Revisiting Abraham's "faith reckoned as righteousness" (A 'new' insight on Romans 4 and Romans 2)

The other day I was thinking about Genesis 15:6 and felt I had gained a new insight. Even though I've held to elements of this before, I think this 'new' insight will help tie things together. I'm not saying I'm the first to do this, only that this was a sort of 'aha' moment for me.

The first time the term "righteousness" appears in the Bible is in Genesis 15:6. The big question is: what is righteousness? We all have a general intuitive idea, and I wrote a post on this (HERE), but I think in this case Paul was getting at something important that we end up overlooking. 

While many think of righteousness/unrighteousness in a generic sense, that's not how we should approach the Bible. It is crucial to realize that Paul's opponents saw righteousness as synonymous with living in conformity with the Mosaic Law, which was God's Law (the Torah). But Paul noticed something fascinating: Abraham was counted as righteous before God's law formal standard (the Mosaic Law) even existed. But how can Abraham be considered righteous without there being a law from which to measure his righteousness? Paul is apparently teasing out the fact that some law/covenant must have existed prior to the Mosaic Law, and that by God counting Abraham's faith/faithfulness as righteousness means God counted Abraham as living in conformity to this 'mysterious' pre-Mosaic law/covenant. 

If that's the case, then reducing our view of Romans 4 to the popular apologetics claims like "Genesis 15:6 wasn't the first time Abraham believed" (cf Gal 3:6-9; Heb 11:8; Gen 12:1-4; Rom 4:17-22) kind of miss the bigger point, even if they are true claims. What our emphasis should be on is that Paul is not  concerned about God crediting Abraham's faith as some generic righteous deed, but more specifically Abraham was righteous per some real covenant than preexisted Moses' Covenant. This means that Genesis 15:6 is saying God either was right there establishing a new unnamed covenant, or God was affirming Abraham was already living a righteous lifestyle under this unnamed covenant. 

This conclusion would fit perfectly with Paul calling Abraham "ungodly" (Rom 4:5), since this term would be referring to sinful/uncircumcised living per the Mosaic Standards. Similarly, Paul brings up David as a secondary example of "ungodly" because he gravely sinned under the Mosaic Standards, which puts one out of the Mosaic Covenant, 'nullifying' their circumcision (Rom 2:25). So in Romans 4:6-8, Paul is saying David prayed Psalm 32 (and Psalm 51) and received forgiveness under some other covenant, since the Mosaic Covenant did not forgive murder (Num 35:33).  Furthermore, David says nothing about 'faith' or 'works' in Psalm 32, meaning we shouldn't have some generic view of 'faith' or 'works' in mind. I wrote about this in an older post (HERE and HERE). 

Baptism according to Scripture. (Do Protestants Really care about the Bible?)

In the course of my apologetics, I've come to the astonishing conclusion that it doesn't seem Protestants really care about what the Bible has to say. They don't do this intentionally, but when it comes to many Biblical doctrines, I've found in my own interactions and with reading their major theologians, that they have a very bad habit of leaving out key details when formulating doctrines. And when you confront them, they just shrug it off and have no real interest in what the Bible says. In this post, I will list all the Biblical verses that refer to the Sacrament of Baptism and let readers see what the Bible plainly has to say on the matter. I have yet to find any Protestant who has actually sat down for half an hour and read through the 25 or so verses that mention Baptism to see for themself what the Bible says. Rather, they will only quote a few verses and just go with whatever their denomination or pastor says. When I ask them to just read these verses, they act like I've asked them to deny Christianity.

I think the best way to educate yourself is to actually read the Bible for yourself, and since there are only about 25 short verses to read (texts with a * indicate the term "baptism" isn't used), this should take you less than 30 minutes to get fully informed on the matter. I will then briefly analyze the data. In the Conclusion, I will speak about the general Protestant view of Baptism contradicts the Bible, while showing that the Catholic view is fully in line with Scripture.