The Condemned Man's Only Currency

In 1918, Tokichi Ishii sat in a Tokyo prison cell awaiting execution. He had murdered multiple people. His hands had done unspeakable things. No amount of good behavior behind bars could erase a single crime from his record. Two Canadian missionaries, Miss West and Miss MacDonald, visited him and left a New Testament. Ishii ignored it for weeks.

Then one evening, he opened it. When he reached the crucifixion account and read Jesus's words — "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" — something broke inside him. Ishii wept for hours. He later wrote, "I was stabbed to the heart, as if pierced by a five-inch nail." The most violent man in the prison became its most gentle. Guards marveled. Fellow inmates noticed.

Ishii had no works to offer. His moral ledger was impossibly overdrawn. Yet he believed, and that faith — not a lifetime of religious striving — was what changed everything.

This is exactly what Paul describes in Romans 4. Abraham did not earn his standing before God through impressive deeds. God "credits righteousness apart from works" to those who simply trust Him. The promise comes "by grace," Paul insists, so that it is "guaranteed" — not to the morally accomplished, but to all who share Abraham's faith. Even a condemned man in a Tokyo cell could receive what the most devout rule-keeper could never earn.