Why the Law?
Galatians 3:19-24 · Roger Henderson · Jun 23, 2019
Galatians (2018-20), No. 27
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261915217794

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I must admit, I feel like I have a daunting task in terms of the law. But actually, the more I thought about it, I was going to do a search. If you guys have a computer Bible, you know, it's a piece of cake these days. You just type in, you know, law and you'll get all, you know, 400 occurrences or whatever. So I'm curious. I'm going to do it for next week because this is a three-part series on what is the law.

Let me just go to that here before I get too far. We're going to start in verse 19 and finish up in 24 today. We're just going to focus on verse 19 But this is all in the greater context of what is the law and that's a super good question And and we're going to find that Paul spends a tremendous amount of time on the law In his writings he just over and over again, and I've come to kind of realize that he wants it's a It's a sounding board to show us God's grace, because the law is so rigid. It says, thou shall do this, thou shall not do that. And if you don't do that, you're in big trouble. I mean, the law says you can't miss one. You miss one, you go to the mall. So the law is rigid, whereas God's grace is God's grace. Marvelous, wonderful, personal.

So the law is a sounding board, it seems like, that Paul uses throughout his writings. So let's kind of get into it here. So I like Chester Macaulay. It seems like Andrew and I, the same guys. Actually, I realize that it's the three M's. Macaulay, Merriman, Malloy, those three M's. And I thank her brother, Hal, for just being able to, you know, pretty, pretty cool stuff. Anyway, the three M's. So I'm going to use the three M's quite a bit today. So let's get into the first M here, Macaulay.

He's going to give us an outline here. And this is what I'm just going to go, this is what Mike covered the last maybe four or five, four weeks, say. He talked about the law did not modify the promise. And one little caveat before I start, and I may be using it, I'm going to try to clarify it maybe next week or the following week.

You're going to hear the term the promise. That's what we studied early in Galatians where Abraham believed God. By faith and it was reckoned to him as righteousness and that's the same thing that we are to do as believers We're to count up when God says we believe it and we're counted righteous. Well, that's called the promise and that's in Genesis 15 but earlier on three chapters before that he declares to Abraham He's going to give him a land the seed and a blessing already before he's even had any conversations with him This is what I'm going to do it Abraham. So I found in my study in And even in what people say, they'll interchange the promise and the Abrahamic covenant, kind of.

And I'd like to kind of clarify that a little bit more, but I'm going to use it interchangeably for right now. So come and see me afterwards if that really bothers you. But anyway, right now, the promise, the Abrahamic covenant, I'm going to kind of use interchangeably. So hopefully that doesn't confuse you.

OK, so let's go to part two here, what we're going to cover now. The law has a definite purpose. Even under grace, the law has a definite purpose. And the anticipated question that McCauley talks about is our question today, why the law? And he's going to answer it starting in 19 and proceed on. And there's something he calls it the incorrect conclusion. We'll see that. But then he calls it the success. The success of the law, this is pretty cool, seems kind of a negative. The first one, the law is successful as a jailer. And the law is successful as a tutor. We all know about the tutor. But as a jailer?

And actually, in what was read, it's in there, if you listen carefully. So we're going to learn about that. That's probably the last week of what we're going to talk about. So that's kind of where we're going. So let's start off with, why the law? So here's what I put on three things I thought you probably could give me more.

What some Christians think about the law. I don't think I'd be surprised if someone in this body thinks this, but maybe there are. Christians need a set of rules to live by. Man is dead in transgressions and sins and needs to follow the law to be saved. Actually, that question was answered in the verses that were read. Lastly, Christians need the law to keep themselves saved.

So it's all kind of wrapped up in that the law is somehow going to help us to become a Christian, to remain a Christian, But God's Word teaches so much the opposite. But actually, there's probably a large body of believers out there, you know, God is gracious, that are all confused by the law. And they want to show that as their way to interface with God. And it's not what God desires.

Okay, so let's get into the text here. First verse. Why the law? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. So why the law? So actually, I also like Wiest, because I got three M's and a W now so far. Wiest renders this, what is then the significance of the law?

