Law & Promise

Today on Renewing Your Mind.

When things are going well one room.

So long the regions swelling were back slipping. We sometimes say to ourselves.

If I was sweeter or kinda nice so or something… I would more justified and always sing when you do that you turn the gospel on its head.

The opposing party shall be the first teachers in Galatia were distorting the gospel he wrote a letter to the churches there was direct, some might say Cornish even calling them foolish for believing such falsehoods.

But Paul wrote this letter out of love for the Galatians.

After all, their eternal lives were at stake. That's true for us as well. That's why Dr. Derek Thomas taught a series called no other gospel in Galatians 3 from verse 15 to 2415 through 24 and previous 14 verses of Galatians 3 we saw Paul addressing the issue of Abraham, the Judaizers were insisting on circumcision and all kind of upends them mixing my metaphors, but he is a 180 on them and asks them how was Abraham saved. How was it justified.

How was he reckoned righteous in the sight of God, and he was reckoned righteous in the sight of God by faith before circumcision came into rectus so he wants to understand. He wants the Galatians to understand in the light of what's going on in Galatia what was going on in Jerusalem with Titus what was going on in Antioch with determine Paul and not famous encounter that the issue is the gospel.

The issue is justification by faith I was introduced. Abraham, there are some things in Paul that are hard to be understood. Peter says that in those of us here was 29 intermediary implies more than one but God is one and have no idea what Paul is talking about. I can give you my interpretation and I'm going now do that in the course of this lesson, but I'm not ready to be executed for this interpretation.

There are many, many hours of scholarship that I could unearth and give to multiple meanings and frankly, this is one of those statements were when I see Paul in heaven and get a moment alone with him. Just ask him what in the world did you mean in the third chapter of Galatians.

Well, let's go back to the Reformation. We've said many times that the book of Galatians was hugely influential to Martin Luther and the inauguration of the Reformation and the spread of the Reformation within your first few years of nailing those so 95 thesis statements to the castle church door in Wittenberg new server responds by quickly writing three books. One was on the Christian nobility of the German nation, followed by on the Babylonian captivity of the church and followed very quickly by one book on the freedom of the Christian man while Galatians is all about freedom for freedom Christ is made us free will see that we come to chapter 5 of Galatians, but in the course of that book, he made what some people have regarded as the most perfect expression of the relationship between law and gospel. He made these two propositions. A Christian is an utterly three-man Lord of all and subject to none. A Christian is an utterly three-man Lord of all and subject to none and then he gave a second proposition. A Christian is an utterly dutiful man servant of all, and subject to all I know to understand how we can say both things at the same time you need to understand the gospel in order to be righteous. We are wholly unable to obey God's law.

But having been made free by the gospel.

We are free indeed we are free from the demands of the law in order to justify us. We are free from its threats but were not free from its obligations upon us to obey from gratitude to obey because we have experienced grace to obey because we love God and we want to do what pleases God by the help of the holy spirit will share in this section, Paul begins by asking the question, what does the Lord not do. What does the Lord not do, and he answers it. By me because of the human example and it's going to be Abraham again verse 15 to give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant. No one knows it all adds to it. Once it is been rectified is talking about covenants. Some people think is talking about last will and testament's but I think is talking about covenants, promises, agreements that are made formal agreements, legal agreements and our lawyers and stuff are involved in, and when you buy a house and you sign a thousand pieces of paper for every conceivable contingency and once that thing is done. There's no one doing it that signed and sealed in this note taking away the snow, adding they try to conceive of every possible contingency well folks here in verse 16.

Now the promises were made to Abraham he's already introduced Abraham, Abraham, God made a covenant with Abraham you see it in chapter 12 in the season. Chapter 15 and you see it's again in chapter 17 of Genesis. He made a covenant with Abraham and once a covenant is made the promises in that covenant he would have a son he would be the father of many nations and sought on one very specific promise under Paul engages now in some exegetical fancy footwork here sooner. How I see it, he says, serves the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It doesn't say unto offsprings referring to many but referring to one and your offspring, who is Christ. What was the promise will the promise was that Abram would have a son, but he was a many sons who would be the father of a nation, but it doesn't say some success son in the singular, because what is it that actually fulfills the covenant of God makes with Abraham and the answer is Jesus. The reason why Abraham left sons and the point he wants to go on to makers Gentiles to a Abraham some sort but it does around Abraham is the father of the faith for Gentiles to spiritually speaking. He is our father. He is the father of the faith we are children of Abraham. It's one of the reasons why I was convinced of the baptism because I saw a line of continuity from my relationship with Abraham running from Genesis all the way through into the pages of Galatians and that there was a line of continuity rather than the line of discontinuity in the administration of the covenant sign and seal.

