TRANSCRIPT:
Galatians Chapter 3, I'll read verse one through to verse number nine. This morning, "O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Just as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed.' So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham."
Father, we ask that You would speak to us now, O Lord, and that You would send Your Spirit to drive Your words found in Your holy scripture into the inner recesses of our hearts, that we might be persuaded that You are a God who is faithful, a God who saves. They might be persuaded, Lord, even of our own salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord this morning. We ask it in His precious name. Amen.
We've been considering Galatians Chapter 3, and last week we looked at the argument that Paul was making, the first argument in this section that was just read—an argument regarding the salvation that the Galatians experienced as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit. He is demonstrating to the Galatians that what you experienced should be well enough to testify to you that the gospel that I preached to you is true, and then why would you turn from such a gospel? "O foolish Galatians, are you being bewitched? What's happened here? Don't you remember what happened to you when you were converted? Don't you remember even what God's doing now amongst your midst? And He's not doing it because you're keeping the law so well; He's doing it because of your faith in Christ Jesus, that you have rested solely in the work of Jesus Christ."
So, he shows them the experience of faith and how, through the Holy Spirit, they had these spiritual experiences of God's grace in their lives as a testament to the truth of the gospel. But now, in verses six to nine, Paul will give them something even more concrete. Now, you might say, "What can be more concrete than experience? I thought seeing is believing. Seeing is one of the senses that we have. We see; seeing is believing. I mean, what could be more concrete than an experience?" Well, what is higher than experience? And what Paul brings out here is none other than the testimony of Scripture. And he moves from this argument from their experience, that they would look within themselves as to what God had done in their lives as a result of their faith in Jesus Christ, and now he moves them even to something more concrete, more foundational, which is the truth of the Scripture. He gives them, as it were, a more sure word of prophecy, as 2 Peter 1:19 puts it. "We have also," Peter says, "a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do well that you take heed." What is he referring to? Well, the disciples of Jesus saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain with their very eyes and experienced Jesus transfigured. And Peter says, "Even though we saw Him, and even though we heard His God being pleased with Him from the excellent glory, you know, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, hear Him,' he says we even have a more sure word of prophecy than that, than what we saw, than what we heard on Mount Transfiguration. We have even a more sure word of prophecy that has come to us in the scriptures, for the prophecy," he says, "came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."
The scripture given to us by God, you see, the scripture is supreme in the ascertaining of truth. Jesus says it: "The scripture cannot be broken." Experiences are always subject to fallibility. One man put it this way: an experience can be like one in four, you know, you could have a true experience, and then he gave a few others, I don't remember them all, but he says you could have something, for example, that is like a hallucination-type experience, you could have an emotional experience, you could have a demonic experience, and all these things take place in your senses, all these things you might say, "I saw and I heard," but scripture, this man says, is one out of one. It's always a hundred percent what God says always is. And although we may not interpret it accurately, we always know that we're dealing with something concrete, something objective, something that is beyond the sense of man, that resides in the truthfulness of God Himself.
And Paul shows the concreteness of God and scripture and how when God speaks, scripture speaks. And it says that in verse number eight of this text. He says, "And the scripture," listen, he personifies the scripture, "and the scripture foreseeing," when now the scripture has eyes, "that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached," so now the scripture has a voice, "the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed.'" What's amazing is there was no scripture when Abraham was spoken to by God, but what Paul is saying is what we have regarding scripture is the very Word of God, so that what the scripture says of us, what God said, is what God said. And when God speaks, scripture speaks. And so, what we have here in this passage of scripture is this concrete relationship between the Word of God as in God's Word spoken and scripture. And so, he's saying this is something that we can depend upon, consistent that God magnifies His word above His very name. That's why he has no problem here, Paul has no problem here saying, "The scripture foresaw," and "The scripture spoke," even though it was God speaking those words to Abraham.
And so, Paul wants the believers to see that their teaching of justification by faith alone is not just something that happened in their experience as a testimony to its truth, but they need to get back to scripture and see that this happened long before Paul was writing his epistle. This goes all the way back to what God said to Abraham. And why is this important? Well, this is important because we are not called upon as believers to live on experience alone. In fact, the Word of God says, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." And if you look at Deuteronomy chapter 8 and the context in which that is given, it becomes quite interesting. God says, "I allowed you to grow weary and hungry and all these kinds of things in the wilderness so that you might know and learn that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds in the mouth of God." You know what He's saying to them? "You do not live on God's provision alone, the manna that comes from the wilderness, although we do live by that, but you are to live on God's Word finally and fully, so that when you're in the wilderness and you cannot see blessing, or it seems to you to be quite dim, you go on in light of the promise that what God promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob will be the inheritance of His people, Canaan."
