“Not by Law, But by Faith (Galatians 2:16-3:9)” | 9/14/25
Galatians 2:16-3:9 | 9/14/25 | Will DuVal
“All religions are basically the same.” You’re probably no stranger to this assessment of the spiritual landscape. “They’re just different PATHS all leading up the same MOUNTAIN,” the metaphor goes. Now, there are LOTS of ways we could go about DEBUNKING this bad theology. For starters, we could examine each religion’s MOUNTAIN, and point out just how DIFFERENT the GOAL is for each: Judaism’s olam-ha-ba is NOT Islam’s Jannah… which is ENTIRELY different from Buddhism’s Nirvana.
But this morning, in Galatians chs2 & 3, the apostle Paul is going to contest this CONFLATION of worldviews by scrutinizing the different PATHS we are instructed to take to get UP each mountain. He won’t consider all 10,000+ religions of the world; he doesn’t NEED to. Because there are really only two CATEGORIES of religions; 9,999+ of those “paths” really DO boil down to ALMOST the same thing. They say, “the way to get where you want to go (whether it’s the Tao, or Confucianism’s Tian, or Hinduism’s Moksha…), the way to GET there is by DOING GOOD. Good WORKS.” And they may suggest slightly different variations on the kinds of “good works” they commend: be kind, help others, pursue contentment and gratitude. But whatever the specific ETHIC, this path to heaven / God / Nirvana we’ll call “THE LAW”. “Follow this LAW, this CODE of conduct, and maybe (hopefully) you can make it up the mountain.”
But then there’s a SECOND category of religion, and there’s really just one religion IN this whole category: Christianity. And it prescribes an entirely different PATH. Christianity says, “You can try your very hardest, but you will NEVER make it up the mountain. Because if it’s GOD’S mountain; He’s PERFECT. So how “good” do you think you’re gonna have to BE, to make it all the way UP?” Actually, God TELLS us, in his WORD, the BIBLE; Psalm 24: “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart...” (vv3-4)
If your actions AND affections; your intentions, and words, and deeds are all PERFECT, then by all means: CLIMB ON!” But for the OTHER 8.245 billion of us down here, we’re all gonna have to find a DIFFERENT way up. “NO ONE is righteous; no not even ONE,” the Bible says (Rom 3:11).
And the apostle Paul this morning, in Galatians 2:16 thru ch3, v9, he’s gonna show us the way.
So let’s read it together now: Galatians 2:16 - 3:9. [Bibles… Info Bar…] Would you STAND with me as you’re able… (SCRIPTURE:)
“We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer [or experience] so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 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— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 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.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
This is the word of God… Seated…
Well, hopefully you CAUGHT it there, as we were reading through the passage - the PATH that Paul prescribes for us here; and not just Paul, but GOD HIMSELF, because SCRIPTURE is the inspired self-revelation of GOD to us; that’s what verse EIGHT affirms, implicitly, by saying, “The Scripture… said, “in you the nations will be blessed”; if we flip back to Genesis 12, the verse QUOTED there, it’s actually GOD who declared that promise to Abram. Ergo, “the SCRIPTURES” are not just MAN’s word - Moses’s words, Paul’s words - they are GOD’S word.
And what does God reveal to us here in Galatians about the PATH - the ONLY path - that truly leads to HIM? Paul articulated it no less than TWELVE TIMES, I counted, including THREE times in v16 ALONE: HOW are we brought into right relationship with a perfectly HOLY God?
“a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (v16).
That is the single most important verse in the entire book of Galatians. It’s the THEME verse, the SUMMARY verse, of the whole book, Paul’s entire ARGUMENT here: “Not by WORKS, but by FAITH.”
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But what MAY have slipped by you was the FOUR FRUITS of FAITH that Paul outlines here. Let’s switch METAPHORS now, from MOUNTAINS to TREES.
