WWUTT 1767 The Promise Made By God, Part 2 (Galatians 3:15-20)

The law was not given as a better way of salvation. The law instead exposed the fact that we're sinners and in need of a savior.

The way of salvation is given in Jesus Christ, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you Becky. Today is part two of a sermon that was started yesterday and it's going to be a little bit longer lesson as we finish up Galatians chapter 3 verses 15 through 20.

Let me begin by reading our text and we'll get right into the sermon. To give a human example, brothers, even with a man -made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring who is

Christ. This is what I mean. The law which came 430 years afterward does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void.

For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Here is part two of the sermon entitled

Promises Made by God and we're going to come back to where we left off yesterday in Genesis 15 with the promise given to Abraham.

So God is giving Abraham a promise that he is going to give him even more children than the stars that you can count in the sky.

Lord, you have promised me this, but what is the sign of this? The promise of my children, the promise of this land that my offspring shall inherit, what is the sign for this?

How do I know that I am going to possess this? And God said to him, bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon.

And he brought him all of these, cut them in half and laid each half over against the other, but he did not cut the birds in half simply because they weren't really large enough to be cut in half.

And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. So what is it that Abram is doing here?

What's going on? Well, whenever a covenant was made between two people, now remember, all of this is before the law.

The law hadn't even been given yet. That's not going to come for years later, over 430 years, according to what we're reading in Galatians chapter three.

So the law is not yet, even yet come, there's no sacrificial system that is in place.

Yet Abraham is laying out these sacrifices according to the command of God to signify something.

What is it that's happening here? Well, whenever a covenant was made between two people, this is during a time in which there's not really a lot of paper around.

You don't write things down. And if you do so, then it's not even really going to last with all the moving to and fro that people do.

So how is it that a covenant is therefore made and is ratified?

It is done with witnesses and it is sealed with blood. And this sacrifice that Abraham is making here,

God is commanding him to make, but it is not unlike sacrifices that would even have been made by pagan people at this particular time.

So in making a covenant, they will make these sacrifices and they will divide them up two by two.

There will be half the sacrifices over here. Half the sacrifices will be over here. It will be cut in half, two halves on this side, two halves and the corresponding halves on the other side.

And so what will happen then is the two people that are coming to an agreement of this covenant will walk in between the sacrifices.

They will be burning, the blood being consumed by the fire, the animals that have been butchered and cut up, and the two people will walk between the burning sacrifices.

There will be witnesses that will stand there to witness this covenant that is being made by these people.

These persons might be representing two families. They might be representing two kingdoms, two towns, two lands, two ethnicities.

But nevertheless, this is the way that a covenant was established and the way that it was ratified. So they walk between the burning of these sacrifices and the witnesses there who have heard all of the stipulations of the covenant.

And by the witnesses and by the sacrifices, it is therefore ratified.

It is made valid. And so Abraham is setting up what would essentially be this ratification of this covenant between God and Abraham.

So that what? God and Abraham would walk together between the two sacrifices, therefore ratifying the covenant?

It's actually not what happens. What happens is incredibly fascinating and hugely deep to understanding not just what

Paul is talking about in Galatians 3, but understanding the doctrine of justification by faith itself.

We understand that doctrine even from what we're reading here in this story in Genesis chapter 15.

Look at verse 12. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram.

And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

Then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there and they will be afflicted for 400 years.

But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the

Amorites is not yet complete. For it's when the Israelites are sent into the promised land to take it that they become the punishment of the

Canaanites that are there for all the wickedness that they have done over the span of 400 plus years.

God is saying their wickedness is not yet complete. Their iniquity for which they will be judged.

And when that time is completed, Israel is going to become their judge. And God even says to Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 9, do not think so highly of yourselves as you're inheriting this land thinking, well,

I must be a great and righteous person since I'm inheriting this land. No, it's not because of your righteousness that you are inheriting it, but because the wickedness of the people that you are taking the land from.

And I am using you to judge them. May this also serve as a warning to Israel that they may not go in the same way that the

Canaanites had gone, lest the wrath of God be kindled against them as well. Now that that's all coming in this explanation that God is giving to Abraham, but recognize again in verse 13 where it says to Abraham, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs.

