05 Galatians 3:15-22 Deal vs. Promise

Speaker: Our passage is Galatians chapter 3, verses 15 through 22, and our teacher is Krisan Marotta. For more talks in this series, please visit our website at www.wednesdayintheword.com. Well, we are in Galatians chapter 3, verses 15 through 22 today. And just let me remind you where we are in the book. So chapters 3 and 4 are a unit, at least the way I online it, they're a unit in which Paul is making a series of arguments for the fact that we're justified by faith alone. So there are five arguments that run through this section. And we looked at last the first two last week. But let me go back and review just to help you remember. And I hope you all are using in your homework. I don't know if you remember, if you've discovered, there's a spot for you to make your own outline to help you remember what Galatians was all about. So I'm giving you hints what might be in it when I review, but you know, what's up to you. Anyway, I hope you use that. So in chapter one, you'll remember Paul introduced his three main themes of the book, which are his apostolic authority, the gospel, that we are justified by faith alone, and then the freedom the gospel brings. And we haven't talked too much about freedom yet. That's he's going to hit that more toward the end of the book. But he started by denouncing those who were distorting the gospel message, saying that you had to keep the law in addition to have faith in Christ. And he says, no, that's completely wrong. You can recognize the true gospel by its source, its substance, and its result. And its source is divine revelation. It comes from God, not man. Its substance is grace based on the blood of Christ, and its result is freedom, freedom from bondage to sin. So in chapter 2, then he argued that the gospel he's preaching was uh not man-made, but it he received it from Jesus Christ, and he went through his autobiography to prove that he had no chance to learn the gospel from the other apostles. And yet when he did meet with the other apostles, they confirmed and agreed that he was teaching the same gospel. And then when he uh when Peter and Barnabas got confused and started acting as if they had to keep the law and withdrew from eating with Gentiles, Paul publicly denounced them for that, saying that was hypocritical, that was inconsistent with the gospel, and they repented, again confirming that the gospel he teaches is right. So then in chapter three, he turns to the Galatians directly and he begins to argue that we are justified by faith and faith alone. And he gives five arguments. So if it's going to sound redundant over the next few weeks, it is because he's making the same argument five different ways. So last week we looked at the first two. The first one he argued in three, one verses one through five. He says, look at your own experience. In your own life, did you receive the spirit? In other words, did you now uh get that seal of faith and seal that you belong to God because you finally got your act together and started keeping the law and doing everything right? Or did you receive the spirit because you heard and believed? And he said, You heard the truth of the gospel that Jesus died in your place and you believed it, and that's why you got the Spirit. And then in 6 through 14 he says, and that is confirmed by what Scripture teaches. He says the scripture teaches that Abraham believed and God counted it to him as righteous. So from the beginning it was those who have faith that were received the promise, those who had faith like Abraham, and it confirms your own experience. So we're going to look at his third argument today, and now he appeals to common sense or everyday practice. Our passage starts with the phrase to give a human example, or we might say to give an everyday illustration, and that's what I mean by common sense. He's appealing to their daily experience, something they would all understand. And what he's appealing to is the difference between a deal and a promise. And that's something all of us are familiar with. So a deal is made between at least two parties. And when it's a deal, both sides say, okay, here's what I'm going to do, here's what you're going to do, this is what we agree to, and if we fail to agree to those things, or if we fail to uphold our responsibilities, here's what's going to happen as a result. So in either case, you you agree ahead of time who's responsible for what and what will happen if one party fails to keep their end. And it can be both positive and negative. Now, if you're a parent, you probably are very familiar with this, right? If you finish all your homework, I'll read you a story. That's a deal. It's a positive deal. It's saying if you this is what you do, and this is what I will do. Or you can have a negative deal. If you don't eat everything on your plate, you cannot have dessert. That's a negative deal. And those are very valid examples. So it's an if-then agreement. Each party has a responsibility, and each party agrees what will uh what consequences will follow if you fail to keep the deal. Now there's nothing wrong with deals. There's nothing like inherently bad about them. It's a great um way for parents to express love to their children. Um making deals can be a valid discipline tool. In fact, there are whole books written on the art of deal making as a parent. One book I read called it reality discipline. And I always like that term because life works that way. You know, if you fulfill fulfill your obligations on your job, then you get your paycheck. If you don't fulfill your job obligations, you risk getting fired. You know, if you don't file your tax return, the IRS will come and hunt you down and garnish your wages. You know, if you pay your electricity bill, the power company keeps on sending you power. You know, if you if you uh excel and learn new skills at your job, you get a promotion. All of those are deals and life works that way. Promises are different. Promises are based on one person only. So a promise says, I pledge to do something regardless. So we're probably most familiar with a marriage vow. That