Galatians 3:15-20 Jesus the Son of Promise!

Galatians 3:15-20  Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life.  Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.  The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.  The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.  What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.  For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.  What, then, was the purpose of the law?  It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.  The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.  A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.

The law was given to the children of Israel 430 years after the promise to Abraham.  This law was given not only to guide them in their daily lives, but also to set them apart from a dark world that the ungodly tribes in Canaan illustrated clearly in their daily lives, in their customs, and in their mores.  God showed his distain for the ways of the wicked: When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.  Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.  Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.  (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)  The law reflected the likeness of God: what is godlike and what is not godlike.  Under the auspices of the law, they were children of light, knowledgeable about the only true God, the unseen God of heaven and Earth.  Their God could not be imaged in wood or stone: He was the God of unimaginable greatness, without beginning or ending.  This task of revealing this true God through their obedience to the law was a difficult one for the Israelites.  They often failed to obey the law, bringing on themselves the horrible judgments of God because of their waywardness and inclination toward sin.  Because they were but humans, caught in their own sinful nature, God gave them a plan to delay his judgment on their sins.  This plan substituted the death of animals for their death; for sin, as with cancer, must be eradicated, disposed of completely from the living.  The two cannot coexist, sin leads to death.  Therefore, the sacrificing of animals for sin deflected the judgment of God for a while, to another day.  And that day, according to the promise, would be when Jesus, the seed of Abraham, would hang on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of all humanity.  

This Seed fulfills the promise that God made to Abraham, of blessing all humanity through him, In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.  (Genesis 22:18)  By Abraham's seed alone comes the forgiveness of sin to all who wish to place their faith in Christ's redemptive works.  His works replace the necessity of attempting to display the light of all the universe through works of the law and their limited ability to deal with the sins of man.  We no longer have to follow the law and its rightness, for it has been replaced by the righteousness of Christ in us.  The law could only be a directional signal for us: to direct us to what is right or what is wrong, what is pleasing to God and what is not pleasing to God.  But Jesus Christ and his works fulfill the law, completely satisfy the law's requirements.  His acts of righteousness or total fulfillment of the law become our acts of righteousness when we accept his works by faith.  As Jesus said, Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  (Matthew 5:17)  We no longer live our lives of righteousness, but we live his life of righteousness in us.  We no longer look at our failures in the mirror of the law; instead, we look at who He is and his victories and glorious power in us.  We point to him rather than to our self-righteousness.  We know because of the Word that when we put our faith in him, God sees him rather than us.  He alone, through the work of the Holy Spirit in us, presents our lives to the heavenly Father as guiltless.  The law could not do this, for the law could only indicate our position of goodness or wrongness.  The law has no intrinsic life in it, but Jesus is the life and light of the world, the creator of all that is.  He creates life, and through his life, we are known as NEW CREATURES, BORN AGAIN BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST.  Paul understood the mighty work of Christ when he told the church, Do everything without complaining or arguing,  so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life — in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.  (Philippians 2:14-16)  

The promise to Abraham was God's covenant with him.  God was the mediator, fulfilling both sides of the covenant.  Abraham was in a deep sleep when God walked between the two halves of the sacrificed animal.  In those days: an animal was split in two and separated.  Then the parties making the covenant would walk between the two halves of a slain animal.  While doing this, they would be making solemn promises to each other.  In this ceremony, they sealed their promises to each other by the blood of the slain animal.  This was serious business.  If either side broke the covenant, they were exposed to dire consequences, even death.  In this situation, Abraham was not there to state his part of the covenant, to express his promises to God.  No, he was asleep.  Only God walked between those two bloody halves of the carcass.  He alone gave his promises to Abraham without Abraham's reciprocating promises.  We who are alive in Christ are alive because of God's promises to us, not because of our promises to God.  When the law was given, the people said, "We will do it."  But they could not keep this promise: they failed miserably, again and again.  The law could not change the nature of humans, could not touch the hearts of men and women.  As surely as Abraham was dead in sleep so are we dead in sin.  Before the flood, The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  (Genesis 6:5)  After the flood, God saw that this was not a solution: his action did not solve the problem of man's sinful nature.  Because of his love, God did not want us to continue in this fallen state, so He gave us his son, Jesus, to fulfill all the promises He had made to us that we MIGHT LIVE and never die.  Death was our inheritance, But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  (Ephesians 2:4-7)  

Galatians 3:6-14 The Righteous Walk By Faith!

