Click here to watch my video reflection on our text for today, or keep reading for my written reflections: 

Today’s reading is from Galatians 3: 6-18: 

6 Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” 7 so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” 9 For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law; for “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” 12 But the law does not rest on faith; on the contrary, “Whoever does the works of the law will live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

15 Brothers and sisters, I give an example from daily life: once a person’s will has been ratified, no one adds to it or annuls it. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, “And to offsprings,” as of many; but it says, “And to your offspring,” that is, to one person, who is Christ. 17 My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. 18 For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise; but God granted it to Abraham through the promise.

Today we see Paul start to establish something that will be huge for him moving forward.  Those of us who believe through faith, we are the true children of Abraham.  We see this reason today, we see that Abraham was righteous and that righteousness was given to him by faith in the promise of God. Here is the key to this, and why it is faith.  We see that promise predates the law.  Abraham was righteous through faith, and that faith was what made him right with God. It could not have been the law, because the law had not been given. 

It was faith.  Faith in the promise of God. That was Abraham’s righteousness and is ours well. 

What then, the law. We see today that the “offspring” of the promise was Jesus.  We’ll see more about the Law tomorrow, but one of the purposes of the Law was to mark the people as being different, being set apart, being holy.  The reason why they were set apart was because they were God’s own people. 

They were the people through whom the “offspring” was to come, they were the people through which Jesus was to come. They were different, they were set apart because it was through them Jesus would be known.

The same for us. We are different from the world.  We have a different ethic, a different world view, a different everything.  We are set apart to point to Jesus.  

We should look different. We should love different. We should be different. Because we are. Because of Jesus.  The people were different because they were to point others to the Messiah. So should we be. 

Tomorrow we’ll look at Galatians 3: 19-29.  

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