ought to be a promise. I promise to love you till death do your part. If it becomes conditional, I promise to love you only so long as you're lovable, that's a deal. That's not a promise. So you put conditions on it and it becomes a deal. So promises only take one person and they pledge to do something and there's no strings attached. And promises are another way we love our children. I mean, think about that. Early in our marriage, um, my husband and I decided that one of the ways we wanted to create family memories was to have big birthday parties and to make birthdays an event. So we had, you know, birthday fever would hit in our house and we'd guess we'd plan these wonderful, age-appropriate, but very festive, very big parties. But we never made those part of a deal. There was never strings attached. So we made a choice that we would never link a birthday to good attitude or good grades or positive behavior. That was never a never, we never threw that in jeopardy. Birthday days were just an unconditional expression of our love for our kids. So we promised them a celebration regardless. We didn't say if your grades fall, you can't have your birthday party. We never link that. We could have, that's a valid choice to make, but we just decided not to. Now, children know the difference between deals and promises. Don't they? Even very young kids, very young toddlers know the difference. And if you give them a promise and then you change it into a deal, they will call you out on it. So if you say, we're gonna go get ice cream, and then you later say, We won't get ice cream unless you finish your chores, what do they do? You promised. You promised, you can't go back on that. So that's what Paul's it appealing to today. Everybody knows the difference between a deal or a pro and a promise. Even very young children know the difference. And so he's saying, let me appeal to your everyday experience, something you understand, what's the difference between a deal and a promise? And he's gonna argue God made a promise to Abraham. The law, which was a deal which came later, did not nullify the promise. And that's basically the point of the passage. So let me read it for us. Uh we're in 3, 15 through 22. To give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offspring is referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, who is Christ. This is what I mean. The law which came four hundred and thirty years afterwards does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For the if inheritance comes for if the inheritance come by comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not, for if the law had if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now we're going to walk through that. Some of the language and grammar is difficult, especially for us modern readers. So there are some verses where different scholars translate them differently and understand them differently, but we all end up at the same path, at the same spot. So it's like we're all the different options end up at X, but some get there by a slightly different nuance. And I tell you that because the path I take to get there is probably the minority view, but it makes no sense to me. But I'll I'll explain that when we get there. So here's our outline. In 315 through 18, he argues that the law does not annul the promise. So he's basically going to argue the law is a deal and the deal did not annul the promise. And then in 19 through 22, he's going to say the law in fact illuminates the promise by answering two questions. Why the law in 319, and is the law contrary to the promises of God in 321? So he says the law doesn't annul the promise, in fact, the law illuminates it. Let's talk through how we get there. So 315, to give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. The word he's using here for a man-made covenant is what we would think of as a will, like a last will and testament. And what he's saying is when you make a will and you ratify it, once it's signed and sealed, it can't be changed, especially if the person has died. So a will is a promise. It's what I promise to do with my things at the end of my life. So it's it's at that point, it's not conditional, it's just here's how things are going to go. It's a promise how the state will the estate will be divided. And he's saying, Yupin covenants, once they're ratified, once the deal is done and has been signed, you can't change it. The same is true with the covenant God made with Abraham. The Mosaic law did not change it or annul it. So 316. Now this is the verse that raises all the translation issues. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offspring is referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ. The problem here is that Paul uses a plural noun, like sheep, is a plural noun. So it sounds like he's saying it does not say sheep referring to many, but sheep referring to one. To which we'd all go, well, of course it wouldn't say sheep, because sheep is plural, or sheep is plural. There is no sheep, you don't have to say sheep. So that's what's going on in the Greek. And folks, we all go, okay, exactly what's he trying to say? Uh what's he doing? He's clearly making the point about plurality versus singularity, but how is he getting there? There are kind of two main interpretations. I'm going to give you the first one, which is probably more popular, but it's not the one I agree with. And I will try to explain it the best of my ability, but it doesn't actually make all that much sense to me. So I may not be doing it justice. But this option would say the promises were not given to Abraham's offspring, referring to all his offspring. They were only given to one offspring, one particular person, and that was Christ. And the point is, I think what they're saying is Christ was the one that fulfilled his promise. So God intended one person only to be the recipient of the promise. That was Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ in his grace and mercy opens up his arms and includes all of us in the promise. So we re are benefit from the promise because he shares, basically, is kind of the idea. So