Well I think he's saying this not for the Jewish sacred Jewish Christian sake who will more than happy to have Abraham as the father but he saying this, perhaps to Gentile Christians who what is Abraham to them. They had grown up as children reading about father Abraham. Abraham wasn't there was an empty seat of Passover for the return of Elijah so all of this Old Testament stuff. What does it have to do with these Gentiles and Paul wants them to understand that the narrative of the gospel that they now believe because all the way back to the Old Testament, it goes all the way back to Abraham and the story of the Old Testament is as much part of their spiritual story as it is part of the genetics story of Jewish Christians well the point that he wants to make is that once a covenant is made, you can't undo the promises. The promises of sealed that binding. I remember when I was in a former church. There was a lady who died and I was made an executor of her will.

She didn't have a lot of money but weren't talking about the $10,000 of something and that she wanted to give half to the church in half to this custom. Under this because not paid absolutely no part in this one's life in Chile turned up out of the blue one. She heard that she was beneficiary and will and she wanted more than half until she went to a lawyer and the lawyer was a friend of mine and he told after she was quite insistent that she was so entitled to more than half of this $10,000 and I said what are you doing this it will charge $30,000 for the hours that are given to her and she only got 4000 because the promises were made and they couldn't be undone, and we want in a position to undo those promises that were made in the signed and sealed and was a legal contract and it couldn't be undone under just a teacher lesson the charge $30,000 and that's a true story and that's what Paul is talking about here. The promise that God gives to Abraham the plaintiff.

You want to make is that it comes 413 years before the giving of the law. The promise of justification, the promise of being made right to the sight of God to be believed, and he was reckoned righteous in the sight of God that came 400+ years before the law was given a month sign that the law on Mount Sinai played no part in Abraham's justification. It was over 400 years into the future of the law coming after cannot change then the provision that God made the promises that God needs in the covenant with Abraham you understand why he's taking us down this road because on the one hand he's got Jewish Christians, who are now beginning to insist on obedience to the Lord in some form or fashion in order to be justified and discussed Gentile Christians who have no relationship historical relationship ancestral relationship genetic relationship to Abraham and he wants both sides to understand the significance of the promise that God made to Abraham the promise that eventually leads to the giving of Jesus to seeds not scenes in the plural, but seemed as of one, meaning Jesus but all of this comes to pass in Jesus Christ. The law cannot undo justification by faith.

Your obedience to the law cannot make justification by faith more certain. We do tend to default that would when things are going well. When were in.

Serve on obedience when were backslidden, the whole multitude of pastoral conditions. We sometimes say to ourselves, if only I did a little bit more phone app paraded just a little bit more if I was sweeter a kind of nice or something that I would be more justified. And Paul is saying when you do that you turn the gospel on its head, and there is a tendency there is a proclivity. It's here in Galatia but there is a default mechanism within all of us to start with the gospel and to continue in the flesh to receive the spirit by faith but to continue in the flesh. And Paul says no, cannot be so. Let us click positive question. If we asked the question what the law cannot do, make us more justified because increase our justification cannot make more certain the promise that God made the example here is Abraham so what does the Lord do that again Paul isn't asking a comprehensive question here, the Reformation, for example, will divide the law into 3U6 so the first use of the law is the civil use of the law. The use of the law in providing stability for society loss. General laws that serve maintain stability in order and we call civilization, a measure of further peace and harmony in a fallen world, and the loss of function in ancient Israel the loss.

The civil laws had a civil function and then the report to John Calvin called the third use of the law and that is the use of the law for sanctification that the law provides the pattern of our obedience as Christians not in order to be justified because we are justified because sir we have a desire now within us, given by the Holy Spirit to live for Christ to live for God by being crucified and I now live for God. So what is the pattern of God living for God.

What what is that living for God look like and it looks like obeying the law so that catechisms and so on will often be preoccupied half her catechism, sometimes two thirds of the catechism will be an exposition of the moral law. Exposition of the 10 Commandments but then that's not what Paul is talking about right here Hill come to talk about that a little bit more in later chapters.

