Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive into Paul's Greatest Letter

by Tom Wright

So my sense is that Paul here sees Genesis 22 as an oblique forward pointer to the fulfilment of the Abrahamic covenant in the death and resurrection of God’s beloved son, not least in order to tie together the exposition of God’s covenant faithfulness in chapters 1—4 with the exposition of the consequent security of God’s covenant family in chapters 5—8. The second half of verse 32 then makes more sense than we might have initially realized. A traditional western reading might have expected Paul to say that God, having not spared his own son but having given him up for us all, would then save us from our sins and bring us to heaven. But Paul instead speaks of God giving us all things with him (that is, with his son). As he said in verse 17, we are fellow heirs with the Messiah; and the focal point is then on the inheritance, which is the entire world, rescued and renewed. The promise we just mentioned, about Abraham inheriting the world, means that the promised land was itself a forward-looking signpost, as the messianic psalms indicate.