Galatians 3
McGeeCHAPTER 3THEME: Justification by faith; experience of the Galatians; illustration of Abraham
Galatians 3:1
EXPERIENCE OF THE GALATIANSPaul now goes back to the experience of the Galatians. How were they saved? Were they saved by law or were they saved by faith in Jesus Christ? I personally believe in experience. I had a Methodist background as a boy. I went down to a penitent altar underneath a brush arbor in back of an unpainted Methodist church in southern Oklahoma. I was just a little fellow and I knelt there with an open heart. I believe in experience, and when we come to chapter 4 we will deal further with the subject of experience. “O foolish Galatians"senseless Galatians. The Greek word is anoetoi from the root word nous, meaning “mind.” He is saying, “You’re not using your mindyou’re not using your nous.” “Who hath bewitched you?” Let me translate that in good old Americano: What’s gotten into you? “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth"“set forth” is literally placarded or painted. I am not sure that Paul actually drew pictures for the Galatians, but I am sure that he painted word pictures for them. I used to show a great many slides when I was a pastor. It is a marvelous way of teaching the Word of God. For example, I would not attempt to teach the tabernacle without using slides. Now that is the way you “set forth” a teaching, and that is the word Paul uses. “Set forth, crucified among you"it was His death on the cross that made possible your salvation!
Galatians 3:2
Now we need to be very careful here. The gospel is true irrespective of experience. What experience does is corroborate the gospel. There are many people today who reason from experience to truth. I personally believe that the Word of God reasons from truth to experience. Experience is not be discounted, but it must be tested by truth. Everyone has different experiences. I heard one of the founders of a cult tell about her experience. Then I heard another woman tell about her experienceand they are entirely different. Which person am I going to follow? To tell the truth, I am not going to follow either one of them. One time a man got up in a meeting and read a passage of Scripture. He said, “Because there is a difference of opinion concerning the interpretation of this passage, and we don’t want any controversy, let me tell you about my experience.” Well, his experience was as far removed from what that Scripture said as anything could possibly be. He was basing truth on his experience. You simply cannot do that. Experience must corroborate the gospel. “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” What does Paul mean by the hearing of faith? Does he mean the ear, the organ of hearing, or the receiving of the message, or the message itself? I think he means the whole process. You have to hear something before you can be saved, because the gospel is something God has done for you, and you need to know about it. In this section Paul is raising several questions. He tells these folk to look back to what had happened to them and asks six questions that have to do with their experience. This is his first question: “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Nowherenot even in the Old Testamentdid anyone ever receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the Law. He is received by the hearing of faith. The Galatians never received the Spirit by the Law. The Holy Spirit is evidence of conversion. Scripture tells us, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom_8:9). “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Eph_1:13). Now here is the second question:
Galatians 3:3
What Paul is asking is this: “If the Holy Spirit is the One who converted you, brought you to Christ, and now you are indwelt by the Spirit of God, are you going to turn back to the Law (which was given to control the flesh) and think you are going to live on a high plane?”
Galatians 3:4
Paul asked the Galatians, “Are you going to let all of the things you have suffered come to naught?” He reminded them that they had paid a price for receiving the gospel. Was it all going to be in vain, without a purpose? Now he raises this question:
Galatians 3:5
Paul refers to the ministry that he has led among them. You will recall that his apostleship was attacked by the Judaizers. They said that he was a Johnny-come-lately apostlenot one of the original Twelve. He was not with Christ during His ministry but came along later. Paul reminded the Galatians that he was the one who had come into their country, preached the Word of God to them, and performed miracles among them. He did not do it by the works of the LawPaul would be very careful to say that.
He preached the Lord Jesus Christ as the One who died for them, was raised again, and in whom they placed their trust. When they did that, a miraculous thing took place. They were regenerated. Paul had the evidence that he was an apostle. In that day sings were given to the apostles. As I understand it, the apostles had practically all the gifts mentioned in Scripture; they certainly had all the sign gifts.
