The Just Shall Live by Faith!
Galatians 3:6-14
Introduction: Rabbi Shammai wrote that Moses gave 365 prohibitions and
248 positive commandments. David in
Psalm 15 gives 11 requirements; Isaiah 33:15,16 lists six, Micah 6:8 three,
Habakkuk 2:4 reduces them to one: “the just shall live by faith.” This
simple statement is central to the book of Romans and is the main theme of the
letter to the Galatians. Paul’s
experience on the Damascus road, and the message that he received from Jesus,
brought a 180 degree turn in his life from works to faith. After
centuries of apostasy in the Roman Church, the religious world was shaken when a
monk named Martin Luther read these words and was converted, and it became the
battle cry of the Protestant Reformation: The Just shall live by Faith.
This
is the message that Paul had preached on his first missionary journey through Asia
Minor, as he planted churches in region of Galatia on his first missionary
journey. It was also the substance of the rebuke that Paul brought against
Peter when, after Peter had come to Antioch and initially fellowshipped with
the gentiles, but suddenly began acting differently after some Jews from
Jerusalem arrived. He separated himself from his Gentile brothers in Christ “for
fear of the Jews.” Paul withstood him to his face because Peter was not “walking
in step with the Gospel.” How can we put on the gentiles a yoke that
neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? Paul now turns his attention
to the Galatians who were turning from the apostolic teaching of “grace” and
adding to it the trust in works-righteousness that prevailed in 1st
century Judaism. Grace plus Law is no gospel at all! In this passage that we’ll look at today, Paul
appeals to the Old Testament Scriptures to make his point that grace alone,
through faith alone, in Christ alone is our only hope for salvation. He’ll
quote from six Old Testament passages to make his point.
The Maine* Idea: Since the Law makes it clear that
we cannot save ourselves our only hope is to trust the One who bore the curse
of the Law for us.
I. The Blessing of Faith: Believers experience
God’s blessing as they affirm their trust in His Word (3:6-9). Paul
uses Abraham as an example of authentic faith.
…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.
“Even so, Abraham believed God…”
The reference is to Genesis 15:6. Even though He and Sarah were old, he believed
that God could do the impossible, and he took Him at His word. As we hear, and
“believe” the Word of God, authentic faith will show itself by action, we’ll
live like we believe it! (cf. Gen
12:4, Jn 3:36; James 2:21). So, Abraham
believed God, and he lived happily ever after, right? Not exactly! “Faith” doesn’t mean we are
perfect. Abraham’s faith wavered on a
few occasions, as in the face of famine (Gen 12:10) and when confronting danger
(12:11 -13). Faith doesn’t
mean we don’t have questions. But faith does mean we “believe” GOD has the
answers! We see that in the verse that is quoted in Galatians 3:6, which
refers to Gen 15:3-6. Let’s read the verses from Genesis 15…
3 And Abram said, "Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member
of my household will be my heir." 4
And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: "This man shall not be your
heir; your very own son shall be your heir." 5 And he brought him outside and
said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number
them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 6 And he believed the LORD, and
he counted it to him as righteousness.
God said He would do something amazing,
something impossible from a human perspective. And Abraham took God as His
word, He believed what he said. And notice what it says, “…He counted it
to him as righteousness…” That is the language of “imputation” that
Paul picks up on, and it is through faith alone. Abraham’s faith had its up and
downs, but by Genesis 22 he had been molded and matured to the point that he
was ready to face his greatest test yet…
As God called on Abraham to offer up his only son, the son of promise,
Abraham recognized that God was able, if necessary, even to raise the dead
(22:5, “we will return”). And
so, he raised his knife in obedience and faith, and God intervened.
The Reformers returned the church to
a biblical perspective of faith. According to Luther, “Faith is a
living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could
stake his life in it a thousand times.” Calvin said:
“Faith… is a steady and certain
knowledge of the divine benevolence towards us, which, being founded on the
truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ, is both revealed to our minds, and
confirmed in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit.”
And
so, faith is a sure trust, an absolute confidence in God’s word. Remember the little
girl in Haddon Robinson’s story from last week? She trusted Daddy, and acted
accordingly! Does our faith guide our choices? Do we live by faith?
