Journey Through The Bible
     Old Testament Reading: 1 Samuel 16-19
     New Testament Reading: Galatians 3

Are you so foolish? After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing—if in fact it was for nothing? So then, does God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law? Or is it by believing what you heard – just like Abraham who believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness? (Galatians 3:3-6).

Paul chastises the Galatian believers for committing spiritual treason. Especially after having such a clear picture of the genuine gospel that Paul preached to them. The Galatian Christians had plainly heard the truth and accepted it by faith. Yet they were now leaving it for a lie. Paul chides them for their irrational behavior, facetiously asking if they have been bewitched.

Paul asks the Galatian believers if they had become Christians by works or faith. Of course, they knew it was faith in Jesus Christ that had brought them into God’s family. So, Paul asks if they were now trying to earn what they had already received by faith. How could they possibly do anything to improve on the Spirit’s work? The idea was absurd!

Paul masterfully turns from the Galatians’ experience of salvation to Abraham’s. This Old Testament patriarch was the father of the Jews. If works could save, then Abraham must have been saved by them. But Paul points out that Abraham was justified by faith.

The Jewish people were very proud of their relationship with Abraham. The trouble was, they thought that this relationship guaranteed them eternal salvation. Paul states, Now the Scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed through you”. Consequently, those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, who had faith (v8-9).

The true children of Abraham are not Jews of physical descent, but Jews and Gentiles who have believed in Jesus Christ. Faith was, is, and always will be the only way to become rightly related to God. Not half-hearted faith, but total trust that on the sufficiency of Christ’s death to reconcile us to God. Anything else is unnecessary.