The Law and the Promise | Galatians 3:15-29

Bible reading this morning is from Galatians chapter 3 verses 15 to 29.

Galatians 3:15–29

Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life.

Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.

Scripture does not say, and to seeds, meaning many people, but, and to your seed, meaning one person who is Christ.

What I mean is this. The law introduced 430 years later does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.

For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise.

But God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

Why then was the law given at all?

It was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come.

The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator.

A mediator, however, implies more than one party, but God is one.

Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God?

Absolutely not.

For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.

But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.

So the law was our guardian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith.

Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith.

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female.

For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.

Good morning again church.

If we're not met before, my name is Michael and I'm pastor here at GCC.

This morning we're going to be in our text quite a bit.

So if you have your Bibles there with you, it might be handy to have them open on your lap or something like that.

But before we come to these words of eternal life, would you please join me in asking the Holy Spirit to work in and amongst us.

Would you please pray with me now?

Father God, these are indeed words of eternal life.

Your word was settled in heaven.

Your gospel has been given.

And this morning as we come around your word, we would ask that by your Holy Spirit, you would open our hearts.

You would circumcise our hearts.

You would show us Christ.

And that you would show us more of him so that we would be more like him by your grace.

And we ask for this in Jesus name. Amen.

So over the past few months, we here at Grace Christian Church, we've been in the book of Galatians.

And as we've been in this book, we've seen the Apostle Paul push back on a group of false teachers that we've come to dub the legalists.

Now, he's been pushing back on these legalists because they'd been making their way into the congregations there in Galatia.

And they bought with them a false gospel to which they said people had to be circumcised and keep the ceremonial customs of the law before Christ would be of any benefit to them.

Nonsense cried our apostle.

The gospel that was revealed to him by Jesus himself was that the law not only didn't save those who tried to keep it,

but it couldn't save because it was never designed to do so.

No, the law was designed and given so that people might come to rest on God's mercy and grace as offered in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's what blew Paul away about these Galatians.

That's why he had written them this letter in the first place.

Through the preaching of the word, they come to see that they were sinners and that they needed Christ and that they would be saved through faith, not by the works of the law.

But now they'd fallen for this false doctrine of a workspace righteousness that these legalists were peddling in their midst.

That's what we saw the last time we were together.

These people and in fact all Christians come to receive the Holy Spirit of God,

not when we try to earn him through the keeping of the law,

but when and only when we put our trust and hope in Jesus Christ alone, as we see there in verse 14.

This morning we're going to see Paul continuing in this line of argument and we're again going to see him bring out the truth of his main thesis of this book.

Justification is by faith in Christ alone and not by the works of the law.

Last time we were together, Paul showed us this truth by contrasting the place of faith and the law.

Now he's going to do the same thing by contrasting the promise and the law.

He's going to do this in three ways.

First he's going to talk about the promise that saved.

We're going to see that in verses 15 through 18.

Second about the law that enslaved in verses 19 to 25.

And then third about the promise that continues to save in verses 26 through to 29.

So if you have your Bibles with you this morning, look with me at verse 15.

The promise that saved.

This is what Paul writes.

Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life.

Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that's been duly established, so it is in this case.

Now as we saw in the verses preceding what we have before us this morning,

Paul is again drawing on scripture to prove that justification is by faith alone.

And he does this by again directing our attention to when God first made a covenant with Abraham.

And he relates God's covenant-making promise to something that many of us have probably had some interaction with over the years.

And that is with legal documentation.

Now the NIV uses the word covenant here, but the Greek can also be understood as a will.

Both are correct. In fact, it's where we get our word testament from.

And Paul uses this word because he wants to get us into the mindset of when a legal will has been signed off on,

it can't then be added to or set aside after that person has died.

In fact, my family has recently been dealing with this very thing.

A family member of ours made a will, he signed it, and now no one can add or ignore what was given to his family after he died.

Also worth noting, no one is obligated to fulfill anything to get the things that he promised.

No, it's just a simple declaration of what he wants for his family.

And that's the sort of thing that Paul wants us to be thinking about here.

God made a legally binding will and he gave it to Abraham and then he signed it in blood.

We see this in Genesis 15. And thus, it can't be added to or set aside, says Paul.

To put that another way, God's will and testament for his family was enforced forever.

This is where things get really interesting.

You see, God gave promises to Abraham, as we see there in verse 16.

But notice this, he made promises to Abraham and to his seed.

But look at the point that he makes. God made promises to Abraham and to his seed, but, says Paul, Scripture doesn't say seeds.

Meaning many people, but to your seed. Meaning one person who is Christ.

Now this is where, admittedly, we need to slow down a bit here and really have a think about what Paul is saying.

Because he's bringing something out in Scripture, in that initial promise that's vitally important for us to understand if we're going to get the rest of the argument that he makes here.

