GALATIANS 3 GOD HAS ALWAYS RELATED TO US BY GRACE2019 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Galatians 3 God Has Always Related To Us By Grace

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. Well, this evening we are here in Galatians chapter 3, continuing to talk about the grace of God as Paul, from every angle,

handles this subject and covers the importance of it and refutes the false teachers who are trying to convince the Galatians that they need to keep the law in order to be saved. And

And so Paul's been addressing this from a few different ways already. And we're going to jump into now a new segment as he continues to deal with this subject and point us to the grace of God and help us to understand how important it is for us to approach God by grace and never by works, by our efforts, by our merits, or by our actions.

or anything of that sort. And so we're going to jump into verse 7 through 14 to start it off. We covered through verse 9 last week, and so we're going to back up just a couple verses just to keep us in the mindset of Paul as we work our way now looking at verses 10 through 25 this evening. So Galatians chapter 3 verses 7 through 14 is where we'll start to read together, and let's read that, and then we'll jump into the message. Verse 7 of Galatians 3 says, Therefore,

Verse 10.

Verse 13. Verse 13.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Here as we jump into Paul's discussion here about the grace of God and justification by faith and the promise that has been given and the curse of the law, there's a lot of things in the mix that Paul is discussing, but it comes back to, again, this subject of the grace of God and how God relates to us not by words,

how we perform and how well we do, but we have access to God by faith in Jesus Christ. And it's the grace of God that allows that. And so I've titled the message this evening, God always, or God has always related to us by grace. Last week,

We talked about grace and I titled the message last week, God Relates to Us by Grace. And we saw that from the crucifixion of Jesus in the first couple of verses of chapter three, Paul references the crucifixion and that demonstrates to us and shows us once and for all that God relates to us by grace. And if God didn't relate to us by grace, then there is no need for the crucifixion of Jesus. And so those things are tied together.

But then remember, Paul also challenged the Galatians to think about their own experience and how as they began a walk with the Lord and being born again, that all began with grace. Nobody was ever saved because they achieved some spiritual thing and were of high enough value now that God responded and gave them salvation. No, that from the very beginning for each one of us, our experience shows that God relates to us by grace.

And then Paul turned to Abraham's experience and says, look, even Abraham experienced righteousness from God by faith. It was by grace. It was by faith that Abraham was righteous, not by his keeping the law. And so we talked about that last week and we kind of continue that vein of thought. But last week it was present tense. God relates to us by grace. Here Paul is going to go back and really make the point. This has always been the case.

And sometimes when we think about grace versus works or the new covenant versus the old covenant, right? The new Testament versus the old Testament. There's a common misconception that exists for us that we need to be aware of and to understand that God has always related to us by grace. The Judaizers of Paul's day, they didn't understand this.

And so they were teaching, well, Jesus, you know, he did a good work for us. He died upon the cross. You need to believe in Jesus. You also need to keep the law in order to really be saved or in order to really be spiritual or to really be blessed or to really have access to God, you know, that there was this additional thing that was required in order for God to work in your life. It's legalism that they were trying to pull the Galatians toward. And I've mentioned it many times, but legalism,

Legalism can take that form, the form of the Judaizers and turning back to the old covenant, the system of laws and regulations that God gave through Moses. But legalism can also take the form of any system that you develop yourself.

and sometimes you know we develop our own personal system of legalism and you know that is the basis by which we try to approach God and receive from God and it can take form take that form as well or it can take the form of somebody else's legalism and somebody else is telling us what God wants and what God requires and and so we follow their rules and their laws as imposed upon us and and so it can take different forms but it it

it comes back and it kind of is rooted in a common misconception amongst Christians in general. And that is that righteousness used to be by works, but now righteousness is by faith. That's a common misconception.

