Last week we learned a new spiritual equation. In an overview of Galatians and in the first two chapters of the book we heard that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross alone. We also learned that the Christian life is lived by faith as well.
We talked about the law. We so far understand that the law can never produce life. In fact, and this is a daring statement: It actually has nothing to do with life. Because it is opposed to life. The law only reveals sin. The passage that we’re going to read today calls it a “curse” and everyone who lives by it is “cursed.”
We’ve learned that when we believe, we receive a power, the Holy Spirit, to enable us to live a new life. All of this is called grace. We received GRACE: God’s Richness At Christ’s Expense. Whereas the law could only reveal sin, Jesus could remove it! And He opened the door for a new life.
Once we understand the principle that faith allows us to experience the new life, we see why legalism, or the law, is futile.
In the next section we’ll look at the first part of this spiritual equation: the futility of trying to link life to the law. Later on we’ll see the second part: the secret of how to live our new life in Christ, by faith.
For now, let’s read Galatians 3:1-29.
Paul calls the Galatians foolish. As a result, they were “bewitched.”
We think of the word “foolish” carrying overtones of stupidity. That’s not the case here. Paul had preached every sermon so publicly, openly, and clearly that there should have been no mistaking God’s way of salvation. In using the word “foolish” then, Paul was implying the Galatians were thoughtless, and unthinking. Their failure was that they weren’t using their powers of wisdom and understanding; they couldn’t put two and two together. These foolish thoughts, and this doctrine they were believing, are irrational. They were denying the necessity for grace, and basically declaring that Jesus’s death was unnecessary.
The Galatians are trying to gain their goal by human effort. This is one aspect of legalism. We’ll talk about legalism a bit in this study.
Paul asks them this question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit because you kept the law, or because you believed when you heard the Good News? In fact, he asked this question twice.
Then Paul uses Abraham as an example. “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Heb 4:3).
Last week we talked a little bit about Abraham receiving the covenant from God. Now we’ll take a look at that passage, Genesis 15. Because that is where this Hebrews passage comes from.
God had already promised Abram (later re-named Abraham by God) that He would make him into a great nation, and God also told Abram that this would be accomplished through offspring. Abram was 75 years old at the time (Genesis 12). Now, ten years later, God was affirming this promise with a covenant.
What is a covenant? The meaning of this Old Testament word is compact or bond; a covenant refers to two or more parties being bound together. It can’t be added to, subtracted from, or changed. It’s binding. And it’s made by passing between pieces of flesh. (Strong’s beriyth, 1285)
Read Genesis 15 from my NIV, stopping to discuss throughout the passage.
What God was doing here was “cutting covenant.” In the Hebrew this is Karat or Karath, meaning cut, and Beriyth (meaning covenant). God was making the covenant, this strong, binding agreement, and demonstrating that if He broke His covenant He Himself would be broken apart as these animals were.
It was typical in Abraham’s day to confirm an oath by this type of ceremony where animals were cut into two parts and placed in two rows. Each party walked between them and spoke their promises there. The oath would be especially sacred because of the shedding of blood. But the ceremony in Genesis 15 was different. God alone passed between the pieces of the animals, signifying that He alone stood behind the promises. It did not depend on any condition to be fulfilled by Abraham.
For Paul to appeal to Abraham is more than to appeal to just any example from history, because Abraham is the acknowledged father of Israel, and the original model, or pattern, for Israel. He was the man God started with. The prototype.
Later in Chapter 17, God introduces the symbol of the covenant in circumcision. God commanded that Abraham and all his family over eight days old undergo circumcision as a confirmation of this everlasting covenant, lasting from generation to generation. This symbol demonstrates that the people, even right down to the individual person, are interested in keeping the covenant.
That’s why circumcision was so important to the Jewish people in Paul’s time. Because it kept them in the permanent covenant with God. And that’s why the Jewish people were pushing the idea that the circumcision was necessary for Gentiles to become “children” of Abraham. They would have thought that no one could be blessed by God who was not part of the group to whom God’s promises were made, and one entered this group solely through circumcision.
“The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham” (v 8). The Gospel was told to Abraham, in advance. This is what the Old Testament is about—pointing ahead to the grace of Jesus Christ! Some people think that in the Old Testament times people were saved by their good deeds like righteous living or obedience, but we see by what we’re studying today that idea is not true. Long before even the time of Moses, God justified people without the Law. Abraham was considered righteous by God based on his trusting attitude toward God. He trusted what God had told him and what God was going to do in the future. In the New Testament, Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” Chapter 11 in Hebrews, the Hall of Faith, tells us about Abraham’s faith in 11:8-12.
Paul links the situation of Abraham to the future. He’s saying, since Abraham was saved by faith, so also are the future children of Abraham saved by faith. Abraham’s faith was the same kind as Christian faith.
Then Paul links the Law to the Promise of Jesus Christ, and His grace.
The promise of justification through faith, which was first made to Abraham, is permanent. If those promises were made only to Abraham and his immediate descendants, they might be considered fulfilled even before the giving of the law. But the giving of the law came much later, 430 years later. The law could not cancel the promise God gave to Abraham because the promise was the covenant of God. What God has once promised He does not take back.
The promises were fulfilled in Abraham’s “seed,” Jesus Christ the Redeemer. The law served only an interim function. But God’s blessing of justification by grace through faith spans the ages and God’s promise to Abraham is in effect eternally.
Therefore, we who belong to Christ are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (verse 29).
The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume X – The Epistle to the Galatians, Copyright 1953 by Pierce and Washabaugh in the Unites States of America, Published by Parthenon Press, Nashville TN
The Teacher’s Commentary, Lawrence O. Richards, Copyright 1987 by Victor Books, a division of Scripture Press Publications, Inc., Wheaton IL
The Grace and Truth Paradox, Randy Alcorn, Copyright 2003 by Eternal Perspective Ministries, Published by Multnomah Books, a division of Random House, Inc., Colorado Springs CO
Galatians, The Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary: Volume 2: New Testament, consulting editors Kenneth L. Barker and John R. Kohlenberger III, Copyright 1994 by Zondervan Publishing House
The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, James Strong, LL.D., S.T.D., Copyright 1990 by Thomas Nelson Publishers, Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville TN
Commentary on Galatians, by Martin Luther, translated by Theodore Graebner, this edition Copyright 2019 by Digireads.com Publishing
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