God preached the
gospel to Abraham long before Paul preached the gospel to the Galatians. The
Scripture – the voice of God – embeds justification by faith as the basis of
salvation in the Old Covenant, not just the New Covenant. Furthermore, the
faith that saves is a faith that depends on the cross-work of Christ for
salvation in advance just as much as after the fact. The content of faith
changes, but the basis of salvation remains the same. Salvation is always faith
alone by grace alone. Abraham did not know before the cross what we know after
the cross, but he believed what he knew from God. He was saved based on what we
now know Christ did on the cross. Abraham’s faith was credit card faith, and
our faith is debit card faith, but all faith saves on the basis of what Christ
did on the cross.
Paul lays out these truths in Galatians 3:8.
“The Scripture, because it foresaw that God justifies the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham (saying), ‘All the nations will be blessed in you.’”
The main subject and verb of the sentence is “the Scripture (ἡ γραφὴ) preached the gospel beforehand (προευηγγελίσατο) to Abraham.” The Scripture is personified as the voice of God, so God preached the gospel before the gospel we now know. The verb “preached the gospel beforehand” (προευηγγελίσατο) is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, Septuagint or the Jewish apocryphal writings, but Philo uses it to mean “announce the good news in advance” of the event (Longenecker, Galatians, 115). God announced the gospel (good news) in advance of the event on which the gospel was based, namely the cross-work of Christ.
What, then, is the gospel (good news) that God preached beforehand?
The content of the gospel before the gospel is introduced by a quote (Meyer, Galatians, 110). The ὅτι is a recitative ὅτι, meaning that it acts as quotation marks and should not be translated. The quotation that defines the content of the gospel is, “all the nations will be blessed in you.” Paul intentionally conflates Genesis 12:3 and Genesis 18:18 to create this quotation. Paul substitutes “nations” (ἔθνη) from Genesis 18:18 for “tribes” (φυλαὶ) in Genesis 12:3 (Meyer, Galatians, 110). He emphasizes the word nations or Gentiles instead of families or tribes because he is dealing with Gentiles who were not under the law. God will bless the Gentiles who are not under the law with the same blessing He gives to the Jews who are under the law. The good news is that law-keeping does not save you. Faith alone saves!
What is the content of the blessing?
Paul makes clear in the previous clause that the content of the blessing of God is justification by faith. The Scripture saw in advance (προιδοῦσα) that by faith (ἐκ πίστεως) God justifies (δικαιοῖ) the Gentiles (ἔθνη). The Scripture embeds justification by faith in the Abrahamic blessing. The participle “saw in advance” is best understood as causal (Burton, Galatians, 160) as opposed to circumstantial (Longenecker, Galatians, 115). We know that God preached the gospel before the gospel because the Scripture foresaw justification by faith in the Abrahamic covenant.
The verb “justifies” (δικαιοῖ) is a present indicative but future to the participle to see in advance. Paul is speaking of the present event in his day that Scripture foresaw in Abraham’s day, making justifies by faith a general principle describing what God does in every age (Burton, Galatians, 160). God justifies people in every age by faith. There is no other way to be justified by God. God’s promise to justify all ethnicities by faith is the blessing God announced to Abraham. The verb “will be blessed” (ἐνευλογηθήσονται) is passive, indicating that God, not we do the blessing. The blessing of justification by faith is an act of God’s grace, not our works.
F.F. Bruce argues that Paul engages in midrashic interpretation here. In other words, Paul was reinterpreting the Scriptures in the light of later revelation, namely the cross-work of Christ (Bruce, Galatians, 156). I don’t think so. This is not midrash. The gospel (good news) is truly embedded in the Abrahamic promise. Paul is not reinterpreting Genesis 12:3. He is interpreting (explaining) what God preached to Abraham. The fact that Abraham didn’t understand all that God was saying does not make it midrashic.
Many demonstrate a confusion between the content of faith and the basis of salvation when they look at the gospel in the Old Testament. Abraham didn’t need to know all about Christ to be saved by the work of Christ. The work of Christ (righteousness) was applied to Abraham by his faith in what He knew God had told him (Gen. 15:6). The content of faith changes, as we can plainly see through progressive revelation. The Old Testament saints were just as saved as we are, but they didn’t know the content that we know today. The basis of salvation never changes, however. The cross-work of Christ is applied retroactively by God to those who trusted Him before the Christ event.
“This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26)
