“What does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’”
Romans 4:3 (NIV)
Paul explains justification by faith through the life of Abraham. Let’s see what the scriptures say about him. Abraham believed what God told him, and it was counted to him as righteousness. In Genesis 15, Abraham has no children, but God tells him to count the stars if he can. God was basically saying his descendants will be more than he can count. Abraham believed God, and the Lord credited righteousness to him as a result of his faith in what God had promised.
This is a picture of what faith looks like. It is not confidence in our thoughts, our plans, our wisdom, or our abilities. Faith is based on what God says. There was a massive gap between where Abraham was and what God said. The same is often true in our individual lives. The Scripture says something, and we see something else in our circumstances. Belief in God, faith, comes down to which one we put our confidence in.
Paul shows us that the righteousness of God is received only by faith. The gap between the righteousness we try to accomplish through our works and the righteousness we can have from God is like Abraham having no children, being old, having a barren wife, and yet being told his offspring will be more than he could count. That’s a tremendously big gap.
If we believe that Jesus Christ came and died for us, shed His blood as the perfect and spotless Lamb, that He rose again and now sits at the right hand of the Father, then the righteousness of God is something we can receive. We can be children of faith too. We can be like Abraham and believe the impossible things God says about us if we put all of our confidence and hope in God’s ability, not in our own.