4 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? 2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Paul has just declared to the Jews that you are not saved by works you are saved by faith.
And now he gives them the example of Abraham. He selects Abraham for his illustration for several reasons.
First of all, Abraham is not only from the OT, he precedes Moses, he even precedes the nation of Israel, so this would demonstrated this truth is timeless and not something new.
Secondly, he selects Abraham because he is the supreme example of faith. Galatians calls him the father of all who believe. As MacArthur says... Abraham is not an example of a righteous man whom God chose, he is an example of an unrighteous man whom God chose. He is not an example of a man who earned salvation by his good works, he is an example of a man who received salvation by grace through believing.
Thirdly, he needed to take theology out of the abstract and make it concrete by giving it flesh and blood.
This whole chapter really focuses on Abraham and the fact that he was justified by faith not works (v1-8), grace not law (v9-17) and divine power not human effort (v18-25)
when Paul attacks the opponents of justification or salvation by faith at the point of Abraham, he is storming the very fortress of Judaism. He is smashing down the walls of their strongest arsenal. Because if Abraham couldn't be justified by works then nobody can be because they said he was the most righteous man of all. And if you can show that Abraham cannot be justified by his works then nobody can.
Secondly, and conversely, if it can be demonstrated that Abraham was justified by faith then everyone must be justified by faith for Abraham is the standard. If Abraham can't glory and boast then nobody can because it must be of grace. So, this is critical.
The rabbis pretty much taught that Abraham was perfect, but they had to do some selective ignoring, highlighting, and twisting of scripture to get there.
For ex. Genesis 26:4-5 I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws.”
But they have it twisted around. God didn't save Abraham because he was righteous. Abraham was righteous because God saved him.
Paul simply says, if Abraham was justified by his works then he would have every right to boast about it. But he wasn't justified by his works, therefore he had nothing to boast about. And he goes straight to scripture to back up his claim. OT scripture. Nothing new, nothing that hadn't been there all along.
Genesis 15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
How did Abraham gain righteousness? How did he become right with God? By believing God. By faith.
Galatians 3:6-9 Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Galatians 3:26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus
Hebrews 11:8-12 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
Why did Abraham leave the only land he had ever known? Because he believed God and acted on faith. And his faith was patient - he never saw the complete fulfillment of the promise but he still believed God.
Hebrews 11:17-19 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead,and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Why was Abraham willing to kill Isaac, the very fulfillment of the promise? Because he believed God. He believed God could raise Isaac from the dead - and he'd never seen a resurrection before. He believed God. He acted in faith.
Abraham was not perfect. Not by a long shot. He brought his family with him instead of leaving them behind as God had instructed, wasting 15 years in Haran along the way, and gaining a heap of trouble because of Lot hanging around. He looked to the Egyptians for help during the famine, instead of to God. He lied. He committed adultery and produced a nation that became the enemy of the very descendants he was promised. No, Abraham was far from perfect. He could never have been acceptable to God on the basis of his works. Never.
He was acceptable to God because of his faith, because he believed God, and God credited it to him as righteousness. In spite of his imperfection, he recovered from those instances of lack of faith, and continued on in a pattern of believing God. No man can believe God perfectly, but Abraham is a model of believing God even amidst his own imperfection.
And what it's saying is that because he believed God imputed to him, put to his account, a righteousness which Abraham on his own did not possess. That's the whole point. And, beloved, that's what salvation is all about. When you believe God, when you believe the Word of God and the promise of God then God takes a righteousness you don't have and puts it to your account.
How could God do that? How could God credit Abraham with a righteousness he did not have? How can He do that for us?
Isaiah 53:4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
do you know why God can credit righteousness to your account? Because He credited your sin to Christ's account. And on the cross Christ paid the price for your sin which then satisfies God's requirement and allows God to credit His righteousness to your account and mine. That's the heart of the Christian faith. God never ever could have credited righteousness to Abraham's account had not Abraham's sin been paid for and it was on the cross of Jesus Christ, though Christ had not yet come into the world, that's no more difficult to understand than that our sin should be credited to Christ who came 2,000 years ago. He is the apex of redemptive history.
So, the believing sinner is justified by righteousness infused into him. Arthur Pink summarizes by saying, "It is called the righteousness of God because He is the appointer, approver and imputer. It is called the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ because He wrought it out and presented it unto God. It is called the righteousness of faith because faith is the apprehender and receiver of it. It is called the righteousness of man because it was paid for him and imputed to him. And all these varied expressions refer to so many aspects of that one perfect obedience unto death which the Savior Performed for His people."
And may I add to Pink's list? Daniel calls it "everlasting righteousness." Daniel 9:24.
Now, that's a thrilling truth. What a joy to a person who's deeply convinced that he's lost, who knows he's a rebel against God, who knows he's a lawbreaker, who knows he's condemned to hell and he knows he can't earn his own way in to discover that he doesn't have to‑‑that God will impute righteousness, God will credit righteousness to his account because his sin has been credited to Christ's account on the cross ... if he but believes. And so, when a sinner is alerted to the holy majesty and unbending justice and sovereign power of God, there is a terrorizing sense of lostness, a great feeling of depravity, the foul character of sin and the inevitable deserved judgment becomes frontal in the mind and the awaken soul cries out for a salvation that he knows he can't earn. He may cry with that text of Micah 6:6 and 7, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" Isn't that a great word? What am I going to do? What am I going to offer to God? How many "Hail Mary's" does it take? How many religious rites does it take?
The poor soul may cry with Job 25:4, "How then can a man be justified with God? Or, how can he be clean that is born of woman?"
And then comes this blessed truth. By faith ... by faith righteousness is put to your account. What a great reality.
God chose Abraham and Abraham responded. He was made righteous because God chose him and he responded. We are made righteous when God chooses us and we respond in belief, in faith. Faith accepts the gift God offers.
I love how MacArthur puts it... God does not justify the believing person because of the worthiness of his faith but because of the worthiness of the one who is believed in.
MacArthur even came up with an acrostic to define saving faith.
F is for fact. Saving faith is based on fact. The fact that Jesus is the Christ according to the OT prophets, that He lived a sinless life and died as payment for our sins, that He was buried and then rose from the dead on the third day and His resurrection body was seen by over 500 people.
A is for agreement. Not only do we have to know the facts, but we have to believe them.
I is for internalization. Not only do we have to know and believe the facts, we have to internalize them, we have to have a desire to make that belief personal.
T is for trust. Not only do we have to know the facts, believe the facts, and want to receive it in our own lives - we need to trust. We need to make a total commitment, repenting of sin, affirming the Lordship of Christ, trusting Him with our lives. We need to turn away from sin and toward God. We need to drop all we possess in order to receive all He has to give.
H is for hope. We believe in our eternal destination, but we haven't seen it yet. We believe with all our heart that we will be able to spend eternity with Jesus in the place He has prepared for us as perfect people without human frailties, but we haven't seen it yet. We don't trust Him just in the moment (and then bail when things get better or worse), we trust Him for our forever.
that's the kind of faith Abraham had. He believed what God said. He heard what God said, he heard the facts. You go, this is what I'll do. He agreed with those facts. He wanted to appropriate those facts so he entrusted everything to God and he did it in hope because he never saw the fulfillment. But he believed God to his dying day. So, he's a perfect illustration, isn't he, for saving faith.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 4:4-8
1 comment:
Great post! I love the acrostic. I actually copied it and put it into my church's women's bible study page.
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