The Bible says, “It is BY GRACE that we are saved THROUGH FAITH” (Eph 2:8). We are saved from our SIN, and its CONSEQUENCES - we’ve all sinned against a HOLY God, and we deserve PUNISHMENT: DEATH and HELL - but God SAVES us BY grace THROUGH faith.
So if salvation is TREE, then GRACE is the SEED. Grace is God’s FREE, undeserved GIFT of His Son JESUS, who was crucified and yet RESURRECTED so that WE might die to SIN and be raised WITH him to true, everlasting LIFE. This is the GOSPEL, the “good news” about Jesus. And the Bible often compares it to a SEED. In Matthew 13, Jesus tells MULTIPLE parables - these metaphorical stories - about the gospel, the good news that the “kingdom of heaven” has arrived, because JESUS is here. And IN the parables, Jesus compares His kingdom to “a man who sowed good seed in his field” (Mt 13:24). And those who “hear and understand this word about the kingdom”, Jesus says their hearts are like “good soil”, where the gospel can “take root” (vv19-23). So too JAMES exhorts us to “receive with meekness (humility, and repentance), the implanted word, (the GOSPEL) which is able to save your souls” (1:21).
So the gospel of GRACE - God’s gift of JESUS - is like a SEED, which must take ROOT, in the soil of our hearts, through FAITH: when we ADMIT our sin, and our NEED for Jesus; we BELIEVE, RELY on, we TRUST in him, and that seed begins to GROW; a TREE of SALVATION is born!
And in this passage, Paul reminds the Galatians of just FOUR of the FRUITS - and we could add MANY more to the list, if we were to consider ALL of the glorious RESULTS of salvation by grace through faith; actually, Paul will use this exact METAPHOR of a tree with its various “FRUIT”, two chapters from now, when he describes the “fruit of the Spirit” for us - but HERE, he gives us FOUR. And the MOST important thing he wants us to remember with ALL of them, is that they ONLY come by FAITH, NOT by the LAW.
And the FIRST fruit of faith is the MOST foundational: #1- It is not by the law, but by faith that we are JUSTIFIED. (2:16-18, 21)
He repeats it THREE times in v16, to DRIVE it home:
“a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ”
“so we also [even us JEWS] have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law”; WHY??
“because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
And we learned LAST week that this word “JUSTIFIED” - this is first time that Paul ever uses it here, in ANY of his letters; but it’s one of his FAVORITE words - and he BORROWS it, appropriately, from the LEGAL world. “You wanna talk LAW,” he says, “okay; let’s talk LAW”.
“We’ve all BROKEN God’s law”; the Bible says, “sin IS lawlessness” (1 Jn 3:4). So if we want to be “JUSTIFIED”, which means “declared NOT GUILTY” by God, you can’t DO it by simply trying to follow more of the LAW.
If I’m driving home today, and let’s say my license plate tags are EXPIRED - they’re NOT, because a few months back I DID get pulled over for expired tags, and I got ‘em RENEWED (I used it in a sermon illustration back THEN too; I get TONS of material, just from my OWN “lawlessness”!) - but imagine they’re STILL expired and I’m driving home and I see those dreaded red and blue lights start flashing in my rear view mirror. What if I just kept driving but made EXTRA sure to observe all the other rules of the road: I kept it under the SPEED limit… I used my BLINKERS every time I wanted to TURN… I even maintained a car length’s distance for every 10 miles per hour between me and the car in FRONT of me (which proved to be DIFFICULT, because they all kept SLOWING DOWN and pulling OVER, with the COP’S SIREN blaring behind us!). But when that policeman eventually got me to STOP, and he asked, “Do you know why I’m pulling you over?” - FIRST of all, will I be “JUSTIFIED” if I answer, “NO IDEA”? Does my being IGNORANT of the law acquit me of its penalty?
NO! What if I argue, “Well, I have my OWN rules for driving, Officer. Your entitled to “YOUR rules”, but I’m entitled - actually, I am BEHOLDEN; it would be DISINGENOUS of me to drive according YOUR rules, Officer; I have to stay true to my OWN heart…” - is that gonna FLY?
