Abraham Believed God. Romans 4:1-3 V.1. Especially for those Jews who had counted on their pedigree and national identity to make them acceptable to God, the two most important men of Jewish history are used to illustrate being justified by faith. Abraham lived before the law was given to the Jews. But the scriptural record of his life showed he had nothing to boast of in himself. When he heard the voice of God in Ur, he believed God. When he left Haran for the journey to Canaan, he believed God. When God promised a nation to come from him that would bless all nations, he believed God. When he offered Isaac his son, he believed God. He failed at times because he was a man in the flesh, but he believed God.
His righteousness before God was by faith and was seen outwardly by his works. The works didn’t justify him before God. Forgiveness and acceptance were granted on the basis of believing God’s promise rather than keeping the law. Salvation was is and always will be by faith in God. Abraham is a true example of a justified person who appreciates God. He had not followed the law, nor had he done any particular service or performed any rituals to justify his actions. His simple belief in what God said moved him to act in faith in God's promises. Believing God is the way righteousness is imputed.
V.2. None of the famous things he did were reasons for him to boast. If all the works he did caused him to boast for making him right before God, he would not have been justified before God. We can hold other great men and women in admiration because of their great works of charity, valor, or widespread importance, but that does not justify them before God. Faith does not wipe out the teaching of the Old Testament, but it makes all the things that happened to Israel understandable.
There is no room for boasting that we are righteous because we are not. When we accept by faith what God’s grace has provided for us, that faith is counted for righteousness, and we are pardoned by God and saved by His grace alone. There was a reason behind all those events in Abraham's life that are recorded. He acted in simple faith; despite failures sometimes, God saved and kept him. The greatest saint has no greater standing than the weakest one.
V.3. There is no merit in believing. Believing did not change Abraham's character or nature any more than it does any of us. When Abraham believed in God, he had an attitude toward God that believed God would do what He promised. "Abraham believed God." The object of faith is what is important, not an act. Abraham believed in a faithful God who could not lie. He was believing God, who kept His promises.
Abraham was saved by faith. God's laws are not unimportant, but they are impossible to be saved by simply obeying them as best we can. Those laws have exposed our guilt and need but do not add to our righteous standing before God. When Abraham believed God, His faith was reckoned by God as righteousness. His faith didn't earn him righteousness. The Object of his faith did legally, as a Judge, reckon or account that as righteousness because that reckoning is based on the work of Christ on the cross. This is like a court scene where a Judge makes His verdict based on the sacrifice for sin made by the Lord Jesus Christ once and for all.
We learn that no matter how great or small we are when the Object of our faith is God alone, we are accepted by God on a legal standing. Christ has died for us. We are reckoned righteous because of faith in that Person. Our faith does not make us righteous, great, or small. When we believe God, we do the one thing we can do, without "doing" (as in good works) anything. God made the statement and fulfilled it. We believe in our hearts that God has told us the truth. "So, then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."