Galatians chapter 3. We're going
to continue our study in Galatians today. It's delightful to see
in Galatians the clarity of the gospel so richly declared to
us. God's work in our salvation. What a blessing it is. Day by
day, moment by moment, week by week, and year by year, God has
faithfully and graciously given us His Word and drawn our hearts
out to Him, to run after the Lord Jesus Christ and to run
to Him for refuge, as we sang a moment ago, and find our refuge. And all blessings in what God
has provided for us and what God has received for us from
the Lord Jesus Christ. What a blessing that is to us.
So we want to continue our study here today in Galatians chapter
3 and we'll pick it up after we pray. Let's pray. Gracious
Father, thank you for the Gospel. Thank you for the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is the fulfillment of your word, who has accomplished
our salvation, which is so richly declared to us in the Gospel
of your grace. Thank you that this salvation
is an accomplished work, a finished work, a work in which you have
done everything in your Son. a work now that you declare to
us by your own spirit, sending him into our hearts to know and
understand and believe these things and hold them precious
by this faith you've given to us. Thank You that this is all
of Your grace. Thank You that we are observers
in this. We are those who are overwhelmed
by Your grace and Your love through Your Spirit, trusting Jesus and
finding in Him our all. We pray that our lives would
be an offering and sacrifice to You, to a testimony of Your
grace. We would call upon You in trouble.
praise you at all times, thank you, and pray for your people,
and we would seek your glory in everything we do. Thank you
for your word. We pray you'd bless those who
are absent from us today, and give us your word concerning
Christ in our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Galatians chapter 3. I hope to,
before we finish the book of Galatians, give you a full catalog
of every reason that the apostle by the Spirit of God gives why
our salvation is in Christ alone and without any works of our
own, because it's a blessed argument to hear it hammered home by the
Spirit of God and given to us so freely. But as we read through
Galatians, and especially as we've come to Galatians 3, we
see that God has made many promises. He's made many promises, and
we learn of those promises here. But they were first uttered,
not only to Abraham, but prominently to Abraham in the book of Genesis,
when the Lord said to Abraham, In thee and in thy seed shall
all families, or all nations of the earth, be blessed. And
that seed is the Lord Jesus Christ. And that blessing is the righteousness
that He worked out, given freely to us by God's grace, without
any works of our own, And that blessing also includes his own
spirit sent from heaven by the Lord Jesus from his throne in
order to give us the life the life, spiritual life in our souls
by which we live to God, look to Christ and give ourselves
to Him in our lives. And so we read of these things
in Galatians chapter 3. The Galatians had believed and
still did believe, but they had begun to falter like weak disciples
do in their faith. They had lost sight of the onlyness
of Christ, the singularity of what Christ has done as all of
our salvation and all of our desire. And so, Paul corrects
them through this book. And in so doing, he teaches us,
and we are blessed by that teaching. So, I want to pick it up in Galatians
3.13. I'll read through here, and as
we read through it, we will comment on it. Galatians 3.13, as we
reviewed this last week and spoke about it the week before Christ,
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. The word hath means
it's already done. It's something that was accomplished,
something that's done now. Something that was done in the
past when the Lord Jesus gave Himself for our sins and died
on the cross, He obtained our eternal redemption. So Christ
hath redeemed us. And what did He redeem us from?
He bought us out of the prison. He purchased us out from under
the debt of the law. He says He redeemed us from the
curse of the law. And how did He do that? Being
made a curse for us. A substitute. The Lord Jesus
Christ put Himself under the law. in our nature, bore our
sins and owned them as His, and carried our sins in His own body
up to the tree and fulfilled every obligation the law placed
upon us, none of which we could fulfill. He was cursed for our
sins. And so, Scripture records it
in advance when it says, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.
The tree was the cross. Christ was cursed. He was cursed
for our sins. Our sins and our curse is removed
from us. God's curse is removed from us.
And then in verse 14, This is why Christ did what He did. That
the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the one through
whom the blessing comes. That blessing is righteousness.
God's righteousness. Established by Christ, given
to us freely by His grace. In Romans 5.17 it says, The gift
of righteousness. We know it's a gift because Christ
is the one who established it by his obedience and his death.
His obedience and his death was an obedience of totality. He
left nothing ungiven. He gave himself. He gave himself
in blood. And in so giving himself, it
was a gift of love. Unmeasurable. A gift of love
that God the Father was pleased with. And God received His gift
of Himself for His people with great satisfaction to His justice.
