ABRAHAM'S TRUE CHILDREN

GALATIANS 3:6-9

MAY 24, 1998

 

Is there another way to God other than the way of faith?  Can we chart our own course to God and a right standing with Him?  Obviously, there are many who believe that faith alone is a new addition to the Bible or that faith alone is not relevant to our day.  Yet the record of the Word of God is that man will do virtually anything to keep from abandoning trust in himself and his abilities, to cast himself wholly upon the grace of God for salvation.

 

It is a historical fact that some of the biggest battles fought by the church of Jesus Christ were not against the non-religious world, but against those who professed to have a belief in the Lord God, yet denied that salvation comes only through faith.  Augustine fought this battle in the 4th century, as did John Wycliffe in the 14th century.  Luther, Calvin, Tyndale, Latimer all fought against the prevailing and popular belief that God would accept the works of man for righteousness.  A man need not abandon himself to Christ alone.  He could continue to find acceptance with God on the basis of his religious practice, his good works, his participation in the sacraments, his acts of service, his giving.  Just as the Judaizers in Galatia appealed to the Old Testament examples, so have many through the centuries, appealing to the skewed interpretation that God accepts us on the basis of our works.  To this, the Apostle rose in defiance.  He begins his argument that shows "faith has always been the God-required response that brings salvation (Eph. 2:8-9)" [John MacArthur, MacArthur New Testament Commentary, 72].

 

After stating the great theme of justification through faith in Jesus Christ alone (2:16), Paul argues the reality of justification by reminding the Galatians of their own experience of grace in Christ (3:1-5).  In striking terms, the Apostle points out that the reality of Jesus Christ and Him crucified was so real to them that it was as if Jesus Christ crucified was placarded before their eyes!  As the Holy Spirit illumined them to the reality and necessity of the cross, they believed and were joyously brought into a saving relationship with Christ, which was verified by their having received the Holy Spirit.

 

But the Apostle understood that experience, though vitally important, was not the true anchor for the soul.  Even the troubling Judaizers could appeal to their experience to validate their religion.  Instead, Paul appealed to Scripture as the foundation of the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  He wanted the Galatians to understand that his message of faith alone in Christ alone was not some new twist, but rather that it was anchored in the timelessness of the Word of God.  Even the patriarch Abraham was saved by faith!

 

The troubling reality of our own day is that multitudes are abandoning the clear teaching of Scripture concerning the way of salvation.  They embrace the notion that God accepts something other than faith alone in Christ alone.  The Scripture still stands with the timeless message of faith in Jesus Christ alone as the way to be justified.  Are your eternal hopes resting in anything other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified?  Then you need to hear the biblical truth of justification through faith in Christ alone.  Let us see how this truth is unfolded in our text.

 

I. Reality of Abraham's righteousness

 

I do not believe it is conjecture to suggest that the Judaizers who troubled the Galatians (1:7; 2:4; 3:1) were using Abraham for an example to prove the necessity of circumcision for salvation.  They were declaring that faith alone in Jesus Christ and His atoning work was not enough.  For the salvation of the Gentiles to be complete, they had to embrace the ceremonial aspects of the Law and in particular, they had to be circumcised.  They needed a proof-text to establish their point, so what better character than the patriarch, Abraham?  Here we see how Paul corrects the misuse of Scripture and offers a sound interpretation of biblical truth.

 

Proof-texting is not a new idea.  It has been the tool of multitudes of false teachers, dating all the way back to the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1).  It is the practice of lifting a verse or a few verses of Scripture out of its biblical and theological context in order to prove one's point.  The cultists continue to use this shrewdly in our day, using the Bible as a crowbar for their religious ideas.  The Jews did the same thing.  They applied a false hermeneutic or interpretation to the Old Testament Scriptures.  They spoke of the 'righteous Abraham' and made the deduction that he became righteous due to his circumcision and his strict observance to the Law.  With convincing argument they applied this to the modern need for "works" in order to be justified. But they neglected making a right interpretation.  For Abraham was declared righteous because of his faith in the promise of God ten years before God commanded him to be circumcised!  And his obedience to God came about without a codified Law which did not come until over 400 years later!

 

1.  By faith

 

Paul gives his argument for justification through faith by looking at the Galatian believer's experience in chapter 3:1-5.  Now he draws a conclusion in verse 6:  "Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS."  Paul is drawing a conclusion between Abraham's justification and those in the present when he uses the phrase "even so" (Greek kathos).  It is often translated "just as," so that the inference he implies is that there was no difference in how Abraham was justified and how you are justified.  He appeals to Genesis 15:6, quoting the text to show that before Abraham's circumcision (Gen. 17:9-14), Abraham's faith in the promise of God to him was accounted to him as righteousness.  God did not accept Abraham because of anything which he did or any work that he attempted.  He simply believed God and God accounted him as righteous before Him.

 

We must understand that the idea of faith or believing is not simply acknowledging historical facts.  Certainly we must do that.  Primarily it involves the matter of trust or clinging to or depending upon the revelation of God in Christ.  What did Abraham believe?  He did not have the full revelation which is ours; nor did he even have an Old Testament canon.  He simply had the promises of God.  "Abraham's faith is seen as a 'readiness to surrender unreservedly to the word of the Lord, regardless of how incredible it seemed'" [Curtis Vaughan quoting Ridderbos, Galatians: A Study Guide Commentary, 62].  With the barest understanding, Abraham heard the word of the Lord related to him personally and to his posterity.  Though he had been reared in a pagan, idolatrous land, he laid aside his idolatrous lifestyle, turning his back upon his pagan heritage, and trusted in the Lord God who called him out.  When his wife was barren and beyond childbearing age, he trusted in the promise of God that he would be the father of many nations and that through his seed, all the families of the world would be blessed.  Genesis 15:6 expresses the doctrine of justification by faith in its embryonic form:  "Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteous."  Abraham's faith was placed on his account before God as righteousness.  It was not his works but his faith that God accepted.  With the eyes of faith, Abraham rested in the Lord and his promise, so that our Lord could say, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56).

 

2.  Imputation

 

We sometimes use the word "reckon" in the South to mean 'I suppose so'.  But that does not convey the meaning of this term contextually.  Paul quotes the Genesis 15:6 passage to say, "...and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."  The word literally means 'to place to one's account' or 'to account as' or 'to credit something to someone'.  And what was credited to Abraham?  Righteousness (dikaiosune).  W. E. Vine states that "whatever is 'reckoned' to a person cannot have been his originally and naturally" [Vine's Expository Commentary on Galatians, 76].  Abraham was credited before God as being just or righteous before Him.  Was it because of his circumcision or his works?  The text is clear:  that which was not his originally or naturally was credited to him through to faith alone.

 

The concept of 'reckoning' is known as imputation.  If we can think of this for a moment in terms of a legal accounting term, it may help us grasp its significance in our justification.  Suppose you owed someone $100 trillion.  I think it is safe to assume that none of us can even begin to think in those terms.  Such a debt would be staggering!  It would be impossible for us to pay.  So we must face the consequences of our failure to satisfy this debt.  We could plead with the creditor that we are good people, that we do kind acts of service for others, that we even try to balance our books monthly!  The fact is, we also have another side to us.  We actually hate the creditor and refuse to have any kind of relationship to him.  Still we make our pleas, but the creditor cannot legally accept any of our pleas or actions.  The only thing acceptable would be the satisfaction of the debt:  $100 trillion.

 

But we do not have the resources to pay such a debt.  Nor would the combined efforts of our friends be enough to pay such a debt.  It is a debt which we cannot pay.  But suppose that the creditor,  who had absolutely no obligation to us, pursued a course to satisfy this debt.  He did this without any help on our part.  He did this because of his own great love and purpose.  At an immense cost to himself, he paid our debt!  Out of his own desire, he took his own resources and applied them to our account.  The $100 trillion was not ours, but he treated it as ours.  He credited his resources to our account, so that our debt might be completely satisfied.  That which seemed to be unspeakable and impossible, he did; and we believed him.

 

This illustration does not do justice to all the work of Christ, but hopefully it serves to demonstrate imputation.  That which is not ours, that which did not originate with us, that which is even impossible with us is credited as ours before God's judicial demands, through faith in Jesus Christ.  We are accounted before God as righteous or justified.  The merits of Jesus Christ in His righteous fulfillment of the Law and His vicarious death are applied to our account before God.  Of this Martin Luther could exclaim, "This unspeakable gift therefore excelleth all reason, that God doth account and acknowledge him for righteous, without works, which embraceth His Son by faith alone, who was sent into the world, was born, suffered, and was crucified for us" [Commentary on Galatians, 131].

 

II. Confirmation of Abraham's true heirs

 

But the Judaizers argue, 'It is only in Abraham that a person is blessed before God!  So, if you are going to be in Abraham then you must be circumcised as Abraham, you must become part of Abraham's people'.  In other words, the Judaizers attempted to convince these Gentile Christians that they must become Jews in order to truly be justified before God (2:14-15).  Their children are still with us today!  For anyone who adds to the work of Christ for salvation or who claims that personal merit must accompany our faith is teaching a false gospel just as the Judaizers.  Paul was convinced of this, so that he wrote, "Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham."

