Galatians 3.2-6
“Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness?’”
Paul had come to Galatia and preached the gospel, and he had publicly proclaimed Jesus Christ as crucified. The Galatians heard the gospel and trusted in the Christ of the gospel and received the Spirit. They did not submit to circumcision, nor did they commit to obeying the law of Moses. Therefore, Paul argues, it is foolishness that, “having begun with the Spirit,” they should now shift to “being perfected by the flesh.”
This is another way of saying that, having begun with the gospel, they must not go back to the law, thinking that the law was needed to supplement or complete the gospel.
Paul wisely uses Abraham as an example. The Judaizers looked to Moses and the law as the reference point for their gospel, so Paul goes centuries further back and uses Abraham and faith as the reference point. His quotation is from Genesis 15:6. If you will recall, Abraham was an old man and childless, but God had promised him a son and many descendants from that son. The Lord told Abraham to look at the night sky and count the stars, and then said: “So shall your descendants be.”
Abraham believed God’s promise, “and it was counted to him as righteousness”. It is important to understand what happened.
- God made Abraham a promise.
- Despite the serious improbability of the promise, Abraham trusted God.
- Abraham’s faith was reckoned as righteousness. That is, he was himself accepted as righteous, by faith. He was not justified because he had done anything to deserve it, or because he had been circumcised, or because he had kept the law (the law had yet been given), but simply because he trusted God.
Galatians 3.7-9
“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
Paul continues with the example of Abraham. The blessing that Paul speaks of is justification, which is the greatest of all blessings. In verse 8 the verbs ‘to justify’ and ‘to bless’ are used as equivalents. Paul’s core message is that the gospel of grace was preached to Abraham long before the law was given, and the Lord justified and blessed Abraham and Gentiles because of faith.
In the last verse of this chapter in Galatians, Paul makes the incredibly important statement that all believers, whether Jew or Gentile, are descendants of Abraham by faith. And if we, like Abraham, respond in faith to the call of God, then we inherit God’s promise to Abraham. We become a descendant of Abraham, not by the flesh but by faith. Not through ethnicity but through faith in Christ.
“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). Think deeply about what this means. The descendants of Abraham — the heirs of The Promise — are not physical Jews who keep the law. The heirs of The Promise are the people of faith who receive the gospel, whether Jew or Gentile.
In closing, I want to make this very clear and very personal. In 2200 BC, God called Abraham to himself and gave him a promise and a mission. In the same way today through Christ, the Lord calls you to himself and gives you a promise and a mission. The key variable is not God’s call or his promise; the key variable is your faith.
The critical question is: How will you respond to the call of God?
