While I was waiting for my coffee I struck up a conversation with a college age woman about Christianity. It turns out that she had grown up in the church and had some great memories of the church…but as she grew older she had lost interest in church. She cited various issues in the church that she had difficulty with, but there was one thing that seemed to overshadow all her other concerns – She felt that God changed over time, He acted one way in the Old Testament and then, He acted another way in the New Testament.
She felt that in the Old Testament, God required something different from people than he required in the New Testament. It was as if God changed the rules midstream. In the Old Testament a person needed to do one thing to be saved and in the New Testament a person needed to do something completely different. In her mind, the God is not consistent, and so she had no reason anymore to place her trust in Him.
Is this young woman correct? Has God changed over time how he treats people, is God inconsistent with how He treats people?
Our Scripture today, helps us with these questions.
Last week we saw that Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people, was saved by faith and not by any good work he did, now, in the Scripture we are looking at today, Paul gives us an example from everyday life to further illustrate and give deeper meaning to what he means.
In Paul’s example we see that God does not change and our understanding of who God is does not develop as time passes. God remains the same.
Starting here in verse 15, when Paul speaks of a duly established covenant, he is referring to the Galatians knowledge of how a last will and testament is handled in their city. The Galatians knew that once a last will and testament was created, it could not be changed. Under Greek law once a last will and testament was written and deposited with the cities municipal records, it could never be changed. Nothing could be added to it, nothing could be taken away from it – even if the original writer submitted an updated version by his own hand – it would be rejected. Once written, the last will and testament could never be changed, even by the rightful owner. It was written and submitted once, and that was the end of it.
Now the Galatians were no longer living under Greek law, they were living under Roman law. Roman law was similar to Greek law except, if an heir died, another could be added, but upon death it was the same as Greek law – it was irrevocable. Paul is informing us that the promise of God has been made…and that’s it. With God, a promise is a promise. It is a done deal. It will never change, and with God, a promise is eternal. Further, God makes his promise by choice. God can choose to work any way He desires, (He is God after all) and He desires to make a promise that never changes.
Years ago I received a call from a member to stop on by her house. I could tell by the call that she was fairly shaken up. She was a lady who was quite advanced in years, and was quite wealthy, well, she was phenomenally wealthy. It turns out that granddaughter had stopped by and threatened her. The granddaughter wanted a larger share of her last will and testament. I’m not sure all that was said, but believe me, this woman was quite shaken up.
Now, I made a quick call to a relative of hers who firmly dealt with this granddaughter. Then, I reminded this very sweet lady that when the time came for her last will and testament to be read, she would not be around anymore. She would be long gone. When her last will and testament would be read, this granddaughter would have no real recourse and she would have no ability to threaten or harm her. This realization delighted the lady a great deal.
I went on to remind her that it was her choice and her choice alone about what was to happen with her estate. She could give all the money to one individual or spread the money out to many people, in fact, she could give all her money to her cat if she wanted to.
There was an amazing chance of countenance with this woman. All the fear drained out of her and she met the next week with her attorney. She expressed her choice, and her choice would not be changed by anyone, even a nasty granddaughter (who by the way was no spring chicken). Some time later, the granddaughter would receive what she deserved and don’t worry, the lady didn’t own a cat….though she did have a dog.
Paul tells us God’s promise cannot be changed.
Looking at verse 16, we see that this promise was spoken to Abraham and his seed. If we go back to Genesis 12, we see that God came to Abraham and promised him that He would bless him, make a great nation from him and all peoples of the earth would be blessed through him. God came to Abraham and made a promise that was unconditional. God came to Abraham by an act of grace. Abraham simply believes.
This promise to Abraham is irrevocable, it cannot change, and more than that God will see this promise through.
Paul emphasizes the word “seed” here. Now, it is true that in both English and in Hebrew the word “seed” can be taken in both the singular and the plural, but in the entire history of rabbinical biblical interpretation, the word “seed” in reference to Abraham, was always taken in the singular. This is what Paul points out, and he interprets for us who the seed is, just in case we have not clued in yet. The seed is – Jesus Christ.
What was the promise given to Abraham, rather, who was the promise given to Abraham? Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the promised one, for both Abraham and for us. Abraham places his faith in the promise. We place our faith in the promise. You and I have the same faith that Abraham had long ago, because God does not change, and His Promise does not change.
With God, a promise is a promise. The promise is kept. The promise does not change. The promise is eternal. The promise, is Jesus Christ.
So, 430 years later the law is introduced to Moses and the question is obvious – if the promise is all Abraham needed, and if the promise is all that we need, then why wasn’t the promise enough for Moses and the people of Israel?
Paul answers the obvious question for us in verse 19, “What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.” What does he mean here?