And God wants His people to live on His word. This is important for us. We go through the same struggles even now. This was the confidence of Martin Luther. He had all kinds of experiences, difficult ones, all wrestles in his mind and his emotional life, and this is what Luther said. He said, "Feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving; my warrant is the Word of God, naught else is worth believing. Though all my heart should feel condemned for want or lack of some sweet token, there is one greater than my heart whose word cannot be broken. I'll trust in God's unchanging word till soul and body sever, for though all things shall pass away, His word shall stand forever." And Paul points the Galatians to that very word that will stand forever, although their experience may be up and down, they can find concrete assurance in the truth of God.
And so, he gives a scriptural example, a scriptural truth, and draws a scriptural conclusion. In chapter number three, verse number six, he gives the example: "Just as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness." Yes, you have believed in God; it's been accounted unto you as for his righteousness. "O Gentiles, don't be bewitched. What has happened to you? Your faith is the same faith just that Abraham also demonstrated and had." And he gives this scriptural example that takes the mind of his hearers back to the book of Genesis and beyond that, even to the father of the faith, Abraham.
Now, this is a very powerful argument because the Judaizers were really hung up on Abraham. And in fact, they were making their case, most likely, for the truth of their false gospel—not true gospel—they were making their case to show that their gospel was true by means of Abraham. Abraham was circumcised; Abraham did this; Abraham kept the law of God; Abraham, Moses, and he going on to that, that's the children of God. And Paul takes them back to Abraham and shows, no, no, it wasn't really like what the Judaizers are saying concerning him.
You see, the Jews placed a misemphasis on Abraham. For them, being of Abrahamic descent was everything to them. In John chapter number 8, verse 33, when Jesus was confronting them concerning their sin, and they basically said to Jesus, "We be Abraham's descendants, and we have not been in bondage to anyone. We're safe because we belong to Abraham. You can trace our lineage all the way back to the father of the faith." John the Baptist, when he's preaching there by the Jordan River and calling people to repentance, he says, "Bear fruits worthy of repentance," and he says to the Pharisees, "And do not say to yourselves that we have Abraham as our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones." And what he's saying is that being a child of Abraham is not dependent on your descendancy. God can raise up children to Abraham from stones. So, do not be dependent on your lineage in order for you to be safe in the sight of God, in order for you to be considered as accepted in God's sight. There's no blessing of salvation apart from repentance.
But the Jews emphasize not only Abrahamic lineage; they also emphasized Abraham's faithfulness, and not Abraham's faith. They get this: Abraham was faithful, but for the Jews, everything depended on Abraham's faithfulness because Abraham was faithful, he was accepted by God. And there are two places in the Apocrypha, which are those spurious books that should not be in your Bible but were upheld by many of the Second Temple Judaism Jews in that period of time of Jesus's days, that emphasized the attitude that the Judaizers also had about Abraham. I'll read to you two places here: in Maccabees, 1 Maccabees chapter 2, verse 52, "Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness?" You see that? Here we have in the text of Scripture, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness." In Maccabees, we have, "He was proved faithful in the offering up of his son Isaac, and that was imputed unto him for righteousness." You can see the difference in emphasis.
In Ecclesiasticus, or Sirach, it says that Abraham was a great father of the multitude of nations, and no one has been found like him in glory. Look at this: "He kept the law of the Most High and was taken into covenant with Him." Get the order: "He kept the law of the Most High and was taken into covenant with the Most High." Is that the order that the scripture puts it in, as was read to us today? No. God calls Abraham graciously into His covenant mercy by grace. Abraham believes God and is counted to him for righteousness, and then demonstrates his faithfulness to the God of the covenant. And in the Judaizers' mindset, and in the mindset of many of the Jews of that day and even today, it's Abraham's faithfulness that makes Abraham who he is, and therefore, you keeping the law just like Abraham makes you accepted in the sight of God.
