Galatians 3:4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.
5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
The Galatians had suffered persecution as a result of being saved. The lost Jews and others had taken great offence to them being saved. They did not want the Gospel of Christ spreading. Paul reminded them that they had suffered. Was that suffering in vain? Why were they considering going back to Judaism?
In verse 5 Paul spoke of the signs and wonders given to him as an apostle. He had preached the Gospel in Galatia and souls were saved. The Holy Spirit worked through the ministry of Paul and people were saved. Paul also had the ability to do miracles. Paul was an apostle. God promised that He would give signs and wonders to the apostles. The people did not have the completed Scriptures at that time. They needed some way to know who was telling the truth. There were many false teachers and they also tried to do miracles. However, their efforts were not blessed of God. The Galatians had seen the apostle Paul do miracles in their midst. Now Paul wanted to know if they actually believed he did those miracles through law keeping. If so, where was the evidence of that. They knew that was not the case. They knew that God had given Paul the ability to do miracles in their midst. They knew he acted by faith and they knew those who received the miracles received them by faith. They were genuine acts of God. They were not manufactured deeds of the flesh.
Today there are many false teachers who claim to do miracles. They are frauds. They are exalting themselves and the devil. There are many gullible people who flock to “signs and wonders”. The devil loves them. He can keep them from the truth by his antics. The false teachers draw people in with signs and wonders and then feed them false doctrine further. The people love it because they are lost and sucked in by the signs and wonders.
We cannot look at the gift of signs and wonders given to the apostles and claim that we should be able to do the same thing today. God is still able to heal people today. James 5 addresses that subject. He does not give any man the gift of miracles in the same manner as the apostles had. There is no further need for that because the Scriptures are complete. The antichrist will do many signs and wonders. The lost will flock to him. Those who are being deceived by signs and wonders today are wide open for the antichrist’s deception should the Rapture happen in their lifetime.
In verse 6 Paul took the saints back to the time of Abraham. They were familiar with the account of Abraham in Genesis 15. Abraham believed God’s promises and God counted it unto him for righteousness. Abraham did not need to do any work to be counted righteous. He simply needed to believe what God told him. Abraham was given evidence to back up the promises of God, but he still needed to trust in God for the evidence and for the promises.
In verse 7 Paul stated that those who believed in God by faith, were the children of Abraham. The Judaizers did not believe in God. They did not believe the message of the apostle Paul. They did not believe the saints in Galatia were truly saved. They insisted that circumcision was necessary for “salvation”. They were not children of Abraham, even though they were Jews.
Romans 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.
The Muslims claim to be the chosen people of God. Their god is Allah, a false god. They also claim to be the children of Ishmael. Having made that claim, they themselves prove they are not of the spiritual seed of Abraham. They are the children of the flesh and thus not saved people.
The Judaizers of Paul’s day also proved they were not of the spiritual seed of Abraham. They tried to add works to “salvation” and that is not Biblical salvation.
In verse 8 Paul continued to clarify the message given to Abraham and also the faith of Abraham. The promise made to Abraham was a promise that even the heathen, the Gentile nations, would be blessed through Abraham. That blessing is there for all Gentiles, but is applicable only to those who accept It by faith. Jesus Christ is of the seed of Abraham. He is the fulfilment of the promise of a seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 and also of the promise of the seed of Abraham and Sarah. Isaac was the promised seed at that time, but the final fulfillment of that promise was found in Jesus Christ. Isaac lived and died. Jesus Christ took upon Himself flesh and went to the cross and died and shed His blood there. In human form, Jesus Christ came from the lineage of Abraham. He rose again victorious over sin and death on the third day. He is seated on the right hand of His heavenly Father right now. He alone can save the repentant sinner.
We see here that the Gospel was preached unto Abraham. Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. Abraham knew there was more to the promise recorded in Genesis 12:1-3. He had a hope that was being nurtured by God and as Abraham walked with God his faith was strengthened.
In verse 9 Paul concluded this part with the further explanation that those who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Abraham was an important man in the Jewish nation. He still is. Jesus addressed this matter on several occasions and in John 8 the Jews took great offence to His suggestion that they were in bondage. They prided themselves in being of the seed of Abraham. However, at that point, those Jesus was speaking to were of the flesh in Abraham, but they were not in the spiritual lineage of Abraham. They were fighting against the Gospel that was preached unto Abraham. They did not accept Jesus Christ as the promised seed of Abraham. They looked only at the promise of Isaac and Jacob. They did not want to see the far reaching fulfillment of that promise in Christ.
However, the saints in Galatia were saved by faith. They were of the spiritual seed of Abraham. Paul was reminding them to examine their hearts. Had they believed in the salvation afforded by the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, or not. Those who had believed, were blessed with faithful Abraham. Notice, they were not blessed “by” Abraham, but “with” faithful Abraham. Abraham was blessed by God through faith. Those who are saved are all blessed by God through faith.
The Galatian saints needed to see just how foolish they were acting. They needed to realize that they were discounting the facts by being tempted to go back. They needed to repent and go forward, not go backwards. Those who were truly saved could not really go backward. That was why Paul was told to write this epistle. God does not allow His children to go back. He gives them His Holy Spirit and they cannot be lost again. They can be chastened by God to bring them back on track, but they cannot be lost. They cannot continue in sin because they have been set free from the bondage of sin. Sin does not have the same hold on them that it did when they were lost. True saints do not take pleasure in sinning. When they are in the flesh, they might take pleasure in sin for a moment, but because they are saved, they cannot remain in the flesh.
Those who remain in the flesh, prove they are not saved. Paul stated: “let not sin reign in your mortal body.” The true child of God cannot continue in sin. The Holy Spirit will work in his heart, and the godly pastor needs to preach the whole counsel of God which will be used of God to help the true child of God get back on track.
That is what the Bible says. I know that is not what New Evangelicalism says, but they are wrong. God’s Word is truth.
Pastor Bartel
