Galatians 3:15-29--The Law and the Promise

The Law and the Promise​
15 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. 16 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. 17 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. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

19 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. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

21 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. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

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The word "covenant" is something we don't usually think of outside of the context of the Bible, but it's really a more formal word for a contract.  There were different types of covenants then just as there are now, but Paul's audience would be familiar with contracts and he uses that imagery here to talk about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.  They understood that a covenant was supposed to be a contract that could not be broken or altered by either party once it was ratified.  There was no process to void, annul or amend a covenant.

Paul argues through the Holy Spirit that the promised heir from Abraham was always Christ and not Isaac, Jacob or any of the others along the way.  God used the singular "offspring" to talk about a single heir that would come from Abraham instead of speaking in the plural of the many numerous descendants that he was promised.  The promise that was made to Abraham could not be broken even by a new covenant in the future that was made to Moses.  Therefore the promise of the Savior was never contingent on the works of the Law since that was part of an earlier covenant that a covenant of promise and not a covenant of works.

Paul then asks the begging question.  If the purpose of the Law was never to save us or to make us righteous, then what is it's purpose?  Paul argues that the purpose of the Law was to help deal with our sin until the Savior would appear.

This next part about angels and intermediaries is a bit confusing for us to read in English, so I'll try and break it down.  The word translated as "angel" is the word for "messenger."  So, Paul is saying that the Old Covenant was "inferior" because God spoke the law to a messenger who then relayed that message to the people (I think this is specifically talking about Moses going up on the mountain to bring the Law down to the people because the people would not go up the mountain to let God speak directly to them in Exodus 19).  But the New Covenant is superior because God speaks for Himself by sending the second person of the Trinity as the "messenger" this time.  As we saw recently in The Gospel Project, Jesus claims to fulfill this promise to be both the Prophet foretold in Deuteronomy and the promise that "They would all be taught by God" in the days of the Messiah.

So how do these two covenants work in concert with one another since it does not make sense that God would make two covenants that would be in opposition to one another?  Part of the "good news" (the gospel) is realizing the "bad news" that you are in need of salvation.  There is a metaphor that is used to say that the Law is like the mirror that you use when you examine yourself--in fact the Bible uses this exact imagery.  Hopefully when we look in the mirror we don't forget what we see or look and see but fail to act on it.  If you see your tie is not on straight, you fix it.  if you see your hair is messy, you comb or brush it, and if you see you have something in your teeth, you brush and/or floss them.  But we are unable to use the mirror itself to do any of those things that I just mentioned.  It helps us see what needs to be fixed, but in none of those examples did the mirror alone fix the issue.  It may show us the dirt on our face, but we have to use soap and water to wash our face--something else other than the mirror.  In the same way, the Law shows us our need for something else outside of itself to fix the issue of sin.  For the Law's sacrificial system dealt with payment for unintentional sin, but if we are honest about it, we sin intentionally quite often.  If there is no sacrifice to make atonement for these sins in the Law, then the Law is insufficient to truly deal with sin and we need a better covenant and the only answer was for people to cry out to the LORD to not simply cover their sin but to take away their iniquity (their bad character that makes them choose to do bad things willfully).  We'll see people cry out to God to give them clean hands and a clean heart because they know that they are not fit for heaven in their current state.  So, the gospel is not really that different in the Old Testament and New Testament other than in the Old Testament, the object of their faith had not yet been revealed (though they had the promise that had been revealed which they clung to by faith), but in the New Testament we see more clearly, though there are still some promises that are not revealed clearly and we are told that it is as if we were looking through fogged or frosted glass--yet one day we are promised that we will see all things clearly when we see Him face-to-face in heaven.

Paul uses the imagery here of "guardian" whose responsibility it was to make sure that a child was taken to school.  They would make sure the child left on time, got to school safely, stayed there and was attentive at school, and get the child back home safely.  But it was not the responsibility of the guardian to be the Teacher--the Teacher was greater than the Guardian.  In the same way the covenant of the Law brings us to the covenant of Grace.  So, they are not working in opposition to one another but in concert with one another, but they have different roles and functions.  Where it is the purpose of the Law to reveal our sin to us and our need for a Savior, it is the purpose of the New Covenant to deal with that sin once and for all.

Paul argues that now that we've arrived safely at our destination and been taught our lessons by the Master Teacher, that the Law no longer serves that purpose of being a guardian.  We who are saved are no longer under the Law, but are in Christ--and Paul points to baptism where we are "buried in the likeness of His death; raise to walk in newness of life."

Part of this new life we are raised to is that we are sons and daughters of God through adoption (we'll get to this issue of adoption much more in the book of Romans).  Therefore we are all part of one family.  Where the purpose of the Law was to make a separate people different from the rest of all the nations of the world and to make it obvious by these distinctions who belonged to God, it is now the purpose of the New Covenant to bring many people from all the nations of the world together into a single group of people (we will be grafted into the one true Vine, but will give the Vine new properties and strength that come from the "wild" branches that are grafted in).  So though we are many and different, we are one in a similar way to how God is Father, Son, and Spirit and yet is one God.

When God looks at the Church, he no longer sees the individual members, but the body of Christ.  We are all part of Christ and will be treated as co-heirs with Jesus and receive blessings through Him that only He deserves and we will lay these crowns, gold, silver, and precious stones down at His feet as we sing His praises.  Even as Gentiles, all those who are "in Christ" are children of the promise that was given to Abraham as we are in the one who was the Promised One that was the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant.