Lately we’ve been doing some roller-skating – the littles and the middles love it. Folks, if you want to improve your humility, go roller skating. Why chiropractors, foot & ankle doctors, knee replacement and hip replacement doctors do NOT advertise at roller rinks is in my view a massive marketing oversight. The walls should look like outfield walls on baseball fields. Anyway, so I’m out there with some very cute little princesses. And we’re holding hands and skating along, helping keep each other upright. From a dad’s point of view, its precious. Anyway, so we spend numerous songs skating holding hands when my cute little princesses start letting go of my hand. I said, “Hey, where are you going?” And they say, “We want to do it by ourselves. If we want to get better we have to let go and try it by ourselves.” Trying to hide my heartbreak inside I responded, “Well if you want to learn how to skate by yourself the best way to do that is by never letting go of my hand.” (Anyone feeling me here?). So I was coming face to face with an important life lesson: in life, going forward means some things have to be left behind.
It is true also in God’s plans. God intends for people to leave the Law behind, to let go of its hand, and go forward with Christ. Paul continues explaining this point in our sermon text, Galatians 3:19-22. Our title is “The Superiority Of The Promise,” because in this section Paul explains the superiority of the Promise God gave Abraham to the Law that came later through Moses. Paul is answering the important question “What is the purpose of the Law? Why did God give the Law?” This section relates to the Galatian’s situation because they were turning from grace to the Law. Gentile believers were being persuaded by Law-keepers to get circumcised and follow the Law of Moses in addition to their faith in Christ. This was a divisive issue along racial lines, as we saw in chapter 2 with the Peter situation, where Jews resorted to Law-keeping tendencies and separated from fellow Gentile believers.
This section contributes another critical understanding of the Law and its place in God’s historical program. Paul explains that the Law is inferior to the promise, and that the promise is superior to the law. The points he makes to show this are 1) Promise & Law Have Different Purposes, 2) The Promise Did Not Have a Mediator, 3) Promise Not Opposed By Law, 4) The Promise is Permanent, the Law Was Temporary, 5) The Law Leads To Christ – In Whom are the Promises
THE LAW HAD A DIFFERENT PURPOSE THAN THE PROMISE (19a)
Paul’s very first answer for the purpose of the law is that it was given to expose sin. Look at verse 19, “Why was the Law given at all then? It was added because of transgressions….”
Transgressions is another word for sin. It means going over a boundary. It means a violation of and a disregard for the boundary. What boundary? The boundary of what is morally and spiritually right in the eyes of God. God gave the law because man is so offensively transgressive in the eyes of God. God gave the law to prove and demonstrate how transgressive man is – how far “over the line” mankind is in his moral and spiritual degeneracy. The Law was NOT given as a ladder to climb up into righteousness – it was given as an X-Ray to show how far from God’s righteousness man is. This is such an important point that it is worth retracing some steps we’ve covered. The law was not given to make anyone righteous, but to prove how unrighteous they are. Specifically, let me show you again two important points regarding the purpose of the law: the purpose of the Law is to expose sin and to excite sin.
First, the Law excites sin – thus increasing it. Turn to Romans 7:5 and 8. Notice how it says the sinful nature within us reacts to the holy commands of the law by radically increasing how many sinful desires we have in opposition to the law? This is what it means in verse 13 when it says, “through the command sin might become utterly sinful.” Not a little sinful, not sort of sinful, but pervasively, thoroughly, maximally, UTTERLY sinful. Proverbs God is bringing out
Second, the Law accounts for sin – thus increasing it. Turn to Romans 5:13 and 20. This makes clear that things didn’t become sinful only when the Law finally was given. What this means is that sin has always been sin, and sin has always been happening in the world – before the Law and then after the Law came. The Law wasn’t given at the beginning of human history, but sin has been happening since the beginning. But in order for God to “take into account” sin for what it was, the Law was given. The Law was given to show what the standard of righteousness is and therefore show all the sin going on that was in violation of that standard.
APPLICATION: The Law is the standard of divine righteousness and when we are sensing our enormous failure to measure up to it we are then understanding it right. Look at the law, see how it condemns you, and you are on the right track.
Third, the Law imprisons everyone to sin. Verse 22a says, “But Scripture has LOCKED UP everything under the control of sin…” Paul says it in verse 23 too, “Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, LOCKED UP….” Locked up means imprisoned, confined, enclosed. It simply means that the demands of the Law are impossible for sinful human beings to fulfill, so we are always confined to our sins (Moo, 239). Here’s the connection, the Scriptures identify what righteousness is and what sin is. The Scriptures demand righteousness from us as mankind, and the Scriptures condemn us when we sin. Since we cannot fulfill righteousness, and all we can do is break God’s laws and continue in sin, because of the sin that lives within us, and because the Scriptures condemn all our sin, we are under the control of sin and under its power. We are slaves of sin. We are always defined by our sins because we sin against God’s law, we cannot ever and would never fulfill it perfectly, or as Paul said in earlier verses, we cannot continue to fulfill everything written in it (v10).
