Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 4-7.

Paul continues on his exposition about salvation by grace through faith in today’s passage.  He points out that Abraham was credited as righteous because he believed God.  This righteousness was credited to Abraham before he was circumcised, and before Isaac was born.  It came even before Abraham fathered Ishmael.  Abraham did not earn his righteousness by his actions, rather God gave it to him as a free gift.  In the same way God will credit those who believe in Jesus with righteousness.  After further exposition on God’s grace in giving us righteousness, Paul then explains the situation we were in before we received God’s gift: we had sinned and were therefore slaves to sin.  However, when we believed in Christ we died with Him to sin, freeing us from that slavery.  It is God’s grace which allows us to stop sinning.  Doing good does not make us righteous, rather, the fact that God has made us righteous causes us to do good.  Some people think that because God’s grace has made us righteous, because our goodness has no impact on God’s love for us, that we have no reason not to sin.  They fail to understand that God’s gift of righteousness is the only reason we need to not sin.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.