After six months of intense fighting that shut down oil-production facilities and forced massive evacuations of expatriate oil workers, Libya’s future as a place to do business brightened dramatically as leaders of the Libyan uprising met with world powers in Paris France to map out the country’s rebuilding and Canada lifted unilateral economic sanctions imposed last February. In a speech at an air force base in Trapani, Sicily, before attending the Paris talks, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally thanked Canadian soldiers for their role in neutralizing in Libya. He said: ".. thanks to you, there is new hope". He concluded his speech by saying: " just as Canadians thank you for your work here, I know that countless thousands of Libyans have reason to be grateful, too. Few will ever know you by name. Some may not even yet be born".... But if Libya can seize the opportunity that now lies before it, the real results of your actions these past five months will be seen in little things. Things we in Canada take for granted in our country. Families going about their lives without fear. Children, for the first time, with hope for the future". (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Thanks+there+hope/5342942/story.html)
The patriarch Abraham had hope through the promise of God, that his descendents, his children would have a future. Abraham had every reason, from a human point of view, to give up the attempt to produce a child through Sarah, as both were well beyond the physical ability to produce children. His hope flew in the face of that which is founded on the evidence of reason and common sense. The ancient patriarch had hope when, from the human vantage point, there was absolutely no basis or justification for hope. Yet despite the seeming impossibility hoped for, he believed it would happen as God said.
People often use the word—“hope” as something that they long for when the odds seem against them, like “I hope to win the lottery”. But Biblical hope springs from the promise of God. Abraham’s faith is not described as a “leap into the dark,” a completely baseless, almost irrational “decision”...but as a “leap” from the evidence of his senses into the security of God’s word and promise (Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (282–283). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).
In Romans 4:18-25, the Apostle Paul shows us through the life and faith of the patriarch Abraham three realities of Biblical hope: 1) Its Analysis (vv. 18–19), 2) Its Assurance (v.20- 22), and 3) Its Application (vv. 23–25).
1)The Analysis of Biblical Hope (Rom. 4:18–19)
Romans 4:18-21 [18]In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." [19]He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.
The apostle Paul declares of Abraham that in hope he believed against hope. Grammatically this is known as an oxymoron, a figure of speech in which seemingly contradictory ideas are combined (e.g., thunderous silence, sweet sorrow, etc.). Abraham against hope, or beyond hope, nevertheless (had) hope (KJV Bible commentary. 1997 (2226). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.).
Quote: John Chrysostom called this situation: “It was against man’s hope, in hope which is of God.” (As quoted in Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (282). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)
Hope is a decidedly Pauline word, and a word found more often in Romans than in any other New Testament book.. Faith is the belief in God that he will do what he has promised to do. Hope is faith moving forward and putting that faith into action. (cf. 5:2; 15:13; Gal. 5:5; Eph. 1:18–19; Col. 1:23; 1 Tim. 4:10; Heb. 11:1; 1 Pet. 1:21). It is distinguished from secular optimism in that it is grounded in what God has done in Christ (Morris, L. (1988). The Epistle to the Romans (210). Grand Rapids, Mich.; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press.)
Poem: Of this situation, Charles Wesley said:
In hope, against all human hope,
Self-desperate, I believe; . . .
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities,
And cries: It shall be done!
Applying this to ourselves, if God is who he says he is (and he is!), none of his promises will fail because he forgets us or our situation is beyond his power. The problem is, many...keep in the back of our minds unexorcised suspicions that what we say we believe about God’s power is not really true. For all our lip service about trust in God, we rely chiefly upon what we can do ourselves. Some of us need to take deeper possession of the truths we have already believed about God. A good measure of how much spiritual truth we have appropriated is, how long is our worry list? (Hughes, R. K. (1991). Romans : Righteousness from heaven. Preaching the Word (101). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.)
The object of Abraham’s faith was God, and in particular His promise that he, that is, Abraham, should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring/descendants be.” When the Lord had taken Abraham as we saw last week in Genesis 15 and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them,’ and He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring/descendants be,’ then [Abraham] believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:5–6).
