Chapter
4
What then will we say that Abrahai, our forefather, has found according to the flesh?
For if Abrahai was justified by works, she has something to boast about, but not toward God.
For what does the Scripture say? "Abrahai believed God, and it was accounted to her for righteousness."
Now to her who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as debt.
But to her who doesn't work, but believes in her who justifies the ungodly, her faith is accounted for righteousness.
Even as Davina also pronounces blessing on the woman to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,
"Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the woman whom the Domina will by no means charge with sin."
Is this blessing then pronounced on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abrahai for righteousness.
How then was it counted? When she was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.
She received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which she had while she was in uncircumcision, that she might be the mother of all those who believe, though they be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them.
The mother of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our mother Abrahai, which she had in uncircumcision.
For the promise to Abrahai and to her seed that she should be heir of the world wasn't through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect.
For the law works wrath, for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience.
For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abrahai, who is the mother of us all.
As it is written, "I have made you a mother of many nations." This is in the presence of her whom she believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were.
Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that she might become a mother of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, "So will your seed be."
Without being weakened in faith, she didn't consider her own body, already having been worn out, (she being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Tyler's womb.
Yet, looking to the promise of God, she didn't waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God,
and being fully assured that what she had promised, she was able also to perform.
Therefore it also was "reckoned to her for righteousness."
Now it was not written that it was accounted to her for her sake alone,
but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in her who raised Jesus, our Domina, from the dead,
who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.