Paul could perform miracles. He could heal the sick. He could raise the dead. Simon Peter, one of the original Twelve, could do that also. To do this was the mark of an apostle in that day. Now the apostles have given us the Word of God. We have a faith that is built upon Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone, and a faith built upon the foundation which was laid by the apostles and prophets. That which gave credence to the truth of their message was their ability to perform miracles. They had the sign gifts. (After they had given us the Word of God, the sign gifts disappeared. In fact, I think they disappeared with the apostles.) The important thing for us to note here is that Paul came to the Galatians not as a Pharisee preaching the Law, but as an apostle preaching Jesus Christ. That was something these people had experienced, and Paul rested upon that. In summary, we have seen that justification by faith was the experience of the Galatians. That is why he asked them, “What has gotten into you?” He mentions the Holy Spirit three times in this section. He reminds them that they did not receive the Spirit by the Law. The Holy Spirit is evidence of conversion. It is important to see that the gospel is true irrespective of the experience of the Galatians or anyone else. The gospel is objective; it deals with what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us. Experience will corroborate the gospel, and that is what Paul is demonstrating in this section. The gospel is sufficientexperience confirms this.
Galatians 3:6
ILLUSTRATION OF ABRAHAMThis section of justification by faith using Abraham as an illustration looms large in this epistle. Then follows an allegory of Hagar and Sarai, which takes us through the rest of chapter 4. So now we come to the heart of this book, the high water mark, where Abraham will be the illustration. This verse is a quote from Gen_15:6 concerning Abraham, “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” This verse is also quoted in Rom_4:3. The illustration comes from the early part of the life of Abraham, his life of faith. Abraham is the great illustration of justification by faith. Paul uses him as an example in both the Roman and Galatian epistles. It cannot be said that Abraham was justified by the Law because the Mosaic Law was not given until four hundred years after Abraham. Neither can it be said that he was justified before God gave him the commandment of circumcision.
Circumcision was the badge and evidence of Abraham’s faith, just as baptism is the badge and evidence of a believer’s faith today. Neither circumcision nor baptism can save. In fact, they make no contribution to salvation. They are simply outward evidences of an inward work. The incident referred to is in Genesis 15. After Abraham encountered the kings of the East in his rescue of his nephew Lot, he refused to accept any booty from the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. God appeared to Abraham to assure him that he had done right in turning down the booty, saying, “I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward.” Abraham was a practical sort of individual, and he began talking to the Lord rather straightand I feel that the Lord wants us to do that, friend. He said, “I don’t have a son, and You told me I would.” The Lord said, “I’m glad you brought that up, Abraham, I’ve been wanting to tell you something.” God had already told him that his seed would be as numberless as the sand on the seashore. Now God takes him by the hand and tells him to look toward the heavens. It must have been night time.
I am told in that section of the world one can see about five thousand stars with the naked eye. With a sixteen inch telescope you would see fifty thousand stars, and I don’t know what you would see with a hundred inch or two hundred inch telescope. Be that as it may, I don’t think any telescope could give you the exact number of stars which could be seen at that time. In effect, God said to Abraham, “You can’t count the stars, and neither can you count your offspring.” Do you know what Abraham’s response was? “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness (Gen_15:6). In the original it is very expressive. Literally it means that Abraham said “amen” to the Lord.
God said, “I’m going to do it.” And Abraham said, “Amen.” Does this have an application for your life and mine? It certainly does. God says to you and me, “I gave My Son to die for you. If you believe on Him you won’t perish. You will have everlasting life.” Will you say “amen” to that? Will you believe God? Will you accept His son? If you do, you are justified by faith. This is what Abraham did. He believed God, and at that moment God declared him righteous. Because of his works? No! His works were imperfect. He didn’t have perfection to offer to God. (Paul will develop this thought a little later on.) Although Abraham did not have perfection at that time, afterwards he did because his faith was counted for righteousness. That is the doctrine of justification. Abraham stands justified before God. Next Abraham said to the Lord, “Would you mind putting what you have told me in writing?” Perhaps you are saying, “I have read the Book of Genesis, and I don’t remember anything like that.” Well, it’s here in Genesis 15. Now notice: “And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it” (Gen_15:7). Listen to Abraham’s response. He is talking back to the Lordhe’s not one of these superpious saints. “And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (Gen_15:8). In other words, put it in writing. God said to Abraham, “Meet me down at the courthouse and I will put it in writing.” Now somebody says, “Wait a minute.
