1 Then what are we to say about our forefather Abraham?
2 For if he was considered in right standing with God on the condition of what he did, he has something to boast of, but not before God.
3 For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham put his faith in God, and it was credited to him as right standing with God."
4 Now when a workman gets his pay, it is not considered from the point of view of a favor but of an obligation;
5 but the man who does no work, but simply puts his faith in Him who brings the ungodly into right standing with Himself, has his faith credited to him as right standing.
6 So David, too, describes the happiness of the man to whom God credits right standing with Himself, without the things he does having anything to do with it:
7 "Happy are they whose transgressions have been forgiven, whose sins were covered up;
8 Happy the man whose sin the Lord does not charge against him!"
9 Now does this happiness come to the Jews alone, or to the heathen peoples too? For we say, "Abraham's faith was credited to him as right standing."
10 Under what circumstances was it credited to him as right standing? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? Not after but before he was circumcised.
11 Afterward he received the mark of circumcision as God's seal of his right standing with Him on condition of faith which he had before he was circumcised, that he might be the forefather of all who have faith while still uncircumcised, that they might have their faith credited to them as right standing with God;
12 and the forefather of those Jews who not only belong to the circumcision but also follow in the footsteps of our forefather Abraham in the faith he had before he was circumcised.
13 For the promise made to Abraham and his descendants, that he should own the world, was not conditioned on the law, but on the right standing he had with God through faith.
14 For if the law party is to possess the world, then faith has been nullified and the promise has been made null and void.
15 For the law results in wrath alone, but where there is no law, there can be no violation of it.
16 So it is conditioned on faith, that it might be in accordance with God's unmerited favor, so that the promise might be in force for all the descendants of Abraham, not only for those who belong to the law party but also for those who belong to the faith group of Abraham. He is the father of us all,
17 as the Scripture says, "I have made you the father of many nations." That is, the promise is in force in the sight of God in whom he put his faith, the God who can bring the dead to life and can call to Himself the things that do not exist as though they did.
18 Abraham, building on hope in spite of hopeless circumstances, had faith, and so he actually became the father of many nations, just as it had been told him, "So numberless shall your descendants be."
19 Because he never weakened in faith, he calmly contemplated his own vital powers as worn out (for he was about one hundred years old) and the inability of Sarah to bear a child,
20 and yet he never staggered in doubt at the promise of God but grew powerful in faith, because he gave the glory to God
21 in full assurance that He was able to do what He had promised.
22 Therefore, his faith was credited to him as right standing with God.
23 It was not for his sake alone that it was written, "It was credited to him";
24 it was for our sakes too, for it is going to be credited to us who put our faith in God who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,
25 who was given up to death because of our shortcomings and was raised again to give us right standing with God.