Sunday Morning Service

Galatians 3:1-18

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“If It Was Good Enough For Abraham...” • 6.9.13 • Calvary Christian Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service

Intro.

- Chapters 1 and 2 of Galatians have furnished us with a powerful look into the Apostle Paul's "Personal Experience" of God's grace.

- It was grace that transformed him into a believer, an Apostle, calling people like the Galatians to receive that same grace that called them into a relationship with God in Christ.

- Today, we begin a new section of the book of Galatians, where we will begin to uncover the Apostle Paul's "Doctrinal Explanation" of God's grace.

- Chapter 3 and 4 will give us an sketchbook history of the redemption of mankind, complete with a master's explanation of scripture.

Text

• Galatians 3:1 : "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?" : The Philips translation provides us with this translation: "Oh you dear idiots!"

- It's not that they were unintelligent. The sense is that they were not thinking through to the end. They are short sighted spiritually, not understanding the ramifications of their beliefs.

- They were attracted to what they were thinking in that moment, but where was it leading them? What was the end of their mental, spiritual journey?

- Paul wants to know who had charmed or put a spell on them, causing them to act differently from what you had obviously learned? "Who has been getting into your head?"

- Paul knows where it had come from and how foreign it was to what they had learned. It had to be imposed upon the Galatians.

- I remember hearing a Pastor exhort his congregation to read nothing but the Bible, in terms of spiritual or Christian books, for the first 3 years of their Christian life.

- Why? Because that is where the misleading begins. It's the Bible plus the Watchtower for the Jehovah's Witness, the book of Mormon for the Mormons and Ellen G. White for the Adventists.

- Their abberant teachings are foreign to the Bible, but they have successfully bewitched their people by introducing material that calls them away from the truth.

- What the Galatians arrived at was something that man had invented for them to obey!

- For the Galatians, they had seen Jesus Christ crucifed, not physically, but through Paul's preaching and teaching to them. Through his words, Paul had taken the congregation to Golgotha.

- Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among them. The word refers to an ancient type of billboard with clear and large writing on it, announcing something for all to see!

- Do not miss this in connection with Paul's last statement in chapter 2. If a person can be justified through the works of the law, then Christ died in vain!

- Paul put up the billboard: "Jesus was crucified for our sins!" How could they have been charmed away from Him!? It baffled Paul.

• Galatians 3:2-4 : "This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?" : Paul reminds them of their experience. They had experienced God's Holy Spirit. They had been baptized and filled!

- Had that happened by law keeping? Did they get circumcised? Did they join the Jewish synagogue? Did they keep a single law for a single day? No sir, not in any way!

- Instead, they had received the full measure of God's grace simply by hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ and responding in faith. Paul spoke and their hearts believed what he was saying!

- Paul's rhetorical question must have hit their hearts as they remembered how woefully  and blissfully ignorant they were of God's law. They had not been influenced by law, but by grace.

- What a foolish thing then to begin that way, then to try to complete that work by the flesh! God made a beginning for you. Are you trying to finish what He started in your own efforts?

- What a strong word for us today! Grace began our walk with the Lord and it will take wisdom to continue to wait on His grace to complete it! Don't count on your flesh to finish what God started!

- Paul asks them, "Have you suffered" which may refer to the suffering of persecution for their belief, though the word is also translated experienced.

- What had they experienced? Salvation. Forgiveness. Peace. The Holy Spirit. Was that all for nothing? How can your flesh produce those results? They cannot!

• Galatians 3:5 : "Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—" : God is the One who supplies that Spirit. The word "supplies" speaks of one who would become the benefactor of a chorus and furnish them with what they needed at his own expense.

- God had picked up the tab and done the works of power among them. They had seen God do things that were amazing in their midst! Did He do these things by works or by their faith?

- Had it been a matter of obligation or grace? Obviously it had been grace because it has always been grace! Paul moves from their history to redemptive history!

- He says in essence, "Let me begin at the beginning!"

• Galatians 3:6 : "just as Abraham 'believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.'" : God supplied the full measure of His justification to the Galatians in the same way that he had justified Abraham with a full measure of blessing!

- Who could deny that Abraham was saved fully and completely! How did that take place? Abraham believed God!

- Abraham didn't do anything. He did not perform in any way. Abraham simply believed God. What did he believe God about? Paul is quoting from Genesis 15:6.

