Prologue to Galatians

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

4 views

0 comments

00:00
Alright guys it's that time.
00:02
I want to kind of tell you what we're doing.
00:06
As you may or may not know, those of you who come every week have been here with me for several weeks, several months maybe.
00:14
We went through the epistle of James.
00:17
We went verse by verse through James.
00:20
And last week we completed the epistle of James.
00:24
And I went and prayed and thought and decided that I wanted to pick up another epistle and start from the beginning, sort of like we did before.
00:35
But this time we are going to look at the epistle to the Galatians.
00:39
So we are going to study through Galatians verse by verse.
00:44
Now there may be other people teaching through this book.
00:47
I don't know.
00:48
That was my only concern is I didn't know if I was going to be doubling up on something someone else did.
00:56
Okay good.
01:01
Well like I said, not that I felt like it would be bad to get doubled up, but I was kind of hoping that no one else was.
01:11
And I'll tell you there's a little bit of a selfishness that comes into this.
01:20
When I teach through a book I get to study the book.
01:26
I mean it makes sense right? And Galatians is one of my favorite books.
01:32
And so, and I've never preached all the way through it.
01:35
I've taught the themes of Galatians, but I've never went verse by verse and taught through it.
01:41
So sort of trying to decide this kind of came out of, like I said, not really selfish motivation, but it was something I wanted to study.
01:50
And I felt like that would hopefully make it even just that much more interesting for you guys.
01:55
And I also think it has value because we spent seven months in the book of James.
02:04
And James is a highly practical book, but it is not a highly theological book.
02:11
Sure it has theological themes and theological truths, but it is, as I said many times, more like Proverbs.
02:19
It was a wisdom literature.
02:22
Whereas Galatians is very much a doctrinal book.
02:29
It is going to deal with not so much the great practical aspects of our faith, but rather the great doctrinal aspects of our faith.
02:39
Those things which we must believe, whereas James dealt with those things which we must do.
02:47
And one of the things that I have noted is what we believe often and always actually dictates what we do.
03:01
We live out what we believe to be true.
03:06
In fact, that's the key to wisdom.
03:10
If somebody says, I know something is true, but they don't live it, then the reality is they really don't know it.
03:18
They might know it intellectually, but they don't know it in the terms of wisdom.
03:25
Wisdom is taking what we know to be true and living it out in our daily life.
03:31
And the book of Galatians is a book that tells us what we must believe and how what we believe will translate into how we live.
03:44
The book of Galatians was written by the Apostle Paul, and we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a little while, but I just want to sort of give you a preface and prologue to the book today.
03:56
We may get through verses one through five.
03:58
In fact, I'd like to read verses one through five and pray, and then we're going to talk an introduction through the book.
04:04
So let's read it at least so that we've read the text, and then we will begin to discuss the introduction to the book.
04:13
Galatians 1, Paul, an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead and all of the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia.
04:33
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father to whom be the glory forever and ever.
04:52
Amen.
04:53
Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
04:56
Lord, even in this introduction, there is great sublime truth that we have to investigate.
05:04
And so, Father, I pray that in the next few minutes, as we look at an introduction to the book of Galatians, that you would enlighten us as to why this is valuable.
05:16
Show us, Lord, the themes of this book and why they were precious and why we ought to be excited about investigating this epistle together.
05:28
Father, I pray that as the speaker and spokesperson, Lord, that you would keep me from error.
05:34
Lord, as an ambassador for Christ, I do not want to bring shame upon the name of my king.
05:40
So, Father, would you, by your gracious hand, guide me through teaching this series and guide the hearts of these men in their listening and attentiveness and with their questions.
05:51
And Lord, through it all, may it be that you would glorify yourself in the instruction of your word.
05:58
Draw men to yourself, O God.
06:01
Those who know you already, may they be drawn ever closer.
06:05
May they be brought ever deeper.
06:07
And Lord, those who do not know you, may they be confronted in their sin.
06:13
May they realize that there is salvation in no one else and that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
06:24
And may they realize that Jesus Christ cannot be added to, but that him and his work alone is sufficient for our salvation.
06:37
And it's in his name we pray.
06:39
Amen.
06:40
Amen.
06:44
If I had to give a single word description to the book of Galatians, it would be the word freedom.
06:56
Freedom.
06:59
The book of Galatians has been called the Magna Carta of Christian liberty.
07:07
It is the statement of the freedom that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
07:15
It has also been called the battle cry of the Reformation and the Christian's declaration of independence.
07:27
I don't know how many of you are really familiar with church history, but you've probably heard me talk some about the Reformation where Martin Luther began the Reformation by standing against the excesses and false teachings of the church at Rome.
07:46
And Martin Luther, the great Protestant leader, was influenced greatly by the book of Galatians.