And great delight because it made known God's grace and His
salvation of His people in what Christ had done. And so, that's
the blessing. Christ's righteousness established
by Him for us. according to the will of God
and given to us by Him." He worked it out and God gave it to us.
He imputed it to us. And this is, through this blessing
that God has given to us, this righteousness in Christ, it says
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
We who have been made right in the court of heaven are given
God's Spirit. God ordained and predetermined
that He would make us His sons by Jesus Christ. Part of that
was that He would redeem us through His blood. And the other part
was that He would send His own Spirit, the Spirit of Christ,
into our hearts in order to give us life. And with that life,
faith. And in that faith, give us present
comfort and assurance that we are called the sons of God by
God's own doing. And that's the promise of the
Spirit given to us because of Jesus Christ. A promise. A promise. You know what a promise is? A
promise is something that someone makes, and they don't put conditions
on the promise. We sometimes do, but that's not
a promise. If you say, I'll let you play
outside if you do the dishes today, son, then that's not a
promise. That's a condition. Your mom
or your dad says, I'm going to require you to do some work,
and then you get to go play for a while. You get a reward for
doing something there. But a promise is something where
someone says, I'm going to do this no matter what. And they
make a promise to you. When a husband marries his wife,
he promises to her, I'm going to love you no matter what. He
obligates himself to do that. No one is forcing him. There's
something within him that has so attracted him to her that
he's willing to commit his whole life And she to commit and lose
her life in marriage to Him. And that's a promise. It's a
mutual promise to one another. To give themselves to one another.
And that's a promise. So that's an example of the promise.
So a promise is made by one for another and there's no conditions
attached. It's not something we earn. It's
something God gives out of His goodness. And so He says in verse
15, Brethren, I speak after the manner of men, though it be but
a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth
or addeth thereto." A covenant. What is a covenant? Do you know
what a covenant is? Well, there are really two kinds
of covenants. The first one is like an agreement.
You agree to do something. Joe is selling his car. He says,
I want to sell my car for so much money. You say, I'd like
to buy your car, Joe, and I'm willing to pay you the money.
And you and Joe enter into an agreement. You agree to pay the
money he's asking for his car, and when you've given him the
payment, he gives you the car. That's an agreement. That's like
a covenant. A two-party covenant. Two people are involved. One
says, I'll sell this for so much. The other one says, I'll buy
it for so much. The condition is the payment is made. The promise
that the first one made is that I'll give you the car if you
pay for it. That's a covenant. That's an agreement. God made
a covenant. He made a covenant with the nation
of Israel at Mount Sinai. That covenant is something God
made with them, and He set the conditions of the covenant, and
He laid obligations on the nation of Israel to keep the law of
God. And He promised that if they
did keep it, if they held up their end of the bargain, that
He would bless them. But if they failed, then He would
curse them. Of course, they failed. All men,
everywhere, at all times, have failed to do what God requires.
So we've broken that covenant and it was a covenant of works
because we could break it. If we could break it, it had
to be a covenant of works. And it was a covenant of works
because it was conditioned on what we would do. That's a covenant. That's one kind of covenant in
scripture. It's called the Law of Moses. A covenant. A covenant
of works. And so God set it up that way
as a covenant. And so the Apostle Paul in verse
15, he's going to teach us about God's covenant in which God made
promises. And he starts by letting us know
that God's covenant is not unlike the covenant that men make. So
he says, brethren, I speak after the manner of men in order to
draw from their understanding of how men do business in order
to teach them how God arranged for our salvation. And he says,
if a man has made a covenant, no one changes that covenant
once it's made. No one disannulls it and no one
adds to it. It's made and it's fixed. An
agreement has been made and we're not going to change it. Otherwise
the covenant is broken. So the covenant can't be changed
without breaking the covenant. And God says men don't do that. How much more God then when a
covenant is made by Him? His law couldn't be broken. Christ
had to suffer for His people in order to redeem us from the
curse of that law. And so now He says there's another
covenant, verse 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were
the promises made. to Abraham and to his seed were
the promises made. He's now referring to a new kind
of covenant. This covenant is not a two-party
covenant. This is not a covenant where
two people or two parties agree together about conditions and
blessings or cursings like God did in the law. This is a covenant
where God himself made it as a promise And in making it, it
was a one party covenant because he himself would meet the conditions. Now this kind of covenant is
called a testament in scripture. It's called a testament because
it's like a will, a last will and testament. You know what
that is? A last will and testament is where a man or a woman, they're
thinking about the time when they're going to die and they
have something they want to leave to maybe their children or to
their friend. And so they write up something, an agreement, that
says, upon my death, I'm going to give all that I have to my
children. And it becomes binding in a court
of law. The law recognizes that, that
those possessions that were theirs now becomes the possessions of
the heirs, those who inherit what they had. And it's a testament,
a last will and testament. The one who makes that will promises. to the heirs of that will, the
inheritors, the ones that they want to give what they have to,
he promises to them, when I die, it's all yours. And that's called
a will. And this is the kind of testament
that God is referring to here. He says, and this I say, in verse
17, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ,
or by God to Christ, The Law, which was 430 years after, cannot
disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. So
if men make covenants and they're not changeable, when God makes
a covenant, it can't be changed. Therefore, since God promised
in a testament to Abraham, actually making those promises to the
Lord Jesus Christ through Abraham, that he would justify the heathen
through the righteousness Christ would work out in his own death,
and he would bless them with everlasting life and give them
his spirit, that they might have this life and receive it to themselves.
