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§13 Paul’s Rebuttal of the Rival Evangelists’ Use of the Example of Abraham (Gal. 3:6–9)

3:6 / Next Paul turns from the Galatians’ experience to Scripture. Citing the example of Abraham, Paul claims that just as Abraham had credited to him … righteousness on the basis of faith, so have the Galatians. This example is essential and strategic for Paul. It is essential because his opponents were probably using the story of Abraham in service of their position, for with Abraham God made the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17:9–14). The story of Abraham would then provide the perfect warrant for the rival evangelists’ contention that belief in Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, entailed adopting the Jewish lifestyle and signifying that with circumcision. It was essential for Paul to counter this straightforward and seemingly irrefutable argument if he was to convince the Galatians of the truth of his law-free gospel.

Abraham is a strategic example for Paul because he can argue that Abraham was counted righteous before the covenant of circumcision. Quoting Genesis 15:6, Paul asserts that the fact that Abraham believed God led to God reckoning him as righteous. The rival evangelists would have been puzzled by Paul’s separation of righteousness from obeying the dictates of the law. Paul, however, argues that righteousness through faith is defensible on the basis of Scripture and that righteousness by faith is at the root of the Jewish faith. Paul claims that his gospel, rather than that of his opponents, attests to the steadfastness of God and truthfully reflects God’s intention.

To the Jews Abraham was the father of Israel to whom God gave the land (Ezek. 33:24). God was loyal to Abraham in a special way (Micah 7:20), even calling him “my friend” (Isa. 41:8), for God had made a covenant with Abraham and Abraham’s descendants that God continually honored (Exod. 2:24; 4:5; 32:13). God chose Abraham to play a special role in the world because of Abraham’s trust in God (Gen. 15:6).

Within Jewish tradition Abraham’s righteousness is underscored. For instance, we read in Jub. 23:10: “For Abraham was perfect in all of his actions with the Lord and was pleasing through righteousness all of the days of his life” (trans. Wintermute; in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha). Jewish literature connects Abraham’s righteousness with his faithfulness. In 1 Maccabees 2:51–52 Mattathias says to his sons: “Remember the deeds of the ancestors.… Was not Abraham found faithful when tested, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness?” And throughout Jewish tradition Abraham’s faithfulness is connected with his keeping of the covenant. In the book of the scribe Jesus Ben Sira, Abraham is spoken of as “the great father of a multitude of nations.… He kept the law of the Most High, and entered into a covenant with him; he certified the covenant in his flesh, and when he was tested he proved faithful” (Sirach 44:19–20). As this final citation demonstrates, the covenant was signified by circumcision.

Thus Jewish tradition does not separate Abraham’s faith from his keeping of the law. For the Jews the two are of a piece. Abraham is faithful and so he is righteous, being circumcised and keeping the law. Paul appears to be the first Jew to separate Abraham’s faith from circumcision; his belief in God from law observance.

One of the most helpful contributions of recent Pauline scholars has been a new perspective on the Judaism out of which Paul came. The shorthand for this new perspective is “covenantal nomism.” This term signifies that the Jews understood their relationship to God to be based on God’s grace. God chose Israel and made a covenant with this nation. The law (nomism) was the way God laid out for Israel to know God’s will and demonstrate gratitude and loyalty to God (see esp. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 75). The significance of this perspective is that it corrects the Christian view of Judaism as a religion that didn’t understand God’s grace and regarded the law as a way to salvation. Rather, the covenantal nomism of Judaism understood that God’s gracious election of Israel assured Israel’s salvation and that Israel’s following of the law was an expression of gratitude and desire to stay within the covenant.

What distinguishes Paul from his Jewish kinfolk is not only that he argues against covenantal nomism but also that he separates grace (covenant) from law (nomism). Paul separates the response of faith to God’s grace from the response of obeying the law; this in turn separates him from Judaism.

3:7–9 / The rival evangelists were almost certainly using the story of Abraham to contend that unless the Galatians were circumcised they were not true heirs of Abraham. Paul turns this around and says that those who believe are children of Abraham. In Paul’s view his case is clear from the evidence in Scripture, where it was foreseen that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. In other words, Paul asserts that he has Scripture on his side. Implicit in Paul’s use of the passage from Genesis is a warning that those who do not agree with him are outside the circle of blessing. In Genesis 12 God makes this promise to Abraham: to “bless those who bless you; and the one who curses you I will curse.” As Paul is convinced that only those who have faith through his law-free gospel are heirs of Abraham (3:7), it follows that those who are attacking that gospel are attacking also the true heirs of Abraham and so are cursed by God. Paul here infers what he said plainly in the opening of his letter—“if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” (1:8; cf. 1:9).