anyone who comes to him in faith, then he shares the promise with. Everybody agrees that's what Paul is saying. I'm going to get there another way. I think what he's saying is instead of it, the offsprings or the sheep and the sheep, the offsprings and the offspring, is he saying the promise wasn't spoken to every last one of Abraham's genetic children. That's what he means by offsprings. Everyone who's descended from him. It's only one particular group of people who are related to him, and that is the group that has faith in Christ. So, if you think about this, remember Abram had an illegitimate son, Ishmael, by his slave, and then he had a legitimate son, Isaac, by his wife Sarah. After Sarah died, he married again, and he had six other sons. So all of Abraham's children founded nations, but only one of those children inherited the promise from God. That was Isaac, and the line from Isaac. Similarly, Isaac had twin sons, Esau and Jacob, but only one of those, Jacob, was chosen to receive the promise. Jacob had twelve sons, but only one of them, Judah, was the forefather of the Messiah. Jeffy had eight sons, but only one of them, David, was chosen to be king. So all throughout Old Testament history, you see there's this physical descendant. It's not just being physically descended from a patriarch that get guarantees you the blessing. That doesn't happen. Only one child often inherits the blessing or one line. So one son out of many. And I think that's what Paul's saying. Not everyone who's physically descended from Abraham is his offspring. So I take that to be referring to one, i.e. one group or one subset of his offspring. And who is that? The offspring, the people who have faith in Christ. Either way, you end up, we inherit the promises because of what Christ did for us. So it's it's a minor it's a translation issue, but it's kind of, we all end up in the same place, so it's not that big a deal. Now, the other reason I think this is because he's developing this line. Look back in 3.7, he says, know that this is it is those who have faith who are sons of Abraham. So he started making this point that those who are actually Abraham's children are those who have faith like him, and he's going to fully develop it by 329, where he says, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. See how I think he's following this line all the way through, saying it's not every genetically, every person who's genetically descended from Abraham that receives the promise. It's only those who are like him in their faith that receive the promise. So in 315 he says, you can't change a promise once it's made. And 316 he says this promise is made to the children of Abraham who have faith like Abraham had. And now in 17 he clarifies why what this means about the law. He says, This is what I mean, the law which came 430 years afterwards does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. The 430 years refers to the captivity in Egypt. If you look at Exodus 1240, it specifically tells us the time that the people lived in Israel was 430 years. So that 430 years is not the time period from Abraham to Moses, it's the time of the captivity. And he's saying the law which came after that captivity was an additional arrangement issued by God. It was a deal, not a promise. So to Abraham, God said, I will bless you, I will make you a great nation, I will make your seeds as numerous as stars, I will give you a place, I will be your God. All the promises are I will, I will. To Moses, he gave a deal. The deal was do this and live, don't do this and die. It demanded responsibilities of each party. There were consequences involved, but the deal does not nullify the promise. The deal and the promise are two separate things. They can't be mixed together, they accomplish different purposes, they were given for different reasons. And Paul's point is the deal which came later does not wipe out the promise. The promise was always intended for those who have faith like Abraham. Following me? Okay, 318. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. So he's saying, if we did now have to start uh gaining our inheritance by keeping the law, it's no longer a promise, it's now a deal. And the if so if the only way I could receive the promised inheritance is now by keeping all these conditions, then the inheritance is no longer a promise, it would be a deal. But we know that God didn't make a deal with Abraham. We know that God made a promise with Abraham. So that raises the question, okay, so if God's both the author of the deal and the author of the promise, why give them both? Why he must have had a purpose. So having given the promise, why would he give the law? What's the relationship between them? And that's what Paul answers in 319. Why then the law? It was added because of transgression until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. And it was put in place through an angel by an intermediary. Now, an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. So he's saying, why did God give the law? You're misunderstanding the purpose of the deal. In giving us the law, he never intended us to earn our salvation by it. He gave us the law to convince us we need the promise. So the law was added to teach us how sinful we are. That's what he means by it. It was added because of transgressions. Because what's the effect of giving me a law? You tell me, here's what holiness is, and we spell it all out in detail, and what am I going to do? Break all those rules. First thing, right off the bat, we break them. So you give me a law, I will break it. And the result is I'm now a lawbreaker. My transgressions are obvious. Now, if you have kids, you know that you have to make a law. Right? I mean, what's one of them if you catch your child red-handed, what's his first excuse? But you didn't tell me it was wrong. You didn't tell me. You you never said I couldn't shove my sister. You said I couldn't push her. But I didn't push her. I didn't I shoved her, you know. So how was I supposed to know that was wrong, right? I mean, this is what kids do with all the time. But you didn't tell me I had