Galatians 3:6-9
- David Fairchild
- Sep 3, 2006
- Series: Galatians
INTRODUCTION
As we consider being counted as righteous this week, it is tempting to forget who this letter was written to. I have mentioned this on several occasions because our minds wander and we find ourselves assuming yet again that this letter is either for non-Christians or for those who were living in such a reprehensible way that Paul’s attention was drawn to them.
It is true that the Gospel is for non-believers, and it is true that the Gospel corrects false doctrine, but it is not true that this letter was written primarily to that kind of audience. This nuclear bomb of a letter was written by Paul to Christians who already professed Christ as Lord and Savior. It was written to Christians who had fallen prey to the human tendency to rely on their own righteousness rather than Christ’s.
We have to remind ourselves of this so that we never forget that the Gospel is for us, and believing it is not something we did, but something we do. It is a present tense faith. We believed in the Gospel and therefore we continually believe the Gospel. This is how it should work. Unfortunately, we think often of the Gospel in the past tense. We believed in it and we were saved. We heard the news at this or that event or church and believed. We all agree that believing in the past was significant, Paul says as much in 3:2. But do we understand that believing the Gospel in the present is as significant for our growth and maturity in the faith as it was when we first believed? We’ve seen the significance of confessing that you are a sinner and a saint at the very same time. This keeps you humble because you are a sinner, and makes you courageous because you are a saint. So it is with our understanding of forgiveness and righteousness. We’re going to see that to think only of one and not both will affect how you perceive yourself, God, and this world.
Galatians is a letter to recovering Pharisees who began with the Spirit but were trying to be perfected by the law (3:3). It is a letter to deal with our tendency towards disbelief in the power of the Gospel. It is a reminder that from start to finish, it is the Gospel of grace that is the power to save and change us.
What do we do if we are stuck in what feels like a perpetual sin, how are we to change? When do we begin to see our lives match what we believe? If I’m forgiven, why do I still struggle with the same problems?
Why am I having a hard time forgiving? Why do I gossip? Why do I tell insignificant little lies? Why do I complain? Why do I criticize? Why do I boast? Why do I defend myself? Why do I shift blame to others? Why do I deceive others? This morning, we’re going to learn that the answer to these questions lies at the heart of our view of our righteousness.
STUDY
Our need is for righteousness, not just forgiveness!
Fundamentally, what we are talking about this morning is a struggle for righteousness. This struggle is as old as Adam and Eve who, when charged with sin in the Garden of Eden, immediately shifted the blame onto one another and then finally upon the serpent. At the same time they were caught in their sin, they began sowing their garments of fig leaves to cover themselves from the holy eyes of God. What Adam and Eve did in the garden was to assume that human hands can cover our nakedness. They immediately began to use their hands and energy to hide their unrighteousness.
By the time of the New Testament, this struggle for righteousness had gained momentum. The entire Jewish religion had developed as an attempt to achieve righteousness by works. Paul says as much when he declares that the Jews of his day were, “going about to establish their own righteousness,” rather than submit themselves to the righteousness of God (Rom. 10:3).
Even though we are told that Christ is the end of the struggle for righteousness (Rom. 10:4), there is in each of us a constant struggle to get and keep our own righteousness, which is why it is so hard to come to the sinner’s place in humble confession.
Verse 6 “just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’?”
All of our personal problems are theological problems, and many of our theological problems are really very practical because theology affects how you live. It is important that we draw this out theologically because our theology is so closely connected to how we view ourselves, others, and this world.
More than forgiveness, we are credited a righteousness!!!!
We are far better off than the first Adam before he sinned. Adam started with a clean slate—a clean record. By contrast, through faith in Christ, we have more than a clean slate; we have a beautiful and glorious slate. The Judge has not only forgiven us and wiped our slate clean, He has given us the righteousness of Jesus. He erased the record of our sin and in its place He has put the righteousness of Christ. Our heavenly Father has not just cleaned our slate, He has credited it with the righteousness of Christ. His righteousness is painted on, sealed, and super heated so that nothing in heaven or on earth can destroy it or take it from us. It is all a free gift received because we “believed God,” as did Abraham.
What things come to mind when you think of someone who is righteous? What does that mean to you? What about when you think of Jesus’ righteousness? What comes to mind?
God (normative):
If we were able to develop a righteousness of our own to please God, what would this say about the value of His righteousness? What would this say about His perfection? Would a perfect God allow a sinful and defiled atonement or a self-centered righteousness please Him? Could He be so easily bought?
