Book of Galatians - Ch. 4, Vs. 1-4 (06/25/2017) | NOTE: Audio malfunction until minute 27:49

Paul’s Mission, Human Responsibility, and the Need for Salvation

What thou must do. So, was Paul seeking salvation? I've already got the answers. No, wasn't he seeking salvation? That's right, he knew what he was doing was going to persecute Christians, but he didn't know that he needed salvation.

He thought he was saved. He thought he already had salvation. Now that tells you something about the thing. What is your role as a Christian? It's to let people know that they are in need of salvation.

You can't save them. Only the Lord can do that. You may inform them, and you may not think you gain anything from it. Paul said, I watered, I planted the seed, and I polished water, and somebody else reaped the harvest.

You don't know, but what you do know is, it is incumbent upon a Christian, if you're going to behave like Christ, it is incumbent upon you to know what to do. Much then, as we are the offspring of God, that the Godhead is likely to go into a business called a raving.

God winked at us. When we didn't know any better, all men everywhere, it was only the day in which he would judge the world. For on that day, the church would all get ravened. On that day, we heard about the resurrection of the dead.

Others said, we will hear the parting of a certain man, and your guess is probably right. There's probably a certain man. The debaters often say, the stoppers were us. The debaters, we don't know. It may be.

It's not hardly a thing. It's certain men played a tune, and we don't believe it. We don't banter with them. It's this group of people. They were believers after the church, and they played tunes. If, in fact, there was a day of action after that, and probably.

I look at all of you, I'm sure of myself, but had ever been, Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. People were arguing at that time about who baptized whom, and some said, I am of Paul, and others denied myself.

He says, I want to preach the gospel. But didn't have the effect that we wanted. It should be made of non-effect. A speech, that doesn't mean anybody being saved. We want the gospel to be preached. I can just talk everybody into destroying the wisdom of the Bible, and I will bring to nothing the understanding of the truth.

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the distributor of the curse? After that, the wisdom of God, bought by the church, is preaching to save men that believe. Okay, they were blinded. This part of the court has been out of commission, but it's required a sign.

They want a miracle. They want something to show them. Why can't you just refuse to require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom? Those debates, the ones that said, well, you're more popular than slaves.

They want to come back and argue with the court, and he might talk them into it later, or they might talk him out of it, but they want more debate. The Greeks, he calls this, the Greek people, the stumbling block.

They don't want to lose power in the Roman Empire. They were the ones supplanting the Roman Empire. And to the Greeks, foolishness. This is silly stuff you're talking about. To call both Jews and Greeks the wisdom of God, because those who are not sent paid, not to baptize, is to be a cluster of foes, wiser than men, and the richness of God, going to go six years later.

And they came out, also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath for all to my trust in the flesh, I have a way of saying, if you think, you know, look at me, I am all, look at me at the value I have.

When we ate that cup of Israel, I wasn't a cup of Israel. I wasn't a cup of Israel. I was a cup of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. As touching the law, a Pharisee. Concerning the zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteous things, which is in the law, or if anybody obeyed the law, all things were yamed to me, those I called the law.

Praise all of these things I used to think were my son, a Pharisee. Benjamin. Named after Saul, the Pharisee, doubtless. And I count all things as God's. And what the law for all things, same value as that.

And do count them, but none. And to be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is in the law, and anybody who had righteousness by law, he would have been called. Which is through the faith of Christ, which is of God by faith.

Mars Hill.

You're wasting your time trying to convince these debaters to believe. He would not have understood that. He wouldn't have understood it until way later when he wrote Titus. He needed time to mature. And if Paul needed time to mature, everybody else that we will be talking to will also need time to mature.

And maybe you'll plant a seed and the seed is not ready even to be watered. It needs to sit there. And five years later, somebody might pour a little water and the seed sprout. You just don't know. But you do know what the Lord asked you to do.

