Sermon: Promise and Law

But this morning, Galatians chapter three verses 15 through 29, and let's go ahead and read before we open God's word together this morning,

our Father, we do pray in Word even as we just sung, that you would show us Christ this morning.

Say only in him is there life and life abundant. He alone has the words of eternal life

and we know that there is no way to you the Father, apart from seeing Christ.

So this morning and what is a long and difficult passage, pray that you would bring Christ to the forefront in our minds and our hearts as we look at it, that we would find that we are falling more in love with your son and delighting more in you, our Father

and all of this by the work and the power of your spirit we pray. Amen. Galatians chapter three verses 15 through 29, this is the holy iner, sufficient word of God to give a human example, brothers, even with a manmade covenant, no one anos it 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 offsprings 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 afterwards, does not ano 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 sins so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian for in Christ Jesus. You are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ, to put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring,

heirs according to promise. Now the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

This is, as we've said, it's Reformation Sunday and Paul in Galatians, he is battling for what will become and called the Sos of the Reformation. Uh, and we see that in this passage there is so scripture, especially though he is highlighting so so, so Christus, faith alone, grace alone in Christ alone. And I wanna do a quick overview for you of just where we're at in the book of Galatians before we see some of that. And so let's look back

because it's been two weeks since we've been in the book. So if you go back to chapter one, you see that Paul comes right outta the box in verse six. He tells them that he is astonished that they have abandoned the simplicity of the gospel, the gospel that he had preached to them as a pastor and as a preacher. And then he reminds them in verse 11 of this, he says that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel,

but rather it was the gospel that he had received from God. He had received it directly from the Lord Jesus Christ, what he preached to them. And it was the true gospel. He goes on to defend his apostleship because the gospel he preached was being questioned. And so then in chapter two he argues after he has made the case for his own apostleship, he makes the case that he has taken that gospel to the other apostles at the time James and Peter

and John in particular. And that they also approved what he was preaching saying that is the true gospel. And that leads him to verse 16, the great emphasis that he has chapter two verse 16 where he says this. He says, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works to the law, because by works to the law no one will be justified. That's a central thesis in the book of Galatians

in chapter three, he then demonstrates from the life of Abraham that this is true. So verse six of chapter three, just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness and the implication, verse 11 of chapter three is that the righteous shall live by faith. Faith in Christ. This has always been the way as Paul's contention, faith in Christ, Christ who redeemed us from the law and his messages that you galatian Gentile Christians,

you have received Christ, I preached Christ to you. You received Christ by faith. So you are justified, declared righteous before the throne of God based upon the fact that you have received Christ by faith. That's all that you needed as opposed to these judaizers who were adding law to grace, who were adding Judaism to Christianity who are adding works to faith. And he's saying no, that they're denying that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone

in Christ alone, sola gratia. So sous Christus,

but this causes questions. What about the law? Then remember the Jews for the Jews, the the laws, what marked them as the people of God? They felt like this is what set them apart from everyone and everything. What about the law then? Didn't God give the law

and isn't the gospel, this promise of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, isn't that opposed to God's law?

Notice that Paul now in our section of scripture, the warning he, he makes, makes his argument, uh, against those contentions from scripture. So scripture, he, he takes us to the text of the Old Testament and the promise that was made to Abraham, the covenant with Abraham, what is a covenant? A covenant as a a oath confirmed relationship between two or more parties. And in this case he's speaking about this covenant or this oath confirmed relationship between God

and Abraham that we see in Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 and then it given the sign of the covenant of circumcision there in Genesis 17, a covenant that that he is pointing out, Paul is pointing out, preceded the law of Moses. And so what Paul is going to do in our passage is he is going to take us on a little journey. He's going to take us from Abraham to Moses to Jesus. And he wants you to see that the common thread all the way

through is Jesus from beginning to end that the promise has not disappeared. And so first Abraham, God entered into a covenant with Abraham. That's his focus in verses 16 through 18, Paul wants us to see the the binding nature of the covenant that God entered into with Abraham covenants last. They keep going. They they aren't an old they they aren't done away with. They aren't added on to they last. And he uses that term covenant multiple times.

