“(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.”
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 into being things that did not exist. The quotation from Genesis 17:5. Abraham's fatherhood is covenantal, not merely genealogical. The God Abraham believed in is characterized by two attributes: he resurrects the dead and summons being from non-being. These foreshadow Christ's resurrection and creation itself.
Church Fathers on Romans 4:17
“As it is written,” he says, “I have made you a father of many nations.” Do you observe that this was ordered by Providence from of old? What then, he means, does He say this on account of the Ishmaelites, or of the Amalekites, or of the Hagarenes? This however, as he goes on he proves more distinctly not to be said of these. But as yet he presses forward to another point, by which means he proves this very thing by defining the mode of the relationship, and establishing it…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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