Biblical faith has three elements:
knowledge, assent, trust. What does
the Bible say about our need and about God’s provision for our rescue in
Christ? That is knowledge. Assent means that we agree that it is
true, that God’s way is the best way, indeed the only way. And finally, “Trust,”
resting our hope, our confidence, in Christ alone. Action demonstrates
trust! On the basis of the Old Testament
background, the “faith in action” in the life of Abraham, Paul says in v.7… “Know therefore…” imperative, “Let it be known to you on the basis of the
Scripture…” “It is those who are of
faith who are the sons of Abraham.” Opponents might have been saying that
to be Abraham’s children, circumcision and the Law were necessary additions to
faith. Paul, however, is emphatic, it is faith, believing God, taking Him at
His Word, that makes us Abraham’s children. We follow Abraham’s example of
faith. Recall the words of John the Baptist in challenging the Jews whose
confidence was in the fact that they were descended physically from Abraham: “Don’t
be content in saying I am descended from Abraham, for God is able to raise up
from these stones children to Abraham!” Spiritual kinship trumps blood
relation. The question is, do we believe God?
“…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’.” The reference again is to the book of Genesis,
this time to 12:3. God called Abraham to go out to a land that he did not know,
leaving everything familiar behind. And somehow, through him, the blessing
would extend to all the nations of the world. How could that be? We have
the whole story! A descendant of Abraham, Jesus, would be the one who would do
for us what we could not do for ourselves. The
church was not an unforeseen mystery, even in the Abrahamic promise the idea of
God’s blessing extending to the gentiles was explicitly stated. Notice that faith, believing God, was basis to
God’s program throughout history. And so,
in v.9, believers are blessed with Abraham. As Abraham believed God, putting his trust in
Him alone, so we must acknowledge our desperate need, putting our trust in
Christ. Faith in God, taking Him at his word, binds us together. That’s the Maine* Idea: Since the Law makes it clear that we
cannot save ourselves our only hope is to trust the One who bore the curse of
the Law for us.
II. The Curse of the Law [or, The Curse of Unbelief?]. The Law convicts
us of sin. Attempting to approach God
through the works of the Law can only confirm our total inability, hence, we
must walk by faith (3:10-12). We should
walk by faith because we have been redeemed from the curse of the Law.
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."
Paul appeals to
Scripture in v.10, quoting three OT verses in these verses. He wants to make
the point that the Law could not save, it could only reveal our need. The Mosaic Law included a series of blessings
and curses contingent on obedience—not to save men, but to make clear their
need for a Savior. Complete obedience
was needed. The quotation in v.10 makes that point, citing Deut 27:26, where,
after a series of curses evoked for various acts of sinful behavior, it states,
“Cursed be anyone who does not
confirm the words of this law by doing them.”
Some translations add in italics, “…all the
words of this law…” which seems to be the point in the context. Absolute obedience.
The late Old Testament scholar Peter Craigie commented on this verse in
Deuteronomy 27:26…
…the
final curse has a summary and all-inclusive nature; it describes that man who
does not take positive action which obedience to the law demanded… This last
curse Paul expounds in his letter to the Galatians (3:10-14). The reach of the
law is so all-pervasive that man cannot claim justification before God on the
basis of ‘works of the law.’ This all-embracing nature of the law turns our
eyes to Christ who “redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a
curse for us…” (Deut. p.334).
Teaching in Brazil it was often necessary to grade a test “on
a curve.” The students usually worked full-time as well as being involved in
ministry, they had little time to study! How good is good enough? Different
groups among the Jews of the first century had varying ideas about obedience,
sin, and the life to come. One of the most liberal considered a 51% mark as
passing, carrying entitlement to enter the world to come. Most Americans seemingly
come from the same school! Did you see the commercial with the guy helping a
mom and her child onto a carnival ride, they ask, “Is it safe?” He replies, “Sure,
I put it together myself last night, I think I did an ok job…” OK?! They are
out of there! People assume that they are pretty good people, surely good
enough by God’s standards to deserve eternal life. But God doesn’t grade
on a curve! Jesus said, “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect”
(Mt 5:31*). God is just and holy, and he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.
