Rev. A. McPherson
THE reader will know that certain developments in the Galatian churches had greatly perturbed the apostle Paul. Their case was so bad that he found nothing in them to be thankful for, as he usually did when writing. Grief was the appropriate response rather than thanks, for very soon after their conversion from heathenism they had adopted another gospel which in fact was not another, but rather a perversion of the gospel of Christ.
After quite a long account of his own thorough conversion to the divinely revealed doctrine of salvation by grace without works, Paul (in chapter 3) speaks bluntly to the Galatians, and stresses the fact that they had the indwelling of the Holy Spirit after they believed in Christ, and thus they had clear evidence that they were saved. Why, then, should they pay attention to assertions that their salvation was incomplete without acceptance of parts of the Jewish ceremonial law?
Then in verses 6 to 22 in chapter 3, Paul argues for salvation by faith only, by quoting from the Old Testament. Below are some remarks on verses 6 to 9. Let us remember that Scripture is decisive in controversy over Christian belief. Today there are those who use only “the teachings of Christ” in the gospels to establish their views. How little they know of Him! Others go by “the living Spirit” to enforce what they cannot find in the written Word. The question we put to them is, Who inspired the Word? It has been by its forsaking of the Bible that so much of the Visible Church has declined in its corrupt and useless state.
Consider now verse 6: “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Abraham believed that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, and his faith was accounted as righteousness. But this was by no means his first exercise of saving faith. At his calling (Genesis 12) he had believed that from himself would come the promised Deliverer from sin and misery through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. The core of the promises was a Saviour from sin; Abraham believed in that promised Saviour and was saved and accounted righteous. The religion embraced by the Old Testament saints was essentially the same as Christianity. It is revealed religion in contrast to the alternatives invented by men which, one and all, make works essential, in contrast to divine grace.
Go on now to verse 7: “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” Faith is the hallmark of revealed religion; faith brought about by a great inward change wrought by the Holy Spirit. So that all who live by faith in God’s revealed Saviour are the same spiritually as Abraham, and can be called his spiritual children.
This leads on to verse 8: “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” There are two statements here. The first is that Scripture foresaw that God would justify the heathen through faith. The earliest Scriptures, having God for their Author, spoke of things God would do in the distant future, including the fact mentioned here, that God would justify the heathen, people not descended from Abraham, by faith. The second statement is that the Scripture said that the gospel was made known to Abraham by the words, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” So, how were these words the gospel? In this way: that one of Abraham’s descendants would be the promised “seed” of Genesis 3:15, the great Deliverer from sin and misery. And Abraham believed the promise; it was gospel to him.
Lastly, there is the deduction in verse 9: “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” From the facts in verse 8, Paul now links heathens who in the Christian era believed, with Abraham the patriarch who believed. Abraham believed in a promised Saviour; the Gentiles believed in a revealed Saviour. Abraham was saved by faith; heathens who believed were saved in the same way. Man’s works did not enter into it in either case; they were not conditions of salvation as the Galatians were now being pressed to accept.