It doesn’t say that.” But it does, friend. “And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon” (Gen_15:9). That is the way they made contracts in that day. (Jeremiah also tells about making a contract in this way in Jer_34:18). You see, when a contract was made in that day, one man agreed to do something, and the other man agreed to do something in turn. They cut a sacrifice into two parts and put half on one side and half on the other side, then they would join hands and walk between the two halves. That sealed the contract. It was the same as going before a notary at the courthouse. So Abraham prepared the sacrifices and waitedhe waited all day. Fowls came down upon the carcasses and Abraham drove them away. God was late meeting Abraham; He did not get there until sundown. “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him” (Gen_15:12). Just as he is about to sign the contract, God puts Abraham in to a deep sleep. The reason for this is that Abraham is not to walk with God through the two halvesAbraham is not to promise anything. God is doing the promising. “And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces” (Gen_15:17).
You see, God passed through between those two halves alone because God made the covenant. And Abraham’s part was only to believe God. If the covenant depended on Abraham’s faithfulnessperhaps on his saying his prayers every nighthe might miss one night, and then the promise would be no good. So God was the One who did all the promising, and the covenant depended on God’s faithfulness. Friend, over nineteen hundred years ago Jesus Christ went to the cross to pay for your sins and mine. God is not asking you to say your prayers or be a nice little Sunday school boy to be saved. He is asking you to trust His Son who died for you. He makes the contract. He is the One who makes the promise, the covenant, and He will save you. That is the new contract, friend. The old covenant He made with Abraham. Abraham believed God. He said, “amen,” to God. Abraham believed, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. God is still asking us to believe Him. Put your trust in Christ and you will be saved. What a glorious picture we have here.
Galatians 3:7
God did this for Abraham before the Law was ever given. God did not make the covenant with him because of Abraham’s good works. He told Abraham, “I’ll do this for you if you believe Me.” Abraham said, “I believe You.” God wants your faith to rest on a solid foundation. But, my friend, if you come to God, you must come to Him by faith. He has come to the door of your heart. He cannot come any farther. He will not break down the door. He will knock and say, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev_3:20). Only you can open the door by faith, my friend. When you and I trust Christ as Savior, we are saved the same way that Abraham was savedby faith.
Galatians 3:8
“And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham.” If faith without works was sufficient for Abraham, why should we desire something different? And as the blessing was not for Abraham’s law-works, but for his faith, why should we turn from faith to law-works? “God …preached …the gospel unto Abraham.” When did He do that? Well, the first illustration Paul gave us was at the beginning of Abraham’s life of faith. Now Paul refers to an incident near the end of Abraham’s life of faith recorded in Genesis 22. It was after Abraham had offered Isaac upon the altar. I say he offered him because he was just within a hair’s breadth of offering him when God stopped him. God considered that Abraham had actually done it.
He demonstrated that he had faith in God, believing that God could raise Isaac from the dead (see Heb_11:19). Now notice God’s response to Abraham’s act of faith: “And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Gen_22:15-18). Apparently at this time God preached the gospel to Abraham, because the offering of Isaac is one of the finest pictures of the offering of Christ. Although God spared Abraham’s son, God did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all. The important thing that Paul wants us to see in Abraham’s life is that he obeyed the voice of God. Abraham was willing to offer his son when God commanded it, and when God said stop, he stopped. He obeyed the voice of God. He demonstrated by his action that he had faith in God. Again he believed God and He counted it to him for righteousness. Some people are troubled because they feel that there is a contradiction in Scripture between what Paul says about Abraham and what James says about him. Paul says that Abraham was justified by faith. James says, “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?” (Jas_2:20-21). However, James goes on to say, “Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” (Jas_2:22). John Calvin said it like this: “Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.” In other words, saving faith is a dynamic, vital faith that leads to works.
