Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
Against Hope, in Hope
Romans 4:18-22
18 Against hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.” · WEB
Abraham's faith is described as clear-eyed rather than naive — the facts fully considered, and God weighed as heavier.
Against hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, "So will your offspring be."
The phrase is a deliberate paradox: against hope, in hope. Every ground for expecting the promise was gone — that is against hope — and he believed anyway, not by ignoring the grounds but by hoping on a different foundation: that which had been spoken. The quotation is the night under the stars Genesis 15:5; what Abraham had was a sentence, and the sentence outweighed the situation.
Verse 19 makes the clear-eyedness explicit, and it matters for everything this chapter teaches about faith: without being weakened in faith, he didn't consider his own body, already having been worn out, (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb.
The facts are stated at their worst — the text says deadness, and Paul chose the word to echo the God-description just given: the God who gives life to the dead Romans 4:17. Faith here is not optimism, not a refusal to look. Abraham looked at a dead situation and a living God and did the arithmetic. Biblical faith is never the denial of the diagnosis; it is the refusal to let the diagnosis have the last word when God has spoken a later one.
Verse 20 describes the believing as a strengthening rather than a struggle survived: looking to the promise of God, he didn't waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God. The last clause quietly closes a circuit the letter opened in chapter 1: mankind's primal failure was refusing to glorify God and give thanks Romans 1:21. Abraham, trusting a promise against all appearances, gives God the glory the race withheld — faith is the first worship, the creature finally treating the Creator as true.
And verse 21 defines the faith exactly: being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. Two convictions — he promised, he is able — and nothing else. Not confidence in the outcome's plausibility; confidence in the promiser's competence.
Therefore it also was "credited to him for righteousness" Romans 4:22. The therefore seals the chapter's case: this — trust in the God who speaks and can perform — is the thing God counts.
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