OK, so here's if you look back, you know, look back, we've been spending. When do we start in Chapter three? I don't know. Months ago. Right. And you start looking through Chapter three and Chapter three doesn't have a lot of good things to say about the law. Just one thing after another. So I borrowed some of the one of the M's comments here from my brother, Hal. So here's the shortcomings of the law. And what he's done is, if you look at verses 1 through 18, the previous verses in chapter 3, and you state them in a kind of slightly different way, you'll get this list. And I may just read some to kind of show you, get our feet on the ground.

But let's just start off here. In Galatians 2, it says, one cannot receive the Holy Spirit by the law. In 3.3, it says, one cannot be made perfect or complete by the works of the law, by the works of the flesh. God cannot abundantly supply the Holy Spirit and his ministry by the law. If one is under law, he's under a curse.

So let's just stop at that one for a second. If you read, that's not, if you're reading your Bible, you're not going to read that. But that's kind of flipping it around to put it in a different statement. This verse 310 says, for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.

So our brother Hal just summarized it. If one is under the law, he's under a curse. And that's the way all these go. So if you're after class or at home, take your text and line that with brother Hal's. If you want this, I'll get you a copy of it. We can do that. That's easy. So anyway.

No man is justified, declared righteous by the law. Twelve, the law is not out of faith. See, that's interesting. There's no faith involved in the law. And you wonder, how can people get so confused thinking that the law is going to help them when there's actually no faith? The law just says, do this and don't do that. And it's all on you. It's just you're looking at that law, looking at that list and saying, boy, I did pretty good here, but boy, I messed up there. You're in trouble.

OK, 313, Christ had to die to redeem us from the curse of the law. 17, the law could not annul or abolish God's covenants. And then 18, our inheritance of righteousness being complete in Christ and blessed with every spiritual blessing cannot come from the law. So this is kind of a review of the first 18 verses, kind of in a different way, that kind of sets the stage for trying to answer this question.

So let's carry on here. So, okay, it says, why the law then? It was added because of transgressions. Well, it seems like a harsh statement. It's added before the transgressions. The Lord's trying to make me transgress? What's he doing to me? You know, is he tricking me? No, I think we're going to find... First of all, let's think about the added part. It was added, and that's pretty crucial here.

Because remember how Mike in his real estate days with contracts and stuff, you know, he signed a contract. Boy, you sign that contract, you sign it there. I'll take you to court. If you don't perform to that contract, they can take you to court. Now, these days, you know, with the right lawyers, anything's possible, it seems like. But if you abide by the contract and try to live up to the contract and what your signature says, and so that's going to be Paul's point. It was his point earlier. He's going to continue to make that point.

It says the law was added. So we need to say, how was it added? Okay. But Mike covered this in Galatians 3.15b, it says, even though it, and this is where he talked about a human contract, is only a man's covenant, yet it, human contract, has been ratified, when you ratify it, you sign it, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it.

So the adds here, that's actually a different word than the added. There's adds and there's added. Those are different Greek words. The adds in 315 is to make an addition to. So Paul is not saying that the law made an addition to his covenant of grace or the covenant of promise or the Abrahamic covenant. He's not saying that he's added new conditions. He just made this point earlier that even human contracts don't do that. You go to court if you do that. But in 19 it says, added here is to place beside. It's to come alongside and in parallel.

The law is going to come along and it's going to aid us in understanding the Abrahamic covenant or the covenant of promise. So the law was placed beside or in parallel with the Abrahamic covenant or the promise. It did not add new conditions to this covenant. It did not replace or change anything of the covenant.

Its purpose will be seen in the remaining verses. Okay, so another M is coming up here. This is going to be Merriman this time. And he had this cool picture I found in some of his writings. And I wanted to show it here because it kind of shows the parallel nature of the Abrahamic covenant. or the grace promise and the law. What's in the red circle, that's what was added or placed alongside.

So we have the overarching principle of grace. Men are saved by grace through faith. And that started 430 years before the law was given. And it remains in effect for all time. God is operating in the grace system by man's faith. So the law comes along.

