Abraham Believed God

Being Declared Righteous by God

`2023 Spring Branch

Galatians Study: 3:5-14

Abraham Believed God

The Law, our works and or our performance does not save us from our sins. The Law never justified us, it only pointed out the sin in our lives and declared us “guilty” before our Holy God.

The Law didn’t die for us. The Law doesn’t give us a status of righteousness that we need to stand before God pardoned and freed from the penalty of breaking the law (which is sin), and the penalty of these crimes is death.

All who are outside of grace, stand here: guilty, condemned, ashamed and they will be destroyed. That is where the law takes us. It leads us to a cursed state of being.

Verse 10 – Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them. And the breaking of the Law, any of it, brings a curse to that person who breaks it. And who has broken God’s law at any point? Everyone on the face of the earth.

Why was the law given? The law was given because of transgressions (v. 19). The law reveals man’s utter sinfulness (Romans7:7), the inability to be perfect before God, and his inability to save himself… and it reveals man’s desperate need for a Savior. It confines all under sin (v. 22). The Law served and serves as a tutor, watching over our behavior, and it led Israel and it leads us today to the Savior.

So, to live under the Law… leads us to become law breakers, sinners, and cursed ones, who own the penalty of sin, which is death and hell…

That is the bad news. But, the Good News is that Jesus Christ has come; He has lived the perfect life and has kept the perfect law… perfectly. Verse 13 says that Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. 2 Cor. 5:21 puts it like this: “For the Father made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Jesus has died under the law; He became the curse for us, died and took away our curse… by taking away our curse. R.C. Sproul helped me with this one: If you want to know what it meant for a Jew to be cursed, the simplest way would be to look to the famous Hebrew benediction in the Old Testament: Numbers 6:24-26…

“May the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” To be blessed by God is to bath in His glory, His presence, and to behold God’s face. 1 John 3:2 says that one day we shall see Him as He is… and He will fill everything, all of us with His presence and glory. This is absolute blessing.

But the curse is its opposite. It would sound and be something like this: “ May the Lord curse you and abandon you. May the Lord keep you in darkness and give you only judgement without grace. May the Lord turn His back on you and remove His peace from you forever.”

This is your curse. But God through Christ, took our curse away, and placed it upon the Son and redeemed us from the curse now and forever… so that blessings can flow through the Son to the believer in Christ.

These believers, like Abraham, shall be declared righteous by God and we will be delivered from the penalty of the law and will be born again under a New Covenant… made through the Blood and works of Christ. And these folks will stand by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

What is the work we must do in order to be saved? Verse 6: (Romans 4:3 says the same) Just as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Only those of faith are the offspring of Abraham. All who will believe: “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” These are true offspring of Abraham, not just the nation of Israel, but all who will believe in Christ.

What must I do? John 6:29 – This is the work of God now: That you believe in Him whom He has sent. Believe on Jesus Christ. This is how we are saved and justified. Not by works, lest anyone should boast… but by grace, through faith – It is the gift of God. (Eph. 2:8-9) What I do is trust in what Christ has done.

The J.W. at my door said, “You must work righteousness in order to enter into the kingdom of God.” Our Biblical reply is this: Belief, or faith in Christ is the prerequisite to righteousness… not works.

Jesus said to the Jewish leaders in John 8:39-44 that if they belonged to Abraham, they would do the works of Abraham… that is believe in the One He has sent. But because they would not believe, it is evident that they do not belong to Father Abraham or God the Father. Jesus said that because they didn’t believe, they belonged to their father, the devil.

But those who believe… they are the children of Abraham, they are the redeemed; they are the justified; they are the righteousness and the children of God. What must I do to be saved? Romans 10:9-10 – Confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead… you shall be saved… For with the heart one believes to righteousness…

Do you believe? Now… the million dollar question to you now is: How do you know you believe?

Please remember James 2:19 – Even demons believe, and they tremble before God. Remember throughout the Gospels… demons confessed Jesus was the Son of God… And they are not saved.

This is not talking about just a knowledge or an intellectual assent. This “belief” or “faith” is one that transforms a life and makes you act like Abraham… makes you walk by faith, enabling you to love God, serve God, trust God, having victory over sin and a growing holiness in your life.

It involves so much more that just coming up front and making a public profession of faith and declaring Jesus is Lord, and saying “you believe.” It requires a believing of the heart that transforms a life by the power of God.

Belief in the heart has a drastic effect on that person that causes them to work out Proverbs 3:5-6 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, and in all your ways acknowledge Him… Just as Abraham did.

In other words, we start living like Abraham lived: By faith. We leave the life of sin, the life of idolatry, and we begin a life of walking by faith. We repent or turn from our old lives and we go out to live for God through Christ. Belief, or faith, that saves… is faith that moves us to live for God and to be like Christ. And God looks at your faith in Christ and declares you righteous by faith.

And He clothes you in His Righteousness.