justification by faith

The Righteous Shall Live By Faith

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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 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.

10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. – Galatians 3:1-14 ESV

This was obviously a massive issue for Paul, as he continues to discuss it well into the body of his letter. He is going out of his way to let the Gentiles know that there is nothing more that they need other than their faith in Christ. These men, who had shown up declaring that the salvation of the Galatian believers was incomplete because they had failed to convert to Judaism, were, in Paul’s eyes, false brothers. If what they taught is what they really believed, they weren’t true believers at all, because their gospel was false.

They somehow believed that their “Jewishness” put them ahead of the curve. After all, they thought, Jesus had been a Jew who had kept the law and obeyed all the ceremonial requirements, and so had His disciples. So if someone wanted to be one of His followers, they concluded, he had to become a Jew. In their minds, the Jews were the chosen people of God.

But Paul puts that logic to rest. First, because that is not what Jesus taught.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 ESV

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” – John 5:24 ESV

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.” – John 6:27 ESV

Secondly, the good news had always been based on faith, not works. Long before the law had been given, God declared Abraham righteous because of his faith, not because of his obedience or adherence to any laws or requirements. In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, “Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. For the Scriptures tell us, ‘Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith’ (Romans 4:1-3 NLT).

Paul used the patriarch of the Hebrew people as an example of faith. He wasn’t chosen by God because he was Jewish. He wasn’t seen as righteous by God because he kept the law. After all, the law didn’t even exist yet. He wasn’t even deemed righteous by God because he had been circumcised. Paul goes on to elaborate on this vital distinction.

Was he counted righteous only after he was circumcised, or was it before he was circumcised? Clearly, God accepted Abraham before he was circumcised! Circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous – even before he was circumcised. – Romans 4:10-11 NLT).

Lawkeeping has a particular attraction to us as human beings. It appeals to our pride and sense of self-accomplishment. From the time we are children, we are trained to aspire to get the gold star on our homework or the A+ on our paper. We are driven to make it onto the winning team. We become obsessed with achievement and recognition for our efforts. This attitude infiltrates and permeates every facet of our lives, even the spiritual dimension.

We look for ways to measure up and can actually end up competing with others to see who is the most spiritual. We use criteria such as quiet time, prayer, service, giving, Bible study attendance, and biblical knowledge to achieve some degree of righteousness and demonstrate our spiritual depth. But Paul warned the Galatian believers, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life” (Galatians 3:11 NLT).

Studying the Bible, prayer, service, and giving are all evidence of a life of faith, not the means to get there. These things don’t make us right in God’s eyes, because we can’t earn His favor or acceptance through our own efforts. As believers, we do these things because of our faith in His Son and our acceptance of His gift of salvation made possible through His death on the cross. We read the Bible to get to know God and His Son better. We pray so that we might share with and hear from Him. We serve because His Son served us and left us an example to follow. We give because God has so graciously provided for us, and we have been called to share with others out of that abundance.

It is so easy to let an attitude of earning based on effort creep into our spiritual lives. Paul is warning us to be wary of works, not to avoid them altogether. His message is that faith leads to righteousness, and any works we perform are a byproduct of that reality. Belief in Jesus Christ as your Savior is the only requirement God has placed on us. Our obedience to His laws or commands is based on an attitude of gratitude, not earning or merit. We have nothing to prove to God. We have nothing we need to do to make God love us any more than He already does. We don’t have anything we need to do to keep God pleased with us. He loved us even when we were still trapped in our own sinfulness and sent His Son to die for us. God didn’t save us because we deserved it, and it takes genuine faith to believe that.

The Galatians didn’t need circumcision to complete their salvation. What they needed was continued faith in the grace and goodness of God. He wasn’t done yet. Paul knew that the Galatians had not yet arrived. Their salvation had been accomplished but their sanctification was a work in process. God, through the indwelling presence and power of His Spirit, was molding each of His children into the likeness of His Son; a process that the apostle John said will one day be made complete when Jesus returns.

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure. – 1 John 3:2-3 NLT

Father, salvation by faith alone is so counter-intuitive. It goes against our human reasoning. It makes no sense. Nobody gets something for nothing. Everything in life has to be earned. But You have made salvation a gift. You gave us Your Son in spite of us, not because of us. You gave us what we could never have earned or ever deserved. And it takes faith to believe that. Help us to continue to replace faith in ourselves with faith in Your Son. Amen.

 

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Faith, Not Self-Effort

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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. – Galatians 3:7-9 ESV

In his defense of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, Paul makes a somewhat surprising argument. Having rejected the idea that adherence to the Mosaic Law was a necessary requirement for salvation, Paul brings up Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrew nation. What makes this tactic so interesting is that Paul is using the one man that all Israelites revere, including the Judaizers, to support his argument against the need for Gentile conversion to Judaism.

Paul refers to Abraham as “the man of faith” (Galatians 3:9) and this will become the basis of his entire argument. The question becomes: Why was Abraham considered a man of faith? Was it because of something he did? In his letter to the believers in Rome, Paul argued that Abraham was deemed righteous before God because of his faith.

