Wisdom for the Heart

The Sign and Seal of Faith

• Stephen Davey

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What if the timeline of Abraham’s life overturns everything you thought about how God saves? We walk through Romans 4, Galatians 3, and Genesis to show why Abraham was counted righteous long before he received any covenant sign—and why that changes how we think about faith, ritual, and belonging. By contrasting Abraham and David—both undeniably flawed—we spotlight Paul’s central claim: justification is God’s gift, not a reward for a moral record. Grace is credited through faith, not sealed by ancestry or secured by law.

From there, we tackle a common confusion: the role of signs. Circumcision was a sign and a seal, like a wedding ring—it points to a deeper covenant but doesn’t create it. That distinction matters today when outward practices can eclipse inward reality. We draw a straight line from Abraham’s seal to ours: the Holy Spirit, who indwells believers as heaven’s official pledge and marks us as citizens of a better country. This lens reframes identity. Abraham is called the father of all who believe, not because faith follows bloodlines, but because trust in God’s promise makes a family that crosses cultures and languages.

We also explore how faith waits. Abraham wandered the promised land while owning only a gravesite, trusting a future he couldn’t yet touch. That same resilient trust carries us now—we believe the promised King and the coming kingdom, even when circumstances lag behind. Along the way, we trace fellow travelers in Abraham’s footsteps: Rahab, Ruth, the Magi, the Ethiopian, Cornelius, and more—people who heard, believed, and moved toward God’s promise.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’ve confused the sign for the substance, or if your background could ever be enough, this conversation calls you back to the core: Christ’s finished work credited to those who believe. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who needs clarity about faith and ritual, and leave a review telling us how this shaped your view of belonging in God’s family.

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Stephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

SPEAKER_02:

We frankly don't know how much God told Abraham about the coming Messiah. But we do know that God announced the gospel to Abraham. Listen to this verse in Galatians 3. Rather interesting revelation. Paul writes the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, so then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. Can you imagine that? God is the preacher using the Old Testament scripture reveals to Abraham the gospel.

SPEAKER_00:

We're so glad you've joined us today here on Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Now, Stephen, as we continue through your study of Romans chapter 4, Paul's teaching about Abraham, and we received a really great question from one of our listeners. It actually relates directly to your message today. Michael wrote in and asked this What does it mean that Abraham is the father of all who believe? And how does that apply to Gentiles like me? Well, I guess you and I too.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's a great question. Thanks for writing, uh, Michael. I'm glad you asked this. When when Paul calls Abraham the father of all who believe, uh there in Romans chapter 4, verse 11, he's talking about something much bigger than ethnicity or ancestry. He's actually saying that Abraham isn't just the physical ancestor of the Jewish people, he's the spiritual ancestor of everyone, Jew or Gentile. So all who come to God the same way Abraham did, well, we all come to him by faith.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's really not about tracing your family tree back to Abraham, it's more about tracing your faith.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. That's a good way of putting it. Abraham believed God's promises. In fact, he believed before he was circumcised, which was the sign of the covenant as a Jew, before the nation of Israel even existed, before the law was given. He was a believer. Romans chapter 4, verse 3 says this Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. That word counted means that God credited righteousness to his account, like uh putting money he didn't earn into his bank account. Well, Paul's point is that salvation has always come that way. It's by grace, through faith, we're given the righteousness of Christ, not by a ritual or by the law.

SPEAKER_00:

Stephen, how about the second part of Michael's question? How does it make Abraham our father if we're Gentiles and not part of Israel?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's because we share the same kind of faith. Uh think of it this way Abraham started a family of faith, not by bloodline, but by belief. So everybody who trusts God's promises that'll be fulfilled in Jesus Christ is part of the same family. And that's why Paul will say over in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 7, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. So, Michael, when you place your faith in Christ, you joined a spiritual family. Abraham is your father in the sense that you're following in his footsteps, and and like him, you're trusting God's word resting in his promises.

SPEAKER_00:

So when we read Romans 4 or the book of Genesis, and we read this story about Abraham, it's really not just ancient history, it's family history for every believer.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's right. And I love the way Paul expands that idea in Galatians 3. He even writes, There is neither Jew nor Greek, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. So, in other words, the moment you come to faith in Jesus, you inherit the same blessing Abraham received, which is, frankly, eternal life. God's righteousness is credited to you by faith.

