Today we are about to encounter one of the most difficult passages in all of Paul’s writings. In these verses, he draws on the debating skills he learned from his rabbinic teachers. He is reasoning in our text in a way that is very characteristic of a first century rabbi. In the first century it was quite common for a rabbi to take a single word and build his whole argument on its specific and sometimes previously hidden meanings. In this case Paul chooses the word “seed” or “descendant”. From a modern perspective Paul’s reasoning does not seem to be too convincing, but its form would have satisfied the critics of his own day. Without a doubt if he had been writing this letter directly to us, he would have used more contemporary reasoning, but it is his conclusion, not his reasoning, that is important. As we go through our text today, I think we will find it more helpful to take the passage as a whole. As we do, you will discover that Paul presents four very important concepts. By arranging them according to chronology and importance, we can quickly arrive at the main point of his argument.
I. Everything Began with God’s promise to Abraham.
A. "Brothers" introduces a change of tone on the apostle’s part, in contrast to the somewhat distant and formal beginning of chapter 3.
1. It is as though he now invites the erring Galatians to reason along with him as he uses an analogy. "Let me take an example from everyday life" (literally, "I speak as a man,").
2. This statement shows that Paul is borrowing an illustration from human relationships.
3. In everyday secular life the Galatians had occasional opportunity to deal with legal wills. The Greek word for a “last will and testament” is the same word Scripture used when God makes a “covenant” with men.
4. What is true of the “will” in a secular sense is also true of the “covenant” in a religious sense: once ratified (or “probated”) no one can set them aside or add to them.
5. In Abraham’s day an oath was sometimes confirmed by a ceremony in which animals were cut into two parts along the backbone and placed in two rows, the rows facing each other across a space marked off between them. The parties to the oath walked together into the space between the parts and spoke their promises there.
6. This oath would be especially sacred because of the shed blood. It was this ceremony God enacted with Abraham. But it had this exception: In the case of God’s covenant with Abraham, God alone passed between the pieces of the slain animals, thereby signifying that he alone stood behind the promises.
B. Now that Paul has chosen the imagery of a legal examination of a will, it is necessary to identify the party or parties named as beneficiaries of that will.
1. Paul’s main point was that all of these promises applied not only to one man, Abraham, but also to his “seed.” Now here is the hairsplitting point: the word “seed,” he observed, is singular, not plural; therefore in its deepest and fullest meaning it refers to one person, not to many. And that one person, Paul contended, Abraham’s true seed, is Christ himself.
2. It was not uncommon in rabbinic exegesis for a theological argument to be based on the singular or plural form of a particular word in the scriptural text.
3. Paul may well have been responding here to the popular Jewish claim that they alone, along with a few proselytes, were the “true sons of Abraham.” Paul wanted to show that the greater fulfillment of the promise is not biological but Christological.
4. The essential point is that the promises made to Abraham cannot be considered fulfilled solely in the period prior to the giving of the law on Sinai and hence must be in effect eternally.
II. Abraham acted on God’s promises turning them into a two party covenant.
A. Paul here picked up and completed the train of thought he began in verse 15, applying it specifically now to the giving of the Mosaic law that occurred nearly half a millennium later than the original promise to Abraham.
1. By stressing the seniority of the Abrahamic covenant over the Mosaic Law, Paul was offering praise to the God who keeps his promises.
2. In the Judaizers’ view the revelation of the law at Mount Sinai marked the real beginning of Israel’s history in the sense that that event gave them a true national identity and established their unique role in the economy of salvation.
3. To this line of reasoning Paul replied, in effect: “Look! You say God made a promise to Abraham and then came along hundreds of years later and added to it burdensome requirements no one could fulfill perfectly anyway, thus radically altering the character of his relationship to his people.
4. If this would have been true than it would show that God was dishonest in the dealings with His people.
B. Paul’s readers in Galatia would do well to remember chapter one in this context. The unchanging gospel (1:8–9) is the final climax of this unchanging promise God made to Abraham.
1. God has had one plan for the ultimate salvation of the world—a plan which was devised from the beginning of creation—and God has never deviated from it.
2. Paul focused here on the great time span between the two divine disclosures as a way of stressing the faithfulness of God, the contrast between the Abrahamic promise and the Mosaic law is not only one of timing but also of character.
3. In Paul’s mind the law was not merely a late addition in the history of salvation; rather it was a completely different kind of covenant than the one God had made with Abraham centuries before.