He does so in verses 15 and 17 and he does so to make an argument about covenants that happened between two people. If I make a covenant this morning with Steve this morning and we make a covenant, a bond to one another, that that is binding, it is not to be nullified, it is not to be a null, it's not to be added onto it, it's to be kept. And so he's making the argument, if that's true between us than how much more true is it between God

and man, that word covenant. It could be translated differently and you may in your version of the Bible, it may be translated differently, may be testament or it may be will. That's how we get Old Testament, a New Testament, old covenant, new covenant. It's the same word, the word beret. And we may think about it as that what we use it as last will and testament.

And that cannot be an old cannot be added. To give you an example, my family played a game with my grandparents that we found fun. You may find it a little morbid, uh, but as they got older in life, they liked to joke about who would inherit the things in their house. Now my grandparents never had much, they didn't have very many valuable things, but it kind of became a family joke and they would take little pieces of post-it notes

and they would write someone's name on it and they would fix it on the bottom of different things in their house. And so you knew when they passed into glory, that's mine because it's got my name on the bottom of it and there was only one thing that I really cared about and their entire house, it was this tree stump that stands about this tall and it's a tree stump that my grandfather had bought from a museum that was going

out of business and that gloriously heaven on earth placed Springfield, Illinois. And he bought this tree stump because in this tree stump it lodged a solid shot confederate cannonball. And that tree stump is from the Battle of Chick Maua during the Civil War right outside of Chattanooga. And I'm the only son, the only grandson in the family and love history. And so we all kind of knew that I would get the tree stump,

but there were moments that my grandparents when they were seeking to give me a little trouble would tease and they'd say, Hmm, I don't know. Could be that your mom's name is on the bottom of that tree stump because it's 75 pounds and it's not like you can pick it up and look underneath, but there's something much more fixed than post-It notes because when they died in their will, it said, Jason gets the tree stump. It's fixed, it's determined,

it can't be altered. And Paul's argument is, if that's true about human wills or human covenants, how much more true is that about a covenant that God makes with a man? What God promises, God guarantees and it's one of the great comforts of this world is that you and I can run our minds through the scripture and we can look page after page and we can say, that's a promise of God. It's fixed, it's on alterable, it doesn't change.

There's that refrain that God uses throughout the scriptures to speak of himself and it's very telling think, how does God speak of himself in the scriptures? And more often than not, when he's speaking of himself, he says of himself the same refrain, he says, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. That is I am the covenant keeping God. I make covenant and I keep covenant. What God promises.

God guarantees and he made a promise to Abraham. Verse 16. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring and Paul is gonna take all of this and he is going to focus upon that one word offspring. And I wanna stop for a moment and just understand this promise to Abraham in the biblical context. You gotta understand the entire context. Understand the argument that Paul is making here in Galatians three because it's rooted, this promise to Abraham, this covenant

that God enters into with Abraham. It is, it is situated in a much older promise and it's a promise that we see in the garden of Eden in Genesis three 15. It's the same language that God uses there that he uses in Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 with Abraham. You'll remember back in Genesis three when Adam and Eve choose to eat from the fruit of the the fruit of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil, that they fall in sin

and all of mankind falls with them in that first sin and all of the world falls with them in that first sin. They who had walked with God in the cool of the day, who had known intimate fellowship with him who had enjoyed the blessed life with him, now all of a sudden were forced to flee east of Eden and no longer had that intimacy with God spiritually dead. But in Genesis three, when God is meeting out his curse upon Adam and upon Eve

and upon the serpent and upon the ground, when he gets to cursing the serpent in Genesis three, he gives a great promise in the midst and he says that there shall always be enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent could be great conflict, but he says that the seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent and his heel shall be bruised.

You notice the context is that God is saying that there's going to be great conflict in this world, great conflict. There's always going to be a battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Great conflict, but he also promises hope in the midst that one born from the woman, a seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. That's what we call the progel in theology, the first gospel, the first articulation of the gospel.

Who would be the seed to come from the woman? It would be the Lord Jesus Christ's what God promises in Genesis three 15. What Paul is doing is that he's saying the same word. It's the same exact word, the word seed or the word offspring. It's the same word that is then used in Genesis 12. In Genesis 15 that Paul is picking up and he's quoting and he's saying God makes a promise to Abraham. Same word,

seed offspring. And Paul points out the promise of God that he made Abraham and his offspring, his seed. Singular, not plural, it's the seed singular, not plural.

