If the student of Paul's epistle to the Galatians should find in some parts of it some difficulty, he should feel encouraged in the conviction that the apostle's teaching is very much worthy of our attention and patient consideration. If men think that gold is worth digging for, these truths of the Spirit are "more precious than gold, yea, than much fine gold." We are not dealing here with matters that were of interest only to those Galatians of old. The teaching of this epistle is necessary, and of great practical concern to us today. That covenant with Abraham, for example, on which our present lesson turns, is a matter of high importance to us. It lies at the foundation of the gospel, and concerns our hope and salvation. Its nature and provisions concern us as much as it did the Galatian churches. The errors concerning it which endangered the faith of the Galatians are very common today also. In fact the spiritual life of many has been darkened and crippled by failure to understand the great principles set forth in this epistle to the Galatians.

      Let us now look back once more at some of the verses touched upon in the preceding lesson.

      "Now this I say: A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect. [For if they that are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect. Rom. 4:14] For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise: but God hath granted it to Abraham by promise" (Gal. 3:17, 18).

      The Abrahamic covenant was a covenant of promise--not like the covenant of Mount Sinai, a contract between two parties ("if you will do this, I will do that"--see Exod. 19:5, 6, 8)--but simply a covenant of free promise. Now the only thing anyone can do with a promise is to believe it and receive it. We read therefore that "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness." Moreover, being a covenant of promise, it is necessarily also a covenant of grace. For the promise was not given to Abraham as a reward for goodness (for however high and noble Abraham's character was, like all other men, he was a sinner--Rom. 3:23); nor did he earn and merit the promise of God by works. It was a free promise. "Now to him that worketh the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness." But faith is the one non-meritorious thing, for it is simply the reliance upon the promise and upon the God who gave it. It leaves no room for boasting--only for gratitude (Rom. 3:27).

      "Therefore it is of faith that it may be by grace . . ." (Rom. 4:4, 5, 16). Such then was the covenant which God made with Abraham--a covenant of promise and of grace; and we come in, for the benefits of it through Him who is Abraham's Seed and Heir of all its benefits, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This was the free gift, and this the salvation by grace that was endangered by the teaching of the Judaizers among the Galatian churches. We can discern now [21] more clearly the import of verses 17 and 18 of the third chapter of Galatians.

      But what of the Law then? Why was it given at all? What was it for? Paul seems to have so completely eliminated the Law from God's plan of salvation that such questions must inevitably be asked and answered. (In Romans also--where Paul sets forth the contrast between law-salvation and faith-salvation, this question, arises. See Rom. 7:7, 13f.) Here is the apostle's answer:

      "What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed [the Seed] should come to whom the promise hath been made; and it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one; but God is one." (Gal. 3:19, 20.)

      The law, therefore, was provisional. It was given for a necessary restraint, "because of transgression." It kept down much outward wickedness. It pointed the way of righteousness. At the same time it convicted man, of his sinfulness and helplessness. ("For through the law cometh the knowledge of sin."--Rom. 3:20; 7:7.) It could tell us what is right, and show us our wrong--but in itself could do no more. It "worketh wrath." It made sin exceeding sinful (Rom. 7:13). It brought men under a curse (Gal. 3:10). The people indeed pledged themselves to keep it all (Exod. 19:8; 24:3, 7) but, alas, they uniformly failed, and broke their covenant over and over again. If it had not been that merciful and gracious provisions for forgiveness and atonement had been made, Israel would have had to be destroyed before even they began their national existence in the land. For all of which the law was not to be blamed, but the people. They, like ourselves, were just ordinary fleshly human beings. So it is with us also as it was with them. For the law is "righteous and holy and good"; and "the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin" (Rom. 7:12, 14). Nor was the law abrogated, as some think, but the believer is delivered from it. The law has dominion over a man for so long time as he liveth (Rom. 7:1). We are delivered from its dominion through death--Christ's death, who bore its curse and paid its penalty on our behalf. "I, through the law, died unto the law that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ . . ." (Gal. 2:19, 20; 3:13; 4:4).

      The law was "ordained through angels," Paul says (comp. Heb. 2:1, 2) and "by the hand of a mediator," namely Moses, who mediated between the people and God (for the sinful people could not have direct dealings with a holy God: they were not even able to endure the Voice that spake to them from the mount) (Deut. 5:22-28). The covenant of Mt. Sinai was a contract between two separate parties: the holy God and sinful Israel. Hence the need of a go-between. But in the covenant of promise God is the one, only contracting party, binding Himself to bless all who believe and come to Him through Christ.

      Some have found difficulty in the fact that Christ also is spoken of as Mediator. "For there is one God, one mediator also between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). Jesus then [22] is indeed a mediator, but His is a mediatorship very different from that of the Old Covenant. He is not like Moses, who, himself but a man, was a go-between twixt God and a sinful people, a servant running errands back and forth from the one party to the other, transacting business for God, and stipulating terms of acceptance with Israel: in Jesus God comes Himself to deal with us and to bless us. In receiving the Son we have the Father also; for Christ is the "Daysman," who can lay one hand on us because He is Son of man, and the other on God because He is the Son of God--the Living Link joining us to the Father. And "through Him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father" (Eph. 2:18).

      Here another question presents itself: Is the Law then opposed to the promise of God? (Gal. 3:21.) No, says the apostle--emphatically No! The law in itself is holy and righteous and good. Its demands are right and just. The deficiency of the law lay not in the law itself, but in man's sinful disposition. It could only condemn--could not justify. It could only pronounce the just death-sentence--it could not give life. It could only shut us up in the prison-house of sin, so that our only hope of life and righteousness lay in the free promise which is by faith in Jesus Christ to them that believe (Comp. Rom. 3:21f.). The fact is, the law could and should have given life. "He that doeth them [the precepts of the law] shall live in them" (Gal. 3:12; comp. Rom. 10:5). But therein lay the fatal "if," for no man kept it. "The commandment which was unto life, this I found to be unto death." "Did then, that which is good become death unto me?" asks the apostle; and again the answer is an emphatic No. "God forbid; but sin that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good" (Rom. 7:10, 13). There was no fault in the Old Covenant (the Law and the Old Covenant are synonymous). The fault lay in man's sinful nature. "For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not" (Heb. 8:8, 9). Now that New Covenant is the free promise through Christ Jesus,--which Is designed to obviate the weakness of the Old. "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own, Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3, 4). "For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10:4). [23]

[PLG 21-23]