Romans 4:6-8

“ As David also exactly celebrateth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works: Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. ”

It need not be supposed that David here plays the part of a second example, side by side with Abraham. The position of the patriarch is unique, and Paul will return to it after this short interruption. He merely adduces a saying of David, the inspired singer, which seems to him to complete the testimony of Moses about Abraham.

The conjunction of comparison καθάπερ is more forcible than καθώς : it indicates an intrinsic and striking agreement: exactly as.

The word μακαρισμός, which we have translated by blessedness, strictly signifies: the celebration of blessedness. The verb λέγει, says, of which this word is the object, signifies here: he utters (this beatification). The following words are, as it were, the joyful hymn of the justified sinner. This passage is the beginning of Psalms 32, which David probably composed after having obtained pardon from God for the odious crimes into which passion had dragged him. Hence the expressions: transgressions pardoned, sins covered, sin not imputed. Here, then, is the negative side of justification, the evil which it removes; while in regard to Abraham it was only the positive side which was under treatment, the blessing it confers. Thus it is that the two passages complete one another.

This observation made, the apostle returns to his subject. It was not enough to prove that Abraham owed his justification to his faith. For the defenders of works might say: True; but it was as one circumcised that Abraham obtained this privilege of being justified by his faith. And so we have works driven out by the door, and returning by the window. The answer to the question of Romans 4:1: “What hath Abraham found by the way of the flesh?” would no more be: nothing, but: everything. For if it was to his circumcision Abraham owed the favor whereby God had reckoned his faith to him for righteousness, everything depended in the end on this material rite; and those who were destitute of it were ipso facto excluded from justification by faith. The nullity of this whole point of view is what Paul shows in the following passage, where he proves that the patriarch was not only justified by faith, but by faith only.