"Law: Good Or Bad?"
1/29/2012

Galatians 3:15-22 Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. 17 What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18 For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. 19 What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. 20 A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one. 21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life; then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22 But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. - NIV

        Good morning. Last week as I was shaking hands, a number of you had commented that you are so glad we are taking the time to study through Paul’s letter to the Galatians because it is at times a difficult book to grasp. Last week’s passage was difficult, as Paul wrote in a manner that probably made great sense to his original audience, but left us thinking, “What in the world is he trying to say?” But we took our time and worked through it, and from your comments I think most of you left here thinking; “Now I got it.” In fact those were the exact words of some of you to me. Now if Paul confused you at first last week, this week you might be even more confused after having heard Elise read it. Don’t get discouraged. It’s a hard passage, especially verse 20, which one commentator has stated there are as many opinions on what Paul was saying as there are years between Abraham and when the law was given, which we read was 430. And you know that author wasn’t exaggerating. Several scholars have actually undertaken counting up how many differing opinions there are on that verse and at last count had well over 300. In fact it would seem that most modern day scholars no longer even give an opinion on the verse but simply work to try to place all the hundreds of opinions that are out there into three or four major categories that they can let their readers know about. Again, don’t get discouraged. Let’s walk through the passage verse by verse, studying it, and with the help of the Holy Spirit and godly men who have been blessed by God to write and help us understand these verses, we will seek after the truth of God.
        Paul continues in these verses to develop his argument about the Gospel of Grace and the purpose of the Law. Perhaps it would be best at this point to review what we have learned from Paul so far. Bible Scholar Timothy George summarizes it this way, “Everyone who has been declared righteous before God, Jews and Gentiles alike, has come into this relationship through faith in Jesus Christ and not by observing the law. Even you Galatians, though you may have been hoodwinked about this, have to admit that you received the Holy Spirit and witnessed his miraculous works through the hearing of faith and not by works of the law. You want chapter and verse? Consider Gen. 15:6. Abraham believed God and was justified by faith. Furthermore, the law imposes a curse on everyone who does not obey it perfectly, which is to say, everyone. Why else did Christ die except to redeem us from the curse of the law? Don’t think for a minute that the law, which was given centuries later anyway, can alter God’s original promise to Abraham. No, you have to make a choice. It is either law of promise, works or faith, grace or merit.”
        Now we pick up Paul’s argument once again. He says in verse 15, “Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life.” Paul is being a good preacher/teacher here. Don’t you like when a teacher gets practical and gives you an illustration to help you understand a difficult concept. That’s what Paul wants to do for his listeners. He says, “Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.” Now Paul makes a funny “play on words” here. The Greek word for a covenant is diatheke. Say that with me, diatheke. You know that saying, the Greeks had a word for everything. Well, not quite. The Greeks didn’t have a separate word for a Will. The word for a will and the word for covenant were the exact same word, diatheke. So Paul has been talking to his audience so far in the letter about the covenant, the diatheke, God made with Abraham. Now he says, let’s take an example from everyday life, just as once a will, a diatheke, has been made, it can’t be altered, so it is in the case of God’s diatheke, God’s covenant with Abraham. Now that’s not the way it works in our culture, we can alter wills, adding, subtracting, altering it up until we die, but in the Jewish tradition at this time they could not. Once a diatheke was created it was final. So in the parable of the Prodigal Son, when the father divided his land between them, his diatheke had been established. The land was divided and sold. It couldn’t be changed. The transaction was final and unchangeable, and so it is with God’s diatheke with Abraham. The promise he made to Abraham was final, unchangeable; it couldn’t be altered, changed, or added to at a later date. We have to grasp that point if what Paul goes on to say is going to make any sense.
        So Paul says in verses 16-17, “16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. 17 What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.” Verse 16 can be confusing because of this word seed and the grammatical problems it creates between its singular and plural usage. So let’s use a different translation that tries to clear this up by using a different word. The New English Translation reads, “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. Scripture does not say, "and to the descendants," referring to many, but "and to your descendant," referring to one, who is Christ.” So the first reason Paul had made as to why the law can’t be added to the Gospel message was that God had made a diatheke with Abraham that couldn’t be changed, altered, or added to. So when the law was given 430 years after God had made the diatheke with Abraham it couldn’t change the diatheke or God would be going back on his word, and salvation would no longer be solely a matter of faith. So the law must have some other purpose than salvation because it can’t be a means of salvation.
        Paul’s second argument for this is in the verses we just looked at. The diatheke God made with Abraham was a promise made to him and his seed, his descendant, who Paul says was Jesus Christ, the one who was promised. Jesus was the heir of the promise given to Abraham, Paul says. So the false teachers can’t claim that God’s diatheke with Abraham had already been fulfilled during the time of Abraham and his children, and then God gave the law, because the heir to the promise was Jesus, the diatheke was ongoing. So again, salvation is through the promise of God fulfilled in Jesus, not in the law. Paul says it this way, “18 For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.”
        So now Paul gets to the question everyone in Galatia is probably wanting to ask, and which you might have wondered about at times yourself. “19 What, then, was the purpose of the law?” If God established salvation through faith all the way back with Abraham, if the gospel was announced all the way back then, even though they couldn’t comprehend it completely, then why cumber humanity with the Law, which Paul has already told us only has the power to condemn us. Paul says, “It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.”
        Although the law is not a source of salvation it plays a very important part in the salvation process, for if no law had been given we wouldn’t know that we needed a savior, we would just continue living in sinfulness. Think of a child. Does a child instinctively know what sin is? Does it know when it is doing wrong? What would happen to a child if no one ever corrected it, if no one ever told it when it was acting inappropriately, or when it was hurting others? Would that child grow up to be a wonderful, loving, generous person? That child would grow up to be an unbelievably self-centered, selfish, perhaps even violent person. So parents establish rules of right and wrong, correct etiquette, and manners. They teach them to their children. They establish punishments for breaking the rules. If the parents have expectations of their children, but never tell the children what is expected of them, are the children responsible for their actions? Yes and no. It’s not the child’s fault that they haven’t been told, and yet that doesn’t make their wrong action alright, it’s still wrong.
