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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman Chapters 3 Faith Or Observance Of The Law (ch. 3:1 – 14) "O
foolish Galatians" is the way Paul opens this chapter. The Greek
word "anoetos" is the word Paul uses which means "lack of
understanding". These Galatians were in the process of loosing the
understanding about how they got saved, and how they remained saved. Paul asked the
question, "who has bewitched you"? "Baskano" is the
Greek word that is translated as bewitched. This presents the picture of
someone casting a spell on the Galatians. The occult type spell was
causing them to believe a different gospel. Jesus Christ was
"clearly portrayed" before the very eyes of these people. The
Galatians understood with clarity what Jesus and the cross was all about.
It was as if they had watched a movie on the death and resurrection of
Jesus. This is what it means
when he says, "clearly portrayed". Another
way people have put this is that Paul clearly painted a picture of the
death and resurrection of Jesus, and what it meant for those who believe. I
think we have to understand the these people had received the Holy Spirit,
and the Holy Spirit Himself would have painted this picture for the
Galatians as well. Since they
clearly understood the gospel, Paul asks, "did you receive the Spirit
by observing the Law, or by believing what you heard"? The answer is
obvious. These people received the Holy Spirit by believing what Paul
preached to them. As I have said
many times before, believing means more than giving "mental
assent" to the gospel. Of course that is part of the process, but it
is not all of the process. Believing means
giving yourself to Jesus in a trusting relationship. One thing you might
want to note here is that Paul did not say that these people got saved by
believing what they heard. He said they received the Spirit by believing
what they heard. In Paul’s mind getting saved and receiving the Holy
Spirit are the same thing. (see Rom. 8:9) Another way to put it is that
Paul believed that when a person came to Christ in repentance and trusted
Him for his salvation, that person received the Holy Spirit at that time.
A person who is really saved, really born again by the Spirit, received
God’s Spirit when he got saved, not after, at a later date as those who
believe in a so-called "second work of grace" suggest. In verse 3 Paul
calls these people foolish again by thinking that they can "begin in
the Spirit", but try to "attain perfection by human
effort". The Galatians got saved the right way. Their growth as
Christians was suspect. They were trying to grow as Christians by
"their own human effort". This is the tendency of man throughout
the centuries. We always have the tendency to revert back to our own ways,
that is, maintaining our salvation by our own good works. We get saved by
trusting Jesus, and we stay saved by trusting Jesus. We don’t get saved
by good works, and we don’t get unsaved by bad works. Let me repeat that
last statement. We don’t get unsaved by doing bad things. Bad things
will sooner or later lead us to unbelief and the rejection of Jesus. It is
the rejection of Jesus, or total unbelief that unsaves us. In verse 6 Paul
asks the Galatians to consider Abraham, who believed God. As a result of
his faith God "counted him as righteous", even though he
wasn’t. "Understand then, that those who believe are children of
Abraham". Paul is telling the Galatians that the real children of Abraham are
those who believe, those who trust, as Abraham trusted. Remember also that
being righteous means being right and just before God, just as God is
right and just. Therefore someone who trusts Jesus for his righteousness
is viewed by God as being right and just, just as God Himself is right and
just. This is good news in the light of Romans 1 and 2 that says that in
reality we are far from righteous. Let me explain
righteousness another way. Righteousness
is the state of being perfectly right in the essence of who one is.
It's not a matter of doing good.
It's a matter of being good. Doing
good and being good are two different things altogether.
When we trust Jesus with our lives, God declares us as righteous.
