Romans 4:8-11

⁸God causes to be happy the people whose sins he no longer keeps a record of.

⁹As for our being happy because God has erased the record of our sins, ◄it is not something that only we Jews can experience./is it MTY something that only we Jews can experience?► RHQ No, it is also something that non-Jews can experience MTY. What is written in the Scriptures, that it was because Abraham trusted in God that the record of his sins was erased { God erased the record of his sins}, also shows that this is true.

¹⁰◄ Think about when God erased the record of Abraham's sins./When did God erase the record of Abraham's sins?► RHQ ◄Consider whether it happened after someone circumcised Abraham to mark him as one who belonged to God, or before someone circumcised him./ Did it happen after Abraham was circumcised to be marked as one who belonged to God, or before he was circumcised?► RHQ It happened before he was circumcised, not after he was circumcised.

¹¹Many years later, God commanded that Abraham be circumcised. Abraham's accepting that ritual simply showed that he knew that God had accepted him. He knew that God had erased the record of his sins because he trusted in God while he was still, in effect, a non-Jew because he had not been circumcised. So we can understand that Abraham became ◄a spiritual ancestor/like an ancestor► to all of us whose record of sins has been erased {whose sins God has erased the record of} because we believe in God's promise, even though some of us are not circumcised.