Abraham and Justification

Martin Chemnitz provides an intriguing discussion of Abraham’s justification in his classic Examination of the Council of Trent . He pinpoints the debate between Protestant and “papalist” as follows: The issue is whether the ground of our justification is found in our post-regeneration works or in an alien righteousness of Christ alone.

He recognizes that Abraham was already a believer long before the events recorded in Genesis 15: in Romans 4, “Paul sets forth an example of justification of all men in the person of Abraham, whom he therefore calls father of faith, and he takes Abraham both after his circumcision and before, not at the beginning of his conversion when he was first called out of Chaldean idolatry according to Genesis 12 and Joshua 24.” Chemnitz uses this as an argument against the Roman opinion that we are justified by works that we do following our regeneration. Abraham, he argues, was already long regenerate when God pronounced him just, and he had done many good works. But even such a personally righteous man was not reckoned righteous by God because of his works: “when he had obeyed God in faith for a number of years from the very beginning of his call, from Gen. ch. 11 through ch. 15, then he was certainly renewed in the spirit of his mind and adorned with many outstanding works and fruits of the Spirit, according to Heb. 11:8-10 . . . . It is to this already regenerate Abraham, adorned with spiritual newness and with many good works, that Paul applies these statements: ‘To one who does not work but trusts Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness’ . . . . the Holy Spirit through Paul clearly removes and takes away from the operation and works of the renewed Abraham the praise and glory of justification before God to life eternal. And he does it in that place where he sets Abraham before us not as a single person but as the father of faith and a universal example of true justification.” This is such a strong argument against justification by regenerate works, Chemnitz argues, that even Catholics confess to being perplexed by the passage.

This is wonderfully honest in its treatment of the story of Abraham. But it raises the difficulty, which Chemnitz unfortunately does not address, of an Abraham who had been regenerate but unjustified for a number of decades.