The title of this message this
morning is Abraham and His Seed. Abraham and His Seed. And you
know, as you go through the New Testament, and I think I've probably
preached verse by verse on just about every book of the New Testament
except for the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
and I've preached verse by verse a lot through them. you find
certain keys that unlock the mysteries of the whole Bible.
Now, of course, one of the main, the main key that unlocks the
mystery of the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation is what
Christ said to the unbelieving Jews in John chapter five. Remember
in John chapter five in verse 39 when he says, you do search
the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life,
for they are they which testify of me. And he told them, he said,
you have one that accused you, and that's Moses, whom you trust. What it was, they weren't trusting
Moses personally, but they were trusting the law of Moses, their
works of the law, to make them righteous before God. to get
them to heaven, to get them saved. And that's the issue that we
find here in the book of Galatians. We find what some commentators
call Judaizers. These were men who were Jews
who claimed to have been converted to Christ, but they wanted to
retain the law, their works of the law as to making them righteous
before God, making them holy. And the particular point of law
that Paul deals with here is circumcision. They would say,
yes, we believe in Christ, yes, we trust him as our Savior, but
you've got to be circumcised to be saved. And that's the same
as people today who add anything to Christ for all salvation. In other words, Christ just gets
you so far. Brother Jim Byrd was telling
me about a preacher he heard make the statement, he said,
the blood just gets you so far. and then something else has to
take over, something you do, something done in you or through
you. And that's a denial of the gospel.
That's why Paul said, if you be circumcised, Christ will profit
you nothing. What he means by that is that
if you think circumcision has anything to do with saving you,
or keeping you saved, then your claim of Christ will profit you
nothing. You can talk about Jesus Christ
till you're blue in the face, but if you're not looking to
him and him alone for all salvation, for all forgiveness of sins,
for all righteousness and eternal life and glory, he'll profit
you nothing. He will not share his glory with
you or with me. And that's the bottom line. And
so that is the main key to understanding scripture. The way I put it,
I was writing on this last week, that puts everything in the Bible
within the paradigm of grace. Sovereign grace. So that when
I read the scripture and I interpret the scripture and I want to find
the meaning of scripture, then I have to step into that paradigm
of grace. And to give you an example of
what I'm talking about, you know the if passages of scripture.
People read the if passages, if you do this, if you continue. If you take those ifs outside
the paradigm of grace, then you're gonna turn it into works. But
see, within the paradigm of grace, what they do, these ifs become
not conditions we must meet in order to attain or maintain salvation,
but evidences that we love Christ and we trust Him and believe
in Him. So that's what he's talking about. Now, here's another key
that helps us to understand the scriptures. Look at verse 15.
Now, Paul had been talking about, The promise of the Spirit given
to Abraham, the blessing of Abraham, verse 14, what is the blessing
of Abraham? The blessing of Abraham that
Paul is talking about had to do with salvation, eternal spiritual
salvation based upon what Christ would come and do, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Messiah of the Old Testament, what he would come
and do in order to put away Abraham's sins and establish righteousness
for Abraham and enable Abraham to believe. Now that's the blessing
of Abraham. And Paul here is talking about
that blessing of Abraham coming on Gentiles. And he shows that
when Abraham was justified before God, it had nothing to do with
anything Abraham did do or didn't do. It had nothing to do with
Abraham's heritage, Remember in Romans 4, we read that. He
said, what shall we say of our father Abraham according to the
flesh? That is his person. In other
words, did Abraham's salvation, did it have anything to do with
what Abraham did or would do? And the answer's no. It was totally
by the sovereign mercy and grace of God in Jesus Christ. And Abraham saw that. Christ
said, remember in John chapter 58, he said, Abraham rejoiced
to see my day and he saw it and he was glad. That's what the
Lord himself said. So he's talking about this blessing
of salvation that comes upon all of God's people, Jew and
Gentile. And he says in verse 15, he says,
brethren, I speak after the manner of men. He said, I'm coming down
on a human level to use human language to give you an illustration
of what I'm talking about. That's what he's saying. He says,
though it be but a man's covenant, agreement, or some kind of a
testament, this is an agreement, a covenant between men, yet if
it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. So Paul uses
an earthly legal example to explain the doctrine of justification
before God based on the merits of Christ's righteousness alone.
