NT Text: Romans 4:3
OT Source(s):
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Direct Quotation
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Longitudinal Theme
Anchor Text: Gen 15:6 — Abraham Believed God
Significance: Paul grounds his doctrine of justification by faith on a single verse: "What does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness'" (Rom 4:3, quoting Gen 15:6). The original text records that when Abram, still childless, took God at His word concerning the innumerable offspring, the LORD reckoned that faith — not works — to him as righteousness. Paul presses the accounting language of "credited" (logizomai): righteousness was not a wage owed to a worker but a gift received by trust (Rom 4:4-5), and crucially, this verdict fell before circumcision (Gen 17) and centuries before the law at Sinai, proving that right standing with God has always come by faith. The connection is direct quotation operating as both promise-fulfillment and longitudinal theme: the pattern of faith-reckoned-righteous established in Abraham is the constant thread of how sinners are justified, now climactically realized in Christ. Paul's exposition reaches its telos in v. 24-25: the same crediting belongs "to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered over for our trespasses and raised for our justification." Abraham believed the God who gives life to the barren; we believe the God who raised the dead. The savoring is that righteousness is genuinely a gift to be received with empty hands and glad trust, so that the boasting of the worker gives way to the joy of the one who simply believes the promise-keeping, resurrecting God.