Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we continue in Paul's Letter to the Church in Rome. It's comprised of a diverse group of people,

but Paul's letter primarily focuses on issues that pertain to the Christians

who are ethnic Jews. He ended yesterday by saying salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone,

and that Jews don't have a special advantage just because they have the law. Today he continues

where he left off by saying, case in point, Abraham. He was the very first Jew, and even he was

declared righteous because of his faith in

Yahweh, not by keeping the law, because, by the way, the law didn't even exist for another

430 years. Then he goes on to say, cool, now that we're on the same page, let's talk about how

he got that saving faith. Did he get it by doing something, like being circumcised maybe? No, because he got the

faith before he was circumcised. If he'd had to do something in order to receive the faith, then faith

isn't a free gift anymore. It's something you had to earn. So if Abraham was given righteousness

and faith as an uncircumcised man, then guess what? The same thing can happen

for the Gentiles. Paul also reminds them that God called Abraham the father of many nations.

He's the father of all believers from every nation. Paul says circumcision was just an outward

display of the faith Abraham already had, which means that if he had

died before he was circumcised, his sins would have already been covered. And it's easy for us to think,

but Jesus hadn't even died at that point. How could he have faith in Jesus? He had faith in Yahweh.

Jesus and the Father and the Spirit are all united, the three and one.

So even though he didn't know all the particulars of it, the incarnation and the crucifixion and the resurrection,

he responded to what he knew at that point, which is Yahweh, the same God.

And according to Yahweh, who exists outside of time,

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