I understand now what he's saying. I'm a sinner. You're sinners. How can sinners be justified
before God? And that means how can we be
not guilty? That's what it is, to be justified. How can I, a sinner, be rightfully,
really, without pretense, without hypocrisy, be declared righteous
before a holy God? God who knows me better than
I know myself. God who knows my frame, he knows
my thoughts. There's no use me trying to prove
that I'm not a sinner before God. And there's no use you trying
to prove that either. Because God sees the thoughts
and intents of your heart. So how can such a person as I
am, born dead and trespass, fallen in Adam, born dead in trespasses
and sins, how can I stand before God in the judgment of his law
court and be declared legally, really righteous before him? And Paul, what he's saying here,
it's a matter of a covenant. A covenant that was made before
the foundation of the world between the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, in which all of the salvation of God's chosen
people was conditioned on Christ. All the covenant stipulations,
all the covenant conditions were upon Him. Him alone, not upon
them, not upon His people. God didn't look down through
a telescope of time and foresee what you would do or what you
won't do, or what you would believe or won't believe. That is not
in the scripture. That's a man-made doctrine to
elevate men. So what is this salvation? It's based on a covenant between
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit made before the foundation
of the world in which Christ was set up to be the surety of
God's people, their sin debt being charged to Him and His
righteousness charged to them. But He had to come in time and
fulfill all righteousness by His death on the cross. That's
where the blood comes in. His blood is our redemption price. were redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ. So Paul says, let me give you
this human illustration of covenants, this legal illustration to explain
this. And he says a man-made covenant,
a testament or contract, and some commentators say what he's
talking about here is a last will and testament, and that
may be so. But he says once that covenant between men has been
ratified or sealed, then it can't be changed. It can't be added
to. Now you know that's true with
a last will and testament. The condition for that last will
and testament to be put into force is what? The death of the
one who made the will. And after that death, it can't
not legally be changed. People may try to change it now.
People may bring in other wills and say, well, look here, he
made this one out, you know, all that junk. But if it's a
will, then it can, and that person dies, it can't be changed. It
can't be added to, it can't be taken away. It's a done deal,
he's dead. And you remember Paul used it, or the writer of Hebrews
used this illustration over in Hebrews chapter nine. You remember
that? When he's talking about redemption. He's talking about
salvation. And he says in Hebrews chapter
nine, this is after he said, if the blood of bulls and goats
and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify to the purifying
of the flesh, talking about the old covenant, that it was only
a ceremonial cleansing. He says, how much more shall
the blood of Jesus Christ who through the eternal spirit offered
himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works
to serve the living God? You see, the blood of Christ
takes care of all. things for us. His blood is our
righteousness before God. His blood is our forgiveness.
And he says in verse 15 of Hebrews 9, and for this cause, he's the
mediator of the New Testament, the new covenant, that by means
of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were
under the first Testament. What he's saying there is that
when Christ died on the cross, he put away the sin, he paid
the price for the sins of God's elect under the old covenant.
And he says, they which are called might receive the promise of
eternal inheritance, based on what? Based on your faith? No. Now, must we believe? Yes. But it's not based on our
faith. It's based on the blood of Christ.
