Trust in Christ and not the Law 22 nd June 2014 1 Please keep your Bibles open at Galatians chapter 3 verse 1 to 25. There s also an outline in the bulletin for you to take some notes if that helps you concentrate. Let me pray for God to help us in our understanding of His Word this morning! Intro Tomorrow is our granddaughter Olivia s 2 nd birthday. I m sure she will get lots of gifts from family and friends Imagine after she s opened all the gifts We told her parents they had to pay for all the gifts that everyone had given. Then they wouldn t be a gift anymore would they? And that s the basis of chapter 3 of Paul s letter to the Galatians. Paul s saying to them - God gave you the gift of grace in sending Jesus to save you from your sin and Jesus paid for the gift with his life dying on the cross and now you foolish Galatians are trying to pay for this gift by obeying laws you know you can t keep! And Paul says that s just plain dumb! Why pay for a gift that was given to you free of charge. And why pay for the gift when you can never fully pay for it anyway? Paul s saying instead the Galatians and US must trust in the one who paid for the gift and not trust in the law which can never pay for this gift anyway. Page 1 of 10
2 And in this chapter he gives some really good reasons why we should trust in Christ and not the Law. So let s take a look at Paul s reasons for saying this. [Powerpoint 1 Heading] And the first reason is in v1. The first reason Paul says is that Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed before them (and us) as crucified. In the Greek this has the sense that what they and us have been taught by Paul about Jesus dying on the cross for their and our sin is so clear that it s like a picture painted before our eyes as though them and us were actually there it s like those new fancy High Definition TVs that are advertised at the moment where it s like your inside the TV set and part of the movie. [Powerpoint 1.1 Crucifixion not law] And it s that death on the cross that saves us from our sins and not the law! The second reason is how we receive the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul says in v2 we receive the Holy Spirit in our lives when we believe in Jesus not by working to keep the OT laws? When we believe in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit and are born again in the Spirit. And it s the spirit that guides us and teaches us and encourages us and rebuke us and convicts us through reading and applying God s Page 2 of 10
3 word to our lives. Like when we read a passage from the Bible and we have a light globe moment ah ha! That s what God means in this verse! OR like when we read a passage and it identifies clearly a sin in our lives. [Powerpoint 1.2 Holy Spirit] Paul s argument in verses 3 to 5 is that living our lives in line with the Holy Spirit and being guided by the Spirit is the only way to live; we can t rely on a fleshly bodies to work our way to Heaven. Jesus actually promised the Holy Spirit as a Helper (John 14) when he left this earth. The third reason is from verses 6 to 9 and Paul uses the example of Abraham in the Old Testament. In our OT reading from Genesis 15 we saw how God promised Abraham a man over 75 years old with no children God promised him he would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky. This was an incredible statement by God which Abraham could easily have sneered at But as Paul says in v6 Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Paul s saying that what made Abraham right with God was not obeying laws but by having faith in God s promise to him. And note the verse does not say that Abraham s faith was righteous rather it was counted as if it were righteousness. It s like God has updated our sinful bank balance and replaced it with a credit deposit of righteousness. Page 3 of 10
[Powerpoint 2.1 Heading and Abraham s faith] 4 And there is another point to Paul s use of Abraham as an example. In verse 8 Paul says that Abraham had the privilege of receiving the Gospel way back then when God said to Abraham All nations will be blessed through you. God was showing how even the Gentiles (that s us we re Gentiles non-jews) could be right with God justified (just as if we hadn t sinned) through faith not the through the law. Paul s next reason comes in verses 10 to v13. Quoting from Deut 27:6 it says Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law. And he argues that we are all cursed under the law because none of us can fully keep it we all sin and continue to sin no matter how hard we try. Paul supports his argument further by saying no one can be justified (i.e. made right with God) by relying on the law because the righteous live by faith quoting from Habakkuk 2:4. [Powerpoint 2.2 Cursed] By God s grace we are redeemed from this curse because Jesus became the curse that we deserved for not being able to keep the law. He redeemed us or bought us back from being cursed by hanging on a pole (The Cross) under God s curse. The only perfect one cursed for all the imperfect ones. Yet He was the only one who could continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law. Page 4 of 10
Seems unfair that the perfect one should be cursed for us imperfect ones but 5 that s how great God s grace is. So why would we trust in the law when Jesus does everything we can t? (pause) Paul then uses an example from everyday life in verses 15 to 18 to give his next reason for trusting in Christ and not in the law. He uses the idea of a human covenant. By this he means a will that people make before they die to express what should happen to their estate and money. So let s use an illustration. Suppose a mother has 2 daughters one rich daughter and one poor daughter. The mother makes a will that says when she dies the poor daughter will get all her estate because the rich daughter doesn t need anything. Let s suppose the day after the mother dies the rich daughter loses her house and money on a failed business venture. Does this change the mother s will? No it stills stands as written. And that s Paul s argument. The promise that God made to Abraham was also made to Abraham s seed (or offspring) which is Jesus. Those promises made to Abraham were in Genesis 12 where God promised Abraham land, a great nation and that he (and his offspring Jesus) would be a blessing to all nations. This promise was given 430 years BEFORE God gave Moses the OT law. So just like the Mother s will is not changed just because of the rich daughter s circumstances Page 5 of 10
