Galatians chapter 3. We're going
to be looking at verses probably around verse 15 through the end
of the chapter. I've entitled this message, Abraham's
Seed. Perhaps you know what the Bible
means when it says seed. We want to understand that. I
hope that in understanding that it won't just be academic knowledge,
not just something you can put down as another doctrine you've
learned, but as something that moves you in your soul to the
God of glory in thankfulness and in worship for his wisdom
and his eternal love and grace to sinners like us. Because that's
what the gospel is intended to do. It's to draw forth from us
worship to God, the Father, for his only begotten Son, who, as
the song says, was born that we might be born again. Let's
pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank
you for this, your word. We know it's true from the beginning.
We know that everything you have said will come to pass. and all
that the Lord Jesus has said will come to pass. This world
will pass away, but your word will not fail. Thank you for
being so faithful, so able to fulfill your will and desire
and promises. And we pray, Lord, that today
you would give us an eye of faith like you did to Abraham, that
we might see in the Lord Jesus Christ our salvation and so trust
him and walk in life by faith in him. And give us your spirit
too, we pray. Because we can't live, we can't
believe, we can't turn from our sins, we can't know you, we can't
do anything. We're insufficient and unprofitable
in ourselves for anything. But by your grace, we can do
all things through the Lord Jesus Christ who strengthens us. So
we pray by your grace, Lord, give us your spirit. And we don't
ask this presuming on our own merits, but we ask because it's
your will to give to your people, your own spirit, and this eternal
salvation. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In Galatians chapter 3, I want
to read in verse 8 again. This is a verse that we should
understand very well. He says, And the scripture, foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be
blessed. Why did God preach the Gospel?
Why did Scripture preach the Gospel? It was so that through
preaching of the Gospel, we would believe the message of the Gospel. You see, even though God saves
us by His grace, He saves us by grace through faith. And faith
comes only in one way. hearing the word of God. And
so God preached the gospel to Abraham. And because of that,
Abraham believed God. With the gospel, like God's word,
came the power to fulfill his word. And that power worked in
Abraham and gave him faith according to the truth that God declared
to him. And what was that truth? He said this, Look at Genesis
chapter 12. In Genesis chapter 12, this is
where this verse occurs in scripture and is quoted in Galatians 3.8
from this text. It says in Genesis chapter 12,
God is speaking to Abraham. I'll read the first three verses.
Now, the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country,
and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land
that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great
nation. And I will bless thee, and make
thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless
them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. And now
here's the words quoted in Galatians 3.8. And in thee shall all families
of the earth be blessed. How are we to understand that?
That promise that God made to Abraham? Remember in Genesis
chapter 3 when Satan had tempted Eve and she had eaten from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then Adam ate also
and they both were cast out of the Garden of Eden and God pronounced
judgment on the serpent and he said to the serpent that the
seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent, the
seed of the woman. What is that seed? Well, he wasn't
talking about seeds like flowers and vegetables. He was talking
about a man's children. Or in Genesis 3.15, the seed
of the woman would be a woman's son. And that seed is the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so when God judged Satan
in that judgment, he had a promise that God would give a son through
a woman. And through that woman, that
seed would bruise the head of the serpent, that one who is
the son of that woman. We know that's the Lord Jesus
Christ. He came from heaven, the Son of God, who had no body.
He had no human nature. He took on a human nature when
he was born of a woman, which we just sang about in Hark! The
Herald Angels Sing. But in Galatians 3, The gospel
is preached when God said, in thee, speaking to Abraham, shall
all families of the earth be blessed. Now, we might think
when we read that at first he's talking about Abraham, because
he said to Abraham, in thee shall all families of the earth be
blessed. But look at Acts chapter 3, because here is the explanation
of that Old Testament promise in a sermon by the apostle Peter. What does it mean that in thee
shall all families of the earth be blessed? In Acts 3, verse
25, Peter is preaching to the Jews and he says, Here's the covenant
promise. And in thy seed shall all the
kindreds of the earth be blessed. That's the same text of Scripture,
but when Peter quotes it, he adds the word in thy seed. That's why in Galatians 3.8,
when the Apostle quotes this, he says, He's referring back
to the same promise, and Peter's explaining that the promise made
to Abraham was part of a covenant, and the promise that was made
was concerning Abraham's son, his seed. that would be born
through him. Look at verse 26 of Acts chapter
3. We're still reading there. He
says, unto you first. Peter is preaching now to these
people hearing him. He's preaching the gospel. He
says, unto you first. Speaking about the promise and
the fulfillment of the promise. He says, unto you first. God,
having raised up his son, Jesus, sent him to bless you. How? By giving them land? No. By giving them lots of children
to fill a land? No. By giving them a king to
sit on the throne in Israel, the physical nation? No. Those
were not the promises God made to Abraham, although they were
part of the promises made to the physical nation of Israel.
