I’ve been studying the book of Romans again lately, in part because I just finished a long study of Paul’s letters to Corinth and it’s believed Paul wrote Romans from Corinth, but also because I went back to Rome in April, an amazing trip provided courtesy of years of airline miles and the lowest AAdvantage award tickets I’ve seen to an international destination. Rome is also where Paul died, so I thought it would be great timing to study Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, given all I learned during Wheaton in the Holy Lands in 2014 in both Corinth and Rome plus all that I saw back in Rome this year.

The site remembered as the tomb of Paul at the Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le Mura (St. Paul’s outside the Walls) in Rome.

I’m not super far—I like to take it slowly and use what I’ve learned (and taught) about literature over the years as I study, thinking through author, setting, purpose, tone, audience, and other narrative elements. Context matters—not just because “Context” is one of my top “strengthsquest” strengths, but because it adds so much to the message.

I’ve been learning much about grace over the past year and in reading Romans, but that’s for a future post. Today, I’m reflecting on what I think is one of the most hopeful partial verses from Scripture I’ve read in a long time: “…the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (Romans 4:17b).

Now, I realize on the surface that verse may not seem extraordinarily hopeful over and above many other verses—such as God so loving the world that He gave His only Son for us (John 3:16) or that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). However, it struck me this week and may be one of my new favorite verses.

Context for Romans: Emperor Claudius kicked the Jews out of Rome around 40 AD, and after his death, they returned to the city. At that point, the Gentile church was already established in Rome, so now the Jewish converts to Christianity and the Gentile church merged and had to figure out how to do that well.

The Jews had been living faithfully to God’s law, including with food laws, circumcision, and other purity laws, so when they merged with the Gentile church in Rome, some fair questions arose as to what was now required of believers in Christ. Did the Gentiles need to start obeying the law and its requirements? Were the Jews to just ignore the law that was part of their heritage and so embedded in their way of life?

These questions aren’t only found in the church at Rome—there’s a whole Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 where Paul, Peter, and some other leaders in the church had to figure out what living faithfully for God looked like after Christ’s death and resurrection changed everything.

Here in Romans 4, Paul has been talking about Abraham, a father of the faith who the Jews looked up to, and which was a great rhetorical strategy for Paul. He emphasizes how Abraham is the father of both Jews and Gentiles, explaining how Father Abe was actually declared righteous before he ever received the law, so it had nothing to do with circumcision or his works. Abraham’s righteousness was solely due to his faith in God, so Jewish converts pointing to Abraham as the reason to cling to the law don’t have a good argument here, Paul explains.

Some people will try to pit Paul and James against each other here and in other places because Paul so adamantly asserts that faith is the only thing that matters for salvation whereas James says that faith without works is dead (James 2:17), but the authors are dealing with two totally different situations and audiences (context, people!). James was dealing with nominal believers, “cultural Christians” who figured once they had their “fire insurance” salvation from hell, they could live however they wanted.

His point is that faith without some sort of evidence of fruit—of a life lived responding to the grace of God in Christ—isn’t really faith at all but rather a shallow belief. In chapter 2 verse 19, James says even the demons believe God is who He says, so if people stop at that type of belief, they’re only as good as the demons and missing the whole point.

Let’s go back to Paul: he’s not saying works never matter, but he is saying that works have no bearing on salvation. The Jews who’ve been adhering stringently to the law are as unable to save themselves as are those “pagan Gentiles.” True fact: if you are “partially” able to save yourself, you are actually unable to really save yourself. It’s all or nothing, and since we can’t measure up the whole way, we fail completely. Paul argues that the law shows us all just how incapable we are of saving ourselves. Oh, you want to live with God? No problem—just live a perfect, sinless life that totally lives up to God’s standards set forth in the law.

Obviously, Paul reminds readers, we can’t live up to those standards. So the law isn’t evil or bad, but rather it shows us how we fall short of God and need Him to save us, how we need God to satisfy the demands of the law for us, which Christ did for us on the cross.

Back to Romans 4:17b: “the God who gives life to the dead” is huge—we are dead and stuck in our sin, but through Christ, we are brought to life. Paul alludes to Isaac’s birth here, a “life to the dead” situation because Abraham and Sarah were 100 and 90 years old, respectively (Genesis 17). God is the God of impossibilities—of a 90 year old having a son. I mean, think about it: how crazy does that sound?!? Lest you say, “Wellll…people lived to be much older back then, so per the rate of age inflation, having a child at 90 wouldn’t be that old,” go read Genesis 17 and 18 because the idea was so ludicrous to both Abraham and Sarah that they laughed at God—literally laughed. But God has the last laugh—pun intended—because they name their son Isaac, and Isaac’s name literally means “he laughs.”

In Romans 4:17b, Paul also alludes to the resurrection, though: Christ gives life to us in our inability to save ourselves, in our death. That’s huge, but the second part of that verse is what truly encourages me today: “the God who…calls things that are not as though they were.” Wow. Re-read that if you need to, and then think about that a little bit. Not only does God give life to us in our sin and death, but He calls us who aren’t as though we are.

Fill in those italicized words with whatever you feel isn’t enough right now. For me, that could be a lot of things: gracious (or grace-giving), focused, sufficient, capable, loving, etc. “The God who calls Hannah, who’s incapable, as though she is capable; the God who calls Hannah, who is not gracious, as though she is; the God who calls Hannah, who is dead in her sin, as though she is already redeemed.”

I love that so much.

I read a book by Louie Giglio a couple years ago called I Am Not But I Know I Am. Yeah, wrap your mind around that title for a minute.

His point throughout the book is what the title testifies to: he realizes he is not __________ (God, Savior, perfect, capable, etc.), but he knows I Am, the God who is. It was a good reminder of truths I knew, that wherever we are not able, God is. That’s the point of God calling Himself “I Am” with Moses, Giglio explains: “You aren’t strong enough to lead the people out of Egypt? It’s okay. I Am.” Giglio says he wants to have a nametag that says, “Hello, my name is I Am Not.”

So here, in Romans 4:17, after arguing that everyone—whether Jewish or Gentile convert—is utterly sinful and comes to God purely through faith, Paul presents the contrast: though those in the church unequivocally cannot measure up to God and cannot redeem themselves, God calls things that are not as though they were. In short, He calls them redeemed. We don’t measure up, but God, in sending His Son to die for our sins, already sees us as though we do measure up through Christ.

How hopeful is that? I am not strong, I am not focused, I do not give grace like I should, and I am inadequate for the task set before me. But God calls me when I’m not and when I don’t as though I am and I do—not because I’m selling myself short and secretly do have strength and focus and grace and adequacy and really just want to sound self-deprecating, but because God covers my lack. By Him, I am these things.

I hope you’re encouraged! I know I’m not spouting new truths here but probably things you already know and might need to be reminded of. I am not, but I know I Am; I am inadequate, but God calls me as though I am adequate. And He is adequate, so with Him driving me, how can I fear?

May you be encouraged, reminded that our God is the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. It’s that “already but not yet” tension—the truth that we are not yet living out our spotless redemption and yet are already called redeemed because God calls us who are not as though we were. What a hopeful truth and great news. May you rest in that truth, and have a blessed weekend!