Romans 4

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? ² For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. ³ For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” ⁴ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. ⁵ And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, ⁶ just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

⁹ Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. ¹⁰ How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. ¹¹ He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, ¹² and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Galatians 3

 ⁵ Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— ⁶ just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

⁷ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. ⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” ⁹ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

 

¹⁹ Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. ²⁰ Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

²¹ Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. ²² But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

²³ Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. ²⁴ So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, ²⁶ for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

Romans 8 and 9

²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

 

⁶ But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, ⁷ and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” ⁸ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. ⁹ For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁰ And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, ¹¹ though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— ¹² she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” ¹³ As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

These verses are all teaching one of the most common beliefs among protestants. That being God has had one way of salvation for Christians throughout the ages. This “one way of salvation” is to refer to the Ordo salutis. The reason why I mention these things is that the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, and others have a high sacramentology.

They often state that baptism is necessary for salvation. Or that the sacraments like the Lord’s supper are necessary. The only issue is that it contradicts the plain and obvious teaching of scripture. That saints have been saved the same way since Abraham. This was purposely done by God as an example for everyone that possesses God’s salvific promises (Rom.9).

Those that maintain baptism is necessary for salvation to have to posit multiple methods of salvation. Whether by the sacraments, near-death conversions, or pagans that have not heard the Gospel (Jews, Muslims, etc). They recognize that these weren’t operative in the OT. They ignore the fact we are Abrahams’s descendants because we share in his faith and were saved by that same faith. Paul’s presupposition is simply that we were saved the same way Abraham was saved. If this were not the case, then the response to Paul is that God decided in the New Covenant that people are saved in a different way.

There have been several arguments against this position.

Objection 1: We are justified the same way as Abraham. The difference is the means of grace by which we are justified are different. The promise of salvation is the same, but the means by which they are applied is different. 

This is where Catholics will maintain that the New Law justifies us in the NT. This includes faith, sacraments, general commands, etc. The problem in Paul’s argument is that the means of grace are the same in the OT in the NT for justification. The point is his means of grace are the historical way that always has been. Also, Catholics make the OT Law, circumcision, etc all necessary for salvation in the OT. That is because they are the means of grace in the OT (in order to parallel Catholic covenant theology). Furthermore, Paul’s opponent could state that there is no correlation between the means by which OT saints were justified and the way NT saints were justified. So, the means could be circumcision or taking Jewish identity. This undermines Paul’s entire argument.

Objection 2: Some argue that this is an unrealistic requirement for them. That issues of baptism are merely an NT experience and that the Trinity wasn’t even revealed yet.

The response to this is just to point out that this isn’t a response to the Biblical data at all! Rather than stating anything significant, the objector thinks Paul has unrealistic requirements and doesn’t understand their soteriology.

Objection 3: Another objection is that baptism replaced circumcision and that circumcision was necessary for salvation in the OT times.

The problem with this position is that it ignores the Biblical data that circumcision wasn’t necessary for salvation and never was. The argument Paul uses in Rom. 4 is that Abraham was saved before he was circumcised. This theme is found all over the NT:

²⁸ For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. ²⁹ But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from people, but from God.

Secondly, it ignores the Pauline evidence that people were saved the same way by God. The issue is simply ignored rather than dealt with.

Objection 4: Abraham received the promise directly from God. Christians receive the promise through baptism. We all don’t have God delivering us the promise directly. 

This is an equivocation on the term “received”. God revealed to Abraham the promise that was applied to him by faith. The epistemological way that Abraham came to know the promise was a direct revelation from God, but that is different from how Abraham had the promise applied to him.

Objection 5: Throughout history people are justified in the same way, that is by faith, but by faith we mean faith is that which brings man to follow God’s covenant terms. Thus, men are justified the same way by faith working through love.

The problem is that the Pauline argument isn’t that covenants have had the same structures but rather that people have been saved the exact same means Abraham was saved. Secondly, his covenant would require circumcision. So, this would imply Paul was wrong about it not being necessary for Abraham’s justification.

 

Objection 6: Old Testament saints were justified by their love of God. This means that they were baptized by their desires or martyrdom. As one Catholic explained:

Historically, the Church has taught that the graces of baptism can be received not only through the administration of the sacrament itself (baptism of water) but also through the desire for the sacrament (baptism of desire) or through martyrdom for Christ (baptism of blood).

