Galatians chapter three, and
I want to read verse 21 and 22. Is the law then against the promises
of God? God forbid, for if there had
been a law given which could have given life, Verily, righteousness
should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded
all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might
be given to them that believe. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading to us. It might be useful just to remind
ourselves briefly that the Apostle Paul here in this little epistle
is writing to friends in the churches of Galatia, that's a
region of modern-day Turkey. And it's a place that he had
evangelized probably on a couple of occasions. It's likely that
this letter had been written after his second missionary journey. So he'd been in this region at
least twice and he had ministered in this region with considerable
success. So there were a number of churches
that had been established. And he calls these people, people
that he will know personally, know by name, know their circumstances,
know their family, know something of their history. He calls these
people his brethren, their brothers and sisters in Christ. And I
want us to realise that this shows that he had a good hope
for their spiritual life. Now, some might have been more
critical. some might, and that's not to
say that there's not an edginess, a sharpness in some of the rebukes
of the Apostle Paul, but the Apostle is going out of his way,
the Apostle is writing, it's not his longest epistle, but
it's a significant epistle, it's a powerful epistle, it's an epistle
full of gospel truth, and we have to thank the Lord that this
epistle needed to be written and was written. but the apostle
is spending time with these Galatians because he is concerned about
their spiritual status and their spiritual health. Paul wished
to recover and to revive what he perceived was fading in these
people and that's a good principle. These Believers, these people,
they had been subjected to a deception. And the Apostle Paul was ready
to go out of his way to help and encourage these people. I
think we should take a wee lesson from that. You know, sometimes
we become a little bit, perhaps, overcritical. And sometimes we
perhaps become a little bit dismissive of people that contradict us
or people that seem to disparage the teaching that we want to
give them or that might sort of hear what we have to say and
then shake it off. And we think to ourselves, well,
if that's their attitude, let them go. But that wasn't what
the apostles' approach was here. There was a tenderness in it.
There was a care and a concern and an affection for these people. And I think it's just worth remembering
that it wasn't the Galatians, it was the people that were troubling
the Galatians that were the object of his ire and his judgment. and his opposition. He wanted
to win these souls back to a clear understanding of the gospel.
His friends were troubled by false teachers who were leading
them away from the simplicity of the gospel faith. And that
simplicity was that they were no longer seeing that all their
righteousness and all their peace with God must be drawn from the
person and work of Jesus Christ. And these troublers, we've called
them Judaizers, they were trying to impose a blend of faith and
works of grace and duty on the Galatians as being the high road
in order to please God and obtain his blessing. But in combating the subtleties
of the Judaizers, Paul suggests that the Galatians are being
taken advantage of, and indeed they've been bewitched, having
had their spiritual senses dulled, and their hitherto clear appreciation
of the gospel muddied, so as to leave them confused about
what is true. The picture of that bewitching
is like a conjurer who uses sleight of hand to distract and divert
and deceive his audience. And I think, again, it's something
that we, I'm kind of throwing little applications in here today,
but I think, again, it's something that we ought to just be aware
of. It is important who we listen
to. It's important who we hear. It's important, indeed, who we
trust as the Lord's ministers to us. And if a man comes with
unsound doctrine, Would we know? Would our ears be attuned enough
to be able to realise that there's a problem here, there's an issue
here? Remember, these Galatians had been under the teaching of
the Apostle Paul himself and yet they still succumbed to the
deception of these conjurers. So it is something, again, that
we have to be aware of, that doctrine and the truths of the
gospel are something that have to be tenaciously held to and
something that we should be constantly curious about and cautious about
as we hear preaching and preachers. The Apostle Paul wanted the Galatians
to see clearly once again that the true and singular ground
of a sinner's acceptance with God is the substitutionary death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only ground of acceptance
we have. If it's not that we approach
Christ God on the basis of Christ our substitute, then there is
a problem in our theology and a problem in our approach to
God. He wanted them to see, secondly, that the method of our justification
with God is exclusively the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he wanted them to see, thirdly,