Here's the promise God was speaking about, and Peter speaks by the
Spirit of God. God sent his son Jesus to bless
you. That's the promise, that God
would bless all families of the earth in turning away every one
of you from his iniquities. Look at Romans chapter 11. This
is also reinforced when God explains the essence of his covenant with
Abraham. 11 verse 26, and so all Israel
shall be saved as it is written, this is a quotation from scripture,
there shall come out of Zion the deliverer or the Savior and
shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. That sounds just like
Acts 3 26 doesn't it? For this is my covenant unto
them when I shall take away their sins. And so, that's the gospel,
isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ, God's
only begotten son, would be sent from heaven and he would become
Abraham's son after the flesh because he would be born through
Abraham. He was actually born to Mary
and Mary had no husband. He was born by the Spirit of
God. But His coming is the promise. The seed is Christ. The promise
is Christ. The fulfillment of the promise
is when Christ came and when He did all that God foretold
before that He would do in order to bless the people. How? In
saving them from their sins. That's the promise. That's the
promise God made when He judged Satan and He said, the seed of
the woman, Christ, would bruise the head of the serpent, because
Satan is the one who tempted us into sin. He tempted our first
parents, and we fell in sin by their act of sin, and we became
sinners and corrupt in our nature, in our heart, and we could do
nothing about that. And so this is what is spoken
of in Galatians. Now look over in Galatians chapter
3, and we'll read from verse 15 here. Galatians 3. Brethren, he says, I speak after
the manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant. Now, what is the covenant God
is talking about here? Well, we just read about it in
Acts 3 and 26, 25 and 26. We read about it in Romans 11.27.
You can also read about it in Luke chapter 1, where Zacharias,
who was the husband of Elizabeth, the father of John the Baptist,
said, The promise God made to Abraham is being fulfilled when
God sent his son into the world in order to save us from our
enemies, Satan, and our sin, and the wrath of God. In this
world, in our sinful, corrupt nature, our heart that's full
of sin, someone has to deliver us because we can't deliver ourselves. And so God made a promise as
soon as sin entered into the world that He would do that and
He would do it in Himself, in His own Son. This is the blessing
God gave us. He sent His Son. What is the
blessing of Abraham? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
His righteousness in fulfilling God's law. in suffering and taking
away our sins and making us holy before God in God's sight, not
by something we do, but by what He alone did by Himself. What a gospel this is. This is
good news to sinners. Sinners can't save themselves.
Sinners are sinful before God, and sinners know that they are.
Until we have some sense of that, we can't know the grace of God,
can we? Grace is not given to the righteous. Grace is given to sinners, to
the ungodly, to those without strength. And so, how do we know
that we are those to whom grace has come? It begins here. Are
we sinful? Can we save ourselves? If we
can save ourselves, we don't need a Savior. But if we can't,
then we need a Savior. And if sin is our problem, then
God's salvation in Christ is a promise to us. Now look at
Galatians 3, verse 15. If I make a covenant with another
man, no one can change it. And even so, much more so, is
God's covenant. It can't be changed. Now, to
Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not,
and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which
is Christ." Singular seed. He explains it now. This is what
we're trying to see from the sermon Peter preached in Acts
3. And what God said in Genesis
12, 3 and in Galatians 3, 8. It's about the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the seed. He says it here, right? In Galatians
3.16. This is not someone else in the nation of Israel. This
is not the nation itself. It's not even the church of God
and their children. But it's Christ and His children. So he says here, and to thy seed,
which is Christ. That was the promises were made
to Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ. And verse 16, and
this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of
God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul
that it should make the promise of none effect. Because you can't
change a man's covenant. God's covenant can't be changed.
He made the covenant with Abraham before the law was given. Therefore,
430 years later, when the law was given, it didn't change God's
promise. And what was that promise? That
He would save His people from their sins in the Lord Jesus
Christ. God's Son would come into the
world and He would be the seed of Abraham. He would conquer
Satan and sin and deliver us from these. And so the law can't
change that. And so he says, he reinforces
this in verse 18. An inheritance is something you
don't earn. It's something that's given to
you, usually by your parents. They make provision for you.