It's not the truth, but it's a common misconception. Righteousness used to be by works. And we'll say things like we're not under the law, right? We'll talk about how there was a change from the law to grace or, you know, we kind of make that comparison many times. And definitely there is, you know, a difference between the new covenant and the old covenant. But the difference may not be what we often think of in our minds, right?

righteousness has always been by faith. It's never been by works. Never. Not once ever. Never has righteousness been by works, by keeping laws, by, you know, righteousness is a gift from God and it's always been by grace through faith. Always. But there is a common misconception. And this doctrine of the Judaizers could take root in the hearts of the Galatians because they had this

conception. They had this misconception about righteousness. And yeah, it did used to be by works. And so we can, you know, add to our righteousness. We can become more righteous by our efforts. And that's what Paul was refuting last week when he said, hey, having begun in the spirit, are you going to be made perfect in the flesh? You're going to improve upon your salvation with your own efforts. And

that's not possible. And that's never been the case that righteousness was by works. And so Paul's going to be making that clear in our passage this evening as we work our way through it. Now,

Paul's arguments here, the points that he's making are pretty complex. And he quotes from the Old Testament scriptures, you know, from a variety of places and wraps all these things together with some like solid, logical, rational arguments. There is a lot of meat here and more than we'll be able to like chase down every avenue tonight. But we'll work our way through it and try to get, you know, a good sense of what Paul is saying. But

But there's a lot more there if you want to spend some time and establish this truth in your heart. That righteousness has never been by works. It's always been by faith. And so Paul makes that point in verse 9. He says, So then, those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

His point is, if you want to receive the blessing that was promised to Abraham, you don't receive that by becoming circumcised and becoming a Jew, like, you know, a descendant of Abraham. You don't receive that blessing by your works, by your circumcision, by your efforts, and by your keeping the law. But those who are of faith,

Those who receive from God by his grace, those are the ones who are blessed with believing Abraham. And so as we talk about grace, we're talking about faith and we're referring back to the promise that was given to Abraham. Grace means that the promise of blessing is received by faith and not by works.

Grace means the promise of blessing is received by faith and not by works. And so God is always related to us by grace. And so we're going to look at that in three different points that Paul works through here. Point number one is found in verses 10 through 14, and that is approaching God by works brings a curse. Approaching God by works brings a curse. So not only does approaching God by works not make you more righteous, but

It doesn't, you know, add to your blessings in God. Approaching God by works actually brings a curse, which is the opposite of blessing. And so this is something important for us to consider. Now, Paul is going to quote from several different passages here, because again, he's dealing with people who are referring back to the Old Testament. So you have to keep this in order to be blessed, right?

And Paul is quoting from their own scriptures to refute the point and say, your own scriptures, those things, you know, tell you that that's not the way to receive a blessing, but that's going to bring a curse instead. In verse 10, he says this, for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

Last week, he said, look at your own experience. He said, look at Abraham's experience. You see that righteousness comes by faith. It's been a work of God's grace, right? Now let's consider the scriptures. And the scriptures themselves declare a curse regarding the keeping of the law. He quotes from Deuteronomy chapter 27, verse 26 here.

Where God's speaking through the prophet Moses says, curse it is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law and all the people shall say, amen. Deuteronomy 27, 28, 29, 30, powerful chapters where God lays out the blessings and the curses of the law and the blessings if you keep the law and the curses if you don't keep the law.

And this is the issue of keeping the law is that we can't keep the law. None of us ever have. Nobody ever has except for Jesus. And so because of that, anybody under the law, he says, as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. You're under the curse of the law because nobody keeps the law. And the scriptures themselves, the law itself says you're cursed if you don't keep the

All of the law. You're cursed if you don't keep the commandments. And so the scriptures themselves, the law itself pronounces a curse upon those who try to keep it. There's a blessing if you keep it, but there's a curse if you don't keep it. And that's really the problem. None of us keep the law. And those who get caught up in legalism, forget about that. Legalism often focuses just on the blessing of obedience, right?

and will deal with the curses of disobedience on their favorite things, the things that they think are the worst, and so you shouldn't do those things, and so those things are cursed. But where legalism often fails, just in logical thought, is...

It's the keeping of the whole law that is required, not just certain parts of it or certain pieces of it. In order to be righteous before God by the law, you have to keep the whole thing completely and entirely and do it all. And if you don't, well, cursed is the one who is under the works of the law. That's what the scriptures, that's what the law itself says.

