Romans 4:8-18

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.

¹²Likewise, Abraham is the spiritual ancestor of all us Jews who are not merely circumcised but who, more importantly, believe in God's promise as our ancestor Abraham did, even before he was circumcised.

¹³God promised Abraham and his descendants that they would receive the blessings that he promised to give to the people in the world. But when he promised that, it was not because Abraham obeyed the laws that God later gave to Moses. Instead, it was because Abraham believed that God would do what he promised that he would do. As a result, God erased the record of his sins.

¹⁴If we think that it is those who obey God's laws who will receive what he has promised, it is useless for us to trust in him. And what he promised is worthless. Remember that it is stated in God's law PRS that he will punish people who do not perfectly obey them, and remember that wherever MTY laws exist, people disobey them LIT.

¹⁶So it is because we trust in God that we will receive the things that he has promised. It is not because we perfectly obey God's laws. He wants ◄to erase the record of our sins/to declare us no longer guilty► without our earning it. As a result, what God now promises, he guarantees to give to all people who are Abraham's spiritual descendants. He promises to do that not only for us Jewish believers, who have God's laws and trust in him as Abraham did, but also for those non-Jews who do not have God's laws but who trust in him as Abraham did. Abraham is the spiritual ancestor of all of us believers.

¹⁷What is written {What Moses wrote} in the Scriptures about what God promised Abraham shows that this is true. God said to him, “It is in order that you (sg) may be the ancestor of many ethnic groups that I have chosen you.” Romans 4:17b-22 God guaranteed that he would give Abraham many descendants. Abraham confidently believed that God would do that,

¹⁸even though there was no physical reason for him to hope that he would have descendants, because he and his wife were too old to bear children. But God is the one who causes dead people to live again, and who talks about things that do not yet exist as already existing. God said to Abraham, “You will have so many descendants that they will be as impossible to count as the stars.” And Abraham believed that, and he believed that he would become the ancestor of many ethnic groups.