It's a gift from your parents to you that you didn't earn just
because you're related to them. Now, we have an inheritance,
but we didn't get it because of our relationship by birth
to our parents. This inheritance was by a relationship
that God made between us and Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, last week we talked
about the sons of God. Our relationship to God the Father
is by His choice, and it's by the redeeming blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so, He says in verse 18,
And so, He says in verse 18, be of the law, it is no more
of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise." Now, in
the nation of Israel, they had an inheritance. Remember, God
delivered them out of Egypt. He brought them through the wilderness.
And He promised to bring them into the land of Canaan. And
the land of Canaan was called their inheritance. And God promised
Abraham, before He told him He was going to do all that, He
said, Look, East, West, North, South, all this land, I'm going
to give it to you. And I'm going to give it to your seed. The
land of Canaan was their inheritance to the nation of Israel. To the
physical nation. But is that the inheritance that
Abraham looked forward to? Because it says in Romans chapter
4 verse 13 that Abraham believed that he was going to inherit
not just the land of Canaan, but the whole world. In other
words, the new heavens and the new earth. And this is the way
it says it in Romans 4.13. He says, For the promise that
he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to
his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of
faith, through the Lord Jesus Christ, obedience and death,
that we believe is our righteousness before God. The inheritance wasn't
given on the basis of what we earned, nor was it given as a
physical land. The inheritance God was speaking
about, that Abraham looked forward to, was eternal salvation in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Hebrews chapter 4. In
Hebrews chapter 3, he talks about the nation of Israel. And I want
to read a couple of verses in Hebrews chapter 3 to show this
to you. Hebrews chapter 3, he says in verse 6, He's talking
about a household, a family. Christ as a son over his own
house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and
the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. That's just a long
phrase that means faith. Holding fast the confidence and
the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end is just another explanation
for faith. If we're made partakers of Christ,
in other words, we take part in his inheritance if we are
believers in Christ, if we hold fast the confidence that God
has preached to us in the Gospel concerning the fact that our
righteousness before God and our inheritance from God is all
wrapped up in the seed, the Lord Jesus Christ and His sin-atoning
death. And he goes on in verse 7 of
Hebrews 3. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith today, if ye
will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Now, he's talking
about faith here, but he's giving a warning here because the Spirit
of God in the Old Testament is referring back to the Old Testament
days of national Israel. He says, "...today, if you will
hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation
in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers
tempted Me and proved Me and saw My works forty years." I
remember as a child listening to the stories of how Israel
came through the wilderness and how then they entered in. They
went to go into the land of Canaan, but they didn't go in because
they wouldn't believe the message of the spies that went in. And
the ten spies lied to them. They said that the giants were
greater and they couldn't overtake them. And therefore they couldn't
go in. But Joshua and Caleb brought
back a good report, but the children of Israel wouldn't believe them.
They wouldn't believe Joshua and Caleb. They wouldn't believe
God. They murmured against Him through
the entire wilderness sojourn. And then God says in Deuteronomy
32, verse 20, they're children in whom is no faith. They have no faith. And yet they
were called the children of Israel, but they were not the children
after the Spirit. They were only the children,
the physical children. So He says here, Don't be like
them. Don't harden your hearts, as
in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness,
when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty
years. Wherefore, I was grieved with that generation, and said,
They do away-er in their heart, and they have not known my ways.
Is God describing people here who are His children? Or is He
describing those who are not His children? Well, He says,
That describes those who are not His children. Verse 11, Verse 12, Take heed, brethren,
lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing
from the living God. To depart from God is to prove
ourselves to be reprobate, is to prove ourselves to be unbelieving.
Verse 13, But exhort one another daily. While it is called today,
lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, for
we are made partakers of Christ, here it is again, if we hold
the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. If we keep
looking to Christ by the Spirit of God and see in Christ all
of our inheritance and are confident and rejoice in the fact that
God has made his son, not us individually responsible before
his law for our own sins and our own obedience. But God has
placed between us and his wrath the Lord Jesus Christ and made
him responsible. He's made him our surety. And
he came into the world and was born and fulfilled all for us.
who believe on him, if we hold that confidence. He says, verse
15, while it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden
not your hearts as in the provocation, for some, when they had heard,
did provoke. In fact, most of them, all over
the age of 20, except Joshua and Caleb and Moses and Aaron
and Miriam. He says, how be it not all they that came out of
Egypt by Moses, not all provoked, but with whom was God grieved
40 years. Was it not with them that had
sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom
swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them
that believed not? Who did not enter? It was those
who did not believe. So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. Chapter four, verse one. Let
us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into
his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto
us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them. But the word
preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in
them that heard. What's being talked about here?