You can see how the gospel was corrupted and perverted in that period of time, but the emphasis of scripture, which is Paul's emphasis in this text, is in verse number six: "Just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." That righteousness was not given to Abraham because he was faithful; the righteousness came through faith in Jesus Christ, in God's promises to Abraham concerning the seed and the blessing that was to come. God graciously called Abraham out of paganism. Get that: Abraham was in the Ur of the Chaldees; he was not a good law-abiding Jew when God met him in Genesis chapter 12. He was just one of those numbers of those people in that generation that broke God's law when they tried to build a tower up to heaven in Babel, and they were dispersed among the earth. Abraham was along in one of those lines; he was one of those people among the pagans of the world. But God, in mercy, called him out and said, "Get out of your family and out of your kindred and out of your country, and I will show you a place that I have prepared for you." And he listened to the Word of God, and he heard the call of God, and he believed in God, and ever before Abraham was circumcised, Genesis 17, and ever before Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar, Genesis 22, he was counted righteous in God's sight by faith, Genesis 15:6. That's the quote here in verse 6 here, and that's very important to get this understanding because the Jews are focusing on the circumcision of chapter 17 and of chapter 22 when he offers up Isaac on the altar, but Abraham's justified way before then when he believed in God and God's Word when God came to him and spoke to him.
And Abraham's faith was an objective faith; he believed in God. You see, it says that here: "Abraham believed God." He believed the Lord. It wasn't just that he had this feeling of faith in his heart. God appeared to him; God revealed Himself to him as the God of the Covenants, and God revealed His covenant promises to Abraham. And what did Abraham do? He believed in God; he believed what God had revealed to him regarding Himself and about His promises—the promises of a land, the promises of the offspring, the promises of blessing, which all had their culmination and pointing, if I could say, to the Lord Jesus Christ, who would be that final seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head.
But Abraham's faith was not only objective in God; it was a real, true faith that was in revelation, the revelation of God. Abraham's faith was a persistent faith. You see, it wasn't just Abraham said, "I assent to these truths of God intellectually." There was a faith that he persisted in; it was transformative. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but he did not stagger at the promise but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And his faith was also demonstrative; it demonstrated his faith in circumcision by obeying God's commandment to him at the sign of the covenant, and in also his obedience to God in the offering up of his son Isaac, whom the Lord spared by His grace. But everywhere you see Abraham going, this man who believed God and was accounted to him for righteousness creates and builds altars to worship God, demonstrating his faith and his love for the God of the Covenant who appeared to him.
You see, Abraham did not just say, "I have faith." His faith was a living faith, as is all justifying faith. And Paul's argument in this passage of Scripture is found in verse number seven, and he's simply saying, "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham." And what he's trying to say is that what makes you part of the family of Abraham is having the faith of Abraham, that you believe in this God that has revealed Himself in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, that you believe in the God of the Covenant, that you believe in the God who saves, the God who calls out of darkness, the God who delivers and rescues. You believe in that God in our Lord Jesus Christ, who has made Himself known, and it will be accounted unto you for righteousness, and you'll be Abraham's son.
I get this is a very confronting; he's telling Gentiles that you can be Abraham's son through faith. Nothing more could offend the Judaizers: "Abraham's son without circumcision? Abraham's son without faithfulness to the law?" Yes, because Abraham was justified and accepted by God by his faith in the promise of God. And so shall it be for all those who trust in God. You see, it's not about reliance on the law, which we'll look at next week as it delves into verse number 10, but it's the faith that one has in Christ Jesus that makes one a child of God. "For as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God, even to those that believe on His name."
And so, we sing with the Sunday school kids, "Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you, so let's all praise the Lord." Right? Why? Why can we say that, sing that to Gentile children? Why can we sing that as Gentile adults? Because of verse number seven: "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham." And this is what God shows through the example of Abraham to strengthen the Galatians in the truth of the gospel, that they do not need to go back to the law, they do not need to hear the Judaizers to be accepted before God. They are the children of Abraham, and the children of Abraham are the children of God, and that by faith.
And then he gives a scriptural truth, and in verse number eight of this text, he talks about the truth of scripture, and he shows that the gospel blessing that God spoke to Abraham had a view towards the Gentiles, meaning that the Gentiles were not like God's plan B, or it's not like the Gentiles were not really in God's mind and with view to God's covenant mercies. No, not at all. In fact, it was through Abraham that all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. And listen to how Paul puts it in verse number eight: he says, "And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed.'" Isn't that beautiful? The scripture, God preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand with a view to the Gentiles.