Now, later on in Israel's history, after Deuteronomy, then comes Joshua, right? He leads them into the promised land. And when Joshua gets to the end of his life, it lays out for us in the book of Joshua, how they had received all the blessings that God had promised and inherited the land and God had done so much for them. But in Joshua chapter 23, Joshua gathers the people together and he issues really a strong exhortation to the whole congregation of Israel and says, listen, just as surely as you have received all the blessings that God promised,

You need to know if you depart from God, if you don't keep the law, just as surely as you received all the promises or all the blessings promised, you will also receive all of the curses if you don't keep the law. And so if you depart from God, look at how God has been faithful to every, you know, minute detail. He's fulfilled his promises. Now, if you don't keep the law, understand that

God is going to be just as faithful to keep the law and bring forth all of the curses that he promised as well. And that is built into the law itself.

And so there is this pronouncement of a curse. Approaching God by works brings a curse because none of us can keep the law or any legal system that we develop in a perfect way. Now, if we develop our own legal system of approaching God, it's imperfect and, you know, from the get-go. But even so, even let's say we could, right?

The thing is, and Paul points this out in the book of Romans, we violate our own conscience. We can't keep our own systems, even if those were valid. And that's the point. Approaching God by works brings a curse. He goes on in verse 11. He says, This time he quotes from Habakkuk 2.4.

Habakkuk says, behold the proud. His soul is not upright in him, but the just or the righteous shall live by his faith. Where does life come from? Spiritual life? Life with God? Where does life come from? It comes by faith, not by works. And so Paul says, look at the scripture. It's evident. Nobody is justified by the law. Nobody is righteous by the law.

Anyone who is righteous is righteous because of faith. Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, that's how all of the sons of Abraham are righteous, by believing God. And there is nobody who is righteous just by the works of the law or the works of any system that is developed. It's not by works. It's never our efforts that give us righteousness. Verse 12 says,

yet the law is not of faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. So Paul is doing a contrast between, here's Habakkuk chapter 2, the just shall live by his faith. So you're righteous and you have life by faith, but the law is not of faith. So there's a difference here. There's a mismatch. You can't be righteous by the law because the law, it's not of faith. Well, how do we know it's not of faith? Well, this time he quotes from Leviticus chapter 18 verse 5.

Here God says, you shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them. I am the Lord. Now, as he says, he shall live by them. Again, we're talking about the same thing. The just shall live by faith. That is, you shall have life by faith. But in the law, God says, if you keep my commandments, then you'll have life by them.

It's not by faith. It's by works. It's by the keeping of the commandments. And so there's a difference. To be righteous before God by the law, you have to keep all of the law. And that's the problem, is we can't keep the law. But righteousness has always been not about keeping the law, but it's been about faith.

And so there's a big difference between the just shall live by faith and the man who does them shall live by them. Pastor Warren Wiersbe puts it this way. He says, there's a vast difference between doing and believing. Nobody was ever saved by doing the law because nobody can ever fully obey the law. Now, if there was ever a system, if there was ever a legal system, if there was ever rules and regulations that could bring us to a place of righteousness before God,

It would be the system that God had established in the Old Testament. If any system was going to work, it would be the one that God invented, right? Now, again, we invent our own and there's other people who invent their own and they try to impose them upon us and all of that, right? But the best of the best, the best legal system there is, the best, you know, works-based system there is, you go back to the law and that would be the biggest chance, the best chance we would have for righteousness is

but nobody can ever fully obey the law. And so nobody is righteous by the law. And that's why righteousness has never been about our efforts and merits. It's always been by faith. Again, God has always related to us by grace. From the very beginning, it's been about how God is good to us and merciful and offering forgiveness to us by us believing him at his word. Verse 13 says,

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. And so here Paul is declaring and illustrating the substitution that we are cursed under the law. But what Jesus did is he became a curse on our behalf. He received that curse so that we don't have to any longer.

Now, Paul is referring back this time to Deuteronomy chapter 21, verse 23, where God is giving instructions about a body. It's not to be left overnight on a tree when someone is executed, but that shall be taken down and buried because he who is hanged is accursed of God.

And so there is this curse for those hanged on a tree or hanged upon the cross as we see in the example of Jesus. And so the idea here is that Jesus took our place. Receiving the curse, we were all subject to the law before Christ. And so we were under a curse because we could not keep the law. But then Jesus inserted himself in between us and the curse that we deserve and received that curse on our behalf. So that, verse 14 says,

that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And here's the point that Paul is making. It goes back to verse 9. Those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. We're talking about the promise that was given to Abraham, the promise of blessing. And how is that received? Is it by keeping the law? No. Abraham wasn't righteous by keeping the law either.

