If you could dim the lights just a bit, please, we're looking at the book of Galatians. Today we'll be looking at Galatians 3, starting at verse 15. If you have a Bible, you can follow along. Otherwise, you'll find a text in your order in the worship. So I say to you, hear the Word of God. To give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annulls it or adds to it, once it has been ratified. Now, the promises were made to Abraham and his two as offspring. It does not say, and to offspring, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ. This is what I mean. The law which came 430 years afterward does not annull a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law, but the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith and Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Let us pray. Father, I pray this morning that you would oversee the preaching of your word. Oftentimes this text and this passage is hard to interpret, hard to understand, and I pray that you would make it clear. I pray that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. I pray that you would be in my head and in my thinking, in my hearts and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. Christ's name would pray these things. Amen. Amen. You know, in an ongoing effort to keep my daughter's education current. You know, when basically school just ended and so like every parent, I'm concerned that my daughters don't just shut down for the summer and I want to keep learning and then the summers when I like to teach them skills that are really going to do them well for the rest of their lives. And so this summer, what we've started to do is basically a marathon of watching the television show 24.
Because by watching that I figure they'll know if ever the terrorist attacks or things like that eventually. So we watched season one, we're about halfway through season two of 24. There's an interesting dynamic which I've always noticed but since we're sort of doing this marathon thing it's even more interesting. And the dynamic is this, so the question rather is this, at what point does your seat not become your seat anymore? You ever had that problem at your house? In other words, we have a relatively small house, we have a relatively small living room. Everyone gets the seat they want. You get up to go do something and you come back and someone else is in your seat. And the person says, hey, that's my seat. And the other person says, how do I know it's your seat? Does it have your name on it? But I was sitting right there and it escalates until finally someone says, Dad, get out of our seat. Which one of us? I don't care. On the other hand, there's one seat that's non-negotiable. Guess which one that is? It's not Judy's. It's mine. Why? Because I was there first. I was there before you kids, everyone born. I was there before we've already thought of having you. That's been my seat. There's no question as to whether it's mine because of just historical priority, if nothing more than the fact that I'm also a lot bigger than you. Get it. Today, we're going to talk about the book of Galatians, of course. But up to this point, Paul has been arguing. If you remember, the whole point of the book of Galatians is basically this, Paul is making the argument that Jesus plus anything equals nothing. Or Jesus plus nothing equals everything. In other words, Paul went through Galatia and he preached the gospel of free grace, this doctrine of justification by faith alone. In other words, the way you were counted right just before God is by faith alone and not by works of the law. We know from the book of Acts and other places, and certainly from Paul's argument here that people came in afterward and they started saying, well, Jesus is good, but you also need to be circumcised. Jesus is good, but you also need to obey works of the law. In chapter three, he began to address those issues directly. And the first thing he did in chapter three was he addressed the issue of whether the law is important for our salvation by basically asking the question of experience. He asked Galatians, when Jesus saved you, did he save you by works of the law? It didn't save you through hearing and faith. Crickets, right? You should have crickets because the question, it's a rhetorical question, of course, is by faith. And he said, did the same one who saved you by faith, he's now going to perfect you or finish the job by works of the law? And the answer, of course, is absolutely not. So he addressed the question experientially, then, last week, we looked at him addressing the question biblically. Are works of the law important or necessary for us in order to be saved? And interestingly enough, Paul uses the book of the law, the Torah, to show them that even the law says that the law is not enough to save you. That even the law says that the righteous will be made that way by faith. That Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him or credited to him as a righteousness. So this week, he nails another nail into this coffin of the Judiagers, the false teachers. He's gone from experience to basically just telling them what the Bible says. And this week, he's going to make an argument from history and ultimately theology. And what argument is he going to make? He's going to make the argument. We're going to look at two points today. And basically, we're going to look at the priority of the promise and then we're going to look at the purpose of the law. So what's