One of the challenges of Romans is that it was written by a man who was essentially a Jewish rabbi before he came to Christ. Then after he surrendered to Him (Acts 22:12-16), he had countless discussions with Jewish people about how Jesus was the fulfillment of everything God had promised through the prophets (26:22-23). When you have repeated discussions about something you’re passionate about, you not only know your material by heart—in your enthusiasm and eagerness you sometimes skip from your first point to your fourth point. We’ve all done this and Paul does it in Romans. I doubt that it bothered his original audience much, but to us it is a reminder that (as with the rest of the Scripture), Romans was written for us but it was not written to us. We’re reading someone else’s mail!
One point that isn’t clear is exactly why Abraham is brought into his discussion of redemption. There are a few possibilities. One is that in terms of human history, God’s promise to Abraham represented the initial spelling out of salvation (Genesis 12:2-3), so bringing the patriarch in here makes sense in that regard.
But there seems to be something else going on as well. God’s promise to Abraham also represented the beginning of the demarcation of the Jewish people from the rest of the world. For that reason, you could view him as a polarizing, divisive figure. Since one of Paul’s purposes in writing Romans was to promote the unity of all believers there (Jews and Gentiles), bringing Abraham into the discussion provides him with the opportunity to flip Abraham’s narrative in that regard. With that in mind, chapter 4 is call for radical rethinking on the part of Jewish people in terms of their understanding of Abraham.
Toward that end, Paul opens chapter four with a question that N.T. Wright paraphrases as, “Have we found Abraham to be our ancestor according to the flesh?” Hays offers something similar, “What shall we say then? Have we found Abraham (to be) our forefather according to the flesh?” Looking at the verse this way, the question becomes one of heritage—how should we relate to Abraham? Is it something only Jewish people can do because it is through the flesh, or is it something more?
Throughout his countless discussions Paul would have told people how Jews and Gentiles were one in Christ (Galatians 3:26-28). He now uses Abraham to show how this truth of how oneness was embedded in his justification (Romans 4:3, 9-12). By doing so, Paul answers his question of 4:1 about the true basis for relating to Abraham—it is a spiritual heritage of faith rather than a physical heritage of the flesh.
In making his case, Paul strips away any misunderstandings about Abraham’s status with God and shows how it was independent of anything related to the Jewish covenant that came later through Moses. This all connects with his reference to the folly of boasting in the verses immediately preceding his introduction of Abraham (3:27-31. Boasting in this part of Romans is something linked to Jewish national identity (2:17,23,3:27). In the first century Jewish mind, if anyone could boast before God, it would be Abraham. But if he couldn’t boast, then some radical rethinking was in order. And that’s exactly why Paul introduces Abraham in Romans 4.
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 