Paul has already shown that Abraham was declared righteous before he was circumcised. Now he presses back to the shape of the promise itself. God told Abraham he would be 13"heir of the world," an inheritance that could never have come through the law, because the law did not exist yet and would not for another four hundred years. It came through the righteousness of faith, and Paul explains why it had to. A promise received by keeping the law puts everything on the receiver's performance. A promise received by faith rests entirely on the one who made it. 16"That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace." Grace and law-keeping cannot share a foundation. One or the other has to hold the whole weight.
Then Paul names the God this promise depends on, and the description is startling. He is the God 17"who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist." Abraham was promised a son as much as an inheritance, and by the time God confirmed the promise, Abraham's own body was, in Paul's blunt phrase, as good as dead, a hundred years old and married to a wife decades past any hope of bearing a child. The promise required exactly the God Paul describes, one who speaks nations into being that do not exist yet and calls a womb to life that has been closed for a lifetime. It required a God who creates out of nothing at all.
18"In hope he believed against hope." Paul lets the paradox stand. Every ordinary measure told Abraham that hope was gone. His own body said so, and so did Sarah's. And still he believed, looking straight at the facts and trusting a word spoken over them that outranked what they said. Paul is explicit that Abraham looked honestly. He considered his own body and considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb, considered both carefully, and believed anyway.
Then the verb Paul reaches for. Abraham 20"grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God." It is passive. The strengthening was something that happened to him, the same passive voice Paul used earlier for a promise counted to Abraham's account. God is the one holding Abraham's faith up from underneath the whole time.
Abraham gave glory to God, 21"fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised." That single word, able, is the hinge the whole passage turns on. It needs no qualification, because the God who calls the nonexistent into existence answers to no circumstances.
Paul will not let this stay a story about someone else's remarkable faith long ago. The words "it was counted to him" were written for our sake also, for everyone who believes in him who 24"raised from the dead Jesus our Lord." A dead womb and a dead body in a tomb call for the same kind of God, and Paul has just shown that God deals in exactly this kind of impossible. Christ was 25"delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification," one mighty act, the same life-giving power Abraham trusted now settled permanently in an empty tomb.
Whatever looks as good as dead in your own life, and something usually does, Abraham's faith was always about who was making the promise. Look at the dead thing honestly, as he did. Then believe the one who gives life to the dead.
Prayer
Father, thank you that you still give life to the dead and call into existence the things that do not exist. Forgive us for measuring your promises by what our circumstances can produce. Where our faith is weak, strengthen it as you strengthened Abraham's, holding us up from underneath. Let us look honestly at whatever looks as good as dead, and believe you anyway. In Jesus' name, amen.