the priority of the promise? You see, it's a question of who is there first? And not only is it a question of who is there first, but if someone comes after, can does that change the game? Let's look at what Paul says. Paul says in verse 15, to give a human example of brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one knows it or adds to it once. It has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. Just to give you some historical context here and what's probably going on is that God came to Abraham, made a promise, 430 years later, he comes to Moses and he gives him the law. And what the Judiagers or the false teachers were probably teaching the Galatians is that of course the law is more important than the promise because it's the latest thing. In other words, God reveals himself progressively and the law came after the promise, which means the law must have null or at least overshadow the promise. So the promise is good, but even God added law to the promise. That's what they would say and Paul's going to address that. And so he says to give a human example, even with a man-made covenant, no one knows it or adds to it once it has been ratified. So the first thing Paul does is he gives basically a sermon illustration. He says let me give you a human example. When you talk about covenants in the realm of law and the word here is something like a last will and testament that a parent might leave for a time. He says even in a human, in the realm of human affairs, once a covenant or a will has been ratified, you can't change it. And in the Greek system in those days, you literally could not change it. Even if you're the one who made it. Once you made the will, you everyone signed off on it and you filed it with the public records house, you couldn't change it. In Roman law, you could change it, but once you were dead, no one could change it. In other words, law is the law. So once a contract is signed and once it's ratified, either because it's put in the public housing, you can't change it or someone dies. Even in the realm of human affairs, you can't change a covenant. Once it's ratified. How much more do you think God's promises and God's covenant will be binding? That's what Paul is doing with this. So what does he say next? He says, now the promises were made to Abraham and his offspring. It does not say and quote to offspring, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ. Now Paul does something interesting here because the word offspring is an interesting word. Family is a similar word as well. If I said is the word offspring plural or singular, what would you say? Most of us would say, what's plural? But it's not. The word offspring is singular. Just like the word family, as I said, the word family singular or plural, when you say your knee jerk, mine would be to say it's plural, but it's not. It's a singular noun that refers to a plural thing or plurality of things. And that's what Paul is doing here. He's sort of playing around with the grammar. So even though the promise was made to Abraham and his offspring, he's saying really what that means is not the plural offspring, but the one offspring. But Jesus ultimately is the one promised to Abraham. Remember the Abraham God said to you and through your offspring, all nations of the earth will be blessed. And Paul is saying here that it is Jesus is the true offspring of Abraham through whom all the nations and all the families in the world will be blessed. And as much as we are in him, we will be blessed too. How do we get to be in Jesus? We get to be in Jesus by faith in him. And then Paul explains further, this by the way is one most commentators would agree that this passage in Galatians is one of the craziest ones to try and figure out what's going on here. And at least at one point, I'm going to say I don't know. So if you look at the next verse, he says in verse 17, this is what I mean. The law which came 430 years afterward does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. So what is he saying here? He said, this is what I mean, the promise, the promise was given 430 years before the law, but the promise was ratified by what? A covenant. Remember God made a covenant with Abraham. And he actually sealed it. Remember in Genesis 15, God comes to Abraham. And he has a covenant ceremony. He tells Abraham, okay, I'm reiterating the promise to you. We're going to have a ceremony to in blood to make sure this happens. And he cuts animals in half. And in those days, what would happen is the big king and the little king would have to walk through the animals and say, if I don't obey my side of the covenant, maybe what happened to these animals happened to me. And Abraham wakes up in a dream and he realizes that God is going through the pieces of these animals by himself. So God makes the promise. God ratifies the promise. And God actually promises to take on the curses of the covenant if it's not ratified. And he says because this covenant was made by God, the law that comes after doesn't annul it. The law that comes after does not annul it. And the key to all of this, ultimately, is the offspring. Notice Paul says, verse 18, he says, for inheritance comes by law. It no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. By definition, an inheritance comes to you by grace. It comes to you because someone gives it to you. You can't work for an inheritance. I mean, I suppose you could make the argument that you're working for it, but that's really