Know that is not theirs. Know for certain these things. God has said that he is going to give it to Abraham.

He is going to give it to them. And there's no stipulations here that are given. No stipulations in the sense that these people must do this for me and then

I will do this for them. That's not stated. God by his goodness and his mercy is giving a promise to Abraham and saying, here is exactly how

I am going to fulfill it to your children. Not that they have done anything righteous, but because I will be faithful to my promise.

And verse 17, when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

Remember that to ratify the covenant, the two people walk between the sacrifices together.

Well, here, Abraham sees a flaming pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying to your offspring,

I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the

Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Reframe, the

Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites saying exactly this territory that your children will inherit.

And God in this covenant, he's the one that moves between the sacrifices, but Abraham is not with him.

Remember, Abraham had fallen into a deep sleep. So God passes between the sacrifices.

Why? Because God is showing to Abraham the guarantee of this promise is not dependent on you.

It is dependent on me. And I will keep it.

I have made it and I will fulfill it. And it is simply given to Abraham by faith,

Abraham believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness, not by works, not by anything that had been done, but simply because God promised it and he will do it.

Once again, it is always been by grace through faith that we attain the righteousness of God.

It has never been by the works of the law. Here in this gesture for Abraham to give him confirmation of the promise that God was making with him.

God and God alone passes between the sacrifices. Behold a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between these pieces.

And those two things are symbolic of the holiness of God. For when

God descended upon Mount Sinai in the next book over in Exodus chapter 20, chapters 19 and 20, he descends upon Mount Sinai and it says that Mount Sinai burned like the furnace of a fire.

And the smoke went up to heaven like the burning of a kiln, a giant kiln as the whole

Mount of Sinai looked like it was on fire as God descended upon it. And so what

Abraham sees, this flaming torch and this oven or this pot that passes between the sacrifices is symbolizing the holy presence of God.

And only he makes this covenant and keeps this covenant faithful to it because he has promised.

So once again, it is even in the example that we see given to us in Genesis chapter 15 that we understand that salvation, salvation in Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternity, the eternal kingdom, the heavenly land that we look forward to.

Recognize once again that God said to Abraham, this is the land that your children will inherit, but as for you, you will die in a ripe old age.

And Hebrews chapter 11 explains to us that the land that the faithful were looking forward to was not an earthly land.

And otherwise they would have had the opportunity to return to it. But the land that was promised to them was a heavenly kingdom.

Even Abraham was looking forward to that place, not an earthly land for he wasn't going to receive that land.

His children were going to, and it was a heavenly kingdom that was promised to Abraham, which he received by faith.

He believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. So once again, coming to this understanding that our justification, our salvation before God has always been by faith.

It has always been by the grace of God. And because he is faithful to his promises, that we have received the righteousness of God through faith in Christ alone.

And that kingdom that Abraham looked forward to is the same kingdom that we are looking forward to, the heavenly kingdom of God.

So let's come back over to Galatians 3 once again. So we understand the principle that Paul is laying down here regarding God's faithfulness to his own promises.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. This is verse 16.

It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, who we know now is the fulfillment of that promise that was made in Genesis 15.

Christ. Christ is the fulfillment. And Paul goes on in verse 17. This is what

I mean. The law, which came 430 years afterward. Okay.

Remember that we had God saying to Abraham, it's not going to be for another 400 years that your children will inherit this land.

Actually, if we were going to do the math on it exactly, it was 645 years from the occasion that we saw of the exchange between God and Abraham.

645 years from the time that they had that talk to when Joshua actually led the people of Israel into the promised land.

So what is meant by 430 years? Well, it was from the time that Jacob and all of his children moved down to Egypt.

Remember when Joseph was there? It was from that time to when

God would commission Moses to go and tell Pharaoh to let my people go. That would be the span of 430 years.

And then it would be the giving of the law that would come at that time. So this is what I mean. The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void.

So once again, when God was making that covenant with Abraham, there was no law. The law had not been given.

The law would not be given until Moses would come along, and the law would be given through Moses.

But the law, the coming of the law, doesn't change the covenant that God made with Abraham.

