Sunday Sermon: The Permanence of the Promise (Galatians 3:15-19)

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You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabrielle Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

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New Testament book. On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday.

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Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit.

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Here's Pastor Gabe. The Apostle Paul writes, 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.

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

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Let us pray. Our Lord, as we come to your scriptures this morning,

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I pray that your word would speak loudly to us, and however complicated the things might be to us as we're looking at them when we open up our

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Bible and begin to read it, may your spirit discern for us these things which are spiritually discerned, so that our mind may be conformed to Christ's, have the mind of Christ as Paul instructed in Philippians 2 .5,

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but also that we may know how great a God you are, how wonderful the blessings are that you have given to us through your

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Son, that we have received the promises, the promise of eternal life, the promise of a paradise that is to come, the promise of a promised land that is better than anything here on this earth, but is a heavenly kingdom that we look forward to.

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All of these promises have been given to us through Jesus Christ, which we receive by faith, and we're reminded of those things once again as we come to this text today.

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In the Lord Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated.

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Keeping in context with what we just read, let me continue to keep reading. I'm going to start in verse 21 and go to the end of the chapter.

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Paul writes, Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

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But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

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Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

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So then the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

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But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

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For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither

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Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female.

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For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are

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Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

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Now the things that we've read here in Galatians 3 verses 15 through 29, these things are complicated.

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And you might even be looking at that going, I don't really quite know what this means. I'm curious to know where Gabe is going to go with this.

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And furthermore, how we're going to break this up into two weeks and talk about these things over two Sundays as well.

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One of the things that I said that we come to understand principally through Paul's letter to the

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Galatians is that we are saved by faith, justified before God by faith in Christ alone and no other way.

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Some Judaizers had come into the churches of Galatia and had tried to tell the

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Galatian Christians, hey, it's great if you follow Jesus, we believe in him too. But Jesus was a

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Jew. And in order to be saved, you have to not only believe in Jesus, but you have to do all these works of the law.

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And the apostle Paul says, no, if that's what someone comes to you preaching, then they are teaching a different gospel and they are accursed.

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It is not by works of the law that we are saved. It's not even a combination of faith and works of the law.

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It is by faith alone in Christ that we come to salvation. My friends,

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I've taught this doctrine to you as long as I have stood in this pulpit. From the very first Sunday that I ever delivered a message in these walls,

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I have said to you that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and no other way.

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But it is through this study of Galatians that I have come to understand even more deeply that we are justified by faith alone.

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I've believed it for many years. I've preached it to you for years. And yet I have come to an understanding of this more firmly because of this study in Galatians than any other book of the

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Bible that I have studied. Furthermore, I have said to you that salvation by grace through faith is not just a

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New Testament concept. It's also Old Testament. Whether we're talking about a person in the

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Old Testament or we're talking about a person in the New Testament, we have always been saved by grace through faith.

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That has never been different. Even in the giving of the law, in the

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Old Testament, salvation did not come by the keeping of the law. It was still by grace through faith.

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It was by the grace of God through faith in a coming promise, a

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Messiah that was to come. Whereas we on this side of the cross, we're looking back on the promise that has been given and been fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

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So on this side of the cross, we're looking back at what's been accomplished through Christ. Before the cross, they were looking toward what was going to happen through Christ.

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But either way, salvation has still been by grace through faith. Now I've taught you that, but we haven't really gone through a particular text that illustrates that.

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That salvation was by grace through faith even in an Old Testament covenant. And we're going to examine that today as we come to Galatians chapter 3, understanding that salvation is by grace through faith before the cross or after the cross.

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That's the only way salvation has ever been. And Paul lays that principle out here with the

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Galatians. He shows to them, look guys, salvation's never been by the keeping of the law, ever.

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It wasn't before Christ. It isn't now, even after all of these things that Christ has accomplished.

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And he proves this to them by taking them back to the Old Testament and showing them the gospel as it was first preached to Abraham.

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And we've already considered that even in our study of Galatians 3 here.

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In Galatians 3 verse 6, we read that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

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In verse 8, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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Both of those references come from Genesis chapter 15, and we're going to go there here in just a moment.

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To see that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, and the gospel was proclaimed to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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Last week we looked at verses 10 through 14 and understanding that anyone who tries to earn righteousness by the keeping of the law is under a curse.