When God made that testament with Abraham and with Christ
and all who were his, God says it couldn't be changed by the
law. No man could disannul it or add to it. The law could not
change that testament. It came before the law. And so
he says, it 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. Whatever time God gave the law, if you back
up 430 years, that's the time when God is referring to when
he told Abraham about this testament. This promise that God made to
his people through Christ. Now, when he made these promises
to Christ, with God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
it was a two-party covenant. And that's why he calls it a
covenant here. And so in Isaiah 42 and verse 6, and Isaiah 49
and verse 8, God says He's going to give His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, as a covenant to the people. But then, what were the
conditions that God put upon him? And what was the promise
that God made to him? Well, the conditions were that
when the Lord Jesus would take our nature, he would make himself
our surety, he would obligate himself in everything God required
from us, and he himself would answer every obligation with
his own person. He would obey his father in laying
down his life for his sheep, and he would take his life back
up again, having established our righteousness. Being justified
by God, he would ascend to heaven, sit on heaven's throne, send
his spirit, give us his spirit with life and faith in him, and
we would be brought to God by his work alone. That was the
promise God made to him. So in 2 Timothy, Chapter 1 and
verse 9, this is referred to. He says, God has saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. So God's covenant with
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was made with Him on behalf of
His people. He gave to the Lord Jesus the
promise of justifying His people out of all nations on the condition
that Christ laid down His life for them. And so the Lord Jesus
willingly He took that obligation. He owned it. He took our nature. He took our sins and bore them
as his own. And he suffered, endured under
the wrath of God, and answered God's justice fully, and satisfied
God's law, and fully fulfilled everything God required of us.
And this is the covenant God's referring to here. And all who
were named by God in that covenant, their names were written. in
this covenant called the Lamb's Book of Life. And the covenant
was established, the conditions were met, when the Lord Jesus
shed his blood. And so we read in Hebrews, look
at chapter 12 of Hebrews, this covenant is referred to as the
New Covenant. And the everlasting covenant, it's the covenant of
promise. As we read in Galatians chapter
3 and 4. And here in Hebrews chapter 12
and verse 22 it says this. In contrast, in fact, let's go
ahead and read verse 18. Because the first three verses
here are describing the old covenant. The covenant of works. He says,
"...for you are not come unto the mount that might be touched."
Not a physical mount. Not a visible mount. not a mouth
that could be touched, and that burned with fire. Nor unto blackness,
and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the
voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated, that the
word should not be spoken to them any more. So when God gave
the law, Mount Sinai shook, and it was dark, and there was thunder
and lightnings, and the people were terrified. Moses himself,
it says here, was terrified. Verse 21, so terrible was the
sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. This was the
giving of the law. The law was not a promise of
unconditional blessings that the people were given without
any conditions on their part. It was a promise of blessing
or cursing that was based on an individual personal obedience
to God. And so it was a terrible thing.
This is why God appeared this way. God stood as one party in
the covenant. And we, God's people, or everybody
in the world, stood on the other side. And in between was Moses
giving the law to the people. And he says, verse 20, "...for
they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much
as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust
through with a dart, foretelling the results of this covenant
God was making, that even a beast would be destroyed if he came
near to God. How much more would men Would men be destroyed if
they tried to approach God in this way? And so they were all
kept back. God said, do not let them come
up the mountain. And Moses had to warn the people
a number of times not to do that. They were afraid. That's what
we're not come to. We're not come to the law of
Moses. We're not coming to God by our own personal obedience. But in verse 22 he says this.
