Galates 3:8

And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith.

The Scripture foreseeing

I. God foresaw that He would justify the heathen through faith.

II. Foreseeing this issue, God announced it by word of mouth to Abraham.

III. Moses recorded it in the spirit of prophecy.

IV. Paul justifies this use of scripture here, and in Romains 15:1, and 1 Corinthiens 10:1. See also 1 Pierre 1:11.

V. We may apply it to the New Testament.

1. The Scripture foresaw and provided against the doctrine of the supremacy of Peter, which is the foundation of the Papal claims (Galates 2:11, etc.; Éphésiens 2:20; 1 Pierre 5:1).

2. Against mariolatry (Luc 8:21; Luc 9:28). (Dean Goulburn.)

The foresight of Scripture

The Old Testament is endowed with foresight of the New; the New with foresight of things that should come after in the history of the Church. The Scripture expresses the prescience of its Divine Author. Nor is there any ground for confining this prescience to great events, and the solemn crises of ecclesiastical history. God foresaw us, with the circumstances into which we should be thrown, the characters which we should exhibit, the temptations to which we should be subjected. Writing in the spirit of foresight we may well conceive then that He has dropped a word for each one of us somewhere in His book, and that this word will find us out, and come home to us if we study it under the light of prayer. (Dean Goulburn.)

The gospel

I. Its antiquity--preached to Abraham.

II. Its universality.

1. In its objects: heathen, all nations.

2. In its terms: faith.

III. The slowness but sureness of its development: foreseeing.

IV. Its gratuitousness: justification

V. Its blessedness.

1. Fellowship in Abraham’s privileges on earth.

2. Fellowship with Abraham in heaven.

The universality of the gospel. Salvation is for all the sinful family of man. The plan is vast, immense, worthy of God. The arms of Divine love are open to embrace all. All nations are invited to the life-giving waters of God’s grace. Let the sons of wealth come, and they shall be welcome; let the hardy sons of toil come, and they shall quench their thirst; let the ignorant come, and they shall be made wise unto salvation; let the young come, and Godwill be their guide through life; let the aged come, and they shall find peace at the eleventh hour. (Thomas Jones.)

The worst are justified by faith

Mr. Fleming, in his “Fulfilling of the Scriptures,” relates the case of a man who was a very great sinner, and for his horrible wickedness was put to death in the town of Ayr. This man had been so stupid and brutish a fellow, that all who knew him thought him beyond the reach of all ordinary means of grace; but while the man was in prison, the Lord wonderfully wrought on his heart, and in such a measure discovered to him his sinfulness, that after much serious exercise and sore wrestling, a most kindly work of repentance followed, with great assurance of mercy, insomuch, that when he came to the place of execution, he could not cease crying out to the people, under the sense of pardon, and the comforts of the presence and favour of God,--“O, He is a great forgiver! He is a great forgiver!” And he added the following words,--“Now hath perfect love cast out fear. I know God hath nothing to lay against me, for Jesus Christ hath paid all; and those are free whom the Son makes free.”

The gospel is

I. Old as Abraham: the promise given to him contained the spirit of it--the assurance of it--the power of it, for he was justified by faith.

II. Comprehensive as the world: it includes all nations--offers them the same privileges--on the same terms.

III. Unchangeable as God: it is His purpose.

foreseen and predicted--steadily advancing with the course of time--must be fully accomplished in the happiness of all nations. (J. Lyth.)