What Did Abraham Know and When Did He Know It
Galatians 3:8-9 · Mike Doyle · May 26, 2019
Galatians (2018-20), No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926191524473

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. I hope I hope my teaching lives up to your enthusiasm, Jim. The other thing I was going to start off and saying, those of you who were here last week, you remember that Roger said that I was supposed to answer a question today, and the question is, Did God tell Abraham the gospel, the good news? And that, you know, I don't mind the challenge, but that's, I like to make my own stuff, you know. Anyway, we'll be answering that question today, hopefully.

Who's that guy that teaches on TV that sits down all the time? Charles Stanley? I don't know, he's probably got bad knees. So the two verses we're going to hone in on will be 8 and 9, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith.

Preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying that all nations will be blessed in you, so that those who are of faith are blessed in Abraham. And if you look at Genesis 12, 1 through 3, when God came and talked to Abraham, he told him to go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house into a land which I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and the ones who curse you I will curse, and in all the families of the earth will be blessed through you." So we've learned over the last week or so that Abraham was justified by faith alone and not by works. And so that kind of is the theme as we're going through here.

Verse 6 said that Jim read, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. So righteousness is an interesting thing and I want to expand on that a little more. But Abraham, he just believed God and his act of faith was credited to him or to his account as righteous. He believed God and his act of faith, maybe you could say it this way, placed on deposit for him and evaluated it as righteous. He believed God and his act of faith was computed as to its value and there was a place in his account, you're righteous. So finally he believed God and the act of faith was credited to him, resulting in righteousness.

So what this, yeah, I think you have to kind of get in mind that what this does not mean is that Abraham's act of faith was looked upon as a meritorious act deserving a reward. So, in answer to that question, why isn't faith... Abraham was declared righteous. Why isn't faith a good work?

Because it's pretty simple for us in our minds to think. Well, I looked up in the Bible and I find that God wants me to do something. He wants me to believe Him. And okay, that's my part, and God's part is to do the rest. So, why isn't my faith Excuse me, why isn't my faith a good work?

If it was a good work, then we could very easily say salvation is by works, and this is my part, and the other part is God's part. But Abraham simply put himself in a place where a righteous God could offer him salvation based on the justice satisfied, and he did it in pure grace.

So you have to ask yourself, where's the value? Is the value in what God has promised? Or is the value to me in the fact that I believed? Well, the value is in what I believe and in whom I believe, not the fact that I believe. My faith appropriates the grace. You see that? Appropriation is not a meritorious act. It's something that's given to us freely. So, from a righteousness standpoint now, I want to take a look at who is offering this righteousness. It's God who offers it. And if you take a closer look at who God is, He's holy, He's righteous, He's good, He's immense. And you have to ask yourself the question, who made Him? Did anybody make God? No. Who does God depend on for anything? Nobody. He's uncaused. He's totally independent. He's wholly unto himself. He needs nothing or no one to exist. He's totally sufficient in himself. He has no counterpart to this truth outside of himself. He is the only being that is self-existent. Now we can't say that because you wouldn't be sitting here if you weren't dependent on food and water and air and all kinds of things that God has made us dependent on.

In Isaiah 40, Isaiah wrote, who has directed the Spirit of the Lord or has his counsel has informed him? With whom did he consult? And who gave him understanding? And who taught him in the path of justice? And who taught him the knowledge and informed him of the way of understanding? So the answer to this question, next question, the answer to this whole premise is that God doesn't need anybody. He's totally sufficient in Himself.

And sometimes I think we get a little arrogant and think, well, God needs me for this, or He needs me for that, or He can't get this job done without me. And that's ridiculous. He can do whatever He wants because He is God. But He's determined that He wants to include us. He wants to include us in what He's doing. And so that's why we're talking about about Abraham, and Paul is trying to talk to the Galatians about Abraham and his righteousness, and maybe put it this way. God, independent of himself, dependent on himself for existence, doesn't need anybody. He's totally right in who he is. He's totally righteous in and of himself.

So if I, as a creature, want to be right before him, then who makes up the rules? Do I make them up? Or does God make them up? God says, if you want to be right before me, if you want to be righteous, have a standing before me, you have to do it the way I say. And that's pretty tough for us with egos and sin natures, because, you know, we want to go to God and say, give me a couple things and then I'll take care of the rest. You know, I got this.