And his children, his descendants, those who received the blessing with Abraham, they don't receive it by the keeping of the law. But they receive it because Jesus came in and became the curse for us so that we might be able to receive the promise of the spirit of the blessing through faith. And so how do we receive the promise?

It's not by works. It's not by effort. You want to be filled with the Spirit? You want God to work in your life in powerful ways and radical ways? It's not by the keeping of law, by earning or deserving. It's not by following a legal system. It's by faith. It's through the grace of God. It's always been that way. Approaching God by works brings a curse.

And for good intention, we're with good intentions. Many times we build a system of works to try to approach God. And we need to let these things remind us and teach us and just demolish those systems in our lives and in our hearts that we don't try to approach God with our merits, with our efforts, trying to earn or deserve God's work and God's salvation and God's spirit and all that God has for us.

That will always bring us under a curse. Again, if there was ever a legal system that could do that, it would be the one that God invented. But the one God invented included these promises. You're never going to be, you know, blessed by keeping it unless you keep all of it and you can't keep all of it. Therefore, there's a curse for those who try to approach God by works.

But grace means that the promise of blessing given to Abraham and his descendants, grace means that that promise is received by faith and not by works. Now, Paul is going to go on to talk about this promise in verses 15 through 18. He gives us point number two, and that is the promise of blessing cannot be changed by any system of works. So still focused on this promise to Abraham. Abraham believed God. It was accounted to him for righteousness. Paul quotes from that in verse six here.

He's talking about Abraham and that promise that was given to him and building his whole argument upon this occasion in Abraham's life and the way that he was righteous before God. Let's read verses 15 through 18. It says, Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.

He does not say, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ. And this I say, that the law, which was 430 years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. Verse 18, for if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

So Paul calls us to think through a few things here. First of all, he says, if you just think about our own covenants, I speak in the manner of men, he says in verse 15, even just our own covenants, man's covenant, if it's confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. If me and Elsa draft up an agreement, a covenant,

We're going to work together and open a bookstore and we're going to be partners in this bookstore. And you know, here's how the profits are going to be split. Here's how the division of labor is going to take place. If we agree to this contract, we make a covenant together. Pule can't come in and say, no, I'm going to cancel that. Elsa, you're only going to get 1% of the profits. Jerry's going to get 99%. Pule doesn't have the right to come in and change the contract.

He can't just come in and change the covenant, right? No, it's not possible. Even if it's just, who are we? We don't have much authority. But even our own contracts and covenants, a third party can't come in and just change something or reverse it or annul it. That's not the way that covenants work. Now, can covenants be reversed? Yeah. Yeah.

When both parties agree, afterwards Elsa and I decide, you know, this isn't working out. We're fighting too much over which books should be on the shelves, you know? So we're going to call it quits. I'll sell you my half of the business or whatever, right? That we can come to an agreement to remove the contract or, you

If one party fails to do their part in the contract, then there's a breach of contract, right? And then there's, you know, built-in things and ways to handle that and what takes place when that happens. So only the parties involved in the contract are the ones who can change the contract, right? That's what Paul is saying here. Even our own contracts, we're not dealing with God's contract. We're not dealing with a

I'm sorry, we're not dealing with, in talking about the law, we're not dealing with man's contract, we're dealing with God's contract, his covenant. And as we look back to Abraham, what we're looking at is a covenant that God made before the law with Moses. And he's referring back to Genesis chapter 15. And we don't have time to get into all the details of Genesis chapter 15, but Genesis chapter 15 is really amazing because there is this covenant that is made between

In their traditional way of making covenants, which was dividing up an animal and then several animals. And then what would happen is two people would walk together down this row of dead animals that were divided on either side. And they would come to an agreement in the middle. They would meet in the middle and make a contract and commit together. Kind of the idea is if I don't keep my half, then I'll end up like these dead animals. It was a contract of blood. It was a serious commitment.