Now just as a aside, it's interesting that both Paul and he will do this multiple times in his letters and Jesus, when he's combating theological error, they will turn to the scriptures and they will mark, they will make their arguments not just from the general atmosphere of scripture or the general teaching of scripture, but they'll go down to the very grammar and syntax of scripture. You remember when Jesus is arguing with the Sadducees

and they don't believe in a resurrection and he will go to that covenant name of God and he said, do you not know the scriptures? God says, I am the God. I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It's in the present tense, they're living.

He uses the verb tense to make his argument. Paul here uses the singular noun rather than the plural noun to make his argument. That is as a side point, you must believe in the infallibility and inerrancy of the scriptures because Paul did even more so Jesus did and made their arguments from grammar seed offspring. It's singular. Paul says in verse 16, it does not say, and to offsprings referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring.

And then he brings home the argument who is the one and to your offspring who is Christ? You'll remember these judaizers, they are promoting the need for observance of the law, for salvation in particular. They're advocating that these Gentile Galatians needed to be circumcised. And what Paul is pointing out is that you don't understand that circumcision was but pointing to the promise of God. The promise that God made in Genesis three 15, the promise

that he made in Genesis 12, the promise that he made in Genesis 15 that a seed, an offspring would come forth and crushed the head of the serpent and his heel would be bruised. That is Christ is the blessing to come

And the blessing is found in Christ all blessing. He is the promise and all promises are found in him. He's pointing out it turns the whole thing on its head when you make circumcision the focus because circumcision focuses on Christ,

the covenant with Abraham pointed to Christ.

I want you to hold on to that thought 'cause we're gonna come back to it. Paul then goes on in verse 17 to Moses, he's gone from Abraham. Now he goes to Moses and his point is this, Moses pointed to Christ, he doesn't mention Moses by name, but he's referencing the law that came. He says 430 years later the giving of the law and the mosaic covenant that God entered into with man at Mount Sinai when Moses went up on that mountain

and you remember God with his very finger will write the 10 commandments in stone that Moses comes down the mountain with. And Paul's point is that this covenant, that mosaic covenant, it doesn't anno the Abrahamic covenant. It can't. It's the same God who made the same promise. The Abrahamic covenant points to the promise of Christ. And Paul wants them to understand the mosaic covenant does the exact same thing. It doesn't anno the promise of Christ.

It is not that you can secure your inheritance. Now your salvation by works of the law as if salvation no longer comes by promise. No, this God makes promises And he keeps his promises and still the blessing of these promises comes as we receive them by faith in Christ, not the law. You don't receive the blessings from the law,

but the mosaic covenant seems to be all, all. And so Paul anticipates the questions. Look at verse 19, why then the law if salvation still is by covenant and the promised one to come Jesus as it's always been because a covenant is not an old, a covenant is not added to then why give the law to Moses? Why do that? Then he gives the answer in verse 19. He was added because of transgressions until the offspring singular should come

to whom the promise has been made,

the saviors promised. That's Genesis three 15.

It's reasserted in the Abraham a covenant that the promise has been made as I told the about URC class last week. And as I often tell them when I go in there to teach that, that Genesis three 15, that promise that provan gallium of the seed of the woman, this offspring of the woman that would crush the head of the serpent and his heel would be rule would be bruised. All the rest of the scriptures are just the unfolding of that one promise.

That's all they are from beginning to end. It's just about that one promise. Genesis three 15, each of the covenants, the noic, the Abrahamic, the mosaic, the Davidic, the new covenant, they're just the unfolding of this one great promise, what we call the covenant of grace.

They're just more distinct. They're just giving more definition, just giving more details, just more zeroing in on who this one is that is to come. That's all they are.

So let's think through it. Same salvation because it's the same God just becomes more defined, more clear. So let's think through it together. Genesis three 15, A seed will be born of the woman who shall crush the head of the serpent and his heel shall be bruised Jesus upon the crawls. So it's hard to completely see it there in Genesis three 15. But then in the NOIC covenant it looks as if in Genesis six that the seed of the serpent is winning

over the seed of the woman. It seems as if the seed of the serpent has taken over the entire world. But what God does is with Noah, he preserves the seed of the woman and so he preserves Noah and then he repopulates the earth. So the seed of the woman still comes into the world, the Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 15. We have the promise that the seed this, this offspring shall come forth from Abraham's line and the seed, this offspring will be a blessing

to all the nations of the earth

and his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the sky and he shall have a land as his descendants shall have a land that speaks of safety and security and dwelling with God. The promise is just becoming more defined. Here's this one. The seed of the woman that's going to be born into the world is going to be from the line of Abraham and is going to bless all of the nations of the earth and then the mosaic covenant.