Now, Paul's saying, in other words, Paul's saying, "God saw this day." It wasn't going to begin and end with Abraham, and it wasn't going to begin and end with the nation of Israel and with the law of Moses. All this was in type and in shadow and in fulfillment of what God was going to do in the latter days, in that He would gather together His people from all the nations, and they will be His people, and He will be their God, from every kindred, every tribe, every tongue, and every nation. They will sing the praises of God, and they will be forever in His sight. Why? Because God made a promise, and the promise that God made was not just to Abraham, but it extended even before Abraham. Get this, he says here in verse number eight, "In you all the nations shall be blessed." What is the indication? What is the implication? That all the nations are cursed, that all the peoples of the earth are cursed. You see what's happened here, and you'll find this throughout the Bible as we'll go through it in the next couple of weeks a little bit more, but at the very beginning, at the beginning of the time when Adam and Eve fell and disobeyed God, what happened? The blessing of God was, as it were, snuffed out from the earth and from the people. They were born in sin, lived in sin; God's face was turned from man. He no longer caused His face to shine upon man because of man's sinfulness. And God cursed the ground; He cursed man; He cursed the woman, and He cursed the serpent due to sin. And because of the curse, there has been this separation from God, and there's been this absence of blessing.
But what did God say in the middle of His curses? He said, "But there's one coming, the seed of the woman, who will crush the serpent's head." That was the glimmer of hope of the blessing of God, that God, in the midst of curses, would, in covenant mercy and grace, be saving His people, the seed of the woman, and would finally and fully have His Son as that seed of the woman that will come and defeat and destroy sin and the curse and Satan and the whole cosmos—not just the Jews, not just Abraham, but the whole cosmos will be relieved from the curse ultimately and finally by this one, the seed.
And when God was speaking to Abraham, saying, "In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed," Paul's saying, He had in view this day in which I'm writing to you, Galatians. You Gentiles, you're blessed just like Abraham was blessed. Why? Because God promised to deal with the curse through His Son being made a curse for us. It's a beautiful thing in this covenant of grace and in mercy. God would restore blessing to the nations so that Jesus could say, "And I say to you that many will come from the east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and with Jacob in the kingdom of heaven," all because of the mercy of this gracious God who declared grace in the midst of fall and curse.
And what he says here, Paul then is basically saying, there was only one gospel ever—a gospel preached in the presence of Adam and Eve, a gospel preached to Abraham concerning the promise of a blessing of the seed to come. Yes, not as vividly and clearly as we understand it and know it today, but nonetheless, the blessedness of the gospel. And Paul's saying, that's the same gospel that I received on the road to Damascus, and that's the same gospel that accords with the believers and the Apostles there at Jerusalem, and that is the same gospel that you have believed and has touched your experience, Galatians, and that is the same gospel that Abraham believed and was accounted righteous in the sight of God.
I love it. It's not just about what's happened there at Jerusalem. All the way back to Adam and Eve, all the way back to Abraham, all the way through, God was speaking mercy and peace through the seed of the woman. That was God's grace extended to men. And in the unfolding of God's covenants, He was bringing this all to fulfillment in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Paul's saying, "You believe in that Jesus; you're Abraham's son."
And the scriptural conclusion then, in verse number nine, is this: "So then, those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham." You are equally blessed and justified just as Abraham was if you share the faith that Abraham has. Blessed are those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and are saved. Blessed are those who cease from their own works and trust alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ. They are the ones that are blessed by God, as it says in Acts chapter 3, verses 25 to 26, "You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' To you first," that's to the Jews, "to you first," indicating there's a second, that's going to come to the Gentiles, "Peter's preaching here, 'to you first, God, having raised up His servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.'"
You see that there? The curse, sin; blessing, turning away from your iniquities, being received by God through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, Paul can say in Romans chapter 4, verse 7, "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin."
This then is the assurance of our faith in what? In the authority of Scripture. Have you believed? Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Then you are blessed with believing Abraham. You say, "I don't feel blessed." Did Abraham feel blessed when he had no children for many years, even after God promised him that he would? Did Abraham feel blessed when God promised him a land that he inherited by promise but never in his life did he span and walk the whole land and inherit it? Did Abraham feel blessed when God said to him, "Go offer your son, your only son, on Mount Moriah as a sacrifice to Me," and he was torn in his heart and tested by the Lord? Did Abraham feel blessed when he sinned in going into Hagar, contrary to the promise of God, which said, "I'll give you a son from your own seed"? Do you really think Abraham always felt on the mountain with the Lord in the midst of blessing? Oh, but he's blessed. Why? Because his sins were covered by God, and because he was justified and declared righteous in the sight of God through his faith in the Lord.
