Scripture: Galatians 3:6-14 (NIV)

So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Retroactive continuity, otherwise known as “retcon” or “retconning”, is when events that have already happened in a fictional series get new meaning or context by something that has been produced since but is set before. It happens a lot in most any long-lived series. A flashback episode shows what really happened or references something in an episode you’ve already seen, getting you to look at it in a different light.

Star Wars has a number of these instances–Obi-Wan Kenobi’s “certain point of view” discussion about the death of Anakin Skywalker comes to mind–but one that also fits the bill relates to Rogue One. Obviously the story of how the Rebellion got the Death Star plans wasn’t a known fact when A New Hope arrived in theaters in 1977. George Lucas probably had some vague idea of how it happened but it definitely wasn’t official. After the original trilogy came out, many various scenarios of how the plans were stolen came out in video games and stories, but nothing that was set in stone.

After Rogue One came out, detailing the heroic efforts of Jyn Erso and her crew, it put a different light on everything that happened in the galaxy after that moment. One of the smallest was to explain something that, most likely, didn’t need to be explained. In The Empire Strikes Back, Rogue Two is the one that finds Luke Skywalker and Han Solo on the snow fields of Hoth, but Luke is Rogue Leader. There is no Rogue One mentioned. It now has been retconned that Luke, when establishing the squadron, left the call sign “Rogue One” blank to honor that intrepid mission. (It also showed why Red 5 was available as a call sign for Luke when he joined up for the Battle of Yavin, as another example.)

Obviously, the Bible doesn’t truly retcon anything. God is not bound by time, He doesn’t think up a new idea later on and make it fit in the old ones. The plans have been there all along. However, they aren’t fully revealed to us here that do have to take things in a linear fashion.

With the coming of Jesus Christ, some of the things that happened before were cast in a new light. Prophecies that might have been read only to deal with a current situation now took on new meaning with the birth of Jesus. Things that didn’t always make a lot of sense got a lot clearer when people could directly see what God was doing. Past faithfulness became grandfathered in, as it were, to the new system of redemption.

We see that in today’s Scripture. “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” He didn’t earn that righteousness. He didn’t know anything about the Son of God and all that was coming before him. Yet because he was devoted to what God’s plan for him was, Abraham got the benefits of what Christ brought to earth even though he was hundreds of years before that first Christmas night.

We live in the light of Christ. We can’t get to heaven without believing that Jesus was the Son of God who came and died for our sins, then rose again in victory. We don’t need to have anything retconned for us because we can make the right decisions, the right choice, right now. If you haven’t made that choice yet, don’t wait! Do it today!