07:55
In fact, a lot of people attribute his teachings to Romans because they'll say Romans was really the heart of Luther's teachings.
08:03
But if you read what Luther wrote, Luther was enamored, not so much with Romans, even though he was, it's all the word of God.
08:13
It was Galatians that really drove him to his understanding of justification by faith alone.
08:21
In fact, he called Galatians, and this is a quote, The epistle to the Galatians is my epistle.
08:28
To it I am as it were in wedlock.
08:33
Galatians is my Catherine.
08:36
His wife's name is Catherine.
08:39
So it's as if he was saying Galatians is like my wife.
08:43
This book is, I'm married to the teachings of this epistle.
08:51
Meryl C.
08:53
Tinney wrote of Galatians, and this is a longer quote, Christianity might have been just one more Jewish sect and the thought of the Western world might have been entirely pagan had Galatians never been written.
09:08
Galatians embodies the germinal teaching on Christian freedom, which separated Christianity from Judaism and which launched it upon a career of missionary conquest.
09:20
It was the cornerstone of the Protestant Reformation because its teaching of salvation by grace alone became the dominant theme of the preaching of the Reformers.
09:33
Again, understanding our freedom in Christ helps us to understand the doctrines of justification by faith alone, salvation by grace alone.
09:47
You guys hear that a lot, right? Sola fide, sola gratia, justification, those Latin phrases.
09:53
I imagine Pastor Sauter mentions those from time to time.
10:00
Yeah, sola gratia, salvation is by grace alone.
10:05
Sola fide, justification is by faith alone.
10:10
Yes, sir.
10:10
What does germinal mean? Germinal means a seed or seed-like, like a germ growing into something.
10:18
Yeah, yeah, to germinate, yeah.
10:19
Okay, thank you.
10:20
Yes, sir.
10:21
Yes, sir.
10:21
Wedlock, what was that? Wedlock, to be married, to be in wedlock.
10:25
Okay.
10:26
No, it's fine.
10:27
No, no, I understand.
10:29
That's why he said Galatians is my Catherine.
10:31
He's saying it's my wife.
10:32
It's like I'm married to this book.
10:34
In fact, Martin Luther, you guys know what a commentary is, right, where somebody will write an understanding of the book? We know exactly what it is.
10:44
Well, you know what a commentary is? Okay.
10:45
Martin Luther wrote two commentaries on the book of Galatians.
10:49
He wrote one very early in his time as a Reformer leader, and later he wrote another commentary showing how his understanding of the book had grown and how he had evolved as a teacher of the Word of God.
11:05
Not many people ever write one commentary on a book, much less ever have the opportunity to write two commentaries on the same book.
11:16
So it just goes to show how valuable this book was.
11:20
How did you find some of his commentary? Martin Luther's commentaries are available in his writings.
11:25
They come in different forms.
11:27
You can buy books, you can buy his works in volumes, and the two commentaries on Galatians are in the same volume, I think, but I'm almost sure they're available online for free.
11:43
So much of his writing, because, you know, it's not copyrighted.
11:46
It's 400 years old, so it's not copyrighted.
11:49
He says this is a of spiritual liberty.
11:55
Yeah, it's the Magna Carta of Spiritual Liberty.
11:58
That's one of the things it has been called.
12:03
Now, again, giving you more background on this epistle, Galatians is probably, and I'm going to say probably, I'm going to explain that in a minute, it is probably the first epistle that was written by the Apostle Paul.
12:22
The Bible is not put together chronologically.
12:26
The Bible is put together, it's put together in groupings of the works.
12:32
So you have the the four gospels make up the life of Jesus, followed by Acts, which talks about what happens after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
12:42
Then you have what? Romans.
12:45
Why does Romans come first in the next series? Because that's the writings of the Apostle Paul.
12:51
You'll notice the next series of books in your New Testament are what we call the Pauline Corpus, or the writings of the Apostle Paul.
13:00
And so you have Romans, 1 Corinthians, you go through the books of Romans, and then Corinthians, and then on down the line, until you get to Hebrews, and that begins what we call the general epistles, the ones that are written by other people.
13:15
You have Hebrews, James, you have Peter, Jude, right? Those all fall later, and then of course you have the great apocalypse, which is the book of Revelations, written by John.
13:26
So Galatians, even though it's in the middle of Paul's writings in your Bibles, it's probably the first one he ever wrote.
13:38
And how do we know that? Well, we know that based on a very particular event in church history that happened in Acts chapter 15.
13:49
In a minute we're going to go there.
13:49
You don't have to go there yet, but we're all going to go look at it.
13:52
You can if you want, but we're going to look at it together in just a minute.