not an inheritance. You've earned it. An inheritance is something that is given to you. And God gives the promise. He says, but came through the law that it wouldn't be an inheritance anymore. It wouldn't be grace anymore. And if you remember, the one in whom all of these things come together is the person of Jesus. Why is this offspring so important of Abraham? We'll find that out when we look at the purpose of the law. Look at the purpose of the law next. In verse 19, Paul asked the logical question, why then the law? And he said, as he answers, it was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. And it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. So Paul asked the logical question, it's interesting when I'm studying. Every time I'm going to preach through a text, I literally go through it and I type out every word of the text and outline it. And as I'm typing things out, I'll ask questions in the margin. And as I was typing out these text, the first question that came to my mind is why then the law? Well, good is it. And then I got to verse 19 and well, whoa, Paul's anticipating that question. Paul anticipates that if he says that the promise came before the law, the law doesn't know the promise. The law can't change the promise. The law is not by grace. The law doesn't give you an inheritance. The question you're going to ask is, so what good is the law? Why bother with the law? And that's a big question, of course, for some people who are recovering Pharisees or ex Pharisees, what good is the law? What purpose is the law? Do we just get rid of the laws? It all breaks, so that I can do whatever I want. And what do you think Paul's going to say to that? Absolutely not. The question isn't, is the law useful? The question is to what end is the law useful? Or what purpose is the law useful? And the first thing that Paul says is pretty interesting. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions. What does he mean there? That's one of those things that's hard to translate. It was added because of translations, transgressions. And that can mean either one of two things, really, generally speaking. It can mean it was added because of transgressions in order to restrain them. In other words, transgressions had gotten to such a point that things were so out of control that God gave the law in order to restrain wickedness. Because according to the law, you not only have that you shouldn't commit murder, but there are also penalties if you do. And that's what John Calvin's, I think, would call the second use of the law. Restrains wickedness. That you look at the law and you say, well, it says, don't murder. And it says, if I murder, I will be killed. So therefore, I don't want to be killed. Therefore, I won't murder. That's what the purpose of we use our own civic laws all the time for. Is it to restrain wickedness? Or it could mean this. And it probably actually, there's more a sense that it could mean this. Instead of Paul saying it was added because of transgressions, that is in order to restrain them. He says it was added because of transgressions. And that is in order to provoke them. In order to provoke transgressions. Remember, Paul says over and over, if you read the book of Romans and Corinthians, Paul says, I wouldn't have known what sin was where it not for the law. I wouldn't have known what coveting was where it not for the law. And once you get, but once a law is given, don't you want to break it?
I mean, I was thinking through this yesterday, and I think, you know, if my parents were smarter, they would have just kept their mouths shut because every single thing they told me not to do. I did. And that's for that reason I broke, by the time I was about 15 years old, I broke and every bone in my body, except my collarbone, including my back. Tommy, don't you go on that rope swing or you'll break an arm. Come home, arm dangling, one on the rope swing. You need to see because they told me if I shouldn't go on it, that meant there must be something about it that's important. There's something about it. I need to see it. And they said, Tommy, don't go on that rope swing again and you break your back next time. I couldn't walk home because my back was broken. I broke my back. Everything it told me to do. So instead of saying, Tommy, don't you build a ramp and put center box and glass underneath it. They should have said, Tommy, here's what you should do. The new law is this. You go out and get your new banana seed bicycle and we want you to build the biggest plywood ramp in the world. And we want you to just put center box and glass and rusty pipes all underneath it. And we want you to just go for it. If they told me to do that, I said, I don't want to. It's not exciting anymore. There's a sense in which the law provokes us. We want to see. We want to know what will happen if we do touch this though. We want to know what will happen if we just peek behind the curtain. You see the more law there is, the more opportunity there is to sin. The more tax law there is, for example, the more tax cheats there will be. Name a law and increase it and there will become more sin. Paul says the law was added in order to add to transgressions. But then he does something else when he's talking about the law. The next thing he says, he says the law was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. Remember Jesus is the one to whom the offspring had been made. But what we find out here is that the law was