It's been ratified. If the covenant were changed, it would become a completely different covenant, right?

But that covenant, originally given to Abraham, was consistent then as it is now.

It is still by grace, by the grace of God, by faith in Jesus Christ, that we receive the promises of God.

That was the case for Abraham, and that is still the same for us. The giving of the law did not change that.

Paul is making this point with the Galatians in particular to say, you've got these Judaizers who've come into you and have said, you've got to keep the law in order to be saved.

Well, that wasn't the case with Abraham. Why in the world would that be the case with you now? The covenant didn't change when the law came, so why do you think that you've got to keep the law in order to be saved?

That's a different gospel. It's a different covenant than the covenant that God made with Abraham.

Why are you listening to it? So that they would come to understand, even from the

Old Testament text, that the gospel is proclaimed to us there. The good news that God is faithful to his promises, not by our ability to keep it, but because he is gracious.

The law came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void, verse 18, for if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise.

How would it come? It would come because we had done something to earn it. It would be earned rather than promised.

If the inheritance comes by law, by you having to earn it, then there's no promise there.

You have to do something in order to achieve it. The promise of God is null and void.

And we would forever be in doubt that there would be any promise for us at all, for we know that we cannot keep the law in order to attain some sort of righteousness or promise or grace from God.

For if you have to work to attain it, it's no longer grace. Paul makes that point very specifically in Romans 11.

If you have to work, then it's no longer grace. So it cannot be by grace and works.

It's only by the grace of God. For you add works to it, then there's no longer a promise.

If the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise. But God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

So verse 19, why then the law? Now we're shifting gears a little bit.

Paul being such a great teacher is anticipating the next question that's going to come after what he's just laid down here.

The promise has never been by the law. It's always been by the grace of God. So then this would lead a person to ask, well, then why the law?

If the giving of the law didn't change anything, then why do we have the law at all?

And Paul says it was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions. Now there's two possible explanations to this.

Number one, the law is given to restrain transgressions. It was added because of transgressions.

So it was given to restrain transgressions. Or number two, the law was given to reveal transgressions.

Now when we read it was added, look at that again. It was added because of transgressions.

That doesn't mean it's added in addition to, but it's added alongside of, okay?

Because if it was in addition to, then Paul has just contradicted everything that he just said in verses 15 through 18.

So it's not in addition to, but it's rather alongside of.

So I'm one man, I got married, Becky became my wife, and now we're one alongside of one another, okay?

So I didn't become two people. She became my wife and we became one flesh alongside each other.

So that's what Paul is illustrating here with regards to the law. It wasn't added to the covenant, but it came alongside the covenant because of transgressions.

And that means either the law was given to restrain transgressions or it was given to reveal transgressions.

Which one is it? I want to make the case for you that it's actually both, but we're not going to consider the law given to restrain transgressions until we get to the next half of this section that we're studying.

So we'll look at that next week. The second part of that is the law given to reveal transgressions, and that's really more in keeping with what we're reading in this particular section, verses 19 and 20.

It was added because of the transgressions to reveal the transgressions, to reveal the fact that we had sinned against God until the offspring should come, who is

Christ, to whom the promise had been made and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

So the law revealed to us that we had sinned against God and all of that was added to until the offspring should come, who is

Christ, who is then going to be the Savior of all of those who have come to recognize we have sinned and we need to be saved from the judgment of God.

So the law added to the transgressions that we might know that we are sinned and in need of a

Savior and here comes the Savior to save us. And now we're ready to receive the

Savior because the law had conditioned us for that. That's what Paul is illustrating there in verse 19.

And incidentally, whenever we preach the gospel, we still follow that same formula. We don't know that the gospel is the good news until we know the bad news, that you've sinned and you are under the judgment of God.

And then once you know that, then you can hear the good news that Jesus has come to take the wrath of God upon Himself with His death on the cross, that whoever believes in Him will be forgiven and is no longer under God's wrath, but is in His love.

And then that's good news. So it's the same formula we share the gospel now.

The way that God was preparing His people in the Old Testament is the same way we come to preparation for the receiving of the gospel whenever we hear the law and we come to know that we've transgressed it and that we need a

Savior to save us. And Paul goes on to say, the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

Now who is that intermediary? Well the intermediary is probably

Moses in this particular case. And the angels were witness to the giving of the law to Moses at Mount Sinai.