Its promise that the siege shall come forth from not simply Abraham's line but Israel's line and not just Israel's line but from Jacob's line.

And then you go on to the Davidic covenant that the seed that shall be born from this line, it shall be a seed from David, a child of David and a child of David that shall sit upon the throne of God forever.

Well, Solomon does not sit upon the throne forever. Ray and ome his sons do not sit upon the throne forever. Now there is one to come. There's a reason that that Psalm one 10 is the most quoted Psalm in all of the New Testament because as his fulfillment of this promise

and then the new covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 37, we find that this promise, this one promise of the covenant of grace that is just being more and more defined throughout all of the biblical covenants of scripture than this new covenant. We are told that God shall take our hearts of stone, turn them into hearts of flesh, and that the law shall be written upon our hearts. The spirit shall come and then dwell us.

We shall become the temple of the Holy Spirit. No longer shall it be like in the old covenant where those, those 10 commandments, they were put into the Ark of the Covenant and there they restored. No. Now that law is going to be written upon yours and my hearts and as we are filled with the spirit, we desire to do the law of God 'cause we've received that spirit by grace, a virtue of having faith in Christ

and Jesus makes it clear at the institution of Lord's supper when he says, this is the new covenant in my blood, the promise is given and fulfilled in him. All the scriptures are just the unfolding of that one promise. In Genesis three 15, the covenant of grace is just further unfolding until it is finally realized in the person of Christ as he's lifted up on that tree and his blood is shed, his heel is wounded

and the serpent is crushed.

It's the promise of Christ from the garden to Adam, to Moses to the end of the age. And these judaizers were pitting the law against the promise. But you see they're not opposed.

Still feels like it though. And so Paul asks two questions, one in verse 19, the other in 21. We'll take verse 21 first he asks, is the law contrary to the promises of God? No. As he says in verse 20, God is one that is God cannot offer two things that are opposed to one another. The promise is from him and the law is from him so they can't oppose one another if they're both from the one God. So this leads him to articulate

what we call the first use of the law. Verse 24, he gives the law a title. He says, the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. He repeats it again in verse 25, we are no longer under a guardian speaking about the law. The law is a guardian. He says, and what does it do as a guardian? It restrains. It restrains evil.

The law can't cause heart change. That's been Paul's whole argument through the entire book. It can't justify us. We can't become righteous by observing the law, but it does restrain some evil in the world. Why? Because of its threatenings. The law like a guardian says, danger, danger, danger. You transgress this line. There's incredible pain, there's incredible suffering.

It's a guardian, it restrains.

In verse 19, he asks the other question, then why the law? And he answers because of transgressions, and this is what we call the second use of the law in theology. The law shows us that we cannot be holy before God li like a light in a darkened room. It shines upon our darkened souls and it shows how sinful they are, but the heart is deceitful above all else and that it is desperately sick.

The law makes it clear that we need the promise that we need a savior. Paul says this in Romans seven, seven, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin for, I would've not known what it is to covet. If the law had not said, you shall not covet. It shows us what is here sinfulness. And when you and I see the depth of our sin and we realize how awful we are and that we must stand before a holy God, and we look at this

and we say, ah, I can never fulfill righteousness.

Then what It does like a school master with a a heavy yardstick, it's driving you to Christ to look to Christ.

It leads us to the promise. Luther said it this way, the principle point of the law is to make men not better but worse. That is to say showeth unto them their sin, that by their knowledge thereof, they may be humbled, terrified, bruised and broken, and by this means may be driven to see grace and so to come to that blessed seed, Christ,

the law isn't opposed to Christ. It leads us to Christ to the gospel.

Patrick Hamilton, who was the first martyr for the Protestant faith in Scotland, he died at 25 years old.

He said it this way. He said, the law show with us our sin, the gospel show with us a remedy for it. The law show with us our condemnation. The gospel showeth us our redemption. The law is the word of wrath. The gospel is the word of grace. The law is the word of despair. The gospel is the word of comfort. The law is the word of unrest. The gospel is the word of peace. It drives us to Christ.

