07 Why the Gospel is a Promise, Not a Deal (Galatians 3:15-22)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today we're gonna study Galatians chapter 3, verses 15 through 22. This is the seventh talk in our series on Galatians. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast, or you can find them on Wednesdayintheword.com slash Galatians 7. Glad to have you along. We're still in Galatians chapter 3, and as you recall, chapters 3 and 4 form a unit of the book in which Paul is making a series of five arguments for the fact that we are justified by faith alone. Paul is writing to churches who are beginning to abandon the gospel in favor of law-keeping. Since Paul left them, the Judaizers have come to the Galatian churches and taught them that belief in Christ is not enough. They must also keep the law and live like Jews. And Paul is writing this letter to correct that view. In the first two chapters, Paul defended his authority and his gospel. He argued his gospel comes from divine revelation. No human being invented it. Yet when Paul had the chance to confer with some of the other apostles, they confirmed that they were teaching the exact same gospel. In chapter 3, then Paul begins the main body of his letter. He confronts the Galatians directly for turning away from the gospel. And this section of the book runs from 3.1 to 431. And here Paul is developing his second major theme, and that is the gospel is centered on the cross and founded on justification by faith. And Paul gives five arguments for the fact that his gospel is the one true gospel, and that gospel is we are justified by faith alone. Now we looked at the first two arguments last week. In 3, 1 through 5, Paul says, look at your own experience. Did you receive the Spirit, the mark and seal of God's acceptance of you, because you got your act together and started keeping the law, or because you heard the gospel and you believed it? Of course, you received the Spirit because you had faith. Then in 3, 6 through 14, he points out that their experience is confirmed by Scripture. Scripture teaches that Abraham believed God and God justified him on the basis of that faith. From the beginning, justification came through faith. God promised that all those who had faith like Abraham would be blessed, and conversely those who seek justification by keeping the law fall under the curse. We will look at a third argument today, which is an appeal to common sense, or at least common practice in their society. First let me read three fifteen through twenty two and then we'll walk through it. 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 offsprings, 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 afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance 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 has 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 then contrary to the promises of God? 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 Christ might be given to those who believe. Alright, let's start with this phrase to give a human example, or we might say, to give an everyday illustration. He's appealing to their ordinary daily experience because they all understand the difference between a deal and a promise. A deal is made between at least two parties. Both parties agree to certain responsibilities and they agree to certain consequences if either party fails to keep their end of the bargain. Deals can be both positive or negative. But in either case, both parties agree ahead of time what each one is responsible for and what will happen if one or both of them fails to hold up their end of the deal. Now, if you're a parent, you're probably very familiar with deals. You've probably said this to your children. If you finish all your homework, I will read you a story. That's a positive deal. The parent and the child agree ahead of time what will happen if the child does her homework. A negative deal could be if you don't eat everything on your plate, then you can't have dessert. Deals are if-then agreements. Each party in the deal has a responsibility, and they agree ahead of time what consequences will follow if you fail to keep the deal or if you do keep the deal. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with deals. There's nothing unloving about parents making deals with their children. Making deals can be a valid way of loving and teaching and disciplining your children. In fact, whole books have been written on the art of deal making as a parental philosophy. Additionally, life works on deals. If you fulfill the obligations of your job, then you get your paycheck. If you fail to file your tax return, the IRS will hunt you down and take your wages. If you pay your electric bill, the power company keeps sending you power, but if you stop paying your electric bill, then they turn your power off. If you learn new skills and excel at your job, you may get a promotion. All of those are deals. Promises operate differently. A promise is based on one person only. One party pledges to do something regardless. Marriage vows ought to be promises. I promise to love you till death do us part. If the marriage vows become conditional, I promise to love you only as long as you are lovable, then that is no longer a promise. That is now a deal. Promises are another way parents can express love to their children. Early in our marriage, my husband and I decided that one of the ways we wanted to create family memories was to make birthdays a big event. We promised our kids age-appropriate, festive, big birthday parties, no strings attached. Birthdays were highly anticipated, and we never used them in a deal, so we never linked birthdays to a good attitude or good grades or positive behavior. They were just unconditional expressions of our love for our children. Now children can tell the difference between deals and promises. Even preschoolers and young toddlers know the difference. They will react with outrage if you try to change a promise into a deal. So having once promised to take your children to get ice cream, you can't later add conditions like, well, we're not going to get ice cream unless you finish your chores, because they will very quickly and vehemently