07/31/2022 – Day 154 – Galations 1 – 3 // When was the first promise or prophecy of the universal church?
I am going to share some footnotes from my Evidence Bible:
1:18 – 2:21: “The gospel’s universal nature was repeatedly confirmed by the broader church and the Jerusalem apostles: The first (1:18-24) was in a 15-day visit to Jerusalem followed by the Judean churches confirming Pauls’s preaching of the faith. The second was 14 years later when the non-Judiastic gospel was confirmed by the Jerusalem apostles (2: 1-10 – famine relief visit of Acts 11: 27-30. Peter’s reception of Paul’s rebuke for his Judaistic separation from Gentiles in Antioch confirmed a third time the “truth of the gospel” (2:5,14) that Paul preached in 2: 11-21.
Question: When was the first promise or prophecy of the universal church? I’m thinking of one earlier that could be inferred by God’s promise, and a later old testament prophecy that was direct.
The Jewish people considered themselves set up, they were special, they were the covenant people. What was the catalyst for breaking the barrrier so that Gentiles would be accepted as brothers and sisters in the faith?
Galations 3: 13: “Christ has redeemed us fromt he curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Cursed in everyone who is hung on a tree.”
The footnote to this verse is: “Paul had no reason to invent a crucified Messiah (whom Jews would view as cursed), revealing the humiliating depths to which God is willing to go to rescue humans from sin’s curse.” Christ’s incarnation alone was too much: Emmanuel, God with us in the flesh ? Recall the Jews believed that a man would be incinerated if he saw God, recalling how God hid Moses in the rock as he passed by, just so he would not see his face and die.
Last cycle’s post for this day, 10/17/20, has a Henry H. Halley commentary summary over the book of Galations that is a very good primer for our study lasting just today and next Sunday, through chapter six.
Soli Deo Gloria!