First use of the law is restrain evil. Second use of the laws as a school master, it drives us to Christ. The third use of the law is that now it becomes a way of life for the Christian.

When you receive Christ by faith, this is the blessing of the new covenant, is that the spirit comes and dwells and writes the law upon our hearts. It's no longer just something outwardly that makes demands. It's now something that you and I desire to do because we want to honor our savior. This is why the psalmist can say it becomes sweet to him, becomes like honeycomb.

The law in its three uses is not opposed to God's promise but rather reflects God's promise. In Christ, it restrains according to Christ, it leads to Christ. It teaches the believer in Christ because he is the promise.

Our salvation is in Christ alone sous Christus and that's Paul's point to close our passage, verse 26, we see again its familiar language in Christ. Our salvation is found in union with Christ through faith. As Paul says, he then underscores it. Verse 27, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, Jesus have put on Christ,

he's not referencing our water baptism. Many make a mistake with this passage here like they do in Romans six, but he's also not speaking about our water baptism. It would undo Paul's entire argument in our passage. So you, you don't need to be circumcised to receive Christ and all his benefits, but you do need to receive baptism to receive Christ and all of his benefits. No Christ is the promise, not circumcision, not baptism.

We're not saved by baptism. Neither are we united with Christ by water. It is by grace through faith. He's not speaking about water. Baptism, same word does not imply the same thing everywhere you read it. Here He's speaking about our identity change in Christ that once you are in Christ, you're united with Christ and your identity has changed. Where baptism, it denotes change. Jesus will use the word baptized to speak about his death

as a baptism. In Mark 10 38, in Luke 1250, Paul uses this term in the exact same way in one Corinthians 10, two, when he speaks about Israel, who he says quote, we're baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea as he refers to the Red Sea crossing, he, he was not referencing water there. The Israelites were not baptized in water in the Red Sea. The Egyptians were not the Israelites. No. What he's referring to is that he says they were baptized into Moses, how they,

they joined with Moses. They were identified with Moses as they crossed through the Red Sea, and so here Paul is speaking about our identity with Christ, our union with Christ Soli Christus. He's saying, new Galatian Christians, don't you understand you've been united with Christ. You already have the promise. He's telling them the seed, the offspring, the one that was spoken of in Genesis three 15, the one that was promised in the Abrahamic covenant, the one

that was promised in the mosaic covenant that you were pointed to over and over again. You have him, you've been united with him and you are united with him, not by your doing, but by faith.

And so you are Abraham's offspring because you have believed the promise, he believed, and thus you are heirs according to the promise, regardless of who you are,

whether you are Jew or whether you are Gentile, whether you are slave or free, whether you are male or female, you are, he says one in Christ.

You see the great battle of the ages between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. It is all about conflict. He's seeking to sow conflict between us and God and between one another. It's great aim and in the end it is Christ, Christ, Victor, Christ the king who reigns overall and has conquered his enemy and our enemies

and he makes us one where there's a ceasing of hostility. He makes us one with one another and he makes us one with himself

in Revelation 21. This is the great picture. You go from Genesis three 15 all the way in what was lost in Genesis three. It was communion with God. That was the great loss.

He gets a Genesis 21 and you have this new Jerusalem that is coming down out of heaven, that settles upon the earth, and what is that new Jerusalem? John says, it is a bride that has been adorned for her husband. It's us. It's the church and this new Jerusalem, the church it. It settles upon earth and then we have that great promise, the great covenantal promise. I'm the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

I am your God and you are my people. It is finally realized in all of its fullness, when God says, I will make my home among them and I will dwell with them forever,

it's then that John says there will no longer be weeping and crying and tears and death and disease.

Why? 'cause God's in our midst, the great promise of the seed of the woman that would crush the head of the serpent. The serpent has grown into a dragon by the time you get to Revelation and he crushes it

so that we might dwell with him for all of eternity, having peace with God and peace among ourselves. It's one promise, because there's one God, one savior, one salvation, and it's all by grace. That's Paul's point. It's all by grace.

It's by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

That's your salvation.

He has the victory. Let's pray together.

Our Father, we are thankful for so great to salvation in Christ

and there's not many ways, there's not many truths. It is not many saviors.

It is one Christ, one salvation, all by your grace. Pray that every single one of us would know it in this room and find that we are rejoicing and so great to salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. We pray this in the strong name of our Lord and our savior. Amen.