Gal 3:6-9 - Abraham heard the gospel

This post has been a long time coming. but I did get other posts up including my short, medium, and long definitions of the gospel. I'm sure these definitions will be altered by the time this blog covers the use of the 'gospel' noun and verb in the New Testament, but they will work for now. I've decided to leave some assessments of the texts I look at open for additions from you. This text is a good example.

I've skipped over a large section of Galatians since the last time we delved in because there is no use of the 'gospel' verb or noun and the main concept of that section was covered in the post, "Galatians and gospel logic."

There are plenty of passages that directly speak about how the gospel was promised beforehand and this is one of them. Here's the interesting part: It has to do with being descendents of Abraham and fulfilling that promise of God to make a people for himself. Here's the text, Gal 3:6-9 (NRSV):

6 Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’,⁷so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.⁸And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.’⁹For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

 The verb, 'gospelled before' is in verse 8 and is the single occurrence of the modified 'gospelled' verb (essentially adding a prefix making it past-tense).  It refers to the gospel having been told to Abraham. The gospel that was declared was that all nations would be blessed in him. All who believe (Jews and Gentiles alike) are descendents of Abraham and therefore blessed with him. It seems to me that the text is saying that when we have faith in the gospel we are blessed because we are brought into Abraham's family.

As this is the 2nd last occurrence of the word in Galatians, I should also touch on how its seems that Paul is saying the 'promise' or 'blessing' or 'inheritance'  is the Holy Spirit himself (3:14) who we live by leading to eternal life (6:8-9). Paul again reiterates, after his long explanation about how it is only through faith in Jesus and what he has done, that we are Abraham's descendents (3:29).

Why do you think this is such an important point for Paul?
How does it change how we view the gospel?
Do you think I need to integrate this more into my definitions? How?

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Gal 2:6-14 - Acting in line with the gospel

There are many Christians who live out of sync with the truth of the gospel and it was no different in Galatia in the 1st century. I have already stated in previous posts on Galatians that Jesus fulfilled the law and that the Galatians' problem had to do with living inconsistently with the logical implications of that fulfillment. The some of the details will come out later in Paul's letter, but for now, we'll look at Gal 2:6-14 (NRSV):

⁶And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those leaders contributed nothing to me. ⁷On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised ⁸(for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), ⁹and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was^* eager to do. 11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; ¹²for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. ¹³And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’^*

There are two instances of the word 'gospel' (v7 [only once in Greek, but put twice in English for sake of clarity] + v14) and I contend that they are still talking about the same basic message about Jesus and what he has accomplished. Verse 7 doesn't reveal much about the gospel itself, but rather that Paul got it right and was not made to change anything. The second instance confirms what has been said thus far about the Galatian controversy, namely that the problem is not that they don't know the gospel, but that they are not living in light of the gospel (in line with the logic of what should naturally follow). The Greek word only occurs once in the entire New Testament so I should point that out. "Acting consistently" is ορτηοποδεο (Strongs 3716) with the following definitions: 1) to walk in a straight course 2) metaph. to act uprightly. Both options say exactly what we've established about following what has been taught concerning Jesus.

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Gal 2:1-5 - Paul's Gentile gospel

 Today's "gospel" text is Gal 2:1-5 (NRSV) which has 2 nouns:

2Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. ²I went up in response to a revelation. Then I laid before them (though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain. ³But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. ⁴But because of false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us— ⁵we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you.

 Paul goes to Jerusalem because of a revelation (not of Jesus or to do with the gospel) and takes the time to explain what he preaches to Gentiles (non-Jews). "Preach" or "proclaim" in v2 is not "gospelling," but "to herald" as with news from a king or ruling authority with the implication that whatever is announced is to be obeyed). He is here seeking to confirm that the message of the resurrected Lord, Jesus, he has seen himself is the same message as they preach also having seen the resurrected Lord.
The fact that Titus was not compelled to be circumcised and that false believers were spying on Gentile freedom in Jesus the Messiah (Christ) has to do with the truth of the gospel. I have already posted on Galatians and the logic of the gospel, but I think it makes the most sense to say the implications of the gospel are the freedom of not following the law, including circumcision, because Jesus has fulfilled the law.  To say that living in freedom from certain restrictions of the Jewish law such as not having to be circumcised are the gospel itself doesn't make sense unless we say all other effects or implications are the gospel. We would basically have to say the entire Christian faith is the gospel itself. The distinction between implication/effect and the gospel itself will be shown in later posts. However, this text and the previous post I've linked to above demonstrate how inseparably linked the two are. If you distort the freedom we have you distort the gospel itself and if you distort the gospel itself you distort the freedom.

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Gal 1:16 gospel (verb)

Here's a quick post on the use of 'gospel' from Gal 1:13-17 (NRSV):

13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. ¹⁴I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. ¹⁵But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased ¹⁶to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, ¹⁷nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

 Literally, verse 16 says "...so that I might gospel him..." (it can be a verb as in this case and verse 11)  Paul is speaking about 'gospelling' God's son, aka Jesus. This is very similar to Friday's post, so I won't go into much detail except to point out that we see once again the gospel as a message about making Jesus himself known.