He told Moses, when Moses was going to go to Pharaoh, he said, Behold, I'm going to the sons of Israel, and I'll say to them, God, I'm sorry, when he was going to the Jews, God, the God of your fathers has sent me now, and they're going to say to me, well, what's his name? And you'll say to them, I am who I am. Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent you. The holy, righteous, independent God said, I sent him.

He's the one. That's what his name is. I am. We use that term ego in me a lot. This means that God isn't like any other. He's separate from and above all other beings. He's independent and he's of himself. Can we apply that information to us? Does it work? The fact that we know that God is independent, can we apply it to us?

Because He's independent, He's under no obligation to do anything unless He chooses to do it. If He chooses to put Himself under obligation, He can do it, but He doesn't have to. He's independent and He does so for us by His own choice. When God has brought us salvation, He chose to do that. We didn't choose it. We can't ever put God under obligation. You can never put Him in a position where He owes you. And a lot of times we think about faith as something, well, I did this and God now owes me. No, no. You can't make God a debtor to you.

If you try to establish a works-based system to obtain righteousness, what are you doing? you're trying to put God under an obligation, so that He has to respond to your behavior by giving you righteousness. The problem with that is that it's rooted in the irreverence towards God in your character. So when God establishes a means for man to be right before Him, it's totally by His provision and by His direction. I think a lot of times when we talk about righteousness, we don't realize how this is really God's thing. And I'm involved in it because he has decided to let me in and he has given me the parameters.

So if you were to talk about how would you define the word righteousness? I have several, several definitions. What is right? Conformable to right, answering to the claims of God, the fundamental idea is that a state or a condition comfortable to order apart from consideration, whether of usage or custom, to determine my righteousness.

Righteousness is, in the biblical sense, we can say it's just the condition of rightness, and God determines what's right. It's a standard which God has set. It's estimated The standard is estimated according to his standard. It shows itself, as the righteous person functions, to be conformable to God. It goes along with what he has proposed.

Romans 1.17 says, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith that is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith." God determined that we were to live by faith. And that didn't start with Christians. That started with Adam. It started right there with Adam.

Romans 3.21 says, Now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. being witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is manifested in the entire Old Testament, and faith in believing Him was proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets also.

Ephesians 4.24 says, And put on the new man which in the likeness has been created in righteousness and holiness and truth. This new man is the resurrected glorified Christ. He is the man, God himself, who is righteous unto himself. And because we have been identified with him in his death, burial, and resurrection, and especially his resurrection, and been seated with him in the heavenlies, we have imputed righteousness.

In other words, did God say OK, Ralph, I'm going to impute some of my righteousness to you. Or did he do this? He put Ralph in Christ and said, Ralph, I now see you just like I see my son. In other words, you have godly righteousness that's based on who I am, not anything that, and I didn't impute some of it to you, I gave you all of it by putting you in Christ.

That's different. It shows how important to us position is. So, the word righteousness was used in the Greek culture, and a quick definition is kind of a person who does not act selfishly. This is what the Greeks thought. Kind of a self-forgetting, transgression, bounds fixed for him, and he gives everyone his own.

Problem with that? It's still He still desires what he wants and not what the other person wants. He does not, in the least, withdraw his claim of his own views. A view which Christianity has combated forever. It's interesting how we think we have a right to our opinion, do we? Ever thought about that? Do I have a right to my opinion before God when I can say, wait a minute God, let me explain my side. like I'm going to persuade him to say, oh, gee, Mike, you're right.

I forgot about that. No, God is right. And if I'm going to be righteous before him, I have to be in his Son. OK? Now, last part of this is that righteousness is a state of the person who can withstand God's judgment who has fulfilled all his obligation and there's nothing to hide and he has no guilt. Well, how do I get that? Because I'm guilty. I have to be in Christ. I have to be in Christ.

Justification, when God justifies or makes a man righteous, he says, I'm removing from the sinner his guilt and the penalty incurred by that guilt. And bestowing a positive righteousness, who is Jesus Christ himself, in whom the believer stands, not only innocent and uncondemned, but actually righteous to the point of the law for time and for all eternity. There's nothing that can challenge the righteousness that we have in Christ.

So, verse 7, like Jim read, therefore to be sure that those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham. Verse 8 says, now, get down to what Roger wants me to do. The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel before saying, and all the nations will be blessed. So, I found this interesting paragraph, and I'll kind of read it to you.

Excavations in the city of Ur and the Chaldees, where Abraham was from, reveal the fact that Abraham was not a wild, desert sheik. but an educated, wealthy, sophisticated citizen of the world, a man living in and ostensibly partaking of a state of culture and opulence little dreamed of by the person who is unfamiliar with the ancient civilizations of the past.

