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.

Why "calling upon the name of the Lord" to be saved refutes Justification by Faith Alone (Romans 10:9-10).

Protestants are fond of quoting Romans 10:9-10 as 'clear Biblical proof' that we are saved by faith alone. Yet a careful look at the verse doesn't actually say this, and in fact suggests the opposite. I've posted about this in the past (HERE), but after some recent discoveries I'd like to build on what I originally said. The passage in question says:

Romans 10: 9 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Notice that this text explicitly says you must do two things: believe and confess. This, taken plainly, refutes salvation by faith alone. If you bring this up, Protestants will squirm and make excuses, but it really does expose a flaw in their thinking. The more they try to explain, the less convincing faith alone sounds. 

Also worth noting is that the only place where "believe" and "confess" appear in the same passage (that I was able to find) are found in John 12:42, which is quite helpful here: "many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue". Based on this Scripture-interprets-Scripture situation, it is clear that believing alone is not enough. Many believed in Jesus but were too afraid to openly confess Him. So this confessing before men refers to affirming you're a Christian and be willing to 'suffer the consequences'. Obviously, this is very devastating to Protestant theology, because if someone denies Jesus, that is not confessing him before men, they wont be saved per Paul's argument (cf Matt 10:33; 2 Tim 2:12). But I've come across something more fascinating to add to the above. 

The Good Thief and Bad (Protestant) Apologetics

Here's my brief Catholic response to the Good Thief "trump-card" some Protestants use, and which I turned into a cut-n-paste response since I encounter it often enough:

The “Good Thief” (Lk 23:39-43) is often cited as the star example of getting saved by faith alone. But here’s why the mature Christian wouldn’t say that: (1) We don’t know his faith background, e.g., if he was ever baptized in the past or if this was his first time meeting Jesus. His prayer “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom” shows he had some knowledge of the Gospel, since no such “kingdom” details are given in this passage. (2) Terms such as ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ are not used in this passage, so there’s no reason to think ‘faith alone’ is even the focus, just as the Parable of the Pharisee & Tax Collector (Lk 18:9-14) doesn’t use such terms, but rather highlights the virtue of “humility”. In fact, we see a range of virtues being expressed here, including ‘Fear of the Lord’ (23:40; cf Prov 1:7), Repentance (which Jesus distinguishes from belief, see Mark 1:5), Warning Sinners (2 Thess 3:14b), Public Professing (John 10:42; Rom 10:10b), as well as Hope of going to Heaven and certainly Love for Jesus. The thief was even willing to suffer and die for his own sins, not to be freed from them, which means he carried his own cross (Lk 9:23). So this was *far from* faith alone. (3) This was a unique situation, it isn’t the norm for how people typically accept the Gospel (see Acts for the norm), and as such it has its limits. For example, Jesus had not yet Resurrected, Ascended, or sent the Holy Spirit yet, so Dismas probably didn’t profess faith in these, whereas these aspects of Jesus’ mission are required for us to profess (Rom 10:9b). Even the command to “baptize all nations” wasn’t even given until *after* Jesus resurrected (Matt 28:19), so pointing to this as an example of ‘not needing baptism’ is kind of moot. Plus, can we take this one example as an excuse to ‘not really have to’ obey the many teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, including getting baptized, gathering to worship with others, being subject to your pastor, sharing our possessions, etc? (4) Lastly, Catholics highly honor the Good Thief, Saint Dismas, on March 25 every year, and many Catholic Saints have preached on his beautiful testimony for us. So it’s not like St Dismas (whom we have the decency to call by his actual name) is some surprise that theologians have missed all this time. For example, St Augustine preached on how this is the only death-bed repentance in the Bible, teaching us that while there’s always hope, we also shouldn’t be too presumptuous about waiting until the last minute to repent. And some saints have preached that the thief was partially converted by the prayers and testimony of Mary and the holy women and John, standing at the foot of the Cross praying for both criminals, showing us that we have a role in helping others come to Christ. 

UPDATE 5/4/22 - I would add that many Protestants think that Dismas went immediately to heaven, but the reality is heaven was not open yet until after Jesus was Resurrected and Ascended, which means Dismas went to Hades/Purgatory when he died, and Jesus only came down a few hours later when Jesus died. This is the "today you will be with me in Paradise" and what Acts 2:27-31 shows, that Jesus died and went to Hades. So Dismas was at minimum in Hades and possibly suffered some temporary Purgatory if Dismas's crucifixion suffering didn't do sufficient penance.

Protestantism's most embarrassing strawman (Catholic Justification)

I think the most embarrassing strawman of Protestantism is how it sees the Catholic view of Justification. In the Protestant's mind, the Catholic position entails a person starting off a little bit righteous, then has to work his way up to fully righteous. It's as if the Catholic had to fill up a gas tank, with the tank starting off at 1% full, and with each good work they increase the tank by 1%, until they get to the end of their life and the tank is 100% full. With this view in mind, the Protestant thinks the Catholic is never actually Justified in this life. As such, this "Catholic Gospel" hardly sounds like good news at all, and in fact is (understandably) seen as quite troubling. But this is a complete misunderstanding of the Catholic view, and if you can point this strawman out to Protestants it will completely pull the rug from under them. 

The actual Catholic view is that a Catholic is instantly 100% Justified the moment they convert. This then means that works have nothing to do with a Catholic getting Justified. So it is a complete strawman for the Protestant to say the Catholic view of Justification is a "process" while in 'contrast' the Protestant claims to stand firm on "the finished work of Christ". In the Catholic view, the moment one is baptized (usually as an infant, who obviously doesn't do any work at all), through the merits of Jesus, the individual is instantly 100% forgiven of their sins and instantly becomes an Adopted Child of God. Period. There's no "work" to be done. There isn't really such a thing as "initial justification," so such language should be avoided by all sides, since Baptism is not the start of some progressive life-long filling up of a 'righteousness gas tank'.