Romans 4:9-12 (NIV)
Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
Paul is referring back to the law, all the way back to Abraham, to show that justification by faith is not new, and is not contrary to what God handed down in the law. As he had just shown, Abraham was declared righteous through faith, not through works of the law. (This is especially true since the vast majority of the law was given more than 400 years in the future!)
Paul’s simple question was, can uncircumcised people be declared righteous by faith alone, or, as the Judaizers taught, can only circumcised people effectively exercise that kind of faith? Again, he points to Abraham. Was Abraham circumcised when he was declared righteous nor not? The answer was that he was uncircumcised. The ritual of circumcision wasn’t given to Abraham until many years later. Paul’s inference was very clear, and very simply presented. If Abraham himself was justified by faith while still uncircumcised, how can anyone say that a person must be circumcised before they can be justified by faith? How can they say that those gentiles who had come to believe in Jesus had an illegitimate faith that could only become real if they were willing to submit to circumcision?
Paul’s conclusion is that, because of the order in which God did things with Abraham, he was able to be the spiritual father of the circumcised, whose circumcision had become a sign and seal of the faith that they now possessed. But He was also the father of the uncircumcised, who lacked that sign in the flesh, but who were still justified by the kind of faith that Abraham demonstrated and had been justified by when he had yet to be circumcised.
Father, this makes it all very clear. The Judaizers were getting wrapped around the axle on something that, in Your sight, was a non-issue. The Jews were circumcised as infants, a sign of Your old covenant with them as a people. But it was not that circumcision that now saved them; it was faith in Jesus. The gentiles were not circumcised, because they had not part in the old covenant. But, through faith in Jesus, they were now part of Your new covenant, and they were genuinely saved, genuinely justified, and genuinely declared righteous by the same faith that saved the Jewish believers. Lord, when I am sharing Your good news, help me to keep it as simple as You have made it, so that I don’t block off the way with unnecessary challenges and requirements. Amen.