyone who sins is a slave – a slave to sin.”⁴ Our Lord went on to point out that while slaves serve a family, they are not part of the family because they were not born into the family. The Master was trying to make the same point Paul attempts here. While they claimed relationship with God through Abraham on a human level, they really had no relationship with God on a divine level.⁵

Paul had gone over this same subject with the believers in Galatia. In that teaching, Paul used the two mothers of Abraham’s sons. The outsider, Hagar, represented the sinful nature, while Sarah, the insider, was the symbol of the spiritual nature. Paul finally said to them: “My brothers and sisters, you are children who were born because of God’s promise, just as Isaac was. But the other son of Abraham, who was born in the normal way, caused trouble for the one who was born by the power of the Spirit… So, my brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman. We are children of the free woman.”⁶

Early church scholar Ambrosiaster gives his understanding of Paul’s point here: “Paul says this because Abraham, by believing, became the [genealogical] forefather of the Jews. But also of the heart, not only of those who descended from him but of those who, from among the nations, believed the way he did. He is the father of the Jews according to the flesh, but because of his faith he is the father of all believers.”⁷

Then, early church preacher Chrysostom exhorts us on how faith is so important in seeking to do God’s will: “[External] circumcision is meaningless if there is no faith within. It is a sign of righteousness, but if there is no righteousness, then there is no sign either. The reason the Jews received a sign was that they might seek diligently for the reality of which the sign spoke. If they had done so, they would not have needed the sign in the first place.”⁸ We can also look at water baptism, which has replaced circumcision as the sign of belonging to God, in the same light? Unfortunately, like the Jews Paul is writing to, Christians have taken water baptism as the starting point rather than the subsequent point in their working relationship with God.

Reformer John Calvin speaks on this same subject: “What we have stated also disproves the scholastic dogma respecting the difference between the sacraments of the Old [Testament] and those of the New Testament; for they deny the power of justifying to the former, and assign it to the latter. But if Paul reasons correctly, when he argues that circumcision does not justify, because Abraham was justified by faith, the same reason holds good for us. We deny that men are justified by baptism, inasmuch as they are justified by the same faith as that of Abraham.”⁹

Then Methodist theologian Adam Clarke puts it in perspective: “For, the covenant being made with Abraham while he was a Gentile, he became the representative of the Gentiles, and they primarily were included in that covenant, and the Jews were brought in only consequentially; but salvation, implying justification by faith, originally belonged to the Gentiles; and, when the Gospel came, they laid hold on this as their original right, having been granted to them by the free mercy of God in their father and representative, Abraham. So that the Jews, to be saved, must come under that Abrahamic covenant, in which the Gentiles are included. This is an unanswerable conclusion, and must, on this point, forever confound the Jews.”¹⁰ What many Christians do not realize is the Abraham was neither a Hebrew, Israelite, or Jew. They all came after Isaac and Jacob. So God was dealing with a Gentile when He first spoke to Abram.

Robert Haldane sees a clear connection between Abraham being the spiritual father of some of his descendants while being the physical father of all his descendants. He writes: “To those of them who walk in the steps of his faith, he is a spiritual father. While all Abraham’s children were circumcised, he was not equally the father of them all. It was only to such of them as had his faith that he was a father in what is spiritually represented by circumcision.¹¹ This is also established by our Lord Himself, who denied that the unbelieving Jews were the children of Abraham.¹² He was, however, not only the father of his believing children, who were circumcised but of all, in every nation, who walk in the steps of his faith. Believing Gentiles are therefore said to be grafted, contrary to nature, into a good olive tree,¹³ and to be Abraham’s seed.¹⁴”¹⁵ By the same token we can say that while God is the Creator of all mankind, He is not the spiritual Father of all mankind. Only those who are born again through faith in His Son can pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven.”

British preacher Charles Spurgeon was emphatic in his insistence that non-Jews have the same access to God’s promise to Abraham as the Jews. He says: “The historical argument is a very forcible one. The blessing was not given to Abraham as a circumcised man, but as a believing man; and hence it comes also to all of us who believe. What a mercy it is that there is, in this sense, no distinction between Jew and Gentile now! I hate that plan of reading the Scriptures in which we are told, when we lay hold of a gracious promise, ‘Oh, that is for the Jews.’ ‘Then I also am a Jew, for it is given to me.’ Every promise of God’s Word belongs to all those who have the faith to grasp it. We who have faith, are all in the covenant, and are thus the children of faithful Abraham; so be not afraid, you who are the true seed, to take every blessing that belongs to your father Abraham and to all the seed.”¹⁶

Swiss Protestant theologian Frédéric Godet also comments: “We find in these two verses the great and sublime idea of Abraham’s spiritual family, that people who are the product, not of the flesh, but of faith, and which comprises the believers of the whole world, whether Jews or Gentiles. This position of, ‘Father to all the believing race of man,’ assigned to Abraham, is a fundamental fact in the kingdom of God; it is the act in which this kingdom takes its rise, it is the aim of the patriarch’s call. From this point, the continuous history of salvation begins. Abraham is the stem of that tree, which after that sinks root and develops. For he has not believed simply in the God of creation; he has laid hold by faith of the God of the promise, the author of that redeeming work which appears on the earth in his very faith.”¹⁷

Charles Ellicott follows in his commentary on the previous verse with this: “On the other hand, the mere performance of the rite was no guarantee for justification, unless it was attended with a faith like Abraham’s. Of the two things, faith itself, and circumcision the sign of faith, the first only was essential, and the second was useless without it.”¹⁸ The same goes for all those ordinances, rites, rituals, and sacraments practiced by the Christian church.

Jewish theologian David Stern tells us: “Paul finishes destroying the argument that physical circumcision is the Jews’ big advantage. He consistently maintains that the advantage of Jews is spiritual, not physical. At the same time he shows that the righteousness that comes from trusting God is available equally to Jews and Gentiles not merely because it antedates the Mosaic Law, but because it antedates even the Abrahamic Covenant, when circumcision was given as a sign of Abraham’s already demonstrated faith and as a seal guaranteeing God’s promises, but not as something to boast about. Thus, ‘Abraham, our father’ — a common phrase in rabbinic writing and in today’s Siddur¹⁹ is ‘our’ father not only to Jews but also to trusting Gentiles, hence, to ‘all of us.’ Galatians 3:6-18 develops the same theme.”²⁰

Sometimes people say things we just don’t want to hear. It upsets us because we don’t think it is the proper thing to say or the best way to say it. But instead of closing our ears and turning off the light in our minds, let it sink in. That’s because, the next time you want to express your feelings, especially your frustrations, you’ll remember what upset you when you heard it. As a result, you’ll be able to do a better job of communicating. – Dr. Robert R Seyda

OUR FATHER, ARE YOU STILL IN HEAVEN?

When I was still very young, one of the first prayers I was taught to say before going to bed was this: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord, my soul, to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

Recently, I read another prayer that might be considered more appropriate for children today being raised in Christian homes. It goes like this:

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule.
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange, or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific; the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall

Might offend some with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate.
God’s name is prohibited by the state.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks
And pierce our noses, tongues, and cheeks.
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We elect a pregnant Senior Queen
And an unwed daddy is our Senior King.
It’s “inappropriate” to teach right from wrong.
We’re taught that such “judgments” do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires, and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed.
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It’s scary here I must confess
Where chaos reigns, schools are a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot, my soul, please take!

Amen

It may have been seen as a novelty or trend some years ago, but Christian, Charter, Parochial, and Home Schools are needed more today than every before. – Dr. Robert R Seyda