He declares that we are perfectly right in who we are, and
perfectly right all the time. In verse 8 Paul
says a very interesting thing. He says that the "Scriptures foresaw
that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in
advance to Abraham". God told Abraham that the whole world would be
blessed in him. The words
"justify" and "justification" is the process by which
God counts us as "perfectly right and just, as He is right and
just". So God announced in advance this good news that Paul preached,
that is, that the whole world could be made right before God if they had
faith, as Abraham had faith. Now the Jews would have really struggled with
this point. This is why the Jews and especially the
Christian Jews had a hard time with Paul. The idea that the uncircumcised
Gentiles could be made right with God, especially by faith alone, was a
hard thought to get around. Paul concludes
in verse 9 that "those who have faith (trusts in Jesus) are blessed
along with Abraham, the man of faith". The Jews associated
circumcision with Abraham, not
faith. The Jews would have said, that they were blessed along with Abraham
because they were circumcised as he was. This was no longer the case.
Paul’s gospel was the good news that salvation is by trusting in Jesus
alone. Nothing we can do, no matter how Godly it is, can save us. In verse 10 Paul
says that whoever relies on observing the Law is under the Law, and
whoever is under the Law is cursed. Why is the person cursed. Because
"cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in
the book of the Law". (ch. 3:10) Have you ever read the Law to see
all that is written in it. It is not possible to continue to do everything
that is written. So if you are trying to maintain your salvation by trying
to live under the weight of the Law, you will be doomed. You will be
cursed. It was hard enough in
Old Testament days to obey the Law of Moses.
It's even harder today, and really, it's impossible.
Our problem today in many church circles is that we pick and choose
which one of these laws we "prefer" to obey.
It doesn't work that way. Either
we try to obey all of them, or none of them.
"Clearly no
one is justified before God by the Law, because the righteous shall live
by faith". (ch. 3:11) Paul says this so many times in Romans and here
in Galatians. The Law justifies no man. Again, as I have said so many
times, if God’s Law does not justify us, then any man made law will not
justify us either. It is by faith alone, by trusting Jesus, from the
beginning to the end that saves us, and keeps us saved . In verse 13 Paul
says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a
curse. What does this mean? First of all the word redeem means to
purchase. We were once
slaves to the Law. If someone broke the Law he would be cursed and
punished. Jesus, who never broke the Law, took the curse of the Law on
Himself and was punished. By this process of punishment, Jesus bought us,
or redeemed us for Himself. Jesus redeemed
us "so that the blessing given to Abraham might come on the Gentiles
through Jesus Christ". This blessing is being "counted as
righteousness" as Abraham was counted righteous. Yet this
righteousness is through Jesus, through trusting Him, without the deeds of
the Law. There is no other way to receive this blessing. Paul ends this paragraph with the reason why we need to be viewed as righteous by God. The reason is so that we "might receive the Spirit". You see, before God’s Spirit can come within us, the sin problem has to be dealt with. Jesus took care of that by being cursed and receiving the punishment for our sin. Sin was finally punished. Of course we should have been the ones punished, but we weren’t. Jesus was punished in our place. Therefore God’s justice in punishing sin was satisfied. He could now look on us without anger and wrath. As a result, He could now give us His Holy Spirit. As long as He saw sin in us, He could not give us His Spirit. But now, He no longer sees the sin. Sin has been laid on the back of Jesus. What He sees is our faith, or our trust in Jesus. If He does not see that within a person, then that person has no other way to be made right with God. He only waits until that terrible day of the Lord when all of God’s wrath and anger will be poured out on those who refuse His provision that was made on the cross. The Law and the Promise (ch. 3:15-25) Beginning in
verse 15 Paul says that even human covenants or contracts can't be broken.
If this is the case with a human covenant, the same should apply to any
covenant God has made. Nothing can brake God’s covenant.
Besides, if you go back into the Genesis account and read all of
the promises God made to Abraham, He said that they'd be
"forever". Read
Genesis 12 and 15 as examples of this.