that the means of experiencing new life and possessing a spiritual
relationship with God is through faith in Christ and trusting
in the efficacy of that completed work. The aim and the purpose
of the Judaizers was to muddy these clear gospel waters by
inserting into the gospel of salvation a need to obey Moses
a need to adorn their faith with a certain rigour that would bring
them into deepening their relationship with God and enhancing their
relationship with God through the things that they did. And
that was the big lie. The big lie was that they would having gained or having begun
this spiritual life by faith, now the task for the Galatians
was to go on and perfect themselves in their flesh by obeying the
law. And this is what Paul has been
contending against. Now the last time we heard the
apostle tell the Galatians that Abraham's righteousness, Abraham's
justification was a free gift from God. And that's the important
point here. It was a free gift from God. The promise of it had been received
by faith. So Abraham believed in this free
gift from God. He believed in the fact that
God was supplying a righteousness and justifying him by the work
of a substitute. And we've learned from this that
salvation is an unconditional gift. having been established
by God in the eternal counsel and covenant of grace and by
the accomplishment by the Lord Jesus Christ in time of those
covenant duties, covenant obligations. Abraham was not justified by
what he did or what he didn't do. under the law but because
of what his saviour did on the cross. Abraham's righteousness
was not tied to obeying the Ten Commandments which is self-evident
because the law was not even given at this stage and would
not be for another 430 years. The law was nothing to do with
the promise of grace that Abraham had been given. So Paul then,
in these verses before us, anticipates a question concerning the law
and the promise. And he's sort of thinking to
himself, well, somebody is going to say, somebody is going to
come back here with an opposition. Probably one of these Judaizers
is going to say, well, what about this? So Paul anticipates that. And he says in verse 21, is the
law then against the promises of God? Is the law against the
gospel? Is the law opposed to the gospel? Is the law in competition with
the gospel? Now Paul has already shown the
purpose of the law is not to bring life, but to measure guilt. The law showed the standard of
holiness required by God, but it never supplied any means to
reach that standard. It neither encouraged nor enabled
a way to God. It does, however, perfectly fulfil
the purpose for which it was designed and for which it was
given. The law neither opposes the gospel
nor does it compete with the gospel as an alternative route
to holiness or another door to spiritual or eternal life. That
was never its role. Now that's an attractive idea,
of course, that it might be because the natural man and human flesh
likes to think, if I'm good, I'll get rewarded. And if the
wicked are not good, then they'll get punished. And of course,
we always justify ourselves that we're on the right side of that
divide. We're on the right side of that
line. And the law of God would seem to be a suitable means to
that end. And in our flesh, we would be
quite happy if we could use it like that. The thing is, the
law of God will never bring us into God's presence. The fall has rendered us all
guilty before God, and by the law, the degree of guilt and
the consequences of sin in our behaviour is constantly being
measured and constantly condemned. The law was never intended to
bring life to fallen creatures or to make sinners righteous
before God. God uses the law to kill, not
to make alive. It's a killing letter. It's the
gospel that makes alive. New life is in Christ and by
that gospel we live. That gospel applied effectually
by the Holy Spirit, and that's the reason why the Lord Jesus
Christ emphasises to Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. We often think, you know, that
that's to do with other religions or it's to do with, it's to do
with the essence of self-righteousness. There is only one way of righteousness
with God, and that is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. In verse 22, the apostle goes
on to say, the scripture has concluded all under sin. And this is the point of the
law's role. all of us, all people and everything
to do with us is condemned because it is sinful and I think that
that's an important message for us to understand and know. It's
the truth behind our grasp, our understanding of what is sometimes
called total depravity. It is not simply the bad things
that we do that are measured by the law or the good things
that we fail to do. It's everything that we do is
tainted and spoiled and corrupted by sin because it emanates like
water gushing from a dirty pipe or out of a filthy hole. It's got a corruption within
it. Our prayers are sinful. Our worship of God is sinful. My sermons are sinful. There's too much of me in my
sermons. But here's the thing. The glory
of the gospel is enhanced and heightened and amplified by the
work of the law. Far from opposing the gospel,
the law facilitates the gospel. It serves the gospel. It shows
how wonderful the gospel is by contrasting the two. It shows
