I want to take a diversion of sorts this morning from our normal verse by verse exposition of Galatians. But I do so having been provoked by Paul in chapter 3 of Galatians. If you will remember, in his argument of faith vs works, Paul introduces the example of Abraham in chapter 3 vs 6. And throughout the rest of that chapter, Paul makes the point that it is those who are of the faith of Abraham who are the sons of Abraham.
Now he is making this point because the Judaisers had come into the churches of Galatia and started teaching that you had to keep the law in order to be saved. Particularly, they were concerned with Jewish ceremonial laws, and even more to the point, the law of circumcision. According to the Jews, circumcision was the physical sign that you were a child of Abraham, a child of promise. And so the Judaisers were teaching that irregardless of what you had done in regards to Christ, you must still be circumcised according to the law in order to be saved, in order to be of the people of God.
So Paul, on the one hand acknowledging that Abraham was the father of the faithful, rebuts the Jews reliance upon the law for merit, and instead goes to what preceded circumcision in Abraham’s life, which had found favor with God. And so he goes to the statement from Genesis 15:6 where the Bible says, “Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” That’s the quote from Genesis that Paul records in Galatians 3:6.
And then he gives another important statement about faith in vs 11 “Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, "THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” That is a very pregnant saying, for it emphasizes many facets of salvation. First it indicates that the dead will be made alive by faith. And secondly it means that we are sanctified by faith. We live day by day, hour by hour by faith. Faith is not a one and done proposition, by which we say “I believe in Jesus Christ” but it’s only a very superficial type of intellectual assent to a doctrinal truth. But we haven’t had to put real trust in Jesus Christ in regards to life and how we live. To trust Christ in life or death situation is really the test of faith. And the scriptures say the righteous man shall live by faith.
Paul goes on to speak in chapter 3 of Abraham’s faith as the critical gate by which Abraham received the blessings of God and given the covenant of God. He then extrapolates from that, that we who believe in Christ by faith, with the same faith as Abraham, becomes sons of God, vs 26, and are made descendants of Abraham, and thus heirs according to promise. Vs 29.
Now that illustration of Abraham’s faith is instructive if you are well versed in the Genesis account as most Jews would have been, but it seemed to me that it behooves most 21st century Christians to take a refresher course on the life of Abraham that we might understand the kind of faith that Abraham had, if we are to have all the promises and blessings of God hinged upon our faith, which is to be the same kind of faith of Abraham.
So I wanted to take the time this morning to go back to Abraham’s life and see what we can learn by his example what constitutes faith. The first example I want to look at is found in Genesis 12. God appeared to Abraham and said "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.”
Now this is the first recorded example of Abraham’s faith. The scripture doesn’t specifically say there that it was on account of this faith in this example God credited him with righteousness. But it is evident from Hebrews 11 that this was the first evidence of his faith. Heb 11:8 “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” And Abraham’s faith in this case is made evident by his obedience. God told him to go, He made certain promises to Abraham, and Abraham obeyed and did what God said for him to do.
So faith is being obedient to what God says. Faith is more than just an intellectual assent, it’s trusting in what God said enough to be obedient to it. In Abraham’s case it meant leaving his home, taking his family and all his belongings and heading out to a place where God told him to go. Faith is being willing to change course, to follow the Lord.
Let me briefly explain the theological basis for faith. The Protestant Reformers recognized that biblical faith has three essential aspects: Latin; notitia, assensus, and fiducia. Notitia refers to the content of faith, the things necessary that we are to believe. Assensus is the conviction that the content of our faith is true. Fiducia refers to personal trust and reliance.Knowing and believing the content of the Christian faith is not enough, for even demons can do that (James 2:19). Faith is effectual only if one personally trusts in Christ alone for their life. Now in Abraham’s case, his obedience was evidence that he trusted in God.