NO! I don’t GET to make the rules, do I? I’m just responsible for KEEPING them.
Last question, and this is the one PAUL really goes after here, and the one that most people around us don’t stop long enough to really think it all the way through: if I argue, “But Officer, did you notice how well I kept the SPEED LIMIT? My faithful TURN signals?” Does that JUSTIFY me? Can following MORE of the rules ABSOLVE me of my GUILT for breaking that very first, initial rule? Actually, all of my EXTRA driving, AFTER I saw the lights and heard the siren, no matter how hard I TRIED to keep the law, ALL of it was in fact… ILLEGAL!!
That’s why I love the illustration: re-read verses 18 & 19 with me; that’s Paul’s ARGUMENT here: “if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law”. Interestingly, he DOESN’T say, “for through the GOSPEL I died to the law”; No, according to Paul, the Law ITSELF was enough to CONVINCE him that he was GUILTY! And that keeping even MORE of the law - “rebuilding what I tore DOWN”; this religious system of “dos and don’ts” that I tried so fervently to LIVE by for YEARS and years, in order to PROVE myself to God… in FACT only “proved” me to be a “TRANSGRESSOR”, a BREAKER of the law. So, Paul says, “I’ve DIED to the law”; I’m not going BACK to the old system, of trying to earn God’s favor by keeping more of the rules; I eventually - FINALLY - decided to PULL the car over, and ADMIT my guilt, and find a DIFFERENT way of being justified. “Not by works… but through FAITH in Jesus Christ” (v16)
Don’t forget the CONTEXT here: Paul is writing to a church full of primarily Gentile (that is, NON-Jewish) baby Christian converts, who are being led ASTRAY by these false teachers, who are convincing them that they must keep the OT Law of MOSES in order to be SAVED. That Christ ALONE is not ENOUGH to save them. And LAST week, we saw even the apostle PETER start to drift from the true gospel. And Paul had to forcefully REMIND him, “Peter, you can eat all the shrimp you WANT now; but what you CANNOT do, is SPURN and EXCLUDE these Gentiles from your fellowship, from Christian community, for NOT keeping the law of Moses. Because THEY’VE been justified the same way we were, Peter: NOT by law, but by FAITH.”
v17: “But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners”; what’s Paul DOING there? He’s anticipating the Judaizers’ RESPONSE. The Galatians are gonna receive this letter, and read it out loud in church. And Paul knows that some of the Judaizers will likely still be hanging around, sowing their seeds of doubt and distrust, “Do you really trust PAUL’S gospel? We saw HIM eating SHRIMP, and listen to what God says about THAT here in Leviticus 11…”. Paul says, “Call me a “SINNER” if you WANT; you’re RIGHT, I AM a sinner! But that doesn’t make CHRIST a “servant of sin”. And it doesn’t negate my argument.
See, the Judaizers argued that PAUL’s gospel - the TRUE gospel - would lead to LICENTIOUSNESS; lawlessness. “How are you gonna REIN in the SIN, without the LAW, Paul?!” And Paul will ANSWER that for us in chapters 5 & 6. But for NOW, he simply says, “You’re RIGHT; I too am a sinner… But YOUR sin - adding TO the gospel, and “rebuilding” what you’re SUPPOSED to have “torn DOWN” - is the far GREATER transgression!”
Why? V21: because they’re effectively “NULLIFYING” (VOIDING, REFUSING) the GRACE of God. “for if righteousness [or “JUSTIFICATION”; same root word that he used 3x in v16; if “rightness before GOD”] were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”
Do you realize that’s what you’re really saying, when you try and EARN your salvation by YOUR good deeds? You’re saying, “Jesus didn’t really NEED to die, not for ME anyway.”