Please turn to Hebrews 11
Paul declares in Romans 4:19 that Abraham believed God and he did not weaken in faith. The interesting irony is that Abraham’s faith did not “weaken” even as his and Sarah’s bodies were progressively weakening (Osborne, G. R. (200). Romans. The IVP New Testament commentary series (118). Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.)
To weaken in faith is to allow doubt to cloud and partly undermine belief. Abraham had been trusting God for 25 years, acknowledging, as Paul had just intimated, that “God … gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (Rom. 4:17). As far as we know, Abraham had witnessed no miracle of God. He had never seen God raise a person from the dead or call anything or anyone into being who did not already exist. Yet he firmly believed that the Lord was easily capable of doing such things. Commenting on that characteristic of Abraham’s faith, the writer of Hebrews said:
Hebrews 11:17-19 [17]By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, [18]of whom it was said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." [19]He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. (ESV)
Paul tells us that the Hope that Abraham had prevented him from becoming discouraged by his own natural weakness. Because Abraham’s faith in God was strong and unwavering, his own ignorance and weakness were no obstacles to his trust. He therefore did not falter when he considered/contemplated his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old). Abraham’s natural procreative power was now gone, as good as dead, yet that physiological fact did not diminish his hope. Natural impotence was no problem to Abraham, because his hope was in the supernatural God who had created him in the first place. Abraham himself was fully aware of this. He took full account of the deadness of his own body and of the deadness of Sarah’s womb (the double evocation of the description of God’s creative power in v 17 is deliberate). He knew that only the lifegiver could fulfill his own promise and only by the exercise of his own power. The strength of his (hope) was precisely his recognition that there was nothing in him which could make the fulfillment of the promise possible, his recognition, that is to say, that he had to rely wholly and solely on God who alone can give life to that which is dead, who alone can make something out of nothing (Dunn, J. D. G. (2002). Vol. 38A: Word Biblical Commentary : Romans 1-8. Word Biblical Commentary (238). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.)
Abraham did not doubt God’s promise when the circumstances around him seemed to make its fulfillment impossible. When God repeated the specific promise that Isaac would be born to Abraham and Sarah the following year, both “Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; Sarah was past childbearing” (Gen. 18:11–14; cf. 17:21). But the barrenness/deadness of Sarah’s womb was no more a hindrance to Abraham’s hope than was the impotence of his own body. Since the word “barrenness/deadness (Gk. νέκρωσις.) is not the normal word for a woman’s barrenness, Paul has deliberately chosen his language to make clear that Abraham’s faith with respect to this promise was specifically faith in the “God who gives life to the dead” (v. 17b) (Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (284). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).
• Humans are dead in trespasses and sin (Eph.2:1), unable to have faith or hope. God brings life into the human heart both spiritually and physically, enabling both physical and spiritual life. Yet, not everyone who has physical life, believes, or has spiritual life. It comes according to the grace of God.
Illustration: POWs
In his book Winning Life’s Toughest Battles, psychologist Julius Segal wrote about the 25,000 soldiers who were held by the Japanese in POW camps during World War II. “Forced to exist under inhumane conditions, many of them died. Others, however, survived and eventually returned home. There was no reason to believe there was a difference in the stamina of these two groups of soldiers. The survivors, however, were different in one major respect: They confidently expected to be released someday. As described by Robins Readers in Holding On to Hope, ‘They talked about the kinds of homes they would have, the jobs they would choose, and even described the kind of person they would marry. They drew pictures on the walls to illustrate their dreams. Some even found ways to study subjects related to the kind of career they wanted to pursue.’” (The difference between life and death, is hope). (Quoted in Morgan, R. J. (2000). Nelson’s complete book of stories, illustrations, and quotes (electronic ed.) (450). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.)
