Reckoned Righteous

Abraham Trusted God About an Empty Womb. Will You Trust Him About an Empty Tomb? A Meditation on Romans 4:1–25

Pastor Zach Terry
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The Germans have a word for it: Turmerlebnis — the Tower Experience. It was the word Martin Luther used to describe the marvelous change that took place in the deepest part of his soul. This most fervent of the Augustinian monks, there in the monastery at Wittenberg, was haunted by the certainty that one day he must stand before a holy God and answer for his sin. He could not sleep. He fasted. He prayed. He wiped the sweat from his brow as he counted bead after bead, hoping somehow to make penance.

And it was not some dark, hideous crime that tormented him. His confessor often grew frustrated at how frequently Luther returned to seek absolution for the most minor infractions. No, it was the presence of sin itself — the stain that would not wash away no matter how persistent the ritual. Centuries later Shakespeare would capture that same incessant haunting in Lady Macbeth, who, for all her washing, could not remove the stain of her guilt.

It was the very book open before us today that made Luther tremble. Paul’s letter to the Romans had spent three chapters shining the light of truth on the soul of every individual, naming the sin that must be accounted for, reminding Luther — and reminding us — that there is no remedy in religious acts performed, and that ignorance of the law is no excuse, for both nature and conscience bear witness to our guilt.

Then Luther set his eyes on Romans 1:17 — “The righteous shall live by faith.” By faith. Not works, not ritual, not religion. Faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. How had he missed it all these years? And once he saw it, it seemed to shine from every page of Scripture. The soul that had been tossed to and fro, shaken in the tremors of fear and doubt, suddenly grew as still and quiet as a dove. By faith, he rested.

“This truth is not transactive — something you earn for doing God the favor of showing up. It is transformative. Once you see it, you will never read the text the same way again.”

One Stubborn Word

Romans 3 had ended with a question: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Romans 3:31, ESV). In other words — Paul, isn’t this idea that a man could be made right with God by simple faith an entirely new invention? Something foreign to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Paul, a rabbi trained under the most prominent Torah scholar of his day, Gamaliel, answers: not at all. The salvation he preaches — by faith alone — is the very same thing that justified the patriarchs of old. Romans 4 is, in essence, Paul’s exposition of Moses’ words in Genesis 15.

Watch how he makes the case. Ancient languages lacked the bold type and italics we use to mark emphasis, so they leaned on repetition. Eleven times in twenty-five verses Paul reaches for one Greek word: logizomai. It is the same word from which we get the old English gerecenian and our modern word reckoning — and it means the same in both tongues: to set the accounts in order. Eleven times in twenty-five verses, like the stubborn thump of a drumbeat. Surely he is trying to tell us something. If you are to be righteous before a holy God, you must be reckoned righteous — not because you have behaved better than the man next to you, but because, by grace through faith alone, God has balanced a ledger on which your column stood at a hopeless deficit.

Justification Evidenced

Like any good rabbi, Paul grounds his argument in Abraham — the supposed supreme exemplar of obedience. “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God” (Romans 4:2, ESV). The Talmud claimed Abraham kept the whole law before it was even given. “How did Abraham please God?” the rabbi would ask. “By observing the law.” “But the law had not yet been given!” a sharp student would object. “Ah,” the rabbi would answer, “he must have had a private revelation.”

But anyone who has actually read Genesis must object. Abraham was no angel. Told to leave his father, he dragged his father as far as Haran and his nephew Lot all the way to the edge of Sodom — and partial obedience is nothing short of disobedience. While waiting on the promised child, he took Hagar into his arms and fathered Ishmael, then sent mother and son away at his wife’s prodding. Twice, out of fear, he handed Sarah into the arms of another man and called her his sister. Could Abraham boast of righteousness? On a human level, measured against other men, perhaps. Before history? Maybe. But before God? Not at all.

Paul has already declared boasting anathema to the gospel. In Romans 3:27 he asked, “Then what becomes of our boasting?” and answered, “It is excluded” — shut out, locked out, barred from entry. Boasting is not merely discouraged in the gospel; it is locked out of it. There is a sign on the door of heaven, friend, and it does not read “No Trespassing.” It reads “No Bragging.” Salvation requires the complete liquidation of every personal accomplishment. Campus Crusade used to teach us to ask a single diagnostic question: if God asked you, “Why should I let you into heaven?” what would you say? If your answer contains even the slightest accomplishment, you have revealed that you do not yet understand the gospel.

The Womb and the Tomb

Then Paul quotes the hinge of the whole chapter: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3, ESV; Genesis 15:6). Notice — it does not merely say Abraham believed in the Lord, though of course he did. It says Abraham believed God. Believed Him about what? Context is king. The occasion was the night God led Abraham outside, told him to number the stars if he could, and said, “So shall your offspring be.” Abraham — about eighty-five — and Sarah — about seventy-five — were promised descendants to rival the stars. And there were two quiet problems with that promise: a man of Abraham’s age had lost his vigor, and Sarah’s womb had never once borne a child.

