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FROM THE PASTOR'S STUDY

Topic: Galatians Chapter Three: Message Outlines (Include Audio)

Galatians 3:6-14 (3)

by Darrel Cline
(darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)

Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 2 Study # 3
December 18, 2011
Dayton, Texas
(Download Audio)

(139)

Thesis:God's "reckoning" of a man as "righteous" is restricted to issues of "Justice" and has to do with God accepting an actual reality as a legitimate equivalent of an actual unreality.

Introduction:In our studies of Paul's use of Genesis 15:6 in his presentation to the Galatians, we have pressed three ideas: first, the "why" of faith is tied to God's commitment to use His promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 as His controlling intention in regard to bringing blessing to human beings; second, the "how" of faith is tied to God's commitment to use "faith" as the "identifying trait" for the identification of those human beings who will receive His blessing; and third, God's use of "faith" as a matter of fundamentally identifying the identity of the one "believed".

In regard to this last idea, we pressed the notion in our last study that Genesis 15:6 is in its particular place in Moses' record because of the nature of the problem of getting human beings fundamentally fixed in terms of the "who" that they trust. Initial believing does not underwrite constancy of believing, and belief that only endures until it is challenged is not what the Bible calls "faith". "Faith", as the Bible identifies it, is an enduring fixation upon Yahweh, God of Abraham, as the One Who brings about blessing without human mediation. Thus, "works" have no place in "faith" because they tend in the direction of inserting a root of blessing other than Yahweh.

This evening we are going to go one step further. We are going to consider how the Bible says that God "reckoned" faith to be an acceptable equivalent to actual righteousness.


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