13:57
In Acts chapter 15, the Apostle Paul has to go to Jerusalem because there were some men that came to where he was, and they were trying to force the Christians who were Gentile believers to become Jewish.
14:15
They were trying to force upon them circumcision, right? So Paul goes with Barnabas back to Jerusalem to, as it were, have it out, to have a serious debate over this issue and make sure there was no more question, no more conversation.
14:35
We're going to make a decision on this, and we call that the Jerusalem Council.
14:41
Y'all want to read it? Let's read it.
14:43
Let's look at it.
14:43
It's in Acts 15.
14:46
It's several verses, so it's going to take a few minutes, but we'll read through it.
14:51
And like I said, the reason why this is important is because this council is the same issue Paul is dealing with in Galatians.
15:00
So this gives us an idea of when Galatians was written, okay? So in Acts chapter 15, let me open my Bible here and get there.
15:11
In Acts chapter 15, we have the Jerusalem Council.
15:15
It begins in verse 1.
15:20
It says, But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers.
15:27
Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
15:32
Right there.
15:33
We don't have to debate what they were saying.
15:35
It says what they were saying.
15:37
Unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
15:42
Not that you should do it.
15:44
You must do it or you're not saved.
15:50
Verse 2.
15:50
And after Paul and Barnabas had, and I love the way Luke writes it.
15:54
By the way, Luke wrote Acts and he writes it this way.
15:57
No small dissension and debate with them, meaning they had it out.
16:02
Having no small debate means they had a real big debate.
16:05
They were arguing over it.
16:08
Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.
16:15
So being sent out on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers.
16:26
When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.
16:35
But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.
16:48
So now there's an additional added point.
16:54
The first point beginning earlier was they must be circumcised to be saved.
16:58
Now they not only have to be circumcised, but they have to keep the laws of Moses or the law of Moses.
17:07
All right.
17:07
Verse six.
17:09
The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter.
17:13
And after there had been much debate, Peter, remember who Peter was? Peter walked with Jesus.
17:18
He was leader among the apostles.
17:20
He was the spokesman.
17:21
He was the guy who didn't know how to keep his mouth shut.
17:24
I really relate to Peter as much as most more than any other apostle, because I tend to let my mouth get me in trouble.
17:31
And so did he.
17:33
So, Peter, it's not uncommon that he would stand up to speak.
17:36
It says Peter stood up and said to them, Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
17:48
Stop right there.
17:49
He's talking about the situation that happened at the house of Cornelius.
17:54
Remember, Peter went to the house of a Gentile centurion and he preached to them and the Holy Spirit fell and he said, who can prevent water that these be baptized who have received the spirit just as we have? So this is the situation.
18:08
He said, Gentiles have received the gospel through me.
18:12
Verse eight.
18:13
And God who knows the heart bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us.
18:19
And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
18:26
This is a huge verse.
18:28
Verse nine, having there was no distinction between Jew and Gentile.
18:32
You have to understand how different that is to the Jewish ear.
18:37
The Jewish people in Jesus's time believed that they were God's people and everyone else was pagan dogs.
18:45
They would leave Jerusalem and they would go to other countries.
18:48
When they come back, they would they would knock the dust off their feet to get that dirty dog dirt off their feet.
18:54
They believed themselves to be in a different category than those who were outside.
19:01
And now Peter has said there is no distinction between us and them.
19:05
That's a major theological truth, one that would have not sat well upon the ears of those who thought themselves to be spiritually superior.
19:17
That's right.
19:18
We're the chosen.
19:19
They're the dogs.
19:21
So he goes on.
19:22
Verse 10.
19:23
Now, therefore, why why are you putting God to the test? This is still Peter speaking.
19:28
Why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the necks of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? What's the yoke there? The yoke is the law.
19:37
He's saying you're putting something on them that we haven't even been able to keep.
19:40
Now you're trying to tell them they've got to do it.
19:43
Verse 11.
19:45
But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.
19:54
Salvation is by grace.
19:58
Verse 12.
20:00
And all the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles after they finished speaking.
20:11
James.
20:12
This is the same James who wrote the book that we just read, by the way.
20:16
James.
20:17
It's a brother of Jesus, first pastor of the Church of Jerusalem.
20:20
This is this is him.
20:22
And this is why he's going to stand up and speak, because he's the pastor.
20:25
James replied, Brothers, listen to me.
20:29
Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name and with the words of the prophets agreed just as as it is written.
20:38
And he gives a quote from a passage.
20:40
He says, after this, I will return.
20:41
I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen.
20:44
I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it.
20:46
And the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name.
20:52
Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from from an old from from of old.
21:02
Therefore, verse 19, my judgment again, this is the pastor speaking.
21:08
Therefore, my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, trouble them, how trouble them to be circumcised, trouble them to keep the law, trouble them for these things, but should write to them.
