(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
Paul is writing about Abraham, one of the most central figures in the Bible — a man God called thousands of years ago to leave his homeland and become the ancestor of a great people. Abraham and his wife Sarah were very old and had never had children, which made God's promise that he would be "a father of many nations" seem laughable. Paul quotes that ancient promise here to make a point: the God we trust is not limited by what currently exists. He is the God who brought life from Sarah's barren womb — and the same God who raised Jesus from the dead. When Paul says God "calls things that are not as though they were," he means God speaks of future realities as if they are already present, because to Him, they are.
God, You specialize in the impossible. You made a father out of an old man with no children, and You raised the dead. Give me the stubborn, laughing kind of faith that holds on to Your promises even when everything around me says they can't come true. Amen.
Imagine being 99 years old, childless your entire life, and someone hands you a document that reads: "Father of Many Nations." Not father of one child. Nations — plural. The promise was so outrageous that Abraham actually laughed out loud when he heard it (Genesis 17:17). He wasn't being irreverent. He was being honest. And yet Paul holds that story up not as an exception in God's track record, but as the template for how God characteristically works — in the impossible, in the not-yet, in the looks-dead-but-isn't. What is it in your life that has started to feel like a dead end? What promise — one you used to believe, maybe even prayed about regularly — have you quietly set down because the evidence against it is just too heavy? God "calls things that are not as though they were." He speaks in present tense about futures that haven't arrived yet. That's not denial of reality. It's a different kind of seeing. The question Abraham faced — and the question you may be facing right now — is whether you can hold a laughable promise long enough for it to become something real.
Paul describes God as the One who "gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were." What does that description tell you about how God operates in situations that look completely hopeless?
Have you ever held on to a hope that seemed irrational to others? What happened — and what did that experience teach you about faith?
Paul implies that God speaks of things that don't yet exist as if they already do. Does that feel like genuine faith to you, or does it start to sound like wishful thinking? Where is the line for you?
Abraham's faith affected not just him but billions of people across thousands of years. How does your own faith — however small it feels right now — potentially shape the people around you and those who come after you?
What is one specific promise — from Scripture or from a deep sense of calling — that you have quietly stopped praying about? What would it look like to pick it back up this week?
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
1 Corinthians 1:28
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Ephesians 2:5
Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
John 11:40
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Ephesians 2:1
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Romans 8:30
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Romans 8:29
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
John 6:63
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Hebrews 11:3
(as it is written [in Scripture], "I have made you a father of many nations") in the sight of Him in whom he believed, that is, God who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
AMP
as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
ESV
(as it is written, 'A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU') in the presence of Him whom he believed, [even] God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
NASB
As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
NIV
(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;
NKJV
That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, “I have made you the father of many nations.” This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.
NLT
We call Abraham "father" not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing.
MSG