12) Galatians 3:8-9
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Galatians 3:8-9, ESV Bible)
Where the Old Testament Saints “Saved?”
Christians often wonder if the Old Testament saints are 'saved." Have you ever heard that question? It's problematic. Like most of these questions, the person asking it usually does not know what he means by it. What the person probably thinks he means is this: "Did Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Isaiah, and others go to heaven when they died?" What they are trying to ask is this: "Did the divine souls of the men of faith who lived prior to the atoning death of the Messiah find repose in paradise while they await the resurrection? Will those men and women who did not confess the name of Yeshua [Jesus] attain the resurrection?"
I have sometimes heard it taught that the answer is "Yes," the Old Testament saints are saved by means of special revelation. That is to say that God gave them a special revelation of the gospel, of the name of Yeshua, and the mechanism of salvation, and they therefore believed on the name of Yeshua and attained salvation.
Who can say this is not true? We have heard of such things happening before. One occasionally hears an anecdote about someone who had no access to the gospel or knowledge of the gospel, but received a supernatural revelation or visitation.
But that theory does not seem credible. To be fair, God must have done so for all of his people for all of the years up until the death and resurrection of Yeshua. And if that is the case, why did he stop doing so in the generation of Messiah? When did he stop doing so? Another way of putting this: "In the Old Testament times, God had some different means of bringing people to salvation, and it worked up until the death of Messiah, at which point people now need to believe in Yeshua." If so, that makes the "good news" actually "bad news" because, prior to the coming of Messiah, Jews received a special revelation from God, but now God has cancelled that program and that is why Jewish people are not believers in Yeshua. That's a bad deal for Jews.
Nevertheless, one often hears the idea that God revealed the gospel beforehand, at least to certain individuals such as Abraham.
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” (Galatians 3:8, ESV Bible)
Abraham’s Gospel
The Bible does display a pattern of progressive revelation. God did reveal more and more of his plan of redemption to his people as time went on, and he did grant earlier generations hints, clues, and glimpses of the future, just the same as he has granted such hints, clues, and glimpses to us. Abraham saw the day of Messiah through some revelation, and he rejoiced to see it (John 8:56).
The Bible does not give any indication that Abraham knew the name of the Master or the details of the gospel or the four spiritual laws or the sinner's prayer. To put it frankly, Abraham did not accept Jesus into his heart nor (if you prefer) did he participate in any sacraments of salvation. But if not, what does the Holy Epistle to the Galatians mean when it says that the Scripture preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham?
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saving, "In you shall all the nations be blessed."(Galatians 3:8)
The word "gospel" means "good news." Paul had his own version of the gospel, a slightly different telling of the good news. Paul's good news declared that the kingdom and the world to come are open to Gentiles too. Paul's gospel included the Gentiles. According to Paul in Galatians 3:8, the good news that was proclaimed beforehand to Abraham consisted of just these seven words: "In you shall all the nations be blessed."
The Call of Abraham
The seven-word gospel proclamation preached to Abraham beforehand comes from the call of Abraham in Genesis 12. The LORD called Abram from his home in Ur told him to leave his country and father's household and travel to Canaan. He promised to make Abram into a great nation, to bless him, and to make him into a blessing. He promised to bless those who bless him and to curse those who curse him. Then he added, "and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3).
The call of Abram is remarkable in and of itself. It is remarkable that a small, ethnocentric, tribal religion would, from its very outset, have such universal ambitions as expressed in Genesis 12:1-3. The ancient Israelites believed that all nations on earth were destined to be blessed through their forefather Abraham. It was an amazing prediction. Four thousand years later, the God of Abraham is worshipped among all nations.
Blessed and Glorified
The LORD told Abraham, "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (venivrechu)" (Genesis 12:3). The Hebrew verb (venivrechu) translated as "shall be blessed" is in the niphal form, the passive form of the verb, and this is not the usual way that this verb appears.