And that was the way that they made covenants in those days. Well, in Genesis chapter 15, God and Abraham make a covenant. But instead of Abraham meeting God in the middle, God goes through the halves of the animals by himself. He makes the covenant with Abraham, but it's not based upon Abraham fulfilling some part of the covenant. It's not a conditional covenant. And that's why it can also be referred to as a promise, right?

It's God's contract with Abraham, his commitment, his promise to Abraham of what God had declared he would do in his life. And that was the multitude of descendants. That was that he would be a blessing, that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him, through his seed. There was this contract that God made. He was the only one that was involved in

So the only way for this contract to be changed, Paul's point is, is if God changes it. Nobody else can come in and say, you know, that's not how it's going to work. A third party can't come in. Nobody else has the authority. And so even the law that came later didn't change this covenant, this contract that God made with Abraham. That's the point that Paul is making here. Verse 16 says,

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. So this promise to Abraham, Abraham is involved in the sense that God made the promises to him. It's Abraham's seed who is the fulfillment of that promise. And God, these are the only people involved in this contract that have any authority or rights in it. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And then Paul goes on to say, he does not say and to seeds as of many, but as of one.

Because the Judaizers were arguing and saying, you need to become a descendant of Abraham through circumcision and keeping the law to be part of this blessing, to be part of the seeds of Abraham. And Paul is saying, no, no, no. It's not the seeds, plural, but the seed, singular. And that's referring not to physical descendants of Abraham, but

Not to those who keep the law, that's referring to Jesus, the Messiah, the promised savior that came through the line of Abraham. He's quoting here from Genesis chapter 22, verse 18, where God tells Abraham, in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. And so God's promise to Abraham was there would be his seed, singular seed,

There's a little bit of a side note here as far as the level of detail that the scriptures contain and the way that we can trust the scriptures thoroughly because even whether a word is singular or plural makes a difference and illustrates the inspired work of God in the hand of God. And so in your seed, singular, it's not talking about all of Abraham's physical descendants. It's talking about

Jesus Christ. And so again, go back to verse 9. So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. Faith in Jesus Christ, the seed, as we are included in Christ, we are included in Abraham. And then we receive that promise blessing by being included with Abraham, believing God at his word.

And so Paul's point is, God made a promise to Abraham. That promise is fulfilled in Jesus and nothing can change that. Nobody can come in and say, we're gonna change the boundaries of this contract. Nobody has that authority. Verse 17, he says, in this I say, that the law which was 430 years later cannot annul the covenant which was confirmed before by God in Christ that it should make the promise of no effect. God made this promise to Abraham that,

And then 430 years later, the covenant of the law came through Moses. 430 years. I don't know how to process that amount of time. 430 years ago from today, the year was 1589. I don't know how big you are into history, but I looked it up and pretty much nothing happened in 1589. But it's before our nation was even established. Right?

430 years ago, the United States didn't exist. Now, again, that's just, maybe I'm not old enough to comprehend that kind of time. I don't know if you are able to handle that better, but I just can't even imagine that, right? Now, can you imagine in 1589, God makes a covenant with somebody and then here we are today saying, okay, we're gonna change that covenant. It's like, what are you talking about? There's no way. We have no basis for that. That's what Paul is saying here. The law came later and the law came later

It's not related to this promise. It doesn't change the promise. It doesn't annul the promise. It doesn't reverse the promise. That promise still stands because that was the commitment, the covenant, the contract that God made with Abraham by himself, not conditional, but

Now, when the law came, that was a covenant also, right? But going back to some of the things that we read earlier, Deuteronomy 27, 28, 29, 30, God says, if you keep the law, you'll be blessed. If you don't, you'll be cursed. That whole covenant was conditional on the people fulfilling their part. God would fulfill his part. Would the people fulfill their part? That was the question. It was a two-party contract. Whereas this promise to Abraham was,

It was a one-party contract. It was God contracting and committing, covenanting. Here's what I'm going to do. And through your seed, all of the nations will be blessed. Verse 18, for if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. And again, Paul is wanting us to get it clear in our minds. These two concepts are opposed to each other.

You cannot have righteousness by works and have righteousness be by faith. You can't have it both ways. Righteousness is either of works or it's of faith. But it can't be both. It's never both. These things are contrary. If the inheritance is of the law, if that's the promise that God gave to Abraham and it was fulfilled by the law, then it's no longer promised because it's conditional upon whether or not the law is kept. Right?