It comes along Mount Sinai. And actually, it's a temporal thing. Maybe it's a little bit too busy for you here. It's hard to read. But it goes from Mount Sinai. Actually, I'll say it. It goes from one mountain to another mountain. And we'll see it in a second. So this is the parallel nature. It comes along. It does not, according to this little picture here, there's no change to the grace promise. It carries on.

But this has been added. So the question is, how is this going to help me? If you're looking for results-oriented person, how is this going to help me? Okay? That's a question you want to kind of keep in mind. How's this going to help me? All right. So let's... Then I also did a...

I also had like a little table, which I thought was worthwhile, comparing the Abrahamic covenant or the promise with the law. The emphasis in the Abrahamic covenant of grace as a promise, God is the object, right? By grace through your faith. The law, as I mentioned before, you're totally locked into these rules. Good. This is helpful. This is bad. The response. Our response is by faith. The response is expected under law. We've got to work for it. We've got to do this and do that. And it reminded me of Deuteronomy, which is kind of a restatement of the law. It says in Deuteronomy 11.

Remember the two mountains? The mountains of the blessing and the mountains of the curses? I'll just read you this section. And so this is Moses writing here. See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. Blessing if you listen to the commandment of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today, and a curse if you do not listen to the commandment of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you to do, by following other gods which you have not known. So under the law, you're locked into following What he said, do this and don't do that.

Then the results, the results of faith. It's God's righteousness. Just like with Abraham, it was reckoned to him as righteousness under the law. It's man's righteousness. Think about the, the epitome of that, I think was the Pharisees. They were the most self-righteous persons out there.

They, we've got this, we know every 613 laws. We've got laws on top of that to make sure we don't violate those laws and we are pretty good guys We really know what to do and the rest of you. Good luck. You know, it's sort of Not too good So the effect the effect of the Abrahamic coming of the covenant of grace is liberty in Christ The effect of the law is bondage defeat death So you think how can any good come out of the law? So we're going to keep going here.

I It was added because of transgression. So now let's tackle the because of transgressions. This is pretty important that we kind of come to grips with this. And we'll define what transgressions is here shortly. But let's first of all, we're going to deal with some pronouns here.

Pronouns. That's not right. Prepositions, right? I'll be fine here. I only knew English. I didn't do well in English in school. I probably it's amazing. I'm up here talking about prepositions and pronouns and verbs. And anyway, OK, I believe it's we're talking about prepositions. OK.

Okay, so because of, if you read the text as it says, it was added because of transgressions. Because of says that the reason for the law was to control the transgressions. It's sort of like God said, boy, we've got some problems down there. We'll get that law lickety-split, four and thirty years with that law down there, and it's going to control those, put those billboards up, and that'll help them out. That's one translation, okay?

But Romans 5.20 says this, The law came in so that the transgressions would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So the transgression, and this is kind of, you know, it has a purpose, and it's to increase things. And you think, why in the world does he want to increase things?

So I don't think because of is the best translation of that pronoun, not pronoun, preposition. For the sake of is a better translation. And for sake of says the reason for the law was so that sin would become obvious and would be spotlighted by the law.

Before the law came, you know, man didn't have a benchmark to live by, if you would. So it would read this way. For the sake of transgressions, it was added. Macaulay has some things to say here. If the law would therefore serve to show man how badly he needed a savior. And then Merriman has, the law was given to clarify sin. It provided an external standard against which one could measure his consciousness and acts. Okay.

And then Malloy says, the law was added to reveal the sinfulness of the sin nature. All those are just great statements. So here's a couple of verses that kind of go along here, are helpful, that kind of back up the fact that the law stirs up transgressions. For the law brings about wrath. Well, that sounds pretty hard.

But where there is no law, there's no violation. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. By adding the law in parallel to God's grace, does it make men sinners? This is kind of a trick question. Does the law make men sinners? All you people that have been in identification and think about Adam, does the law make men sinners? So what do you think the answer is? I'm not asking the answer out, but think about that. So I think there's two parts to the answer. First of all, God's not the author of sin. He's holy, righteous, and just.

