1. We are Justified by the Same Faith today as Believers were in the Old Testament (vs. 6-9) – It’s not like in the Old Testament they were justified by works and in the New Testament we are justified by faith. No, it’s always been about faith. We have the same Gospel, in the OT as we do in the NT. In verse nine, God called Abraham “the believer”. So just like Abraham believed that ‘God would make him a great nation and all the families on the earth would be blessed’ (Gen. 12:2-3), we need to believe that God is gracious and He cares for us. It was not Abraham’s works that saved him, it was his faith, and because of this faith that God counted him as a righteous man. This was and still is a miracle of God motivated by His grace.
2. Christ Redeems Us by Becoming a Curse for us (vs. 10-14) – These verses really get to the heart of why we need faith which allows us to be forgiven because if we are not forgiven we are cursed. We need to understand two things here:
2.1. We are all under the curse of God’s Law – we are guilty before God for breaking His Law, we are condemned by God, we are separated from God, and finally we are hopeless without God.
2.2. Christ Came Under the Cross of God’s Judgment for us – literally, He became the curse for us. By becoming the curse he covered our guilt, endured our condemnation, suffered our separation, and his death overcame our hopelessness.