Posted by Romans on Saturday, 20 June 2015
Romans 4:17
(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
Paul then supported his conclusion in verse 16 with scriptural authority, quoting God’s covenantal promise from Genesis 17:5. The fact that believers in this Church Age are identified with Abraham and God’s covenant with him does not mean that the physical and temporal promises to Abraham and his physical descendants are either spiritualized or abrogated. It simply means that God’s covenant and Abraham’s response of faith to it have spiritual dimensions as well as physical and temporal aspects (cf. comments on Rom. 4:13). The quotation is in effect a parenthesis. Therefore the latter part of verse 17 connects with the close of verse 16: “He is the father of us all . . .” in the sight of God. (The words He is our father are not in the Gr., but are added in the niv for clarification.) God . . . gives life to the dead and calls things that are not (lit., “the nonexisting things”) as though they were (lit., “as existing”).
Identifying God in this way obviously refers to God’s promise in Genesis 17 following the statement quoted above that Abraham and Sarah would have a son of promise when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 (Gen. 17:17, 19; 18:10; 21:5; cf. Rom. 4:19). That he would be the ancestor of many nations seemed impossible in his and Sarah’s childless old age.