This is an entirely different covenant. This is a covenant
made before. from before the foundation of
the world. But you are come unto Mount Zion and unto the city
of the living God." Mount Zion and the city of the living God.
He's describing the church of God. All the people of God seated
in heaven with Christ. That's where we're come. the
heavenly Jerusalem, not an earthly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels. These are the ministering spirits
sent forth by God, by the Lord Jesus Christ, to those who are
heirs of salvation. Verse 23. And you are come to
the general assembly, not Jews only, but Jews and Gentiles out
of every nation under heaven, who believe Christ, and the church
of the firstborn, which are written in heaven." That's where our
names are written. In heaven. Can't be changed. And to God,
the judge of all. And to the spirits of just men
made perfect. That's what we are. By God's
grace, by Christ's blood, our spirits before God have been
made perfect. And to Jesus, the mediator of
the new covenant, and listen, and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaks better things than that of Abel. Look at chapter
13 in the same book, Hebrews chapter 13 verse 20. He says,
Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord
Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good
work to do his will. What is the condition? What is
the condition from this verse, verse 20, that had to be met
in order for God's people, the sheep, to be brought to God and
made perfect? The blood of the everlasting
covenant. Through that blood, he says,
God make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working
in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory forever and ever. And now look back at Hebrews
chapter 9 and verse 12. He's talking about the same thing.
This blood of Christ that made the covenant, put it into force,
ratified it, established it forever. He says it completed the conditions
that were necessary for God to send forth the promises. Hebrews
chapter 9 verse 11. But Christ being come as a high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood,
he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us." Back in the Old Testament, under the law,
the priest would enter into the tabernacle made with animal skins,
and silver rings, and woven purple, and fine twine linen, and all
these things, physical things. They would enter there with animals'
blood. and offer it in order that God
might not destroy the people for their sin. That was just
a physical tabernacle. Christ's body is the spiritual
tabernacle. And His blood is what was offered,
not animals' blood. And He didn't enter it on earth,
but He entered heaven. He didn't obtain a temporal,
physical redemption, but an eternal redemption for us from our sins.
And verse 13, for if the blood of bulls and of goats and the
ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, in the Old Testament,
sanctifyeth to the purifying of the flesh, their outward bodies
were made acceptable for the outward physical service in the
tabernacle, how much more, how much more, if that blood of those
animals did that, how much more shall the blood of Christ who
through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,
purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God."
Dead works are works done out of an attempt to fulfill God's
covenant in the law by our own personal obedience, and they're
always full of sin. And verse 15, and for this cause,
carefully listen to this, for this cause he is the mediator
of the new testament that by means of death, for the redemption
of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they
which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. What was the promise? eternal
inheritance. You think about your mom or your
dad giving you an inheritance on earth. When they die, they
give you their home, their car, all their money in the bank,
or whatever they have. And you realize that that's just a passing
thing. But when Jesus Christ shed his
blood, he was the one who made the testament. He's the testator. He made the will. And he died
and his blood put that will into force. And all the eternal blessings
promised in that will were then given to his people. Eternal
life. Eternal inheritance. Eternal
justification before God. Eternal redemption. Perfection.
Spirits of just men made perfect. Made citizens of the heavenly
Jerusalem. Brought to Mount Zion. To the
city of the Living God. Where Christ's blood has been
shed for us. All these things, and throughout the scripture,
it speaks of this. So back to Galatians. This is
what God is talking about. When He talked to Abraham there.
Made that promise to him. In Galatians chapter 3, He says,
I'll read it again, verse 17. Now notice, when God speaks about
things to come, as he did to Abraham, when God speaks like
that, we tend to think of it as, well, it's a promise, it's
going to happen someday. And we can count on it, but it
hasn't happened yet. So there's a bit of uncertainty,
right? It's something that has yet to happen. We're going to
be redeemed in our bodies. Our bodies are going to be raised,
aren't they? And we anticipate that. We anticipate
it with confidence. But there still remains in us
some measure of doubt. Will it really happen? What will
it be like? All these questions. But when
God speaks, He obligates Himself to do what He has promised. Isaiah
46 verse 10 says, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass. That's the way the covenant of
God works. This covenant of God's grace. He's going to bring it
to pass. He spoke it to Abraham. And when
he spoke it to Abraham, it had not yet come to pass, but it
was as good as if it was already done and in the past. So it says
in Romans 4 verse 17, it says that God calls those things which
be not as though they were. So what God said to Abraham,
in thee and in thy seed all the nations of the earth are going
to be blessed with his eternal salvation and eternal inheritance. Abraham heard that promise. And
he understood that the blessing would come through Jesus Christ.