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And that actually applies to every single person who is not in Christ. Everyone is trying to attain a righteousness by doing what they can do in order to be right before God, and everyone fails.

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For as we are told in James and in Deuteronomy, any point of the law that you fail at, you are guilty of breaking the whole thing.

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So we know that we cannot keep the law in order to gain righteousness, and everybody who tries to do so is under a curse.

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But as we read, Christ became a curse for us so that we might be redeemed of the curse of the law.

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So that in Christ Jesus, verse 14, the blessing of Abraham might come to the

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Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith.

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Abraham is our example in this. Paul's made several references to Abraham already over the course of chapter 3.

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And so then he gives a human example of what he is talking about. Grace through faith, not by works of the law.

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Verse 15, to give a human example, brothers. Now that word might just seem to skip by us, of Paul referring to the

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Galatians here in these churches as brothers, because we're so used to Paul saying that in the other letters of Paul that we have studied.

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To give a human example, brothers. Of course, he refers to everybody as brethren. He has not referred to the

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Galatians that way because he has struggled with the Galatians. He has labored for them.

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He feels under anxiety for them now because they have abandoned the true gospel and are following after a false one.

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And so he opens the letter right up with rebuke. I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting him who died for you, who became a curse for you, and you're instead choosing to believe a different gospel.

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Would it be so revealed that if they continued to follow after this different gospel that they were never truly in Christ in the first place?

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So Paul is very careful with this term, brothers, but nevertheless, he shows his compassion for them here in this particular section because Paul becomes a very great and astute and articulate teacher in this particular section of Galatians, midway through this letter.

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But here to show his affection for them and his directness in the teaching that he is about to give, he calls them brothers.

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And he says, I give you an example, and he does this in teaching exhortation, going back to the

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Old Testament so that they may understand that even under the old covenant, it was still by grace through faith that a person was saved.

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Even with a man -made covenant, Paul says, no one annuls it, cancels it, renders it void, okay?

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No one annuls a covenant or adds to it once it has been ratified.

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In other words, officially valid. So when a covenant has been made, it is sealed, it is guaranteed, whatever was written in that covenant, those are the principles that apply.

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You can't take away from it, you can't add to it. What were to happen if you were to do either one of those things?

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If you were to take away from the covenant or if you were to add to the covenant, you would change the covenant.

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It would now be a different covenant. You would have to go through the process again of ratifying it, of going through all of the procedures and everything.

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This past week on the briefing, Al Mohler was talking about the Senate versus the

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House, these two different pieces of Congress that we have, these sects of Congress, if you would consider them that way.

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The Senate is structured in such a way so that things move slowly, and the House is structured in such a way that things would move more quickly.

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But things have changed in our government in recent years so that the Senate is actually trying to speed up their process and move things along more quickly when things were structured in Congress so that the

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Senate would move more slowly. And so in order to change things the way the

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Senate is doing it, it's almost as if they have to work outside the structure of the Constitution and the way that it was made and the way these branches of government were defined.

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And so once you start changing things, then you're going outside what was originally drafted.

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Now, we're talking about the Constitution in this case, which is not the same thing as a covenant, but nevertheless, the principle still applies.

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Once you start changing it, it becomes something different than it originally was. And you have to go through a different process of ratification.

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So Paul says, 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, lest it becomes something different.

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So what Paul is meaning to illustrate here is the covenant as it was originally given applies the same way now as it did when it was first given, when it was first given to our father

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Abraham. The covenant as it was first made still applies to us now as it did to him then.

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And we are his children. We who are in Christ Jesus, who is the offspring of Abraham.

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Verse 16, 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

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Christ, the Messiah who is going to come through Abraham. And then all who are in Christ receive the promises that were given to Abraham and to his offspring.

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For it is through Christ that we are adopted into the family of God and become his children.

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And all of this by that same covenant that was first given to Abraham.

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Let's consider that. Genesis chapter 15. Turn with me there to Genesis 15.

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Fifteen chapters into the study of the Bible and you would come to this narrative,

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God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis chapter 15. And we're going to consider the whole chapter here as we think about this covenant that is consistent even now to this very age, the permanence of the promise of God.

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Genesis chapter 15, starting in verse 1. After these things, the word of the

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Lord came to Abraham in a vision. Abraham being Abraham. His name would later be changed.