God does not change His mind when it comes to the promises He spoke
to Abraham, or any other promises He has spoken to any other person. Paul says the
promises God gave to Abraham were made to Abraham and his seed. He
makes a point of saying that the word "seed" is singular, not
plural. There is no "s" on the word "seed". Paul
is sure getting technical and specific here. This could be a case for our
Biblically illiterate world today. If Paul can get this detailed, this
specific and technical, so why can’t we. It seems to me that most
Christians prefer not to study the Bible in such detail. If Paul were
speaking in many churches today, making such a point, he would lose most
of the people for lack of interest on their behalf. They would rather be
blessed by easy words to hear. Getting back to
Paul’s point, he says that the word "seed" singular, can only
refer to one person, and that is Jesus, not several people, meaning the
descendents of Abraham. By saying this, Paul equates righteousness, which
was the ultimate promise to Abraham with Jesus. The world would be blessed
because of Jesus. Paul goes on to say that the Law that came 430 years
later cannot nullify God’s promise to Abraham. The point here is that if
God’s promise became dependent on the Law, then it is no longer a
promise. It is more like a salary for doing good. We need to
consider a few things here. Paul emphasizes the word
"seed" as being singular, thus can't be referring to many
people, as in Abraham's descendents. Therefore he says the seed is
Jesus. Paul is only defining the word "seed", or the word
"offspring" as it is seen in the Genesis account. He is
not defining the word "descendents" that is also found in the
Genesis accounts. We must still understand the word descendents as
being Abraham's descendents, that is I make this
point because some say that the whole of the Abrahamic Covenant is
fulfilled in Jesus because of what Paul says here. They say that Just to confirm.
Paul, in Galatians 3:16 is not speaking of the word
"descendents", only the word "offspring".
He has defined offspring for us.
He does not define, or redefine the word "descendents",
that is still plural. Besides,
this section is not a commentary on the Abrahamic Covenant with all of its
promises. What Paul says here
about the Abrahamic Covenant is simply in support of his main topic which
is righteousness by faith. In
Romans 9 through 11 Paul speaks to the issue of In verse 19 Paul
gives another reason why the Law came into existence. He gives a few of
these reasons throughout Romans and also here in Galatians. The reason for
the Law in this instance was due to our sin. The Law exposed our sin for
what it was, and it provided a temporary way to cover our sin in the sight
of God. Paul goes on to
say that the Law was indeed temporary. Paul clearly says, "...
until the Seed to whom the promise referred to comes…" This means
that the Law was in force until the Seed, meaning Jesus came. Once Jesus
came, that was the end of the Law, but not the end of the promises found
in the Abrahamic Covenant. (see also Rom. 10:4) I have to admit
sometimes that Paul sounds a little confusing, and a little hard to
understand. The last half of verse 19 and verse 20 is a case in point.
There appear to be many ideas on just what Paul is saying. He is clear in
saying that "God is one". That is important for us to know as
Christians. What he is
saying concerning a mediator may be a little speculative. When God gave In all of these
verses Paul is saying that the Law does not nullify the promise of grace
made by God and confirmed by His covenant. The Law may have its place in
history, but it does not negate God’s promise. God’s promise is still
in effect. Nothing, especially the Law can change that. In verse 21 Paul
asks, "is the Law opposed to the promises of God" as seen in the
Abrahamic Covenat ? After what he has just said, you might think it is
opposed to God’s promise. Paul’s typical answer is, "absolutely
not". Why? Because the Law shows the whole world its sin, until the
time came for man to trust Jesus. That was the purpose of the Law. It was
never meant to make us righteous. In verse 23 Paul
says that "we were held prisoners, locked up by the Law". That
is what the Law does. It locks us up. It binds us. We feel like prisoners
because we need to obey the Law but find we can’t. We get so frustrated.
If God’s Law locks us up, our own man made laws will do the same. Paul
gives us another reason for the existence of the Law here. That is, the
Law was put in charge over us to lead us to Christ. Then Paul closes
this thought with another key verse concerning the Law. He says, "Now
that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the
Law". How clear can you get. The Law does not apply to us any longer,
even if we are Jews. Once again, remember Romans 10 :4 that says,
"Christ is the end of the Law".
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