Consider a man who attempted to assassinate our president and succeeded in wounding him critically, but was captured and taken to court. He pleaded with the judge that he was a good man and had performed many years of good deeds, and based upon his deeds he should be set free. If this judge and our courts set this man free based upon his previous good works, what would this say about the perceived value of our president? It would seem that he isn’t very well esteemed and that he has little value. If such an example would at the very least cause us to say that there was not only a miscarriage of justice, but a direct insult to the worth of the presidential office, how much more should we cry and mourn that anyone would think they could so cheaply appease the One they have so deeply insulted?
Deal with double imputation. Also, deal with Abraham being aware that there would be a sacrifice for sins.
Since peace with God is not attained only by forgiveness, but also by a credit of righteousness, our failure to understand this truth leads to a distortion of God and the significance of Christ’s perfect and righteous life. If we only focus on the forgiveness, the way we grow and mature in our faith will naturally be affected. We will attempt to develop a righteousness to secure what Christ has done, rather than simply believing more profoundly on both His death and His life, which were both given for me.
This is why it is important that when you become a Christian, it’s not only repenting for our obvious sins which must be forgiven, but repenting of our righteousness that sought to take the place of Christ’s.
Self (existential):
The great problem for us is that we need a righteousness that is not our own. We need a passive righteousness that does not come through our own works and hands. This is a great mystery that the world doesn’t understand. We as Christians never fully understand and apply this truth ourselves. We don’t take advantage of this great truth when we find ourselves in despair, hopeless, or tempted. We have to remind ourselves constantly about this great truth so that it works down into our hearts, and then on to practice in our lives. For all of us that will be at one point or another hurt, tried, and challenged by the pains of this life, if we do not get this truth into our bloodstream, we will never have the peace that passes all understanding.
Notice that when we are in danger or when we come face to face with death, how much we begin to look at our own worthiness in life. We dismiss our sinful deeds and defend our actions, then we try to remind ourselves of all our good deeds and all our moral efforts to be a good person. Unfortunately, our conscience won’t remain silent, and we eventually remember our sins and their affect on ourselves and others. Fear and guilt comes in power to shut up our defense. We hope that God is merciful and that he’ll give us a second chance. And for a short time we become very passionate and focused on our deeds and attempt to develop a righteousness. But Luther says in this paragraph, “But the real evil is that we trust our own power to be righteous and will not lift up our eyes to see what Christ has done for us…So the troubled conscience has no cure for its desperation and feeling of unworthiness unless it takes hold of the forgiveness of sins by grace, offered free of charge in Jesus Christ, which is the passive or Christian righteousness.”
If we think of the Gospel as only pardon or forgiveness of sins, we will trust in God for our past salvation, but will trust in our own present strivings and attainments for our present relationship with God. But the "hope of the gospel" (Col. 1:23) is that "now he has reconciled you by Christ's body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." (Col. 1:22) The Gospel offers not just forgiveness for our bad record, but also complete acceptance through Christ's perfect record. Christ did not only die in our place but lived a perfect life in our place. Therefore we do not simply get forgiveness for sins from Christ, but also complete acceptance. His perfect past and record now (in God's sight) becomes ours.
When we or someone else says that they believe that God forgives them, but that they can’t forgive themselves, we need to respond to ourselves and to others by teaching them that they don’t really believe that. What they are really saying is that they believe Jesus’ work upon the cross is not enough, and the Father’s acceptance of them is not enough, they need some other approval and forgiveness, something else that will make them feel righteous, before they can feel truly forgiven. In other words, they are looking for another messiah.
Our struggle for righteousness takes on many forms:
The struggle for attainment: This struggle is a struggle to reach a standard of perfection. We see how God’s law is the standard to which all men are held, and that it is perfect and that it shows us that we can’t reach it, yet we try and try and our life becomes one prolonged attempt to reach it. We become Christians under the law instead of grace, so that instead of living in peace, we are torn with tension.
Do you struggle to live under this kind of law or standard? Living under continual condemnation because you feel like you should be a better Christian, who prays more, gives more, does more, will kill you. You live under a yoke and burden and all the while Jesus wants to give you rest.