temporary. The law was temporary. It was given whether it was given to a restrained wickedness or it was given to a provoked wickedness. It was given temporarily until the one who would come to whom the promise had been made. The promise has priority. And so as soon as the recipient of the promise arrives, the law is gone. Now how can that be? That's because the one to whom the promise was made is also the one who fulfilled every aspect of the law. The reason the law is null now, it's not because it's not good. It's not because it doesn't have power. It's because it has been utterly and completely fulfilled. In the one to whom the promise was made, his name is Jesus of course. In the Old Testament, there are basically three types of laws, there are moral laws, there are sacrificial or ceremonial laws and there are judicial laws. What are the moral laws? The moral laws are ten commandments, things like that, fell short and not killed, fell short and not committed adultery. Jesus obeyed the moral law perfectly. He fulfilled it. He didn't sin at one time. If there's a moral law, Jesus obeyed it perfectly. Not only that but he also obeyed and fulfilled all of the ceremonial and sacrificial laws. Remember on the eighth day his parents had him at the temple. He was circumcised. He obeyed everything and not only that but with regard to the sacrificial laws, he not only was the priest who provided the perfect sacrifice but he was the perfect sacrifice himself. That in the Old Testament prescribed that a lamb would be slain for our sins. Jesus was the lamb who was slain for our sins. The Old Testament, they would take a scapegoat and they would lay their hands on it and send it outside the camp. Jesus was the one who became our scapegoat. Our sins were laid upon him and he was sent outside the camp. He was crucified and that leads to the next aspect of the law, the judicial aspect of the law. The judicial aspect of the law lays down all of the curses and punishments that should happen if you disobey parts one or two. In Jesus fulfilled the judicial aspect of the law by going to the cross and being cursed and hung on a tree for you and for me. The Jesus bore our sin, he bore our curse and bearing our curse, having obeyed the law perfectly, he completely and utterly fulfilled the law. The law has no claim on your life now. This is a law of purpose it does and we'll talk about that later but it has no claim. The law can't point its finger at you anymore and say law breaker. The law can't point its finger at you and accuse you. You know I had a great time this week. I got to teach it was it was revival week at New Beginnings Fellowship down the street and they asked me to teach they basically do a vacation Bible school for kids and an adult version that's about an hour and a half every night and I got to teach for an hour and a half every night at New Beginnings and basically I taught them Galatians and I think the greatest sort of applause line if you will but people digging clap but they certainly were a manning. It was Martin Luther's words that when Satan comes to you and the devil comes to you and the law comes to you and says to homie you are the worst sinner. You're the biggest law breaker who ever lived. You're the biggest adulterer, thief, liar, jealous angry person who ever lived but you look to devil in the eye and you say thank you for preaching the gospel to me. Thank you. You see you've just articulated the very person that Jesus came to save. He didn't come to save the righteous. He came to save the unrighteous. So when you remind me of my unrighteousness you remind me of my savior. That's where Paul's going next when he talks about the purpose of the law. Look where he goes next. Well let me point out one thing that Paul, he basically this is the law here. He says until the offspring she come in verse 19 to whom the promise has been made and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. What does that mean? Basically it's Paul sort of disin the law. In other words the promise came to Abraham directly from God, no mediator, that God himself was the one who brought the promise to Abraham. But when the law came, the law came third hand. We learned at the end of Deuteronomy that when God delivered the law to Moses that there was a host of angels there and so it came through angels, through Moses to you. So it's not even it's third hand as opposed to the promise being first hand. Is that important? I don't know, I thought it was interesting. But where does Paul go next? The reverse 20. He says now in an intermediary it implies more than one but God is one. What does that mean? I have no idea. Remember I've warned you I was going to say that. In fact the tradition is that there are as many interpretations of that one verse as there are years between the promise and law, 430. I didn't read them all, didn't have time. What most people think it means is something like the same God that made the promise makes the law or that gave the law gives the promise. God is one. It's not two different gods. There's not a god of promise and a god of law because look what he says finally. He asks the question is the law then contrary to the promises of God, certainly not, for if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But scripture imprisoned everything under sins so that the promise by faith and Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. So Paul asked again the question is the law contrary to the promises of God or they set