"No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God"

A closer look at Romans 4:20.

Introduction

God made a promise to Abraham.

In Genesis 12 we are told that God called Abraham (then called Abram) out of his homeland and gave him this promise:

² “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” - Genesis 12:2 (ESV)

But things did not happen right away and Abraham was concerned because he was old and had not produced an heir. He had legitimate questions about how God would “make of you a great nation” and “make your name great.”

Photo by marcos mayer on Unsplash

God answered these concerns in a vision given to Abraham and recorded in Genesis 15:

¹ After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” ² But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” ⁴ And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” - Genesis 15:1-4 (ESV)

God addressed Abraham’s concerns. His legacy would not be one that ran its course through “a member of my household,” but would instead run through his “very own son.” God was going to give Abraham an heir and He was going to keep His promises.

He then took Abraham outside and told him this:

⁵ And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” - Genesis 15:5 (ESV)

God told Abraham a number of things - He made promises to Him - and we discussed these in a previous article:

• “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield”

• “Your reward shall be very great”

• “Your very own son shall be your heir”

• “Number the stars…so shall your offspring be”

God made promises and it was up to Abraham to respond.

What was the response?

⁶ And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. - Genesis 15:6 (ESV)

Abraham heard the things that God told him and he believed them. He didn’t just agree with the things said, or just acknowledged that the things had been told to him. No, he placed all of the weight of his trust into these promises.

He believed God, and God counted it to him as righteousness.

Because he believed God, he was saved. He entered into an eternal relationship with God. He became one of God’s children. Abraham trusted God’s promises and God’s righteousness - which would later be worked out by Jesus Christ - was applied to Abraham.

This truth is so powerful that this verse - Genesis 15:6 - is referenced on five other occasions in Scripture. (See a list by clicking here.) One of those times is in Romans 4, a section of the Bible in which the Apostle Paul is explaining being right before God by faith and not by works. As part of the explanation he is providing, we are provided with today’s verse:

²⁰ No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. - Romans 4:20 (ESV)

“No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise God”

We noted above some of the promises of God given to Abraham in the book of Genesis:

• “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield”

• “Your reward shall be very great”

• “Your very own son shall be your heir”

• “Number the stars…so shall your offspring be”

And we we already know Abraham’s response to these things: He believed!

He did not just acknowledge or comprehend what God said, He believed it with all of his heart. His life was transformed. He responded to God by faith. Paul describes this response as, “no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God.”

Practically speaking, Abraham’s response to God’s promise of an heir was to begin having marital relations with his wife Sarah (then Sarai) - even though he was a very old man. He was old and she was old, but their response was to do the things that led to having a child.

Abraham did not always do the right thing. He was not a perfect man. But he did not waver or wander away from God’s promises. He may have had questions of God, but he did not have doubt. God had spoken to him and he believed God with all that he had.

“But he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God”

God’s promises to Abraham were not fulfilled immediately.

Sarah did not immediately become pregnant.

Abraham continued to grow old.

He made some mistakes.

“But he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.”

After some amount of time, after Sarah didn’t become pregnant, she talked Abraham into lying with her servant Hagar. She bore a son, Ishmael, when Abraham was 86. That decision has brought thousands of years of strife to the Middle East.

Later, when Abraham was 99, God visited with him again and the birth of Issac was specifically promised (Genesis 17:15-21). Of course, a year later Issac was born.

Years later, God visited with Abraham again and told him this:

² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” - Genesis 22:2 (ESV)

This was the unthinkable.

The son that God had promised and that Abraham had waited so long to have was now supposed to become a sacrifice to God. But Scripture tells us that the next day, “Abraham rose early in the morning” and proceeded with plans to be obedient to God.

He was asked to do the unthinkable, but he obeyed. And, of course, God provided:

⁹ When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹² He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” ¹³ And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” - Genesis 22:9-14 (ESV)

The sacrifice was made. Abraham used the “ram, caught in a thicket by his horns.” The worship continued and but it was a different experience after God had provided the ram. God had made a way where there seemed to be no way and it had an effect on Abraham. Note what is told to us in the last verse of the section, “So Abraham called the name of that place, ‘The LORD will provide.’”

With this in mind, it is easy to see how Abraham “grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.” He was tested by God. He believed God and obeyed. And on the other side, he gave glory to God by worshiping God with the sacrifice provided by God. And he grew strong in his faith.

Application

The Bible tells us to follow the example of Abraham’s faith. Over and over we are reminded of the fact that “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Abraham trusted God with all and somehow that trust - that God Himself provided - was somehow received by God and God credited back to Abraham a covering of righteousness. Today, we follow the same path as Abraham to have this standard met - a path of faith - but the complete Bible makes the path of faith much clearer to see.

Through the Bible, we understand that God is perfect and that we are not. We know that we sin in all kinds of ways and that our sin separates us from God. We know that we aren’t righteous by nature. Yet God loves us and makes a way for us through His Son Jesus Christ. We owed a debt because of our sin - a debt that we could never pay - and Jesus went to the cross to pay our debt. And the Bible tells us that if we trust in the work of Christ alone to save us from our sins, we are clothed in His righteousness before God:

²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. - 2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

But like Abraham, for most of us, life goes on its course after we believe.

What then?

Well, like Abraham, we are called to grow strong in our faith as we give glory to God.

No matter what is in front of us, we are called to live by faith. We are called not only to trust God for our salvation - the process whereby His righteousness is credited to us - we are also called to obedience. After all, if we hear what God says to us, but don’t obey, we are not really living by faith in Him.

But as we practice obedience we are giving glory to God. We are honoring Him with the lives we are living. And as we do this, we grow strong in our faith.

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