21:22
And here's the list of things that he says we should write to them, that they should abstain from things polluted by idols.
21:29
Why? Because many of them had come out of idolatry.
21:32
Don't go back into that idolatry.
21:34
So stay away from that.
21:36
And from sexual immorality.
21:37
Why? Because that's a natural temptation of all men and even women, that they have a natural desire for unnatural sexual behavior.
21:44
So we're going to we're going to tell them to stay away from that and from that which has been strangled and from blood.
21:49
That was a it was it was a pagan practice to eat blood animals that had been killed and drink their blood.
21:55
And it would just stay away from that.
21:57
That's a that's a pagan activity.
21:58
Don't do that.
22:00
For from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.
22:07
What 21 is saying there is simply this.
22:10
If they go and do that, the drinking of the blood and the and the dealing with that, the people who are who have learned from Moses are going to see that be very offended.
22:20
So we want to try to bring some unity here.
22:23
While we're not going to make them be circumcised and we're not going to make them adhere to the to the ceremonial law, we are going to tell them, you still have to live with these Jewish people.
22:36
So don't do things that are going to be intentionally offensive to them.
22:39
You've still got to live together, your brothers and sisters in Christ.
22:41
Some of you are Jews by birth.
22:43
Some of you are Gentiles by birth.
22:45
You've got to learn to live and love one another.
22:47
So here's some things that you want to avoid, primarily the way you eat and the way you treat idolatry and the way you treat sexual practice.
22:56
So that's how it ends.
22:57
But notice what he doesn't say.
22:59
He doesn't say, oh, and also you got to be circumcised.
23:02
Right.
23:03
Remember, that was the point that started it all.
23:05
They said you have to be circumcised.
23:06
What is the judgment? No.
23:10
There is no command to be circumcised.
23:15
In fact, the opposite is true.
23:18
There is no demand to be circumcised.
23:22
Circumcision is not part of the Christian faith.
23:28
It was part of the Mosaic covenant and it was part of the Abrahamic covenant.
23:34
But both of those have been realized in something called the New Covenant.
23:42
You ever heard of the New Covenant? Yes.
23:45
Remember on the night when Jesus took the bread and he said, this bread is my body.
23:51
And then he took the cup and he said, this cup is the New Covenant in my blood.
23:57
This cup is the New Covenant.
23:59
This is the institution of a new covenant that I am making, which is not the same as the old covenant.
24:15
Here's a theological truth that we all need to understand.
24:20
If we are in Christ, we are members of a new covenant that God has formed through his son.
24:31
Yes, sir.
24:31
The new law of the gospel.
24:33
Yeah.
24:34
And I'm going to talk about law and gospel in a minute.
24:35
I'm going to talk about how law is to be understood, because that really is important in Galatians.
24:40
But yes, in a sense, the law is now how we understand the basic foundation of Christian law is the two greatest commandments.
24:52
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
24:54
Love your neighbor as yourself.
24:55
That's the foundation for all Christian law.
25:00
So we'll get, like I said, we're going to get back to that in just a moment.
25:03
But the point of the matter is right now is that in Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas and the church has had to deal with a group that has they've actually been given a name.
25:19
I'm going to write it up here on the board.
25:21
The group became known as the Judaizers.
25:29
Judaizers.
25:30
What is the Judaizers? I'm so afraid I'm going to step on his paw.
25:34
Move over a little.
25:38
The Judaizers were persons who taught that it was necessary to adopt the Jewish customs of circumcision and depending on who you talk to, other laws as well, to be saved.
25:54
Now, this is not a word we made up.
25:56
This is a word that comes directly from Scripture.
25:59
And I'll show you where it is.
26:00
Go in Galatians with me to Galatians chapter 2.
26:16
In Galatians chapter 2, which we're obviously we're going to get there eventually, but I want to show it to you now just to just to point it out.
26:27
Paul notices that when Peter is around Jewish people, he acts different than when he's around Gentile people.
26:35
And you might say, well, that's normal because they act different.
26:38
No, the difference was a bad difference because what it was was let's say you were a group of Gentiles.
26:43
If the Jewish people weren't around, Peter would eat with you and he would spend time with you.
26:48
But if the Jewish people came around, he would back away from you and he wouldn't talk to you and he would shun you.
26:55
That's bad, right? That's showing partiality.
26:59
That's called partiality and it's wrong.
27:02
So let's just read from verse 11.
27:05
It says, But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face.
27:12
This is Peter.
27:13
This is Paul.
27:14
Cephas is Peter.
27:16
Paul is getting in Peter's face.
27:19
Why? For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles.
27:24
But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.
27:29
The circumcision party are those people who believe circumcision is necessary for salvation.
27:33
So that's the group that he's afraid of.