When the Hebrew verb barach ("to bless") appears in the niphal form, it appears as nivrach, and in this case, as nivrechu. Apparently, this looks a lot like the Mishnaic Hebrew word mavrich, based on the same barach root, and it means to "graft" or "engraft" a vine or a shoot.
With that Apostolic Age reading of the Hebrew text, Genesis 12:3 could be translated to read: "In you all the families of the earth shall be engrafted." The context of the passage makes this translation impossible. Clearly, the Torah intends us to read, "All peoples on earth will be blessed through you." The passage has nothing to do with the grafting of plants. Genesis 12 is not talking about horticulture. It is a passage about blessing and being blessed. A responsible translator would never translate the verse as, "In you all the families of the earth shall be engrafted." However, the sages are seldom accused of being responsible translators. And this is why we read in the Talmud, commenting on Genesis 12:3, as follows:
Rabbi Elazar expounded, "What is meant by the verse, 'And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you'? The Holy One, blessed be he, said to Abraham, 'I have two goodly shoots (berachot) to engraft (lehivrich) on you:
Ruth the Moabitess and Naamah the Ammonitess.' All the families of the earth, even the other families who live on the earth are blessed only for Israel's sake. All the nations of the earth, even the ships that go from Gaul to Spain are blessed only for Israel's sake." (b. Yevamot 63a)
Rabbi Elazar uses the passage to explain how two Gentile women came to be regarded as part of Israel and even mothers of the Davidic kings. Ruth was a Moabite. Naamah was an Ammonite. The Torah specifically says, "No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation" (Deuteronomy 23:3).
Ruth became the wife of Boaz, the mother of the Davidic line. Naamah became the wife of Solomon, mother of the Davidic line. How could a Moabite and an Ammonite be mothers of the kings of Israel? Rabbi Elazar says that the answer is that they were no longer to be considered Moabite and Ammonite. They had been grafted into Abraham through this blessing that God announced beforehand, "In you all the families of the earth shall be engrafted."
Paul and Romans 11
The rabbis imagined Abraham as actively involved in proselytizing the pagan world for monotheism. In his efforts to turn the world to faith in God, Abraham could be likened unto a tree of faith. As people left idolatry to embrace the God of Abraham, they are likened to branches removed from trees of other faiths. They are cut from those trees and grafted into the tree of Abraham's faith- in a metaphorical sense, engrafted into Abraham. This engrafting process is a blessing to the peoples of the earth, for only in Abraham's faith can they find truth. Thus, we may read, "In you all the families of the earth shall be engrafted."
When Paul wrote to the believers in Rome, he addressed the Gentile God-Fearers in that community, "You were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree ... although a wild olive shoot, [you] were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree (Romans 11:17, 24).
The grafting parable is Paul's, but the concept that "all peoples on earth will be grafted into you" is not Paul's invention. Instead, it represents an intentional misreading of the Hebrew of Genesis 12:3. Paul and Rabbi Elazar were virtually contemporaries. They lived around the same time. Either Paul found the inspiration for his olive tree parable in the same misreading of Genesis 12:3, or both Paul and Rabbi Elazar shared a common source. At any rate, Rabbi Elazar's imagery is consistent with Paul's theology.
The verse that Rabbi Elazar intentionally misread in order to arrive at the engrafting metaphor is the same verse Paul quoted in Galatians 3:8, the same verse he referred to as "the gospel that was announced "beforehand to Abraham."
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." (Galatians 3:8)
The gospel preached beforehand to Abraham was not the full revelation of how this promise will be fulfilled. It was not a special revelation of the death and resurrection of Yeshua in advance.
According to Paul's theology, the gospel as it was preached to Abraham was: "In you shall all the families of the earth be blessed by being grafted into your faith." To Paul, the phrase, "All nations will be blessed through you," is the gospel. That was Paul's gospel.
Abraham "believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Galatians 3:6-9)
Referneces
This lesson was curated from teachings from First Fruits of Zion “Holy Epistle to the Galatians.”