Jesus prayed in AGONY in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if there is ANY other WAY to ACCOMPLISH your plan of salvation… PLEASE!” – and God DID NOT reply, “Okay, FINE; just tell ____ to try a little harder. We’ll SCRAP this whole “cross” thing, as long as ____’s GOOD deeds can outweigh his/her BAD ones…”
David Guzik (Enduring Word, “Galatians 2”) calls this “the great tragedy of legalism. In trying to be more right with God, legalists end up being less right with Him.” Proving themselves to be “transgressors”, by rebuilding the old system, that was NEVER able, never INTENDED, to justify us.
Friends, Christ didn’t DIE for no PURPOSE. He did it because you and I could NOT justify OURSELVES. His sacrificial death, in our place, was the ONLY way that sinners like you and me could EVER hope to be RIGHT with - reckoned “not guilty” before a HOLY God - was if JESUS, the “God-man”, took all of OUR sin and shame upon HIMSELF on that cross, and died the death that we deserved out of LOVE for us, while ALSO, positively, GIVING us (“imputing” to us, theologians say), Christ IMPUTED to us all of HIS righteousness, a righteousness WITHOUT which NO ONE can stand before God. But we can only GET it from JESUS. It’s a GIFT, the “GRACE of God”; not by works, or else WE’d get the CREDIT and the glory. But as it is, God ALONE deserves all of the glory and praise for HIS work and his unearned GIFT of salvation.
What do you do with a GIFT, friend? Pull out your wallet and try to PAY for it? How INSULTING, to the GIVER. No, you simply humble yourself and OPEN it - RECEIVE it. “to all who did receive [JESUS], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (Jn 1:12) ““Whosoever BELIEVES in HIM will NOT perish but have everlasting LIFE” (Jn 3:16).
Have you BELIEVED, friend? Who are you trusting in for YOUR “justification” - your “right standing” - before God? Your works? “by works… no one will be justified”! Or are you trusting in Christ’s perfect, FINISHED work?
“Lay your deadly doing down / Down at Jesus’ feet / Stand in Him and Him alone / Gloriously complete” (Proctor, “It is Finished”)
Now we read ON and realize that faith in Christ is not ONLY the only way we can be JUSTIFIED (made RIGHT with God); it is ALSO the only way - #2 - to be VIVIFIED as well - made ALIVE to God!
WHY did Paul “die to the law”, v19? “so that I might live to God”.
Here’s how Paul puts it in Ephesians 2: “you were dead in [your] trespasses and sins”. → What do DEAD people need? Some nice RULES to live by? A DIET plan? A WORKOUT regiment, to help extend their life expectancy? THEY’RE ALREADY DEAD!! The Law is like dieting & exercise - it has its place… for those who are ALIVE. But when you’re DEAD, you don’t need VITAMINS, you don’t need medicine, you don’t need a doctor or CPR (we’re talking “Lazarus / 4-days-in-the-tomb-we-were-beginning-to-STINKETH” dead!”). Friends, what we NEEDED was a RESURRECTION! Someone with the AUTHORITY and the POWER to say, ““I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he LIVE!” (Jn 11:25).
We need someone who PROVED it by HIS OWN resurrection from the grave, defeating sin and Hell and Death itself. And who now invites US to “hear my word and believe [in me]... and have eternal LIFE. [Come] pass from death to life.” (Jn 5:24)
And returning to Ephesians 2, that’s EXACTLY what Paul says God has done for us, in CHRIST: “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and he raised us up with him” (vv4-6).
But here’s the THING: in order to be RESURRECTED, first you’ve gotta DIE! So Paul says in Romans 6: “We were buried therefore with [Christ] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead… we too might walk in newness of life.” (v4)
Or, returning to Galatians TWO now, v20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Sin is DEATH. And that’s all we HAD before Christ: we were “dead in our sins”. So any LIFE within me NOW comes from HIM, from “Christ who lives IN me”, and who “makes me alive together WITH him” (Eph 2:5); he “raises me UP” to “walk in NEWNESS of life” (Rom 6:4).