Galatians 3:6-14  Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”  Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.  The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”  So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.  All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”  Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”  The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”  He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. 

God gave us the story of Abraham recorded in the Old and New Testaments so we might understand God's plan for humans to live by faith and to gain eternal life with him through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in us.  We receive this gift of the Spirit by faith, not by works.  This faith rests in the works of Jesus Christ, not in our works.  His works alone make us holy: Christ's death on the cross satisfied God's wrath towards our sinful state.  With his death, not our death, Jesus cleansed our temples completely and constantly cleanses us with his blood.  John wrote, But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.  (1 John 1:7)  The verb tense in this sentence literally means his blood cleansed me yesterday, it is cleansing me today, and it will cleanse me tomorrow.  With the efficacious blood of Jesus continuously making our temples clean, we are holy for the presence of God to abide in us.  We are free to come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  (Hebrews 4:16 NKJV)  Under no other name than Jesus can we receive this holiness and freedom; subsequently, under no other name can we receive eternal life and an eternal home in the presence of God.  Only through Jesus and his work can we be filled with the eternal Spirit of God and know the security of adoption into the family of God.  Jesus is truly the gate into this reality.  Therefore we shout out with Paul: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.  (Ephesians 1:3-6) 

  

Abraham stands as a prototype of every person who lives by faith according to the promises of God and not by sight, looking at the limitations of the natural world.  Abraham believed God would bless him even before he received any confirmation or evidence of God's promise being fulfilled to him.  By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.  (Hebrews 11:8)  He believed in God's words, not in his reality, his present condition.  Christians who name the name of Jesus as their salvation believe the same thing.  We believe God's promises to us rather than the facts of this reality that we now experience on Earth, a reality that is contrary to our faith.  We believe there is a promised land; we believe there is eternal life with God.  Abraham, as we are also, was looking for an eternal home: he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.  (Hebrews 11:10)  We have no confidence in our flesh to gain this paradise.  Our confidence rests entirely in the promises of God and in his implementation of his Word.  Therefore, we Christians obey the commands of scripture when it says, Rejoice in the Lord always.  (Philippians 4:4)  Through faith and trusting in God, we have gained an understanding that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  (Romans 8:28)   As Paul did, we can add, Again I will say, rejoice!  Paul could say this regardless of the circumstances in his life because he was fully aware of the blessings he possessed in Christ by faith.  We know that as people of faith, we are a blessed people.  We are no longer held to a law that we cannot keep.  We have a Savior who presents us to the Father fully cleansed and made holy by his shed blood.   

Faith is the protagonist in this story, but there is an antagonist, one who would destroy our hope of eternal life with God.  This one who works against our delivering Faith is Works.  The latter fits so well with our sinful nature, which we can call Hero.  Hero desires to be in the center of everything we do.  He is the self-willed character of our lives.  As far as he is concerned, he not only knows what is right for himself, but for others too.  He will try to control, everything in his environment, for he is Hero, the knower of all things.  Of course, Works understands Hero better than Hero understands himself.  Hero believes he is functioning mostly under the umbrella of goodness and orderliness.  His ways are right ways.  Works agrees with him, and places his sensible plan of reaching the heavenly gates in front of Hero's eyes.  Of course, Hero notices that attainment to this wonderful place has put  him in the middle of implementing this plan.  With lots of ambition and effort he works out this plan to the heavenly gates, but sadly he finds a huge gulf between him and his final destination.  Works has deceived him, for his road to the gate of heaven is a dead end.  The road looks great at the beginning but ends in a place called Nowhere.  Faith, waits on the sidelines for the fleshly Hero to fail, then steps in and calls Hero to repent and to accept God's plan.  As Hero looks at it, he notices that He is not in the middle of this implementation of victory.  There is a man called Jesus that seems to be the center of everything written down.  He notices that in every avenue that he needs to travel, Mercy and Grace carry him along.  Hero steps back and views the scene; all his selfish ambition falls away.  He bows his head, and says, "This is the plan for me: there is no dead end to the way of Jesus.  I have faith in his works.  Thank you Faith for showing me the true way.  Forgive me, Lord.  I am yours."  May this little allegory speak to our hearts today.    