You see, Paul's saying the promise of blessing that was given wasn't primarily about Abraham or the nation that would come from him.

Though Abraham and Israel were going to be very important, no, if we look at what Paul is saying here,

he's saying that there was actually a promise that was held out to Abraham that needed to be ultimately fulfilled later on.

A promise of someone coming from his family who would be the blessing to the nations.

Now church, this is astounding because basically Paul is saying that God gave Abraham his will in which he would bless the nations through him,

but the one to be the blessing wouldn't be primarily Abraham, but someone who would come after him.

One person who Paul says is Jesus Christ himself.

That was the promise and that was the gospel that Abraham came to put his trust in.

And Abraham's faith in God's gracious promise of this seed justified him.

We see that in verse 6 of this chapter.

And that said Paul, that is what justifies us before God, not the works of the law, but faith in the gospel.

And why was this important for the Galatians to know?

Why was it important that Paul started with where he did this morning with this concept of God's legally binding will

and promise about the seed that justifies those who trust in that promise?

Well it was because these legalists, because these legalists had come into the congregations and were now saying,

now that the law has come, that is now the way in which to be saved.

The works of the law is now what justifies us before God.

It's kind of like what we've just gone through as a church.

We've just gone through the entire whole process of introducing a new constitution.

We've had one in play for many, many years, but then we saw that it needed to be updated.

Thus we added new things and we set other things aside.

And so what we have now supersedes what we had then.

And that's the kind of mindset that the legalists had in regard to the promise and the law.

They said that the law superseded what had come before.

God's way of salvation had now been updated and what was, was rendered obsolete.

That's what we see Paul start to turn his attention to there in verses 17 and 18.

He argues against this very erroneous point that the legalists had been making and teaching

by saying the law introduced 430 years later

actually doesn't set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.

Why? Why? Well because if the inheritance depends upon the law,

then it no longer depends upon that promise.

But God in his unmerited favour and his unmerited love gave it to Abraham through a promise.

That church is why our apostle begins where he did this morning.

Do you see that? God made a promise. He gave a will by grace and Abraham believed and was justified.

And that way of salvation can't be added to or set aside.

That's first. The promise that's saved came first.

But in typical Pauline fashion, he anticipates the argument that the legalists are going to make here

about why the law exists at all.

And that's the next thing I want you to see here. The law enslaves.

Look at this with me at verse 19. Paul says, why then was the law given at all?

Well, it was added because of transgressions.

Now straight away, even though Paul doesn't mention Moses by name, we know how and when the law came.

It's as Paul said, the promise was given to Abraham and then 430 years later,

after Israel had been rescued from slavery in Egypt, as we heard before from Eric,

through Moses at Sinai, God gave the law.

That's what's implied there in verse 20. Moses is the mediator of this law.

But look at why Paul said the law was given.

It wasn't an upgrade or a replacement.

No, he's very clear about it. It was given to expose sin.

That's why the law was given. It was given to show us that our own works and our own law keeping abilities

are absolutely flawed from the get go.

Do you see how profound a lie that the Galatians were being sold by these legalists?

That they were being sold on. They were being told a new dawn has come, the old has passed away.

And all you need to do is keep these rules and regulations and then you'll be saved.

Church, that's the way that many still go about their lives.

Many believe that they can merit their own way before God in his good books by doing and working harder.

They've fallen for looking for a works based righteousness.

But this is the thing. Holy scripture tells us the law was never given to earn salvation.

But as a tool to show us that we need to be saved.

To show us that we're in desperate need to be rescued.

And that's the point that Paul wants to get us to here.

With the law coming in, it couldn't be an upgrade or a replacement as a way to be saved.

Because the law can't save.

No, only the promise does. And thus with the law being given, it actually means that two things were working out at the same time.

The promise and the law, they were working out, playing out at the same time.

In other words, when the law came, it didn't cancel the promise that came before.

No, not at all. It's as we read in the rest of the text here.

It was added until the seed to whom the promise referred to had come.

What are we to make of all of this? What's going on here?

Well, the promise and the law are two separate, though complementary, arrangements.

In that they operate on entirely different principles. One is about faith and the other is about works.

But they have both been given by grace.

Think about it. The promise given to Abraham, as we've seen, was all about what God would do for us.

But the law given to Moses was all about what we must do for God.

And these legalists, they had foolishly set aside the promise and had added works as the criteria to find righteousness.

But as Paul points out here, they've got it completely backwards and upside down.

The law never cancelled the promise. It never replaced it.

The promise was complemented by the law and with the coming of the seed, with the coming of Jesus, the law's purpose has been fulfilled.

This is such a powerful argument that our apostle is making here.