III. Compared to the promise the Law plays a minor role in God’s relationship with His people.
A. We need to first understand the significance and purpose of the Law.
1. The Law has served to govern God’s people.
2. The Law defined sin so that people would know right from and wrong, acceptable behavior from unacceptable behavior.
3. The Law has provided guidance to sinful people who have not raised enough to the level of functioning properly without rules and regulations.
4. The main problem with the Law is the fact that it places itself between us and God.
5. A covenant puts us into a direct relationship with God and the Law forces us into an indirect relationship with God.
B. Our whole inheritance does not depend on the letter of the Law, but on the grace of the One who originally made the promise.
1. Paul has no intention of diminishing the role of Moses, but to show that the Law is inferior to a covenant because a covenant is based on a promise and direct relationship between the Promiser and the recipient of the promise.
2. God never intended the law to be permanent. Its purpose was to prepare men for the coming of the offspring (Jesus), by pointing out how bad their sin really was.
3. The law highlights problems, and does a thorough job of it. But the law does not fix problems; that is not its job.
4. God never intended the law to impart life or produce adequate righteousness. The job of the law is to reveal that mankind is dying from a lack of righteousness.
5. Salvation is only possible “through faith” to “those who believe.” This repetition enforces the truth that the Galatians needed so badly: men cannot earn their salvation, or even improve their chances by trying harder to live up to the law.
IV. When God makes a promise and binds it in a covenant it cannot be done away with by a mere temporary law.
A. The promise has endured to the present and has been completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
1. Circumstance may change but God does not. He is faithful and does not break His promises.
2. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6—NIV)
3. As Paul presents the theme of salvation, he never fails to stress the grace of God and the response of faith.
4. Our redemption is not through obedience to the law but through union with Christ.
B. The Promiser kept His promise in Christ, everyone who is in Christ shares the promise.
1. As the Law was unnecessary for Abraham, who walked by faith, so it cannot be placed in charge of us, if we are in Christ.
2. If we have only the Law then we are all lost in our sins, and stand guilty before God awaiting our penalty.
3. God’s concern is not bringing us to justice but bringing us back into a covenant relationship with Him.
4. God really wants us to be able to enjoy the promises He originally made to Abraham if we are among those who believe.
Once upon a time in a land far away, there lived 2 childhood sweethearts. One was the daughter of a wealthy count and the other a humble shoemaker’s son.. But their love for each other was strong, so they swore a secret vow to each other that when they came of age they would marry; and as a token of their pledge they exchanged rings. All through their childhood they rejoiced in the hope of that wedding day to come but as they grew older the young man began to have some doubts. Oh, his desire to marry the young woman was as strong as ever, but the older he got the more he became aware of the differences in their social standing. "I can’t marry you just as I am, a mere cobbler’s son!" He told her. "Of course you can!" she replied. "Your lack of noble blood makes no difference to me." But the boy could not believe her. "No," he said. "Before we can be married I must do something to prove I’m worthy of you." So he left her weeping and set forth to seek his fortune in the wider world. He thought at first he’d try the army, thinking that if he returned a decorated hero he’d be worthy of her love. But sadly he was no hero. He fled from the first battle he faced and was stripped of such minor rank as he’d achieved and was discharged from the army in disgrace. Next he thought he might enter commerce and become a wealthy businessman, but alas he had no head for business either, and within six months the dot.coms he’d invested in were bankrupt as was he. ’Well,’ he thought to himself, ’there’s only one alternative left. I’ll enter the university and become a great scholar. Then I shall be worthy of her love.’ But sadly the boy was no better as a student than he had been as a soldier and a businessman. He failed his first year exams with the lowest grades on record and was expelled for academic incompetence. In total despair he trudged his weary way home. Years had passed and he had achieved nothing but humiliation and failure. How could he face his beloved now. There was no hope that they could ever marry after all he’d been through. But as he entered the city the count’s daughter saw him from the palace window. She had heard of all his disappointments but her love for him was as strong as ever. Joyfully she sped down the stairs and out into the city square to meet him.
’It’s no good,’ he wailed as he saw her. ’You can’t want to marry me now. I’ll never be worthy of your love.’ ’But I do want to marry you,’ she said. ’I’ve always wanted to marry you. Look at your hand.’ There on his finger, worn and so tight that he couldn’t remove it, was the ring that she’d given him when they’d made their childhood vows.
’I promised to marry you,’ she reminded him. ’Nothing you’ve done or failed to do can alter that. As far as I’m concerned a promise is a promise.’