Galatians 3:1-5 Holy Spirit Needs No P.K.E. Meter

Galatians 3:1-5  You foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you?  Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.  I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?  Are you so foolish?  After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?  Have you suffered so much for nothing — if it really was for nothing?  Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

The interesting aspect of the above scripture is Paul's focus on the reality of the Spirit in these new Christians.  Paul assures the Galatians that the gift they have received from God is not a product of following the law but of believing on Jesus Christ and his works, especially Jesus' death on the cross for their sins.  His statements assume the Galatians recognize they had been given a gift that is easily discernible in their lives, a gift separating them from those who merely try to please God through their own efforts.  How many of us can discern the Spirit in our lives as surely as if we were given a tangible gift from a friend.  Certainly, if a friend gives us a gift, we would be able to describe it and tell anyone what the gift is like.  If the gift was food, we could tell how it tasted.  If the gift was a decorative item we could tell where we put it in our house and how it added to the decor.  If we received a gift of clothes, we could wear the item for them to receive their opinion of the new addition to our wardrobe.  But whatever we received, we would have a clear enough concept of the gift to share with others.  In today's focus, Paul assumes that the Galatians fully understand what they have received from God.  He asks them: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?  He goes on to ask: Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?  Paul does not have to explain what the Spirit is or how they can detect the Spirit in their lives: He knows they understand they have received something special and different in their lives through a supernatural gift from God.  As surely as if a friend came to their door with a gift for them, they understood that God came to their doors and gave them a special gift that impacted their lives dramatically, to the point of transforming their lives miraculously.  He is reminding them of what they should already know; consequently, the harsh words, You foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you?   

Do Christians today have this visceral understanding of the Holy Spirit in their lives?  Or do we need someone else to tell us how we can detect the Spirit of God within us.  At times some Christians are almost as silly as the Ghostbuster characters with their P.K.E meter to measure psychokinetic energy.  We need some visible or touchable experience with the Holy Spirit before we can accept his reality within us.  Is He real to us or is He a conjured up feeling?  Is his voice in us or is He a figment of our imagination?  In Paul's letter to the Galatians, He assumes his readers know the Spirit is real and active in their lives.  He knows they understand God has touched their lives significantly through the Spirit's work in their community of believers, but what they are not clear about is whether God's activity in their midst is partly because of their obedience to the law.  Paul addresses this confusion by asserting that belief in Christ alone has brought this wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit into their lives.  Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?  If they believe the former, he calls them foolish for such a wonderful gift could not, and never has, come from man's efforts of following the law.  And he knew they should have faith to believe the latter.  As Paul wrote to the church in Rome: So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  (Romans 10:17)  These Christians had heard the Good News; they had received the wonderful Counselor, promised by Jesus before He went to the cross.  Yet they were accepting false teaching that took them back to keeping the law that Jesus said He came to fulfill (See Matthew 5:17)  Paul is saying clearly, you have the Holy Spirit of God within you, doing miracles in your midst, and you did not receive him through human efforts.  It is God who gives us the  Holy Spirit to dwell within us.  

When Paul speaks to the Ephesians about the body of Christ and the gifts of the Spirit, he writes, "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.  This is why it says: “When he (Jesus) ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.”  (Ephesians 4:7-8)  He emphasizes Christ's work: He rose from the dead, set the captives free, gave gifts to men!  We did nothing to earn our place in God's family.  So we see Paul's concern for the church.  Today, in this twenty-first century, God has this same passion for us.  He wants us to be sure of the Holy Spirit's presence and his holy work in us.  As believers, do we talk about the presence of the Holy Spirit in the same way as Christians in the first century.  Or because of our knowledge and sophistication, do we think of the reality of the Holy Spirit as a somewhat nebulous idea, hardly important in the scheme of our everyday lives?  Is He really our Comforter, Advocate, and Guide or just a comforting idea?  We need to answer those questions or He becomes just another talking point in Christianity.  We must understand the Holy Spirit is not a take it or leave it aspect of Christianity: He is the essential core of Christianity.  His reality in us and through our community separates us from the rest of the world.  Before He went away, Jesus said He would ask the Father to send another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth.  This was important because the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.  Jesus went on the say, But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away.  Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.  When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.  (John 14:16-17, 26 & 16:7-11)  Jesus wanted them to understand the vital roles of the Holy Spirit.  If you are not hearing his voice today and seeking his guidance, pray that his voice will become a reality to you.  For your life depends on his presence and his direction.  Anything other than that is merely religion.  Bless you dear brothers and sisters.  