I hope you understand that James is not talking about the works of law. James is talking about the works of faith. Faith produces works. This idea of saying that works will save you is putting the cart before the horsein fact, some men put the horse in the cart! It is important to see that faith leads to works, as it did in the life of Abraham. God sees our hearts. He knows whether or not we have trusted Christ as Savior. He knows whether or not we are genuine. Church member, why not be genuine? You can fool the people in the church, and you can fool your neighbors, and you can put up a pious front. But why not be real and have a lot of fun at the same time? You don’t have to pretend. You can be real and trust Christ as your Savior. And a living, dynamic faith will produce works. A careful reading of the passage in James 2 reveals that James used the history of Abraham to show that faith without works is deadit is the last of Abraham’s history because this is the last time God appeared to him. It is not the portion of Scripture to which Paul refers in Galatians where he says that Abraham was justified by faith. Paul says that faith alone is sufficient and proves his point from Abraham’s history as recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis. James says that faith without works is dead and proves it by referring to Abraham’s history as found in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. If Abraham had welshed in Genesis 22 and had said to God, “Wait a minute, I really do not believe what You say. I have been putting on an act all of these years,” then it would have been obvious that Abraham’s faith was a pseudofaith. But God knew back in Genesis 15 that Abraham had a genuine faith. The works that James speaks about are not works of law at all. The Law had not been given during Abraham’s day. We need to recognize that. Jas_2:23 says, “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.” James, at the beginning of this verse, is going back to the reference that Paul gives at first concerning the beginning of Abraham’s life of faith. Then Paul says that the gospel was preached to Abraham at the end of his life when God made this promise to him. There is no contradiction when you examine passages like the ones written by Paul and James. They are saying the same thing. One is looking at faith at the beginning. The other is looking at faith at the end. One is looking at the root of faith. The other is looking at the fruit of faith. The root of faith is “faith alone saves you,” but that saving faith will produce works.
Galatians 3:9
The word faithful in this verse is “believing"believing Abraham. God saves the sinner today on the same basis that He saved Abraham. God asks faith of the sinner. God asked Abraham to believe that He would do certain things for him. God asks you and me to believe that He already has done certain things for us in giving His Son, Jesus Christ to die for us. Faith is the modus operandi by which man is saved today.
Galatians 3:10
The important word here is “continueth.” I am willing to grant that maybe there was a day in your life when you felt very good, when you were on top of the world and singing, “Everything’s coming up daisies.” On that day you walked with the Lord and did not stub your toe. Then you say, “Well, because I did that, God saved me.” But notice what this verse says, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law.” How about that? Do you keep the law day and night, twenty-four hours every day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks out of the year in thought, word, and deed? If you are a human being, somewhere along the line you let down. You are not walking on top of the world all the time. My friend, when you let down, the law can only condemn you. I know a fine preacher who is always going around saying, “Hallelujah, praise the Lord.” Someone asked his wife if he was like that all the time. She said, “No, he has his bad days.” We all have bad days, don’t we? If you are going to put yourself under the law, my friend, and you have a good day, you are not going to be rewarded for it. Suppose I had kept all of the laws of Pasadena, which is my home city, for twenty years. Then I wait at my house for the officials of Pasadena to come and present me with a medal for keeping those laws. Let me tell you, they do not give medals for keeping the law in Pasadena. If I had kept every law for twenty years and then stole something or broke a speeding law, I would be arrested. You see, the law does not reward you. It does not give you life. The law penalizes you. Faith, my friend, gives you something. It gives you life.
Galatians 3:11
Even the Old Testament taught that man was saved by faith. It does not say that anyone was saved by keeping the law. If you find that somebody living back under the law was saved by keeping the law, let me know. I have never read of anyone who was saved by keeping the Mosaic Law. As you know, the heart of the Mosaic system was the sacrificial system. Moses rejoiced that God could extend mercy and grace to people even under the lawthat is the reason his face shone as it did. In Hab_2:4 it says that “…the just shall live by his faith.”
Galatians 3:12
This also is an important verse. Faith and law are contrary principles for salvation and also for living. One cancels out the other. They are diametrically opposed to each other. If you are going to live by the Law, then you cannot be saved by faith. You cannot combine them. They are contrary. Let me illustrate this. Our daughter came to visit us while we were in Florida, and we wanted to return to California by train. That was the time when passenger trains were being phased out. We tried to get a train route to California without going through Chicagoboth of us wanted to avoid Chicago. Well, it seemed as though we would have to go halfway around the world to go from Florida to California; so we had to come back by plane. When we got the tickets, I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could go by train and plane at the same timesit in the plane and put our feet down in the train!” (I would feel much safer with my feet in the train, I assure you).
But that’s absurd. If we go by plane, we go by plane; if we go by train, we go by train. They have made no arrangements for passengers to sit in a plane and put their feet down in a train. My friend, neither has God any arrangement for you to be saved by faith and by law. You have to choose one or the other. If you want to go by law, then you can try itbut I’ll warn you that God has already said you won’t make it. “The law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.”
