¹³ The promise given to Abraham and his children, that one day they would inherit the world, did not come because he followed the rules of the law. It came as a result of his right standing before God, a standing he obtained through faith. ¹⁴ If this inheritance is available only to those who keep the law, then faith is a useless commodity and the promise is canceled. ¹⁵ For the law brings God’s wrath against sin. But where the law doesn’t draw the line, there can be no crime.

¹⁶ This is the reason that faith is the single source of the promise—so that grace would be offered to all Abraham’s children, those whose lives are defined by the law and those who follow the path of faith charted by Abraham, our common father. ¹⁷ As it is recorded in the Scriptures, “I have appointed you the father of many nations.”^[a] In the presence of the God who creates out of nothing and holds the power to bring to life what is dead, Abraham believed and so became our father.

¹⁸ Against the odds, Abraham’s hope grew into full-fledged faith that he would turn out to be the father of many nations, just as God had promised when He said, “That’s how many your descendants will be.”^{[b] 19} His faith did not fail, although he was well aware that his impotent body, after nearly 100 years, was as good as dead and that Sarah’s womb, too, was dead. ²⁰ In spite of all this, his faith in God’s promise did not falter. In fact, his faith grew as he gave glory to God ²¹ because he was supremely confident that God could deliver on His promise. ²² This is why, you see, God saw his faith and counted him as righteous; this is how he became right with God.

²³ The story of how faith was credited to Abraham was not recorded for him and him alone, ²⁴ but was written for all of us who would one day be credited for having faith in God, the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the realm of the dead. ²⁵ He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and raised so that we might be made right with God.