Which laws?
October 20th, 2007
Galatians 3:15-18
To give a human example, brethren: no one annuls even a man’s will, or adds to it, once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offspring’s,” referring to many; but, referring to one, “And to your offspring,” which is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no longer by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
Theology and Practice
Whether or not you have the patience to look with me for half an hour at Galatians 3:15-18 depends in large measure on the way you live your life. This text has nothing in it that is immediately practical. It has to do with the theological content of the Abrahamic covenant and the historical and theological relationship between that covenant and the law of Moses, which came 430 years later. If you live your life on the basis of spiritual pep pills that give an immediate emotional charge and specific practical guidance, then you will have a hard time with the next 30 minutes. But if you live your life on the basis of an ever-deepening understanding of the ways of God in Scripture, you will relish Paul’s theology in these verses and seek to enlarge and (if necessary) correct the theological foundation of your life.
I said that the text is not immediately practical. There are profound implications for practice here, as we will see; but to see and experience them requires a process of thought. The implications for what we should be and do, do not lie on the surface. But I hope and pray that at church we are not so immature and impatient that we think texts like these are useless. I hope we can see that when texts like these take root in our understanding, we become like sturdy trees planted by streams of water, whose leaves do not wither, who do not get blown over by false teaching, and who keep on bearing fruit when the shallow plants have all dried up.
Don’t Live by Works of Law but by Faith in Christ
To see what Paul is about here in Galatians 3:15-18, we need to go back and follow his line of thought up to this point in chapter 3. First, in 3:1-5 Paul makes clear that you must putt with the same principles you use to drive. If you received the Spirit of God through faith in Christ at the beginning not through works of law, then the only way to go on empowered by the Spirit is by faith not by works of law. Some of the church members in Galatia had been bewitched into thinking that you start the Christian life by faith, but you complete yourself by works. The Spirit is sort of a booster rocket to get you going, but then your own engines kick in and the flesh completes what the Spirit began. Paul says, No! That nullifies grace and dishonors Christ. Not only justification but also sanctification is by faith, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Second, in 3:6-9 Paul supports this view further with the example of Abraham and the teaching that the only way to be a child of Abraham is through the faith Abraham had. The blessing of Abraham comes not to those who show their merit through works of law but to those who trust the promises of God as Abraham did.
Third, in 3:10-14 Paul makes the same point in a different way. He says that if you do engage in works of law, you are under a curse (3:10). Anyone who takes the gracious railroad track of the law on which the locomotive of the Spirit is pulling us to glory in the Pullman car of faith, and lifts that track up on end, and turns it into a ladder on which to climb to heaven by works-the person who does that with God’s law is under the law’s own curse (2:18). For such a misused law (legalism) is not based on faith, but the law of Moses taught faith and condemned the pride of works. Yet, even though we are all under a curse for the sin of pride, Christ came precisely to redeem people like us from the curse of the law (3:13). He became a curse for us. And the result, in verse 14, is that instead of a curse we now inherit the blessing of Abraham; that is, we receive the Spirit when we trust Christ.
In other words, in all three paragraphs so far in chapter 3 the point has been: you can’t become a complete, sanctified Christian, you can’t become a child of Abraham, you can’t enjoy the promise of the Spirit, if you are living by “works of law” instead of by faith in the Son of God (2:20). The effort to keep the law as a means of obliging God or man to bless you is a transgression of the law itself (2:18), and it brings a person under the law’s curse (3:10). So the Judaizers are wrong to teach the Galatian Christians to supplement their faith with works of the law, and Paul is bending all his efforts in this book to cure Christians of such deadly legalism.
I really hope this answers your question about laws and how you should live according to the Bible. The New Testament was written later, the old testament written much earlier includes many things about the birth of Christ, and the savoir that will come. I would hope you would see it as one book, and that the two sections compliment each other, as they do.
Ron Von Fricken
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:29 pm
There is no plural to offspring. Offspring’s is possesive, not plural. Offspring is both singular and plural. As is deer. The deer crossed the road…We don’t know how many…It could have been one or 1,000. You have to say: many deer crossed the road, or he had many offspring. So we do not know if it refers to one or many offspring.