The second prime example of faith in Abraham’s life is found in Genesis 15. “After these things ( after settling in Canaan and the war of the kings) the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great." Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir." And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
So Abraham believed in the word of the Lord and He reckoned it, or credited it to him as righteousness. Faith is believing in the promises of God. That which has not yet come to pass. That which cannot be ascertained by human methods of reason. Yet he believed. Notice something about the revelation from the Lord. The Lord appears in a dream or vision or by some other means again and again to Abraham. And each time the Lord speaks to him, he gives him more revelation. It’s what is called progressive revelation. We believe what the Lord reveals to us, we obey His word, and then the Lord leads us further. He gives us more revelation as we are obedient to the revelation given.
We often want to see the final outcome before we make a commitment. Or we don’t want to make a commitment without a guaranteed outcome. That’s not really faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” That’s not a riddle, that’s a definition of faith. Faith that is seen is not faith. That’s the trouble with the teaching of the charismatics who love to talk about faith. But they always want their faith to be given evidence. And yet evidence is rarely given, otherwise it is no longer faith. And as the scripture says, the righteous shall live by faith. Not the righteous shall live by sight.
So Abraham believed that God would give him a child according to the word of the Lord. And yet ten years went by and still no child came. So Abraham did what most of us would have done after even one year of waiting - he tried to help God out. He took matters into his own hand. And he and Sarah took her handmaid Hagar, and Abraham had a son by her that they named Ishmael. But Ishmael was not the son of the promise. It was the son of Abraham’s folly.
Finally after waiting for 25 years, and after being reminded again and again of God’s promise, Sarah conceived. Paul spoke of it in Rom 4:19-22 saying, “Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. Therefore IT WAS ALSO CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
I think Paul makes it clear there that it wasn’t just a one time faith that Abraham had but a continued faith, an unwavering faith over 25 years of being told the promises of God that God rewarded. Finally though with the birth of his son, Abraham could believe all that the Lord had promised him because he had seen God do a miraculous thing by giving him a son in his old age. Nothing was too difficult for God. The birth of Isaac was undoubtedly on a mountain top experience in the faith of Abraham.
A lot of people today expect that sort of exuberance and joy of seeing God fulfill His promises to be the predominant experience of faith. But they fail to realize that Abraham waited 25 years for that promise to be realized. But as a people who have been trained by the culture to expect instant gratification we have a desire to see God do the miraculous. And if we are truthful, our faith is dependent upon God doing the miraculous in order to keep our faith going. But if the miraculous doesn’t come, or at least come in our time frame, then what happens to our faith? What kind of faith do we really have?
So sometimes God tests our faith. Not to make us fail, but to prove our faith, to make evident our faith, and to grow our faith. Jesus rebuked the disciples once for being of little faith. Our faith must grow if it is to be living faith. And part of the way our faith grows is by testing.
Turn to the final primary example of Abraham’s faith, which is found in Genesis 22. And I believe this example is the pinnacle of Abraham’s faith and one to which we would do well to contemplate.
Gen 22:1-8 “Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you." Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.
Now a couple of things that we should notice to start with. First note that God tested Abraham. Tested is not the same as tempted. James 1:13 says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.” But God does test people for the purpose of proving their faith, of building up their faith, and of giving evidence of their faith. When we are tested and come through it, our faith is stronger, it’s more sure and certain.
Secondly, God made it clear that He considered Isaac as Abraham’s only son. If Abraham had a choice, he would perhaps have offered up Ishmael. But God did not consider Ishmael to be the son of promise, as God had made to Sarah and Abraham. And we don’t know exactly how old Isaac was when Abraham was given this command. But if you took an average from what most commentators and Bible scholars have suggested, then it’s likely he was a young man of about 22 or so. So he is no child.
Another important illustration of Abraham’s faith in this example is his willingness to obey. It’s understood from the context that Abraham received the word of God at night, perhaps in a vision, and he arose early in the morning and started on the journey. He didn’t procrastinate. He didn’t make excuses why. He didn’t pray about it. That’s a good excuse a lot of Christians use to keep from obeying the Lord. They sanctimoniously say, “I’ll pray about it.” If God said it in His word, you don’t need to be acting like Balam the wicked prophet and try to talk God out of it. Abraham didn’t delay, he got up early and took two servants and his son Isaac and started a three day journey to Mt. Moriah.
