Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was accounted to him,
Truth to Learn
The Old Testament declares important truths for Christians.
Behind the Words
In Greek there are two different words translated “not.” One is ou and the other is mē. The second of these, mē, indicates a conditional negation or when denial is a matter of thought, not fact. The word ou, on the other hand, indicates absolute negation as a matter of fact. In the current verse, the word “not” is translated from the Greek word ou. Hence, it is a matter of fact, not opinion, that “it was not written for his sake alone.”
Meaning Explained
Since the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the predominantly Jewish Christians in Rome, they certainly were familiar with their ancestor, the patriarch Abraham. Paul has been demonstrating in a series of logical arguments that justification (God’s declaration of our righteousness) does not come from obeying a series of laws or church ordinances. Rather, justification comes of God’s free will (not our free will) to those who believe the promise(s) made by God as recorded in the Bible.
In Abraham’s case God promised that he would be the father of many nations and that he would have descendants as numerous as the sand of the sea or as numerous as the stars of the heaven, and Abraham believed God. As we have seen in the past few verses, this belief occurred even when Abraham was past child producing years, and he held firm to this belief for more than 20 years even as his body was getting older and less able to produce children.
Moses documented all of this in the book of Genesis, chronicling the life of Abraham in chapters 12 through 25. The specific reference in the current verse is to Genesis 15:5,6 where it says:
And He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your seed be.” And he believed in Jehovah. And He counted it to him for righteousness.
What Paul now tells us in the current verse is that Moses’ documentation of this event absolutely was not for Abraham’s sake alone (the fact that Abraham was declared righteous because of his faith). In fact, it was not written for Abraham’s sake at all, given the fact that Abraham had been dead more than 300 years when Moses wrote it. When this was written about Abraham, it clearly elevated Abraham in the eyes of all who read about this, more so than if it had simply been handed down as an oral tradition. So, in a sense, it may have had some benefit to Abraham but more so to his descendants who now had “bragging rights” about their ancestor.
Paul’s point, however, is that there is another (more important) reason that this was written about, and he will state that in the next verse.
Application
The things written in the Old Testament were not written just for the Jews. These things were also written for Christians who are the spiritual descendants of Abraham.
In God's service, for His glory,
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