to come straight home after soccer practice. You said I didn't go couldn't go to Billy's house. I didn't. I went to Sam's. How was I supposed to know you wanted me home immediately, right? So what the law does is it closes all those loopholes. It says, okay, this is what righteousness looks like. Let me spell it out for you in however many chapters of Leviticus and Numbers and all those books of the law. This is what it looks like. These are all the things you have to do if you if you were truly righteous. And so what happens is now we have no excuse. Now we are caught. We're red-handed. We are now transgressors that multiplies our transgressions. And now we know, uh-oh, I'm a lawbreaker. This deal is not going to work. I need something else. I need a savior. I need a promise. So the law was added to teach us that we transgress, you know, and that's something you know we have to do. You said no hitting. Does that include pinching? What about tripping? What about glances, evil glances, or bumping, or you know, your kids have to find all the lines. The law is like that. It teaches us what it means to be holy, and the main purpose is to show us we're not. So the law was given to teach us how sinful we are so that we would turn away from law-keeping and seek faith like Abraham and so inherent promise. So he says the law was a deal, not a promise. We can tell that because it came through a mediator. You only need a mediator if two parties are involved. You don't need a mediator for one person making a promise. I think that's what he means by an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. If it's a deal, you have to have a mediator because two people have to agree in front of a witness. Here's what we're going to do. But God is one. He's the only one that made a promise. The promises were unilateral, given to Abraham. Without condition. I think that's his point there. So 21 and 22. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? So that raises the next question. Well, if we've got this deal and we've got this promise, and and they both say do this and live, or one says do this and live, and the other says, just trust me and live, don't that doesn't that contradict each other? That's what he's going to answer. He says, certainly not, for if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus might be given to those who believe. So, in other words, he's saying, Does the promise to give life to those who have faith like Abraham contradict the promise, the deal and the law? And he says, Of course not, because if there was a law that we could keep, if there was a deal that we could actually keep, then God would honor that and we would get life. But there is no such law. We break every law every day. So the effect of the law is to reveal to us that we cannot keep it. We learned that we are all under sin. I think that's what he means by scripture, imprisoned everything under sin. So giving us the law, giving us detailed scriptures that say this is what holiness is, shows us that we are all sinful. We are now all imprisoned to the law. So the only way any of us will be saved is if we trust in the blood of Jesus Christ. So God gave a promise to Abraham, it was confirmed by Moses, the law illuminated how much we need it, and then it was fulfilled by Jesus. So to summarize, what he's saying is you can't change a promise once it's been promised. That's the whole nature of a promise. A promise means I commit to doing something regardless, and if I fail to do it, then I've broken my promise. I can't later add all these codicles and loopholes and exceptions and conditions because now it's no longer a promise, now it's a deal. So the law which came later doesn't nullify the promise. God gave the law for an entirely different purpose. He gave us the law to teach us, we need the promise. And all of that is to make the point, having been given a promise, why would you be so foolish as to go back to the deal? Because remember, that's what the Galatians are doing. They're saying, yes, we started with faith in Christ, but now we have to keep the law. And Paul's saying, why would you do that? If you have a promise, if your husband promises to love you forever, why would you turn around and say, okay, well, love me only if I do this? Why would you ever make those conditions? Okay, so to apply this, we're actually not going to have a theology lesson today. I know I'm a little disappointed too. But I want to flush this out what this means. Because think about when you wake up every day, do you see yourself as a child of promise or a slave to the deal? And I suspect a lot of us wake up thinking, I've got to keep the deal. I've got to hold up my end of the bargain. Maybe you don't think that God may requires you, but you might think that all the other Christians at church think you have to hold up the deals and look a certain way and act a certain way and be a certain way. So, and sometimes we think we're making it. So sometimes we think, you know, well, I'm in basically good health and I have a great marriage and or maybe a dating relationship, I'm excelling in my career, all the friends I can handle, you know, my children maybe are healthy and cute and compliant, and I have enough money, or maybe I'm thin enough, smart enough, successful enough. I don't I'm doing okay. I'm I'm an okay person. God must be pleased with me. I'm not addicted to anything, you know, I don't cheat on my taxes, I don't lie too much, you know, so so I'm basically good and God must be pleased that I'm keeping my end of the deal. And I actually am amazed. Over the years I've been in women's ministry, you you can meet I mean, we meet a lot of incredibly talented, capable women. You know, they're brilliant, brilliant career women and super moms and and women who make Mother Teresa look like a slacker, you know. Or these, you know, we've had these women that have great marriages and perfect, polite homeschooled children who are four grades ahead of their age, you know. Or they grow all their own vegetables and sew all their own clothes and in their spare time run a business and you know, how I you've met people