SPEAKER_00:

So for every believer who's listening today, they might be in Alabama or Seoul or Nairobi. Abraham's faith shows us what saving faith really looks like.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that's a wonderful truth. But God has never changed the way he saves people. Before the cross, think of it this way: in the Old Testament, people were saved by faith in God's promise that a Redeemer would come, that that sacrifice that would atone for them. After the cross, people are saved by faith in that same Redeemer, and we look backward to that event where Jesus died for us. So Abraham is looking forward and we're looking backward. But the faith is the same. It's in the word, the promise of God.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's really a beautiful picture of unity. It reminds me of how our ministry, Stephen, connects with people from all around the world. Yeah. People who we don't share the same culture, we don't share the same language, but like Abraham, we share the same faith.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that means we're part of a family that's that's global. Uh right now, people are going to hear this teaching in eleven languages in every country on the planet. That's so exciting. Uh God promises to bless nations, as it were, through Abraham's seed, Jesus Christ. So when individuals, uh even when a nation follows after the Lord, I'm I'm afraid we don't have uh much of that happening today. But when his word spreads around the world, his family grows, and Peter calls us a a chosen people. We're we're uh we're a new, a holy nation, he calls us. So, regardless of our ethnicity and our background or whatever it might be, we're part of the family of God.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that is a perfect setup for today's message. Paul's gonna continue explaining what Abraham discovered about faith and righteousness. So let's join Stephen in that study right now. This message is called the Sign and Seal of Faith.

SPEAKER_02:

