Romans 4:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Do you see that faith not only establishes the law, but also makes God’s promise immutable? The law, when kept out of season, does the opposite: it abolishes faith and hinders the promise.

By this the Apostle proves that faith is not only not superfluous, but so necessary that without it one cannot be saved. For the law produces wrath, because all transgressed it. Faith does not even leave room for wrath to arise. “For where there is no law,” says the Apostle, “there is no transgression” (Rom 4:15).

Do you see how faith not only destroys sin already committed, but does not allow it to be born? Therefore the Apostle says, “according to grace.” Why? Not in order to shame us, but “so that the promise might be sure to all the seed.”

Since the law produces wrath, it is said that Abraham was justified and became heir by faith, so that everything might be according to grace. And why is grace necessary? So that the promise may be immutable. For grace, unlike the law, has no transgression, so that what is given should be unstable.

Since everything comes by the grace and mercy of God, what is given is rightly immutable for all of us, that is, for all believers. It is not for those only who are of the law, that is, the circumcised, but also for those who are not circumcised, who are the seed of Abraham born according to faith.

Paul says somewhere concerning our forefather Abraham: “who is the father of us all, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations,’ before God in Whom he believed, Who gives life to the dead.”

Therefore, when God is called the One Who gives life to the dead, and when the Son then says, “I am the life” (Jn 14:6), and also, “He who believes in Me has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 5:36), and again. “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11:25), who, if he has understanding, will not agree that He is the true and most genuine Offspring of the Father’s essence, bearing in Himself all the properties of Him Who begot Him?

And if this is so, then He Who is from God is God, and not a creature or a created thing.

As the law was useful in the time of weakness, so now it is harmful. For faith has come, which justified Abraham before the law. “Therefore,” he says, “not by works, but by faith, so that grace might be firm” in all generations. This is not only among those who are of the law, that is, not among the Jews only, but also among the Gentiles, who are of the faith of our father Abraham.

“He,” as it is written, “is the father of many nations,” all who believe, as you do, “in God, Who gives life to the dead and calls the things that do not exist as though they existed” (Gen 15; Gen 17). As He called Isaac into being from what did not exist, so He also took him away from the altar (Gen 17:5; Gen 22:1).

The promise cannot be “sure” for every seed, that is, for every person from every nation, unless it is according to faith. For the beginning of the promise comes from faith, not from the law, since those under the law are guilty.

The promise cannot be given to the guilty. Therefore people must first be cleansed by faith, so that they may be worthy to be called sons of God and so that the promise may be sure.

But if, while guilty, that is, under the law, they call themselves sons of God, then the promise is not sure. For the sons of God are free from sin. Therefore those under the law must be torn away from under the law, so that they may be counted worthy to receive the promise. How much more those who are not under the law!

The Apostle cut short the pride of the Jews by calling those who imitate Abraham's faith the seed of Abraham, even though they are foreigners by birth. If the law punishes transgressors, while grace grants remission of sins, then grace makes God's promise firm by bestowing blessing on the nations. But since he called Abraham the father of both Gentiles and Jews, he confirms this word by the testimony of Scripture.

See verse 15. "For this reason it is from faith." The Apostle returns to his proposition (Rom. 4:13), that the promise was not given by the Law. "To that which is of the faith of Abraham." If only the Law gave descendants to Abraham, then God's promise to Abraham, that he would be the father of many nations, would not have been fulfilled.

The Apostle then sets forth, in the form of a dilemma, that Abraham could not have obtained the promise of being heir of the world otherwise than through the righteousness of faith.

Indeed, this great promise could be received either through faith or through fulfillment of the law. But “the law produces wrath, for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith,” the Apostle concludes, “that it might be according to mercy” (Rom 4:15-16).

By this very mercy the immutability of God’s promise is secured for all “the seed of Abraham according to faith, who is the father of us all” (Rom 4:16).

Having stated the conclusion concerning the reception of the promise by faith, the Apostle draws a further conclusion from it. All Abraham’s posterity that became heir of this promise was the fruit of faith. He points out that, at the very conclusion of the covenant, Abraham was promised that he would be father of many nations (Gen 17:5).

According to John Chrysostom, “as God is our Father not by natural kinship, but by the bond of faith, so also is Abraham, for obedience makes him father of us all. And since the Jews paid no attention to this kinship, clinging to the coarser natural one, the Apostle proves, through applying Abraham to God, that kinship by faith is far more important...”

Above he said and proved that whoever asserts that those who are of the law are heirs (cf. Rom 4:14) destroys the promise. Now he concludes: if the law does not allow the promise to be fulfilled, then one must necessarily turn to faith. Therefore it is of faith, that is, those who are of faith are heirs.

This conclusion is fully determined by the preceding proposition, that under the law it is impossible for the promise to be fulfilled. If this is so, he says, then it is self-evident that only those who are of faith are heirs. But Saint Paul, wishing to implant this more deeply, also shows how certain the fulfillment of the promise is under faith.