Today while folks back in the States are firing up grills, marching in parades, and watching baseball games — actually rising from bed to prepare for these activities — the group from Hillsdale visited the alleged birthplace of Abraham in Urfa (also known as Saliurfa). Muslims claim Urfa as Abraham’s birthplace. Others say that the city of Abraham’s birth, Ur, in southern Iraq, is the one referred to in Genesis. Since Urfa is only 24 miles from Harran, where Jacob had to work for his wives, Leah and Rachel, and it is where Isaac sent Jacob to find a wife, some believe that Urfa, with the family’s ties to the region, may be the real place of Abraham’s birth.
Either way, it was good to see the male Orthodox Presbyterians in the group take their identity as the spiritual seed of Abraham seriously amid Muslim tourists and pilgrims by donning the traditional head gear and thinking about what Paul wrote in Galatians (yet another part of Turkey!):
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:23-29 ESV)
Old Life 
Though many prefer to say that the Holy Spirit blesses us with Christ and all the benefits Christ has won, the pattern of Galatians is to say that the Son blesses His adopted sons with the Holy Spirit,
because these sons have been redeemed and adopted.
Galatians 3:12—“But the law is not of faith, rather The one who does them shall live by them. 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree— 14 so that IN Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham comes to the Gentiles, so that we receive the promised Spirit through faith.
This order of things is not only the order of the history of redemption, but also the order of individual salvation.
Galatians 4:1–“I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to REDEEM those who were under the law, so that we receive ADOPTION
as sons. 6 And BECAUSE YOU ARE SONS, God has sent THE SPIRIT OF HIS SON into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Redemption/ justification/adoption is the basis for giving the Spirit, the promised blessing of Abraham. As Ephesians 4:8 quotes Psalm 68: “when He ascended on high, He gave gifts to men.” Every reference to “baptism with the Spirit” (including I Cor 12:13) has Christ as the one who
gives the Spirit, not the Spirit as the one who gives us Christ. Christ’s righteousness imputed is not based on regeneration by the Spirit, because Christ’s righteousness is what Christ did outside our hearts.
Acts 2:32 “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. 33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has shed forth this, which you now see and hear.”
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McMark: Redemption/ justification/adoption is the basis for giving the Spirit, the promised blessing of Abraham. As Ephesians 4:8 quotes Psalm 68: “when He ascended on high, He gave gifts to men.” Every reference to “baptism with the Spirit” (including I Cor 12:13) has Christ as the one who gives the Spirit, not the Spirit as the one who gives us Christ. Christ’s righteousness imputed is not based on regeneration by the Spirit, because Christ’s righteousness is what Christ did outside our hearts.
RS: Of Christ gives the Spirit, but how does one get into Christ? How is one united to Christ?
1 Corinthians 12:13 “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” The Spirit is said in this passage to baptize all believers into one body.
Indeed Christ obtained the righteousness that is imputed to believers while outside of them, but that does not negate the truth that they must be united to Him. It also does not negate the truth that the Law is fulfilled in those who walk according to the Spirit. This too was purchased by Christ. In fact, the text says that as an offering for sin Christ condemned sin in the flesh so that (purpose) the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us. There is no need to separate the things that the Lord has joined together.
Rom 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
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