Now you're going to find different interpretations of this. As a matter of fact, now here comes the tricky verse, which

I said I didn't even give any consideration to until I was preparing this sermon. Verse 20, now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

What in the world does that mean? Now I just kind of took it at face value. It didn't really puzzle me in any way until I was listening to a sermon from Dr.

Stephen Lawson on this particular section. And Dr. Stephen Lawson, when he got to verse 20, now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

When he got to that verse, he says that James Montgomery Boyce, we have a short commentary from James Montgomery Boyce in our library over here.

When I say short commentary, I mean four volumes. But that's a short commentary by comparison of most commentaries.

James Montgomery Boyce said this about Galatians 3 .20.

This is the most obscure and oblique verse in Galatians, if not in the entire

New Testament. Dr. Stephen Lawson said that he found as many as 400 different interpretations of this passage.

Now when I was hearing him preach on that, I heard Dr. Boyce's comment and then Dr. Stephen Lawson's comment.

I was like, man, I've got way more work cut out for me for this sermon than I thought I had. But thankfully,

Dr. Lawson had done all of the work for me. So I did not have to explore 400 different interpretations of this verse.

He whittled it all down to three possibilities. So here's the three possibilities of understanding what this means when we read, now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

What does this mean? Well, number one, the mediator could be a reference to Moses. Now the intermediary is

Moses in verse 19, so is the intermediary in verse 20, therefore also

Moses. That's the possibility. So the definition of intermediary just carries over to the next verse.

The second possibility is that this is a reference to Jesus. So Jesus is the intermediary, implying more than one, but God is one.

But the third possibility is that the reference is to the Father. God is one, referencing that it is the

Father. He is the intermediary and He is one, so therefore He needs no other in order to verify this covenant that He is making with His people.

That was what we saw in the example that was given through Abraham. And Dr. Lawson said that he sides with that third explanation, that it is a reference with the

Father. Now even though Dr. Lawson has done all of this work of exploring 400 different possibilities in the interpretation of this passage, and I've not done that work, and I'm just going by his summary,

I'm actually going to go with a fourth option. Who am I to say that Dr. Lawson is wrong?

I don't think he's wrong. I'm just going to go with a fourth option here. The fourth option is that God is triune, and therefore

He is the witness to Himself. So He is both the giver of the covenant and the intermediary of the covenant.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4,

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

God referring to Himself as one. And yet we know our one

God is three persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

He is one God. That is the what of God. But He is three persons.

That is the who of God. And so as God is a community unto Himself, He can be both the giver of a covenant and the one who is the intermediary or the witness to the covenant.

He gives and He witnesses. When you go on and you read the story of Abraham, you get to the story of God commanding

Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, and Abraham obeys. And before Abraham can drive the knife into Isaac, the angel of the

Lord comes and stops him. And says, I see now through this testing of your faith that you are obedient to Me.

And so God says to Abraham, I have therefore sworn by Myself. He doesn't swear on the deeds of Abraham.

He doesn't swear on any work or law that is going to be given later on. God says, I have sworn by Myself.

Who else are you going to swear by when you're God? And God can swear by Himself because He is triune.

He is Father, He is Son, He is Holy Spirit. So He can be the giver and the witness of any promise that He gives to His people.

And my friends, the promise that we have been given in Christ is eternal life for all who believe.

By faith, there's no work. The work has been accomplished in Christ. It has been sealed by His blood.

And the giver of this covenant and the witness to it is God Himself. Even as far back as the creation of the very world.

If not the time that God had given this promise to Abraham. As you see the stars in the sky, so will be the greatness of the number of your children.

And I echo the sentiment of Rich Mullins that one of those stars had been lit for me.

Lorraine Bettner says the following, Salvation is accomplished by the almighty power of the triune

God. The Father chose a people. The Son died for them.

The Holy Spirit makes Christ's death effective by bringing the elect to faith and repentance.

Thereby willingly causing them to obey the gospel. And this is all by the grace of God.

It has always been by the grace of God. And it has always been received by faith.