Romans 4:17

“ According as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before God whom he believed, as him, that quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. ”

This verse is directly connected with the end of Romans 4:12; for the last words of Romans 4:16: who is the father of us all, are the reproduction of the last words of Romans 4:12: the faith of our father Abraham. The development, Romans 4:13-16, had only been the answer to an anticipated objection. First of all, the general paternity of Abraham in relation to all believers, Jew or Gentile, so solemnly affirmed at the end of Romans 4:16, is proved by a positive text, the words of Genesis 16:5. The expression: father of many nations, is applied by several commentators only to the Israelitish tribes. But why in this case not use the term Ammim rather than Gojim, which is the word chosen to denote the Gentiles in opposition to Israel? The promise: “Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven for multitude,” can hardly be explained without holding that when God spoke thus His view extended beyond the limits of Israel. And how could it be otherwise, after His saying to the patriarch: “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed (or shall bless themselves)”? The full light of the Messianic day shone beforehand in all these promises.

But there was in this divine saying an expression which seemed to be positively contradicted by the reality: I have made thee. How can God speak of that which shall not be realized till so distant a future as if it were an already accomplished fact? The apostle uses this expression to penetrate to the very essence of Abraham's faith. In the eyes of God, the patriarch is already what he shall become. Abraham plants himself at the instant on the viewpoint of the divine thought: he regards himself as being already in fact what God declares he will become. Such, if we mistake not, is the idea expressed in the following words which have been so differently explained: before God whom he believed. This before is frequently connected with the words preceding the biblical quotation: who is the father of us all. But this verb in the present: who is, was evidently meant in the context of Romans 4:16 to apply to the time when Paul was writing, which does not harmonize with the expression before, which transports us to the very moment when God conversed with Abraham. It seems to me, therefore, better to connect this preposition with the verb: I have made thee, understanding the words: “ which was already true before the God whom”...; that is to say, in the eyes of the God who was speaking with Abraham, the latter was already made the father of those many nations. There are two ways of resolving the construction κατέναντι οὖ... Θεοῦ; either: κατέναντι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατέναντι οὖ ἐπίστευσε (before the God before whom he believed); or: κατέναντι τοῦ Θεοῦ ᾧ ἐπίστευσε (before the God whom he believed). Perhaps the first explanation of the attraction is most in keeping with usage (anyhow there is no need to cite in its favor, as Meyer does, Luke 1:4, which is better explained otherwise). But it does not give a very appropriate meaning. The more natural it is to state the fact that Abraham was there before God, the more superfluous it is to mention further that it was in God's presence he believed. The second explanation, though less usual when the dative is in question, is not at variance with grammar; and the idea it expresses is much more simple and in keeping with the context; for the two following participles indicate precisely the two attributes which the faith of Abraham lays hold of: “before the God whom he believed as quickening...and calling. ”

Two Mjj., F G, and the Peshito read ἐπίστευσας, thou didst believe. Erasmus had adopted this meaning in his first editions, and it passed into Luther's translation. These words were thus meant to be a continuation of the quotation. It would be best in this case to explain the κατέναντι οὗ in the sense of ἀνθ᾿ οὗ : “ in respect of the fact that thou didst believe.” But this meaning is without example, and the reading has not the shadow of probability.

The two divine attributes on which the faith of Abraham fastened at this decisive moment, were the power to quicken and the power to create. It was, indeed, in this twofold character that God presented Himself when He addressed to him the words quoted: I have made thee 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 to taking God as He offers Himself, but wholly.

The first attribute, the power to quicken (or raise again), has sometimes been explained in relation to facts which have no direct connection with the context, such as the resurrection of the dead, spiritually speaking (Orig. Olsh.), or the conversion of the Gentiles (Ewald), or even the sacrifice of Isaac (Er. Mangold)! But Romans 4:19 shows plainly enough what is the apostle's meaning. It is in the patriarch's own person, already a centenarian, and his wife almost as old as he, that a resurrection must take place if the divine promise is to be fulfilled.

In the explanation of the second predicate, the farfetched has also been sought for the obvious; there has been given to the word call a spiritual signification (calling to salvation), or it has even been applied to the primordial act of creation (καλεῖν, to call, and by this call to bring out of nothing). But how with this meaning are we to explain the words ὡς ὄντα, as being? Commentators have thus been led to give them the force of ὡς ἐσόμενα or εἰς τὸ εἶναι, as about to be, or in order to their being; which is of course impossible. The simple meaning of the word call: to invite one to appear, is fully sufficient. Man in this way calls beings which are; on the summons of the master the servant presents himself. But it belongs to God to call beings to appear which are not, as if they already were. And it is thus God speaks to Abraham of that multitude of future nations which are to form his posterity. He calls them up before his view as a multitude already present, as really existing as the starry heaven to which he compares them, and says: “ I have made thee the father of this multitude.” The subjective negative μή before ὄντα expresses this idea: “He calls as being what he knows himself to be non-existent.” The two present participles, quickening and calling, express a permanent attribute, belonging to the essence of the subject. The passage thus understood admirably teaches wherein faith consists. God shows us by his promise not only what he wills to exist for us, but what he wills us to become and what we already are in his sight; and we abstracting from our real state, and by a sublime effort taking the position which the promise assigns us, answer: Yea, I will be so; I am so. Thus it is that Abraham's faith corresponded to the promise of the God who was speaking to him face to face. It is this true notion of faith which the apostle seeks to make plain, by analyzing more profoundly what passed in the heart of the patriarch at the time when he performed that act on which there rested the foundation of the kingdom of God on the earth.