“Blessed and happy and favored are those whose lawless acts have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered up and completely buried. Blessed and happy and favored is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account nor charge against him” (Romans 4:7-8).
We all know this song; “Abraham’s blessings are mine, hallelujah…” Don’t we? But when you’re singing it, what “blessings” are you referring to?
“WHAT ARE THE BLESSINGS OF ABRAHAM?”
We asked this question on our Facebook page, and got answers from a few of our followers. Most of them talked about the materials blessings that Abraham received: prosperity, long-life, numerous descendants, the land of Israel and so on and so forth. However, today we will be focusing on what we consider the most important blessing Abraham received.
We know that the main reason Jesus Christ came was to reconcile us back to right standing with the Father. This is what we refer to as righteousness. Righteousness simply means right standing with God. You can’t get it by ‘being good’, or by animal sacrifices (Hebrews 10:3-7).
That’s why the sacrifice of Jesus was very important. It was God’s redemption plan. He took our sins upon himself in exchange for His righteousness, at no cost to us. All we have to do to receive this blessing is believe in Him (John 3:16). No one can be righteous before God without accepting Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 NKJV).
This is what Paul was also talking about in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19:
“But all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ [making us acceptable to Him] and gave us the ministry of reconciliation [so that by our example we might bring others to Him], that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favor with God]” (AMP).
Now read verse 19 again and compare it to the scripture that started this post (Romans 4:7-8), do you see any similarities?
Paul asked a question in Romans 4:1. He said, “What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, humanly speaking, has found?” The answer to that question is in Gen 15:6:
“Then Abram believed in (affirmed, trusted in, relied on, remained steadfast to) the Lord; and He counted (credited) it to him as righteousness (doing right in regard to God and man)” (AMP).
Father Abraham was the only man God himself called righteous because of his faith, and this happened long before Jesus Christ came into the world. Read the entire 4th chapter of the book of Romans to get a clearer picture of this.
Today, we refer to Abraham as “The Father of our Faith” (Romans 4:11-12) because, just like Him, God counts our faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work as righteousness!
“Therefore, since we have been justified [that is, acquitted of sin, declared blameless before God] by faith, [let us grasp the fact that] we have peace with God [and the joy of reconciliation with Him] through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed)…” (Romans 5:1 AMP).
So, the next you are singing that song remember that, just like our father Abraham, you also have right standing with God because of your faith in Christ Jesus.
Glory to God!