who have everything, women who have everything, but one thing they all have, they may on the outside have all these advantages and blessings, but there's one thing we don't have, and that's the freedom to fail. Our culture, and I think especially Charlottesville, we relish every kind of freedom except one, and that's the freedom to fail. We are not allowed to say, you know what, I don't have it all together. I I can have it all organize it all and clean it all, but I can't admit that I'm not really making it. And I suspect everyone in here feels that. Do I really have the freedom to fail? And you fear, what if my marriage falls apart, or or what if my kids turn out to be juvenile delinquents, you know, or I don't advance in my career, or I don't get straight A's, or maybe I get turned down by the top colleges, or I never win a Grammy or write a book, or or never find the right person to marry, and what if my life just doesn't turn out right? So if you're one of those people, I expect most of us are, who work really hard to create the image that we have it all, and we live with the fear that we're afraid someone might find out that we don't really have it all, then you're laboring under the deal. And this is what Paul is saying. Consider the difference between a deal and a promise. Because if you have it all, the gospel says it doesn't, or if you're trying to have it all, the gospel says what you have is based on a promise, and that promise offers the freedom from the fear of failure. Because the gospel says you are loved in and of yourself, just because that you are valuable quite apart from your income or your GPA or your resume or your family pedigree or your swim figure and gorgeous hair, or your marital status, or your parenting success, none of that is what gains you God's favor. You have value simply because you're made in God's image. So, according to the gospel, God loves you in spite of your failures. Whether you succeed or fail, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're famous or unheard of, whether you're beautiful or plain, whether you're thin or not, the gospel says you are made in God's image. God loves you more than you can imagine and more than you deserve. And He gave you a promise, not a deal. So you are no longer a slave to a deal. Your life has meaning if even if you don't have a perfect house and a perfect career and a perfect marriage and a perfect relationship, and none of us do, although we're all trying to look like we are, but we don't. Well, just I can tell you. So the gospel says you're free from that. That fear of failure, that's okay. Failures will happen, tragedies will happen, life will deal you hard blows, um, but that doesn't mean you've lost God's favor, it doesn't mean you don't have worth, it doesn't mean that um that you somehow ha are leading a lesser life. So your life was meant to be lived in a relationship with God, and he's sovereign over all of that, and he he gave you a promise. He promised that he would never leave or forsake his people, and he will, in fact, bring you into eternal life, into a place where there are no more tears, no more loss, no more bitterness or fr frustration. And it's a promise. It's not a deal. He promised. It's not dependent on you having it all together. Now I think that's incredible freedom. I mean, when you wake up each day, do you do you see yourself as a child of the promise or a slave to the deal? And what Paul would say is, if you have faith, like Abraham, you stand to inherit the promise. And it's an incredibly wonderful promise. So why would you ever seek to turn around and go back to a deal? Now that opens up a lot for us to think about how we treat each other. Because I think sometimes we expect a deal, you know. I want you to look like a Christian, act like a Christian, talk like a Christian, and if you have a bad day, that's not acceptable. But the gospel would say, you know what? We all have those days. And we all are that way, and we should love each other regardless, and we should accept each other regardless, and we shouldn't expect Christians to come to church with a plastic smile, but we should be willing to let them come and say, you know what, this is hard. I'm having struggling today or this week or this year, you know, and I need I need help getting through that, because we all do. So to sum up, your sins are worse than you think. That's what the law teaches us. But you are loved by God more than you can imagine. That's what the promise teaches us. Because Jesus is all about redeeming the lost. And the gospel claims that if you're terribly flawed, like we are, uh, because of the sin in our lives, you can be forgiven, you can be redeemed, and you can be justified if you have faith in what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross. So God takes people who don't have it all together, people who are broken, failures, fakers, just like you and me, and he makes them or makes us beautiful and holy and righteous. So you don't need to count on your pedigree or your resume or your beauty or your success or whatever to find meaning. Um, and or maybe you're on the flip side where life's already hit you hard and you're wondering, is there any meaning? Is there any anchor in the storm? And the answer is yes, there's an anchor. It's the gospel. And I bet everyone in the room is probably looking around going, you know, I don't have what all these other women have. So I don't quite measure up to the other people sitting in my row. We all think that way. We just don't admit it. You know, but we all look around and go, wow, she has she has uh I wish I had her life or her gift or whatever. Everybody always wants someone else's specialty, I think. And but the message of the gospel is none of us really have it all together. None of us are completely fulfilled. And the good news is it's a promise, it's not a deal. God loves you not because you have it made, but because you were made for a relationship with Him. So lay that burden down. All right, we're gonna have lots of time for questions. Uh let me pray for us and and then I'll give you a chance to ask questions.