There are three ideas that I want to share with you concerning this question as outlines in our passage of scripture for today.
I do encourage you to take some notes in the back of your bulletin and later on you may even want to visit our Church website and watch a video of this morning’s message as well as others that are available on our site. And invite others to visit the website as well.
So let’s get right to it! The first idea I want to share with you.
God’s Blessings for us Has Always Come Through Faith in Christ
Galatians 3:6 takes us all the way back to Genesis, Paul uses the example of Abraham to tell us how God’s blessing is received and enjoyed.
Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness [Gal. 3:6].
The illustration comes from the early part of the life of Abraham, his life of faith. Abraham is the great illustration of justification by faith.
It cannot be said that Abraham was justified by the Law because the Mosaic Law was not given until four hundred years after Abraham.
Neither can it be said that he was justified before God gave him the commandment of circumcision. Circumcision was the badge and evidence of Abraham’s faith.
Now, God had already told Abraham that his seed would be as numerous as the sand on the seashore. Now God takes him by the hand and tells him to look toward the heavens.
In effect, God said to Abraham, “You can’t count the stars, and neither can you count your offspring.” Do you know what Abraham’s response was? “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness (Gen. 15:6).
In the original language it is very expressive. Literally it means that Abraham said “amen” to the Lord. God said, “I’m going to do it.” And Abraham said, “Amen.”
Now does this have an application for your life and mine?
It certainly does. God says to you and me, “I gave My Son to die for you. If you believe on Him you won’t perish. You will have everlasting life.”
Will you say “amen” to that? Will you believe God? Will you accept His son? If you do, you are justified by faith.
God said to Abraham in Genesis 15: “I am the LORD that brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it” (Gen. 15:7).
God made the promise and he sealed the deal. Abraham’s part was only to believe God.
If the covenant depended on Abraham’s faithfulness—perhaps on his saying his prayers every night—he might miss one night, and then the promise would be no good.
So God was the One who did all the promising, and the covenant depended on God’s faithfulness.
Over nineteen hundred years ago Jesus Christ went to the cross to pay for your sins and mine.
God is not asking you to say your prayers or be a nice little Sunday school boy to be saved. He is asking you to trust His Son who died for you.
He makes the contract. He is the One who makes the promise, the covenant, and He will save you and me.
The words accounted as seen in other translations of Galatians 3:6 and counted in Genesis 15:6 mean the same as the word imputed in Romans 4:11, 22–24.
The Greek word means “to put to one’s account.” When the sinner trusts Christ, God’s righteousness is put to his account. More than this, the believer’s sins are no longer put to his account (see Rom. 4:1–8).
This means that the record is always clean before God, and therefore the believer can never be brought into judgment for his sins.
The Jewish people of that day were very proud of their relationship with Abraham. The trouble was, they thought that this relationship guaranteed them eternal salvation.
John the Baptist warned them that their physical descent did not guarantee spiritual life (Matt. 3:9). Jesus made a clear distinction between “Abraham’s seed” physically and “Abraham’s children” spiritually (John 8:33–47).
Some people today still imagine that salvation is inherited. Because mom and dad were godly people, the children are automatically saved. But this is not true. It has well been said, “God has no grandchildren.”
That is in a sense the new contract. The old covenant He made with Abraham. Abraham believed God. He said, “amen,” to God. Abraham believed, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
God is still asking us to believe Him. Put your trust in Christ and you will be saved. What a glorious picture of faith we have here.
You see, God wants your faith to rest on a solid foundation. But, my friend, if you come to God, you must come to Him by faith. When you and I trust Christ as Savior, we are saved the same way that Abraham was saved—by faith.
The important thing that Paul wants us to see in Abraham’s life is that he obeyed the voice of God. Abraham was willing later on to even offer his only son as a sacrifice because God commanded it, and when God said stop, he stopped.
He obeyed the voice of God. He demonstrated by his action that he had faith in God. Again he believed God and He counted it to him for righteousness.
Some people are troubled because they feel that there is a contradiction in Scripture between what Paul says about Abraham and what James says about him.
Paul talks about salvation by faith while the Apostle James speaks of faith without works is dead. But it’s important to note that there is no contradiction here.
In fact it is important to see that faith leads to works, as it did in the life of Abraham. God sees our hearts. He knows whether or not we have trusted Christ as Savior. He knows whether or not we are genuine.
Church members we need to be genuine? You can fool the people in the church, and you can fool your neighbors, and you can put up a pious front.
But why not be real? You don’t have to pretend. You can be real and trust Christ as your Savior. And a living, dynamic faith will produce works in your life.
There is no contradiction when you examine passages like the ones written by Paul and James. They are saying the same thing. One is looking at faith at the beginning. The other is looking at faith in progress and in action.
One is looking at the root of faith. The other is looking at the fruit of faith. The root of faith is “faith alone saves you,” but that saving faith will produce works.
