Lesson 5
Galatians
Galatians 3:15-4:7
Law & Promise
Prayer
Father, help us to understand the position you have bestowed upon us in Christ. Help us to grasp the simple truth in all its depth. Show us who you have created us to be. God, help us to understand the difference between rules and gifts; between Laws and Promises; between our strength and your strength; between guilt and grace. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Key Words
Seed, covenant, transgressions, mediator, baptized, Abba
Reading Assignment
Galatians 3:15 – 4:7
Lesson
Welcome back to Believers Bay’s 2001 study on the book of Galatians. Questions and comments should be directed to publisher@believersbay.com. Thank you. We hope you enjoy this study and it helps you to grow in Christ.
In debunking the false teaching of the Judaizers Paul bypasses The Law given to Moses and goes straight to the founder of Judaism. Abraham was the man that God chose to reveal himself to. He spoke to Abram and led him away from his family, his land and everything that was familiar to him. Abram was faithful and obeyed the leading of God. God changed his name to Abraham, which means father of many nations.
God made a promise to Abraham that he would father a child and that all nations would be blessed through him. The Promise was given to Abraham and to his seed. It would be natural to assume that the seed of Abraham was Isaac his son but that wasn’t the case. The seed referred to here is actually a prophecy about Jesus. If you go to Genesis and read the story of Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice you can easily see the correlation between Isaac and Jesus.
As Paul writes to the Galatians he is attempting to open their eyes to the error that the Judaizers have fallen into by pointing out that The Law, which they trusted for everything, was not given until over four centuries after The Promise. The Law did not confirm The Promise. The Law did not support The Promise in any way other that to lay a foundation in preparation for the fulfillment of The Promise.
God had given his word that he would bless the nations of the world through Abraham’s faith but the time had not come yet for that contract to be fulfilled. It was not until the time of Jesus that everything came together for the greatest event in the history of mankind.
God loved and trusted mankind in the Garden of Eden. We failed him; betrayed him; rejected him. Yet he still loved us. God is perfect. We are imperfect. We could not provide anything that could bring us back into the holy presence of God. God could not accept sinful action in his presence. We were in a spiritual impasse. There needed to be someone who could represent the holy nature of God and also provide holy obedience for man, paying the price for the sin that had been committed. We needed a go between…a mediator.
This is why the promise was not given simply to Abraham but to Abraham AND his seed. Only the seed, Jesus, was capable of meeting the holy requirements of God. The Law held mankind prisoner by exposing our sin. When we sinned, The Law was there to point it out. There was no place to turn because sin was everywhere, God was everywhere and The Law was relentless in showing us that we needed someone to open the doors of our prison and set us free.
Christ opened the doors of our prison and set us free. Yet the Galatians were listening to the Judaizers telling them that they could not exit the prison cell and walk in the freedom of Christ. Paul’s ministry was to dispel this myth and clearly teach the truth of God’s gospel of freedom in Christ Jesus. He showed the Galatians that they could choose The Law or The Promise but not both.
Word Definitions
Seed – offspring. Descendant.
Covenant – A binding contract.
Transgressions – sins. Overstepping the limits of God’s Law.
Mediator – An arbitrator. A person who two parties in conflict agree to trust in order that a settlement may be established between them. In this case, Jesus is the person God trusts to deal with the sinful human race and Jesus is the person that the human sinful race trusts to help them attain right standing (righteousness) with God.
Baptized – a ceremonial representation of the cleansing of sin from our spirit through the application of water that symbolically washes those sins away.
Abba – Is the intimate for of an Aramaic word that means "papa" or "daddy".
Action Assignment
- Look at your life. Are there people, places or things that you value so highly that you could not allow God to remove them from your life? I know, it is a hard question but God demands first place in our lives. If you find, as most of us will, that we have allowed something or someone to take a higher priority in our life than God take a moment to repent. Ask God to forgive you for falling into this error. Make a commitment to value him highest of all in your life. Then, because none of us can do that, ask him to provide the strength to fulfill that commitment.
- When God speaks his word is his bond. When he makes a promise it is a binding contract that he will fulfill. We live in a world where promises are merely the manipulative breath of deceit. Begin to write down your promises to God and others. Put it in a diary, a computer file, on 3x5 index cards or whatever works for you. Periodically go back through the promises and mark the ones that have been fulfilled.