us the things that it can't do and the things that the gospel
does do. Don't know whether any of you
have ever bought a diamond ring from a jeweller. But when a jeweller
shows off his wares, when he shows off his diamond rings,
he presents it to the customer on a black velvet cloth because
the dark background sets off and magnifies the beauty and
the splendour of the gems that are in the ring. And the law
and the gospel both serve their specific purpose. The mistake,
the error, the false teaching that these Judaizers were bringing
is trying to impose the one upon the other or mixing the two together. And then the Apostle Paul makes
a wonderful statement. He says, the promise That is
what he's talking about is the promise of salvation, the promise
of justification, the promise of reconciliation and new life
that was given to Abraham. The promise All these great spiritual
and eternal blessings are not to be found in a man's works
or legal duties or being the best that we can be, but salvation
is secured by the Lord Jesus Christ and the faithful obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ exclusively. Now you would think that that
would be good news to everybody. You would think that that would
be good news to the whole world, that men and women throughout
the whole world would be clamouring after such a wonderful truth
as that. That there is free justification
and perfect righteousness to be found, nor in the labours
of our own works, nor in the efforts of our own flesh, but
in trusting the Lord Jesus Christ alone. You would think so, but
of course they're not because that's the nature of the natural
man and that's the inherent opposition that we have to God. The very
thing that we need the most, we hate the most because we are
sinners by nature. But here's the loveliness of
the Apostle's statement. In the everlasting council, we've
been thinking a bit about that over the past few weeks, on Tuesdays
and on Sundays, but in the everlasting council, the Lord Jesus Christ
undertook to do his Father's will. and to fulfil every demand
that fell to his responsibility in the covenant of grace and
peace. And those obligations took him to the cross where he
became the ransom and the substitute for his people. Every day of
his life on earth The man, Jesus, leaned upon the promises of God,
leaned upon the faithfulness of his father and trusted his
father to fulfil all the promises made to him in the covenant. So that Jesus was a man of faith
too. Jesus was a man of faith. And he claimed his prize when
he declared in John chapter 17 verse 4, That was the Lord Jesus
Christ saying, in anticipation of the cross, That was him saying, I have fulfilled
all the obligations that I undertook in the covenant of grace. And
salvation was won there for all for whom Christ died. All who
were given to him in the covenant, sanctified in him and placed
into his care and keeping from the foundation of the world.
that he says going on, he should give eternal life to as many
as the Father had given him. Let me just make this one quick
thought and then we're done. It says there in that last part
of verse 22 that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might
be given to them that believe. What is it to believe? The necessity
of believing is part of the gospel revelation, but it's more than
simply giving assent to the revealed facts of the gospel. There are lots and lots of people
who, to some degree or another, give assent to the revealed facts
of the Gospel, the revealed facts of the Bible. The Scriptures
tell us that the devils themselves believe and tremble, and I suspect
that the devils believe a lot more and far better than most
people do, even who would claim to be Bible believers. They know
God is their God. The devils know that God is their
God. They know the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only saviour of men. They know that he has accomplished
salvation on the cross and they know that they're defeated because
they were shamed there in that work. But that is not possessing
the faith of Jesus Christ. The faith of Jesus Christ is
sharing and being united to Christ with a faith that is Christ's
own faith. It is Christ's own faith gifted
and bestowed to his people that we might believe in our own personal
interest in the work of redemption and salvation. It certainly includes
knowing the facts of the gospel. We cannot believe in something
that we do not know, but it is a faith that unites us to Christ. It initiates a relationship with
him. It grows, it deepens, it sometimes
struggles, but it never disappears because it is Christ's faith
given to his people. Lord Jesus Christ believed that
if he fulfilled the covenant obligations that fell to him,
then his father would fulfill the covenant obligations that
he had undertaken as well. that he would give a suitable
righteousness to all for whom Christ died, that he would bless
and reconcile himself to that church, he would purify her,
make her holy, beautiful and fit for his presence and he would
give her to Christ at that great marriage feast of the Lamb. This
is the faith that we have and this is the promise that we have.
It's the greatest gift in this world and it is all by the free
grace of God in Christ. Amen.