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13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations")—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 Therefore his faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness." 23 Now the words, "it was reckoned to him," were written not for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. (Romans 4:13-25 NRS)
Dear Friend, is your Check Engine light on or off? I have a dear friend, who, like me, is of a certain age and not too long ago as we spoke to catch up on the telephone, he said that he knows that his Check Engine Light is on now and must handle his body accordingly. This passage will address those who are living and as the scripture itself says, those who are as good as dead. Regardless of where you think you are, God is with you!
Abraham was a hundred years old. His body, Paul says with characteristic bluntness, was “as good as dead.” Sarah’s womb was barren. The biological possibility of what God had promised had closed decades ago. By every measurable standard, the promise was over before it started.
And Abraham believed anyway.
Paul holds this up not as an interesting historical footnote but as the defining portrait of what faith looks like — and as the key that unlocks who the Spirit’s promise at Pentecost is actually for. The God who kept his word to a hundred-year-old man with a barren wife is the same God who poured out his Spirit on all flesh in Jerusalem. The God who “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” is the God whose Spirit is still being poured out today.
This is a Pentecost passage because Pentecost is the fulfillment of a promise that, by all human reckoning, should never have arrived.
Grace Wide Enough for All His Descendants
Paul’s argument in this passage has a Pentecost shape to it that we can miss if we read it only as doctrinal instruction about justification. He is making a point about who the promise is for.
The promise to Abraham, Paul insists, did not come through the law. It came through faith. And this matters enormously for the scope of who inherits it. If the promise required law-observance, it would be confined to those who kept the law — a bounded, manageable, culturally specific group. But because the promise rests on grace received through faith, it is open to “all his descendants — not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham.”
All his descendants. All who share his faith. The promise is as wide as faith itself, which is as wide as every person who has ever looked at an impossible situation and chosen to believe that the God who gives life to the dead is still able to do what he has promised.
This is the Pentecost heartbeat. When Joel prophesied and Peter announced that the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh — sons and daughters, young and old, slave and free — they were saying the same thing Paul says here about Abraham’s descendants. The promise was never meant to stay small. It was always meant to reach every nation, every background, every person who comes to God the way Abraham came: not with credentials, but with faith in the one who raises the dead.
Hoping Against Hope
Paul gives us one of the most luminous phrases in all of his letters: “hoping against hope, he believed.”
Hoping against hope. It is the faith that persists after every human reason for hoping has been exhausted. It is not denial — Abraham did not pretend his body was young or Sarah’s womb was not barren. Paul is careful to say he “considered” these things. He looked at the facts. He did not flinch from them. And then he believed anyway, because his faith was not anchored in circumstances but in the character of God.
He grew strong in his faith, Paul says, as he gave glory to God. This is the counterintuitive movement of biblical faith: it does not grow strong by ignoring difficulty. It grows strong by redirecting attention — from what is impossible in the situation to what is possible for God. The giving of glory is not a feeling. It is a choice. A deliberate reorientation of the gaze from the barren womb to the God who opens wombs and raises the dead.
The Pentecost connection here is direct. The Spirit was poured out on a community of one hundred and twenty people who had just watched their Lord crucified and buried. Every human reason to hope had been extinguished on Good Friday. And yet they prayed. They gathered. They waited. They hoped against hope — because the one who had promised to send the Spirit was the same one who gives life to the dead. And on the morning of Pentecost, the impossible arrived.
The same God who kept his word to Abraham, who kept his word to the disciples in the upper room, is the God who keeps his word still. The Spirit poured out has not been withdrawn. The promise resting on grace has not expired. For those who are hoping against hope today — looking at circumstances that say the promise cannot possibly be kept — Abraham’s faith is not a museum piece. It is a living model of how to wait for the God who gives life to the dead.
For Reflection
Paul closes the passage with the declaration that Abraham’s story was written down not for Abraham’s sake alone, but for ours. The faith that was reckoned to him as righteousness will be reckoned to us also — “to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”
The resurrection is the hinge on which everything turns. Abraham believed in the God who gives life to the dead. We believe in the God who proved that promise in the most public and irreversible way imaginable — by raising Jesus from the dead on the third day. And the same God who raised Jesus poured out his Spirit at Pentecost, opening the promise to all flesh, making Abraham the father of a family wider than any nation, any culture, any law could contain.
On Pentecost Sunday, we are invited to do what Abraham did. Not to pretend the circumstances are different from what they are. Not to manufacture a feeling of faith we do not have. But to look at what is impossible and redirect our gaze to the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist — and to give him glory, even now, even here, as an act of hope that does not depend on what we can see.
He is fully able to do what he has promised. He has always been. The Spirit poured out at Pentecost is the proof.
PRAYER: God who gave life to the dead in Abraham’s household and poured out your Spirit on all flesh at Pentecost, strengthen us to hope against hope today, fully convinced that you are able to do what you have promised. In Christ Jesus we pray, Amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Name one impossible-feeling situation in your life or someone else’s, and this week deliberately redirect your gaze from the barrenness of the circumstances to the God who gives life to the dead — giving him glory in prayer before the answer arrives, as Abraham did.
I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me! Hoping against hope, he believed! So can you!
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
