CHAPTER 4
Romans 4:1-3
- Quid ergo dicemus, invenisse Abraham
patrem nostrum secundw carnem? - What shall we say then that Abraham our
father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? - Si enim Abraham ex operibus justificatus
est. habet quo glorietur, sed non apud Deum. - For if Abraham were justified by works,
he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. - Quid enim Scripture dicit’ Credidit
Abraham Deo, et imputa tum est illi in justitiam. - For what saith the scripture? Abraham
believed God, and it was counted unto him for
righteousness.^129
1.What then,etc. This is a confirmation by example; and it is a very strong one, since all things
are alike with regard to the subject and the person; for he was the father of the faithful, to whom
we ought all to be conformed; and there is also but one way and not many ways by which
righteousness may be obtained by all. In many other things one example would not be sufficient
to make a common rule; but as in the person of Abraham there was exhibited a mirror and pattern
of righteousness, which belongs in common to the whole Church, rightly does Paul apply what has
been written of him alone to the whole body of the Church, and at the same time he gives a check
to the Jews, who had nothing more plausible to glory in than that they were the children of Abraham;
and they could not have dared to claim to themselves more holiness than what they ascribed to the
holy patriarch. Since it is then evident that he was justified freely, his posterity, who claimed a
righteousness of their own by the law, ought to have been made silent even through shame.
According to the flesh,etc. Between this clause and the word father there is put in Paul’s text
the verb ἑυρηκέναι, in this order — “What shall we say that Abraham our father has found according
to the flesh?” On this account, some interpreters think that the question is — “What has Abraham
obtained according to the flesh?” If this exposition be approved, the words according to the flesh
mean naturally or from himself. It is, however, probable that they are to be connected with the word
father.^130 Besides, as we are wont to be more touched by domestic examples, the dignity of their
race, in which the Jews took too much pride, is here again expressly mentioned. But some regard
this as spoken in contempt, as they are elsewhere called the carnal children of Abraham, being not
so spiritually or in a legitimate sense. But I think that it was expressed as a thing peculiar to the
(^129) This chapter, as Turrettin observes, divides itself into three parts. The first from 1 to 12 inclusive, the second from 13 to
17 inclusive, in which it is proved that the promises made to Abraham did not depend on the law; and the third from 18 to the
end, in which the faith of Abraham is commended, and the Christian faith briefly referred to.
But Pareus makes a different division: 1, Four proofs of justification by faith, from 1 to 16; 2, The dispensation of Abraham,
from 17 to 22; 3, The application of the subject, from 23 to 25. — Ed.
(^130) So did all the fathers according to Pareus, and so does the Vulgate. But later commentators have taken the words as they
stand, and with good reason, for otherwise the correspondence between this and the following verse would not be apparent.
Beza, Hammond, and Macknight take the words in their proper order; and this is what is done by the Syriac and Arabic versions.
is rendered by Grotius and Macknight, “by (per) the flesh. Some understand by the word “flesh,” circumcision, as
Vatablus; others, natural powers, as Grotius But Beza and Hammond think that it is the same as what is meant “by works” in
the next verse; and “flesh” evidently has this meaning: it signifies often the performance of what the law requires, the observance
not only of ceremonial but also of moral duties. See Galatians 3:3; Galatians 6:12; and especially Philippians 3:3, 4; where Paul
gives up “all confidence in the flesh,” and enumerates, among other things, his strict conformity to the law. — Ed.