 

Three times within verses 6-9, the Apostle draws a conclusion.  Here he addresses those who believe that an outward sign of the Abrahamic covenant could make a person a child of Abraham--which is another way of saying part of the true people of God.  On the basis of Abraham's faith being reckoned to him as righteousness, Paul concludes that "therefore," you must be certain (be sure, known for certain), that the real people of God are the ones who are of faith.  Using the Old Testament promise for identifying God's people, "All the nations shall be blessed in you," Paul parallels being saved with being a son of Abraham.  He does not mean physically a son of Abraham, but in the truest sense, through faith in Christ, a person becomes a child of God.

 

1.  Faith alone

 

The NKJV translates this verse, "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham."  The idea of "only" is conveyed clearly in the Greek text.  As Vine puts it, he is saying, "these and no other" when he uses the phrase "those who are of faith" [79].  Jesus used the term, "sons of Abraham," to refer to Zacchaeus being truly a child of God, justified by faith.  After confronting Zacchaeus, he confesses his faith in Christ and the Lord responds, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham."  Jesus was certainly not referring to his heritage as a Jew!  The whole context has to do with saving unworthy sinners, for the very next verse states, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:9-10).  By calling him a "son of Abraham," Jesus was declaring that Zacchaeus had received the saving blessing which was Abraham's.  He had been justified before God and that through faith alone.

 

We must be careful at this point of thinking that our faith is meritorious.  That is, if we can just exercise the right amount of faith or the right kind of faith, then God will be impressed enough with it to justify us.  What Paul was explaining at this point is that faith is the means by which God justifies sinners.  It is not a virtue but a grace (Ephesians 2:8-9).  As Leon Morris expressed it, "Rather it is no more than the means by which sinners receive God's gracious gift.  It is God who justifies the Gentiles, not faith.  But he justifies them in the same way that Abraham was justified, i.e. by faith; faith is the means God uses to bring about justification" [Galatians: Paul's Charter of Christian Freedom, 101].

 

The phrase, "those of faith," identifies the kind of people who are truly justified.  The contrast to this would be 'those of works' or 'those of ceremonies' or 'those of self-justification'.  Are you one of those of faith whom the Apostle speaks in this passage?  Are you one who is resting only upon the merits of Jesus Christ for your standing with God?  So many are lulled into a false sense of salvation because they believe a few facts concerning the reality of Christ, but they are not trusting Jesus Christ and Him crucified for their justification.  Their confidence is really in themselves and what they believe they are doing to earn a right standing with God.  We are reminded to "be sure," to have no uncertainties on this issue, that it is faith alone which is the means to justification.

 

2.  Blessed with Abraham

 

In verse nine we again see one of the Apostle's conclusions of his argument from Scripture concerning justification by faith alone:  "So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer."  What does it mean to be "blessed with Abraham, the believer"?  Paul is using this to address one subject.  He is not speaking of all the tangible, material blessings which belonged to Abraham.  Certainly, God blessed him enormously with great wealth, power, and prominence.  But that is not the issue of this text nor its Old Testament context.  Here the whole matter is righteousness before God, which means to be justified before God.  For justification is the legal declaration of righteousness for the sinner.  To be blessed with Abraham is synonymous with being justified or declared righteous with him before God.

 

The great concern of the Apostle was how a sinner might be declared righteous before a thrice holy God.  Everything else is non-essential in comparison to our need for righteousness before God.  All eternity is at stake with this matter.  Our whole existence hangs in the balance over the subject of justification.  By the conclusive phrase, "So then," Paul is reminding us that there is no doubt that only those who are of faith are justified even as Abraham was justified.

 

If you ask most any person what they want most in life, they will probably refer to something that is temporal or physical.  Some might say they want good health, in spite of the fact that these bodies eventually wear out.  Others will declare that they want to win a lottery and never have to worry about money again; yet even the wealthiest people in the world cannot carry their wealth beyond the grave.  Nor does the amassing of wealth do anything to remove our enmity with God and right our spiritual condition before Him.  So what we need is to be "blessed with Abraham, the believer."  That is, we need the blessing of justification which will carry us through this life and into eternity.  My friend, without this divine blessing we will not see the kingdom of God.

 

I was reminded this week of how most people simply assume that when a person dies he goes to heaven.  I was reading about Frank Sinatra's funeral and the comments made during the eulogy.  One actor stated that 'now the "pack rats" are together in heaven', a reference to Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Sinatra, a trio of men who made their living standing against the very character of a Christian.  What qualified these men to be together in heaven?  God does not admit into His eternal kingdom on the basis of popularity or notoriety or earthly accomplishment.  The only way to see God is by being justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone.

 

Have you been presuming that you will spend eternity in heaven because of some accomplishment in your life or because you view yourself as a good person?  It is only those who are of faith who are blessed for eternity with Abraham, the believer.