Unbelief and faith and rest. And this rest here is the land
of Canaan in history, but in reality, The fulfillment is heaven,
eternal salvation, accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, finished
by Him to which we contribute nothing. So now back to Galatians
3. The children of Israel, born
to Jacob, born to Abraham, and then born to Jacob. Those children,
for the most part, did not believe God. And they were not the children
of Abraham after the Spirit. They were not spiritual children
because they lived their lives and they died in unbelief. And
so, Galatians 3.18 says, If the inheritance be of the law, it
is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
Wherefore then serveth the law. Why did God give the law then?
If God gives eternal life and salvation and eternal glory and
justification and all these things, his own spirit to us, without
the law, then why did God give the law? Well, look at 2 Corinthians
chapter 3. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, we
learn something about the law that's dreadful. But it teaches
us why God gave the law. Look at 2 Corinthians 3. He says, for as much as you are
manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ. In other words,
God has written on your heart the gospel of Christ and therefore
you're identified as his writing. He says you're declared to be
the epistle of Christ, ministered by us. The apostle preaches the
gospel and the Spirit of God comes upon us who believe and
he writes the truth of the gospel on our heart and we look to Christ
only. He says, written not with ink.
but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone,
but in fleshy tables of the heart." That's where the gospel is. When
God persuades a sinner and gives a sinner life, looking to Christ,
God has written that on his heart and he doesn't look elsewhere.
He grows in grace and continues as we read in Hebrews 3, verses
6 and 14. In verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 3, And such trust have we through
Christ to Godward, because he did the writing, because he saved
us by his grace. Such trust have we through Christ
to Godward, not that we, we who preach the gospel, are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. Now, it's all of grace at this
point, isn't it? That's the Old Testament. But
of the Spirit, the Gospel, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit
gives life. The Spirit gives life. What is
the Gospel? It's the Spirit of God. Jesus said in John 6, 63,
the words that I speak to you, they are Spirit and they are
life. There's an inseparable connection
between the words of Christ and the Spirit of God. So that when
the Lord Jesus Christ, in power, commands, through the preaching
of the Gospel, life to us as sinners, the Spirit of God fulfills
His word and gives us that life. His word is Spirit and truth.
And He gives life. Spirit and life. Verse 6. We
see that. Paul was not a minister of the
Old Testament, not the letter, but of the Gospel of the Spirit.
For the letter kills and the Spirit gives life. What is the
letter? It's the law of God. It's the
outward commandment that we have to keep the law in order to have
life, in order to receive everlasting life and blessings from God. That letter, he says here in
verse 6, does what? It kills. It kills. Why does it kill? Because it
finds us guilty. And the law commands that the
sinner shall die. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. But if the ministration of death, that was the law, written
and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel
could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory
of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall
not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? When Moses
went up to the mountain on Mount Sinai, and he received the Ten
Commandments from God on two tables of stone, and he came
back down, his face was shining. And the people looked at him
and his face was glowing, shining. And they were afraid of Moses.
So Moses put a veil over his face. And Paul says here in verse
7 and 8, that when God gave the law, if that law was a glorious
thing, how much more glorious, since that was a ministration
of death, shall it be when God gives this ministration of life,
which is by the spirit of the gospel. Verse 9. For if the ministration
of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of
righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made
glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory
that excelleth. For if that which is done away
was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious. You
see this? The law was done away. Keep reading. So the law did what? When it
was preached, when the law was declared, it pronounced a curse
on sinners. It brought death. And yet it was a glorious thing,
God giving the law at the time. The giving of God's holy law
was a glorious thing. Why did God give the law? What
does the law do? It brings death. Why did God
give the law? To bring death to the proud heart
of a self-righteous man so that he sees that his only hope before
God as a sinner is the promise of God in Christ that he made
to Abraham. The seed, through Abraham's seed,
God would bless his people. Not through the law, but it was
necessary for God to give the law in order to teach us this. And so back in Galatians chapter
3, to teach us this not only in history, through the nation
of Israel, because when we read about that nation, we see these
people failed, failed, failed all the time. They couldn't keep
the law. In Exodus 19, verse 5, God made
it clear that the law was a conditional covenant which could only, all
the blessings of it, could only be fulfilled if they kept it.
