Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15: 3-6)
St Paul tells us that Abraham is judged by God to be righteousness, but not because Abraham kept the Law, for Torah was not given yet in his lifetime. The Law was given to Moses long after Abraham’s death. Thus, righteousness existed before and apart from the Law, and now in Christ exists again after and apart from the Law. God tested Abraham’s faithfulness, and Abraham passed that test trusting that God would somehow be able to raise his son Isaac from the dead. When we believe in Christ and the resurrection, we become Abraham’s children (Romans 4:16; Galatians 3:6-7, 29). St Cyril of Alexandria comments:
Furthermore, this matter was not without profit for Abraham, even though the trial brought him so much grief. For by what was about to happen he was being taught the astounding wonder of the resurrection of the dead, which surpasses all reason, and, in addition to this, the great and noble mystery of the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten.
The divine Paul states, ‘By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promise offered his only-begotten son, though he had been told, “In Isaac your offspring will be named‘ (Genesis 21:12). He reckoned that God was able to even raise someone from the dead, and figuratively speaking, ‘He did receive him back from death‘ (Hebrews 11:17-19). And so God the Father would in due course show forth Abraham to be the root and origin of many thousands of Gentiles, when Emmanuel died for the world. (GLAPHYRA ON THE PENTATEUCH Vol 1, pp 158-159)
Fraternized 