Abraham Our Father

Preaching Points From Romans #5

Dr. Ronnie Wolfe

Romans 4:16-18

I. OUR FATHER SYMBOLICALLY (4:16) “Father of us all”

Abraham was not our father naturally as though we were begotten through his linage. The Jews in the New Testament put their trust in their physical linage to Abraham, but Jesus rebuked them for that (See Matthew 3:9). They thought they had a priority position with God because they were Abraham’s children.

We are children of Abraham through faith in Jesus Christ. So says Galathans 3:7 "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham". Abraham, then, is our faithful father, a man of faith, and a father to all who believe in Christ.

Abraham believed God (Christ), and it was accounted to him for righteousness – Genesis 15:6 "And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." See Galatians 3:6; James 2:23.

So, we are Abraham’s seed (children) and heirs of God – Galatians 3:29 "And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

II. OUR FATHER SPECIALLY (4:18) “Father of many nations”

Abraham could be noted as the head of the Hebrew nation (the Jews), although the nation was not brought together as a nation until years later. He stood seminally as their head through his son, Isaac. God gave promise to Abraham that his seed would be blessed through Isaac, whom God chose for Abraham’s blessed linage.

But the intimation is given here that Abraham as a father of faith would not be father only to the Jewish nation but to many nations. Even in Abraham’s day God already had in his mind to bring faith to Gentiles, which he did in Old Testament times but especially in New Testament times when Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, turned mainly to the Gentiles and away from the Jews due to their rejection of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Abraham, then, is our father as well as to Jews. Abraham is the father of the faithful as written in Galatians 3:8-9 "And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen [Gentiles] through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham."

Abraham is father specially to all who believe in Jesus as Savior, but he is our father typically and metaphorically. God is our Father in reality. Thus, we pray “Our Father which art in Heaven . . .”