Paul continues to defuse the spiritual grenade left in Galatia by the Judaizers. They rolled into the churches telling everyone that Paul’s Gospel was incomplete. If you wanted to follow Jesus, you had to follow Jewish law first. That included circumcision, the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham.
The apostle has just asked us a series of questions. He wants his readers to think back to their conversion. How did that happen? What did you do? What kind of things do you perform in order to receiver God’s Spirit? Was it by obedience to a list of rules, “by works of the law?” Or was it really by simply believing in what Jesus has done for you, “by hearing with faith?” (Gal 3:2-5).
At this point, Paul opens his Bible and flips back to Genesis. If these false teachers want to use the OT, the apostle says, “Bring it on!” You want to talk about obedience to the law, let’s talk about Abraham. Father Abraham. “Just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (v6).
Paul quotes Genesis 15:6. What does a dusty old Bible story have to do with churches in Galatia, much less with us today? Great question! Paul is saying that God made Abe right LONG before He established His covenant and its mark of circumcision.
Abe simply believed what God had told him. Somehow, someway, he believed God was good on His crazy promise to transform a childless old man into a “great nation” (Gen 12:2). That his descendants-to-be would be like “the dust of the earth” (Gen 12:16).
Abraham believed God. He believed in the goodness of God. He believed in the sovereignty of God. He certainly trusted Him for the promises He made to him regarding land, seed, and blessing. But more importantly, Abe simply trusted God.
No matter how difficult life was, no matter how ridiculous his situation, he trusted inch God was and what He said. And he did so centuries before Jesus showed up to fulfill everything.
Do I have the same kind of faith? Do I have that same kind trust in God and HIs goodness? I pray that I do. One thing I have in my favor is the perspective of the life of Jesus and His death for my sin on the cross. Abraham believed in God for what he has done as well as those future blessings.
Paul says that when Abe believed, God “counted it to him as righteousness.” The Greek verb he uses here is λογιζομαι/logizomai.
This is an accounting term. It means that when Abraham believed, God went into His divine ledger and credited Abe’s account as made right and reconciled. Everything was paid in full. Simply because he trusted in God.
This is important to the Galatians because it means they didn’t need anything more than to place their faith in God. If Abe, as the patriarch of the Jews, didn’t need to be circumcised, much less follow the law that was still to come centuries later, then they didn’t either.
Justification by faith is good news for for me. I simply need to trust in Jesus and what He’s done for me. And that also means I don’t need to add any of my on futile self-salvation projects either. Not going to church. Not serving in ministry. Not reading my Bible. Not praying. Not seminary. No small groups.
None of these has the power to save. Only my faith in Jesus. Only my trust in God. And if anybody wants to bring up the OT, bring it on!
©2012
Jay Jennings
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