Romans 4 - EasyEnglish Bible 2024（EASY）

Chapter 4Abraham believed God and God accepted him

1Abraham was the ancestor of all of us who are Jews. Think about what he discovered.

2God did not accept Abraham as right with him because Abraham had done good things. If God had done that, then Abraham would have been able to boast about himself. But he could not boast to God.

3Remember what the Bible tells us. It says: ‘Abraham believed God. As a result, God accepted Abraham as right with him.’

4When a person works to get money, that money is not a gift. It is what that person deserves to receive as a result of his work.

5But someone who believes in God does not work to cause God to accept him. God accepts that person because of their faith. God says that people who have turned away from him are right with him, if they now trust him. That is God's gift to them.

6David also wrote about the same thing. He describes those people that God has accepted as right with himself. God has not accepted them because they have done good things. It is his gift to them. David tells us how happy people like that are.

7David says:

‘The people that God has forgiven are truly happy.

They have done wrong things,

but he has forgiven them.

8A person is truly happy when the Lord God accepts him.

The Lord does not think about that person's sin any more.’

9God does this for all people, both Jews and Gentiles. All people can be happy like this, when God accepts them. As we have said, Abraham believed God. As a result, God accepted Abraham as right with him.

10Someone circumcised Abraham to show that he belonged to God's people. Think about the time when God accepted Abraham. Did it happen before someone circumcised him, or after that? We know that it was before anyone circumcised him!

11Abraham's circumcision was a mark on his body to show that God had already accepted him. God had accepted Abraham because Abraham believed in him. This shows that Abraham is like a father to everyone that God has accepted. Like Abraham, God has accepted them because they have believed in him. It is not important that nobody has circumcised them.

12But Abraham is also like the father of all Jews who believe in God. Someone has circumcised those Jews, but they have also copied Abraham's example. They have believed in God, as Abraham believed before anyone had circumcised him. Everyone who trusts God receives what God promised to Abraham

13God promised Abraham and his descendants that the world would belong to them one day. God did not promise this because Abraham obeyed any rules. God promised it because Abraham believed in him. That is why God accepted Abraham as right with him.

14People cannot receive what God has promised because they obey rules. If they could get it like that, faith in God would be worth nothing. And what God has promised would be worth nothing.

15The rules in God's Law say that God will punish people who do not obey those rules. But without any rules, there is nothing for people to obey.

16So God gives us his promise as a gift, because he is very kind. We receive it when we trust him. If we believe in God like Abraham did, then God accepts us. That is God's promise to all of Abraham's family. If we believe in God, we can call Abraham our ancestor. We can all receive what God has promised. It is not only for those who have Moses' Law to obey.

17In the Bible, God said to Abraham, ‘I have chosen you to become the ancestor of many nations of people.’ Abraham believed in God's promise, so God calls him our ancestor. God is the one who causes dead people to become alive again. He speaks about things that are not yet there as if they were already there.

18Abraham continued to trust God. He hoped to receive what God had promised. He continued to hope even when he had no good reason to hope. That is why he became the ancestor of many nations. It happened just like God had said: ‘You will have very many descendants.’

19Abraham was about 100 years old. His body was already so old that it was nearly dead. His wife, Sarah, was unable to have children. Abraham understood all that, but he did not stop trusting God.

20He never stopped believing what God had promised. Instead, he believed in God more strongly. He gave honour to God.

21Abraham was sure that God was able to do what he had promised to do.

22So we see that it is true: because Abraham believed God, God accepted Abraham as right with him.

23Think about those words, ‘God accepted him as right.’ They are not only speaking about Abraham.

24They are written in the Bible to help us too. If we believe in God, he will accept us as right with him. God raised our Lord Jesus to become alive again after his death.

25God let people kill Jesus on the cross because of the wrong things that we have done. Then God raised Jesus from death, to show that he would accept us as right with him.