The struggle for our reputation: Another aspect of this struggle for righteousness is the fight for our reputation. We are all reputation-conscious. Some of us have one and have to keep it; some of us want one and are trying to get it. It can haunt us, dog us, and beat us down until we are worn out and come to shreds. Bondage to reputation can be nothing but sheer slavery. We are unwilling to be known as failures along any line. Yet Christ cast His reputation away for the sake of our acceptance with the Father. He destroyed our need for gaining our acceptance since His work perfectly brings us to the Father and we are already accepted.
The struggle for appearance: This struggle is one in which we think that we will find favor with God by reaching standards. We’re like children that are building castles in the sand; we are feverishly attempting to keep the tide from breaking upon us and destroying what we have built. That could be a physical obsession, so that others will accept us ultimately by how we look, dress, talk, and act. It could be a struggle in the Christian community by keeping up our appearance before our friends so that we don’t look weak or immature. We fail to see that Christ willingly allowed His appearance to be so distorted by the blows of fists, that in His suffering and death, He became glorious and beautiful, and therefore gives us His beauty before the Father.
Christ must be seen as the end of our struggle. Our unbelieving struggle to get and keep a righteousness of our own is deadly. It is the struggle to make our lives acceptable to God, others, and ourselves. It is a pointless and fruitless struggle. Since it comes from unbelief, we will always fail, and because we fail, we keep on struggling. There is no rest in this cycle. This struggle is ultimately a struggle rooted in the sin of pride, in the belief that we can attain a righteousness that will please God.
Word (situational):
Since we only see ourselves as forgiven and not as counted righteous, we are constantly seeking a righteousness that will cause harm to others in this world.
Verse 7 “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.”
The Judaizers assumed they were sons of Abraham because of birthright and works. They not only misunderstand the Gospel and the cross, but they misunderstood the Old Testament.
Here Paul teaches us that the way in which our patriarchal father Abraham was justified is that same as it is for you and I today. Like father, like son.
Verse 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.’”
The Scripture and God are the same in authority. Whatever the Scripture says, God says because the Scriptures are alive. The Scriptures preached the Gospel to Abraham and this has always been God’s plan for all people everywhere. This was the first promise to Abraham, and it is a further revelation of the promise in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:15).
All of history is the working out of the Gospel promise to Adam and Eve. God would send a savior into this world through the seed of the woman who was going to come and suffer by the serpent, yet He would crush the serpent’s head and defeat him. Adam and Eve, though they struggled for righteousness, heard from God Himself what promise would save them. He demonstrates this when He kills an animal to cover their nakedness and rejects their fig leaves, which they made with their own hands. The first blood to be spilt was God showing that a sacrifice was necessary.
Without this promise, history would end there. We would have no today, for yesterday would have been judged by God and we would not exist. The entire scope of not only redemptive history, but human history is God working out His promise in the Garden. The good news of history is about Jesus Christ.
Even though Abraham didn’t know the name or the dates of the events, he nevertheless believed the promise of the Gospel. He believed that God would forgive sins and grant life. He had faith in both the atonement and the resurrection as the way in which this was accomplished.
Think of Abraham’s actions on Mount Moriah, where God told him to offer his beloved son of the promise, Isaac as a sacrifice. When Isaac was hiking up the mountain with his father, he asked, “‘behold, the fire and the wood,’ Isaac said, ‘but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’” (Gen. 22:7). Abraham believed that God would provide the atoning sacrifice. He answered, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Gen. 22:8). Abraham was right: God provided a ram caught in the thicket, which Abraham offered in place of his son (Gen. 22:13). He had faith in God’s gift of substitutionary atoning sacrifice.
Abraham also had faith in the resurrection. Before he went up the mountain with Isaac, he, “said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come to you again’” (Gen. 22:5). Abraham then proceeded up the mountain with knife in hand, fully prepared to offer his beloved promised son. The Scripture teaches us what Abraham was thinking: “He considered that God was able to even raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Heb. 11:9). Abraham believed in God’s power over death. He trusted God to forgive sins and grant eternal life. So, the Gospel according to Abraham included both the atonement and the resurrection, and all of Abraham’s children believe the same and orient their lives to this truth.
Verse 9 “So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
We are told in this passage what Paul has been saying all along: that those who are of faith are blessed by the promises experienced by Abraham. All of us who trust in God’s good news are given this blessing and share with Abraham as our father and brother. Our faith takes us back in history to show that this was God’s plan all along. We are part of this great history as we are caught up in His redemptive working out of the Gospel to all nations. The only way to see history correctly is to orient history through the Gospel. All things then make sense, as we see this great promise realized through every generation and spreading to every nation.
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