Romans 4

What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? Paul does not disown Abraham; he asks whether flesh—descent, circumcision, works—explains the father’s standing. The next word will send us to Genesis 15:6, not to the family tree.

Arminian readers find a sincere appeal to Israel’s father. If Abraham himself did not gain righteousness by the flesh, neither do his children. The question is pastoral: stop measuring gain by blood and start listening to Scripture.

Calvin already hears the trap: if Abraham was justified because he embraced mercy by faith, he had nothing to glory in. “According to the flesh” names the boast that would rest on lineage or works. Paul will not let the patriarch become a wage-earner at God’s bar.

The apostle is dismantling glorying before he quotes Moses. Abraham’s gain is not in the flesh. The courtroom is God’s; the next verses will prove that the father’s righteousness was imputed, not achieved.

If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. Wesley’s whole chapter will exclude merit: even the patriarch cannot found a boast at the bar. Works-righteousness, if it existed, would still fail “toward God.”

Arminians refuse boasting as heartily as any Calvinist. Justification, if it were by works, would be a human glory; Paul shuts that door. Abraham will be justified as a believer, not as a laborer collecting due.

Calvin: Abraham brought nothing of his own except a confession of his misery, which is a solicitation for mercy. If there be any righteousness by the law or by works, it must be in men themselves; by faith they derive from another what is wanting. Hence he has no boast before God.

“not toward God” is the only court that matters. The righteousness of faith is the asylum of the sinner destitute of works. Mix Abraham’s later obedience into this verdict and the gift ceases to be gift.

Scripture answers the boast: Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Wesley: he believed that promise concerning his seed, and especially the promise concerning Christ; God accepted him as if he had been altogether righteous. Paul cites Genesis 15:6 as the Bible’s proof that justification is by faith, not by works.

Arminians hear a believing that God graciously reckons. Faith is the gospel’s condition, enabled by grace, not a meritorious work. Wesley keeps the fork honest: Christ alone is the meritorious cause of our acceptance, yet faith may be said to be imputed for righteousness as the sole condition. Match Genesis 15:6: to the believer, faith is accounted for righteousness through grace, while Christ’s obedience remains the only merit.

Moses named faith, then imputation; Paul reads it as righteousness obtained because the promise was embraced. Calvin: Abraham brought nothing except a confession of misery; the righteousness of faith is imputative—they derive from another what is wanting in themselves. Faith adorns us with the righteousness of another; Christ clothes us with his own righteousness.

Reformed confession presses Westminster’s distinction: God does not impute faith itself, the act of believing, as the righteousness that satisfies; He imputes Christ’s obedience and satisfaction, received by faith as gift. Genesis 15:6 in Paul’s courtroom is counted righteous because God counts Christ’s righteousness, not because Abraham’s believing became his righteousness.

To him who works, reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. Paul draws a bright line: gift and debt cannot be the same counting. Righteousness counted to Abraham is gift-language, not payroll.

Wesleyan Arminians take the warning: faith is not a work that puts God in debt. If believing were a wage, grace would be wages renamed. The gospel counts a gift to those who believe—enabled by grace, never earned.

Wages are due; mercy is not. Calvin’s imputative righteousness cannot be a paycheck. If Abraham had worked the verdict, God would owe him; Paul is about to say God justifies the ungodly.

The whole is from God and nothing from us. Due is what works would claim; gift is what faith receives. Do not smuggle a cooperative wage into a verse that names debt only to refuse it.

To him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Wesley: to him that worketh not—it being impossible he should without faith—but believeth, his faith is imputed for righteousness. God justifies the ungodly: pardoned and accepted upon believing, for the sake of what Christ hath done and suffered.

Classical Arminians refuse to make the ungodly already godly before the verdict. Faith is accounted for righteousness as the sole condition of acceptance, not as a meritorious work. Christ remains the meritorious cause. Match Genesis 15:6: a believing that God graciously reckons.

Calvin calls this a very important sentence: faith brings us righteousness not because it is a meritorious act, but because it obtains for us the favor of God. Faith adorns us with the righteousness of another, which it seeks as a gift. God justifies the ungodly—not the already-improved.

“his faith is accounted for righteousness” does not mean the act of believing is the righteousness that satisfies. Westminster: not by imputing faith itself, but by imputing Christ’s obedience, received by faith as the Spirit-given instrument. The ungodly is clothed; he is not paid for believing.

Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Paul adds a second witness so no one can say Genesis 15 was a patriarch-only deal. Wesley: forgiveness, not imputing sin, and imputing righteousness are all one.

Arminian interpreters hear the blessing as the gospel’s ordinary verdict: God counts righteousness to those who believe, apart from works. David sings what Abraham received. The condition remains living faith, enabled by grace, never a wage.

David’s blessing confirms imputative righteousness apart from works. The psalm is courtroom language: God counts. Calvin’s “imputative” is not a Reformation novelty; it is David’s beatitude over people who have no works to plead.