And he says, verse 16, for where a testament is, there must also
of necessity be the death of the testator. In other words,
for that covenant to be enforced, somebody had to die. Now, who
had to die? The one upon whom all the conditions
of the covenant rest. And he says, for a testament
is a force after men are dead. Otherwise, it is of no strength
at all while the testator liveth. It's just like a person who has
accumulated a lot of material wealth. Now, if while he's alive,
he chooses to give it to people, that's up to him. But if in a
will he has bequeathed it to his heirs, then what has to happen
for them to get it? He's gotta die. And that's what
he's saying there. That's the illustration, all
right? So back in Galatians chapter three, what he's saying is salvation,
justification before God, the blessing of spiritual life in
the new birth. All of that was conditioned on
one thing, and it had nothing to do with circumcision, had
nothing to do with your keeping the law. It only had to do with
the death of the testator who's Jesus Christ. His death is the
surety of the salvation of his people. It didn't make salvation
possible if you would do your part. That's not what his death
in the Bible is. Well, it's all by the death of
Christ for his people. Now, the death of Christ, which
is his righteousness established, secured all the blessings of
the covenant of grace to all his people, the elect of God,
the sheep, the church. And they will all be born again
by the Holy Spirit. They'll be given faith to believe
and brought to repentance of dead works and idolatry. Now,
someone may object. And they may say, well, what
if the heirs refuse the inheritance? You've heard that. Well, that's
possible in a man's covenant. Do you know that? I could walk
away and just say I don't want it. In a man's covenant. And when it comes to salvation,
if left to ourselves, that's what we would all do with this
salvation. if left to ourselves. But in
this covenant, now here's what the Bible teaches. In this covenant,
God made provision not only to justify us by the redemption
of our souls from sin based on the righteousness of Christ imputed,
but he also made provision to bring the power of the Holy Spirit
to make us willing to receive Christ and to receive the inheritance. Now how do I know that? Well,
look at Hebrews chapter eight. Hebrews chapter eight. Now he's
quoting here from Jeremiah 31, a prophecy of Jeremiah. And he's quoting this to show
the greater power and glory of the new covenant over the old
covenant. Now the old covenant was a covenant that was conditioned
on Israel. conditioned on man. And what
happened? It failed. And the whole old
covenant, the whole 1500 year period that's recorded in the
Old Testament is a testimony that any covenant between God
and man that's conditioned on sinful man will be a failure. That's why that covenant couldn't
save anybody. So look at Hebrews chapter eight,
look at verse, begin at verse 10. Well, no, let's go back,
let's go back to verse eight, or verse seven, rather. He says
in Hebrews eight, verse seven, for if that first covenant had
been faultless, that's the old covenant, first in time, what
he's talking about, then should no place have been sought for
the second, that's the new covenant in Christ. He says, For finding
fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that
I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the
hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. In other words,
this new covenant's different. It's not the same as the old
covenant. I've got commentaries where they try to say, well,
the new covenant is just about the same as the old covenant.
We just kind of filtered into Christ. No. He said, I'm gonna
make a new covenant. It's not according to that covenant
that I made at Sinai, the old covenant, the law of Moses. And
he says, because they continued not in my covenant. They didn't meet its terms. Now,
people today, who preached that the new covenant is the same,
you know what they think? They think, well, I would have
met its terms. No, you wouldn't have, and neither
would I. You know, Paul covered that in
Romans chapter three. You remember when he said, the
scripture hath concluded all under sin as Jew and Gentile,
are we better than they? He said, no, and no wives. And
I've told you about how people go to scriptures like that, and
they really, whether they say it or not, they have what I call
the accept me syndrome. Remember he says there's none
righteous, no not one, except me. No, no exceptions. If my salvation were based on
the terms of a covenant between me and God, and those terms were
conditioned on me, What would happen to me? I'd be lost and
damned forever. So he says, they continued not
in my covenant and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. Now
the new covenant, the new covenant which is the establishment in
time of the everlasting covenant of grace made before time, it
provides not only for the sinner's right standing before God based
on the righteousness of Christ imputed, but it also provides
for the power of God the Spirit to believe. Look at it, verse
10. For this is the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind and write them
in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall
be to me a people. And they shall not teach every
man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know the
Lord. For all shall know me from the least to the greatest. Ezekiel,
the prophet, in Ezekiel 36, he said it too, the same thing,
it's a prophecy. He said, I'll give them a new
heart. God said, I'll give them a new heart. I'll put within
them a new spirit. Now, he didn't do that under
the old covenant to the nation. He had certain individuals called
a remnant according to the election of grace that were there who
believed, but under that covenant, there was no salvation. Those,
who believed under the old covenant, their salvation was not according
to the terms of the old covenant. Their salvation was looking forward
to the Lord Jesus Christ who would come and fulfill all righteousness
for them. Now look back at Galatians 3.
