Last Sunday, after a week of prayer and fasting, we set aside the planned sermon text, Galatians 3:15-22 and looked at Acts 1:8 instead. This coming Sunday, we have a guest speaker, Charles Shannon from Mission Church, coming to open up Galatians 3:23-29. This means we won’t have a sermon from Galatians 3:15-22, so I have provided an overview here instead.
If you haven’t yet, I’d like to encourage you to read the passage (Galatians 3:15-22) before you begin.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians is his response to some people who’ve come to this group of churches and begun to circulate a different gospel. They are teaching that, in addition to believing in Jesus, these people also need to follow all the laws God gave Israel through the mediator Moses at Mt. Sinai. This gets Paul fired up!
So far, Paul has given them three big reasons to believe that a person can be brought into right standing not by works of the law but only through faith in Jesus (2:16). Can you name those reasons?
Reason #1: Authority (chapters 1-2). Paul goes to great lengths to remind them that his gospel came directly to him from God. They would be wise to believe it.
Reason #2: Experience (3:1-6). How did these new believers receive the Holy Spirit? Was it by getting all their merit badges by law-keeping? No! it was through faith in Christ.
Reason #3: Scripture (3:7-14). First, the model for justification by faith isn’t a recent invention; that’s the way Abraham was brought into right standing with God (Gen. 15:6). Second, the person who tries to keep the law will quickly be buried by their failures. This won’t bring God’s blessing but God’s curse.
Galatians 3:15-22 provides Reason #4: History. The Apostle Paul looks back over history to highlight three events: the promise to Abraham (about 2,000 BC), the giving of the law through Moses (about 1,500 BC), and the arrival of Christ a millennium and a half later. The gist of the argument is this:
- God made a covenant with Abraham (3:15-16). You know how covenants work, right? Let’s think of a person making a will. Maybe she leaves half her goods to her son and the other half to her daughter. Later, if the son gets rich and the daughter is broke, the daughter can’t just change the will and grab her brother’s share. After it’s signed, even if the situation changes, others can’t come along and change the will. It’s the same way with the promise God gave to Abraham.
- God’s covenant with Abraham was still in place when the law came (3:17-18). The coming of the law didn’t nullify the covenant (the “will” God made with Abraham). There are two reasons for this. First, as we just discussed, the new circumstance doesn’t change the inheritance promised in the covenant. Second, the law isn’t supposed to be a new way to gain God’s blessing. No, the promise was still active and would be until the inheritor arrives on the scene. Who is that? That’s Jesus, through whom the promised blessings will flow to all nations.
- What, then, is the purpose of the law (3:19-22)? It wasn’t a new way to relate to God. God wasn’t saying, “You used to relate to me by faith, like Abraham, but now you need to earn your way by keeping the law.” No way! Instead, the law was intended to expose guilty and rebellious hearts in order to drive people to abandon all hope of self-salvation and come to God by faith in Christ. We’ll hear more on this in this Sunday’s sermon from Galatians 3:23-29.
What do we do with this?
- We need history. In response to erroneous teaching, Paul is able to reach back 2,000 years and teach these Christians what God has been doing in history. He knows how to read his Bible not just as a disconnected pile of verses but as a cohesive story authored by God. Can we do this, too? Christians can be so thrilled with the glory of Christ that everything before him can end up sidelined. We must not let this happen. For us to walk by the Spirit, refute error, and fulfill God’s purposes, we need a growing understanding of all that God has said and done, and that includes what he did in the Old Testament. Let’s read it with faith and gratefulness.
- We need the law. Really? We need something that leaves us cursed? Yes! First, the law helps non-Christians to see their rebellious and guilty hearts, driving them to Christ, who became a curse for everyone who will trust in him. Let us not shy away from impressing on unsaved people the realities of God’s holiness and coming judgment. Second, Christians need the law to show us how God would have us live holy lives. By law, I mean not kosher food laws or animal sacrifices in the temple, but the timeless moral law embodied in the Ten Commandments and reiterated in the New Testament. Walking by the Spirit means fulfilling the law of Christ.
May God continue to help us walk by the Spirit and live holy lives, pleasing to him!
Mark Mullery
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