I'll read that verse to you. He says, Now therefore, God says
through Moses to the people of Israel, He says, you will obey
my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar
treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine. The
big word there is if. If you shall keep my covenant,
then you shall be my people. And they did not keep his commandments,
therefore they were cast off. That's the law. The law kills. And it leaves us guilty before
God, in a shameful condition before God. And we have no hope. And we're afraid even to come
before God. But in the gospel, he draws us
near like the prodigal son. I've sinned against heaven and
before thee. I'm not worthy to be called your son. And then
we see in the gospel, in the Lord Jesus Christ, the father
running and falling on our neck and kissing us with the message
of Christ and Him crucified. He puts on us the robe, the best
robe, of His obedience and His death. And He puts the ring of
sonship on our finger, shoes of the gospel on our feet, and
He kills the fatted calf and makes Mary, because it's all
about Christ and Him crucified. In Galatians 3, verse 19, he
goes on, he says, That seed is one. Singular. To whom? That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. The promise was made. In other words, God
put all of his promises to his people in one, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Look at 2 Corinthians 1 and verse
20. 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 20,
it says, for all the promises of God, all the promises of God
in him, in Christ, are yes, and in him, amen, unto the glory
of God by us. You see what God is saying here?
All of God's promises of salvation, all of God's promises of rest,
eternal rest and salvation, and eternal glory, and everlasting
life, and His Spirit, and justification, and sanctification, and redemption,
and reconciliation, and remission of our sins, forgiveness. All
of God's promises, our sonship, are in the seed, in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And God sent Him. And He fulfilled. He is our surety. He obligated
Himself under God's law. He was born of a woman, made
under the law, and obligated Himself because He carried the
weight of the cost of the redemption of our souls on His own shoulders
and paid that price in His own blood. He fulfilled the law. And so he says this in verse
19, And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. The
law was given to Israel by angels in the hand of Moses, who was their mediator,
who pictured the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 20, Now a mediator is not a mediator
of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises
of God? No. God forbid. For if there
had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness
should have been by the law. If there was any way that we
could be righteous before God by the law, then righteousness
would have come by the law. But there was not. It was not
possible. So God is completely shutting down all possibility
that we could be saved by our own personal obedience. Verse
22. In other words, it's not about our relation to Abraham
by a physical birth. It's not about circumcision. It's not
about keeping the law. It's not about any of these things. It's
only because of what Christ, the seed,
has done and God-given faith in Him. Now, Paul, the apostle,
when we begin verse 15, look at the first word of verse 15.
Notice what he says there. Brethren. Brethren. Brothers. But look at the first
part of Galatians 3 verse 1. Oh, foolish Galatians. It seems
like he's talking to two different people here, doesn't it? When
you go to your brother and you say, you foolish brother, or
just you foolish man, you're not going to win his welcome,
are you? He's going to hold you at a distance.
But when you call him brother, Then he welcomes you, doesn't
he? Here, the Apostle Paul, he first tells them, look, you're
acting foolishly. So foolishly, you've heard of
Christ. You've seen him with eyes of faith set forth before
you as if he was crucified before you. And you've heard the truth
of the gospel. And yet you go about trying to
perfect yourselves by the works of the law. He goes on, brethren,
What is Paul saying? He's identifying himself with
them. He's saying, look, in this matter
of salvation from sin and the inheritance, the promises of
God, I'm just like you, the Apostle Paul, who was a Jew. I'm just
like you Galatians. There's no difference between
us. We're brethren in Christ, adopted by God the Father, redeemed
by Christ's own blood, given the Spirit of God, the Spirit
of His Son to know this. Brethren. And he reasons with
them. But why does Paul reason with
them? If salvation is all of grace, why do we just wait for
God to do something? Because God has been pleased
to speak in order to get his will accomplished. Remember in
the beginning? God said, and it was so. He commanded,
and it stood fast. And so God is pleased to speak
the Gospel. And the breath of God in His
Spirit takes that Gospel and applies it to our heart. But
He does it through reasoning, through arguments, through pleadings
in Scripture. He works through the bands of
a man, through cords of love. And He woos us and He draws us
to Himself. Because He wants us to come to
Him not ignorant, not foolishly, but understanding what the will
of the Lord is. And believing Him, believing
God. God's Word is our only foundation,
the only way we can know truth. And so God tells us what the
truth is, and He gives us that faith to understand it and believe
it. And that faith ascribes back to God the credit for everything. And it comes to God. Faith is
like a magnet. Have you ever taken those magnets?
