The Law V.S.
The Promise, part 1 (Galatians
"To
give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls 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 afterward, does not annul 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." (Galatians 3:15-18, English Standard Version)
The Apostle Paul closes chapter three of Galatians with a very poignant
argument to support his thesis that justification is through faith alone in
Jesus Christ. Recall that all throughout
chapter three Paul has been presenting arguments to defend the Biblical
doctrine of justification against the heresy of legalism. The first argument was from the believer's
experience, and the second argument was from the Old Testament Scriptures. His third argument (
This argument has so much content, we're going to spend the next
two studies on this passage. There are
four points I want to draw from this passage before us: 1) The nature of a
covenant; 2) The specifics of the Abrahamic covenant; 3) The Mosaic Law does
not nullify the Abrahamic Covenant; and 4) The inheritance of the promise does
not come from the Law.
1. The nature of a covenant ("To
give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it
or adds to it once it has been ratified"). The dictionary defines
"covenant" as: "A binding agreement; a compact." When one
thinks of a binding agreement, the word "contract" comes to
mind. Yet, I want to suggest that a
covenant is stronger than a contract; at least from a Biblical perspective. In
a contract, there are terms that both parties must abide by; failure to do so
breaks the contract and frees the non-offending party of any further
obligations. A covenant is an agreement between two (or more) parties to
perform certain actions regardless of the other party's faithfulness to the
covenant. Before Paul goes into the specifics of the Abrahamic covenant, he
talks about human covenants in general; and what he says is that once a human
covenant has been ratified, no one can add to it or nullify it in any way. Now
what holds true for human covenants, holds true for divine covenants as well;
even more so.
2. The specifics of the
Abrahamic covenant ("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"). Now the passage says the
promises were made to Abraham and his offspring. This begs the question: What promises? In
Genesis 12:1-3, we have God's first revelation of the covenant he makes with Abraham
(called "Abram" in this passage): "Now the LORD said to Abram,
'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that
I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you
and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those
who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the
families of the earth shall be blessed.'" The promise to Abraham
was threefold: A promise of land; a
promise of offspring; and a promise of future blessing.
Now notice that Paul says the promises were made to Abraham
and his offspring. Paul then goes on to reveal that the offspring mentioned is
Jesus Christ. In other words, God made these promises to Abraham and to Jesus
Christ. The point Paul is trying to make here is that the promise made to
Abraham was not nullified when he died because it was made to Jesus too.
The Abrahamic covenant is what is known as an everlasting covenant; of which there are five in Scripture (the
Noahic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Priestly Covenant, the Davidic
Covenant, and the New Covenant). This covenant God made with Abraham (and by
extension to Jesus Christ) will hold for all time, and can never be broken. It
is interesting to note when God ratified the covenant with Abraham, Abraham was
asleep; it was like God was saying, "I, and I alone will seal this
covenant because I know you are unable keep it (see Genesis 15).
3. The Mosaic Law does not
nullify the Abrahamic Covenant ("This is what I mean: the law, which
came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God,
so as to make the promise void"). Paul is just using some simple
logic here to make this point. If God makes an everlasting covenant to Abraham,
is he going to nullify it 430 years later through the law given to Moses? The
idea is patently absurd on the face of it. God does not contradict himself ("God
is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his
mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not
fulfill it?" Numbers
4. The inheritance of the
promise does not come from the Law ("For if the inheritance comes by the
law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a
promise"). Here is the main point of this whole passage. The
inheritance of the promise (a promise of land; a promise of offspring; and
a promise of future blessing) were given to Abraham without any
conditions attached. God never said, "Abraham, I will give you land,
offspring and blessing if...." The
Abrahamic Covenant was unconditional! The Law, on the other hand, is
conditional. The Law (otherwise known as the Mosaic Covenant) is the only
covenant God made with people that was conditional; material blessings were
promised for obedience and curses promised for disobedience. The Mosaic
covenant is also the only covenant that was not everlasting (this will be
discussed more next time). As mentioned last time, just as law and faith are
mutually exclusive, so are the Law and the Promise.
Application Time. As we can
see, Paul is systematically demolishing the stronghold of legalism. There is no
way to support a legalistic mindset from the Old Testament. The blessings we
have in Jesus Christ were promised centuries before the Law was even laid down.
Not only that, but the promise was laid out in an everlasting covenant that no
man can nullify because God stands behind his promises.
The Abrahamic Covenant isn't the only promise God has made in
Scripture. All of his promises are equally guaranteed. If you're a child
of God, then you can stand firm in all of God's promises. Our failure to
perfectly keep the law of God in no way removes us from the blessings of God's
promises because we're God's children by faith ("But to all who did receive
him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."
John 1:12).
Bottom Line. Why
doesn't our inability to keep the law remove us from the blessings of
God's promise. Because our faith fulfills the holy requirements of the
law: "Do
we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we
uphold the law" (Romans
Have a blessed day!