So then they which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham [Gal. 3:9]. You see this passage speaks of us, gentiles, those who have been added to the family of God.
Paul’s quotation of Moses (Gen. 12:3) proves that, from the very beginning of Abraham’s relationship with God, the blessing of salvation was promised to all the nations of the world.
You see, God preached the “Good News” to Abraham centuries ago, and Paul brought that same Good News to the Galatians: sinners are justified through faith and not by keeping the Law.
The logic here is evident: if God promised to save the Gentiles by faith, then any one that wants to take the Gentile believers back into Law is simply wrong.
The true “children of Abraham” are not the Jews by physical descent, but Jews and Gentiles who have believed in Jesus Christ. All those who are “of faith” (believers) are blessed with “believing Abraham.”
Certainly God did make Abraham’s name great; he is revered not only by Jews, but also by Christians, Muslims, and many others. God did multiply his descendants, and God did bless those who blessed Abraham.
The word faithful in this verse is “believing”—believing Abraham. God saves the sinner today on the same basis that He saved Abraham. God asks faith of the sinner. God asked Abraham to believe that He would do certain things for him.
God asks you and me to believe that He already has done certain things for us in giving His Son, Jesus Christ to die for us. Faith is Christ by which man is saved today.
God’s Blessing Is a Central Theme of Scripture. In the beginning, when God created the world He blessed it. That doesn’t just mean that He wished it or us well. When God blesses something, He empowers it to fulfill His purposes.
Later, God promised Abraham a family that would outnumber the stars, a land to call his own, and a blessing to empower him for life.
The story of the Bible becomes the progressive development of that promised blessing. It’s the theme that runs through the whole Book and is fulfilled in Christ our redeemer.
God’s Blessing Has Always Been Received by Faith.
Look at how many times the words believe or faith appear in verses 6–9. Abraham’s misdeeds and failures did not exclude him from God’s blessing, just as his good deeds did not earn him God’s blessing. God still works this way today with you and me. His blessing has always come through faith.
So how can we receive God’s blessings? Through our faith which is our obedience of God!
Secondly, we must recognize that God’s Blessing Can ONLY Come Through Faith in Christ
Notice how clearly verse 10 makes this point. “But those
who depend on the law to make them right with God are under its curse”. No one can obey the law perfectly.
So receiving God’s blessing cannot possibly come by works or the law, which leads to a curse. God’s blessing can only come by God’s grace through faith.
But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith [Gal. 3:11].
Even the Old Testament taught that man was saved by faith. It does not say that anyone was saved by keeping the law. I have never read of anyone who was saved by keeping the Mosaic Law. As you know, the heart of the Mosaic system was the sacrificial system.
And the law is not of faith: but, The man that does them shall live in them [Gal. 3:12].
This also is an important verse. Faith and law are contrary principles for salvation and also for living. One cancels out the other. They are absolutely opposed to each other.
If you are going to live by the Law, then you cannot be saved by faith. You cannot combine them for they are contrary. Salvation could never come by obedience to Law because the Law brings a curse, not a blessing.
Here Paul quotes from Deuteronomy 27:26. Law demands obedience, and this means obedience in all things.
Paul next quotes the prophet Habakkuk, “The just shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4). This statement is so important that the Holy Spirit inspired three New Testament books to explain it as mentioned before.
Romans explains “the just” and tells how the sinner can be justified before God (see Rom. 1:17).
Galatians explains how the just “shall live”
Hebrews discusses “by faith” (see Heb. 10:38).
But someone might argue that it takes faith even to obey the Law; so Paul quotes Leviticus to prove that it is doing the Law, not believing it, that God requires (Lev. 18:5).
Law says, “Do and live!” but grace says, “Believe and live!” Paul’s own experience (Phil. 3:1–10), as well as the history of Israel (Rom. 10:1–10), proves that works righteousness can never save the sinner; only faith righteousness can do that.
The Judaizers of the day wanted to seduce the Galatians into a religion of legal works, while Paul wanted them to enjoy a relationship of love and life by faith in Christ.
Therefore, salvation comes through Christ alone. These two verses beautifully summarize all that Paul has been saying in this section.
Paul quotes Deuteronomy again, “He that is hanged is cursed of God” (Deut. 21:23). The Jews did not crucify criminals; they stoned them to death.
But in cases of shameful violation of the Law, the body was hung on a tree and exposed for all to see.
This was a great humiliation, because the Jewish people were very careful in their treatment of a dead body. After the body had been exposed for a time, it was taken down and buried (see Josh. 8:29; 10:26; 2 Sam. 4:12).
Of course, Paul’s reference to a “tree” relates to the cross on which Jesus died (Acts 5:30; 1 Peter 2:24). He was not stoned and then His dead body exposed; He was nailed alive to a tree and left there to die.
But by dying on the cross, Jesus Christ bore the curse of the Law for us; so that now the believer is no longer under the Law and its awful curse.