Paul’s exegesis would be seen by the rival evangelists as a misconstrual of the biblical text. In Genesis the promise to Abraham occurs three times, only once prior to the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 12:3). Within OT Scripture the promise is to be understood as a promise that takes for granted the covenant of circumcision, rather than, as Paul presents it, one that is independent of that covenant. The rival evangelists might further have taken issue with Paul on the basis that the word “Gentiles” is not found in Genesis 12 but only in the later passages (Gen. 18:18; 22:18). The precovenant promise in Genesis 12:3 has rather “peoples” (often correctly translated “tribes”), which does not serve Paul’s purpose of making a direct connection between this text and the gospel he preaches to the Gentiles.

Moreover, Paul’s opponents may legitimately have found it hard to understand how Paul could find scriptural support for his contention that the Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. In Genesis the Gentiles are promised blessing, not justification. And when in other parts of Scripture there is an expressed hope for the inclusion of the Gentiles it is inclusion into the covenant (e.g., Isa. 56:6).

Nevertheless, Paul considers himself to have Scripture on his side. Here as elsewhere, Paul interprets Scripture with the understanding that he has been granted authority to see clearly its meaning since, as he says in 1 Corinthians 10:11, “These things … were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” In the face of his opponents Paul boldly asserts that those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.

Paul appeals to his converts’ self-perception as those who believe, which later he will use effectively in distinction from those “who rely on observing the law” (3:10). The Greek phrase hoi ek pisteōs, which reads literally “those who are of faith” (the Greek of 3:10, hosoi … ex ergōn nomou, is literally “those of works of law”) conveys the sense that there is a recognized group of people who distinguish themselves as believers. Earlier in the letter Paul can speak of “the faith” (1:23), expecting his readers’ sympathetic attachment to that word. Paul now works his argument on the basis of his readers’ self-understanding as “those who believe” (see also 3:9, where those who have faith is a translation of the Greek phrase hoi ek pisteōs, which is identical to the one in 3:7, translated “those who believe”). Since his addressees are “those who believe,” they are children of Abraham.

The Greek reads literally “sons of Abraham,” resonating with 3:26 (“sons of God”). The significance of “son” in this context is that it highlights the metaphor of inheritance, since in the ancient world the son was the inheritor of the father’s legacy. The words understand, then should be read imperativally. Paul is commanding the Galatians to recognize what they have already implicitly accepted about themselves and to understand the consequences of such self-understanding: because they are believers they are sons of Abraham.

The curious phrase the Scripture foresaw is a way of saying that God foresaw (cf. Rom. 9:17). Paul, along with other Jews, could refer to Scripture speaking or acting. In the Mishnah (Kerithoth 6:9) it reads: “R. Simeon says: Everywhere Scripture speaks of sheep before goats.… Everywhere Scripture speaks of the father before the mother” (trans. Danby, p. 572). It was understood that when Scripture spoke or acted, God spoke or acted.

In Paul’s interpretation of the Scriptures, Abraham is the first recipient of the gospel that Paul now preaches—a gospel in which “God would justify the Gentiles by faith.” This is a powerful rhetorical move on Paul’s part: he claims Abraham as not only the first one to enact the gospel of justification by faith (3:6) but also as the first one to know about it (3:8). The good news that God declares to Abraham is that all nations will be blessed through you. The Greek reads “in you” (en soi). Being “in Abraham” is to benefit from (be blessed … with [3:9]) Abraham’s character and position. Being “in Abraham” is to be faithful (3:9) and righteous (3:6).

Paul wraps up and pulls together his thought by stating that believers are blessed along with Abraham. By referring to blessing Paul neatly deals with one of the problems his earlier use of the Scripture has caused—that in Genesis the Gentiles are promised blessing not justification. But he makes clear that he understands that the blessing is to be shared along with Abraham, who is the man of faith, the one who believed and so is righteous (3:6).