So, Paul declares in the second half of v20 now: “the life I now live in the flesh [“here in my earthly body”] I live by faith in the Son of God”. David Platt notes (Galatians, 48): “Not only are we justified by faith, but we LIVE by faith… Faith isn’t just for receiving salvation; it’s also for enabling us to LIVE OUT salvation,” to live our lives in a way that actually PLEASES God: “by FAITH”; Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please him”.
But why do we DO it? We used to live in SIN for SELF; NOW, Paul says, I live BY FAITH for CHRIST – WHY? Because he “loved me and gave himself for me” (v20).
Consider the CROSS! What HE did for US? How could we NOT live for Him?!
JESUS died to LIFE for our sake; now he invites us to die to DEATH, for HIS sake. Die to SIN, and live for HIM.How do we DO it? Is there like a 12-step program, for recovering SELF-addicts, that God now gives us, to go out and fastidiously work? “You better work the steps…”
Friends, it CANNOT be US; it MUST be CHRIST at work WITHIN us. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
J.D. Greear put it this way: “When we come to true, saving faith, we not only receive a new identity - I am now “in Christ” - we ALSO receive a new POWER: Christ in ME.“ (J.D. Greear, “Galatians 2”)
And it is HIS power that RAISES us to walk in NEWNESS of life.
And NOW as we turn to chapter THREE, Paul is going to IDENTIFY that “power” for us more PERSONALLY. What IS this - or WHO, we should say; WHO is this “Christ IN me,” animating, empowering life-FORCE; our navigational system for living the life of faith”?
It’s the HOLY SPIRIT. The THIRD person of the Trinity. Christ’s own SPIRIT who lives in me. And it is TO the Spirit that Paul now turns his attention in ch3: “O foolish Galatians!” - “O dear IDIOTS”, John Phillips translates. “Who has bewitched you?” – “Did these Judaizers put some kind of SPELL on you?” That’s the ONLY way Paul can make SENSE of even WANTING to turn from the true, “Jesus plus NOTHING” gospel to a different, FALSE “Jesus plus WORKS” gospel: “They must have y’all under the IMPERIUS curse!”
Now, he’s gonna focus on the SPIRIT in vv2-5, but look at what Paul says now in the second half of v1: “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified”.
Did these believers in Galatia ever SEE, with their own EYES, Christ CRUCIFIED? No, they weren’t physically there in Jerusalem, a few years prior, on that fateful day.
But they saw him “publicly portrayed AS crucified”. By WHOM?
By PAUL! And HOW, specifically? In TWO ways:
First, Phillip Ryken explains (83): “The word ‘portrayed’ comes from the world of advertising… Jesus Christ had been placarded before them, as if on a giant billboard… It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. But if [don’t HAVE a picture, but you DO have] time for a thousand words, then people can see the picture for themselves, which is what happened when Paul presented the gospel” to them, to these Galatians. He painted a picture for them, by preaching “NOTHING but Christ CRUCIFIED” (1 Cor 2:2).
But the SECOND way in which “Jesus was portrayed as crucified” by PAUL, is even more STRIKING. Todd Wilson notes (93): “This is an allusion to more than vivid, imaginative preaching. Paul wants them to recall how he PHYSICALLY EMBODIED the cross of Christ. The Galatians thus saw the crucified Christ IN the crucified Paul.” – “It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Paul says, “You SAW him!”
And not only THAT - now we come to v2 - but you RECEIVED him for YOURSELVES; “Christ in YOU!”
“I’ve got just ONE question for you,” Paul says, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” And then Paul just can’t HELP himself; he launches into a series of four ADDITIONAL questions in vv3-5, but they all TOUCH on this first, basic query: “How’d y’all get the Holy SPIRIT??” By LAW or by FAITH? By WORKING for it, or by trusting CHRIST for it?
And the answer is OBVIOUS; Ephesians 1:13 “when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in [Christ], you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit”. Not by LAW, but by FAITH.
“Well, SURE,” the Judaizers try to argue, “maybe you initially RECEIVE the Spirit by faith, but if you want to go deeper - GROW deeper; think back to the TREE metaphor; “Okay, perhaps FAITH is how the gospel seed first takes ROOT. But to really GROW into a strong, sturdy TREE, you need the law of MOSES!”