27:35
Why was Peter afraid of these people? I don't know.
27:39
Maybe because they had some political influence.
27:42
Maybe because they were mean men that he just didn't want to make mad.
27:46
Maybe because he was afraid of losing his influence.
27:49
Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, but Peter was called the apostle to the Jews.
27:54
And so maybe he was afraid of losing influence.
27:57
There's all kinds of reasons why he might be afraid, but he was afraid of them.
28:01
Verse 13, And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with them, so that even Barnabas, and we're going to talk about this when we get to this text, even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
28:11
Barnabas is the nicest guy in the New Testament.
28:13
His name literally means son of encouragement.
28:18
If you read about Barnabas in the New Testament, you'll find this guy went out of his way to encourage people.
28:24
And yet even he's being influenced negatively by Peter's behavior.
28:29
So Paul gets in Peter's face.
28:31
Verse 14, But when I saw their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to Judaize? It says live like the Jews, but actually the Greek word there is Judaize.
28:49
How can you force the Gentiles to Judaize? So that's where we get that word, the Judaizers.
28:57
How can you demand these Gentiles be like the Jews when you know that's not necessary for the faith, when you know that's not a part of the faith? So there it is.
29:14
There is the heart of the issue of the book of Galatians as they are dealing with the Judaizers.
29:24
They believe it was necessary to adopt Jewish customs to be saved.
29:29
And you know what? They had a lot of proof texts.
29:31
They could go back to the Old Testament and say, well, in Genesis 17, 9 to 14, it says that if you're not circumcised, you're cut off from the people of Israel.
29:40
See, the Bible proves it.
29:43
But you see, that's a dangerous thing because what they're doing is they're looking at the Old Covenant and saying this Old Covenant is normative for all time.
29:55
That this Old Covenant makes demands on people within the New Covenant.
29:59
Yes, sir.
30:04
I want to show you something.
30:06
I'm glad you asked that question because I was going to get there.
30:08
I might as well get there now.
30:09
Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 8.
30:19
Yeah.
30:22
Now, I would encourage you to read the whole chapter, but we don't have time to read the whole chapter.
30:26
I'm just going to read a portion of it to you.
30:32
Read the whole thing later.
30:33
But right now, we'll just read the last verse.
30:36
Last verse, Hebrews 8, 13.
30:39
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.
30:44
And what is becoming obsolete is growing old and is ready to vanish away.
30:49
It's a Mosaic covenant.
30:53
Now, again, I encourage you to read the whole thing.
30:55
If you go up to verse seven, it says, for if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
31:03
God gives the new covenant and in giving it sort of like this, I've given this illustration before.
31:10
Let's say a church.
31:11
I don't know how many of you've ever been a part of church politics, but let's say in a church, a church has a constitution.
31:17
Our church has a constitution, which basically says this is the way we're going to we're going to manage our dealings.
31:23
This is the way we're going to deal with money.
31:25
This is the way we're going to deal with pastors and hiring people and, you know, making decisions on the building.
31:30
Got to have a way.
31:31
You have rules, right? We call it a bylaws.
31:34
All right.
31:36
Let's say we decided as a church we were going to adopt a new set of bylaws or a new constitution.
31:43
In fact, we did this back in 2010.
31:45
We changed our name.
31:46
We went from being Forest Christian Church.
31:50
We stopped that and we became Sovereign Grace Family Church because we had gone through some changes theologically.
31:56
We'd gone through some changes for some other reasons.
31:59
We wanted a new name with a new name.
32:01
We wrote a new constitution.
32:03
Now, the new constitution includes some of the old constitution.
32:09
Right.
32:10
You know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, right? There's some things that are going to be what we would call cross-covenantal.
32:17
Yeah.
32:19
Homosexuality is a sin in both covenants.
32:22
Adultery is a sin in both covenants.
32:25
Yeah, that's going to be cross-covenantal.
32:28
Just because you're a member of the new covenant doesn't mean, well, now thou shalt not kill doesn't apply to you.
32:33
No, it still applies because that's cross-covenantal.
32:36
And you say, well, how do we know what's cross-covenantal? First and foremost, what's cross-covenantal is what's repeated.
32:42
If you see it in the New Testament, you don't have to wonder, right? But also there are things in the Old Testament that aren't necessarily repeated in the New Testament, but we understand them to have a moral nature, moral nature.
32:57
If it's a moral law, meaning it's a law that affects our morality, such as incest, right? We might want to keep that law because it has a moral value.
33:07
Yes, sir.
33:12
Absolutely.
33:14
And we call that transcendent law.
33:16
All men know that they shouldn't steal.
33:18
They do because they violate the knowledge that God puts in them.
33:22
So transcendent law is cross-covenantal law, right? Some people talk about the tripartite division of the law.