Galatians 3:13
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law"the Mosaic Law condemned us. It is like the illustration I gave regarding keeping the civil laws in my hometown. I am not rewarded for keeping those laws, and if I break one I am condemned. Christ has redeemed us from the penalty of the Mosaic Law. How did He do it? By “being made a curse for us.” Christ bore that penalty. “For it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” This is a quotation from the Old Testament, as we shall see, and is a remarkable passage of Scripture for several reasons. One reason is that the children of Israel did not use hanging on a tree as a method of public execution. Instead they used stoning. When my wife went with me to the land of Israel, she noticed something that I had not thought of. She said, “I have often wondered why they used stoning as a means of execution. Now I know.
Anywhere you turn in this land there are plenty of stones.” Capital punishment in Israel was by stoning, not hanging. However, when a reprehensible crime had been committed, this was the procedure: “And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance” (Deu_21:22-23). That is, if he had committed an awful crime and had bene stoned to death, his body could be strung up on a tree that it might be a spectacle. But it was not to be left there overnight. The reason He gives is this: he is accursed of God"that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.” Christ was “made a curse for us.” The question is: When did Christ become a curse? Did He become a curse in His incarnation? Oh, no. When He was born He was called “…that holy thing …” (Luk_1:35). Did He become a curse during those silent years of which we have so little record? No, it says that He advanced “…in favour with God and man” (Luk_2:52).
Did He become a curse during his ministry? Oh, no. It was during His ministry that the Father said, “…This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mat_3:17). Then He must have become a curse while He was on the cross. Yes, but not during the first three hours on the cross, because when He offered up Himself, He was without blemish. It was during those last three hours on the cross that He was made a curse for us.
It was then that it pleased the Lord to bruise Him and put Him to grief. He made His soul an offering for sin (see Isa_53:10). “Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” The Greek word for “tree” is xulon, meaning “wood, timber, or tree.” Christ was hanged on a tree. What a contrast we have here. He went to that cross, which was to Him a tree of death, in order that He might make it for you and me a tree of life!
Galatians 3:14
Israel had the Law for fifteen hundred years and failed to live by it. At the council of Jerusalem, in Acts 15, Peter said in effect, “We and our fathers were not able to keep the law. Why do we want to put the Gentiles under it? If we could not keep it, they won’t be able to keep it either.” Christ took our place that we might receive what the Law could never do. The Spirit is the peculiar gift in this age of grace.
Galatians 3:15
Suppose you make a contract with a man to pay him one hundred dollars. Then about a year later you decide you will pay him only fifty dollars. You go to him and say, “Here is the fifty dollars I owe you.” The man says, “Wait a minute, you agreed to pay me one hundred dollars.” You say, “Well, I’ve changed that.” He says, “Oh, no, you don’t! You can’t change your contract after it has been made.”
Galatians 3:16
God called Abraham and promised to make him a blessing to the world. He made him a blessing to the world through Jesus Christ, a descendant of Abraham. Christ is the One who brought salvation to the world. The word seed refers specifically to Christ (see Gen_22:18). Christ said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad” (Joh_8:56).
Galatians 3:17
God made a promise, a covenant, with Abraham. When the Law came along “four hundred and thirty years” later, it didn’t change anything as far as the promises made to Abraham were concerned. Actually, God never goes back on His promises. God promised Abraham, “I am going to give you this land. I am going to give you a son and a people that will be as numberless as the sand on the seashore.” God fulfilled that promise and brought from Abraham the nation of Israeland several other nationsbut the promises were given through Isaac whose line led to the Lord Jesus Christ, the “Seed” of verse Gal_3:16. God also promised Abraham that He would make him a blessing to all people.
The only blessing, my friend, in this world today is in Christ. You may not get a very good deal from your neighbor or from your business or from your church. I don’t think the world is prepared to give you a good deal. But the Lord Jesus Christ has been given to youthat is a good deal! In fact it is the supreme gift which God has made. It is a fulfillment of God’s promise that He would save those who would trust Christ.
Galatians 3:18
The promise concerning Christ was made before the Mosaic Law was given, and that promise holds as good as though there had been no law given, my friend. The promise was made irrespective of the Law. The question arises: Why was the Law given, of what value is it? Now don’t think that Paul is playing down the Law. Rather, he is trying to help the people understand the purpose of the Law. He shows the Law in all of its majesty, in its fullness, and in its perfection. But he shows that this very perfection the Law reveals is the reason it creates a hurdle which you and I cannot get over in order to be accepted of God. Now listen to Paul as he talks about the purpose of the Law.