Would you take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 4? In Romans 4, we have seen Paul is attempting to illustrate that justification is not earned, it's not deserved, it's a result not of a perfect life of obedience, but the work of God in the life of a sinner who comes by faith alone to Christ. Paul has illustrated this by using two very prominent men in Jewish history: Abraham, the greatest patriarch and David, the greatest monarch, and he has shown us, we have taken time to go back into the Old Testament and rediscover the lives of these men and have discovered sin, haven't we? Abraham, who lied on two occasions, putting his wife at risk. He disobeyed God's instruction. When God told him to leave his family and his land, he took along his idolatrous father and his nephew. They would cause great division and delay in his obedience when the famine came early on in his departure. He, instead of trusting in God, trusted in Pharaoh and went and lived in Egypt. So certainly he was a man who did not deserve heaven. He was a sinful man. David, we have also rediscovered, was guilty of adultery and murder and lying and hypocrisy. Paul is simply attempting to prove by way of illustration that these two men do not deserve heaven. Something must happen to them as an act of God's justifying grace, whereby they would be capable of entering the gate of that wonderful city. Now, Paul is anticipating the response of his Jewish audience, who would naturally at this point say, okay, Paul, you've proven that our great Abraham and our great David aren't good enough to get into heaven. However, we can fall back on this fact. They have both been marked by the covenant sign. Don't forget, Paul, Abraham was circumcised. And Paul will respond to that then in this next portion of the text in Romans chapter 4, verse 9. Is this blessing then upon the circumcised, this blessing of justification, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say faith was imputed, reckoned to the account of Abraham as righteousness. How then was it reckoned? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be also imputed or reckoned to them. So what Paul does, first of all, is simply remind the Jew of the timeline of history. Go back to see what the scriptures say. That's what he encouraged them to do at the beginning of this chapter. Go back and look at what the Bible says about his circumcision and its relationship to his justification, the declaration that he was righteous before God. Well, if you go back to the text, you go back to the book of Genesis, you discover that he was circumcised as a 99-year-old man, God giving the mark of that future Jewish people to Abraham, first of all. But if you go a few chapters earlier, you discover in chapter 15, verse 6, Abram believed in the Lord, and God reckoned it to him as a righteousness. The same thing we've just read in Romans chapter 4, verse 9 through 12. So, in other words, what Paul is reminding the Jewish people of is that Abraham was justified when he was 85 years old, circumcised when he was 99 years old, which means he was considered righteous before God, justified, saved, 14 years before he was circumcised. And all of the Jewish rabbis and readers would scurry back to the Torah to check out the timeline again, and they would come up with, oh, goodness, Paul is right again. We're wrong. So verse 11 tells us that Abram received the sign of circumcision, a seal of righteousness that he had while he was uncircumcised. In other words, circumcision didn't give Abraham righteousness before God. Circumcision was simply the sign and the seal that he was, in fact, considered righteous already. Now the problem is, of course, by the time of the Apostle Paul, the Jewish nation had forgotten the purpose of the sign, the authority and the meaning behind the seal. They had simply fallen in love with the sign. The rabbis taught circumcision saves from hell. In the midrash of Jewish commentary, it's recorded, quote, God swore to Abraham that no one who was circumcised would ever be sent to hell. In fact, it was further developed that just in case somebody slipped through the cracks and a Jewish or circumcised believer was headed for hell, even though he was circumcised, another Jewish commentary taught, quote, Abraham sits before the gates of hell and does not allow that any circumcised Israelite should enter there. So poor Abraham is confined to sit at the gate of hell to make sure none of his descendants go in. Imagine that kind of existence. Here's the great patriarch, the one who wanted to be enjoying the greater part of paradise, confined to sit at the gateway of hell to make sure no Jew gets in accidentally. What about a Jew that was so despicable and sinful that everybody said, Well, he has to go to hell? What about that one who's also been circumcised but despicably sinful? Well, the rabbis took care of that little problem by teaching that if a Jew was so bad he just had to be condemned by God, that there was an angel whose job it was to make these men uncircumcised again before they went to hell. There was so much confusion about this issue that in the early church in Jerusalem, by the time you get to Acts chapter 15, the church is divided and they're factious and they're disagreeing. They're wondering, do we make Gentiles who come to faith in Christ circumcised? Do we make them Jews in order to fulfill all the ramifications of what salvation needed? Of course, the answer was no. You don't make them Jews, you receive them because the mark is the mark of faith. So circumcision here, according to Paul, was just a sign and a seal. Let me give you a couple of thoughts along that line. It was a sign. Circumcision was, first of all, a sign that the Jew was a distinct race of people. Jew is simply a derivative of the word Judahite, transliterated to refer to these people who are marked in this way, a sign, secondly, that the Jew had a covenant with God, wonderful truth there, and third, a sign that the Jews were separate from all other nations unto God. But listen, a sign isn't of itself what God intends it to be. It points to something deeper. It points to something wonderful. It isn't the sign that we focus on, it's what the sign points to. That's the critical thing. If you've ever traveled across country, maybe you've been in the car. If you've got kids, they've been in the backseat asking, when are we going to be there? