The Relationship of Jewish and Gentile Believers to the Law Between A.D. 30 and 70 in the Scripture

196 this promise underlies Paul's thinking is clear because of the reference in the next verse (3: 7) to the "sons of Abraham" and his reference to the "seed" of Abraham developed in 3: 16ff. More importantly, however, Paul directly clarifies the message which Abraham received in 3:8 as "the gospel preached beforehand" adding force to the suggestion that the focus of the comparison between the Galatians and Abraham is that both (1) received a message of promise ("message of the gospel" and "promise of offspring") and (2) in turn were granted the blessing from God (the Spirit and justification). 150 In this way Paul's emphasis is not so much upon the response of Abraham as it is the promise which he received. If this point is correct then it would reinforce Hay's point that Paul's route to Abraham is through Christ and not through faith. If the statement in 3:29 summarizes his point (and it would seem that it does) then Paul's strategy is to show that "if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring" rather than "if you have faith like Abraham you • _, are his seed." Bruce also notes that Paul's logic in Galatians 3 differs from Romans 4 that Abraham was justified by believing before his circumcision because it would not have effectively answered the crisis in Galatia . He says the Galatians "might well have answered that they were justified by faith while they were uncircumcised, as Abraham was ; that they proposed to accept circumcision after being justified by faith , as Abraham did ; and that for them, as for Abraham, circumcision would be a seal of the justification by faith which the had received in their uncircumcised state . " 151 This may well be why Paul argue for the uperiority (3 :1-9) and priority 152 (3 : 15-18) of "promi e" to " law ." Thi then lead to Paul ' pr liminary conclu ion ( a pa) in : 7 that "o l l I 0 Ibid . 1 'Brue , alatian , 154-55 . 1 2 and '' h u nd th " 17 .