Paul replies, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” Paul says, “Just follow that line of reasoning to its logical (or IL-logical) conclusion”; here’s how John Stott broke it down (Galatians, 22): “They did not deny that you must believe in Jesus for salvation, but they stressed that you must be circumcised and keep the law… let MOSES finish what Christ has begun. Or rather, you yourself must finish, by your obedience to the law, what Christ has begun. You must add YOUR works to the work of Christ. You must finish Christ’s unfinished work.”
See where that line of thinking gets you? Before you know it, you’re calling Jesus a LIAR, when he declared on the cross: “It is FINISHED!”
No, brothers and sisters; “The way INTO the Christian life is also the way ON in the Christian life” (Ryken, 89). The gospel isn’t just the SHALLOW end, but the REAL Christians eventually take their FLOATIES off and venture into the DEEP end… the LAW… - NO! The gospel is the whole POOL! It’s not just the SEED; it’s the whole TREE! And we go deeper in Christ NOT by going deeper in OUR works for Him, but by understanding more deeply HIS finished work for US.
That’s how the tree gets STRONGER - and that’s Paul’s main POINT here in vv1-5: the same SPIRIT that first VIVIFIES us - who raises us from death to LIFE - is ALSO the Spirit who FORTIFIES us. (3:1-5) – “Makes us strong; imparts strength and vigor”.
We are being “PERFECTED” or “brought to COMPLETION” not by our works, but by God’s SPIRIT.
“he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion” (Ph1:6) - GOD started the work; he’s gonna FINISH it; “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Ph2:13).
“And don’t FORGET”, Paul reminds them now in vv4 & 5, “all of the AMAZING things that God HAS worked in you” - “MIRACLES”, according to v5! God worked “miracles AMONG them” by His SPIRIT, to CORROBORATE - ATTEST to the power and truth, the validity of Paul’s gospel that they received, not by WORKS, but by FAITH.
Paul says, “Did you EXPERIENCE all these things” - “SUFFER” is a poor translation; the Greek word can also mean, as it clearly does HERE, in CONTEXT, “EXPERIENCE” - “Did you WITNESS all this in VAIN? For NOTHING? Have the JUDAIZERS been working miracles among you? I know they claim to be the ones swimming in the DEEP end; they’re the tall, sturdy OAKS… where are THEIR miracles?
They only come through the SPIRIT, who only comes through FAITH.
Lastly for this morning (but Paul’s gonna CONTINUE his argument NEXT week; cuz all of ch3, and really all of GALATIANS is just one continuous line of thought; Paul probably wrote the whole thing in one sitting), but we’ll end today in vv6-9.
#4- Not by the law, but by faith we are NATURALIZED. (3:6-9)
To NATURALIZE is “to confer upon (an alien) the rights and privileges of a citizen”. And brothers and sisters, all who have been JUSTIFIED (“made RIGHT), been VIVIFIED (“made ALIVE), and been FORTIFIED (“made STRONG”), by grace alone through faith alone IN CHRIST ALONE, we have ALSO been not ONLY “naturalized” - we’re not JUST “citizens” of God’s heavenly Kingdom - but as Paul’s gonna tell us in a few weeks in ch4: “God sent forth his Son… to redeem [us]... so that we might receive adoption as SONS” (v5).
We are now God’s own CHILDREN! A “PEOPLE for his own POSSESSION” (1Pet2:9).
“But WAIT!”, the Judaizers argue: “God’s already GOT a people; read your Old TESTAMENT, Paul! It’s US, the JEWS!”
Paul says, “Not so FAST; Know then” - v7 - “that it is those of faith who are the [TRUE] sons of Abraham.”
We’re gonna talk a lot more about ABRAHAM next week, but suffice it to SAY, he was their GUY. These Judaizers IDOLIZED Abraham, because he was the FATHER of Judaism.
