THE REASON FOR THE RULES (GAL 3:19-25)

SERIES: FREE AT LAST, PART 11

GCEFC: JANUARY 10, 2010

INTRODUCTION

1. Last Sunday was an important section in our study in Galatians. So if you’ll indulge me for just a couple minutes, I’d like to do a brief review of the main points to set the stage for the section we’re looking at today.

2. Paul used an analogy to help explain an important aspect of our salvation. He compared it to a covenant.

3. A covenant being a solemn promise between parties to do or not do something. We looked at three familiar examples:

a. A marriage covenant

b. A mortgage covenant

c. A last will and testament covenant

4. The main point is that a covenant is binding on those who make it. That you can’t come along after the covenant’s been established and unilaterally change something about the covenant you don’t like. Covenants are for keeps—they’re permanent/not temporary.

5. God established a covenant with Abraham long ago and promised that through his offspring would come immense blessings to many people.

a. It included the blessing of a promised land to the people of Israel.

b. It included the blessing of a promised seed or offspring to Abraham. Though he was an elderly man with an elderly wife who had never conceived even while young.

c. It included a promised blessing to the entire human race through one particular seed or descendant of Abraham.

d. That one particular descendant was Jesus Christ. In fact, the Bible refers to Christ as the “seed” or “son of Abraham.”

6. The covenant God established with Abraham was an unconditional covenant. 100% of the responsibility of establishing, keeping, and honoring the covenant was God’s.

7. There was nothing for Abraham to do but believe the covenant and trust God to honor his word and his promise. There were no requirements for Abraham to meet.

8. Then, some 400 years after the covenant was established, the law of God was introduced through Moses.

9. The false teachers in Galatia were claiming that the law of Moses superceded the promise of God to Abraham. That the law was a greater covenant than God’s promise.

10. So they would have argued that Paul was way off base by claiming that salvation was by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

11. They were teaching that salvation was a reward to those who faithfully kept God’s law.

12. But the Apostle Paul says you can’t have it both ways. Either our salvation depends on the law or it depends on the gracious promise of God.

13. If salvation is through keeping the law—then it’s not a promise—it’s a reward.

14. If salvation is by faith in the promise of God—then it’s not a reward—it’s an act of God’s grace. It must be one or the other—it can’t be both.

A. THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW

1. Paul has spent several verses saying that salvation is by grace and not by keeping the law. It’s not even by grace AND keeping the law.

2. He’s saying that salvation is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham extended to those who believe.

3. That the law does not save and cannot save and was never intended to save.

4. So Paul anticipates a question. The question is: So then what’s the purpose of the law? Why was the law ever given in the first place? The next section answers this question.

5. V19: What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.

6. So he says that the law was added because of transgressions. So what does this mean?

a. It means that the law needed to be given because of the sinfulness of the human race.

b. It would be nice if rules and laws weren’t necessary—but they are. We couldn’t even have a meaningful time of worship together if not for rules.

c. We say that the service will begin at 9:30. And though not everyone is here at 9:30, that’s when we start. And we say we’ll end by 10:45. It wouldn’t be right to extend the service into the middle of the afternoon.

d. We ask that everyone who joins us for worship wear clothes. We don’t specify what you wear—but you must wear something!

e. We ask that you stay seated unless there’s a good reason to get up. But we let you decide what’s a good reason. This creates order and consideration for others.

f. We ask that you turn off your cell phone so others are not disturbed and the preacher doesn’t get confused.

g. We ask that you not shout to your friends on the other side of the sanctuary.

h. We ask that you not bring your laptop computer and work on your school work, your office work, or order things from Eddie Bauer during the service.

7. But of course, there are much more serious laws that govern life in our society. Laws that forbid theft, and violence, child abuse, lying, and murder.

8. It would be wonderful if we didn’t need laws. If everybody always did what they should and if everybody followed the golden rule.

9. But there’s a reason we have laws in society. It’s because people are innately unlawful. The Bible calls it sin.

10. In fact, we aren’t just sinners by our actions and words—we’re sinners by our very nature—we’re sinners at core. We’re sinners at heart. All of us—even you/even me.

11. So because of transgressions, because of our sinful tendencies and sinful ways—God introduced his law.

12. Now, the law didn’t make anyone righteous. The law simply revealed unrighteousness. In fact, without the law and an anticipated punishment for breaking the law—the world would be one big chaotic sinful mess.

13. But even though the law of God as a covenant was very important. And even though it served a very important and necessary function for 1500 years—it was meant to be only temporary. It had a course to run. And that course ended at the Cross of Christ.

14. Look at V19 again: It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.

15. The seed to whom the promise referred is of course Jesus Christ. When he died on the Cross for our sins, the law completed its primary role in the plan of God.

16. I say primary because the law of God still has a place in God’s plan. It’s just not the same place. And there’s one place it never had.

B. THE LAW IS INFERIOR TO THE PROMISE

1. So the law is not only temporary in God’s plan—it’s an inferior covenant to the covenant of promise.

2. One way it’s inferior is BECAUSE IT’S TEMPORARY. But Paul also says it’s inferior because it was put into effect through a mediator.