He's pointing out the folly of the false teachers as he's essentially saying that these legalists are treating God like a schizophrenic husband.

Like a guy who made a vow to his bride.

But then after a period of time, started to add terms and conditions to his vow to legitimize his promise that he had already made and ratified on that day.

Because if we think about it, if the law was really the new way of salvation, if God really no longer thought that we needed a promised Savior,

if he really changed his mind on blessing us on the basis of our own performances and no longer by faith in his promise,

then God himself is a liar and his own blood-signed will was rendered null and void.

But it was in fact the legalists that had it all backwards.

God states true to his promises and the law never replaced it.

Now the promise was always there and has in fact been fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ.

And thus with the coming of Christ, it was never the Abraham covenant that would be made obsolete,

but rather the mosaic law with all the codes and restrictions and types and all of that that Paul's pointing out here.

That code has been made obsolete. Jesus has come and the time of Moses was done.

So in light of that, why do you think for a moment anyone would think that they could get right with God by trusting a system that has now become totally obsolete?

As we've seen this morning, the law was never given to replace the promise.

It was only ever given to complement the promise until God fulfilled what he said he would do in the promised seed.

And Jesus has fulfilled all that the law was given for.

And so on that, what do we do with the law now that Christ has come? It's an important question.

This is something that Paul actually looks back on there in verses 21 through to 25.

As it's been said in this series before, the legalists, they're pushing that adherence to the law was the way of salvation

and that Paul was in error because he was making good law-rebiding Jews like sinful Gentiles.

But in no way was Paul saying that the law was insignificant or not at all planned.

No, the law was given by grace so that we might know our God, know our Savior, know our sin.

And so Paul elaborates on the true function of the law in the history of salvation here

by again using an everyday example that his audience would have been able to understand.

You see, by looking at these verses, he's essentially saying that the law is like a guardian or a schoolteacher.

And this is something that we do have nowadays, but the actual Greek that he uses is something more like what a rich father would have for his children.

Like a home tutor or something like that.

And usually they'd be very strict because this was in the day and age where if you rebelled or you didn't do your homework,

you'd get a rap across the knuckles. Who's old enough to remember that?

Now this teacher guardian was valuable, no doubt.

But to the little one that they were in charge of, they would feel like a prison guard.

That's the image that Paul is wanting us to see here.

Those under the old covenant, under the law, had a tutor that looked over them

and would be very, very, very good at pointing out their failings.

And in verse 23, Paul says that at that time, God's people were actually, in a way, held captive under that arrangement,

under the law before faith in Jesus came.

Held captive for a time when the law was their clearest picture in how to faithfully obey and serve God.

Now church, please don't misunderstand Paul here.

He's not saying that there was a time when God switched how he would save people, not at all.

Remember, the whole thesis of this book is we are justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.

But there was a time when God's people didn't have Jesus in the flesh,

when they didn't have the New Testament account of Jesus of Nazareth.

And so the law, it functioned like a schoolmaster, a schoolteacher or a personal tutor

that would guide them in the way that they should go until the seed had come.

We might think about the Mosaic law like a staff.

Can you imagine a candy cane for a moment?

Like a staff, the staff in the hand of the Good Shepherd,

which would discipline the sheep when they needed it,

and rein them in when they went astray, all the while guiding them in faith

to remember the promises of God about the one to come.

There was a time when that was the case.

And under that old system of things, one thing is for certain,

God's people learned quick smart that they were never able to save themselves by their own works.

But now, says Paul in verse 25,

but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

In other words, things have shifted from that old way to the new,

from the Mosaic guardian to the coming of faith in Jesus Christ.

And the whole complex Mosaic system that taught Christ in the types and shadows

has been completely fulfilled in the light and the power of Christ's coming.

Brothers and sisters, that is the function of the law.

That is why the law was given.

It was given to point and lead us to Christ.

And so what do we do with the law now that Christ has come?

What do we do with it?

Well, we don't tear it out of our Bibles and pretend that it doesn't exist anymore.

No, it's still the Word of God.

And just because the guardian has taken us to where we need to be,

and we now live in what Paul calls the age of faith, we don't ignore it.

That's why here at Grace Christian Church, we love to preach through the Old Testament,

because we can see how God has always been pointing His people to our need of His Son

so that we might be saved by Him by faith.

And so we go through the old so that we might understand our Savior in a greater way.

But I also want to point something else out to you here.

Paul isn't saying that we no longer have any relation to the morals that we find in the law.

Let's say for the Ten Commandments, for example.

It's not like Christ came and then all of a sudden God's totally fine with stealing and adultery.

What Paul is saying though is that we no longer look at the Mosaic Code as a system

to make sure that we're right with God, like the legalists were pushing on the churches.

To put that another way, we don't meditate on the law so as to fall into legalism

and start to fret over the dos and the don'ts that were given to Israel

but have been completely fulfilled in the coming of Jesus.