The promise was given to Abraham, but the promise (remember, the promise is Jesus Christ), the promise did not come for some time, so the law was put in charge until the promise arrived. If we jump down to verse 24 we see that the” the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.” In reference to the law taking charge here, the word used in the Greek text is the word “Paidagogos” which literally means ‘boy leader’. This was a slave who was appointed to superintend the conduct of a child – make no mistake, this slave was not an educated teacher, or a tutor, this was a low slave who was charged with keeping a little boy’s behavior in line. He was to make sure the little boy found his way to and from school. He was to make sure the little boy behaved in all places, public and private. He was to make sure the little boy behaved as expected
The little boy was forbidden to call the slave, ‘master’, for when the little boy came of age, the little boy who was disciplined by the slave, would become the master of the slave. When the boy would come of age, the slave’s charge would be through, the slave would no longer be in charge of the boy. The discipline the boy received would stay with him, but the man he became, would now be able to discipline himself.
Here we see that the Mosaic law was like this slave, placed in charge until Jesus Christ would arrive.
What is the practical purpose of the law?
Like the slave in charge of the little boy, the law highlights our sin. The law points out our sin. The law holds us accountable for our sin. The law makes us face our sin.
It is like looking into a mirror. I can imagine what I look like on any given day. I can believe that I am still young, I can believe that my facial features are perfect, I can imagine that I am a much heavier person than I am and I can imagine that I have all my hair – but then I look into a mirror and see myself for who I really am, and early in the morning it is not a pretty sight.
This is the law. The law exposes our sin. The law shows us for who we really are. We imagine we are refined, generous and good, but then we look into the mirror of the law and we see that we are much less than we imagine.
Every year that we gaze into the mirror will highlight the fact that we are a degenerating people and come what may, we are slowly, but surely losing any sense of youth, and ultimately we cannot stop what we see in the mirror. And in parallel, the longer we gaze into the law, the ten commandments, the greater sense we get that we are not able to help ourselves – this is the ultimate purpose of the law – we realize we cannot do it ourselves, we need help.
What is that help? The promise made to Abraham, our help is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The law doesn’t save us. Doing good things doesn’t save us doing good things does not correct us. The law was never intended to save us. Doing good and wonderful things was never the way to save us, it was never the way to correct us – The promise was always intended as the way to save us.
We see that the law is like a prison (verse 23). Because the law exposes our sin, it holds us back from our freedom. We gain our freedom through Jesus Christ. Before we knew any sense of biblical morality we trusted our conscience to guide us – ha, what fools we were, for our conscience lies to us, it makes excuses for us, it tells us our sin is good, it tells us our sin is normal, it tells us our sin should be celebrated. “My greed can make we rich!” Paul tells us in 1 cor 4:4 that our conscience lies to us and a clear conscience does not make us innocent. But, along came the law, and it showed us the sin we could not deal with and then it did its most important act – it pointed us to the Promise, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ – who has and who will deal with our sin.
Remember, we do not become sinners when we first sin – sin comes out of the heart. We lie because we are liars, we deceive because we deceivers, we have a fallen nature and only Jesus can heal us.
We read in Ezek. 36:25-27, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean;
I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit in you
and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
This is the Promise from God, and the Promise of God here and in Galatians is Jesus Christ.
See, the promise of God was given to Abraham and that promise was Jesus Christ. A promise made, a promise given, a promise embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, a promise fulfilled. Abraham came to faith through the promise as we come to faith through the promise. We are free, we are justified through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul is telling us once again, he is reinforcing to us once again that we come to salvation by faith alone and not by works, not by doing good things. He is telling us further, that God is consistent, God does not change and treats people the same today as He did in the ancient world.
I once was in a church that had quite a few people who were very wealthy. Many of the members were older ladies who were widows who had outlived most of their peers and for one reason or another had in their possession a vast amount of wealth. Now, when you have a situation where you have wealthy folks whose days are numbered, there tends to be another group of people who appear – these are people who like the wealth of those whose days are numbered – let’s call them – relatives.
The relatives would be where ever one of these widows would be – they would never miss a birthday, always spend every holiday with her, and they would make sure they were with her in church every Sunday – if this sounds sweet to you, then you are deceived, like I was when I first came to town. The longer I was around, the more complaints I heard: The older women would despair that they weren’t sure who really loved them; the younger folks would despair that their life was wasting away as they waited and waited.
We had a neighbor who had moved back to town so she could keep an eye on “her money”. She worried that if she continued to live outside of town her grandmother might forget about her, and if her grandmother forgot about her, the amount of money that she would receive from her grandmother upon her death would be significantly reduced. So she had moved back to town to make sure that she could be with her grandmother at every opportunity, holidays, week days, Sundays every possible opportunity – for there was much at stake. Her theory appeared to be: The greater time she spent with her grandmother, the greater wealth she would one day receive.
This young woman was promised to have a part of here grandmother’s last will and testament, but this young woman could not trust the promise, so she came to town to pile up the good works in front of her grandmother so she would be assured of a place in the estate.
But we, we don’t have to live like that – for with God, a promise is a promise and that promise is solid – it is the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.