Galatians 2:17-21 Die to the Law, Live in Christ!

Galatians 2:17-21  If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin?  Absolutely not!  If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker.  For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

In the above verses, Paul refutes the postulation by some that turning away from the law will promote lawlessness.  Just because sin can be found in a Christian's life does that mean Christ promotes sin?  Absolutely not is his response to such specious logic.  The law could not be kept, so Paul says if I rebuild the law in my life to keep me morally right, I will die, for I come under the judgment  of a lawbreaker, which is death without God.  Therefore, I chose to die to the restraints of the law, which always condemned me, but never could give me life, and now I come under the auspices of grace IN CHRIST JESUS who is life eternal.  Therefore, I do not rebuild the statutes of the law in my life; instead, I plant the saving grace of Jesus Christ in the middle of my life.  He alone through his works, not ours, has the path of righteousness that leads to eternal salvation.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Paul tells the Galatians, I will not set aside the powerful grace of God which is Jesus Christ for the demands of the law.  If I do so, Jesus Christ died for nothing.  Only, Jesus, not the law, can build a new creature, holding the very presence of God, known as the Holy Spirit.  When we take our eyes off Jesus and begin to look at ourselves, we can begin to think that our right standing with God is based on something other than God's grace and Jesus' sacrifice at the cross.  The writer of Hebrew's said, See to it that no one misses the grace of God. . ..  (Hebrews 12:15)  If we miss the grace of God or set aside the grace of God, we miss God's best, his only plan for the restoration of his fallen creation.    

If we anthropomorphized the law, giving the law human characteristics such seeing the law as able to build something with "his" hands, we can see clearly the law cannot build something new.  The law can only reshape that which has already existed, bringing judgment on those who fall under the weight of sin.  Of course this is what the law tries to do: shape us into better people.  But no matter how much "he" works with us, the original clay cannot be reshaped enough to eliminate all of the imperfections in the original object.  THERE WILL ALWAYS BE IMPERFECTIONS!  The psalmist wrote: The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.  All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.  (Psalm 14:2-3)  When we look closely at mankind and his deeds and his actions, none of the objects he makes bring perfect glory to God, for God is holy, complete, without imperfection.  When Paul surveyed the battle between good and evil in his own life, he said, For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.  For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.  (Romans 7:18-19 NKJV)  Let us consider Jesus' workshop, the Creators' handiwork.  His hands can take that which is nothing, and bring it into reality.  He can take an imperfect object and mold it to perfection, by turning it into his likeness.  He takes the imperfect and places within it that part of him that glows eternally before the Father.  All daily imperfections are constantly covered by the gift of his life on the cross: The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  The finished work that He presents to the Father is his workmanship, God's plan for our redemption.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians  2:10)

God's grace is the mercy tool, fashioning us for the glory of God as his sons and daughters, adopted into his family for eternity.  In his workshop, he creates new creatures out of those who were destined for disposal.  He has gone the extra mile for us, just as he told his disciples, If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.  (Matthew 5:41)  We were all without hope, dead in our sins, but God had a plan, and Jesus was willing to be the answer to our sin problem.  As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.  (Ephesians 2:1-3)  The law could not save us from our sins; it could only serve as a mirror to show us our sins, remind us of our sin nature.  But Christ came to do what the law could not do--redeem us and set us free from sin.  Jesus made a way where there was no way.  Many scripture point to the answer: Jesus Christ and him crucified!  As Paul wrote so well, if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!  The law could not save us, and we surely could not save ourselves.  But Jesus Christ willingly paid the price to meet the righteous requirements of the law and to please the heart of the Father.  Therefore, we join Paul in saying, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,  just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.  (Ephesians 1:3-6)  Praise the name of the Lord Most High!  He alone is worthy of our praise!  Bless you dear readers.