 

III. Scriptural proof of justification by faith

 

Our faith must be grounded in the Word of God.  Have you tested your faith by the Scripture?  Does your faith rest upon the revelation in the God's Word of Jesus Christ and Him crucified?  Paul's use of "Scripture" points to the voice of the Lord Himself.  "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "ALL THE NATIONS SHALL BE BLESSED IN YOU."  There is no separation between the Scripture and the Lord.  As F. F. Bruce expressed it, "[Paul] uses 'the Scripture' here more or less as an extension of the divine personality" [NIGCT--Galatians, 156].  In other words, Scripture is nothing less than the very Word of God.  The divine revelation has come to us in the Scripture.  When the Scripture speaks, God speaks!  What the Apostle is explaining is that God has spoken of the necessity of faith for righteousness at the very beginning of Scripture.  There was not one way for the patriarchs to be saved, another way for the Israelites under Moses, another way during the days of Christ on the earth, and still another way in that era beyond Pentecost.  The means God has chosen to save sinners is through faith in Him.

 

1.  Timelessness of faith

 

The phrase, "foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith," indicates that 'the faith element in God's method of justification is timeless'.  Paul wanted the Galatians to understand that faith as the means of righteousness was not new to the first century.  Two thousand years earlier, when Abraham had no Bible, only the promises of God, he was accepted on the basis of his faith in God's revelation to him.

 

It is interesting that Paul speaks of the Scripture, which he means God Himself, "preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham."  Before the Messiah had come, before the redemptive work of the cross which we call "good news," had taken place, the Scripture preached the good news to Abraham!  I think that it is safe to assume that Abraham had much less revelation than we do.  Yet on the basis of the revelation of the good news of a future Messiah given to him, Abraham believed the promise of God's provision and was justified.  It was not his circumcision some ten years later that saved him, nor was it his obedience to God's commands.  It was his faith in the Lord that declared him righteous before God.  And it is this same kind of faith, a faith which sees one's own need for God's mercy and by the same token, sees God's provision, casting himself upon what God has provided for righteousness; this same kind of faith saves in timeless fashion!

 

2.  Applied to the nations

 

Paul wanted to make the point that God's saving work in Abraham by faith was not just for his physical descendants.  "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles [i.e., the nations] by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "ALL THE NATIONS SHALL BE BLESSED IN YOU."  The word [Greek ta ethne] we translate 'Gentiles' is the same word translated as "nations" in the quotation from Genesis 12:3.  To a first century Jew there were only two kinds of people:  Jews and Gentiles.  There were only two kinds of nations:  the Jewish nation and the Gentile nations.  Here the Apostle is making a radical statement in light of the influence of the Judaizers.  These enemies of the gospel were trying to demand that Gentiles become Jews in order to be justified.  But Paul tells the Gentiles that it is not physical descent that makes a person a true Israelite or a true son of Abraham.  Instead, it is the exercise of faith in Christ alone that makes him such!

 

This whole truth is expounded in greater detail in the book of Romans (especially chapters 4 and 9).  In the fourth chapter, the Apostle explains that physical descent is not what qualifies a person for being justified, but rather "the faith of Abraham" (4:16).  As the "father of many nations," Abraham has spiritual children in every tongue, tribe, people, and nation (4:18).  In other words, what God was doing for Abraham in calling him out of idolatry and bringing him into a faith relationship to Himself, was not to simply give him a physical family.  Yes, the Lord did that; but He did something of much greater magnitude.  He gave him a spiritual family; spiritual descendants.  So that even today, we who are believers are "sons of Abraham."

 

3.  Solitary means of blessing

 

It is only "those who are of faith" that are blessed with the same righteousness which God imputed to Abraham.  The use of the passive voice in the phrase, "are blessed," demonstrates that the blessing is outside of us and applied to us.  The only way to know eternal blessing is through faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work on behalf of sinners.

 

You might be saying, 'Boy, you sound like a broken record!  Faith!  Faith! Faith! You act as though the only way we can know God is by faith!'

 

Indeed, my friend, you are exactly right!  When we consider that Paul was dealing with a people who had been nurtured on the bedrock of faith in Christ, but now were being tempted to move away and embrace faith-plus works as the means of salvation, we can understand why Paul keeps punching away at this matter.  He strikes it from every angle.  Was this because Paul was upset that he might lose out on his popularity in Galatia?  NO!  He knew that eternity was at stake.  Souls were hanging in the balance.  For it is only through faith in Jesus Christ that a sinner can be justified before God.

 

Conclusion

 

Are you trying to hang on to some merit of your own to commend yourself to God?  Perhaps you are hanging on to a profession or to your baptism or to your church membership.  Hear again the Apostle's clear conclusion:  "So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer."  It is not what you have done that saves you, but it is faith in Jesus Christ and what He has done in the cross that saves.  Is your faith fixed firmly upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified for you? 

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