Romans 4:14

14 For if they that be of the law, be heirs, faith is destroyed, promise is done away.

Romans 4:14 Meaning and Commentary

Romans 4:14

For if they which are of the law be heirs
That is, if the Jews who are under the law, and are seeking for righteousness and life by the works of it, should, on the account of their obedience to it, be heirs of the grace of life and of glory,

faith is made void;
for if the right to the inheritance is by the works of the law, there is no room for faith; that can be of no use or service;

and the promise made of none effect:
if salvation is by works, it is to no purpose for God to promise, or men to believe; for the thing promised depends not upon God's promise, but upon man's obedience to the law; and if that is not perfectly observed, as it cannot possibly be, then the promise of God stands for nothing, and is in course made void. The apostle here argues from the absurdities which follow upon the doctrine of justification by works, as he does from the different effects of the law, in the following verse.

Romans 4:14 In-Context

12 and that he be father of circumcision, not only to them that be of circumcision, but also to them that follow the steps of the faith, which faith is in prepuce of our father Abraham. [and that he be father of circumcision, not only to them that be of circumcision, but and to them that follow the steps of the faith of our father Abraham, that is in prepuce.]

13 For not by the law is [the] promise to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be [the] heir of the world, but by the rightwiseness of faith.

14 For if they that be of the law, be heirs, faith is destroyed, promise is done away.

15 For the law worketh wrath; for where is no law, there is no trespass, neither is trespassing. [Forsooth the law worketh wrath; soothly where the law is not, neither is prevarication, or trespassing.]

16 Therefore rightwiseness is of faith, that by grace promise be stable to each seed [that after grace promise be stable, or steadfast, to each seed], not to that seed only that is of the law, but to that that is of the faith of Abraham, which is father of us all.