against each other and the answer is certainly not the law and promise are not opposed to each other but in fact their teammates. They work together. They each have their own role and Paul says something interesting. He says if there was a law that could give righteousness then righteousness would come up through the law. In other words the law it's in and of itself is powerless to give you life. It's powerless to give you righteousness the law. Many of you have heard me teach this before. The law is just the law. Just like a stop sign is just a stop sign. A stop sign can tell you to stop. A stop sign can tell you that it's a good idea to stop. You can disobey a stop sign and the stop sign as you're looking at it in the rear view mirror can accuse you of having not stopped. It can make you guilty in your conscience but guess what the stop sign can't do for you. Certainly can't love you. Can't hold you. Can't forgive you. Can't comfort you. It can't do anything but be what it is. It's just a law. It's an inanimate thing. It's words on paper and Paul said if there was if there were words on paper that could bring life then God would have done that but you can't do that. You need something else and he says what happened and was the law imprisoned everything under sin. And what he's getting at here is that the law shows that everything is about us. It is sinful and that it drives us if you will to the promise. That's the ultimate purpose of the law. That's a John Calvin said the first purpose of the law was out of three. That the law reveals our sin and drives us to Jesus. It's as if it's like an ambulance. Can an ambulance save you? Ultimately it can. An ambulance can take you to the doctor. It can take you to the ER but if you just get an ambulance and sit there and it doesn't do anything, what is useless? And Paul says here's the purpose of the law. The purpose of the law is to drive you someplace. It's to drive you to the person and work of Jesus to all who would have faith and believe in the promise. So the law is not contrary to the promise but in fact the law drives us to the promise and without the law we wouldn't even see our need for the promise. Without conviction of sin we wouldn't see that we need our sins forgiven. We wouldn't know that we need a sin bearer. If you're not a Christian and you're here today think I want you to think through that when you leave. Do I feel guilty about my sins? Do I feel guilty about who I am? Well the reason for your guilt, number one is because you are guilty but also the reason is to drive you someplace. A place for your guilt can be relieved. And if you are a Christian I ask you to remind yourself of that. You know I was thinking this morning I think I printed it. One of my favorite passages I'll close with this from Pilgrim's Progress. If you ever read Pilgrim's Progress if you haven't read it you should. It's about four or five hundred years old now so you're a little late if you haven't. Charles Spurgeon read it over a hundred times it says it's wise such a good preacher and if you know the story basically it's one man's journey from being an unbelieving person through two faith and to the celestial city it's an allegory and there's a place in there where he meets someone named hopeful and he and hopeful is they're walking down the king's highway they decide they're going to take the easy way the path by the meadow and taking the easy way they're captured by a giant and the giant throws them into the dungeon of despair and the giant constantly is coming in and haranging them he wants them to kill themselves he wants them just to make them feel so guilty that they just can't live anymore and they're sitting in the dungeon and here's what Christian here's what happens with Christian. He says now a little before it was day Christian as one half amaze to break out in this passion at speech what a fool quality am I thus to lie in a stinking dungeon when I may as well walk at liberty I have a key I have a key in my bosom called promise you see earlier evangelists have given him this key called promise he says I have a key in my bosom called promise that will I am persuaded open any lock in doubting castle then said hopeful that is good news brother pluck it out of that bosom and try then Christian pulled it out of his bosom and began to try at the dungeon door whose bolts as he turned the key gave back and the door flew open with ease and Christian and hopeful came out then he went out to the outward door that led into the castle yard with his key opened that door also and after he went to the iron gate for that must be open to but the lock went exceedingly hard yet the key did open it you see if you're Christian you possess the promise already you possess the promises if it were a key in all the doubts all the troubles all the struggles do you apply the promise of the gospel or do you not do you wallow in it in your troubles in your despair like Christian and the dungeon of despair you say oh woe is me everything is hard nothing is easy ask my family to ever hear you know that to tell myself over and over again behold there's a key around my neck called promise and hopeful Judy has to say put it in the door Tommy put it in the door think about that let's pray father I do pray that you would just help us to understand the promise that is as we look at the law we would love the law because we see its purpose and its purpose is to drive us to Jesus its purpose is to take us to the only place where