How God Counts You Righteous

The Lord tells Abram to look up at the stars. If he can count the millions of lights breaking through the night, he’ll get a feel for how many descendants will come through him.

“So shall your offspring be.” (Genesis 15:5).

Abram looks down. This lavish promise comes against the hard reality that Abram has no offspring. An old man, his body is as good as dead (Romans 8:19). How could a nation come from no offspring?

But then Abram looks at the Lord. Remembering the faithfulness of God, Abram believes in the promise of a son.

And the Lord, who had watched sin enter the world through unbelief, rewards Abram’s faith:

“And [Abram] believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6).

God counts Abram’s faith in the promised son as righteousness—as right standing before him.

He doesn’t count Abram’s circumcision as righteousness. The covenant sign doesn’t come until Genesis 17.

He doesn’t count Abram’s obedience as righteousness. Abram’s test of obedience doesn’t come until Genesis 22.

He doesn’t count Abram’s upholding of the law as righteousness. God gives the law hundreds of years later in Exodus 20.

In Genesis 15, before circumcision and Mount Moriah and Mount Sinai, God counts Abram’s faith in the promised son as righteousness.

Through Abram, God was showing us how he would count us righteous. The apostle Paul says so:

“But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:23-25)

When God counted Abram’s faith in the promised son as righteousness, he was showing how he would one day count us righteous: not through circumcision, not through obedience, not through the law, but through faith in the promised offspring of Abram (Matthew 1:1), Jesus Christ—who was righteous on our behalf.

Are you rejoicing in and responding to God’s righteous declaration over you? Or are you trying to transplant Exodus 20 in front of Genesis 15—gaining God’s righteousness through the law rather than receiving it through faith?

There is no alternate route to righteousness.

God will count you righteous through faith in Christ, and no other way.