I chose to preach the last posted sermon over two Sundays instead of just one. This Sunday I returned to the ongoing study of Galatians.
Galatians: A Study of Christian Freedom
Lesson 8: Where There’s A Will. Galatians 3:15-18
As I began considering this passage, I recalled an event that took place shortly before we moved to Ohio from Texas. Concerned about the direction some state conventions had been taking, the trustees of Baylor University tried to assure the control of the school would not fall into the hands of those who had an agenda running contrary to academic freedom and the broad evangelicalism that marked the school. The trustees concluded it would be better if the university could become independent of the state convention.
Texas Baptists have several wonderful schools but, without doubt, Baylor is the jewel. Texans might know Wayland, Hardin-Simmons, and Howard Payne, but the world knows Baylor. As you might imagine, the debate was heated; both sides brought out the lawyers.
One of the legal arguments made reflected Texas’ special history. Baylor was founded during the days of the Republic of Texas, when Texas was an independent nation. The state convention was not created until after statehood. Consequently, Baylor’s charter was older than the convention’s charter.
Baylor’s trustees argued that the school’s charter had precedent, so the school should be independent from the state convention. In the end, messengers to the state convention—which happened to meet in Waco that year—voted to give the university its independence. The school is free from state convention control, though it maintains a good relationship with Texas Baptists.
Keep that story in mind as we read about Abraham.
15 Brothers and sisters, I give an example from daily life: once a person’s will has been ratified, no one adds to it or annuls it.
In using “an example from daily life” Paul was making an a point his readers—both slave and free—would be likely to understand. While not everyone in the Galatian congregations would have had an estate that required a will, most would have probably known the basics of how wills worked. Even the slaves would have known that a will defined the will-maker’s wishes.
Some suggest that a more modern example would be an irrevocable trust but I think the notion of a will is sufficient to get Paul’s point across.
As every reader of cozy mysteries knows, modern wills can be changed to add or remove beneficiaries. Under Greek law this wasn’t possible; once the will was sealed and deposited with the authorities it could not be changed. In certain cases, Jewish wills could not be changed. While Roman law allowed wills to be changed, Paul seems to have had the older policy in mind.
16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, “And to offsprings,” as of many; but it says, “And to your offspring,” that is, to one person, who is Christ.
What is Paul saying? At first glance he might seem to be playing verbal tricks, seizing on a minor grammatical matter to make his argument. After all, “offspring” or “seed” can refer to either many or to just one. Though it might seem strange to us, Paul’s argument would have been familiar to this Jewish readers and the Judaizers among them.
Rabbis often used such arguments. Keener gives another example when he says that rabbis sometimes interpreted the term “sons of Israel” to mean “sons and daughters” and sometimes interpreted it to mean just “sons,” depending on the case they were making.
Here Paul argues that the promise was made to Abraham’s most significant Offspring, Jesus Christ.
As Paul will stress elsewhere, it is very important we have a spiritual relationship with that Offspring.
17 My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.
The Law was very important to the Judaizers; in fact, it was important to all the Jews. they rightfully saw it as one of their great gifts to humankind. But Paul wants to be clear: the giving of the Law did not trump the covenant made with Abraham, the principle that righteousness comes by faith prevails.
The 430 years to which Paul refers appears to be from the time of the renewal of the Abrahamic covenant with Jacob. So, even though five centuries intervened from the time God originally made the promise to Abraham, the giving of the Law did not invalidate that promise.
18 For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise; but God granted it to Abraham through the promise.
Paul is echoing a point he has already made about how God has chosen to deal with sinners. It’s the same principle he recalled in his confrontation with Peter, the principle that says, “we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law [that is, keeping the minutiae of the Law] but through faith in Jesus Christ.” And this principle reflects God’s dealings with Abraham. This is clear in some alternative renderings of this verse:
The Voice: “You see, if the law became the sole basis for the inheritance, then it would put God in the position of breaking a covenant because He had promised it to Abraham.”
J B Phillips: “For if the receiving of the promised blessing were now made to depend on the Law, that would amount to a cancellation of the original “contract” which God made with Abraham as a promise.”
I think it’s possible to say Paul is making the case that God’s integrity is at stake here.
God didn’t change the rules in mid-game. We can be ever grateful for this. We still can’t win God’s favor with our own efforts, our own rule-keeping; we still need grace.
Of course, this raises the question, What is the purpose of the law?
We are going to consider that question bur for now I want to look at some implications of what Paul is saying.
The gospel’s message of grace does not represent a new way for God to deal with sinners. God always intended to deal with sinners (us, in other words) on the basis of faith. As Paul has already pointed out, we cannot keep the law with all its demands. Just as Martin Luther realized he needed to “find a gracious God,” we need to find a gracious God. And gracious is what God has been all along.
W. T. Dayton writes, “The promise, with its method of faith was never changed or abrogated. It is [legalism, not the gospel of grace] that has deviated from Old Testament revelation”
Christ has always been at the center of God’s plan for dealing with fallen humanity.
John Stott comment on verse 16 shows this.
… Paul's interpretation [of “seed”] is based on his conviction that Christ is the sole heir and channel of God's promised blessing. So while he uses common Jewish methods of exegesis, Paul's messianic interpretation of seed restricts the reference to Christ and negates the common nationalistic interpretation [that one must be a Jew to receive God’s blessing]. It is no longer necessary to be in the Jewish nation to be a recipient of the promises; it is necessary to be in Christ.
For the Galatians, this meant the Judaizers claim that one must become a Jew before one could become a Christian was false. As Paul had stressed before, what was important was not adherence to the minutia of the law (circumcision, diet, holy days) but a relationship with God through faith in Christ.
We are not facing the same situation the Galatians faced we still face those who would tell us that our relationship with God is based on Christ plus something else. Remember how at the beginning of this study we defined such legalism. We said it was that outlook that says spirituality may be achieved by strictly following a code of conduct that may, at times, exceed any behavior required in the scripture and observing certain taboos that may find little support in the Scripture. In extreme cases, legalists believe their way of life actually contributes to their earning God’s favor.
This constant threat means we have to be especially careful about the message we present. We must be clear about the gospel.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the church at its best has been Christocentricity. That is, the message of Christ has been at the heart of the church’s preaching and teaching. Forget that and though the church might manage to make the community and the culture better for a while, it will make no eternal impact.
Putting God’s grace as manifested in sending Christ at the center of our message doesn’t mean the church has no moral message. But, if you’ll forgive the cliche, it does mean we need to be careful that in pressing our moral message we don’t become guilty of placing the cart before the horse.