That's what it says here. That the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. That's what Abraham
understood. And he understood it, that it
was future. But because God said it. Because
God's word can't fail, God will do all he says. And it's as if
it's already done as soon as he speaks. Abraham saw it as
his own then. And he believed that this was
his. And you know what? God said it
was. It was counted to him for righteousness. Christ's righteousness
was counted as Abraham's righteousness. And Abraham's God-given faith
enabled him to see. That's mine. That's mine. And
he received in that believing the peace and joy of knowing
that in Christ he had already been justified. Even though it
hadn't come to pass in time. When God spoke in Isaiah 53 of
what Jesus would do, all of the words are, He hath in the past. He has made Him to be sin for
us. He already did. And in Isaiah 53 He says, He
was wounded for our transgressions. He bore our iniquities. He bore
our chastisement. And with His stripes we are healed.
So it's all in the past. Because when God speaks, He speaks
of the future as a done thing. As if it's done. Because nothing
can resist God's Word and His will. And that is a comfort to
every believer. We look for God's Word, like
Abraham did, to be the rock and the certainty of our life and
our salvation and all that we have. And so he says here, when
God spoke to Abraham, he confirmed what he had already purposed
from eternity in Jesus Christ to give salvation, eternal salvation
to his people. And when he confirmed it then,
that was made known in scripture before the law, therefore the
law couldn't change it. But in verse 18 he says, For
if the inheritance, the thing promised, be of the law, it is
no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Whatever
God gave to Abraham, it was not conditioned on Abraham at all. Look back at Genesis with me.
In chapter 15, he says this to Abraham. Remember, Abraham is
hearing God speak. He's hearing him speak. of what
he's going to do for Abraham. And Abraham believes what God
says as if more certain than his own life. He takes the word
of God as the way things are about all things. And so God
says in Genesis chapter 15 and verse 1, he says, after these
things, notice what it says, the word of the Lord came to
Abraham. The word of the Lord. Who is
the word of the Lord? Not just the spoken word, but
the one who is himself the word of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ
came to Abraham in a vision saying, listen to what he said to Abraham,
fear not. Because Abraham was clearly afraid. He wouldn't have
said it otherwise. And besides, he's going to address
his fears in what follows. He says, fear not Abraham. I
am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. You see what the
Lord Jesus is saying to him? I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. What is the shield for? Remember
when David went out to fight Goliath, Goliath had a man running
in front of him carrying a shield. He thought he could stop anything
that David would throw at him. The shield is to protect us.
In Psalm 3.3 it says, But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me,
my glory and the lifter of my head. A shield. A shield is to
deflect all the attacks of the enemy, isn't it? A shield. And the Lord Jesus Christ told
Abraham, I am thy shield. That means something in front
of me. My refuge. My protection for
me. Christ for me. That's what it's
talking about here. The Lord Jesus Christ. What did
he shield us from? Well, he clearly shielded us
from the curse of God's law, didn't he? He redeemed us from
the curse. He interposed himself between
us and the wrath of God. He bore our sins as our mediator
and our surety. He obligated himself to do all
for us to God. And he tells Abraham, I'm your
shield. And when Abraham heard that,
He saw that Christ would answer God for him and all enemies. He would quench every accusation
and defend against every enemy and subdue them for Abraham.
And Abraham saw that. And it was to Abraham as the
real thing. He had no doubt that this was
the way it was. And so Christ was his shield. And then he says,
and I am your exceeding great reward, the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm your reward. A shield is for me. A reward
is something you get, isn't it? He gives it to us. And what was
the thing that God was going to give? What was the thing that
the Lord Jesus Christ was going to give to Abraham as a reward?
I am thy exceeding great reward. And doesn't the New Testament
tell us that the Lord Jesus Christ, that in Him we're complete? That
we're complete in Him who is the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
We stand before God in Christ. Absolutely perfect and complete.
Without sin. Fully clothed in His own righteousness. Not only justified before God,
but He's given us something. What is the reward? Christ Himself. How does He give Himself to us?
He gave Himself for us. How does He give Himself to us?
Well, back to Galatians chapter 3. See what he says here. What
was the promise made to Abraham according to verse 14? The blessing
with verse 8. First, justification by the imputed
righteousness of Christ. Second, the promise of the Spirit.