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And you're driven nearly to the point of insanity, but finally you see the first sign with the word Raleigh on it. Raleigh. 135 miles, and you begin to rejoice. You don't pull your car over, get out, go over, hug the sign, and say, We're home. Well, no, you did reach that point of insanity and you need help. No, you keep you keep driving, you keep moving. The question for Paul in Romans 4 9 is not was circumcision important for Abraham. The question was, did circumcision save Abraham? And what was it a sign to say? Was a sign that said, Abraham belonged as the word of God. Let me try to clear it up this way. I I wear a sign on my hand. It's a wedding ring. And I've been married now for 21 years, and it's been a sign wherever I go, whether it's somewhere here in the area or I get on a plane and go to some other state or some other country, I wear this, and this tells people that I'm married. Now, if I took this ring off, if I could take this ring off, it wouldn't mean that I am suddenly unmarried. It simply points to something deeper. I am not married because I am wearing a wedding ring. I wear a wedding ring because I am married. And the truth is, I could wear a wedding ring and not be married. I could be a single fella and just not want to have any trouble, and so I'll put this on when I travel around. Some of you single guys ought to think about that. Not a bad idea. No, I wear it as a symbol that there is, in fact, something deeper and there is a reality, but I haven't fallen in love with a sign. Oh, I love my ring. I'm in love with my ring, I've been in love with it for 21 years now, and I asked it to marry me. No. Again, I need help if I'm saying that kind of thing. No, it's a symbol, it's a sign. Likewise, with or without circumcision, a person can be a true believer in God through Jesus Christ. Paul also said in verse 11 that circumcision was a seal. What does he mean? A seal in biblical times was that melted wax placed on a document. You remember, even the tomb of Christ was sealed, those cords drawn across that stone and that wax planted therein, into that wax placed, imprinted, pressed, the seal of authority representing the Roman government. I recently got a passport for my youngest that you saw, a little charity. She's going to travel with me as I've tried to take all of my kids overseas. She'll be going with me to the island of Malta as I minister to missionaries from Eastern Europe and the Middle East in a few weeks. And so we had to go through the process of getting her passport. It arrived this past week in the mail, and there was great excitement. There stamped on top of her photograph was the seal of the United States of America. Behind that is the authority of this great country. It communicates a message that she is a citizen recognized by the authority of the United States, and the United States of America stands behind her as she travels abroad. Just as Abraham was given a physical seal, communicating the fact that he was a citizen of the Jewish nation, a covenanted people to God. So, by the way, we have also been given a seal of our faith. You know what it is? It isn't a physical mark. It isn't anything you do to your body or with your body. It by no means is to ever be equated with baptism. That is something you do, which is nowhere in the New Testament equated with circumcision. That would become a works part of salvation. No, ours isn't a physical mark. It is a person who indwells us. The third person of the triune, God we refer to as the Holy Spirit of God. He is our seal, and behind him is all of the authority of heaven that declares, you are a citizen of heaven. Listen, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, now he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us as God, who also sealed us, giving us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. In Ephesians 1, in him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with a Holy Spirit of promise, who was given as a pledge of our inheritance, that is a down payment, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory. In the old covenant, the steel was temporary. In the new covenant, the steel is permanent. In the old covenant, the steel was physical. In the new covenant, the steel is spiritual. And here is the stunning application to this paragraph. As the Jewish reader read it, Paul is basically saying Abraham is not the father of just those who've been circumcised. In fact, circumcised or uncircumcised, he is the father of those who have also placed their faith in the words of a coming Redeemer, or in our case, one who has already come. Here's the shocking truth that frankly for us in the 21st century, we we miss it. It really doesn't mean as much to us. But here's what he's telling them. We know it to be true, but it was it was shocking to them. He was saying this a Gentile does not get into heaven by becoming a Jew. A Jew gets into heaven by becoming a Gentile. Just like that old Gentile, Abraham. He was a Gentile. So God intersected his life with revelation. And then 14 years after his conversion of faith to God gave him the mark. He's the father then of both Gentile and Jew. Now what is what does it mean when Paul calls him the father of those of faith? Well, we call William Carey the father of modern missions. Why? He was the first among others to leave and go to a foreign land. We can refer to Martin Luther as the father of the Reformation. Why? Because he was the figurehead of a protesting church and risked his life in following the scriptures alone. In this way, Abraham is the father of faith. He was the first one who would become a nation of followers, and he also blazed this trail of faith, so to speak, risking his own life out of obedience to the words of God. So Paul uses this wonderful phrase to illustrate now for both Gentile and Jew, in verse 12 of the middle part, those who follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham. How do we emulate our father Abraham in this way of faith? Let me give you a couple of reasons or ways. Number one, Abraham believed in God's word without ever experiencing the fullness of its promises. Now, even