Look at verse 16. He says, now to Abraham and his
seed. Now listen to that. What is Abraham's
seed? That's Abraham's offspring. That's
like, you know, we have children. Generation is another term, his
generation. Isaiah 53 talked about Christ,
who shall declare his generation. That's his seed. And he had no
physical children, so what is he talking about there? He's
talking about his spiritual children in Isaiah 53. Well, verse 16,
now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. What are the
promises? Well, the promises made to Abraham
and his seed. Now, God made a lot of promises
to Abraham. You can go back and read about
them beginning at Genesis chapter 12. Some of those promises made
to Abraham concerned temporal, earthly blessings, but the main
one concerned spiritual and eternal blessing of salvation, and that's
what Paul's talking about here. The promise that he's talking
about of Abraham here is the promise of justification before
God based on the righteousness of Christ imputed. He's not talking
about an earthly land here. He's not talking even about earthly
blessings, even though God does bless us temporally. We're a
blessed people. He's talking about salvation.
And so he says, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises
made. Now who is Abraham's seed here? Well, he saith not unto
seeds as of many. Now, do you get that? He's not
talking about a plurality of people here. He says, and to
seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. Talking about Christ. Who is
the seed of Abraham? Well, as I said, seed refers
to descendants. You know, sometimes in the Bible,
the Jewish nation is called Abraham's seed. That's his natural seed. But you know something? Ishmael
and Isaac both were Abraham's natural seed. Remember, Ishmael
was born of the bond woman, Hagar, and Isaac was born of Sarah in
a miraculous birth. You know the story. But they
were both Abraham's natural seed. Isaac would be called Abraham's
special natural seed, you could say it that way. Because it was
through Isaac and his natural descendants that who would come
into the world according to the flesh? The Messiah, Christ. That's why Paul deals with that
in Romans chapter nine. He said, they are not all Israel
which are of Israel. What he's saying there is there's
a distinction between national, natural, ethnic Israel and the
true spiritual Israel. And that's further illustrated,
remember, in Romans chapter nine between Jacob and Esau. Jacob
have I loved, Esau have I hated. Now sometimes the church, we
who truly are brought to faith in Christ, are called Abraham's
seed. Look across the page to verse
26 of chapter three. He says, for you are all the
children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. What's the evidence that
a person is a child of God? They believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's right. They rest in Christ
for all salvation, for all righteousness, for all forgiveness. And so he
says in verse 27, for as many of you as have been baptized
into Christ have put on Christ. That word baptized there doesn't
refer to water baptism, the ordinance, it's being placed into Christ.
What he's saying, you're united to Christ. You're in Christ.
Ephesians chapter one, how many times does it say that? We're
in Christ. And to put on Christ, what does that mean? Well, that's
scriptural language. It's kind of a metaphor. It means
to believe in Him. When you believe in Him, you
put Him on. You see that He is your righteousness
before God. And he says in Christ, verse
28, there's neither Jew nor Greek. That's a Gentile. There's neither
bond nor free, there's neither male nor female, for you are
all one in Christ Jesus, and if you be Christ, that literally
if you belong to Christ, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs
according to the promise. You who believe in Jesus Christ,
You who rest in him as the Lord your righteousness, you are a
spiritual descendant of Abraham. That's what he's saying. You're
a spiritual Jew. Paul puts it that way in Romans
chapter two. He is not a Jew which is one
outwardly, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision
is not with men's hands but of the heart. That's God's work.
