Father of All Who Believe

Faith, Promise, and Life from the Dead · Romans 4

Story guide: Disclosed visual essay. Faith was credited before circumcision; the sign later sealed what faith had already received. Abraham therefore fathers both circumcised and uncircumcised believers, and the promise comes through faith so that it rests on grace.

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9Is this blessing, then, for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say, “Faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.”

10How then was it counted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.

11And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of the faith that he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe while uncircumcised, so that righteousness might be counted to them also,

12and the father of circumcision to those who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had while uncircumcised.

13For the promise to Abraham or to his offspring that he would be heir of the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

14For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been emptied and the promise has been nullified.

15For the law produces wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.

16For this reason it is by faith, so that it may be according to grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the offspring—not only to those from the law, but also to those of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

17as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as though they were.

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