Abraham’s Gift to Us
I was looking in my computer files for these Lenten Devotionals and saw that I have been undertaking this privilege for many years. This passage, however, is one of the most challenging, yet encouraging passages that I have ever pondered. The simple message is that our faith in God through Jesus Christ is a wonderful gift, not something we need to do anything to receive.
Let’s unpack that gift. The promise to Abraham and followers is not through the law, that is rules and regulations for living, but through what the writer names as “the righteousness of faith”. It doesn’t mean that there are no rules for living, because “where there is no law, neither is there transgression.” I think he’s saying that we need both law/rules for behaviour AND faith. This makes sense to me. As an on-call classroom teacher, it is clearly evident when the classroom has clear expectations and rules, but it is also clear when students are trusted and cared for – treated with faith in good behaviour, and the rules are then adhered to by the students with a greater sense of joy.
The key phrase in the whole passage is “The righteousness of faith”, the concept of which was confusing to me, despite a life-long connection to the faith community, so I checked out some references. Looking up the word “righteousness”, I found the following definitions,
Oxford dictionary: “The quality of being morally right or justifiable.”
Merriam-Webster: “Acting in accord with divine or moral law: free from guilt or sin”
Cambridge: “Morally correct behaviour, or a feeling that you are behaving in a morally correct way.”
Wikipedia: “Righteousness or Rectitude is the quality or state of being morally correct and justifiable.”
OK, but this was not elucidating this concept for the passage fully for me, so I explored a little more and found a summary, by Kevin Watson from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, of a sermon by John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist tradition, which is one of the founding denominations of the United Church of Canada. It was a comprehensive summary, but the lines that caught my attention were,
6. The righteousness of faith is the new covenant which God has established with sinful people through Christ.
7. By righteousness of faith is meant the condition of justification which was given by God to fallen people through the merits and mediation of his only begotten Son.
8. The covenant does not say to sinful people, perform unsinning obedience and live.
9. The covenant says: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
Moving on, the passage says, “For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham.” This section makes me wonder how we can have had the Holocaust and the terrible anti-Semitic actions we hear about on the news these days - slaughtering those who share our inheritance. Next, the writer carries on with the ideas of “Hoping against hope”. We all ‘hope against hope’ when things are tough in our lives, such as when we get the frightening health diagnosis, the natural or human-caused natural disaster, the accident, etc. Yet Abraham believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” even when he was childless and had an aging body “which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of (his wife) Sarah’s womb.” Like Abraham, we are being asked to bring our weaknesses, not just our strengths, to our faith journey.
What is the final message? I believe that the writer is encouraging us to use the example of Abraham’s astounding faith to receive the wonderful grace that is given to us in Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God through Jesus!
Help us, O God, to have the solid faith of Abraham as we receive the grace you share with us through the life and sacrifice of Jesus, our Saviour. Amen
Barbara Fraser Tilley