        That is what Paul is trying to convey. We are the children living in sin. We need to be taught what is right and wrong. The law was given because of transgressions, to make us conscience of our sin. People were living in an unholy way, but weren’t aware of it, but the fact that they weren’t aware of it didn’t mean that it was okay, and that they could continue on. So God gave the law that they might become aware of their sinful actions, but he did not give them the law so that they could then try to live by the law and save themselves. He gave it only for the purpose that they might realize their lost state and need of a savior. The law was given to drive people to Jesus!
        So is the law a good or bad thing you might ask. It is often viewed in a negative aspect as Paul reminds his readers, not just in this letter but in many others as well, that it only has the power to condemn. Not a very popular issue. Who would think positively of something that only condemns you? BUT, that doesn’t mean that the law is a bad thing, actually, I think that the law is a good thing, and I believe Paul did as well.
        First, the law is good because the law actually teaches us about God. It is a reflection of his character. You know God didn’t just make up a list of rules and say this is a good thing to do and this is a bad thing to do. Could God have said, “You shall murder. You shall steal. You shall covet your neighbors wife,” and because God said so they would be good things? No! Why? Because God did not just make up a list and decide what was going to be ok and what wasn’t. It’s not like He could have reversed everything. The law is a reflection of His own character. If we study it, we can learn about our God and His attributes: about his justness, about his patience, about his love, about grace and forgiveness, about equality, about community, about the value of life, and so much more. The law isn’t bad; it’s good. It reflects the character of our holy God. The fact that we can’t live up to it does not make it bad.
        But the law is good for an even more important reason. It’s good for a reason that affects you and me and everyone else in the world. The law doesn’t save, but it has a vital part to play in the work of salvation. Paul says in verse 22, “But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin.” The law is the juror in this courtroom. It decides the sentence and reads the verdict, and it’s always the same, “Guilty!” Who is guilty? Paul says the ‘whole world’ gentile and Jew, black and white, old and young, ruler or slave, rich or poor, powerful or weak, male or female, all are found guilty. And Paul says that because the law finds us guilty we are in a prison. We are in sin’s prison. Now this is interesting. You see the Jews thought quite a bit of themselves because God had given them the law. They saw themselves as privileged because they had the law of God to live by. Instead of allowing the law to fulfill its purpose they turned it into a road to salvation. They thought it protected them. They pictured it as a fence that separated them from the heathen gentiles. But now Paul turns that image around on them. He says, ‘you know that fence surrounding you that you think protects you? Well that fence is actually made of barbed wire. It’s not keeping others away. It’s keeping you in. It’s a prison fence and the law is the one that put you there.
        The law is just fulfilling its purpose. A God ordained purpose, and if God purposed it, then it can’t be bad. You see God didn’t give the law with the expectation that people would follow it and be saved. He knew that every single person that ever lived would be condemned by it. That’s its purpose. That’s why he gave it. He gave it for the very purpose, that we would become conscience of our sin and stand condemned by the law. Sounds bad, right? It’s not. That is the act of a loving God who loved us so much that He couldn’t stand to see us live out our lives in ignorance of our sin and its consequences. There is no escaping sin’s prison walls. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves, but without the law we don’t even know we are in prison. That is its purpose. Without the law we wouldn’t know that we are in need of a savior. Without the law we would be ignorant of our sin. Without the law we would be lost. Is the law a good thing? Oh yes. But we try to turn it into something it’s not. We try to assign it a purpose other than what God intended it for.
        Paul concludes this section of his argument with these words in verse 22, “so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.” You see following the law is not a bad thing. It pleases God when His people live in accordance with His character, but following the law won’t save us, for we can’t follow it perfectly. There is nothing you or I can do to save ourselves. We can’t even help in the process. We do nothing. God does everything. That is the promise. That is the gospel message. That’s what grace is all about. God has done everything, all we do is stop trying to do it ourselves and have faith in what God has done.
        God has made it so simple for us. He has done absolutely everything; there is nothing we need to do. He’s done it all. All we need to do is believe in Him. We need to place our faith for eternity in Him and what He has done on our behalf. Sounds simple, right? But it’s tough letting go. 
        Have you ever watched a trapeze show at a circus? They are incredible to watch. I can remember going with my family to the arena in Hershey to see The Ringling Brother’s circus and watching the trapeze. The timing the acrobats had as they swung on the ropes, twisting and flying through the air. Not all of the acrobats flew through the air though; some were catchers. It was their job to catch the one who was helplessly flying in the air. I see a lot of similarities between trapeze artists and the gospel message. God is the catcher. He is the one that saves us from plummeting to our death. He’s the one that saves us, and in order to do that He must do all the work. He needs to watch us. His timing must be just right if He is going to be in the right place at the right time to catch us. He has to have the sure hands to reach out and grab us out of the air. Everything is up to him. We are the other acrobat. We are totally helpless flying through the air, there is nothing we can do to save ourselves from falling, we are totally dependant on the catcher to be there to grab us, but there is something the acrobat has to do before the catcher can pluck them out of the air and save them from falling. They have to have enough faith in their catcher to let go of their own rope.
        Will you let go? Will you place your faith in God? Will you give up trying to do it yourself, or your own way, and instead allow yourself to become vulnerable enough to trust in Him to save you? Will you let go of your rope and have faith that the catcher’s sure hands are there to grab you?