{"id":1452,"date":"2010-01-14T20:34:47","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T02:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1452"},"modified":"2010-01-14T20:34:47","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T02:34:47","slug":"romans-417-children-by-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-417-children-by-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 4:17 – Children by Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 4:17<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed\u2014God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

God\u2019s promise to Abraham referred to both his physical descendants and to his spiritual descendants.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The words \u201cI have made\u201d are translated from the Greek verb tith\u0113mi<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto place\u201d or \u201cto put.\u201d The Hebrew word in the passage Paul is quoting (Genesis 17:15<\/span><\/strong>) is nathan<\/span><\/em>, which can have several shades of meaning, one of them being \u201cto give or to grant.\u201d The Greek word is expressed here in the perfect tense indicating past completed action with an ongoing effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the presence\u201d is from katenanti<\/span><\/em>, which literally means \u201cdown over against.\u201d It is used to indicate being \u201cin the sight of\u201d or \u201cin a place in front of\u201d someone or something.<\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Like a number of verses we have looked at in the past, this verse must be looked at in connection with the previous verse in order to get its full meaning. Connecting the first part of this verse (a quote from Genesis 17:15<\/span><\/strong>) with the previous verse gives us:<\/p>\n

\u2026 <\/span><\/em>so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all<\/span> <\/span><\/em>(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”)<\/span><\/p>\n

The point is that Abraham is the father of all who are saved through faith. In other words, at the time that God said this to Abraham, because of Abraham\u2019s faith, God had already granted to Abraham that he would be a father of many nations.<\/p>\n

If we look at the descendants of Abraham, we see that he is the father of the Jews through Isaac (from his wife Sarah), the father of the Arabs through Ishmael (from Sarah\u2019s handmaid Hagar), and the father of numerous other tribes through the six sons with his second wife, Keturah. <\/span>However, the Apostle Paul evidently understood the promise as referring, not to the physical descendents of Abraham, but to the spiritual descendants (all those who believe in God\u2019s message).<\/p>\n

The next phrase, \u201cin the presence of Him<\/span>\u201d refers back to the first part of the previous verse. Hence, \u201cTherefore<\/span> it is<\/span><\/em> of faith that <\/span>it might be<\/span><\/em> according to grace\u2026 in the presence of Him whom he believed\u2014God \u2026\u201d<\/span> In other words, the faith is demonstrated in the presence of God. It\u2019s not just some ethereal \u201cYeah, I believe in God\u201d type of experience. Rather, it is a belief in what God says, in His presence, so that there is no doubt either in what is believed or in the reality of that belief.<\/p>\n

Paul then says of God that He both has the ability to give life and to call things which do not yet exist as if they already did exist. In other words, this God of ours neither has any bounds on his power nor is he bound by time. He is without limit in both time and space. We will see the significance of this in the next verse.<\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you believe the promise that your sins are paid for through the blood of Jesus Christ, then God has declared you as righteous and you are a son or daughter of Abraham through faith. <\/span><\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2010 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 4:17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed\u2014God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; Truth to Learn God\u2019s promise to Abraham referred to both his physical descendants and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[633,626,634,256],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-faigh","tag-father","tag-nations","tag-presence"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-nq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}