So someone asks: Pastor, you tell us week after week that we must believe in the person and work of Jesus to be saved — but the Lord said nothing to Abraham of a coming Messiah, of a cross, of an empty tomb. What exactly was Abraham believing that saved him? Here is the answer, and it is glorious: it is not the content of his faith that saved him, but the object of his faith. Abraham believed the Lord concerning the womb; we believe the Lord concerning the tomb — but in both cases it is the Lord we believe. And did the one not produce the other? The womb God awakened in Sarah brought forth Isaac, whose line would one day produce a true and better Isaac, the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Abraham, looking forward, believed God about an empty womb. We, looking backward, believe God about an empty tomb. It is the same faith — and it reckons us righteous.”

So there are not two faiths — one of works that saved Abraham, and some new thing Paul invented. There is one faith. The same faith that saved Abraham saves you. And that faith receives a gift, not a wage. “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due” (Romans 4:4, ESV). I pay my assistant a more-than-fair wage, deposited into her account every two weeks. Not once has she sent me a thank-you card marveling at how thoughtful it was of me to arrange the deposit — and she shouldn’t, because that is not a gift. It is her wage, her due. Salvation is not like that. It is not a wage for services rendered to the Lord. It is a gift — and we would do well to give thanks for it. Paul calls up a second witness, David, who sings of the same blessing: the man whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sin the Lord will not count against him (Romans 4:6–8).

Justification Extended

Then Paul anticipates the objection: “All well and good, Paul — but what about circumcision? Shouldn’t these Gentiles first become Jews before they can really become Christians?” You can almost hear the Gentile believers holding their breath. And Paul refuses to give an inch. Abraham was justified in Genesis 15; he was not circumcised until Genesis 17 — somewhere between thirteen and thirty years later. The point is devastating to anyone tempted to think the ritual contributes to salvation. Abraham was a Gentile when God justified him. Abraham was uncircumcised when God justified him.

Circumcision, Paul says, was a seal — hot wax pressed with a signet to mark ownership, an outward sign that the man already belonged to the covenant. That is what circumcision was, and that is what baptism is. This is one of many reasons we do not believe in baptismal regeneration: baptism can no more save a Gentile than circumcision could save a Jew. Neither can walking a church aisle, filling out a card, reciting a prayer, or taking communion. We are saved by faith apart from works — and the sign always follows the reality it signifies.

Paul presses further: the promise came to Abraham four hundred and thirty years before Moses stood on Sinai. The fulfillment never depended on Abraham’s behavior, but on Abraham’s faith. We once told each of our children that when they turned ten we would take them to New York City and show them the sights. We made that promise long before we reckoned the cost of flying three people to Manhattan on the salary of a Baptist pastor and a homeschooling mom. But when each one turned ten, we could not say, “We’d keep our promise if only you had cleaned your room.” There were no conditions. It was a promise of grace. So it is with the gospel: you are called simply to believe that Jesus is enough, and you are justified on the basis of that faith.

Justification Embraced

And so the promise runs to everyone. It rests on grace and is “guaranteed to all his offspring … who is the father of us all” (Romans 4:16–17, ESV). No matter your lineage, no matter your DNA, no matter the color of your skin — Abraham’s faith may be your faith. And it is a faith embraced against the evidence. “In hope he believed against hope” (Romans 4:18, ESV). Abraham did not pretend the facts away by some godless logic. He considered his own body, as good as dead, and Sarah’s barren womb — and then he simply accounted for God in his reckoning, the God who makes all things from nothing. “No unbelief made him waver … but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20–21, ESV).

“Abraham trusted God regarding an empty womb. Will you trust God regarding an empty tomb?”

Because here is where Paul lands the whole argument: “the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:23–25, ESV). Do you believe that?

Will You Draw From the Fountain?

I leave you with the great line of John Calvin, that prince of the Reformation: “Christ is, as it were, a fountain, open to us, from which we may draw what otherwise would lie unprofitably hidden in that deep and secret spring which rises up in the person of the Father.” Abraham reached down into that fountain four thousand years ago and drew up righteousness. David reached down into it three thousand years ago and drew up forgiveness. Paul reached into it on the Damascus Road. Martin Luther reached into it in the Tower of Wittenberg. I reached into it as a young man in Florence, Alabama. And this morning, the same fountain stands open. Will you not draw from it yourself, and drink of the waters of life freely?

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Keep Going Deeper

If this meditation stirred something in you, would you share it with one person who is still trying to balance their own ledger? For more sermons, articles, and resources, visit ZachTerry.com.

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Pastor Zach Terry serves as the senior pastor of First Baptist Church Fernandina Beach and is the host of the CodeRed Talk podcast.