You see, his blessedness was not rooted in his circumstances but, as I said before, his faith was in the covenant of God and the God of the covenants. He believed God and was blessed. He was not looking to his circumstances for his blessing or looking for the receiving of the experience of his blessing at every point and judging whether or not he's blessed or not. God made an oath to Abraham, and Abraham knew that God cannot lie. And the Bible says that we have this same confidence, which is a strong consolation and an anchor for our soul, just as it was for the soul of Abraham.
You see, he found in God his shield, his exceeding great reward. He was ultimately blessed not because his herds had exceeded those of his neighbors or because he had more land than those around him. He was blessed because of his relationship to God, because the curse of sin was broken in his life, because he was counted righteous before God. God now caused His face to shine upon Abraham. God received Abraham because he believed on the Lord, and Abraham was blessed because of his covenant union with God. This was his strong consolation; this was his hope.
Do you believe in His promises? Do you believe in the promises that God has made for us? You see, you may not inherit the promises now; you may not experience the promises now, but what God is saying to us here is that you are blessed despite whether or not you taste of the fruit of Canaan now or not. You are blessed because God has brought you in, in relationship with Himself, not counted His trespasses to you, and made you and declared you righteous in His sight.
Look, our Hebrews chapter 11 puts it, if you'd like to turn there, in Hebrews chapter number 11, I'm gonna read verse 1 and then jump down to verse 8. It says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." Verse number 8, "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. Listen to this, and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive, and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged Him faithful who had promised." I love that. She judged Him faithful who had promised. She didn't judge herself faithful so that God would reward her for her own faithfulness; she judged that God is faithful, what He said He'll perform.
Verse 12, "Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead," that's Abraham, "were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore." Verse 13, listen very carefully, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them."
God would say of Himself that "I am the God of Abraham, I am the God of Isaac, and I'm the God of Jacob," not because Abraham was good and faithful, not because Isaac was good and faithful, not because Jacob was good and faithful, who supplanted and whatever he did, but because God, in mercy, committed Himself to them in covenant love, and they believed in the Lord. And what he's saying is they were blessed, but they didn't inherit the promises in their lifetime. They were like strangers and pilgrims, and their eyes were set upon that which was further. They were looking toward heaven; they were looking to what God had said, and they went on in the strength of the promise of God. And although they never ate of the fruit of Canaan , I tell you, they ate from the fruit of heaven because God did not fail in fulfilling His promise to them and brought them into true Canaan.
What am I saying here? All these believed in the Scripture. They were not looking to their experiences. Yes, of course, I'm sure they looked in many a time, like we do, but their solid rock was upon the Word of God, and they went on, although they were not seeing and tasting all the promises that God made. By faith, they saw them; by faith, they ate them. Abraham rejoiced to see My day and saw it and was glad.
Let me ask you this this morning: Have you put your experience above the Scripture? Maybe you're wrestling today in your heart and mind about whether or not God loves you, whether or not God forgives you, whether or not God will have mercy on you, if He's just out to get you and punish you and make your life a misery. Let me ask you this: Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? "But I don't feel forgiven." Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? What does God say of you? "I don't feel righteous." What does God say of you? Has God declared you righteous? Let God be true and every man a liar, including your own selves, including your own feelings, including your own accusations that come to your mind by Satan and by the flesh and by your own inner workings.
You don't feel blessed because things aren't going the way that you thought God would do them. Who are the ones that are blessed? But those that are blessed with believing Abraham and have trusted in the Lord. You see, to believe in Scripture is to believe God, and the sooner you and I cast our souls and our hearts and our minds upon this solid rock, we will have rest, and we will walk by faith and not by sight.
The hymn writer says, "How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word! What more can He say than to you He has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?" If you have fled to Jesus for refuge this morning, you have trusted in the blood of Jesus Christ, you are blessed with believing Abraham, and God receives you because of His Son, and you have believed in His Son.
But if you have not believed with Abraham, you are not blessed. The curse of God remains on you, and you must flee to refuge in Jesus and find mercy and find forgiveness and have your sins washed and cleansed forever, and have God judge you as righteous in His Son. And then you will know what it means to have God's face shining upon you. Then you'll know what it means to be blessed in Christ Jesus with all spiritual blessings, whether you feel it or see it or not.
Let us pray.