remind you, no, no, you promised. The difference between a deal and a promise is at the heart of Paul's argument in our passage today. Paul is appealing to common sense, the kind of common sense that even a young child has, and he's arguing, God made a promise to Abraham. The law, which came later, which was a deal, does not nullify the promise. So let's walk through the passage. Some of the language and the grammar in this section present difficulties for modern readers, but most scholars end up in the same place. Because of the translation difficulties, some scholars take slightly different paths, but most of them end up at the same finish line. And the vast majority agree with the basic point. I bring that up because the interpretive path I'm going to give you today falls in maybe slightly in the minority camp, but I end up in the exact same place. So here's our outline. In three, fifteen through eighteen, he argues that the law, which is a deal, does not annul the promise. And then in nineteen through twenty-two, he argues that the law illuminates the promise. He asks and answers two questions. Why the law? That's in three nineteen. And is the law contrary to the promises of God? That's in three twenty-one. So let's start with fifteen through eighteen. 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 unto offsprings, 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 if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. First let's talk about this word covenant. A covenant is a promise. It is not the same thing as a contract. Covenants are personal, they are typically based on gratitude, trust, and hope. Contracts are impersonal, they are typically legal and based on distrust. In a covenant relationship, the greater party commits to fulfill certain promises to a lesser party. That's typically what we see in Scripture. In the Bible, God is the greater party, he brings commitment to the covenant relationship, and the lesser party in the biblical covenants are human beings or a subset of human beings, and God is committing to do certain things for them. A covenant is a promise, it is not a deal. The recipients only need to accept the promise and trust that the commitment will stand. Now there are two kinds of covenants in Scripture, unilateral and bilateral. A unilateral covenant is a commitment on the part of a greater party toward a lesser party, and the majority of covenants we see in the Bible are of this type because they are made between God and his people. A bilateral covenant involves two parties, usually two equal parties, who are promising to fulfill certain things unconditionally. So marriage would be an example of a bilateral covenant. Once a covenant is made and agreed to, no one can add conditions to it or alter it, even in human contracts. And the same is true of the covenant God made with Abraham. The Mosaic law did not change or nullify it. Most likely the man-made covenant Paul has in mind here is a will. The word he uses here typically refers to what we would call a last will and testament. His point is once the will is signed and sealed and ratified, it cannot be changed. The promises expressed in a will over how the estate will be divided or distributed, who's going to inherit what, they cannot be changed, particularly if the person has died. If a human covenant can't be altered, how much more unchangeable are the promises of God? Let me read fifteen and sixteen again. 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 offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ. This verse raises some translation issues. The problem here is that the noun Paul uses which is translated offspring is a plural noun, like sheep is a plural noun in English. So it sounds like he's arguing it does not say sheeps referring to many, but sheep referring to one. To which we'd say, well, of course it doesn't say sheeps, because sheep is a plural noun. We'd never expect it to say sheep. You can say sheep without the S on the end, and it refers to many. In the same way, offspring, this Greek word, is a plural noun, and yet Paul is clearly making a point about plurality versus singularity. So what's he doing? Well, there are two main interpretations, roughly speaking and generalizing. One way to understand this is that the promises were not given to Abraham's offspring, referring to many. They were only given to one particular offspring, Jesus Christ. The point being Christ is the only one who actually fulfilled the law and therefore gets the promise. Well, I don't agree with this option, so I may not be explaining it in its best light. But I think those who hold to this view think that Paul is saying God intended one person to be the recipient of the promise. Abraham received the promise, one of his children received the promise, and ultimately the one child who will ultimately receive it is Jesus Christ. And because Jesus opened up his arms to embrace everyone who would come to him by faith, then we are included in the promise, but he is the only one who really gets it. I think there's a better way of understanding what Paul's doing. To me, this other way makes more sense in the context of Galatians and also in the Genesis passage where Abraham was given the promises. I'd paraphrase it something like this. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and his children. The author does not say seed meaning all of Abraham's genetic offspring, but rather your seed, meaning one particular subset of Abraham's children, the subset which has faith in Christ, or the subset whose patriarch is Christ. So let me just remind you of some Old Testament history. Hopefully this is familiar to you. Abraham had two sons. First, Abraham had an illegitimate son, Ishmael, by his slave Hagar, then later he had a legitimate son, Isaac, by his wife Sarah. While both of those children founded great nations, only one of those nations inherited the promise from God. Isaac was the line of promise, not any other sons Abraham had. Then we get to Isaac. Isaac also had two sons, Esau and Jacob, but only one of those two, Jacob, was chosen to receive the promise. Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel, had twelve sons, but only one of those twelve sons was the forefather of the Messiah. We could keep going. Jesse had eight sons, but only one of them, David, was chosen to be the king of Israel. All throughout Old Testament history, we see that not all physical descendants of a patriarch stand to inherit the promises of God. There's only one line that inherits the promise. One son out of the many gains the blessing. And I think that's what Paul's point is. The line or the group of descendants that stands to inherit the promise is the line that has faith, like Abraham had faith. The promise or the covenant goes to the line that trusts in the coming Messiah, or from our point in history, the Messiah who is already come, Jesus Christ. So the promise was made to Abraham and to his seed, but not all of his seed, only the seed who have faith like Abraham. And I think that's his point. Who is going to inherit this blessing of eternal life? Not all the physical descendants of Abraham, only those descendants who belong to Christ because they have faith like Abraham. This is the point he began making back in 3.7, and he's going to fully develop by the end of the chapter. In 315 he says you can't change a promise once it's been made. And in 316, he says the promise was not made to all the children of Abraham. It was only made to those who have faith, like Abraham had faith. And now in 317 he explains further, this is what I mean, the law which came 430 years afterward does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. Exodus tells us that the time the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years, and I think that's what Paul's referring to, not 430 years after Abraham, but after 430 years of slavery in Egypt, then they were delivered and God gave them the law. So I think that 430 years refers to the captivity. His point is before Moses, before the captivity, before any of this other stuff happened, God made a promise to Abraham. He made a covenant with Abraham. Then later on, he made a new additional agreement with the children of Israel. And this was the law, and it was a deal. So God promised Abraham, I will bless you, I will make your name great. Then through Moses, God gave a deal to the children of Israel. And that deal had responsibilities. Do this and you will live, don't do this and you die, and so forth. The deal demanded certain responsibilities, and the deal outlined the consequences if either side failed to uphold its part. But the deal was made at a much later time than the promise, and it had no effect on the promise. The promise and the deal cannot be mixed together because they were given to different people, they accomplished different results, and they are different in nature. The deal does not nullify the promise. I think that's what he's saying in 317. The law did not wipe out the promise. The promise was always intended for those who have faith like Abraham, and the promise still stands. Then he goes on in 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 now inherit the promise by keeping the law, it's no longer a promise, it would be changed into a deal. If the only way I can receive the promised inheritance is now by keeping the law, then the inheritance is no longer based on a promise, it's based on a deal. But God didn't make a deal with Abraham, God made a promise to Abraham. So you Judaizers claim that faith in Christ is not enough. To receive God's promises, we must also keep the law, but keeping the law is a deal, and God gave Abraham a promise, a covenant. Deals and promises are not the same. God promised that all who had faith like Abraham would be blessed, and now that Jesus has come, we know more fully what that faith involves. But the promise still stands. The law did not wipe it out. You can't add a deal to the promise. It doesn't work that way. Well, that raises the question, having given a promise, why give the law? What's the relationship between them? God is the author of both the promise and the deal. Why the law then? 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. Again, there's translation issues in here. Let me tackle this phrase having been put in place through angels by an intermediary. The word translated angel just means messenger. It can be any type of messenger of God, usually. It can be a divine messenger, it can be a human messenger, it can be God Himself in a theophany. During the time of Moses, God physically appeared to the nation of Israel in several ways. He appeared as the pillar of fire, the cloud, thunder and lightning, shaking the mountain, the cloud that descended on the tent of meeting. All of those appearances of God could be described as angels or messengers. Now today we'd use the word a theophany, a theophany of God. They are God representing himself to his people in a certain way through a messenger. And I think Paul is saying the law was put in place by a theophany of God, that's the angel of the messenger, and by a human mediator, that's Moses. I think Paul mentions this because he wants to make a point about the law having an intermediary. So let me try to walk through his logic as I see it. Why then did God give us the law? You're misunderstanding the deal. God never intended for us to earn salvation through keeping the law. He gave us the law to convince us that we need the promise. The law was added because of transgressions. The law was added in order to teach us that we are sinful, because the law spells out the standard of holiness. What's the result of giving us specific laws to break? We break them. The law results in transgressions. The law heightens our awareness of transgressions. It increases our knowledge of what's wrong. Because now we have a way to measure and count and quantify our transgressions. Now, if you have kids, you're probably very well aware of the need for making laws. What's one of the main excuses your children offer you when they're caught red-handed doing something wrong? They say, but you didn't tell me it was wrong. You didn't tell me I had to come straight home after soccer practice. You told me I couldn't go to Billy's house. I didn't go to Billy's house. I went to Sam's house. How was I supposed to know you didn't want me to go anywhere? We all engage in that kind