So why would he give the law to make men sinners? And that's kind of where the transgression part kind of gets all confused. And secondly, the law did not make men sinners. Men were already sinners because of who? Thank you, Adam. Right. They were already sinners to start with. They already were sinners. It just wasn't made obvious to them. So transgression is the idea to step over a limit. So basically, by transgression, the law there, they say, I have stepped over a limit. I've stepped over this. I've lied. I've done whatever. So the law is to reveal sin, not make men sinners. Okay.

Now, this part, the rest of the verse now, he's going to talk about how the law is really an incredible thing, and how it was presented. How was the law presented? And you guys kind of already know this, you know the story of the giving of the law, you know, where Moses went up the mountain, and he got the tablets, the Ten Commandments, and he came down, and he gave them to the people of Israel, and then eventually, you know, he had to go back and get some more, and he came down again. So we know that story. But during that, it was miraculous, right? The mountain was alive with fire, angels were involved, and so it says, having been ordained through angels, to arrange throughout, to dispose in order, like trees, or to line up, and Acts kind of sheds some light on this. You have received the law as ordained by angels, kind of backing up what I mentioned before. A couple of the verses that talk about that. So let's look at Acts. I'm going to read both of these.

In Acts 7.38, it says, So God gave the law in a spectacular way.

It was given and given through the angels and through Moses. And then another verse, he said, Moses said, the Lord came from Sinai, dawned on them in Seir. He shone from Mount Paran. He came from the midst of 10,000 holy ones. I think it's speaking of angels there. At his right hand, there was flashing of light. So it was a pretty spectacular event, the giving of the law.

And the agent, the mediator, is by the hand of, it kind of fits very well, of Moses carrying the tablets. And we sang the song, there's one mediator. There was a mediator for the law, which was a man, but the mediator for us is Christ, which is pretty cool. And that's the verse, that's what the psalm is saying, for there's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. That's Moses. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as he speaks to his friends. And there's also in Exodus 34, 34. So, okay, let's see, where are we going here?

Okay, so the last part is, until the seed would come, to whom the promise had been made. So now what's going to happen, the last part of this verse is going to kind of tell us, we kind of saw it in the pictorial, there's a time period God has set for the law.

It goes from, like I mentioned, it goes from two mountains to Calvary, and so that's the time period he set for the law. The law was added until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. The seed is Christ. It was intended to be in effect until Christ came and went to the cross. Merriman says here, the law was a temporary expedient in God's plan for mankind.

It was given to Israel about 1446 BC and ended with Christ, the promised seed. His origins were on Mount Sinai and his terminations were on Mount Calvary. And the last part is here, to whom the promise has been made. Now, the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say to seeds as referring to many, but rather to one, and to your seed, that is Christ.

All right, so let's see here. All right. OK, so just had some final thoughts here. So like I said, this is the first of three parts. We've done kind of verse 19. We've seen that it was because of transgressions, or better, for the sake of transgressions, that the law was given. It had a time period for effectiveness. So I had a couple of statements here that I'd like to read.

The law was added, but the promise of Abrahamic covenant was original. It preceded the law by the 460 years. The law was temporary. The promise is permanent. It's by grace through faith. And the law was given indirectly. It was given through men, right? Through angels and men. Whereas the promise was given directly to Abraham. Abraham was spoken to directly.

And that's the way to think about it. That's the way that almost all of Paul's writings talks about our relationship. We don't need a mediator. we can go directly to our Savior, and that's what's so marvelous, what distinguishes true Christianity from other things. We have a direct connection to our Savior, and His Spirit is to guide us and show us the things of Christ, and that's His method, and that method has been in effect since Abraham, the Abrahamic promise, and it remains in effect. The law came into Highlight or spotlight sin, but there's some other details that we're going to see as we go down the road here some other He's going to talk more about the law and how it interacts. He's going to talk about the jailer how it's a jailer And then also how it's our tutor to lead us to Christ Alright, so let's close.

We thank you father. We thank you for your marvelous grace father we thank you for We thank you for the law because it was given to show us things about ourselves, to show us things about how you interact with us and what you accomplished. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.