“I think I will go to heaven because I am trying to be a good person.”

As we stand before God, the issue isn’t whether or not we think we are a good person. The main thing that God will consider is whether or not we have been made right in his eyes. When God looks at us, does he declare us to be “right” before him? Not just “not guilty”, but “right”. In other words, clean or pure. Innocent.

Paul explains to us that there is only one way in which this happens. To be declared righteous before God means that we have been declared righteous by God. He explains to us that this is what happened with Abraham:

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Romans 4:9-12

What is Paul saying here? For the Jews, the fact that they were considered to be God’s chosen people was based on the fact that they had received the sign of circumcision. Therefore, because they had received this sign from God, if they continued to have their men be circumcised, they would be God’s chosen people.

Yet Paul is pointing out that the issue, as they stand before God, isn’t that they are circumcised. The issue is that they are declared to be righteous. The question for the Jews is whether or not they had received the righteousness of God by faith, not whether or not they had followed the rules. Not whether or not they had followed the right rituals. That is not what happened to Abraham. No, Abraham believed God when he made him a promise and God declared Abraham to be righteous. Therefore, Paul points out, it is by faith that Abraham received God’s righteousness.

So therefore, Abraham becomes the father of the Jews who are circumcised, but he is also just as much the father of the Gentiles who are not. If we will believe God when he tells us that by believing in Christ’s death as being the payment for our sins…and if we will believe God when he tells us that by believing in Christ’s resurrection as being the path to eternal life, then we also will be declared righteous. We also will be like Abraham, having believed God’s promise and being declared righteous before him.