Galatians 3:6-9
‘Even so Abraham “BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.’
I can recall someone explaining these verses to me as a young christian. The next day I was doing my best to be righteous, like Abraham. I missed the point. This message was foreign to me. I was all about working for what I had. The concept of “freely given” wasn’t part of my life. My mother was the only one who loved me completely. That’s not a complaint, just my experience. The rest of the world relies on performance.
So, when it came to God, I had a performance based relationship. There’s probably a little of that left, but most of it has been cleaned out due to great bible teaching and the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit. This passage is good. The book of Romans is revolutionary in terms of the message of salvation by grace.
There were shadows of that message in the Old Testament. Jesus was the bridge. There was a great deal of misunderstanding about the law in His time. The leaders were condemning Him for healing people on the sabbath. Jesus made the point that the sabbath was made for people, not the other way around. They had centuries of error built upon error.
When the Lord told Peter to eat in his dream in the book of Acts (10:14,15), ‘Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.” Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.”’ This was the New Covenant reordering things. The gospel was now going out to everyone. The message of grace was new as well.
We’re not told how Abraham understood the message of grace. The Lord must have given that to Him. It would have been interesting to see which influences the Lord used to help with that. Maybe Abraham had a loving family that cared for him with no reliance on his efforts. Jesus pointed out a centurion’s great faith in Luke 7:9, “When Jesus heard this, He marveled at the centurion. Turning to the crowd following Him, He said, ‘“I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.’”
It’s significant that the message of favor given freely happened prior to Moses. It came before the Law. The foundation of grace was laid first. So, when Paul brings it up it’s not something new. The law had it place, but only to deal with the enormity of the consequences of sin and how to pay for it. We owe a debt to the jews, as the Lord used them as an object lesson to the world. They were the people by which the Savior which come from and go to all the world.
Lord, thank You for Abraham and the message of faith. Help us to ever connect to You by the great message of grace through faith.