Galatians 3:6. just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
The Judaizers’ whole message was, “It’s great that you Gentiles became Christians, but now you must live like us Jews.” So, Paul calls Father Abraham to the stand as his first witness against law-keeping for righteousness. Abraham, the ultimate Jew, wasn’t the “man of law”; he was the “man of faith.”
Galatians 3:6 quotes Genesis 15:6. God had made great promises to Abraham—land, offspring, and blessing. These promises were all made without any connection to the law. In fact, the law didn’t even exist yet; it would come 400 years later under Moses. But God’s promises to Abraham were also slow in coming, especially the promise that Abraham would father a great nation. He and Sarah, his wife, were old, and she had been barren since her youth.
So, in Genesis 15, Abraham questions God. How can these promises possibly be true? “Maybe my servant Eliezer should be counted as my offspring,” Abraham suggests to God. Nope. “Your offspring will be numbered as the stars in the sky,” God says. “And they will come from you, Abraham. From your body.”
Then come these immortal words: “[He] believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
“Faith counted as righteousness.” Not works of the law. Not obedience. Not good deeds. “Counted,” not merited. Credited as if it were righteousness (even though it’s not). This is a remarkable truth. Genesis didn’t say that Abraham’s faith is righteousness, but that his faith is credited as though it is righteousness. This is justification—God declaring us to be legally righteous even though we are not actually righteous in our thoughts or actions.
Make no mistake, Christian: when we are credited as righteous in Christ, we are still wicked. As Paul says in Romans, “God justifies the ungodly.” That’s you, Christian: the justified sinner.
According to the world (even Abraham’s world), such faith is foolishness. But this is the foolishness that we are called to as well—the foolishness of walking by faith in Christ and not by sight. It is living and finding our value in trusting Jesus rather than trusting in the works of righteousness that we have done. And there is great freedom in this foolishness—the freedom that comes from simple trust in the faithfulness of God, and not even our own faith.
You: What are the implications of being both wicked yet credited as righteous?
You in Christ: How does union with Christ impute his righteousness to us?
Christ in you: How does credited righteousness motivate actual righteousness?
Pray: Father, you count faith as righteousness, and I am so glad you do. Help me to live from the foolishness of faith rather than the “wisdom” of sight. Amen.
