Lesson 8: Abraham Justified by Faith – 4:1-12
 1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?
2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.
5 And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.
10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.
11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well,
12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

In our last lesson we read that true righteousness comes only from God rather than from us in any way. You may ask then, what about the people in the Old Testament who were required to follow the Law? Beginning in this chapter, the apostle Paul tells us that even Abraham was justified by faith rather than by any of his own works. Believing is not a work, it is a trust, an acceptance of Truth.


The people of Israel, when Moses presented God’s Law to them, failed to acknowledge that they could never keep this Law. Exodus 24:3 says the people decided they would try to keep the Law. Later, in Joshua 1:17, the people insisted that they had followed the Law of Moses, forgetting all the times they had disobeyed God. In fact, the entire Old Testament is a study of man’s inability to follow God’s Law. No matter how faithfully they promised God they would obey Him, they continually disobeyed even when God’s punishment for their disobedience caused Him great pain and suffering.

We today, when we choose to follow the Law, do the same things to ourselves – we keep telling ourselves we are doing a good job even though God keeps reminding us of our failure.

In Verse 7 we read Jesus’ blessings for us when our sin is forgiven. God cannot overlook sin. If we insist that we must follow the Law, then we must also have a sacrifice for our sin, there must be blood shed to cover our sin. If we say, then, that Jesus’ blood is the covering for our sin and we continue to try to keep the Law to find righteousness for ourselves, we are deceived. We cannot both work for our righteousness with our own deeds and efforts and accept His payment for our sin.

There is a difference in the good deeds we do now after we have accepted Jesus as our Savior. Ephesians 2:8-10 says we who have been saved by grace are saved for the purpose of doing good deeds which were created for us to do. But these deeds are not to be an effort to be right with God or to gain favor with God; they are deeds of love for Jesus. They are deeds of obedience to Him. In the book of James we read how faith which does not obey Him by doing what He asks of us is not real faith in Jesus. It is the difference in working to make someone love you or working for someone because they love you. When we are confident in His love, we are free to work for Him because He loves us.

*Which way of working for Jesus sets you free?