Galatians 3 and the Transition from Law to Grace

So, we are now through our introduction. I kind of like this. I picked this up from Brother David. Expand your introduction and you have less new stuff to do. We finish chapter 3 with this. And if you...

Chapter 3 of Galatians, in case you forgot where we are. By the way, I forgot where I was last week and told you we were in chapter 4 when we were still in chapter 3. But we're going to get to chapter 4 real quickly.

David was going to start on 29. If you be Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. That was the last verse of chapter 3. We're going to go right into chapter 4. Now, I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all.

Now, I found this in John Calvin's commentary on Galatians. He says this. Now I say, who made the division into chapters has improperly separated this paragraph from the proceeding. As it is nothing more than a concluding section in which Paul explains and illustrates the difference that existed between us and the ancient people.

He does so by introducing a third comparison drawn from the relationship which a person under age has to his tutor. The young man, though he is free, though he is Lord of all his father's family, still resembles a slave.

For he is under the government of a slave. He is under the government of tutors. He is less than a slave. He is being ruled by a slave, even though he is the Lord of all. But the period of the guardianship lasts only until a time appointed by the father.

So there's a time when the father says you're no longer under the guardian. Now what he's getting ready to do, what Paul is getting ready to do, is he's getting ready to say the Lord is now saying it is time for you to no longer be under the schoolmaster, to no longer be under the governor, to no longer be under the tutor.

It's now time for you to be under grace. So it is a change from being under the law to under grace. And what determines that time? What determines when that time occurs? God. Now there's two aspects to this.

There's the aspect of me as an individual. There was a time when I as an individual was under the law. All I had was the law. I was ruled and my behavior was influenced to some degree by the law. I knew it was against the law to kill and I didn't want to kill anyhow, so that was good.

I knew it was against the law to steal and even though I was tempted by things, I knew that the punishment would outweigh what I would get so I didn't steal. I was in some way kept under control by the law.

But there came a time when the Lord took me and took you out from under the rules of the law and put you under grace. And the real reason for that is you couldn't keep the laws anyhow. Now I told you I didn't kill and I didn't steal but I did do some things that I shouldn't have done.

I broke those laws. And the Bible says if you break one, you break them all. So if you have violated one law, you're guilty of them all. And so I was guilty under the law just like all of you were and still would be if you were still under the law.

In this respect, going back to Calvin, in this respect the fathers under the Old Testament being the sons of God were free. I think I did that wrong. Oh, I got the fathers wrong. The fathers were the ancient fathers, those that were coming out from under the law.

The fathers under the Old Testament being sons of God were free. But they were not in possession of that freedom while the law held the place of the tutor and kept them under the yoke. That slavery of the law lasted as long as it pleased God who put an end to it at the coming of Christ.

That's the bigger thing. That's the Old Testament dispensation compared to the New Testament dispensation. And Calvin says that's really what Paul is talking about here. He's not really talking about me as an individual recognizing at some point, as Brother Otis would say, recognizing that I belong to him.

But the church as a whole, the Israelite church compared to the Christian church, the church under the law compared to the church under grace. He said lawyers enumerate various methods of coming under the tutelage of a governorship.

But of all these methods, the only one adapted to this comparison is that which Paul selected, the appointment of the father. So here's what he says. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the fathers.

Even so, when we were children, we're under bondage under the elements of the world. When we were children, when the church was a childish church, the Israelite church, under bondage to the law is under bondage to the elements of the world.

John MacArthur says this. Elements is from the Greek word meaning row or rank. It's kind of like a periodic table for those of you who know science. The elements on the periodic table, the basic building blocks from which everything is made, that's what the elements are, the basic rules.

Here, the reference is to the basic elements and rituals of human religion. Paul describes both the Jewish and Gentile religions as elemental because they're merely human, never rising to the level of the divine.

Both Jewish religions and Gentile religion centered on man-made systems of work. They will fill with laws and ceremonies to be performed so as to achieve acceptance. All such rudimentary elements are immature, like the behavior of children under the bondage of a guardian.

