As usual, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
5Therefore, the One supplying the Spirit to you and working miracles among you, [does He do it] out of works of law or out of hearing of faith? 6Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him into righteousness, 7therefore know that those out of faith, the same are sons of Abraham. 8And the Scriptures, foreseeing that God is justifying the Gentiles out of faith, announced beforehand to Abraham that all the Gentiles will be blessed in you, 9so that those out of faith are being blessed together with the faith of Abraham.
What Paul says here should have put the law/works debate to bed forever. He takes the very champion of the Judaizers, Abraham, and proves that 1. Salvation has always been by faith, not works, and 2. That the inclusion of the Gentiles has been part of the plan from the beginning.
Coincidentally, I have been amazed over the years with two things: 1. People’s tenacity at claiming those in the OT were saved by works, and 2. The Jews’ unbending refusal to see God’s intended blessing on the Gentiles.
Just as with Paul here, Abraham himself should have put both of these problems to bed forever.
It has long been my contention that even in the OT (and throughout it), people were saved by their faith looking forward to the promised Messiah, just as we are looking back at the One already come. From the very beginning, in the Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve heard God’s promise that “the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.” I have no doubt they believed that promise, which faith is pictured by the fact God clothed them in animal skins (implying animals were slain on their behalf) and immediately thereafter, the problem between Cain and Abel was one of blood sacrifice. To Judah the promise was given that “the scepter would not depart from Judah …until Shiloh (‘He to whom it belongs’) comes” (Gen 49:10). Clearly, in Jacob’s family, they understood the promised Messiah. Job said, “I know that Redeemer lives and that He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth … how my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25). He clearly understood the promise of the Messiah and found great hope in it.
I realize that the text of the OT obviously does not present salvation by faith in the promised Messiah as clearly as the NT, but one has to remember that, in the OT, there was an enormous amount of oral teaching that went on from the prophets and priests and wasn’t necessarily written down. What we have recorded for our later perusal is a tiny fraction of what they knew. But as the passages I quoted above (and a number of others) demonstrate, there was, throughout the OT, clearly a knowledge of the coming Messiah.
The Israelites as a people, of course, missed the whole point from the beginning, responding to Moses, “All that the Lord commands us we will do.” Right. From the very beginning they turned salvation into a works-righteousness, rather than seeing their own need for a Savior and putting their faith in the promised Messiah. Obviously there were individuals within the community who did embrace salvation by faith, while the group as a whole missed it. Paul observes this very thing in Romans 9:31,32: “But the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works”.
And so it continues down to the present day. Even amongst supposedly “Christian” people, very few have ever really grasped grace. Even among those who claim to believe in salvation by faith, there is an enormous element of people still trying to earn God’s love. Apparently, as ugly as it may be, legalism is an intensely alluring alternative to true faith.
But what do we learn of Abraham who was born not long after the Flood, who lived long before the giving of the Law and the Exodus, who walked the earth as long before Christ as we now live after Him? “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him into righteousness.” And what are we to conclude from this? “Therefore know that those out of faith, the same are sons of Abraham”. Always has been. Always will be. That ought to settle the arguments.
It is surprising that the Judaizers could not (or would not) see this. They knew that Abraham was a man of faith long before he was a man of circumcision.
Then again, my second observation comes into play. It has always amazed me how the Jewish people refused to see God’s inclusion of the Gentiles. There are numerous passages in the OT predicting this, starting with those words to Abraham, “All the world (all the Gentiles) will be blessed through you.” I personally believe Abraham knew this meant the Messiah would come through his line. I believe Isaac knew it and, if I’m right, it reveals even a darker side of Esau’s “despising his birthright.” He placed no value in being a progenitor of the promised Messiah. Then there is Isaiah. He often refers to the Gentiles: “I will make you to be a covenant for the people (the Jews) and a light for the Gentiles” (42:6). “Nations (the Gentiles) will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (60:3), etc., etc. Luke recorded several “songs” at Jesus’ birth, that of the Mary (1:46-55), Zecharias (1:68-79), the angels (2:14), and Simeon (2:29-35) Interestingly, only Simeon mentioned the Gentiles. Go back and read the songs and notice that neither Mary nor Zecharias acknowledges any benefit to the Gentiles. Not to be critical of them, but their complete Jewish focus seems to be indicative of their national mood as a whole. Only godly old Simeon was big-hearted enough to see and be happy that the Messiah’s coming was good news for us Gentiles too.
But none of this should be news to anyone who is even remotely familiar with this man named Abraham. “He believed God and it was counted into him for righteousness.” And he himself knew that all the world, not just the Jewish people, would be blessed through him.
Guess it’s one thing to read the Bible. It’s another thing to really understand what we’re reading and let it mold our thinking. The Judaizers didn’t. They couldn’t even appropriate the truth they saw in their own biggest spiritual hero! God grant us the grace to not be like them.
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