33:32
And I want to be careful with this, not just because it's a big word, I don't want to confuse you, but also because I somewhat disagree with this, but I understand why.
33:41
The tripartite understanding of the law says this.
33:43
The law can be broken into three parts.
33:46
Moral, meaning those things which are naturally understood.
33:50
Civil, those things which govern a society.
33:55
Remember in Israel, if you stole a man's ox, you owed him back a certain amount, or if you trampled his field, you had to pay him back this much.
34:05
We have that right now.
34:06
We call it case law.
34:09
Well, no, that's kind of the same.
34:11
Criminal law and case law.
34:12
The third one is called ritual law or ceremonial law.
34:16
So the three types of law we see are moral.
34:20
Most of the Ten Commandments are morals.
34:22
Don't commit adultery, don't lie, don't steal, don't murder, right? Ceremonial laws are like you take the best calf and you slaughter it and you take its blood and you put it on the altar.
34:34
That's a ceremony.
34:35
That's a ritual, right? What does the New Testament tell us about that? We don't have to do that anymore.
34:42
Well, they did it because God told them to, but it didn't save them.
34:53
Hebrews tells us the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin.
34:57
The blood of the bulls and goats pointed to the greater sacrifice of Christ.
35:02
They believed in it, and it was because what God gave them to believe in.
35:06
They didn't understand how much of a fulfillment was coming.
35:09
Yes, you had a question, brother? It was basically meant to show us our need that there was no way we could possibly keep the law.
35:14
Absolutely.
35:15
And by sacrificing that animal and they had the scapegoat that they prayed over and sent it out into the wilderness.
35:20
Remember, that was all a picture of something taking away their sin.
35:25
And that would be fulfilled later in Christ, who would become the one who took away most of the old laws.
35:31
Most of the old laws were basically replaced by the new covenant.
35:37
Yes.
35:37
And what I'm saying is all replaced, but some of them have cross-covenantal value.
35:42
And I don't mean to make that more confusing.
35:44
What I'm saying, though, is primarily we are new covenant believers.
35:49
We have a marching order that comes from our Lord.
35:54
Who is our Lord? Jesus Christ.
35:56
Jesus Christ functions in a way like a new Moses read through the read through the Sermon on the Mount.
36:04
What do you have from your king in the Sermon on the Mount? Marching orders.
36:09
You have heard it said, do not commit murder.
36:12
But I say to you, if you hate your brother, you've committed murder in your heart.
36:18
You've heard it said, do not commit adultery.
36:20
But I say to you, if you've even looked with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart.
36:27
You see what I'm saying? So Jesus comes in and he gives us an even stronger ethic.
36:33
People think the New Testament is easier.
36:35
It's actually a little harder because he digs to the heart.
36:38
You might could hold to the letter of the old law, but you got to hold to the heart of the new covenant because the new covenant digs down deep into your soul.
36:48
And it says, do you really love God and do you really love your neighbor? In fact, I'll give you one second.
36:55
Sure.
36:55
St.
36:56
Augustine in a sermon on the subject of love said this.
37:01
He said, love God and do what you want.
37:07
He said, what do you mean? What he was saying, and you have to go back and read the whole sermon to really understand what he was saying is this.
37:13
If you truly love God, your wants will be to please God.
37:19
Your wants will be to love your neighbor.
37:22
If you truly love God and truly love your neighbor, it's going to change how you live.
37:26
This is why in the book of Galatians, it says, love is the fulfillment of the law against these things.
37:32
The fruit of the spirit, love, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control against these things.
37:38
There is no law.
37:40
This is the law for the believer that you live by the fruit of the spirit.
37:44
Okay.
37:44
Now, hadn't the Judeaters heard that Jesus said he came to fulfill the law? Yes, but they took that differently in that passage.
37:52
That's Matthew 5, 17.
37:54
Some people take that as to mean simply that Jesus came to fulfill the law as himself, but not on our behalf.
38:01
As I would say, Jesus came to fulfill the law, not only for himself, but for me as well.
38:07
Jesus is the end of the law to all who believe.
38:10
That's what the scripture says.
38:10
He is the end of the law to all who believe.
38:12
Was there a difference to it that Jesus, rather than preach confirmation to the law, but to the spirit, if not the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law? Yeah.
38:27
That's what I was saying.
38:28
When he says that you've heard it said this, but I say this, he's getting to the heart, the spirit of the law.
38:33
It's more than just what's on the letter.
38:36
Because the Pharisees had created a system by which they could trick the law.
38:43
They had a thing called Korban, which was a rule, which meant if you had money, you could dedicate it to God.
38:49
That way, your parents couldn't get it if they got old and were in need.
38:53
So you kept the money for yourself, but I can't give it to you.
38:57
It's dedicated to God.
