📜WEB · Romans 4:18
What does Romans 4:18 mean?
"Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.”"
— Romans 4:18 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
For the law produces 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 offspring, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were.
Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.”
Without being weakened in faith, he didn’t consider his own body, already having been worn out, (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.
Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God,
and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform.
Explanation
Romans 4:18 speaks of Abraham believing God's promise even when there was no natural reason for hope. The verse literally says he believed "against hope, in hope" — meaning that from a human, circumstantial standpoint, there was no basis for expecting what God had promised, yet Abraham trusted God anyway and hoped for it. The promise in question was that he would become "a father of many nations," fulfilling God's earlier word to him recorded in Genesis 15:5, "So shall your offspring be," referring to the vast multitude of descendants God pledged to give him, comparable to the stars in the sky.
Paul wrote this letter to the church in Rome, addressing both Jewish and Gentile believers, to explain the gospel of justification by faith rather than by works of the law. In Romans 4, Paul uses Abraham as the primary Old Testament example of someone who was declared righteous by God not because of anything he did, but because he believed God's promise. This mattered greatly to Paul's argument because Abraham was considered the father of the Jewish nation, and if Abraham himself was justified by faith before he was circumcised or given the law, then faith — not law-keeping — has always been God's way of reckoning righteousness, for Jew and Gentile alike.
Theologically, this verse highlights the nature of biblical faith: it is not blind optimism or wishful thinking, but confident trust placed in the character and word of God, even when circumstances seem to contradict what has been promised. Abraham was old, his wife Sarah was barren, and by every natural measure
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