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The Gospel

January 24, 2016 Preacher: Guest Speaker Series: The Abrahamic Covenant: The Mission of God Declared

Scripture: Galatians 3:1–14

KEY IDEA: We are foolish, but God is faithful to his Covenant Promises.

Galatians 3:1

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before you eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

“…the gospel is not a new or recent thing. It is not something that began in the New Testament with Christ and his disciples. We should realize how far back the gospel stretches. In terms of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he tells them that the gospel stretches all the way back to Abraham. In terms of our study of what Paul has said, the gospel reaches all the way back to the Garden of Eden when God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15).”

J.V. Fesko, Galatians

Galatians 3:8

And the Scripture, forseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

 

KEY IDEA: We don’t have to earn the blessing because Christ bore the curse.

“The real evil is that we trust our own power to be righteous and will not lift up our eyes to see that Christ has done for us.” Luther

Galatians 3:13-14

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. 

"That Abraham submitted to circumcision at the command of God, that he was endowed with excellent virtues, that he obeyed God in all things, was certainly admirable of him. To follow the example of Christ, to love one’s neighbor, to do good to them that persecute you, to pray for one’s enemies, patiently to bear the ingratitude of those who return evil for good, is certainly praiseworthy. But praiseworthy or not, such virtues do not acquit us before God. It takes more than that to make us righteous before God. We need Christ Himself, not His example, to save us. We need a redeeming, not an exemplary Christ, to save us. Paul is here speaking of the redeeming Christ and the believing Abraham, not of the model Christ or the sweating Abraham."

Luther’s Commentary on Galatians

More in The Abrahamic Covenant: The Mission of God Declared

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The Triune God and the Mission of Redemption

January 31, 2016

The Great Commission

January 17, 2016

As For God, As For Abraham