### ROMANS 4:18-25 IN HOPE AGAINST HOPE HE BELIEVED

What is saving faith? We have come to a milestone in our study. For four chapters Paul has been climbing up the first great peak of the Himalayan range that is his letter to the Romans. He has analyzed the desperate state of man in his rebellion against God and has unveiled the answer to its lost condition in the gospel of Christ. He has explained the nature of that gospel and has answered all the objections that could possibly be brought against it. He has demonstrated that the gospel of a righteousness from God received by faith is taught in the Old Testament proving it from the cases of Abraham and David. He has concluded that the promise of salvation comes by faith, so that it may be grace and guaranteed to all of Abraham’s offspring. Paul now takes a look back over the ground he has covered. Paul reviews the nature of faith using Abraham as an example. Paul then reviews the character of God showing that the only true God is an adequate basis for faith. All this information about Abraham speaks about the Christian faith directly, focusing on the death and resurrection of Christ. It is not that he is going to argue any further, but that this case of Abraham is such a big one, so important, so that it provides a perfect illustration in this matter of justification by faith.

We have looked at justification by faith in theory, an abstract view, let us now look at it in practice. Do you know what faith is? Do you know the characteristic of faith? Let us look at Abraham and his life again as it was said that he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. There is no more clearer or dramatic statement as to the nature of faith anywhere in the scripture than which we have in these verses. (ML Jones)

### 1. ANALYSIS OF FAITH 4:18-22

We see that in the beginning of verse 18 there is a string of phrases all the way down through verse 21 that describe the faith of Abraham, one right after another, just strung together like pearls describing the faith of Abraham and giving us a good look of what faith looks like. Because we are also saved by faith and we want to see what kind of faith saved Abraham so we can transmit it to ourselves, right? And see what kind of faith saves us, and so we could ask the question, what is saving faith? A. HOPING WHEN THERE IS NO HOPE Hoping against hope, that is an oxymoron, a figure of speech which uses opposite ideas to convey a thought. Have you ever heard the phrase "the silence was deafening”? Or, you've heard the phrase, "there was thunderous silence." He hoped that when there was no hope, and what it means is that against all human capability and all human capacity, he believed God. From the human perspective the situation was hopeless, but He looked to God. AGAINST ALL HUMAN CAPABILITY, HE BELIEVED HOPE IS DESIRE TO HAPPEN, FAITH IS CONFIDENCE TO HAPPEN Hope is the desire for something to happen. Faith is the confidence that it will happen. You see, hope is just the desire that it might happen and faith is the confidence that it will. Now he hoped when there was no hope. it didn't make any sense to hope when he hoped. God had told him he would be the father of many nations and Abraham believed it. And even when it looked impossible, when he was 99 years old, the whole idea is ridiculous, but God says that's what it's going to be. In fact, in Genesis 15:5, God brought him forth and said, look toward heaven and count the stars if you be able to number them. And He said to him, ‘So shall thy seed be,’