[Powerpoint 3.1 Promise] 6 NEITHER is God s promise and covenant set aside or changed by the Law coming a long 430 years later. With God a promise is a promise! That promise was blessing through Abraham s seed Jesus and not through the law. What s also interesting about God s agreement or covenant with Abraham is the way the agreement was signed [Read Genesis 15:9-17] This might seem a whacky way to us to sign an agreement. But the idea is that the parties are saying if they break the agreement they deserve to be cut off and die like these animals. What s astonishing in the agreement between God and Abraham is that Abraham never walks between the halves of the animals only God does Abraham was in a deep sleep. What this means is that the covenant promise in no way relies on Abraham but relies only on God. God kept His promise to bless Abraham and his descendants through one particular descendant or seed to bless the world. And in the end that seed did die the man Jesus Christ. Ironically He died to make sure the promise was fulfilled though not to break the promise. So what Paul is pointing out to the Galatians and us is the impossibility of adding the demand of obedience to the promise. It just doesn t make sense as it would mean Jesus died for nothing! Page 6 of 10
All this begs the question then. What is the point of the law? 7 As Paul says in v19 Why, then, was the law given at all? Paul s answer is - it was given for transgressions. In other words it was given to show us what sin is. Just like a speed sign of 60km shows us what the speed limit is that s what the law does shows us the rules. The speed sign doesn t stop us speeding and the law of OT doesn t stop us sinning. In fact all road signs are there to show us how to behave on the road. And no matter how hard we try I m sure we d all admit at some time we ve broken the road rules even if it s accidental - or in an emergency. And it s the same with the Law of the OT despite our best intentions we all break the OT law we all lie don t we? We all fail to worship God properly we all have idols my idol right now is probably the Soccer World Cup what s yours? [Powerpoint 3.2 Purpose of the Law] Well by God s grace Paul says in v19 that the Law of OT was given until the promised Seed Jesus came. And he also argues that the Law was not given firsthand to the people it was given to a mediator Moses. And if people are dealing with a middle man the law and Moses then they are not dealing directly with God. Page 7 of 10
But now we have Jesus we can have faith in Him direct access to God and 8 don t need to go through the middle man the law! In v21-22 Paul says that the law is not opposed or against the promise of God no it was given to make it clear that we are not right with God that we can t fix sin ourselves through any religious schemes and that we need a Saviour that s Jesus and he s available to us now! Finally Paul goes onto to say in verses 23 to 25, before faith in Jesus, the law was like a prison guard keeping us under lock and key in v23 or like being a under the care of a guardian in v24. In both cases under a prison guard or under a guardian we don t have freedom. But Paul says that has all changed as we are now free because Jesus came and justified us by faith. And so he concludes his argument in v25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. In other words Jesus set us Free so we can trust and rely on him and not the law. But before we finish, we need to really answer a burning question I believe. And that is How do we live our lives trusting in Jesus and not trusting in the Law. Paul says we re free from the law so how do we live free from the law? Page 8 of 10
9 Well for that we need to focus on Paul s analogy of a guardian in v24. The Greek for guardian also means schoolmaster or tutor. The role of a schoolmaster or tutor is to prepare the student for life beyond school. And that s Paul s point the law is like a tutor preparing us for our Christian walk when Christ arrives and we take receive him into our lives. This means the law prepares us to: a) To have a life of freedom, not confinement b) To not have an impersonal relationship with God but a personal relationship with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit c) To not be immature - but mature in character To quote John Stott No person has ever appreciated the Gospel of faith in Jesus - until the law has revealed the person to themselves. It is only against the inky black night sky that the stars begin to appear. It s only against the dark background of sin and judgment exposed by the law - that the Gospel of Faith in Jesus shines Our efforts to gain approval by obedience to the Law of OT shows us that we must go beyond that approval to find that approval. When we see this and allow Christ to be our Saviour then we have learnt the lesson the law sought to teach us as our tutor. Page 9 of 10
10 The question for all of us this morning is have we learnt that lesson yet and are we trusting in Christ out of gratitude for his grace and free gift or are we still trying to trust the law to gain approval of our Great God. As soon as we rely on our performance then the gift of Jesus is no longer a gift. Let s pray. Page 10 of 10