2) The Assurance of Biblical Hope (Romans 4:20-22)
Romans 4:20-22 [20]No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, [21]fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. [22]That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." (ESV)
Concerning/with respect to the promise of God in Romans 4:20, no distrust made Abraham waver. Not that Abraham never had momentary hesitations, but that he avoided a deep-seated and permanent attitude of distrust and inconsistency in relationship to God and his promises. Unlike the “double-minded” person who displays a deeply rooted division in his attitude toward God (Jas. 1:6–8), Abraham maintained a single-minded trust in the fulfillment of God’s promise (Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (284–285). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)
He did not vacillate between hope and doubt as many believers frequently do. When from the human viewpoint things are going well, it is easy to trust God. But when things seem impossible, it is even easier to distrust Him. Sarah was a woman of faith, and “she considered Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11). But before her faith came to that point of unqualified trust, she had laughed at the promise she overheard the Lord making to her husband (Gen. 18:12).
• Perhaps at this point you are discouraged, thinking, “If God requires such faith as this, namely, that a man way past the age of begetting children, with a wife whose womb is dead, must believe God’s promise that he is going to have a child, that this child will be a boy, and that this very wife, and not some other woman, will give birth to him, then there is no hope for me. When it comes to simple, steadfast faith, the kind of trust that takes hold of God under any and every circumstance of life, what a struggle I often experience!” (Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953-2001). Vol. 12-13: New Testament commentary : Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. New Testament Commentary )
But struggling with God’s promises is not doubt, just as temptation to sin is not itself sin. As we saw last week from Genesis 15 when “the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great,’ … Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? … Since Thou hast given no offspring to one born in my house is my heir’ ” (Gen. 15:1–3). Abraham openly admitted before God that he could not understand how the divine promise of an heir, much less of a multitude of nations, could be fulfilled.
The very fact that Abraham was trying to understand how God’s promise could be fulfilled indicates he was looking for a way of fulfillment, although he could not yet see a way. Hope refuses to doubt and trusts in God’s promises, even when no way of fulfillment is humanly imaginable. How was it that even when God’s promises seem further and further off, he grew strong in faith.
Hebrews 11:1 [11:1]Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (ESV)
Paul says that Abraham’s hope was gave glory to God. Godly hope glorifies God; the One who gives faith receives all the credit. Faith in God, because it affirms His trustworthy character, is the supreme way that people glorify Him, while without faith, any attempt to worship, praise, or honor Him is a worthless, self-righteous sham.
Abraham’s hope was shown because he was fully persuaded that God’s promise was certain and His power sufficient, because he was, as Paul states in Romans 4:21, fully convinced/assured that God was able to do what He had promised. Trusting in a person’s promises requires believing he has not only the power to keep them, but also the will to do so. I.e., “behind all promises lies the character of the person who makes them”. Though it is not explicitly stated in this verse, it is implied that Abraham was fully persuaded not only that God could keep his promises because of his power, but also that he would keep them because of his faithfulness (Cottrell, J. (1996-). Romans : Volume 1. College Press NIV commentary (Ro 4:21). Joplin, Mo.: College Press Pub. Co.).
God is able to bring to pass anything that is consistent with his nature and in concert with his redemptive purposes (Mounce, R. H. (2001). Vol. 27: Romans (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (130). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.).
• The question is: how big is your God? The answer to that question will determine how big your hope is. Is your god only the god of the everyday, simply maintaining the status quo? Or is your God, the sovereign God of the universe who delights to show people that everyday He accomplishes the humanly impossible to show that with God, all things are possible (cf. Matt 19:26).
Abraham’s Hope was not simply a form of fatalistic passivity (“let’s see what happens”), nor a fearful reliance on the goodness of some blind providence. It was confidence in God, a positive acknowledgment of God’s power as creator, a calm certainty that God had made known to Abraham his purpose and could be relied on to perform it without further question or condition (Dunn, J. D. G. (2002). Vol. 38A: Word Biblical Commentary : Romans 1-8. Word Biblical Commentary (239). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.)
The heart of this entire passage, in fact of the whole chapter, is that in response to Abraham’s faith, Paul says in Romans 4:22, God graciously counted/reckoned it to him as righteousness. In his sinful flesh, Abraham was totally unable to meet God’s standard of perfect righteousness. But the good news of salvation, “the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1), is that the Lord will take the faith that He Himself has enabled a person to possess and count that faith as divine righteousness on the believing sinner’s behalf.
