God had made a promise to Abraham back in Genesis 12:1-3, the promise was the basis for the covenant and was repeated at various times. Note that whilst in Genesis 12, 15 etc was on the promise of land, Paul extends this inheritance to speak of the whole world, not just Canaan. Paul insists that this promise was given not through the Law or on the basis of Law keeping. Rather, it was “the righteousness of faith”. This could grammatically mean that faith itself is an act of or has the quality of righteousness. However, both the immediate context where law and faith are contrasted and the wider context of Paul’s argument suggest that we should take the meaning to be “righteousness that comes by faith”. In other words, those who are right with God are those who inherit the earth because they are the ones who bear his image and fulfil the creation mandate. The question is whether law or faith lead to righteousness. Paul says that it is faith (v13).
This matter because, according to Paul, you can’t have both. If the law keepers inherit the covenant promise, then faith becomes pointless. This would undermine Scripture’s claim that it was through his faith that Abraham was credited with righteousness (v14). Paul then states that the law brings wrath, God’s just anger and judgement. However, if there is no law to be broken, then there can be no transgression, no law-breaking. We have already established that all creation is under God’s wrath, so how can this be? Well Paul will return to this point in chapter 5 but we will need to hold onto that thought because first of all, he will round off his analogy about Abraham.
Faithroots 