Galatians 3:19
The question is: Wherefore then serveth the Law? He is giving a purpose sentencewhat was the purpose of the Law? Paul says it was something that was added. It was added becauseor better stillfor the sake of transgressions. “Till the seed should come"that little word till is an important time word. It means the Law was temporary. The Law was given for the interval between the time of Moses until the time of Christ. “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (Joh_1:17). It is very important to see that the Law was temporary “until the seed should come"and that Seed is Christ. The Law was added “because of [for the sake of] transgressions. It was given to reveal not remove sin. It was not given to keep man from sin because sin had already come. It was to show man himself as being a natural, ugly, crude sinner before God. Any man who is honest will look at himself in the light of the Law and see himself guilty. It was not given to prove that all men were sinners, nor was it given (as many liberals are saying today) as a standard by which man becomes holy. Oh, my friend, you would never become holy this way, because, first of all, you can’t keep the Law in your own strength. Many folk think that man becomes a sinner when he commits a sinful act, that he is all right until he breaks down and commits sin. This is not true. It is because he is already a sinner that a man commits an act of sin. A man steals because he is a thief. A man lies because he is a liar. I find myself guilty of lyingalthough I blame it on other folk.
I leave my house in the morning and the first person I meet says, “My, what a beautiful day!” And I say, “Yes, it is"when truthfully it is a smoggy day here in pleasant California. I lie about it. Then he asks, “How are you feeling today?” Well, to be honest, I don’t feel well, but I say, “Oh, I’m feeling fine.” Right there in the first few minutes I have lied twice! It’s just natural for us to be that way, my friend. Some of us commit more serious lying than that. Why do we do it?
We have that fallen nature. And the Law was given to show that we are sinners, and that you and I need a mediatorOne to stand between us and God, One to help us out.
Galatians 3:21
“Is the law then against the promises of God?” The expression “God forbid” means certainly not. Why? If there had been another way of saving sinners, God would have used that way. If He could have given a law by which sinners could be saved, He would have done so.
Galatians 3:22
We have seen that the Law brought death"The soul that sinneth, it shall die …” (Eze_18:20). The Scripture has “concluded all under sin”; therefore all died. What is needed, therefore, is life. We have seen that the Law brings death, which is all that it can do. It is not actually the degree of sin but the mere fact of sin that brings death. Hence, all are equally dead and equally in need. You may not have committed as great a sin as Stalin committed, but you and I have the same kind of nature that he had. In fact, it was Goethe, the great German writer, who made this statement: “I have never seen a crime committed but what I too might have committed that crime.” He recognized he had that kind of a nature. It is not the degree of sin, but the very fact that we are sinners that brings death. Let me illustrate this fact of sin and not the degree. Picture a building about twenty-four stories high. There are three men on top of the building, and the superintendent goes up to see them and warns, “Now be very careful, don’t step off of this building or you will be killed. It will mean death for you.” One of the fellows says, “This crazy superintendent is always trying to frighten people. I don’t believe that if I step off this building I will die.” So he deliberately walks to the edge of the building and steps off into the air. Suppose that when he passes the tenth floor, somebody looks out the window and asked him, “Well, how is it going?” And he says, “So far, so good.” But, my friend, he hasn’t arrived yet.
There is death at the bottom. The superintendent was right. The man is killed. Now suppose another fellow becomes frightened at what the superintendent said. He runs for the elevator, or the steps, and accidentally slips. He skids right off the edge of the building and falls to the street below.
He, too, is killed. The third fellow, we’ll say, is thrown off the building by some gangsters because he is their enemy. He is killed. Now the man who was thrown off of the building is just as dead as the man who deliberately stepped off and the man who accidentally slipped off the building. All of these men broke the law of gravitation, and death was inevitable for all of them. It is the fact, you see, and not the degree.
It is the fact that they went over the edgethey all broke the law of gravitation. The question is, “Can the law of gravitation which took them down to death give them life?” It cannot. The Mosaic Law cannot give you life any more than a natural law can give you life after you have broken it and died. You cannot reverse the situation and come back from the street below to the top of the building and live, as it is done in running a movie in reverse. Death follows wherever sin comes. The law of sin knows nothing of extenuating circumstances. It knows nothing about mercy.