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Fear not, Abraham, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.

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But Abraham said, O Lord God, what will you give me for I continue childless and the heir of my house is

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Eleazar of Damascus. Abraham had no children of his own at this particular time and was well advanced in years and the way of women, it says, of Sarah was no longer with her.

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So she could not have children either. Abraham is asking, how are you going to give me what you promise when

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I don't even have an heir? And Abraham said, this verse 3, behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir.

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Verse 4, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir.

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Eleazar of Damascus will not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir.

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God brought his own son, Jesus Christ, God incarnate through a virgin, conceived of the

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Holy Spirit. So we know that if God could do that, he could certainly give a woman whom the way of women is no longer with a child to be an heir of the promise that God is giving to Abraham.

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Verse 5, God brought him outside. He brought Abraham outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars.

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If you are able to number them, then he said to him, so shall your offspring be.

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Abraham, who doesn't even have a child, and yet God is saying to him, I'm going to give you so many children, there will be more than the number of stars that you can count in the sky.

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Verse 6, and Abraham believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.

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Abraham received righteousness by faith, exactly what we just read in Galatians chapter 3.

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There's a song that was written by Rich Mullins called Sometimes By Step. The chorus goes, oh

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God, you are my God and I will ever praise you. We've sung that several times here in our church as well.

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The longer version of that song contains some very poetic verses, and in one of those verses

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Rich Mullins says, sometimes I think of Abraham and how one star he saw had been lit for me.

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You think about Abraham being taken under the canopy of heaven and looking up at the stars and God says, are you able to number these stars?

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Can you even count them all? You will have more children than you can even count stars in the sky. And Abraham was looking up and he was seeing represented in the stars, not just the children of Israel who were going to come from Isaac and Jacob, but he was also seeing the number of Gentiles that would be added to the kingdom of God for all who would have faith in Christ, the descendant of Abraham and heir to the promise.

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And my friends, that's you and I, believers in Christ Jesus, whom

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God had even set in the heavens by his preordained plan before you and I even came to be.

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How wonderful a God we serve and this promise that has been given through this written word that we read about and recall these things as they had first been spoken to our father

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Abraham. Verse 7, God said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the

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Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. Later on, God will say to the people

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Israel, I am the Lord who brought you out of slavery in Egypt to give you this land to possess.

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We see the consistency of God in his promises to his people. But he said,

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Abraham said, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?

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So God is giving Abraham a promise that he is going to give him many offsprings, if you'll pardon me using the plural, even though Paul has used the singular.

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But you will have many children, even more children than the stars that you can count in the sky.

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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?

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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.

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And he brought him all of these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other.

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But he did not cut the birds in half, simply because they weren't really large enough to be cut in half.

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

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

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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 3.

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So the law has not 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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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So they walk between the burning of these sacrifices and the witnesses there who have heard all of the stipulations of the covenant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

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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 four hundred years.

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

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As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace.

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You shall be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the

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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

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

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

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And when that time is completed, Israel is going to become their judge. And God even says to Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 9,

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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.

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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.

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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

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Canaanites had gone, lest the wrath of God be kindled against them as well. Now that's all coming in this explanation that God is giving to Abraham.

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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.

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

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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

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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,

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Refraim, the

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

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

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

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

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It is dependent on me, and I will keep it.

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

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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.

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

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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,

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

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

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God descended upon Mount Sinai in the next book over, in Exodus chapter 20, chapters 19 and 20,

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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I mean. The law which came 430 years afterward. Okay, remember that we had

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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?

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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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

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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.

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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

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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.

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Now who is that intermediary? Well the intermediary is probably

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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James Montgomery Boyce said this about Galatians 3 .20.

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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And 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

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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,

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

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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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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He is one God, that is the what of God, but He is three persons, that is the who of God.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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There's no work. The work has been accomplished in Christ. It has been sealed by His blood.

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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.

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As you see the stars in the sky, so will be the greatness of the number of your children.

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

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

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

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The Holy Spirit makes Christ's death effective by bringing the elect to faith and repentance, thereby willingly causing them to obey the gospel.

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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.

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This is all my hope and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

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This is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

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Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow, know of Jesus.

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Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

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For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

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On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.