Galatians 3:15-29, Standing On The Promises Series

Note that Abraham did not make a covenant with God; God made a covenant with Abraham! God did not lay down any conditions for Abraham to meet. In fact, when the covenant was ratified Abraham was asleep! (see Gen. 15) It was a covenant of grace: God made promises to Abraham; Abraham did not make promises to God.

BKC - The stress on seed (cf. Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 24:7), not seeds, was made simply to remind the readers that the faithful in Israel had always recognized that blessing would ultimately come through a single individual, the Messiah

1) Abraham saved 430 years before law given v. 17

* God did so make a covenant with Abraham, that he would gather together his children who consist both of Jews and Gentiles into one body

* a law given centuries later cannot change a covenant made by other parties.

* If the law was a requirement for salvation, then Abraham could have never been saved

2) Abraham saved by faith apart from the law v. 18

* The promise and the law can’t be mixed together

* The two are fundamentally different in nature.

* They do not co-mingle

* They cannot be combined.

* Instead, the inheritance (i.e., justification by faith) was given by God as an unconditional gift to those who believe.

Who (What) saved Abraham? Law or faith in the promise?

II. The purpose of the law and it’s limitations explained v. 19-24

A. The law was added v. 19

* The law came AFTER the promise was given to Abraham.

* God added the law years after he gave the promise of justification by faith to Abraham.

* Paul is reminding his readers that faith came first, then later on the law was added but it still did not change or alter the promise that was given to Abraham.

* The law wasn’t given first, and then faith was added; it was the other way around

* We may argue over which came first – the chicken or the egg in the world of nature, BUT the argument here is not difficult….everyone knows that the law was added 430 years after Abraham believed God.

* God did not even replace faith with the law; he added the law for a purpose.

* Law didn’t succeed the promise, nor take the place of it, nor make it null and void

* Not added to establish a different way of justification from that which was settled by the promise

* God didn’t save some people one way (by faith), and then save others another way (by works of law)

* The promise preceded the law by hundreds of years… it was later added.

B. The law was temporary v. 19

* "till the seed should come to whom promise was made"

* till Jesus came… Things changed when Jesus came on the scene

-- We now have a new covenant since the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus

* The dispensation of the law has been replaced with a new dispensation

* v. 25 …after faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster

-- it was only intended to have a temporary rule in our lives.

C. The law was inferior by mediation v. 19-20

* The Law was inferior because of the manner of its delivery.

* Contrast - while God made promises to Abraham directly, the Law was established by a mediator.