Recent doctrinal development has made clear that it is possible for one to receive baptism of desire by an implicit desire. This is the principle that makes it possible for non-Christians to be saved. If they are genuinely committed to seeking and living by the truth, then they are implicitly committed to seeking Jesus Christ and living by his commands; they just don’t know that he is the Truth they’re seeking (cf. John 14:6).

This also fails for the same reason as the other explanations. Paul is trying to explain how people have always been justified. But Catholics maintain that baptism by desire isn’t necessary to justification but sufficient for it. Paul’s point is to show what’s necessary for justification. Furthermore, if people can be justified by other means, then it may be the case that justification can be by circumcising. Also, it’s unlikely that Abraham desired baptism given that that practice doesn’t come around for centuries. Abraham also wasn’t ignorant of Christ (John 8). He isn’t in the class of those ignorant of God with implicit desire for baptism.

There’s also the issue of whether it’s reconcilable with the Catholic tradition has stated in the past about the topic.

Objection 7: OT Saints were baptized into Moses (1 Cor. 10:2). This shows that Baptism was the same throughout both Testaments. 

10 Now I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the fact that all of our ancestors who left Egypt were under the cloud. They all went through the sea, ² and they all were immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. ³ They all ate the same spiritual food ⁴ and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that went with them. That rock was the Messiah

This objection is like all the others, terrible for Catholic apologists. Does he wish to maintain we still need to be baptized into Moses? In fact, according to Catholic theology, there are certain requirements for baptism. Why suppose that the ‘baptism into Moses” met such? Notice that nobody passed through the Red Sea in the trinitarian formula. The point of my argument was to show that Abraham was the paradigm of Justification (hence why it was written for our benefit). Abraham came before Moses, it is unlikely that he passed through the Red Sea. Paul isn’t trying to establish an OT sacrament, but to draw an analogy. Take for example these scholars:

If Paul is referring to baptism in some sense other than water baptism (e.g., “baptized into Moses” in 1 Corinthians 10:2), the passage isn’t even relevant.

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/07/focusing-on-galatians-3-in-discussions.html

There is no antedated concept of “baptism into Moses,” and the expression is evidently formulated by Paul in order to make the metaphorical parallel to baptism into Christ as clear as possible. Just as Christ is identified as the founder of the new covenant established through his death and resurrection, Moses was understood to be the (human) founder of the covenant established at the time of the great exodus redemption. Just as the people were expected to obey the covenantal expectations established by Moses, we are expected to obey all that Christ commands us. As Thiselton points out, baptism “into” Christ or Moses signifies “not locality, sphere or movement but adherence to the one in whose name the candidate is baptized.”

Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 447–448.

The inclination to draw parallels between the experience of Israel and that of the church is evident again here. Paul says that the wilderness generation was baptised into Moses, just as Christians are ‘baptised into Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 6:3). Moses’ unique role as the leader of Israel was ratified when Israel was in the cloud and in the sea. The language of baptism seems a bit strange since Israel did not get wet but stayed dry as it passed through the water. We recognize that Paul argues analogously. In Christian baptism, believers are ‘clothed . . . with Christ’ (Gal. 3:27) and are incorporated into the church (1 Cor. 12:13). There is a sense in which Israel, through the great redemptive event of the exodus, was incorporated into Moses and established as the people of God.

Schreiner, Thomas R.. 1 Corinthians (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries) . InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

He means only that the Israelites had in Moses someone analogous to Christ, into whom Christians are baptized. Moses is associated with hoi pateres, which is being used in the generic sense, “ancestors, forebears.” They are related to Moses through the cloud and the sea, just as Christians are related to Christ through baptism. Moses appears elsewhere as a figure foreshadowing Jesus Christ (Rom 10:5; 2 Cor 3:7–15). Some mss (P46c, B, 1739, 1881, and Koine text-tradition) read the aor. mid. ebaptisanto, “they got themselves plunged/baptized for Moses” (BDAG, 165), thereby stressing the voluntary act that affirms dependence on his leadership.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. First Corinthians (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries, Vol 32) Yale University Press (Page 382).