Two witnesses—Moses and David—establish gift-righteousness. Apart from works is absolute. Faith will be the instrument of receiving it, not a substitute work David forgot to mention.

Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. The blessing is pardon: lawless deeds forgiven, sins covered. This is not a small mop-up for almost-righteous people; it is mercy over lawlessness.

Arminians preach this as pastoral comfort to the ungodly who believe. Covering is God’s kindness in Christ, received by faith. Do not turn the beatitude into a demand to uncover your own righteousness first.

Forgiven and covered are God’s acts, not the sinner’s self-repair. Calvin’s asylum of the destitute is here in psalm-shape: lawless deeds meet covering, not wages.

The blessing David pronounces is the non-imputation of sin alongside the imputation of righteousness. Both are God’s counting. The covered sinner is the one Christ clothes—not the one who has already become his own covering.

Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin. Wesley’s observation stands: not counting sin and counting righteousness are one blessing. The Lord refuses to put the believer’s sin on the ledger as the last word.

Arminian readers hear a non-imputation to those who believe. The blessing is as wide as the invitation: the ungodly who trust Christ are not counted as their sins deserve. Faith receives the blessing; it does not earn the Lord’s refusal to count.

The Lord will by no means charge with sin: non-imputation is God’s verdict, the other side of counting righteousness. Calvin: when the reason is asked why God owns us as just, Christ must come forth as the one who clothes us.

“Will by no means charge with” is as sovereign as “accounted for righteousness.” God does the accounting. Faith is empty-handed here—the instrument that receives a blessing already decided in Christ, not a work that talks God out of counting.

Is this blessing then pronounced only on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? Paul repeats the thesis: faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. Wesley will soon say the seal came after the accounting. The question is already aimed at Gentiles.

Wesley’s heirs hear a sincere wideness: the blessing is also for the uncircumcised who believe. Abraham’s counting is the pattern for the nations, not a Jewish private ledger. “Also” is an earnest offer, not a theatrical aside.

Calvin’s logic from chapter 3 still holds: one God, one righteousness, no ethnic merit. The blessing David sang is not fenced by circumcision. Faith was accounted to Abraham—that fact will decide the timing in v. 10.

Also for the uncircumcised is all kinds, nations formerly alienated, brought under the same counting. The wideness of the question does not make every Gentile elect; it forbids treating the blessing as a Jewish wage.

How then was it counted to him? Abraham was counted righteous before circumcision, not after. The chronology is grace’s argument: Genesis 15 precedes Genesis 17. Abraham was already accepted as if altogether righteous while still uncircumcised.

Arminian readers take the history as pastoral: no rite completes a verdict already given upon believing. Circumcision did not create the righteousness; it followed faith. Gentiles who believe are not waiting on a Jewish gate.

The counting was not after, but before. God wrote the order: promise, faith, imputation—then the sign. Calvin will call the later circumcision a seal of righteousness already had.

Chronology is theology. If the verdict waited on the knife, works and signs would share the courtroom. They do not. Righteousness was imputed while Abraham was still uncircumcised, received by faith as gift.

He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised. Wesley: circumcision was a sign or token of being in covenant; a seal—an assurance on God’s part that he accounted him righteous upon his believing, before he was circumcised. The purpose: father of all those who believe without circumcision, so that righteousness might also be accounted to them as well.

Arminians hear the seal as God’s assurance of a verdict already given upon believing. Faith is the sole condition; Christ remains the meritorious cause. The sign did not create the righteousness. Gentiles who believe receive the same counting—a sincere wideness, not a Jewish rite plus faith as two merits.

Calvin: he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised; seals by which the promises of God are in a manner imprinted on our hearts, and the certainty of grace confirmed. The righteousness was already had by faith; the seal confirms, it does not cause.

What is sealed is imputed righteousness received by faith as the Spirit-given instrument—not faith itself as the righteousness. Abraham is father of uncircumcised believers so that the same righteousness might also be accounted to them: Christ’s, received the same way. The sign preaches certainty of grace, not a cooperative wage.

Abraham is also the father of circumcision to those who are not only circumcised but who walk in the steps of the faith he had before he was circumcised. Lineage without that faith is merely. The footsteps are living trust, the same path Genesis 15 named.

Wesley’s tradition hears a call, not a compliment: circumcised people must believe as Abraham believed. Faith remains the condition of being his children. Walk is not a wage that earns the counting; it is the life of those who have received it by believing.

Father of the circumcised only if they are not merely circumcised. Calvin’s seals confirm grace; they do not replace faith. The footsteps are the faith God counted—before the sign, empty of works-boast.

The sign without the thing signed is not Abraham’s family. Those who walk in that faith walk in a gift: the Spirit-given instrument, not an independent performance that retraces the patriarch’s merit.