Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
Heir of the World
Romans 4:13-17
13 For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. · WEB
Promise and law are shown to be different instruments, and the inheritance runs on faith so that it can run on grace — and so be sure.
For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be heir of the world wasn't through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
The scope first: heir of the world. Genesis promised Abraham a land; Paul states the promise at its full maturity — through his offspring, blessing to all families of earth, the meek inheriting not Canaan but the earth. Then the instrument: the promise did not come through the law — it could not have; the law arrived centuries later — but through faith's righteousness, the crediting of Genesis 15.
Verse 14 states the incompatibility as a destruction in both directions: if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect. Law and promise are different kinds of instrument. A promise depends on the promiser; a law depends on the performer. Route the inheritance through performance, and promising becomes meaningless — the outcome now rides on the very party whose failure the last three chapters documented.
And verse 15 says what the law, routed that way, actually produces: the law produces wrath; for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience. Not sin — sin exists without the statute Romans 5:13 — but disobedience, transgression: sin with a posted notice, defiance made measurable. A promise administered by law would be a promise administered by an instrument that can only convict its beneficiaries.
So verse 16 gives the design and its logic, in the letter's tightest chain: for this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring.
Of faith, therefore according to grace, therefore sure. The inheritance runs on faith precisely so that it can run on grace, and it runs on grace precisely so that it can be guaranteed — resting on the character of the one who promised rather than the performance of those who receive Romans 4:21. And sure to all the offspring — the law-family and the faith-family both, with Abraham the father of us all.
The paragraph closes by naming the God this arrangement requires: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were Romans 4:17. A promise this large is only sure if the promiser can raise the dead and summon nonexistence. The next verses show Abraham discovering exactly that.
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