And who is the Spirit of God but the Spirit of the Lord Jesus
Christ? He comes to us, doesn't he? I am thy shield. I've quenched every accusation,
fulfilled every demand. I've presented you to God in
my righteousness, and I am your exceeding great reward. The Spirit
of the Lord Jesus Christ comes to us. and makes his abode with
us and dwells in us. His life is our life. And in
that life, he produces what we cannot produce. He gives us an
understanding. He teaches us. He points us to
his own work and his own death on the cross, which satisfied
God and made us acceptable to God. And we are given that faith
that enables us, like Abraham, to see, yes, this is mine. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
for me, giving Himself to me by His Spirit. And in believing
by that God-given faith, God tells us we have already passed
from death to life. We shall never come into condemnation
because we stand in Christ and the Spirit of God is ours. He's
already birthed us into His Kingdom. So many things in scripture that
speak of this. Remember 2 Corinthians 4.6, God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
our hearts. That's the Spirit of God coming
to us to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God,
where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of God shines Christ in our heart. That's His work.
That's the work of the Spirit. And how do we know that He has
shined in our hearts? Because, like Abraham, we believe
Him. We believe that in Abraham's seed, Christ, we've been justified. We believe that in Christ, We
have a shield against all enemies. We believe that in Christ we've
been rewarded with God Himself. Dwelling in us. Christ for us,
Christ in us. And this is all our blessing.
And nothing can change it. It was made by promise. God promised
it. And God fulfilled it. And gave
it to us. This faith is not something we
produce. When God called Abraham, where was he? He was in Ur of
the Chaldees. An idolater called him out. He
had no merit. He had no righteousness. God
called him out by his grace and gave him faith. And he obeyed.
He exercised that faith that God gave to him and he left.
He went out. And he laid hold on the promise of God in Christ.
And he saw that in Christ he would be justified along with
all the rest of the heathen. Because of Christ's own obedience
in his blood. And that faith in Christ, the
object of his faith, he was counted to him for righteousness. Alright,
two more verses. Verse 19. Wherefore then serveth
the law, it was added because of transgression, till the seed
should come to whom the promise was made. Who was the seed that
would come? The Lord Jesus. Therefore, it
says, to whom the promise was made, we know the promises were
made to the Lord Jesus Christ, that he would justify the heathen
by his own death on the cross. And it was ordained by angels
in the hand of a mediator. The law was. The law was ordained
by angels in the hand of Moses. Now a mediator is not a mediator
of one. Moses stood between God and the
Israelites. He acted on behalf of God and
on behalf of the Israelites. But God is one. What does that
mean? Well, it means in our salvation,
under the law, God was our adversary. Because we had offended Him.
We needed a mediator. We couldn't come to God directly.
We would have been stoned or thrust through with a dart like
the animals. Like the animals, the beasts that touch them out.
And so God gave the law to Moses through angels and Moses delivered
it to the people. But under the New Covenant, God
is one. The covenant was made in the
Godhead. Christ Himself is the testator. And He Himself is the
mediator. And He made it between Himself
and His Father on behalf of His people. And verse 21. 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. Why did God give
the law? If the law came later and it
couldn't change the New Testament that was promised, and if the
law didn't give life, why did God give it? Because it was to
hold us under, to keep us imprisoned under the guilt and corruption
and condemnation and helplessness of our sins. until Christ came
and then we would be free. Because only by Christ could
we be set free from the law. God kept us under then, for that
time, throughout history and in our own lives until God revealed
Christ to us. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you that in the Lord Jesus Christ you have promised all things
to your people, and he himself has worked it out. He's fulfilled
every condition. He's met it all. He's the one
who made the will, and he's the one who fulfilled it in his own
blood. When he died on the cross, the eternal inheritance became
ours. By God's promise, made in Christ before the foundation
of the world, our mediator, our covenant head, the one who fulfilled
all for us in his own blood, And Lord, we pray that you would
give us what is part of that covenant, that you would give
us yourself in your own spirit, pointing us to Christ, causing
us to see that our salvation and life is in Him alone, trusting
Him for all things, and coming to you by Him, and giving you
glory for Him, and ascribing all honor to you and to Him for
this salvation. Help us never to seek to go back
to the law, to try to do what we ought to do in order to please
you, but to rely on the Lord Jesus alone for everything. And
to praise you for this grace. In his name we pray. Amen.