They have a north pole and a south pole. And you put two magnets
together and you try to put the north to the north and it flips
around real quick. That's what faith does. It flips
the sinner to be aligned with the truth of God in Christ. It
makes us think about our salvation as God does. He sees it all in
Christ. The law is given to us to shut
us down, to kill our proud spirit. to convince us that we have no
hope, that we're guilty before God and we can do nothing about
it. And then he shows us Christ and he says, look here, this
is the promise, the eternal promise of God, the seed that would come
to whom all promises were given and made. And all those who believe
him, they are partakers of Christ. And so in verse 23, But before
faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith
which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster,
taking out the rod, whacking us with it. Because we needed
to be whacked. We're foolish as disobedient
children. The law was our schoolmaster
unto Christ, or to bring us unto Christ, until Christ came, the
seed. The children of Israel were under the law until Christ
came. And He's saying, look, if we were under the law until
Christ came, now we're no longer under the law. Why would you
Galatians, you Gentiles, think that you want to come under this
law, this beating schoolmaster, this killing letter? Verse 25,
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster,
for you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
When God sends His Spirit into our hearts and gives us faith,
He gives us the right, the title to be called the sons of God,
the sons of the living God. There's no higher privilege,
no higher, greater love. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons
of God. And how? How do we know we are?
Because we make ourselves the sons of God? Because we get busy?
Because we dedicate our lives? Because we exert our will? Of
course not. The law was meant to prove those
things are completely ineffectual. We're sinners. There's only one
way. We look to Christ and Him crucified. We received him who came from
heaven, the seed that would come, the promise. And in seeing him
like Abraham, we're given the very righteousness of God in
him. That's the way it works. In believing Christ, We know
that we are the sons of God. In verse 28, there is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female. You're all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ's, if you
belong to Christ, if you're His seed, then are you Abraham's
seed and heirs according to the promise. How do we receive the
promise God gave to Abraham? How are all the families of the
earth blessed? What are they blessed with? Everlasting
life, eternal glory, and eternal salvation. All of grace and inheritance
with the sons of God. Joint heirs with Christ. And
how does that come to us? By grace. And how do we receive
it? By God-given faith. We look to
Christ as sinners, and so we know then that we're Christ's.
And we with Abraham, we're the children of Abraham because we
believe the same thing Abraham believed. That in the Lord Jesus
Christ, we're blessed with this blessing. We're turned from our
sins. We're given God's Spirit. And
with God's Spirit, we live to God. We believe Him, and we walk
as the children of God. We don't turn away. We don't
go back now. We're going to trust something else. We're going to
look to something else for our salvation. We don't look back
to a time where we made a decision. We look back to the time where
God made a decision from the court of heaven concerning the
death of His Son and pronounced His people righteous by His own
righteousness. That's what we look to. Let's
pray. Dear Lord Jesus, we pray that
you would receive us. Though we are guilty in ourselves
and sinful to our very core, yet you would receive us and
give us your spirit in creating us a new man. Make us members
of your body, baptize us into yourself, and give us this saving
faith that never departs from us, Lord. According to your word
and your promise, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
Help us to see that nothing we are in ourselves by birth, nothing
we can do in our life of ourselves, nothing that we could ever become
in any way, but all because of what you have provided and received
from the Lord Jesus Christ, you receive us for his sake alone.
Help us to rejoice in this and to hold this fast as our only
confidence. And we pray, Lord, you would
uphold us in this faith and grow us in this grace and keep us
in Christ according to your power and faithfulness and goodness,
according to your eternal purpose of love. And we pray, Lord, that
you would do it all by grace and we would learn this grace.
So we would live by grace and we would treat one another in
grace. as those who've been received
and purchased by the blood of Christ, as those adopted by God
the Father, and we would forgive one another as you've forgiven
us, and we would give ourselves as the Lord Jesus gave of himself
for his people, and we would count it our highest joy to do
so. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.