Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
Written Also for Us
Romans 4:23-25
23 Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, · WEB
The Genesis sentence is declared to have been written for the letter's readers, and the chapter ends in a two-line creed.
Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, but for our sake also.
The hermeneutical claim is explicit: Genesis 15:6 was recorded with future readers in view. Scripture's histories are not archives; they are addressed Romans 15:4. The sentence about Abraham's crediting was written down for us — the accounting it describes was never a one-man arrangement but the standing pattern, waiting on the page for every reader who would need it.
And the transfer condition is stated: to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead Romans 4:24.
The description of God is chosen with the whole chapter behind it. Abraham believed the God who gives life to the dead Romans 4:17 and proved it over a worn-out body and a dead womb; the reader believes the same God, whose life-from-the-dead act is now historical and public — he raised Jesus our Lord. The faith is continuous; only the tense of the resurrection has changed. Abraham trusted it forward; the church trusts it backward; the object is one God with one signature act.
Then the chapter closes in what reads like a fragment of the church's earliest confession, two clauses in strict parallel: who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification Romans 4:25.
Delivered up — the verb of Isaiah's servant, handed over; and the passive quietly names the actor the letter has already shown setting forth his Son Romans 3:25. For our trespasses: the death answers to the debit side of the ledger this chapter has been keeping.
And raised for our justification — the clause that binds the empty tomb into the doctrine. The resurrection is not an epilogue to atonement; it is the public entry of the acquittal — the demonstration that the payment stood, the surety released, the verdict published. A dead Christ could leave the account forever ambiguous; the raised Lord is the receipt. Which is why the letter's confession of saving faith will name exactly this: believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved Romans 10:9 — and why the next chapter can open with a settled verdict: being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God Romans 5:1.
settled What this mark means