“…[W]hat he had promised he was able to perform” (NKJV)

When you read the fourth chapter of Romans and get to the part about Abraham, especially starting at verse 16, we discover why Abraham is “the father of us all.”  This means not just Jews by bloodline, but also believers by “faithline.”  God promised Abraham a son through Sarah, and they waited 25 very long trying years before God delivered Isaac to them.  During that time, including the episode with Hagar in trying to carry out God’s will man’s way, Abraham didn’t flinch in faith: “he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God” (v. 20), even when his body was giving out, reproductively speaking.  For twenty-five years he walked with God and learned from him in the ups and downs of a very routine life.  He learned to trust God, becoming indeed the father of us all.  And what was it that he learned more than anything else?  That what God “had promised, he was able to perform” (v. 21, NKJV).

How do we know that Abraham could trust God?  Look at the test God gave in Genesis 22: “Sacrifice [Isaac] there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about” (v. 2).  After 25 years of walking, learning, growing, there was no delay.  He was up “early the next morning” (v. 3) preparing to go.  He could so trust God that he told his servants, “We [Isaac and I] will worship and then we will come back to you” (v. 5).  No hint of worry or fear.  A bit later he told Isaac, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (v. 8).  Not a trace of maybe.  How could he be so sure, so confident?  25 years of walking with God will teach you a thing or two.  Abraham had come to know his God.  By test time, it had been 38 years for Abe. So throw in another thing or two.

The word most translated able in the New Testament comes from the Greek root word that means “power” and give us our English word “dynamite.”  God has power to perform, power to do things that only he can do.  Psalm 115:3 says, “Our god is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.”  Since his promises show off his wonderful, holy character and power, he is pleased to deliver and keep his word.

In riveting contrast, the next several verses show the ability of idols: “But their idols are silver and god, made by the hands of men.  They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but they cannot walk; nor can they utter a sound with their throats” (vs. 4-7).  They have all the parts, but they don’t function.  They look good on the outside, but they don’t deliver because they can’t.  They have neither the power nor the ability.  This is certainly a prime case of god made in the image of man: “Those who make them will be like them, and so will those who trust in them” (v. 8).

What this really gets down to is the old question, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?”  The answer to why things exist at all is a living, creating personal God.  God is there; he exists in glory.  Idols are powerless nothings, the creation of distorted and depraved minds.  Probably a better question to ask is, “Why can we ask why?”  That might generate some interesting conversation!

God was able to perform what he promised.  He was able then, and he is able now.  Scripture describes his ability to do many things.  He is able to graft in Gentile believers into the redeemed family tree of Israel like a branch from a wild olive tree grafted into a cultivated olive tree (Romans 11:23-24).  He is able to “make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).  Take a minute and review all those superlatives.  He is “able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12).  In Hebrews he is “able to help” (2:18), “able to save completely those who come to God through him” (7:25), and able to “raise the dead” (11:19), which figurative speaks of Isaac.  James 4:12 says God is “able to save and destroy.”  Jude added that God is “able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (24).

When Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” the Greek word is the same as “then I am able.”  When I am weak I am able?  Yes!  It’s true because Jesus, at his weakest, carried all the sin on his back on the cross.  He passed his ability on to us.  Is his ability at work in you?