though Abraham would see his son born miraculously, he and Sarah were decades beyond conception and childbearing ages. Yet that promise did come true. But think about the promise of the land. Go back to Genesis and the early part, and there's always the land. The amazing thing about Abraham is he never owned any of the land except for that one parcel of land that had in it or on it the cave of Machphelah in which he buried his beloved Sarah. That's all he had. He spent his life walking through the promised land, wandering through the promised land as a nomad, but he never possessed it. In fact, it would be over 500 years after Abraham that his descendants would possess it. But he believed in the promise. Without ever having the full benefit of the promise given to him. Hebrews 11:10 tells us that Abraham was looking forward to a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Do you know what Abraham was looking forward to? The future kingdom of God. Do you know what you're looking forward to? The future kingdom of God. Have you realized it yet? No. Have you seen the full benefit of it yet? No. And you know one of the greatest challenges to us as we walk this path of faith is the challenge that Abraham so well emulated for us. He believed God's word without experience, without experiencing the fullness of his promises. Isn't that a challenge for you? To read the Bible, to read the promise, and to know to say, you know, that isn't happening in my life right now. I may never see that particular thing happen. And yet by faith I believe the words of God. Secondly, Abram not only believed in God's word without ever experiencing the full expression of its promises. Secondly, he believed in Jesus Christ without ever seeing him face to face. He's a lot more like you than we thought, huh? Even while Abram knew a lot less about Jesus Christ than those of us who have the New Testament, we know all the details of his birth and his life and his death and his burial and his resurrection. We frankly don't know how much God told Abraham about the coming Messiah. But we do know that God announced the gospel to Abraham. Listen to this verse in Galatians 3. A rather interesting revelation. Paul writes the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, so then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. Can you imagine that? God is the preacher, using the Old Testament scripture, reveals to Abraham the gospel. And what is the gospel? Death, burial, and resurrection? Of who? Of Jesus Christ. So Abraham heard the story of Jesus Christ and believed without ever seeing him face to face. Wouldn't it be great? Have you ever thought in your life? I know I have, it'd be great if I could just get five seconds where I could just see. Just see. I could just see it. By not seeing and believing, you become like your father Abraham. You remember when Thomas in the upper room had doubted, of course, the risen Lord, and Jesus Christ appeared, just sort of materialized on the other side of that door, and there they sat, and Thomas, I imagine, stood and seeing Jesus Christ, gave that great exclamation, My Lord and my who? My God. And Jesus mildly rebuked him and then gave us a great promise. Oh, Thomas, you believe now because you've seen me. Oh, but how much more blessed are those who without seeing me believe. Those who become, in a way, like Father Abraham to believe without seeing. So Abraham becomes, according to Paul here, the father of all those who walk in his footsteps of faith. And I just have been reading this week and studying and putting my feet up on my desk and thinking about what this would mean. That would mean that he would become the forerunner of faith, followed by men like Caleb. Caleb as an older man, saw the mountain that God had promised him, and he said, I want that mountain, and by faith began to pursue it, trusting God to defeat the enemies. He would follow in the footsteps of faithful Abraham. Even Mary and Joseph, who on that particular day walked by faith to Bethlehem, bewildered and amazed at what God had said that God was going to do, they simply believed the word. You go back earlier in that and you discover that Abraham would be the father of Rahab, who desperately wanted to leave her sordid past of prostitution and cling to the people of God. And so she, risking everything said to Joshua and the others, I want to go with you. Taking a great step of faith. He would become the father of Ruth, the Moabitist who would leave her family and her land and cling to Naomi and say, I want your God to be my God. Abraham would become the father of the Magi who would leave Persia, seeking the one who had been born king of the Jews. He would become the father of the Ethiopian, another Gentile who, reading Isaiah, was troubled about his soul, and God sent to him Philip the Evangelist to explain it and he believed. Abraham would be the father of Cornelius, the Roman Gentile soldier who risked everything, including his career and even his life, who dared Caesar's wrath to follow Jesus Christ. Abraham would be the father of Luke, the Gentile who wrote the gospel by his name and also the book of Acts. He would become, in fact, the father of a man named Tertius who wrote the passage we just studied, as Paul dictated it to him. But that's just the beginning. My friend, those who've come to Christ, who've placed their faith in his work alone, who believe without seeing, who believe without experiencing, you are sons and daughters of Abraham. Not because of some physical mark, but because of a spiritual life brought about by the Spirit of God in the hearts of all those who have placed their faith in the Son of God. You are sons. You are daughters of Abraham.

SPEAKER_00:

Abraham was justified by faith alone, long before any ritual marked him as righteous. Follow in his footsteps. This is Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen Davy is your teacher each day, and he's the president of Wisdom International. Learn more and access more resources at wisdomonline.org. Stephen's been teaching the Bible for over four decades, and all of those messages are posted online. He's also the author of over a hundred print resources, and information about those is there as well. Visit today, then join us next time on Wisdom for the Heart.