He wasn't ignorant. He wasn't gullible. With all of his cultural background and in spite of it, he saw that much of that which with which we have to do is taken upon faith, including the way of salvation. This was not a man who was sort of tripping around in the desert or living in a town that not much was going on. This was a really sophisticated place where he was from and he was a citizen of the world and he was educated. So when God called him, he was not calling a man who was naive. He called this man who wasn't ignorant. He knew the ways of the world.

So what did the Scriptures foresee? This verse says, I don't want to get ahead of myself here. Let's see. The answer to the question, how do we know that these verses are speaking of Christ? Well, foreseeing that he would justify the Gentiles, as diverse as that, by faith, he announced the gospel to Abraham. What did he tell him? The message was to be received by faith. So what did Abraham believe to have righteousness put to his account? Most of us, and I was in that camp for a while, believe that Old Testament believers were saved because they believed only what God had revealed at the time.

In other words, they didn't know Jesus Christ and the message of the cross. But I think this verse may say different, that Abraham might have known. And as I expand, I think you'll see it. They had little knowledge of Christ, but they knew the method.

The method was faith. Oh, I know, you know, Adam's in the garden and God brings him skins and says, put these on to cover you. And Adam walking around in his Philodendron three-piece says, OK, I'll get rid of the plants and I'll put on your remedy. Was he trusting God to cover his sins? Yeah, he was.

But this is different because this verse says that God, foreseeing that he would justify the Gentiles, Announce the gospel to Abraham Okay, so what did Abraham What did we believe to have our righteousness put to our account? We believe first Corinthians 15 the gospel. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God That he died on the cross for your sins. He was buried resurrected and seen seen by many But the problem is with this Acts 16 31 says Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your whole household.

In response to the jailer who came to Paul and said, look, what must I do to be saved? He got this simple message. In John 14, 6, the Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. Through me. Acts 4, 12 says, and there is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name given under heaven and earth by which men are saved." Well, that creates a problem if you have this idea that, well, all these Old Testament guys got saved because they just believed what God did at the time.

So what was the nature of the gospel then preached to Abraham? What did he hear? What did he know? We could say, well, the gospel proclaimed to Abraham was the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's just say that that's what it was. And not only him, but what he did, his person and his work. The gospel proclaimed to Abraham focused on the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know? Well, we only have one source of information.

Genesis 12 3 said I will bless those who bless you and The one who curses you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed so far so good But if you go up to Genesis 22 18 It says in your seed All the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice and Introducing a seed. Who's the seed? That's going to be the question. So what seed is God talking about? Is it the nation of Israel?

Partly, Galatians 3.16 says here, now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. So not only were the promises given to Abraham, but they were also given to his seed. And then it says, he does not say, and to seeds, plural, he's referring to many, but rather one. To your seed, and guess who that is? That's Christ.

So the gospel in Galatians 3.8 focuses on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now watch how it does that. The good news about the Lord Jesus would impute righteousness to Abraham, make him and all of us the sons of Abraham, it would justify the Gentiles, and bless us with Abraham. Did Abraham have any understanding of Jesus Christ like we do? What do you think? I think initially you're going to say, well, probably not. Look at Genesis 8, you don't have to look. Look at Genesis 18, 1 through 33. We're not going to go through all of them, just the appropriate ones.

Now the Lord appeared, the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of memory while he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. And when he lifted up his eyes, he looked and behold, three men were standing opposite And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself down to the earth. The Lord appeared to him, and he said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by." What does Abraham, who does Abraham see there?

I think he sees the pre-incarnate Christ. He's Lord, he's not an angel. He's Lord, and he knows it. I think he knew who it was. He knew that the Lord Jesus Christ bestowed favor. He knew and wanted fellowship with him. He wanted him to hang around for a while so they could interact. He didn't want the Lord to leave him.

Interesting. go down to verses four through eight, what Abraham does is he rallies everybody to put a meal together. And a little water was brought, and wash your feet, rest yourself under the tree, and I'll bring you a piece of bread, and etc. So Abraham hurried, and the Lord and his two angels stay, and Sarah and her servants prepare a meal for them. So they're staying there. Now, the pre-incarnate Christ, two angels, and Abraham and Sarah.