No, we meditate on the law because it still shows us our need for mercy and grace.

It still shows us the love of God and how we might love others.

In fact, the Reformers, they so helpfully called this the third use of the law.

Which is to say, because of the cross, because of the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God's people,

we can meditate on the law in light of the Gospel

and be motivated to walk in a way that pleases God from the standpoint of already being saved

by grace through faith in Christ.

That's the way. That has always been the way.

God justifies His people by faith and the law teaches us that.

It continually teaches us that and like a staff in the hands of the Good Shepherd,

the law points us to the Saviour of our souls

who has come to set His people free from the curse of the law.

What a difference the Gospel makes.

And that's the last thing Paul shows us here.

He again reminds us of the promise that continues to save.

We read in verses 26 through 29,

So in Christ Jesus you're all children of God through faith.

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

There's neither Jew, Gentile, slave, free, male, female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus.

If you belong to Christ, then you're Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.

That is a beautiful summary of everything that Paul has been teaching to us in this book so far.

When you give up on your own attempts to justify yourself,

when you understand the law in the way in which it was meant to be understood,

as our guardian that leads us to the promised one and how much we need him,

then by faith in him we become children of God.

That's what makes us the children of God.

The faith which is a gift.

And when we put this faith in Christ, we're clothed with Christ's righteousness

and severed from our old lives.

That's what baptism represents here.

And this miraculous work of the Spirit in our lives,

this justification by faith alone and Christ alone by grace alone,

has always been the will and testament and promise for God, of God for his children.

He's always planned and promised that Jew, Gentile, slave, free, male, female,

in other words, no matter who you are,

that he would bless the nations through faith in the seed that was to come.

And he kept that promise in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So as we end our time in this complex but powerful part of Scripture,

the Gospel would ask something of you here this morning.

Have you given up on trying to earn your place before God?

Have you given up on trying to make yourself all shiny

and acceptable before the God of the universe?

Well, as Paul said in this book, by the works of the law,

no one, no one will be justified.

It's impossible, friend. It's never been possible.

And that's because the law wasn't designed to save you.

It was designed to enslave you so that you might look to the one who was to come,

to the seed who kept it perfectly in every which way,

to the one who invites you this morning to bring nothing in your hand

and cast yourself completely upon him.

So that like Abraham, you might be clothed in his righteousness and perfection.

You are here by no mistake this morning.

No mistake.

As we see here in these last few verses, it doesn't matter who you are,

where you've come from, or what you've done.

The gracious free gift of salvation is held out to all

and given to anyone who puts their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, for those of you that have put your faith in Christ,

then the Holy Spirit of God says that like Abraham, you are heirs of the promise

and Abraham's seed.

That is how closely we are identified with Christ.

We're clothed in his righteousness and what is his is ours.

We belong to him.

We are by the Holy Spirit given to us, one with him,

and because of that gracious work, you are blessed forever,

no longer under the curse of the law.

That is your status in Christ at this very moment.

Right now, where you sit in this place, you belong to the family of God

and you are part of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the risen Lord and Saviour.

God made a promise in the Gospel.

The seed that was to come came in Jesus Christ of Nazareth

and for anyone who has faith in God's testimony in the Gospel about his Son,

Jesus Christ has been made part of God's family,

part of his people, part of his inheritance, Abraham's seed.

If your eyes have been opened that you can't make yourself right because of the law,

if you've cast yourself on the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have called upon his name,

then right now in this place, because of God's promises,

because of his unchanging will, you're a son, you're a daughter, you're an heir,

you're a member of God's family.

May the Lord help us to live in the light of the Gospel.

Would you please pray with me?

Father God, it's already been prayed from this pulpit this morning that we are such fickle people.

But Lord, you are not.

Your yes is yes.

And when you say yes to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is unchanging.

We thank you for the Gospel, we thank you for the Lord Jesus and his amazing, awesome keeping

of all that he was meant to do to buy our righteousness, to set us free from the curse of the law.

We thank you that by his blood we have been washed clean, that the cross was sufficient,

that his life, death and resurrection has been accepted in the heavenlies,

that that status of son, of daughter has been given to all those who have been called by your name.

This morning, Lord, we are asking that we desperately need you.

We desperately need you to turn our eyes upon Jesus and to look forward to him and not to our own works.

We ask you, Lord, that you would fill us with this knowledge,

that the Spirit would show us Christ more and more, that it would overflow to those around us,

that we would point people not to a church, not to the law, but to Christ.

We ask, Lord, that you would use this congregation for your will,

that you would use this congregation to be a light, a city on a hill in the city of Armidale

and that we make disciples of you.

Lord, we ask for this in Jesus' name and for your glory. Amen.