38:58
It's called the Korban rule.
39:00
It was just a way to get out of having to help your needy parents.
39:05
What a horrible way to live.
39:16
He was like real big into end time, like theology or whatever, right? But I kind of got into it with him a little bit because he brought up, you know, Jews are God's chosen people.
39:32
Okay.
39:32
And I had brought up, you know, well, wouldn't the new covenant override that? Sure.
39:37
Are you asking me? I didn't know if you were going.
39:44
And then, um, I don't want to take too hard of a right turn because that is actually a question that could lead me into another hour of conversation.
39:54
There is a sense in which Matthew or excuse me, Romans 11 talks about the fact that there's a root that is Israel.
40:01
We have been grafted into that root.
40:03
And what if God were to one day graft Israel back in? And so some people do believe that there is a blessing that is awaiting what is known as ethnic Israel.
40:15
That's what he's referring to.
40:17
He's talking about those people who are Israel by birth.
40:21
I think that that's possible as a reading of Romans 11.
40:25
I don't think it's a necessary reading of Romans 11.
40:28
I think it's I would love it.
40:29
I'd love to see the Jewish people come to know their Messiah.
40:32
I would love to see the people who right now reject Jesus Christ come to faith in him, no matter what their religion.
40:37
But certainly I would love to see a revival among the Jewish people.
40:40
However, there is a there's a system called dispensational premillennialism.
40:44
That's a that's a that's an end times view that takes the perspective that you're talking about, that the Jewish people must have a revival.
40:52
They must come back to Christ to usher in the millennium, which is the thousand year reign of Christ.
40:58
And that's a that's a particular view that I don't hold to.
41:01
So it kind of takes me a little bit further away than I want to go right now.
41:05
But that's that's what he's referring to.
41:07
I would say this.
41:08
I would say we who are sons, excuse me, we who believe in Christ are sons and daughters of Abraham by faith.
41:17
That's what the New Testament says.
41:18
That's why we sing Father Abraham.
41:21
I don't know if you know what I'm talking about.
41:22
That song, Father Abraham has many sons.
41:26
I am one of them.
41:27
And so are you.
41:28
Why? Because by faith, Jesus said to the Pharisees, the sons of Abraham are they that believe in me? Yeah.
41:37
All right.
41:38
So can I move on real quick? Do you have any? All right.
41:41
Because I do want to say a few other things and then we're going to close.
41:43
I'm not even really going to get to verses one through five.
41:46
What I'll probably do when we come in next time, I'll make a few statements now and then we'll really dig into it at the beginning of next week.
41:54
This was all an introduction to Galatians.
41:59
I've already said this.
42:00
Galatians is probably the first epistle Paul wrote.
42:02
You say, why? Why would you say that? Well, remember what I said about Acts 15? Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council, Paul either wrote it on this side or this side.
42:18
Some people believe he wrote it after the Jerusalem Council.
42:22
I believe he wrote it before the Jerusalem Council.
42:25
You say, why do you believe he wrote it before the Jerusalem Council? Because he doesn't mention the decision of the Council in Galatians.
42:36
If the Council had already happened, the book of Galatians and his whole argument would have ended with, and by the way, we decided this in Jerusalem.
42:48
He makes the same argument that he makes at Jerusalem, but he never mentions the Jerusalem decision.
42:55
Remember what we read in Acts 15? A decision was made.
43:01
So that tends to make me believe he wrote it before.
43:06
Again, it's not proof.
43:07
It's evidence, right? Yeah, he's making his case that the region of Galatia, by the way, you'll notice it says to the churches of Galatia.
43:18
That means not just one church, but they were a region of churches.
43:21
I believe it was the churches of Iconium, Lystra, Derbe.
43:25
You remember those in Acts 13, 14? You'll read about those churches.
43:29
That's all in southern Galatia.
43:31
This is all modern Turkey, by the way.
43:33
Asia Minor, modern Turkey.
43:35
There was a northern Galatia and a southern Galatia.
43:38
Paul went through southern Galatia on his missionary journey.
43:40
So he would have known all these churches.
43:42
He would have preached the gospel there.
43:44
And so if he's gone through, he's preached the gospel there and he now sees that there's Judaizers who've come in to create a problem.
43:51
He's sending a letter to them and he's saying to them, do not fall into this trap.
43:58
This is false teaching.
43:59
You've got dangerous people there and you need to be aware of it.
44:04
And that's going to lead to what I think is going to lead to the Jerusalem council, lead to the need for the council.
44:10
So that being said, this would put the writing of the book of Galatians somewhere around 48.
44:18
The year 48, because the council would have been early, late, late 40s, early 50s.
44:25
So we would probably put the writing of Galatians right before the council, right around year 48.