“The blessing of Abraham” (justification by faith and the gift of the Spirit) is now ours through faith in Jesus Christ.
This Truth Is Humbling. If we are justified by faith and not by works, no one can boast (Eph. 2:8–9). No one can look down on others. We’re all in need of the saving grace that only comes through faith in Christ.
This truth is liberating. When you understand that the blessings of God’s grace come only through faith in Christ, the knowledge is humbling, but it is liberating as well: “For you have been called to live in freedom.” (Gal. 5:13a NLT).
So how can we receive God’s blessings? Only possible as presented to us by God as a gift and only possible through the person of Jesus Christ.
But lastly this morning, God’s Blessing Richly Comes Through Faith in Christ.
But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing.
Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
As we have said the Mosaic Law condemned us. We are not rewarded for keeping those laws, and if we break one then we are condemned. Christ has redeemed us from the penalty of the Mosaic Law through Christ bearing our penalty.
Christ was “made a curse for us.”
But the question is: When did Christ become a curse? Did He become a curse in His incarnation? No. When He was born He was called “… that holy thing …” (Luke 1:35).
Did He become a curse during those silent years of which we have so little record? No, it says that He advanced “… in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).
Did He become a curse during his ministry? No. It was during His ministry that the Father said, “… This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).
Then He must have become a curse while He was on the cross. Yes, but not during the first three hours on the cross, because when He offered up Himself, He was without blemish. It was during those last three hours on the cross that He was made a curse for us.
It was then that it pleased the Lord to bruise Him and put Him to grief. He made His soul an offering for sin (see Isa. 53:10).
That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith [Gal. 3:14].
Israel had the Law for fifteen hundred years and failed to live by it. At the council of Jerusalem, in Acts 15, Peter said in effect, “We and our fathers were not able to keep the law. Why do we want to put the Gentiles under it? If we could not keep it, they won’t be able to keep it either.”
Christ took our place that we might receive what the Law could never do. The Spirit is the peculiar gift in this age of grace.
The word redeemed in Galatians 3:13 means to purchase a slave for the purpose of setting him free.
It is possible to purchase a slave and keep him as a slave, but this is not what Christ did. By shedding His blood on the cross, He purchased us that we might be set free.
The Judaizers once again wanted to lead the Christians into slavery, but Christ died to set them free. Salvation is not exchanging one form of bondage for another.
Salvation is being set free from the bondage of sin and the Law into the liberty of God’s grace through Christ. So are you truly free?
But even today we suffer from a condition called legalism.
What is there about legalism that can so fascinate the Christian that he will turn from grace back to Law?
For one thing, legalism appeals to the flesh. The flesh loves to be “religious”—to obey laws, to observe holy occasions (Gal. 4:10).
Certainly there is nothing wrong with obedience, fasting, or solemn times of spiritual worship, provided that the Holy Spirit does the motivating and the empowering.
The flesh loves to boast about its religious achievements—how many prayers were offered, or how many gifts were given how much time we apparently spend with the Lord.
Legalism also appeals to the senses. Instead of worshiping God “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24), the legalist invents his own system that satisfies his senses.
He cannot walk by faith; he has to walk by sight and hearing and tasting and smelling and feeling.
The person who depends on religion can measure himself and compare himself with others. This is another fascination to legalism. But the true believer measures himself with Christ, not other Christians (Eph. 4:11).
There is no room for pride in the spiritual walk of the Christian who lives by grace; but the legalist constantly boasts about his achievements and his converts (Gal. 6:13–14).
Yes, there is a fascination to the Law, but it is only bait that leads to a trap; and once the believer takes the bait, he finds himself in bondage once again.
Far better to take God at His Word and rest on His grace.
We were after all saved “by grace, through faith” and we must live “by grace, through faith.” This is the way to blessing... The other way is the way to bondage.
The word redeem means to set someone free by paying a price for his freedom. As a result of what Christ has done for us, we are saved from the curse of judgment and receive the blessing of grace.
When you receive Christ, you are not only redeemed from something, but you are also redeemed for something.
You were forgiven so that you might be filled. The ultimate blessing is God living in you in grace. The promise of the Spirit means that you can practice the presence of Christ, the character of Christ, develop the fruit of the spirit if you will.
Is God’s blessing, received through faith in Christ, the source of your strength?
Is your heart softened, sweetened, and strengthened because you know that through faith in Christ you are blessed by God? When we come to understand that to receive God’s blessings.
We must know that only by Him are they possible, that only through the work of the Cross and the indwelling Holy Spirit in us can we receive His blessings, will we be able to recognize the work of Good in our life.
Are you certain of these things in your life?
This is an opportunity to be sure, as we go before the lord in prayer we invite to come forward and pray and seek to understand the blessings of God.
He has freed us from our sin, he has freed us from the law and now he just asks us to trust him, and to obey him. It really isn’t difficult because even He provides us the strength to do.
Will you trust God this morning as we pray?