It is not that faith merits salvation but that faith accepts salvation from God’s gracious hand. Through that acceptance comes the righteousness that only God can impart.
Illustration: We can learn something about hope from fishermen. In Pavlov’s Trout, Paul Quinnett writes: "It is better to fish hopefully than to catch fish. Fishing is hope experienced. To be optimistic in a slow bite is to thrive on hope alone. When asked, “How can you fish all day without a hit?” the true fisherman replies, “Hold it! I think I felt something.” If the line goes slack, he says, “He’ll be back!” (Larson, C. B. (2002). 750 engaging illustrations for preachers, teachers & writers (252). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.).
The Christian life is hope experienced. A hopeless Christian is a contradiction in terms, for a Christian has Christ’s righteousness counted to them which means believers have the assurance of hope.
3) The Application of Biblical Hope (Romans 4:23–25)
Romans 4:23-25 [23]But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, [24]but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, [25]who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. (ESV)
Please turn to Psalm 78
The marvelous thing about Abraham’s faith being reckoned as righteousness is that the same divine principle applies to every person who trusts in God’s Son. The Holy Spirit inspired that truth to be written …[24] for our sake also. It will be counted/reckoned to us also just as it was for Abraham.
No part of Scripture was given only for the time in which it was written. We are to have hope in God through reading and hearing His works in Scripture:
Psalm 78:5-7 [5]He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, [6]that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, [7]so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; (ESV) (cf. 1 Cor. 10:11)
• Notice how this hope is not just wishful thinking, but active obedience that proceeds from faith.
Paul expresses the same truth later in the book of Romans:
Romans 15:4 [4]For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (ESV)
From the human side, the key phrase in Romans 4:24 that it will be counted to us who believe in Him. Faith is the necessary condition for salvation. As the eleventh chapter of Hebrews makes clear, the only persons who have ever been received by God are those who have received Him by faith. That the counting to us will be in a future tense points to the eschatological aspect of justification. In one sense believers are justified now; they have received right standing with God and this is their present possession. From another point of view the consummation waits till Judgment Day and thus may be referred to as still future (Morris, L. (1988). The Epistle to the Romans (214). Grand Rapids, Mich.; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press.).
If, despite his limited revelation, Abraham could have hope though God’s promises to anticipate the Savior and believe that God could raise the dead, how much more reason do people today have to believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord. Those who believe “in Him will not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16)
Romans 4:25 concludes with the marvelous that that Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses/because of our transgression, and raised for our justification.
The Greek noun for justification is derived from the Greek verb dikaioō, meaning “to acquit” or “to declare righteous” (used by Paul in 4:2, 5; 5:1). It is a legal term used of a favorable verdict in a trial. The word depicts a courtroom setting, with God presiding as the Judge, determining the faithfulness of each person to the Law. In the first section of Romans, Paul makes it clear that no one can withstand God’s judgment (3:9–20). The Law was not given to justify sinners but to expose their sin. To remedy this deplorable situation, God sent His Son to die for our sins, in our place. When we believe in Jesus, God imputes His righteousness to us, and we are declared righteous before God. In this way, God demonstrates that He is both a righteous Judge and the One who declares us righteous, our Justifier (3:26) (Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1999). Nelson’s new illustrated Bible commentary (Ro 4:23–24). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.).
Delivered up was a judicial term, referring to the commitment of a criminal to his punishment. Jesus Christ was delivered up to serve the sentence of death that our trespasses/ transgressions deserve, and He was raised up to provide the justification before God that we could never attain in our own power or merit. In the first instance, our trespasses/ transgressions were the problem that needed to be dealt with. In the second instance, our justification is the result that is assured by Christ’s resurrection. There could have been no justification if Christ had remained in the tomb. But the fact that He rose tells us that the work is finished, the price has been paid, and God is infinitely satisfied with the sin-atoning work of the Savior (MacDonald, W., & Farstad, A. (1997). Believer’s Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments (Ro 4:25). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.).
(Format Note: Some base commentary from MacArthur, J. (1996). Romans (266–269). Chicago: Moody Press).
