An Inherited Promise

¹³For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he should be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect. ¹⁵For the law produces wrath, for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience. ¹⁶For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. ¹⁷As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were. ¹⁸Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.” ¹⁹Without being weakened in faith, he didn’t consider his own body, already having been worn out, (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God, ²¹and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. ²²Therefore it also was “credited to him for righteousness.” ²³Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, ²⁴but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead, ²⁵who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.