You must be born again. So sometimes true believers as
a collective body are called Abraham's seed. But here, back
here in verse 16, the seed of Abraham is one special person
upon whom rest all the promises of God concerning the salvation
of his people, and he identifies it right there, which is Christ. Jesus Christ. according to the
flesh, that's his holy humanity. Remember, conceived by the Holy
Spirit in the womb of the virgin, born of the virgin without sin. Jesus Christ, his holy humanity
in union with his eternal deity is the one seed of Abraham he's
talking about here for the salvation of his people. He says, not as
of many. That shows that none of the promises
of grace are conditioned on individual believers. Not as of many, but
on one. As of one. Second Corinthians
1.20, all the promises of God are in him, yea, and in him,
amen. Not in you, not in me. In other
words, the promises of God or salvation are not made sure in
me or in you. They're made sure in Christ and
we believe in him. He's our surety. I'm not my own
surety. Christ is my surety. If you believe
you're your own surety, which means this, if you believe your
salvation is based upon some condition you've met, that makes
you the surety. But it's not so. Christ came
into the world to show mercy to our fathers and to remember
his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham.
It's by the righteousness of one that many, many are justified. So the seed here is Christ as
the surety of the covenant, the substitute of his people. the
representative of his church, our sin bearer, upon whom all
our sins were charged, for which he suffered and he bled and he
died on the cross to establish righteousness, which is imputed,
charged, accounted to us. And in time, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, we receive him by faith. And that's the essence
of the everlasting covenant of grace made before the foundation
of the world. But it was revealed in a marvelous
way by way of Abraham. That's what he's talking about.
God made a covenant with Abraham, not conditioned on Abraham, but
all of grace. And the main promise of this
covenant was this. The Messiah would come through
Abraham according to the flesh, without sin, and the redemption
of his chosen people, Jew and Gentile, by him. That's the blessing
of Abraham. Now we could go on through, but
let me just look at verse 17. He says, and this I say that
the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, now
what's the confirmation of the covenant? Christ and what he
would do. The law which was 430 years after,
that's the law and sign. See, here's Abraham. God made
that promise, and it was a gospel promise based on a covenant made
before the foundation of the world, but God revealed it miraculously
and clearly through Abraham. God made that covenant, and it
was the promise of the gospel of God's sovereign grace in Christ.
And he told Abraham, basically, that this is what's going to
happen. The Messiah would come through you, according to this.
The Messiah had to have a holy humanity in order to die for
the sins of his people. He had to be God-man. Well, his
humanity would come through Abraham. So here's the promise of the
gospel to Abraham. Well, 430 years after, he gave
the law of Moses on Mount Sinai. And what he's saying, that covenant
that God made with Israel on Mount Sinai did not cancel out
what God had already promised to Abraham. The law given to
Israel on Mount Sinai was not a cancellation of the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. God promised salvation
through Christ to his people by grace. And then he gave the
law, but the law didn't cancel it. The law, verse 17, didn't
make the promise of none effect. Verse 18, he says, for if the
inheritance be of law, in other words, if salvation and all of
its blessings, that's the inheritance, be of the law, that is by your
works of the law, it's no more promise. That promise is destroyed.
But God gave it to Abraham by promise. Now, the next question
that comes up, and I'll deal with this next time, is in verse
19. Well, then why did God give the
law? Why did he give it at all then? Here's the law. Israel failed. Now, we're good
Americans. We think we'd do better, don't
we? No, we wouldn't do better. We'd be just like them. We're
sinners. But now, if God gave that law
and it didn't cancel out the promise of it, why did God even
give it? Well, he tells us and I'll just read it and I'll start
here next week. He says in verse 19, it was added
because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom
the promise was made and it was ordained by angels in the hand
of a medium. The law was given to expose our sin. The law was given to show us
the impossibility of salvation, of being made righteous based
on our works of the law. And it was given to drive us
outside of ourselves to Christ for salvation. And that's what
he's going to define and describe in these next verses. All right.