Gentiles Made Sons of Abraham

In Galatians, Paul destroys the false gospel of the Judaizers, legalists who preached righteousness by the keeping of the law. Previously, Paul has shown how Abraham himself was declared righteous by God apart from works by faith in the promises of God.

But to strip the last advantage that the legalists lay claim to, Paul next declares that Gentiles who trust in God are the children of Abraham!

This takes away the last advantage of the Judaizers, who claimed that Gentiles could only be righteous people of God by circumcision and lawkeeping. No, Paul states emphatically, we are all children of Abraham who possess the faith of Abraham!

With that, the legalists' last selling point is snatched away, and the Gospel stands supreme and unchallenged as the only font of blessing to everyone who trusts in the promises of God! God counts believers as children of Abraham, and heirs of the promises made to Abraham.

Scriptures foreshadowed this astounding announcement by Paul, received from the Lord Jesus by revelation. John the Baptist had warned the legalists against smug claims of kinship to Abraham, declaring that God could make children of Abraham out of stones! Indeed, God takes poor dead sinners and makes us live children of Abraham by regeneration and through faith in the Gospel!

Christ declared that unbelief in God's Messiah strips a man of his kinship to Abraham and makes him a child of the devil.

Abraham is the father of all who trust in Jesus. We are bound in one family by the familial characteristic of Abraham, which is Faith in God's Word!

This is why God preached the Gospel to Abraham - in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed!