Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith …
Summary: The power of God to know the future is revealed in the Bible.
Many years ago, I experienced what might be called a ‘revelation.’ It had to do with accepting the Bible as the Word of God. Before the revelation, I saw the Bible as a book “about” God. It seemed like most people I talked with saw the Bible this way, too.
When I was in college, I studied the Bible from a “historical critical” perspective. I discovered people have an infinite number of opinions about how the Bible came to be written. Every opinion is based on the premise that people today can “know” what people thousands of years ago were thinking and why they did what they did.
Of course, the idea we can “know” why people did things is ridiculous. Opinions are just guesses. Nobody can “know” what is in another person’s mind today, let alone thousands of years ago.
Weighed down by doubts about who wrote the Bible and why, I found myself doubting everything in the Bible. How can we have any confidence in what the Bible says if we don’t know who wrote it or why?
Then, it hit me: If God could create the universe and everything in it, he could get a book published, too. And when he did, it would be just the way he wanted it.
This was a major turning point in my life.
I stopped questioning everything “about” the Bible and accepted it as a message from God. How God wrote the message is a minor question compared to the message itself. I started listening to God’s Word as if he wrote it personally, because he did.
Paul affirms this revelation about God’s Word in today’s passage. The reason Scripture can “foresee” something is because God can foresee everything. God reveals the future to us when it suits his purposes. Sometimes, that purpose is to benefit people who are born two thousand years after the words were written.
As important as Abraham’s descendants are to God, they are not the only people God cares about. He created all of us, and he cares for all of us. He wants us all, Jew and Gentile, to be freed from the power of Satan’s grip so that we can return to him through faith in Jesus.
Application: Have faith in Jesus! Trust God’s Word!
Food for Thought: How would things be different if God had never intended to allow Gentiles to be justified by faith?
If we aren’t justified by faith I guess we would never be justified. All Gentiles would be lost in their sin with no hope. So I guess we should be thankful that we are justified by faith through the work of Christ.
Romans3: 19 – 26: Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, as attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
25God presented Him as the atoning sacrificei through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand. 26He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
Thank you, Rich.
I agree! I think part of my question had to do with how the Jews responded to Jesus. What would “Christianity” look like if God had not intended to include Gentiles?
How would things be different if God had never intended to allow Gentiles to be justified by faith?
We would have no New Testament, and much of the Old Testament would not exist, and the majority of mankind would be left to their own devices as described in Romans 1:26-32.
And … “God gave them over to a depraved mind.” (Romans 1:28)
Yes, I guess that does sum it up rather well.
Thanks, Ron!