But here you still talking about justification is still arguing with the Judaizers were saying that unless you obey the ceremonial boundary markers. You cannot be assured of your justification.

So what is the purpose of the law, and he tells us in verse 19 why then the law it was added because of transgressions interesting is 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 non-intermediary implies more than one but God is one and I'm not sure what verse 20 reads and no amount of high-powered scholarship can bring for the lightest two apartments. I think what he is saying is that is longer contrasting Abraham and Moses and the law was given through an intermediary is given through Moses, but the promise to Abraham just came through God himself. God is one and so you might be suggesting that there's something in inferior to the covenant with Moses in comparison to the covenant with Abraham because of the use of this intermediary. That's a possible interpretation and therefore he's extolling. Once again the Abraham it covenant and the doctrine of justification by faith that we see in the life and narrative of Abraham, the law was added because of transgressions, and there's a sense in which Paul is saying exactly what he says in Romans seven in verses seven through 12. What then shall we say that the Lord is sin, by no means yet it had not been for the law. I would not have known sin, for I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet, but sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment. There is a sense in which Satan used the very commandment itself produced in me all kinds of righteousness, for apart from the law sin was dead. I was once a life apart from the law.

He was alive in a worldly sense he was alive in the sense that he thought he was a good person. He was alive in the sense that he thought that he could make himself right with God is like the rich young ruler, what must I do to be saved and Jesus takes him to the Lord's amazing is that the Jesus doesn't say to the rich and grew up believing the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. But this man had no sense of his need and didn't know why he needed to believe in Jesus.

He needed to understand something about this. And so Jesus took him to the law was a life they thought he was alive. Actually, he was dead. He was dead in trespasses and sins with people are dead in trespasses and sins don't think they did they think that alive, but actually there dead people walking and pauses. I was like that once, but I died and I came to life again.

I came to life in union and communion with the Lord Jesus, you see what Paul is saying here about the law. Why was the Lord given what it was given in a sense to point out to us the contours of sin and how would I know what sin is, unless the Lord said, thou shalt not covet the law that says so you must not murder. You must not steal muscle bear false witness will how would I know that the less there was also the law multiplies and sharpens and brings into focus the cycle lanes bringing into focus. The exact identity of my sins, but there's also something even more subtle about the law. The something about our fallenness that actually uses the law to exacerbate our sin, to bring forth all manner of sinfulness.

This is what the reformers call to the pedagogic use of the law is like a pedagogue.

Nepal talks sheer scripture verse 22 imprisons everything under sin is a graphic picture. The natural man imprisoned locked in a cell and you cannot get out so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe now before faith came, we were held captive. There's this imprisoned again we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. Now Paul may be speaking about in a personal sense that he was held captive in his own personal experience, or he may be talking about the era of the Old Testament that there is a sense in which the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and he may be speaking here more than what we sometimes call redemptive historical terms rather than in experiential terms. So then the law was our guardian pedagogue in Greek children teenagers sin they were tutored by guardians to who often would inflict punishment for noncompliance. You know sometimes it's like the difference what's the difference in the old covenant and the new covenant is like the difference between being at home and your parents.

There are 356 rules and then new graduates and you're on your own and you're not under all of those rules you grown up your own adults and maybe that's what Paul means here that the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. Well then, there's more because not doing theologically deep continue in our next session. In chapter 3 and verse 25 and tomorrow will learn why we no longer need that guardian that Dr. Dirk Thomas was referring to their doctor. Thomas is teaching from the book of Galatians this week on Renewing Your Mind were glad you could be with us. Paul wrote this letter to the churches in Galatia to counter the Judaizers Christians there were facing a grave error that needed to be refuted. The fact is that the church in the 21st century is in just as much danger. The gospel is being distorted in our day and we must be equipped to defend. That's why we encourage you to request this 14 part series by Dr. Thomas. It's contained on two DVDs and for your donation of any about the regular ministries we will send it your way. You can reach us by phone at 800-435-4343 or if you prefer you can give your gift online@renewingyourmind.org we see throughout the New Testament that the apostles were required to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints in the series. Dr. Thomas urges us to be well grounded in Scripture so that we are quick to do the same so we hope you'll reach out to us to request the series again. It's titled no other gospel.

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