[**Sing**] “Father Abraham / (come on, if you know it…)
Had many SONS
And many SONS had Father Abraham…”
The Judaizers say, “Of COURSE we know it; we’re THEM!”
Paul says, “ARE you though? Cuz it’s only those of faith who are TRULY sons of Abraham.” John the Baptist tried to warn you “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” (Matt 3:9) Being BIOLOGICALLY, ETHNICALLY related to Abraham isn’t ENOUGH; “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. Y’all need to be born AGAIN! Jesus HIMSELF tried warning y’all: “The [Pharisees] said to him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works that Abraham did” (John 8:39). And what is the “WORK” that Abraham did? BELIEVE! It’s really no “work” at all. Shout out to our ATP PODCAST, that we just resumed last week, answering that very QUESTION - thanks Darcy - “How is faith not ITSELF a “work”?” Give it a listen.
But here’s how Paul summarizes it for us in v6: “Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness””.
Paul is QUOTING here from Genesis ch15. Ryken points out (96,98): “The Judaizers loved to go back to Genesis 17, where God’s covenant with Abraham was signified by circumcision. But Paul went back even FURTHER, to [chapter] 15… The striking thing about Abraham is that he was justified BEFORE he did any works… In particular, Abraham did not have to get circumcised to be justified… God counted Abraham righteous before he had even heard of circumcision!” Paul asks in Romans 4, “Is this blessing [and he’s discussing SALVATION; is it] then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For… faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? [Paul asks] Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before.” (vv9-10)
And NOW watch what Paul does in verse EIGHT; he says, “the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand [even before Genesis FIFTEEN] to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.””
Now Paul goes all the way back to Genesis TWELVE, and God’s very FIRST promise EVER to Abram: “I will make of you a great nation… and in you ALL the [nations] will be blessed” (Gen 12:2-3)”
Paul says, “Don’t you REMEMBER? God’s PLAN, from the very BEGINNING? It was NEVER about making everyone JEWISH! “Follow the Law, and THEN maybe I’ll ADOPT you” – NO! Abraham was CALLED and CHOSEN by God 500 years BEFORE Moses got the Law, and 24 years before Abraham HIMSELF received the sign of CIRCUMCISION!”
“SO then”, Paul concludes in v9, “those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
Let’s end with this: what is the OBJECT of our faith? Cuz faith is all well and good, but EVERYONE has faith, everyone believes, relies, trusts… in SOMETHING. What are we being called, SPECIFICALLY, to trust in here?
Consider the example of ABRAHAM. “He believed GOD, and it was COUNTED to him as righteousness”; believed WHAT?
Well, God called him in Genesis 12 to leave his homeland and trust that God would give him a BETTER home; THAT took faith.
God called him in ch15 to trust that one day he’d have “descendants as NUMEROUS as the STARS”, despite being 90 years old and CHILDLESS; THAT took faith.
But the single greatest act of faith that Abraham is remembered for, actually came AFTER his child Isaac had arrived, when God called Abraham to SACRIFICE him, as a test of faith. And as Abraham was walking up the mountain to DO it, Isaac asked, “Father, where is the lamb for the offering?”. Abraham trusted that God would provide for HIMSELF the atoning sacrifice (Gen 22:8)... But that’s not all. Because the book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham had faith in the resurrection as WELL; “he considered that God was able even to RAISE (Isaac) from the dead” (11:19)... Thus, as Ryken puts it: “the gospel according to Abraham included BOTH the atonement AND the resurrection. And all of Abraham’s children TODAY believe this same gospel.” (99)
Is that YOU? “Father Abraham has MANY sons” - by the way, Abraham DOESN’T have any GRAND-children. Your parents’ faith - simply being raised in church - doesn’t get you ADOPTED, friend. It is only those of FAITH who are BLESSED along with Abraham.
[**SING**] “...And MANY sons had Father Abraham.
And I am ONE of them… but how about YOU?”
You CAN be: turn from your sin, trust in Jesus, and be saved.
“Now let’s all praise the Lord…