Then Abraham makes two statements which give evidence of his faith. The first is when they arrive after 3 days near Mt. Moriah, Abraham says to the servants, “"Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.” Some theologians have suggested that Abraham said this with his fingers crossed. I don’t think so. I think this was an assurance of faith on Abraham’s part. He could not have known how God would do it, but he knew that if God was going to keep His promises, then Isaac was going to have to live long enough to get married and have children. I think he really thought of it that way and so he said that one way or another, he and his son would come back to them.
There is so much in this story of Abraham’s faith in sacrificing Isaac, that I wish I could speak to this morning. But I really wanted just to focus on the faith of Abraham. But I can’t help but point out something that I have stated before. This is the first time the word “worship” is found in the Bible. And if you follow the rule of hermeneutics, this is an example of the rule of first mention; which indicates the meaning of a word as it is used for the first time in scripture. And you will notice that worship is equated with a sacrifice. I think contemporary Christianity has dumbed down worship to the point of being nothing but a surge of emotion. No, according to Abraham, worship is to offer to the Lord God a sacrifice.
Paul thinks the same, saying in Romans 12:1, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship.” Think about that. I don’t have the time right now to spend on it that it deserves.
But we know that Abraham had faith to believe that God would somehow restore Isaac even though He had told Abraham to sacrifice him. And we know that because of Heb 11:17-19 which says, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten [son;] [it was he] to whom it was said, "IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED." He considered that God is able to raise [people] even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.” So Abraham believed that if necessary, God was able to raise Isaac from the dead. And he believed it because of the promise of God.
That word type found there in Hebrews indicates that this story of Abraham and Isaac is a prefigurement of God sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us. And we see that illustrated even in details such as Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice, just as Jesus bore His own cross. But then Isaac asks the question, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
And Abraham’s response is a tremendous statement of faith and at the same time a Messianic prophecy. He said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”
You know, in all the years I have read about this subject, and heard messages on this subject, I don’t remember hearing too much about the faith of Isaac. But I think that there is a silent message of Isaacs faith and submission and obedience to his father and ultimately to God that what He has promised is true. Abraham’s probably around 120 years old by now. Isaac is around 22 years old. I think that would not be much of a contest under most circumstances, if the young man knew his dadW was going to sacrifice him on an altar. But Isaac obviously submitted to his father and was obedient, and by extension showed that he had faith in God as well.
Faith in God? What does that mean? Faith that God was good. That God’s word was true and could be trusted. That if God promised it, God would accomplish it. Faith that they could trust their very lives to God. Faith that if Isaac died, God would raise him up again. Faith that God would provide.
And we know that God did provide a substitute for the sacrifice. As Abraham raised his knife to slay his son, God said “Stop!” “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Isn’t it interesting that God considers Abraham’s faith to be obedient as fearing God. Revering God above all else is to fear God. Obeying God is to fear God.
Gen 22:13 “Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind [him] a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.”
And Abraham called that place, Jehovah-Jireh, which means, the Lord will provide. And God said because you have done this thing, you didn’t withhold your only son, not only will I bless you exceedingly, but "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."
And Paul tells us in chapter 3 vs 16, that the seed, singular, referred to Christ, though whom the nations who believe in Him by faith will be blessed. And God kept his promise. Two thousand years after Abraham God took his only begotten Son, the Son of God and descendant of Abraham, the Son whom He loved, and offered Him up on that same Mt. Moriah as a sacrifice, a substitute for sinners. Only this time, no one yelled “Stop”. God carried out HIs wrath against sin by crucifying His Son, so that we that believe in Him might be given life and receive the blessing of God. That blessing is life, even eternal life through Jesus Christ.
I hope that you have trusted in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as the atonement for your sins, that you may be credited with the righteousness of Jesus Christ and be given the blessing of God, which is life forever with Him.
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