Galatians 3:6

6. Even as These connective words imply that the last interrogation has the force, as often, of a strong affirmation.

Abraham So in Romans, written near the same time, Abraham is adduced as an illustrious exemplar of faith. The notes on Romans iv are essentially a comment upon this passage. But, as Prof. Lightfoot has fully shown, Abraham had long been a standing model of faith in Jewish literature, both among the Greek-Jews of Alexandria, of whom the chief representative was Philo, and among the Rabbinical Jews of the Babylonian school, who retained much of ancient tradition. Thus, in the Apocrypha, ( 1Ma 2:52 ,) Mattathias, father of the Maccabees, enumerating a line of Hebrew worthies, begins with “Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness?” And so in the Rabbinical school it was said, “Great is faith, whereby Israel believed on Him that spake and the world was. For as a reward for Israel’s having believed in the Lord, the Holy Spirit dwelt on them… In like manner thou findest that Abraham, our father, inherited this world and the world to come, solely by the merit of faith, whereby he believed in the Lord; for it is said, And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness.” A doctrine of faith essentially, yet not wholly, true, existed, therefore, in the pre-Christian Jewish Church. The faith extolled by the Jewish rabbi was too often an intense doctrinal monotheism, a mere bigoted sticking to Judaism. It was said. “As soon as a he is to be loved and forgiven, and treated in all respects as a brother; and though he may have sinned in every possible way, he is, indeed, an erring Israelite, and is punished accordingly; but still he inherits eternal life.” Hence faith was not only a supremely meritorious virtue, but a substitute for other virtues. St. Paul and Christianity reconstructed the doctrine of faith in four ways: First, in Christ crucified there was presented a new object of faith, awakening the profoundest emotions of our being; second, in the substitutive atonement there was conditioned an abandonment of all self-merit, all merit in the faith itself, and a salvation purely gracious was substituted; third, the faith by which this salvation is attained is a complete surrender of the whole being to Christ and to all holiness of heart and life; fourth, that holiness of life, springing from the heart, is wrought in the being by the gift of the Spirit, which is by Christ bestowed consequently upon the faith. Paul’s Galatians had had the crucified One presented to their faith, and accepted, (Galatians 3:1;) they had received the Spirit and run well; yet after having entered into the full glory of the Christian faith they were relapsing into the cold Jewish twilight.

Accounted… for righteousness Not that the faith was so great a merit that it became a righteousness of character; but by this faith Abraham gave himself over to God, and was by God pardoned of his sins, and accepted, and strengthened into a holiness of soul and conduct. Notes, Romans 4:3-4; Romans 4:16-17.

The Christian faith and blessing being identical with the Abrahamic, Paul shows the Galatians how they are going out from Abraham, Christ, faith, and grace, into Moses, law, judgment, and curse. So far from becoming truer sons of Abraham by circumcision, they are going out from the Abrahamic sonship.