Either we will answer for our sin, our we will put our trust in the One who
willingly bore our sins in his body on the Cross.
The need for
“faith” was evident, even in the Old Testament (v.11). Faith in God was the true means of salvation
through all ages—and is also characteristic of the Christian life. Know God,
believe Him, trust Him. Habakkuk contrasts the prideful arrogance of
unbelief with the humble life of faith when he said, “…the righteous [i.e.,
the just] shall live by his faith…” (Hab 2:4).
How can that be?
Didn’t the Law require complete obedience? That is the point that Paul is
making. He quotes in v.12 from Leviticus 18:5 which says,
You shall
therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall
live by them: I am the LORD.
Again, why did God give the Jews an impossible standard? We’ll
see more in this chapter. To show humans the impossibility of being
perfect and therefore the need to rely wholly on God. We can’t do it, so
we need grace, we need a Rescuer! The Law drives us to Him! Paul will say a
little further down, in 3:24, “Therefore
the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified
by faith.” The Law was designed to teach us that we are weak, to expose our
desperate need, to show us we need a Savior, we need grace! And that brings us
back to the Maine* Idea: Since the Law makes it clear that we cannot
save ourselves our only hope is to trust the One who bore the curse of the Law
for us.
III. The Basis of our Rescue (13-14). The Gospel of Christ (3:13-14). One missionary translator, trying to get the
sense of Acts 16:31 into a tribal language, came up with this: “Lean your
whole weight upon Jesus and be saved.”
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.
Here we go
again, running too quickly through the last couple of verses! Read v.13—Even
the manner of Christ’s death symbolized what he did for us: Christ was born
under the Law. He kept God’s Law perfectly, he never sinned. Yet He bore the penalty for our sin, he
redeemed us, bought us out of our position of bondage and made us God’s
children. The quotation is from Deuteronomy 21:23, were Moses wrote,
22 “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by
death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain all
night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is
cursed by God.
Think about this: though He was innocent of any crime, Jesus died the death
of a condemned criminal, one who had committed a capital offense. Crucifixion
was agonizing and humiliating, and yet Jesus chose to die the death of one
accursed by God, so that we, by grace through faith, could experience the
blessing of God.
Finally, v.14 Paul
tells us why God did it: So that
we might receive the blessing of Abraham.
Abraham lived in tents as a sojourner in a foreign land, just as we do,
in a real way live in the world, but we have the same hope as Abraham, “…waiting
for that city whose architect and builder is God…” (Heb 11:10).
What is God saying to me in this passage? Since the Law makes it clear that we
cannot save ourselves, how then can anyone be saved? Our only hope is to
trust the One who bore the curse of the Law for us. The just shall live by faith! We have his Word written in the Spirit-inspired writings
of the New Testament. Our life now
should be a process of filling ourselves with the truth of God’s Word, and
making it the authority, the guide book for our lives. We need to know what the
Bible says, and most importantly, we have to live like we believe it! “The
just shall live by faith.”
What
would God have me to do in response to this passage? Again, true faith has three
indispensable aspects: knowledge, assent, and trust. We
need to know what God says if we are going to believe Him. We need to be convinced and affirm that His
Word is truth. And we need to trust him,
take His word to heart, becoming a “doer of the word, and not a hearer only.”
Lean your whole weight on Jesus, and you will be saved! Have you
done that? You are not done yet! “Faith” does not refer only to the initial act
of trusting Christ. Ray Pritchard’s website is Keepbelieving.com. “Faith” means
believing God, taking Him at His word. It is not simply a ticket, the way “in”
to a new life. It is a new way of life. Believing God, day by day,
moment by moment, decision by decision. To believe God we have to be listening
to Him. That means being under Gospel teaching and preaching. It also means
being in the Word, prayerfully, carefully, reading this book that God has given
us. Jesus said “my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me…”
His Spirit guides us, convicts us, leads us deeper. The Christian life is learning to let every
area of our life to be Gospel-centered, that is the foundation. And it
also means to be motivated, or fueled, by the Gospel in our living,
day-to-day, under His lordship. The just shall live by faith. Jesus
said, I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more
abundantly! Amen.
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