So, if your religion is one based upon rules and regulations and laws to keep, which I can keep my set of laws better than anybody else can, but even I can't keep my set of laws perfectly, if that's where your religion is, it is fundamental, it's based upon laws, it's elemental like the behavior of children under the bondage of a guardian.

The Fullness of Time, the Virgin Birth, and Christ Under the Law

I'm going to read one more verse and I'm going to comment on it a couple of minutes and then I'm going to be through for the day. But when the fullness of time was come, but when the fullness of time was come, there came a time when God sent forth His Son made of woman, made under the law.

Now, there's four things here to consider and I'm going to consider all four of them but only one of them today. The fullness of time, I'm going to skip. God sent forth His Son, I'm going to skip except to say that if God sent forth His Son, the Son must have already existed prior to His being sent forth.

And when did He send Him forth? At the foundation of the world, so Jesus was already a member of the Godhead before He was sent forth. Made of woman. Now, there's a lot to that. The real crux to that problem is not the genetics, not the fact that it was a virgin birth, but that Jesus was not only totally God, the preexistent God, the God that existed before time began, but He is now totally man.

And because He's totally God, He can keep the law. And because He was totally man, He can pay the price. And it takes both of those. He has to be of infinite worth to be able to pay the price. He has to be God to be able to obey the law.

But He has to be man in order to bear the punishment for it. Made under the law, that's what I want to look at just a little bit today. And then we are through. I need to scroll down to it. Now here's what MacArthur said about under the law.

Like all men, Jesus was obligated to obey God's law. Was Jesus under grace? He was. Are you under grace? Was Jesus obliged to obey God's law? He was tempted like us. And I want to change the word. MacArthur said obligated, but I want to say more.

He did it because He wanted to. I like that better. But unlike anyone else, because He was God, He was able to perfectly obey the law. He was able to perfectly obey the law, and He did perfectly obey the law.

You couldn't. His sinlessness made Him the unblemished sacrifice for sins who fulfilled all righteousness. That is, He perfectly obeyed God in everything. He didn't mess up on a single one of God's laws.

He got them all right all the time. He perfectly obeyed God in everything. And it's that perfect righteousness that is given to you, that is imputed to those who believe in Him. Who else is it imputed to?

Well, yes, the elect. And that's what we were saying. That perfect righteousness is imputed to those who believe. And those who believe are the elect. Calvin said, When the fullness of time has come, He proceeds with the comparison that He had induced and applies to His purpose the expression which has already occurred, the time appointed by the Father, but still showing that the time which has been ordained by the providence of God was proper and seasonal.

The season was most fit and the mode of acting most proper, which providence God directs. He also says the literal rendering of this under the law, made under the law, is made under the law, but he interpreted, Calvin did, as subjugated under the law, which expressed more plainly the fact that He was placed under subjection to the law.

Christ’s Subjection to the Law and Our Adoption as Sons

Christ, the Son of God, who might have claimed exemption from every kind of subjugation, became subject to the law. I'm going to do that again. I really messed it up. Christ, the Son of God, who might have claimed to be exempt from every kind of subjugation, became subject to the law.

Why? Calvin said, he did it in our room, that he might obtain freedom for us. A man who is free, by constituting himself surety, redeems a slave by putting upon himself the chains and takes them off from the other.

So Christ chose to become liable to keep the law, that exemption from it might be obtained for us. Otherwise, it would have been no purpose that he should have come under the yoke of the law. For it is certain that he did not, of his own account, do so.

He didn't become subject to the law because he needed to. Because he could fulfill the law. He became subject to the law because you couldn't. To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Okay. I thought I had a question or a comment just now. Anything anybody wants to say? Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for this day and thank you for all the many blessings that you have. And thank you for providing for us a special time to come together to worship you and to praise you, to honor you, to learn more about you.

Keep us in Jesus' name. Bring us back again next week, if it's thy will. We thank you for all things. We praise you for all things. We honor you for all things. In Jesus' name we pray.