44:32
That means Jesus Christ died, buried, resurrected somewhere around year 30, right? He's about 30 years old when he started his ministry.
44:42
His ministry lasted three years.
44:43
And so it would have been right around 30 to 33.
44:45
So we're looking somewhere between 15 and 18 years from the time of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to the first time Paul puts pen to paper and he sends it to the churches of Galatia.
44:56
He had his hand up first.
44:57
Yes, sir.
44:57
Oh, I don't know if this even pertains to that, but I've seen somewhere around here in the study notes that it was around 5 or 6 AD.
45:09
That's why, yeah, yeah.
45:10
Which would have put his death, burial, and resurrection somewhere around 30, 28 to 30.
45:14
So that would have made this between 15 and 20 years later.
45:18
But what does AD stand for? Oh, no, Anno Domini.
45:22
It's Latin.
45:22
It means in the year of our Lord.
45:24
Anno Domini is AD in the year of our Lord.
45:27
BC is before Christ.
45:29
Okay, so why was the Bible meant after death? No, it doesn't mean after death.
45:35
AD means in the year of our Lord.
45:38
That was a fairly common expression because that's how we numbered time.
45:42
I always say this, the birth of Jesus split time.
45:46
Really did.
45:47
From a calendar's perspective, we have everything that happened before Jesus and everything that happened after Jesus, which means the moment Jesus was born, it literally divided how we understand history.
45:57
There was everything that was before Christ and everything that was in the year of our Lord, meaning ever since our Lord came, it's this year after that.
46:05
Yes, sir.
46:05
Okay, before Paul, he was a persecuted Christian.
46:10
Was he like around the time Jesus Christ was around? Yes, but he's not ever mentioned.
46:16
So we don't know if there's any interaction between Paul and Christ during Christ's lifetime.
46:20
But we know that he learned at the feet of Gamaliel, which was one of the teachers.
46:24
And so there's a good chance that Paul would have seen Christ as living, but there's no evidence for or against it other than speculation.
46:33
So we don't know for certain.
46:35
Yeah, I mean, again, a lot of people saw Jesus.
46:38
So we don't know.
46:39
We know he saw Jesus after he was raised.
46:41
Yes, sir.
46:42
I want to get on, but go ahead.
46:43
Go ahead.
46:45
Here's my last point for today, because we're out of time.
46:49
Paul is the writer of this letter, and that's pretty much undisputed.
46:52
Nobody really argues whether or not Paul wrote Galatians.
46:55
Some people argue about whether or not Paul wrote other books, like 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus.
46:59
Some people say, oh, Paul didn't write that.
47:01
It's too late.
47:02
He did, but liberals love to argue anything.
47:05
But liberals even don't argue whether or not Paul wrote Galatians.
47:09
And I'll tell you why.
47:11
Because Galatians is so harsh.
47:14
Galatians is so much a punch in the face.
47:17
In fact, it's one of the only books that Paul wrote that he doesn't give a greeting of thanks.
47:23
You know how in 1 Corinthians he says, I thank my God for you, blah, blah, blah.
47:27
And he says that in Colossians.
47:28
He says that in Philippians.
47:29
I thank my God.
47:30
He doesn't say that to the Galatians.
47:32
He comes right out and he says, I am amazed that you have behaved this way.
47:38
I am astonished.
47:39
He comes out with a fist.
47:41
And what the liberals have said, and they basically said no one would write this and want to get credit for it except the guy who really wrote it.
47:52
No one would want to put their name on this or try to pass it off if it didn't really come from him.
47:57
So not only is it one of the earliest ones, but it comes in what we call a polemic nature or a combative.
48:04
It's a combative book.
48:06
Paul is looking to do three things.
48:07
One, he wants to defend his apostleship.
48:11
Two, he wants to defend the truth of his gospel.
48:14
And three, he wants to defend the gospel way of life.
48:18
That's the three points of the book.
48:19
First two chapters, he's going to defend himself as an apostle.
48:23
The chapters three and four, he's going to defend the truth of his gospel.
48:26
Chapters five and six, he's going to defend how that gospel changes our life and how we ought to live.
48:31
So that's the outline that we're going to look at over the next several months.
48:34
I don't know how long it's going to take us, but we're going to go verse by verse.
48:36
We'll begin next week, we'll look at verses one all the way, maybe down to verse nine if we can.
48:41
Read it this week before I come back, and then we'll have some more to talk about.
48:46
Let's pray.
48:47
Father, I thank You for all that You've given us, especially this time to study together.
48:53
May, O God, we become, as Luther was, just wedded to this book.
48:59
That we be enamored by it because it tells us about the great truth of justification by faith alone.
49:05
That we cannot add anything to the work of Christ, but we rest in it alone.
49:11
And it's in Christ's name we pray, amen.