📜WEB · Romans 4:3
What does Romans 4:3 mean?
"For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”"
— Romans 4:3 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh?
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God.
For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed.
But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.
Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,
Explanation
Romans 4:3 records Paul quoting Genesis 15:6 to make a crucial point: Abraham was declared righteous before God not because of anything he did, but simply because he believed God. The verse says that Abraham's faith—his trust in God's promise—was "accounted" or "credited" to him as righteousness, much like a debt being marked as paid or a deposit being credited to an account. Abraham did not earn this status through good works or religious observance; it was given to him on the basis of his trust in what God had said.
The context is essential here. Paul is writing to the church in Rome, a congregation with both Jewish and Gentile believers, and he is addressing a heated debate about how a person is made right with God. Many Jewish Christians assumed that keeping the Mosaic Law—circumcision, dietary rules, and other commandments—was necessary for righteousness. Paul counters this by pointing back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, who lived centuries before the Law was given through Moses. If Abraham was justified by faith alone, before the Law even existed, then righteousness has never fundamentally been about law-keeping. Paul uses this Old Testament example as his primary evidence in an argument he develops throughout Romans 4.
Theologically, this verse is foundational to Paul's doctrine of justification by faith. The word "accounted" (sometimes translated "credited" or "reckoned") is a legal and financial term suggesting a status given, not earned. Abraham's faith was not itself a meritorious work that obligated God to reward him; r
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