In Roman’s 4:1-3 Paul says that Abraham was a “good man”, you will see that as you read about him in Genesis. He trusted God to lead him out of his home country to one that God would show him. Over and over again we see that Abraham was a man of “good works,” and Paul doesn’t dispute that. Instead Paul says that those “good works” were not what caused God to declare him of value. Most folks learn early on like Abraham that a way of gaining a sense of significance and self-worth is “performance”. If you perform at your word or above expectation you will be highly regarded by our peers. And clearly Abraham could boast about his good works before his fellow man. Ah but it doesn’t work that way with God as He is never impressed by our outward performance because He isn’t limited by what we humans see as He looks beyond the action to the heart. He sees the selfishness and self-centeredness behind our actions. He sees all the maneuvering and manipulation in what we do to get what we want.
Paul says Abraham could brag some to us but not before God! When did Abraham realize that his self worth wasn’t based upon his good works? Well in Gen. 15:5, God showed Abraham the stars in the sky and said, “Even if you could count all those stars, you still wouldn’t be able to count how many descendants you will have.” God spoke this to a man who didn’t have any children and he and his wife Sarah were well past the age of being able to produce children. And Abraham simply believed God and it was accounted to him as “self worth”.
Just by believing God’s blessing he had self-worth, he hadn’t done anything to have God say that, there was no condition made upon that statement by God, and it was his by faith. Based upon Paul’s words to the Galatians God had made it clear to Abraham that He was talking to him about His Son Jesus and that through Him not only would Abraham have earthly descendants he would have spiritual ones as well. That is what Jesus told the religious leaders in John 8:39, 56 who claimed that a heritage to Abraham when He said “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing My day and he saw it and was glad.” James also uses this section in Genesis and adds that he was called God’s friend not because of the way he behaved but because of the way he believed!
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