Part LIV on The Study of Galatians

Before we get started where we left off allow us to say though not brought out much through these posting. First Prayer is our foundation then along side prayer is our Blessed Holy Spirit for He is the greatest Gift the Father has ever given or sent to man. If we all would but learn this one thing to depend upon Him for all things. If we do we'll learn that He is much more than our teacher, trainer, guide, comforter and friend. For He sticks closer than a brother and He knows more about ourselves than we do. Now we'll pick up at Romans chapter 3.


Romans 4:3-4
"For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it (his trusting and believing) was counted unto him for righteousness. 4. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt."  We're not under a debt economy nor a works (self serving) economy. Oh, maybe we are in politics, but not spiritually. We will never put God in our debt, and so we can't work for redemption or salvation, not one iota. And now verse 5 says it all.


Romans 4:5
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. "  Now, since Paul uses Abraham as the epitome of faith, let's go back to Genesis chapter 12 and check it out. The most important part of the whole Old Testament is the Abrahamic Covenant. It is the very bench mark of everything on which we rest by faith, and faith alone. And let's look at it once again.


Genesis 12:1-3
"Now the LORD had said (back in chapter 11) unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: (God makes these great covenant promises to him) 2. And I will make of thee a great nation, (the Nation of Israel) and I will bless thee, (materially as well as spiritually [how so by the word righteousness], but for the Hebrews it was primarily materially) and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing*: 3. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee (Abraham) shall all families of the earth be blessed." (*Genesis 18:18)  Now we've got to go back to Genesis chapter 3 to pick up that benchmark of all the families of the earth being blessed. We're coming from the top down instead of from the bottom up, but here we're coming now all the way from Paul's stipulation that as Abraham believed God so this is where we are with like faith today. Now then as faith was that which imputed righteousness to Abraham, and that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed*, then in chapter 3 we find that Adam and Eve have just eaten of the fruit, and have totally plunged the whole human race under the curse. Here is a covenant that God makes with Adam. Now it's not a very pretty covenant because in this covenant God is promising all the ramifications of the curse, and how that everything would come under the curse. But in the very center of this covenant that God makes with Adam is a promise of a Redeemer. Let's look at beginning with verse 15. Here God says -


Genesis 3:15
" And I will put enmity between thee (Satan whom He's addressing) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; (here we pick up the seed of the woman from this we get, who is Christ. Now just here is a mind blower we all have this seed asleep deep within our soul. All right then there would be a running battle between Satan and Christ) it (the seed of the woman, Christ) shall bruise thy (Satan's) head ( the seed when made alive or awakened in our case will do the same thing)  , and thou shalt bruise his heel.   Which of course Satan accomplished when he caused the suffering of Christ at Calvary. Now from this place in Genesis chapter 3 that we find God is going to promise a Redeemer through the woman. On that promise now we build the Abrahamic Covenant that it's going to be through this man and his offspring that the "Seed" of the woman would come. Now are we making ourselves clear?


In Genesis 3 God promised Adam that one day the Seed of the woman would one day defeat sin, death, and Satan. God would reverse the process through the son of man the seed of woman, through death as a seed. Abraham is now given the promise that this Seed of the woman would come through his lineage through the Nation of Israel. So the Abrahamic Covenant then becomes the very foundation of everything as we come on up into the New Testament/Covenant and the appearance of Christ in the last days and His earthly ministry, His rejection by the Hebrews, and then we move on into the parenthetical period the Church Age (which was called a secret or mystery by God) after the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Remember God's timetable of Psalm  2 which is located between verse 8 and 9, which covers our period of prophecy.  So all of our foundation of faith, not only the how, but also the why all rest on what God promised Abraham by way of an Oath or promise.


Maybe before we go back to the Book of Galatians we need to stop in Romans chapter 11. We should have caught this verse while we were there. Remember the last part of that Abrahamic Covenant was that in thee (Abraham) would all the families of the earth be blessed. Of course that comes primarily through Christ, the Seed of the woman coming through the seed of Abraham (and verse 8 of Psalm 2). Now we'll look at Genesis chapter 18 starting in verse 17:


Genesis 18:17 “And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.”  Now here we have revealed the relationship (intimacy) between two people the closeness of God with Abraham and this is the place we're to be IN Christ. Now what our present day Bibles don't have any longer are a few Epistles which one of those councils way back in the history of the church, the church removed. If we still had those they'd reveal that indeed Abraham's sons knew God and did mighty things in both life and battle with His aid. In much better fashion that say Samson or even King David.


It is a result of what God promised through the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 11, and this is an account of how the nation of Israel had rejected everything and God is going to literally strip the branches from the tree which is Israel that is rooted in Abraham, and He's going to graft in the Gentiles. Now this all ties together. Let's drop in at verse 15.


Romans 11:15
"For if the casting away of them (the Hebrews, the Nation of Israel) be the reconciling of the world, (the whole world) what shall the receiving of them (the Nation of Israel) be, but life from the dead? "  This is simply telling us that God's going to pick back up just where He left off in His dealings with the Hebrew children at the end of this Period of Grace or the Church age. Or as Psalm 2  shows at verses 8 and 9, in what we call the tribulation period or Jacobs troubles.