02.08. ESSAY NO. 8

ESSAY NO. 8

Galatians 3:1-14 comprises four short pithy argu­ments in support of Christianity as a means of salva­tion contrasted with law. The first argument, built on the experience of the Galatians, and the second, built on the experience of Abraham, have been considered. The third, built on Hebrew scripture, and the fourth, built on Christ’s substitutionary death, are now to be studied.

"It Is Written"

Three verses (Galatians 3:10-12) contrast legal works and gospel faith as the only two conceivable ways by which men may attain unto righteousness and life. The argument runs: since no man ever has rendered, or ever can render, the perfect obedience to "all things that are written in the book of the law" which righteousness by means of law requires, no man can escape God’s curse of death on law breakers. Faith is, therefore, the sole way of life. The two ways cannot co-exist, nor can they be combined. Gospel faith is not primarily faith in acts of obedience, but faith in Christ’s death for our sins. Paul reached this same conclusion in his first sermon in the Galatian country years before he wrote Galatians: "By him (Christ) everyone that believeth is justified from all things, from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39).

Inasmuch as the little sentence, "The righteous shall live by his faith" (Habakkuk 2:4) is worked into the great doctrinal epistles of Romans (Romans 1:17) and Hebrews (Hebrews 10:38) as well as into Galatians, it must hold cardinal Christian doctrine. Taken in its contexts, it teaches not only that men are justified by faith, but also that they must continue to live, suffer, and grow by faith, not by works. The fact that the Galatians after begin­ning in faith were falling into works of law was the cause of Paul’s writing them this sharp, warning let­ter. Ever since Eden, true religion on the human side has always been based on faith in God. Although Abra­ham demonstrated his faith by sacrificing Isaac, and Paul his by being baptized, their faith was essentially the same. Who can doubt that Abraham would have been baptized had God commanded him to be? Because of this continuum of faith in God, the entire Bible is one organic whole. The Old Testament anticipates the New and kindles the fire of redemption that burns and blazes throughout the New.

"It Is Finished"

Before "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ," men, Jews and Gentiles alike, were inevitably and uni­versally doomed because they were under law. "But Christ redeemed us (Christians) from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree." Before Christ died, there was only one class of men, namely, men condemned to death. His dying created the possi­bility of another class coming into existence. Con­demned men who believe that God in free grace will accept Christ’s vicarious death in lieu of their deserved death and act accordingly come out from among lost men into a new class, namely, justified men. These are they, who realizing their doomed state and feeling keenly their inability to change it under law, come, with no plea but, "Be thou merciful to me a sinner," and accept God’s gracious, judicial decree to deliver them from the sentence of death and to treat them as if they had never been sinners. A justified man "com-eth not into judgment (with men who remain under law), but hath passed out of death into life" (John 5:24).

Such is Christian justification. Christ’s, "It is fin­ished" from his cross signified that the means for justifying condemned humanity was perfected, and that addition from "the flesh" or "will of man," as the Galatians were attempting, could but pervert and ruin it. Think you not that such a great justification should put an end to self, and that God has a moral right to expect Christians, out of sheer gratitude, to be "zealous of good works?" This is the place and the manner in which good works come into Christianity. The Purpose of the Law

Since Abraham possessed the faith upon which sal­vation depends, why did not God give him immediately, instead of the promise of Christ’s coming, Christ him­self? And why was the covenant of law necessary at all? The last half of Galatians 3, very simple and directly, considers such things. By his oath, God confirmed his promise to Abra­ham that in his seed (Christ) all nations should be blessed, "That by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong encouragement" (Hebrews 6:18). No matter what time might elapse or what events intervene before its ful­fillment, this promise so confirmed, could never in any manner whatsoever be altered. After 430 years, God supplemented this immediate, personal promise to Abraham by a covenant of law, which was in a round­about way "ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator (Moses)," and which was to last only "till the seed should come to whom the promise" was made. This "till" shows that the covenant of law was to be but a temporary, provisional insertion within the long­er, larger covenant of promise. It neither superseded nor opposed the prior promise, which was to be ful­filled after the transitory, legal covenant had passed away. The Abrahamic covenant with its positive emphasis on promise and faith, inadequately emphasized sin and its curse. The Mosaic covenant with its heavy em­phasis on sin and death was needed to attain the proper moral balance, and was therefore "added because of transgressions." Is it not meaningful that, though pro­vision was made for six tribes to stand on Mount Gerizim to bless and the other six on Ebal to curse the people after they had crossed the Jordan and assembled in Canaan, in the actual history not a single blessing was heard, but twelve curses with all the people an­swering "amen" were pronounced? (Deuteronomy 27:1-26). Could there be a better commentary on Galatians 3:10, "For as many as are of the law are under a curse"? As there can be no trespassing without a boundary, so, though sin exists, it does not take the character of transgres­sion and rebellion, and "is not imputed when there is no law" (Romans 5:13). "The law came in besides that the trespass might abound" (Romans 5:20). "Through the law cometh the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). Though the Sinaitic covenant served other purposes too, its prime purpose was to discover wounds for which it had no healing that men might seek the great Physician when he came in fulfillment of the promise of Abraham.