{"id":173,"date":"2007-10-16T09:43:25","date_gmt":"2007-10-16T15:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=173"},"modified":"2007-10-16T09:43:25","modified_gmt":"2007-10-16T15:43:25","slug":"galatians-38-gods-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/galatians-38-gods-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"Galatians 3:8 &#8211; God&#8217;s Blessing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/Banner-MOG-60.gif\" alt=\"Ministry of Grace Church\" width=\"472\" height=\"58\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12pt;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: maroon;\">Galatians 3:8<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong><span style=\"color: navy;\">And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, <span>saying, &#8220;In you all the nations shall be blessed.&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12pt;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">God\u2019s blessing on our lives comes by faith.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\">When we read the first part of this verse we have to ask ourselves, \u201cHow can the Scripture foresee anything.\u201d Of course, since the Scripture is not a person, it is impossible. However, the Jewish Rabbis used this as a way of citing passages of Scripture. They would say, &#8220;What does the Scripture foresee?&#8221; or &#8220;What does the law foresee?&#8221; We understand, then, that this is a personification of Scripture. That is, the reference to the Scripture is really a reference to the true author, God Himself. This is what the Rabbis intended in their teaching so we believe that this is also what Paul intended here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\">So, we could paraphrase the opening part of this verse as, \u201c<span style=\"color: navy;\">And God, foreseeing that He would justify the Gentiles by faith \u2026<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\">As another indication that \u201c<span style=\"color: navy;\">the Scripture<\/span>\u201d is a personification of God, Paul goes on to say that the Scripture, \u201c<span style=\"color: navy;\">preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, \u2026<\/span>\u201d The word translated \u201c<span style=\"color: navy;\">preached the gospel beforehand<\/span>\u201d is \u201c<em><span style=\"color: maroon;\">proeu\u0113ngelidzomai<\/span><\/em>\u201d which simply means \u201cto announce the good news ahead of time.\u201d This is not a reference to what we call \u201cthe gospel of Christ,\u201d that Christ died on the cross to pay for our sins, was buried, and rose again. Rather it is a reference to the good news given ahead of time to Abraham that \u201c<span style=\"color: navy;\">in you all the nations shall be blessed.<\/span>\u201d This good news was given to Abraham directly by God while Abram was still in Ur of the Chaldeans and is recorded for us in:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 6pt 0.25in 0.0001pt;\"><span style=\"color: navy;\">I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.<\/span> (<strong><span style=\"color: maroon;\">Genesis 12:3<\/span><\/strong>)<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\">As Paul will make clearer in the following verse, those of us who are saved by faith in Christ are the ones who are blessed along with Abraham, simply because we believe God\u2019s word, not because we keep the requirements of the law. We do not have to become Jews and become circumcised, we simply have to believe! And in doing so, we Gentiles are blessed in Abraham.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\">God, knowing that Gentiles would believe the good news of Jesus Christ, and knowing that he would declare us as righteous because of that belief, told Abraham that in him (that is in his seed, Jesus Christ) all nations of the world would be blessed. And now we know that there are Christian believers in all nations who believe God\u2019s promises.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Application <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">You too can be free from sin guilt and know eternal salvation:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 6pt 0.25in 0.0001pt;\"><span style=\"color: navy;\">that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. <\/span>(<strong><span style=\"color: maroon;\"> Romans 10:9<\/span><\/strong>)<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\">Want God\u2019s blessing? That says it all!<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt;\"><strong>In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"..\/..\/signature.gif\" alt=\"signature\" width=\"63\" height=\"35\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"right\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: NuptialScript;\">Copyright \u00a9 2007<span> <\/span>Will<span> <\/span>Krause.  All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"> <\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone (618) 614-3070 and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"..\/..\/Will_e-mail.gif\" alt=\"e-mail address\" width=\"156\" height=\"40\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, &#8220;In you all the nations shall be blessed.&#8221; Truth to Learn God\u2019s blessing on our lives comes by faith. Behind the Words When we read the first part of this verse we have to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-galatians-3"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-2N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}