So it's not a promise anymore, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Nobody else was involved in the contract in the sense of there was some condition that had to be met. God went through the parting of the dead animals himself to say, this is my promise. I am covenanting. I am committing. You are going to be blessed in this way. The promise of blessing cannot be changed by the Old Testament covenant, the Levitical system, or any other legal system or workspace system that we come up with.

Grace means that the promise of blessing is received by faith and not works. That's always been the case. It's always been by grace. Well, the final point we'll look at, looking at verses 19 through 24, point number three is even God's law was only a temporary placeholder for the promise. Even God's law was just a temporary placeholder.

until the promise came, until the promise that God gave to Abraham was fulfilled. Again, if there was ever a law, a legal system, a system of works by which we could be righteous and receive that promise, it would be the one that God invented. But that was not the purpose. Instead, it

The law was given as, well, I'm referring to it as a placeholder. And I'd like to explain why a little bit. Here on the screen, when I'm contracted to build a website, I am typically given a design that is laying out the page that they want to have. But most of the time, all of the actual content for the page is not quite ready. And so I'm given things like this, where you can see, okay, an image goes there.

We don't have the image quite yet. We're not sure which image. We're still trying to decide which image is the best image. But we know we want an image there. We want it to kind of be shaped like this and have this kind of style. And so that's a placeholder. That's a promise that, hey, later on, I'm going to give you an image that goes there. I just don't have it yet. But in time, whenever we're ready, we're going to put it there. And I don't know, you probably can't read the text, but the text under it says, meet the team, right? Underneath that, there's a paragraph of what's called lorem ipsum, right?

And Laura Ipsum is just a

paragraphs of Latin text that is gibberish that doesn't actually mean anything but that is used all the time like constantly continually every day all day long designers and artists and people use this because it helps to kind of picture this is you know there's going to be about this kind of amount of text and it'll be laid out in kind of this way and it is useful for demonstrating but it's just a placeholder and

It's not what it's going to say when the finished work is done. It's just for now, we just need to have a general idea of what it's going to be looking like and how much text is going to be there. And so there's these placeholders. Now, then later on, as the project is being built, then, well, the client will come back and say, okay, here's those final pieces. And then we plug those in. But for now, we just need placeholders to complete the layout to get it laid out the way that it needs to get laid out.

Well, the law that God gave through Moses is a placeholder like that. It's not the final picture. It's not the final content. It's not the final wording. It's not the final say. But it's there as a temporary thing. It's intended to be temporary from the get-go, from the beginning,

And it points to something else. You know, that picture points to there's going to be something better than this just little, you know, grayscale image placeholder. There's going to be something better that goes there. But for now, we're just going to have that to hold the place. That's what the law was. It was the placeholder, the temporary placeholder for Jesus to come. And so all throughout the law, you have the pointers to Jesus, right?

All of the sacrifices pointed to Jesus, right? The whole Levitical system pointed to the Messiah that would come and the work that would be accomplished. And it was these placeholders that were placed there by the Lord, built into the law so that the best legal system there was, again, if there was ever an opportunity to approach God by works, this was going to be it. But that's not what it was designed for, first of all.

And so you can't try to approach God by that because, well, it's just a placeholder. It doesn't diminish its value. It still has great value, but it was not designed to make you righteous. It was designed to hold the place until you could see that Jesus was

is the subject and Jesus is the object of our faith. Verse 19, Paul says, what purpose then does the law serve? It's a natural question, right? So if the law does not make you righteous, what's the point of the law? Let's just throw it out, right? Why did God go through all that trouble? Well, Paul goes on to say, it was added because of transgressions

What's the point of the law? That's what Paul's critics would question and throw out then. Well, why have a law then and try to use that as an argument? But Paul is going to explain. Here's why we have the law. It's a temporary placeholder.

The law was necessary because of transgressions. There needed to be something to help humanity understand and recognize the issue of sin because we're so good at deceiving ourselves. We'll convince ourselves there's no problem and we're good people and we don't need a savior. And so we needed a placeholder to inform us about the issue of sin and our need of a savior. That's what the law came to do. That's why God added the law.

Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5, verse 17? Do not think I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. He's the image. Boom, being placed in there. See, I'm the fulfillment of all that God has established in the law that you are sinful and unable to be righteous and that you need a savior.

He says the law was added because of transgression till the seed should come. And now the seed has come. Jesus has come not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it and to show this was God's plan all along to provide salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. He goes on to say in verse 20, now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. So he's talking about the law being,

It was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. And the idea here that Paul is talking about is Moses on Mount Sinai receiving the tablets of stone from God that angels administered that.

Angels brought the tablets, the original tablets to Moses. And it was through the hand of angels mediating between Moses and God. And then Moses mediated between God and the people. And the people said, we don't want to approach God. He's too scary. They heard the sound of God's voice at Mount Sinai. And they said, you approach God and then you just come tell us what he said. Because we're too scared. God's too holy and powerful for us. And so Moses,

The law was administered through a mediator from God to Moses, from Moses to the people, or from God to the people, that there was this mediator involved. And a mediator is not needed for one person. A mediator is required when there's two people involved, right? Now, again, he's going back to the point that when God made the covenant with Abraham, there was no need for a mediator. First of all, God related directly to Abraham. And then when God made the covenant with Abraham, there

He went through it himself completely. There was no mediator needed because it was God making the promise and it was God who would fulfill it completely. It was all upon him. Pastor David Guzik puts it this way. A promise depends on one person. A mediated agreement depends on two. The weakness of the law compared to the covenant of Abraham is shown because it depends on two parties and not God alone.

A promise depends on one person, the person making the promise. God made the promise. That's all that is dependent upon, you know, the blessing that was promised to Abraham. It's dependent upon God. It's a superior agreement, covenant, contract, however you want to look at it, than one that's predicated upon two parties because, well, then both people have to fulfill their side and we can't fulfill our side when it comes to the law.

So Christ came to fulfill the law because we could not. But the law wasn't designed for that anyways. It was just to point us to Jesus. Verse 21, if is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not. For if there had not been a law given, which could, I'm sorry, if there had been a law given, which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

So, if even God's law was only a temporary placeholder, does that mean that the law was contrary to the promises of God? No. If it were possible, Paul says, and this is what I've been saying a few times tonight, if there was any system that was going to be able to make us righteous before God by our efforts, it would be the law, the Levitical law, the one that God invented. If righteousness, if life was

If there had been a law given which could have given life, then there was no need for Jesus to die because we could be righteous by keeping that law. And so that would be the system. That would be the way to approach God. Righteousness would have been by the law. But that's a big if. If there had been a law that could have given life, there has never been a law that could give life because we sinful human beings cannot keep any law.

Whether it be God's Levitical law or our own system of laws that we make up. And so instead, God has given the scripture, the law, and confined all under sin. So we are all sinful, revealed to us by the scriptures, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

So we're all in this position of sinful, needing a savior. We're all aware of it because of the law and we are able then to be redeemed and delivered from it by faith in Jesus Christ. That is what the law is for. The law is not contrary to the promise. It solidifies the promise. It shows us that promised blessing that God gave to Abraham, that's something that we need desperately.

We need the fulfillment of the law, the fulfillment of that promise. We need that savior that God promised would come. I like the way that Martin Luther puts it. He says, when the law drives you to the point of despair, let it drive you a little farther. Let it drive you straight into the arms of Jesus who says, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. When we are frustrated because we are not able to keep God,

righteous standards. We're not able to fulfill, you know, all that we're supposed to fulfill. We're not able to do all that we're supposed to do. We're not able to keep God's law, our own laws, our own systems. We fail. And when you're frustrated, when you're frustrated to the point of despair, he says, let it drive you a little bit further. Let it drive you to Jesus. To come to the point again where you remember and you realize, I cannot approach God on the basis of my efforts.

That's never been the way. It's never been the way that God works. It's never been the way that anybody has been able to approach God. It has always been by grace. And the law was given to drive us to the one it was pointing to. Verse 23, but before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith, which would afterward be revealed.

Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Before faith came, so there was a time gap. God gave a promise to Abraham, and some time is going to take place. Thousands of years are going to take place until that promise is revealed to be Jesus Christ. And so in the interim, in the meantime, we were kept under guard by the law, kept by this placeholder.