It has no elasticity. It is inflexible, inexorable, and immutable. God’s Word says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die …” (Eze_18:20). To Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden God said, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen_2:17). And in Exo_34:7, He says that He”…will by no means clear the guilty….” Therefore, all have sinned and by the Law we are all dead. The Law slew us.
It is called by Paul a “…ministration of death …” (2Co_3:7). It is a ministration of condemnation. The Law condemns all of us. Can the Law bring life? My friend, the Law can no more bring life than a fall from a high roof can bring life to one who died by that fall. The purpose of the Law was never to give life. It was given to show us that we are guilty sinners before God. “The scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe” is a tremendous statement.
Galatians 3:23
“Before faith came” means, of course, faith in Jesus Christ who died for us. Until the Lord Jesus Christ came, the Law had in it mercy because it had a mercy seat. It had an altar where sacrifices for sin could be brought and forgiveness could be obtained. Mercy could be found there. All the sacrifices for sin pointed to Christ. Before faith came, Paul says, we were kept under the Law"shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.”
Galatians 3:24
This is a remarkable section. Paul is making it very clear here that the Mosaic Law could not save. Rom_4:5 tells us, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” God refused to accept the works of man for salvation. God says that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isa_64:6). God refuses to accept law-keeping. The Law cannot save; it can only condemn. It was not given to save sinners but to let them know that they were sinners. The Law does not remove sin; it reveals sin. It will not keep you from sin, because sin has already come. The Law shows that man is not the way Hollywood portrays hima sophisticated, refined, trained sinner. Man is actually an ugly sinner in the raw. I want to use a homely illustration that I think might be helpful. I am going to take you to the bathroom. I hope you are not shockedtelevision does it every day, showing someone taking a bath or shower. I am confident that almost everyone has a bathroom, and in that bathroom is a washbasin with a mirror above it. That washbasin serves a purpose and so does the mirror. When you get dirt on your face, you go to the bathroom to remove it.
Now you don’t use the mirror to remove the dirt, do you? If you see a smudged spot on your face, and you lean over and rub your face against the mirror, and one of your loved ones sees you, he will call a psychiatrist and make an appointment to find out what is wrong with you. But, my friend, that won’t happen because none of us is silly enough to try to remove dirt with a mirror. Today, however, multitudes of people in our churches are rubbing up against the mirror of the law thinking they are going to remove their sin. The Word of God is a mirror which shows us who we are and what we arethat we are sinners and that we have come short of the glory of God. That is what the Law reveals. But, thank God, beneath the mirror there is a basin. As the hymn writer puts it, There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains. William Cowper That is where you remove the spot. It is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that cleanses. The Law proves man a sinner; it never makes him a saint. The Law was given, as Paul says in Romans, that every mouth might be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God (see Rom_3:19). “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster,” Paul says. Now he will go on to tell us what he means by this.
Galatians 3:25
“Schoolmaster” is the Greek paidagogos, and it doesn’t mean school teacher. Schoolmaster is a good word, but it meant something quite different back in the days of Paul. It meant a servant or a slave who was part of a Roman household. Half of the Roman Empire was slave. Of the 120 million, 60 million were slaves. In the home of a patrician, a member of the Praetorian Guard, or the rich in the Roman Empire, were slaves that cared for the children.
When a child was born into such a home, he was put in the custody of a servant or a slave who actually raised him. He put clean clothes on him, bathed him, blew his nose when it was necessary, and paddled him when he needed it. When the little one grew to a certain age and was to start to school, this servant was the one who got him up in the morning, dressed him, and took him to school. (That is where he got the name of paidagogos. Paid has to do with the feetand we get our word pedal from it; agogos means “to lead.”) It means that he takes the little one by the hand, leads him to school, and turns him over to the school teacher. This servant, the slave, was not capable of teaching him beyond a certain age, so he took him to school. Now what Paul is saying here is that the Law is our paidagogos. The Law said, “Little fellow, I can’t do any more for you. I now want to take you by the hand and bring you to the cross of Christ. You are lost. You need a Savior.” The purpose of the Law is to bring men to Christnot to give them an expanded chest so they can walk around claiming they keep the Law. You know you don’t keep the Law; all you have to do is examine your own heart to know that.