Verse 9, then they said to him, where is Sarah your wife? Now Abraham at this point is 100, Sarah is 90. And he said, she's over there in the tent. And he said, I will surely return to you at this time next year. I'm going to come back next year. And what's going to happen? And behold, Sarah, your wife, will have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door which was behind him.

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced age, and Sarah was past childbearing. And Sarah laughed to herself, saying, After I have become old, shall I have pleasure in my Lord being old also? And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I indeed bear a child? Who am I when I am so old? Is anything too difficult for the Lord?

At an appointed time I will return to you, and at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son. He said, I'm going to come back and see you. So now we're looking at two times when the pre-incarnate Christ showed up and talked to Abraham. He came back the next year. The next thing that adds to this argument is verses 17 and 18.

The Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? Since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed." The Lord didn't hide anything from his plan to Abraham. That's what he's saying. I'm not going to hide anything from him. The Jews becoming a great and mighty nation was okay. He understood that. But all the nations were going to be blessed through this one seed. Who's that? It's the Lord Jesus and his work. So, in answer to the question, how do we know that this is the Lord Jesus Christ? I don't know if I asked that question. We'll stay with this. If you look at John 8, 37 through 40, Jesus is having a little discussion with the Pharisees, right?

I know that you are Abraham's descendants, yet you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with my father, therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father." They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, then do the deeds of Abraham.

But as it is, you are seeking to kill me. a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God, this Abraham didn't do." What didn't he do? He didn't try to kill Jesus when he saw him. You see the difference? What Jesus is saying, that Abraham, when I saw him, he didn't try to kill me, but you guys are trying to do it.

Again, I think it adds fodder to the fire that what we're talking about, that when Jesus saw Abraham and Abraham saw Jesus, there was a relationship there and the Pharisees were saying, well, we want to kill you. And he's saying, well, if you were really Abraham's son, you wouldn't do that. Then in John 8, 55, And you have not come to know him, but I know him. And if I say I do not know him, I'd be a liar like you, but I do know him.

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. When did that happen? When did Abraham rejoice to see the Lord's day? It happened during Abraham's life. He knew. He knew not only the day of the Lord, when Christ was going to be on earth, And he saw it, and he was glad about it. What was he glad about? The Savior was here.

So the Jews said to him, you're not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham. Jesus says, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, ego me, I am. Therefore they picked up stones to throw at him, and Jesus hid himself. So Jesus says, I saw Abraham. back then, and Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he was glad.

So I want you to note one thing, and we'll close up with this. Because we're in Christ and he's in us, we're in him. We have the blessing of being able to fellowship with him even greater than Abraham had. We have the blessings of beholding him moment by moment. We never have to beg Him, never have to beg Him not to leave us. We don't ever have to do that. He will never, never leave us. Hebrews 13, 5 says, I will never desert you nor will I ever forsake you.

The good news. So the good news announced to Abraham was that someday the Savior, Jesus Christ, whom he knew, would arise out of the nation of Israel, and that the Gentiles would be saved through him as Abraham was saved, the same way, by faith in the person and work of Christ. Thus Abraham rejoiced to see the coming of that day. Abraham was therefore to become a pattern to all men and all who followed. of how a sinner, a Jew or a Gentile, would appropriate salvation.

Faith is just a means by which we appropriate the grace of God. So, there's a condition then placed upon any person who was to be justified, and that condition was that you believe God. I have always thought it was interesting how much value God puts on faith. How much value do you and I put on faith? We put tremendous value on faith. We want people to believe us when we say things.

Well, here's the righteous, independent, holy God saying, here's what I'm doing through my son. Will you believe me about that? And if you do, I will give you an inheritance. I will give you the inheritance that was promised to my son, the Lord Jesus.

So when you get to verse 9, it says, those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. Definite statement of a proposition which Paul proves, the emphasis upon the fact that believing ones are blessed, you and I, rather than those who depend on good works, like the Judaizers did.

Faithfulness in the life is a sense that The word here does not speak of faithfulness in your life. I'm doing everything fine in the sense of fidelity, but the fact that Abraham believed God. We believe God. Those of us who exercise like faith share with him in the same salvation and the same inheritance and the same blessing that he received. So to translate the last verse, I would say that those who are believing ones are being blessed in the company with the believing Abraham. We're the sons of Abraham because we're the sons of faith.

So let's pray. Father, how we thank you. How we thank you for your graciousness, how gracious you are in all that you do and all that you are careful to give us as your sons. And the only requirement is that we trust you and we believe you when you tell us. And we pray in your son's precious name. Amen.