Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 182
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IMMERSE
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MESSIAH
3:5-20
I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles
among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you
believe the message you heard about Christ.
In the same way, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” The real children of Abraham, then, are those
who put their faith in God.
What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God
would make the Gentiles right in his sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations
will be blessed through you.” So all who put their faith in Christ share the
same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.
But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are
under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not
observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the
Law.” So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to
keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous
person has life.” This way of faith is very different from the way of law,
which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person has life.”
But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When
he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung
on a tree.” Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the
same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might
receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
Dear brothers and sisters, here’s an example from everyday life. Just as no
one can set aside or amend an irrevocable agreement, so it is in this case.
God gave the promises to Abraham and his child. And notice that the
Scripture doesn’t say “to his children,” as if it meant many descendants.
Rather, it says “to his child”—and that, of course, means Christ. This is
what I am trying to say: The agreement God made with Abraham could
not be canceled 430 years later when God gave the law to Moses. God
would be breaking his promise. For if the inheritance could be received by
keeping the law, then it would not be the result of accepting God’s promise.
But God graciously gave it to Abraham as a promise.
Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to
show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the
coming of the child who was promised. God gave his law through angels
to Moses, who was the mediator between God and the people. Now a
mediator is helpful if more than one party must reach an agreement. But
God, who is one, did not use a mediator when he gave his promise to
Abraham.