Galatians 3:26
Paul is going to show in the remainder of this chapter, and in the first part of chapter 4, some of the benefits that come to us by trusting Christ that we could never receive under law. The Law never could give a believer the nature of a son of God. Christ can do that. Only faith in Christ can make us sons of God. In this verse the word children is from the Greek huios, meaning “sons.” Only faith in Christ can make us legitimate sons of God. I use the word legitimate for emphasis, because the only sons God has are legitimate sons. You are made a true son of God by faith in Christ, and that is all it takes. Not faith plus something equals salvation, but faith plus nothing makes you a son of God. Nothing else can make you a son of God. “For ye are all sons of God.” How? “By faith in Christ Jesus.” An individual Israelite under the Law in the Old Testament was never a son, only a servant. God called the nation “Israel my son” (see Exo_4:22), but the individual in that corporate nation was never called a son. He was called a servant of Jehovah. For example, Moses was on very intimate terms with God; yet God said of him, “Moses my servant is dead” (see Jos_1:2). That was his epitaph. Also, although David was a man after God’s own heart, God calls him “David my servant” (see 1Ki_11:38). My friend, even if you kept the Law, which you could not do, your righteousness would still be inferior to the righteousness of God. Sonship requires His righteousness, you see. The New Testament definitely tells us, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (Joh_1:12). We are given the power (Greek exousian, meaning “the authority, the right”) to become the sons of God by doing no more nor less than simply trusting Him. A Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus, religious to his fingertips (he had a God-given religion although it had gone to seed), followed the Law meticulously, yet he was not a son of God. Jesus said to him, “Ye must be born again” (Joh_3:7).
I want to be dogmatic and very plainneither your prayers, your fundamental separation, your gifts, nor your baptism will ever make you a son of God. Only faith in Christ can make you a son of God. The most damnable heresy today is the “universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.” It is this teaching of liberalism that has caused this nation to give away billions of dollars throughout the world, and because of it we are hated everywhere. All people are the children of God, they say, and so we have sat at council tables and have engaged in diplomatic squabbles with some of the biggest rascals the world has ever seen. We talk about being honest and honorable, that we are all the children of God, and we must act like sons of God. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ never said anything like that. He once looked at a group of religious rulers and said to them, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do …” (Joh_8:44). Now I did not say that; gentle Jesus said that.
Evidently there were some people in His day who were not sons of God. My friend, I think the Devil still has a lot of children running around in this world today. They are not all the sons of God! The only way you can become a son of God is through faith in Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3:27
I hope you realize that this verse is not a reference to water baptism. Water baptism is ritual baptism, and I feel that it is for every believer. Also I believe that the mode of water baptism should be by immersion (in spite of the fact that I am an ordained Presbyterian preacher), because immersion more clearly pictures real baptism, which is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit places you in the body of believers. Paul says, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit” (1Co_12:13). This means that we are identified, we are put in reality and truth into the body of believers, the church. “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” God sees you in Christ. Therefore He sees you as perfect!
Galatians 3:28
In this body of believers “there is neither Jew nor Greek.” In Christ are no racial lines. Any man in Christ is my brother, and I don’t care about the color of his skin. It is the color of his heart that interests me. There are a lot of white people walking around with black hearts, my friend, and they are not my brothers. It is only in Christ Jesus that we are made one. Thank God, I receive letters from folk of every race. They call me brother and I call them brotherbecause we are brothers. We are one in Christ, and we will be together throughout eternity. “There is neither bond nor free.” In our day, capital and labor are at odds with one another. The only thing that could bring them together is Christ, of course. “There is neither male nor female.” Christ does what “women’s lib” can never do. He can make us one in Christ. How wonderful it is!
Galatians 3:29
How can we be Abraham’s descendants? Because of the fact that Abraham was saved by faith, and we are saved by faith. Abraham brought a little animal to sacrifice, which looked forward to the coming of the Son of God, the supreme sacrifice. In my day, Christ has already come, and I can look back in history and say, “Nineteen hundred years ago the Son of God came and died on the cross for me that I might have life, and I trust Him.” Some time ago I had the privilege of speaking to a group of wonderful Jewish folk, and I started by saying, “Well, it is always a privilege for me to speak to the sons of Abraham.” And they all smiled. Then I added, “Because I am a son of Abraham, too.” They didn’t all smile at that. In fact, some of them had a question mark on their faces, and rightly so.
If I am in Christ and you are in Christ, then we belong to Abraham’s seed, and we are heirs according to the promise. How wonderful this is!