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” – Romans 4:1-3 ESV

Paul contends that it was Abraham’s belief in the promises of God that led to God’s declaration of his righteous standing. It had nothing to do with Abraham’s behavior or his adherence to a set of laws. Even back in the days of Abraham, God had operated on the singular criteria of faith. His relationship with Abraham was based on a simple promise that stated, “All nations will be blessed through you” (Galatians 3:

the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would make the Gentiles right in his sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “In you shall all the nations be blessed” (Galatians 3:8 ESV). This is a direct quote from the promise God made when He called Abraham out of Ur.

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” – Genesis 12:1-3 ESV

Abraham believed this promise and left Ur for the land of Canaan. There was no law involved because the law did not yet exist. Circumcision was not required because God had not yet instituted that religious rite. All that was required of Abraham was faith. He simply needed to believe God’s promise and obey God’s command. And he did.

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him… – Genesis 12:4 ESV

At this point in the story, Abraham’s “family” consisted of himself and his barren wife, Sarah. He had no children and, therefore, no heir. Yet, when God had promised to produce a great nation from him and his infertile wife, Abraham believed and set out in faith.

Paul uses Abraham’s faith-motivated actions as encouragement for the struggling Christians in Galatia.

So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith. – Galatians 3:9 NLT

He is using the Hebrew patriarch as an example of what it means to live by faith. The Galatian believers were being told that faith was an insufficient means to receive salvation. The Judaizers were telling them that circumcision was required because it was a sign of the covenant commitment to Yahweh, the God of the Jews. It was the first step in a lengthy and legalistic process toward true faith. But Paul vehemently disagreed, using their own patriarch as the proof.

A few verses later, Paul points out that Abraham was deemed righteous by God long before the Mosaic Law was given. It would be 430 years before the law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, so there is no way that Abraham’s righteousness was tied to the law. When Moses received the promise that God would bless all the nations through him, he was 75 years old. It would be 25 years later before God instituted the rite of circumcision.

Then God said to Abraham, “Your responsibility is to obey the terms of the covenant. You and all your descendants have this continual responsibility. This is the covenant that you and your descendants must keep: Each male among you must be circumcised. You must cut off the flesh of your foreskin as a sign of the covenant between me and you. – Genesis 17:9-11 NLT

So, there is no way that circumcision can be tied to Abraham’s faith. God declared Abraham to be righteous long before He commanded the rite of circumcision. Paul clarified this point as well in his letter to the Romans.

For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. – Romans 4:9-11 ESV

You can see why Paul was so upset with those who had shown up in Galatia representing the party of the circumcision. They were demanding that all the Gentile converts be circumcised as a non-negotiable requirement for their acceptance into the fellowship. And yet, in his letter to the Romans, Paul clearly revealed the fallacy behind this belief. He made it perfectly clear that God declared Abraham righteous long before the requirement of circumcision had been given.

The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. – Romans 4:11-12 ESV

Abraham was to be the father of many nations, not just the Hebrews. It’s important to note that God’s original promise to Abraham was made before the Hebrew nation even existed. Isaac had not yet been born.

Later on in this same chapter, Paul divulges how God intended to make Abraham “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:5 ESV). It would be through offspring that God would bless all the nations of the earth. But Paul’s Spirit-inspired interpretation of God’s promise is the most important part of his entire argument.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. – Galatians 3:16 ESV

Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, unpacks this familiar Old Testament passage and reveals that. all along, God’s plan had been to bless the nations through Abraham by making the Messiah one of his descendants. It would be through Jesus that the nations would be blessed by being restored to a right relationship with God the Father through faith in Christ the Son.

It would be through faith in Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross that the nations would be blessed. The Jews (circumcised) and the Gentiles (uncircumcised) would discover the blessings of God through faith in His Son. Paul was adamant in his belief that righteousness was available through faith alone in Christ alone.

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. – Romans 4:13-14 ESV

No one could ever save themselves, including the Jews. Yes, they had the law of God, but they were incapable of living up to its exacting standards. All the law could do was expose their sinfulness and condemn them as unrighteous and unworthy of God’s goodness. The law revealed God’s righteous expectations and man’s incapacity to keep them. The law made the holiness of God tangible, but also unattainable.

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. – Galatians 3:23-24 ESV

Paul wanted the Galatians to realize that their salvation was solely based on faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing was missing and there wasn’t anything more they needed to do. It was the finished work of Christ and their complete dependence upon it that had resulted in their salvation. And Paul reminded them that “those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:9 ESV).

Faith is foundational to all that we are as believers. Without faith, we have nothing. Without faith, we are nothing.

“In walking with God, a man will go just as far as he believes, and no further. His life will always be proportional to his faith. His peace, his patience, his courage, his zeal, his works – will all be according to his faith” .– J. C. Ryle, Holiness

We are saved as a result of faith. We grow spiritually in proportion to our faith. We live our lives according to faith. The author of Hebrews reminds us, “…without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV).

Our works, devoid of faith, are worthless. And our faith, if not placed in the finished work of Christ and kept there, can easily transform into self-reliance – a kind of faith that seeks to earn favor with God through self-effort. At the heart of biblical faith is a God-dependence that recognizes self as insufficient and Jesus as the only solution to our sin problem.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.