What does it mean that Abraham cannot boast before God?

Explanation:

In Romans 4:2, Paul introduces a conditional. He says, if Abraham is justified by works, he has something to boast about. He then follows this up with, but not before God. At first, it is not clear what Paul means. Does he mean that even if Abraham was justified by works he still could not boast before God? Or does he mean something else? In fact, he means something else. In particular, by introducing the clause but not before God, Paul is denying that Abraham is justified by works.² That is, Paul denies the major premise of the conditional (Abraham is justified by works).

We can detect that Paul denies the major premise of the conditional, because Paul will categorize Abraham with the ungodly in Romans 4:5.³ That suggests that Paul denies the major premise of the conditional. That is, while it is true that if Abraham is justified by works he has reason to boast, he does not have reason to boast before God. Therefore, Abraham is not justified by works.

Counterargument:

The problem with this argument is that Paul does not clearly state that Abraham is included with the ungodly in Romans 4:5. Rather, Paul says that he who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteous. From a logical perspective, Abraham could be righteous and believe in the one who justifies the ungodly, assuming there are other people besides Abraham who are ungodly. Of course, the counterargument here is not that Paul is saying Abraham was not ungodly, but only that Paul does not refer to Abraham as ungodly in Romans 4:5. And if so, this view cannot argue that Paul denies the major premise of the conditional by including Abraham with the ungodly.

Response to counterargument:

While Paul does not explicitly state that Abraham is included in the ungodly, the context strongly suggests that Abraham should be included with the ungodly. We can detect that Abraham should be included with the ungodly by the way Paul frames the issue. He explains that according to Scripture, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness (Romans 4:3). Then in Romans 4:5 he expands on Abraham’s faith by articulating a general theological principle, which is that for the one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Paul has stated that Abraham has faith, and then he explains that those who have faith that God justifies the ungodly are considered righteous. Clearly Abraham is one of the ungodly who have faith, and by that faith is considered righteous.

Explanation:

Paul has already explained in Romans 2:1–29 that one who is justified by works has something to boast about. First, Paul writes in Romans 2:6 that God will render each according to his works, so we know that God, in principle, pays according to works. Then in Romans 2:13 he says it is not the hearers but the doers of the law who will be justified before God. Now Paul asks in Romans 4:2, If Abraham is justified by works, does he have reason to boast? Based on what Paul has already written about God rendering according to works, and justifying the doers of the law, the answer is Yes. If Abraham was justified by works, he would have reason to boast. But, Paul adds, but not before God. The phrase is Paul’s succinct way of denying the major premise of the conditional.⁴ In other words, Abraham cannot boast before God, so Abraham is not justified by works.

Counterargument:

When Paul says that God repays according to works, and that the doers of the law will be justified, he says nothing about boasting before God. That is, Paul never says that the doers of the law have a reason to boast before God, but only that they will be justified. In fact, Paul himself writes in Romans 4:4 that to him who works, what he receives is his due. In other words, he who works has no reason to boast, because what he receives is due him. Still, Paul says, even if Abraham is justified by works, he still has no reason to boast, implying that it is the superiority of God that removes Abraham’s right to boast, not his inability to be justified by works.

Response to counterargument:

The problem with this counterargument is that it does not consider the context that surrounds Romans 4:2. Paul is specifically putting Abraham forward as an example to show that no one will be justified by works. In other words, even Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, was not reckoned righteous because of works, but because of faith (Romans 4:3). Paul’s point is not that even if Abraham was justified by works he still would not be able to boast before God. Rather, his point is that he cannot boast before God because he is not justified by his works. That Abraham cannot boast because he is not justified by his works aligns with Paul’s earlier comments that God is impartial (Romans 2:6), and the doers of the law will be justified (Romans 2:13).

The one weakness of this view is that the phrase but not before God is a linguistically awkward way of saying that Abraham is not justified by works.

Explanation:

Paul introduces a conditional statement in Romans 4:2. If Abaraham was justified by works, he would have something to boast about. The notion that if Abraham was justified by works, he would have something to boast about, undermines what Paul has already said in Romans 3:27–28.⁶ For in Romans 3:27–28 Paul says that boasting is excluded, based not on the law of works but on the law of faith. So if boasting is not based on the law of works, then if Abraham is justified by his works, he does not seem to have something to boast about. So why does Paul articulate the conditional in Romans 4:2 that suggests boasting does follow from being justified by works? Paul introduces the conditional in order to deny it, which he does with the phrase but not before God. In other words, Paul denies the conditional that if Abraham was justified by works, he would have something to boast about. Thus, even Abraham was justified, he still could not boast.

Counterargument:

According to this argument, when Paul writes but not before God, he is denying the entire conditional because otherwise Paul would undermine his own comments in Romans 3:27–28. In fact, this is not the case; rather, by denying the entire conditional, Paul seems to undermine himself. For Paul has already made clear that God is not impartial, and he repays each according to his works (Romans 2:6–11). The problem is that all are under sin (Romans 3:9), which means that no one can do good works. This is why Paul says that boasting is excluded. It is not excluded on the basis of works, for if works were possible, one could boast. Rather, it is excluded on the basis of faith. And since we are only justified by faith, there will be no boasting before God. The conditional aligns with this line of thinking, in that according to the conditional, if Abraham is justified by works he has something to boast about. Of course, Abraham is not justified by works, so in reality, he cannot boast.

The weakness of this view is that it does not align well with any of the themes Paul has introduced. For this view implies that Paul is saying something about the supremacy of God. That is, Paul is saying that even if Abraham did good works, and had reason to boast, he still could not boast before God because of God’s supremacy. While God’s supremacy might be implied by many of Paul’s statements in these early chapters of Romans, it is not a main theme. Rather, his main theme is that no one is able to do the works required for boasting. So not aligning with any of the themes Paul introduces in this section is a weakness of this view.