3. The law came from God to angels to Moses and then to Israel. But the covenant of promise to Abraham came directly from God to Abraham.

4. It was only God and Abraham. No mediators, middle men, proxies, delegates, or go-betweens. It’s another way the covenant of promise is superior to the covenant of law.

C. IS THE LAW OPPOSED TO THE PROMISES OF GOD?

1. Now Paul anticipates another question, so again he asks it himself in V21: Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.

2. Keep in mind that both the law of God through Moses and the promise of God through Abraham both came from the same God. They could hardly contradict each other. They could hardly be opposed to each other—and they aren’t.

3. The law of God doesn’t contradict the promise of God—it complements it. The law and the promise had different purposes.

a. How many of you have ever used a hammer? Have you ever used a hammer to drive a nail? I bet it worked pretty well for that purpose.

b. How many of you have ever used a saw? Did you use it to cut a board into smaller pieces? I bet it worked pretty well for that purpose.

c. Did you ever use a hammer to cut a board? Did you ever use a saw to drive a nail? I wonder how that worked?

d. It would take you a month of Sundays to cut a board with a hammer.

e. It would take forever to drive a nail with a saw. And the saw would need replacing.

f. Tools are designed for specific purposes. And when used for the right purpose they serve us well.

4. The law of God was never intended to impart life. It was never intended to bring forgiveness. It was never intended to make the law keeper righteous.

5. HOWEVER—if God had given a law that by keeping it one would have been declared righteous—then righteousness would have come by keeping that law.

6. But you know the problem as well as I do—there was no law of God that anyone could keep. Everyone failed to keep the laws they’d been given.

7. Now you might be thinking, but out of the 10 Commandments, surely there were people who kept some of them. You think so? Well you would have made a good Pharisee, because that’s exactly what they thought.

8. And they would have been content to continue thinking it. But then Jesus came along and in his Sermon on the Mount said:

a. You may not have committed adultery—but if you’ve ever lusted, then you’ve broken the spirit of that law.

b. You may not have murdered anybody—but if you’ve hated anyone, or even said mean things about someone—you’ve broken the spirit of that law.

c. You may have loved your neighbor and hated your enemy—but if you don’t love your enemy and pray for your persecutors—you’ve broken the spirit of that law.

9. Only Jesus has ever really kept the law of God. No one else. So it’s a moot point, isn’t it?

10. No one can keep the law or ever did or ever will—so no one was ever declared righteous on that basis—or ever will be.

11. V22: But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

12. Well there you have it. The whole world is a prisoner of sin. No one can escape its clutches. No one can shake off its hold. No one can escape its condemnation.

13. The good news is that what was promised is given through faith in Christ. It’s given to all who believe.

14. V24: So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

15. These 2 verses are an excellent example of why we must not be satisfied with a superficial reading and understanding of the Bible. We must understand the context.

a. These 2 verses are talking about a concept that is foreign to our culture, but was widely known and understood in the culture in which it was originally written.

b. When Paul says that the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ. And now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law, he was referring to a common practice among wealthier Greek and Roman families.

c. The practice was the appointing of guardians for their young male children.

d. A guardian was an educated and well-respected slave to whom the son was entrusted from age 6 or 7 to adolescence. This person was called a paidagwgo\ß. We get our words pedagogue and pediatrician from the same root word.

e. What a paidagogos did was supervise the child, like a strict governess. They provided moral training, escorted the child to school, and disciplined him when he needed it. They made sure the child toed the line.

f. The paidagogos was not a tutor or teacher, but a guardian of the child. Their purpose was to bring the child to the teacher, and watch out for them along the way.

16. Paul is saying that the law of God was our paidagogos. The one who kept us in line and brought us to the teacher.

17. The guardian serves a very important function. But the guardian is not the teacher. The guardian is not the boy’s father. And the guardian provides only temporary service.

18. The passage is teaching that the law was intended to keep God’s people in line, and guide them until faith came—resulting in justification and salvation.

19. But, V25: Now that faith has come… Actually it says now that the faith has come, meaning the Christian faith—the promised seed of Abraham that was to come.

20. Now that he is here and we’re declared righteous through him—the primary purpose of the law has been served.

21. Like the paidagogos—thank you for your services—that will be all—you’re dismissed.

22. Once we become believers in Christ, we’re released from the protective custody of the prison. And we’re released from the harsh discipline of the paidagogos.

23. We’re free. Free from condemnation. Free from the burden of the law. Free from the condemnation of sin. Free from the penalty of sin.

24. When we try to use the law for what it was never intended…it’s like using a hammer to saw wood or a saw to drive nails. It just doesn’t work.

a. Like thinking that keeping the law proves we’re righteous—it doesn’t because we can’t keep the law—proving only that we’re not righteous.

b. Like thinking that keeping the law supplements what Christ did on the Cross—it doesn’t—his work there was complete and sufficient.

c. Like thinking that God will take back our salvation if we don’t toe the line of the law—he doesn't—our salvation never even began that way.

25. This is all faulty, unbiblical, misguided thinking. As believers, we are the heirs of God’s promise to Abraham.

26. It’s an inheritance we receive by faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing else can do it. Nothing else need do it. Nothing else will do it.