The Romance of Romans--Eight

David also affirmed that God's righteousness isn't given according to "earning it” when he declared, "How blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the person whose sins the Lord does not count against him. "
Now think about it. Is this "blessedness" only given to circumcised Jews, or is it also available to uncircumcised Gentiles? Remember, we agreed that Abraham's faith was the basis of his righteousness. Was he circumcised or uncircumcised when this was said about him? He himself was an uncircumcised Gentile when God said this to him! Only after this was he circumcised, which was only an outward sign of the righteousness that God had already bestowed on him because of his belief. This made Abraham the father of all who believe God, even uncircumcised Gentiles. So then, God's righteousness is available to them as well. And he is obviously the father of the Jews, if indeed they walk in the same kind of faith Abraham displayed while he was still an uncircumcised Gentile. For God's awesome promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations was not given to him and his descendants on the basis of religious performance, but because of the right relationship with God he enjoyed on the basis of believing God.

Commentary:
Paul also includes some verses from Psalm 32 to remind his readers how David, like Abraham, didn’t earn God’s righteousness by his mighty or godly deeds, but that he needed and celebrated God’s forgiveness and gracious covering for his failures and sins. Paul quickly returns to father Abraham’s journey with God and reminds his readers (especially his Jewish readers) of an amazing but embarrassingly obvious fact that so easily gets buried beneath the many subsequent events of Israel’s history. Paul takes us back to the genesis of Abraham’s walk with God. Here’s the million-dollar question: Is it “un-Jewish” to believe that God is passionate to save and redeem gentile people? And…here’s the great irony—the father of all the Jews was made righteous by God while he was an uncircumcised gentile. The beloved and revered father of the Jews was himself a gentile! Of course God wants to save all peoples—He always has and He has repeatedly and clearly spoken through the Hebrew prophets that He would one day do so in a major way through the coming of the Messiah. It should be no surprise to the Jewish people of Paul’s day (or ours) that the gentiles (the people groups of the whole earth) are freely invited to enter into the Abrahamic covenant and the commonwealth of Israel by simply believing and trusting in Messiah Jesus—who He is and what He has done. In another place, Paul will refer to this inclusion of believing gentiles into this covenant, rooted in the spiritual journey of the Jews, that has “flowered” into the manifestation of a new creation, a new covenant, and a new humanity in Christ, as the essence of the mystery of the gospel. This mystery is still “messing” with the hearts and minds of religious people today!