of legal rationalization. Well, giving us the law closes those loopholes. God gave us the law to teach us that we transgress. And just like you have to spell out for children, every last interpretation of acceptable and non-acceptable behavior, God gave us the law. And you've seen this. Your kids always say, Well, you said no hitting. Does hitting include pinching? What about tripping? What about evil glances? What if I just bump him with my elbow a little bit? Does that count as hitting? Well, the law gives us that kind of detailed description of what it takes to be holy, and that detailed description teaches us we're not holy. The law was given to teach us how sinful we are so that we would turn away from law keeping and have faith like Abraham and inherit the promise. Now that's not the only purpose of the law. It's one of the purposes of the law, and Paul is bringing it up here to further his point. The law was a deal and not a promise. It came through a mediator. You only need a mediator if you have two parties agreeing to responsibilities and consequences. In this case, God and the children of Israel are the two parties agreeing to the terms of the deal, and Moses is the intermediary. I think that's what he means in 18. Intermediary implies more than one. You only need a mediator when two parties are making a deal. But a promise only needs one party. God is one. God spoke directly to Abraham, no mediator required because God alone was making promises. And you can see how this plays into his argument against the Judaizers. The Judaizers say Moses needs to be the mediator for all of God's people because all of God's people need to obey the law. And Paul's saying, the Gentiles who belong to the seed of Abraham have nothing to do with Moses. Moses wasn't given to them. Moses was given to the nation of Israel. Moses mediates the deal. The Gentiles are part of the promise, not the deal. The promise has no mediator. And the deal was in effect until the seed should come to whom the promise has been made. I think what he's saying here is the promise was made to people who have faith like Abraham had faith, and therefore belong to the Messiah. The law is in effect until the Messiah comes and proclaims his kingdom. Before the coming of the Messiah, the law is the way we understand and relate to God. But when the Messiah came, he explained the cross, he explained the meaning of the resurrection, we now have an increased understanding and a new way of relating to God, and we now understand the role of the law better. He explains this further in 321 and 22. Is the law contrary to the promises of God? 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 Christ might be given to those who believe. Here's what I think he's saying. Does the law contradict the promises of God? In other words, does God promise life to those who have faith like Abraham and also promise life to those who keep the law? Does he contradict himself? Does he nullify or wipe out the promise and that's no longer available? Now we have to go for the deal, we have to keep the law. He says, of course not. If there was a law or a deal that we could keep, that God would honor that deal and we would gain life by it. But there's no such deal. We break the law every day. The effect of the law was to reveal that we are sinners. I think that's what he means by imprisoned everything under sin. In striving to keep the law, we learned we cannot keep it. We learned that we are all in fact lawbreakers, and having learned that, we know we can't keep our part of the deal and we seek a plan B. We can't make ourselves worthy through lawkeeping because the law can't change the fact that we're sinners. We may be able to outwardly obey most of the laws most of the time, but we're still sinners inside, and the law does nothing to free us from evil, corruption, and selfishness. Plus, the law can't pay our debt to justice. We're still going to be found guilty on judgment day. I think that's what's behind his phrase, the scripture, the law imprisoned everything under sin. The law teaches us we're sinners to lead us to believe in the Messiah. The only way any of us will be saved is if we trust in the blood of Jesus Christ. God's promise was given to Abraham, confirmed by Moses, and fulfilled by Christ. So to summarize this section, Paul says 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. If I fail to do that something, then I've broken my promise. I can't later add conditions and codicles and loopholes and exceptions. That's breaking the promise. Thus, the law which came later after the promise does not nullify, change, or invalidate the promise. God gave us the law for an entirely different purpose. He gave us the law to teach us that we need the promise. So you are not a slave to the deal. God promised that because of the blood of Jesus, he will never leave or forsake his people. He promised those who have faith like Abraham the same blessing Abraham received, eternal life in his kingdom, a place where there are no more tears, no more loss, no more mourning, bitterness, frustration, or failures. It's not a deal. He promised. It's not dependent on you being obedient. Paul says if you have faith, you stand to inherit the promise. Why would you want to go back to the law? I think Christianity is unique in that it is based on a promise and not a deal. It's the only religion that doesn't say basically, try harder. The good news of the Christian gospel is you are a failure, and Christ died for you knowing that. The promise was given to sinners just like us who fail and are not the people we should be, but who hope in the blood of Christ. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. Please follow, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. The more people who do that, the easier it is for others to find the podcast. You can hear more and find all previous episodes in this series on my website, WednesdayInTheWord.com. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krissan Morata and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word. In the meantime, I hope you find some time to visit my website, Wednesdayintheword.com, and take advantage of some of my free Bible study materials.