APPLICATION: If you do not believe in Jesus then this very moment you must see that you are a prisoner to sin. You are under its control. Jesus said, “Whoever sins is a slave to sin.” Romans 6:6 said our old body was crucified with Christ and it described our old body as “ruled by sin.” Romans 6:17 says, “Though you used to be slaves to sin
The Promise is superior to the Law because the Law can only expose and condemn sin.
THE LAW HAD A MEDIATOR (19B-20)
The next point is that the Law had a mediator. Look at the last part of verse 19 and then verse 20, “……”
This verse is said by the commentators to be the most difficult verse in the entire New Testament. But the basic idea that there is consensus on is this: the Law was given by God through a mediator but the promise was given directly by God to Abraham. A mediator brings two parties together and sets the terms of a contract. This verse is pointing out the contrast between the Law and the Promise: the Law had two parties who had obligations: God obligated Himself to Israel to bless them if they obeyed and curse them if they disobeyed. Israel was the other party in the covenant of the Law, and their obligations in the covenant were to worship God and obey His commands. THIS IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ARRANGEMENT THAN THE PROMISE! The promise was ALL GOD. The promises did not and do not depend on another party upholding any obligations. Whereas the blessings under the Law were dependent on Israel’s faithfulness, the blessings God promised were dependent 100 percent on HIS Faithfulness.
The inherited blessings of righteousness, life, possessing the world, the Spirit and so on can ONLY come through the Promise, because it depends all on God and God is faithful. The blessings the Law offers are dependent on man being faithful and This is why no blessings will come through the law. This is why Romans 8:3 says what it says: “What the Law was powerLESS to do because it was weakened by the flesh…” Do you see it? The Law will bless if you obey, but you don’t obey because of your sinful flesh and therefore the Law can only curse. Romans 7:10 says, “I found that the very commandment [law] that was intended to bring life actually brought death.” The point is this: if it depends on man then the blessings will never happen. God knew this always from the beginning and to show out all the sin of man and how man is utterly incapable of moral righteousness worthy of God the Law was given to identify all that sin in us and close the door – slam it shut – the idea that following the law could ever produce righteousness and life. The Law had a mediator, which meant two parties, which meant man was an obligated party, which meant it was never going to work. The true pathway to the blessings and inheritance are through the promise.
THE LAW DID NOT OPPOSE THE PROMISES (21)
Verse 21 says, “……” This is yet another fascinating verse showing the superiority of the promise over the law. Why would anyone ask the question if the law opposed the promises of God? How could the law oppose the promises? He’s merely pointing out that the Law is not a competing way to gain righteousness and life. Look at the rest of the verse: he says that no law was ever given that COULD impart life and righteousness is not possible through the law. In 2:21 he said the same thing, “I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness could be gained through the law Christ died for nothing.” Like a bouncer throwing someone out of a night club Paul wants the thought thrown out of our minds that the law is an option for gaining righteousness and life. Therefore, it does not compete with the Promise as a path to the blessings. It is not “Well, if you want to be blessed you can be through either the law or the promise.” No! Only through the promise, and not through the law, and therefore the law does not oppose or stand against the promise.
Instead, it supports the Promise. How? It supports the promise by showing man his sin and all the ways he falls short of the divine standard of righteousness; it shows him even his inability to be morally acceptable before God. And so therefore the law shows man his need for another way, a way of salvation outside of the law. It shows him his need for a Savior – a promised Savior, who would come as the Seed of Abraham.
THE LAW WAS TEMPORARY (19a, 23-25)
Lastly we need to see that the Promise is eternal, but the Law was temporary. Follow along as I point out all the language in our text that teaches the temporary nature of the law:
- “…until the Seed…had come…” (19)
- “Before
What we see is a “Before Christ” and an “After Christ” division. We have to understand what God’s arrangement was BEFORE Christ, and then what the arrangement was AFTER Christ.
BEFORE Christ:
- Works
- Under Law
- Under control of sin
- Condemned
AFTER Christ:
- Faith
- In grace Not under law but under grace (Rom 6:15); Set free from law to live in grace (Gal 5:13-14)
- Free from law
- Free from sin
- Justified
- Righteous
- Spirit
- Heirs
- Adopted children of God
- Children of Abraham
APPLICATION: Does being set free from the law and being in Grace now mean that we can go live however we want? Is the Law how we prevent sin? Is following the law how we become like Christ? No, No, and No. This is a profound misunderstanding in the Church. The NT never says Christians are supposed to follow the Law but you would never know that by the views of so many Christians. The NT repeatedly says we are not to follow the Law, but so many Christians have the misconception that we are supposed to follow it. Why? I don’t know why. But I’ll tell you that if you think being free from the law and standing in God’s grace somehow is not enough to keep you from sinning you are uninformed about the Scriptures and about Grace. Show me where it says Grace allows sin? Grace does not permit sin, but teaches righteousness (Tit 2:10-11)
CONCLUSION: THE LAW LEADS TO CHRIST
The Law leads to Christ. Look again at these verses:
- “Until the seed …. Had come” (19)
- “Locked everything up so that the promises could come through faith instead” (22)
- “Locked up until the faith was to come that would be revealed” (23)
- “So the Law was our guardian until Christ came..” (24)
- Now that this faith has come we are no longer under a guardian” (25)
Let go of the Law and take hold of Christ. If you do, Christ will set you free from the Law.