Again, not the real thing, not the final thing. Just this will hold the place. And again, not to get into all the details. We don't have time to get into all the details, but you can work your way through the Levitical system and understand that wasn't a means to become righteous. That was a means of approaching God by faith. Sacrificing an animal, the author of Hebrews goes on to tell us later that the blood of animals never cleansed sin.

It's not an actual agent of, you know, cleansing for sin. It's a placeholder. So that you, believing God at his word, obeyed him in offering the sacrifice. And so God counted that as righteousness and credited it to your account. Well, not your account, but the Israelites' account. Because they believed God and they exercised that faith. It was shown, it was evident in their keeping of the law.

The keeping of the law was not the thing that made them righteous. It was just the demonstration that they believed God. And that's what made them righteous. It's always been by grace. The law was just the placeholder. The law did not actually make people righteous. It actually did the opposite. It confined them under sin. It revealed their sinful nature. But by believing God, they put into practice what the law said and

It was exercising a demonstration of their faith, but that was just the outward expression. Internally, God was granting them righteous. So think about it this way. You break the law as an Israelite, and that now requires that you have to go offer a sacrifice in Jerusalem. But Jerusalem is 35 miles away for you. And so you grab your lamb and you start the journey to make your sacrifice so that you can be forgiven of sin. And then you die on the way to Jerusalem.

What does God do? He didn't offer the sacrifice, so you're not cleansed of that sin? No. You were cleansed the moment you made the decision to believe God and to get the lamb and start the way to Jerusalem, right? It wasn't the actual physical act that made you righteous. It was the believing God that made you righteous. The physical act was just the expression of your faith. And that is true from then till now. That's why, you know, James later on goes to say, faith without works is dead.

Because if you say, well, I believe God, but then, you know, I never go off for sacrifices as an Israelite. Not today, okay? But, you know, so the Israelite who said, I believe God, but I never, you know, follow the law. Well, you don't believe God. Faith without works is dead. You don't. But it's not the works that make us righteous. It's the faith. It's the believing God at his word. And the law has always been right.

a placeholder. It was the tutor to bring us to Christ, to say, look, see, it's not complete yet. There's going to be something there. Keep your eye there. It's going to happen. And then when it's there, then you'll have the final thing. Then you'll know the real deal. But for now, even God's law was only a temporary placeholder for the promise. It was not the fulfillment of the promise. The fulfillment of the promise was Jesus.

So from the very beginning, God has related to us by grace. It's always been the case. It's the way that God related to Adam and Eve. It's the way that God related to Abraham. It's the way that God related to Noah. It's the way that God related to Moses and so on and so forth, all the way down the line throughout all of history. It's God been relating to us by his grace, counting us righteous and

by our faith, believing him at his word. It's always been the case. And when we try to do it differently, approaching God by works, it brings a curse. You try to go back to the law and the keeping of the law as a means of approaching God, you put yourself under a curse because you cannot keep the law. You cannot adhere to it. You cannot hold fast to it. You cannot do it all.

And you can't change the promise of blessing by some new system of works that now we can keep or going back to an old system of works. It doesn't change. The promise was given 430 years before the law ever came to existence. We go back to that promise that God made to Abraham, that covenant that God made with Abraham that was just him, conditioned only upon him, and that cannot be changed.

So much so that even God's own law was a temporary placeholder for the promise. It wasn't the final thing. It was the reminder. It was the pointer to show us how much we needed a savior. I want to finish up with a final quote from a guy named Andrew Jukes, commentator. He says this, Satan would have us prove ourselves holy by the law, which God gave to prove us sinners.

So many times, again, as I began at the beginning, we even as believers today have this misconception that the law was given to make us righteous or to make the Israelites righteous, that before Christ, that's how you became righteous, was keeping the law. And that's not actually the case. The law was designed to prove us to be sinners, to need God's grace, to need God's mercy and salvation.

But the enemy loves to try to work in us some type of system, whether it be the old covenant or something else, so that we prove ourselves holy by our efforts. And we try to work to earn righteousness or to deserve God's favor and work in our lives. But that's never been the design for the law. It's always been designed to reveal to us our need for grace, our need for God to work in

Amen?