- The context of that passage begins in chapter 14, when during a war between Sodom's Kings, Abraham's nephew Lot was carried away captive.

- In an instinctual response, Abraham mounted a hasty rescue with only 318 men and came away victorious, saving Lot and his family.

- In chapter 15, he stands alone, perhaps pondering what retaliation he could expect or wondering what would have happened to God's promise had he died.

- Years earlier, in Genesis 12, God had promised Abraham a son, one who would begin a line that would lead to the entire earth being blessed, speaking prophetically of the Messiah, Jesus.

- Now, he stands here afraid and wondering about his future. How could God accomplish His promise when his only heir is a servant that was born in his house!

- This is where God answers Abraham, in one of the most pivotal moments of scripture.

• Genesis 15:4,5 : "And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 'This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.' Then He brought him outside and said, 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.'" : God promised him an heir and descendants that would be as innumerable as the stars.

- You're not able to number the stars and you can't number how many sons that his heir would produce. This is an enormous promise, considering both Abraham's age and Sarah's barreness!

- Everything on the plane of human possibility seemed to indicate that this was an impossibility, but Abraham, looking at the stars that God strewn out across the sky considered it.

- If God can do that, then He can do this! This is where verse 6 seals the deal which is what Paul quotes in verse 6 of this very chapter.

- In spite of all human impossibility, Abraham believed God. He took Him at His Word. He trusted that God would bring this to pass!

- He believed God would give Him a Son, who would bring about the Seed that would bring humanity salvation! He believed forward in the Messiah that we believe back toward!

- When God saw Abraham's belief, He made a decision to account to Him, to add to His bank, the reward of a right standing before God!

- That true moment of belief was equivalent in God's mind of a life lived in righteousness! God was going to bring a Redeemer into the world and Abraham believed it to be the case!

• Galatians 3:7-9 : "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed.' So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham." : This then is a certainty: Only, exclusively, those who are of faith in God's promised Messiah are heirs of the promise! Those who have come to faith in Jesus qualified to be heirs!

- John in his gospel says this within the first 12 verses of his first chapter: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:"

- God announced this in scripture, preaching the gospel to Abraham in Genesis 12:3, where God told Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him!

- Salvation was never going to be a strictly Jewish thing! Sonship, the blessing of Abraham, is for those who live with the trust that Abraham had!

• Galatians 3:10-12 : "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.' But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for 'the just shall live by faith.' Yet the law is not of faith, but 'the man who does them shall live by them.'" : Now, life, righteousness is promised to those who are "of faith." A curse is the only promise for those under law.

- Paul quotes here from Deuteronomy 27:26, which is a repeating of God's law to the generation of Israeli's who were going to enter into Canaan.

- There is a call from Moses in that entire book for the people of God to observe and obey God's command, lest they invoke a curse upon themselves by failing to do so.

- The Israelites cried out "amen" but were obviously oblivious to their own power or desire to bring that to pass!

- Paul is telling the Galatians, "Learn this lesson! There is only a curse because there is no power in a human life that compels them to follow God's law!"

- Notice those very inclusive words: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in ALL THINGS!" This refers to every single command!

- A person who attaches themselves to God's law in one command, must attach himself to the whole! But if that could justify a person, then the scripture would not alternately say what it says.

- The Bible never says that justification comes from the law. It does however say, clearly, evidently, that "the just shall live by faith."

- This is the biblical verdict! This is the consistent witness of scripture which Paul picks up.

- In fact, this is the second time we have found Paul quoting Habakkuk 2:4. In Romans 1:17, the emphasis is on the just. In this section, the emphasis is on "shall live!"

- The context of Habakkuk is the prophesy of Babylon's soon triumph over Judah.

- God was going to use Babylon to judge Judah for their failure to keep the law of God that they had sworn to keep.

- Habakkuk's ponders aloud how this could be! How could God use such a wicked nation and how could he keep His promises? It didn't make sense!

- God's answer is that the just shall live by faith! You and I must trust God to fulfill His promises despite what it looks like. Is it blind faith? No.

- We have a reliable history that tells us that the future will be no different than the past! God has shown Himself to be faithful to His promises. There is no logical reason not to trust Him!

- Now, the law is not of faith. They are not in the same category but the same requirement is upon them to do the works of the entire law!

- Paul quotes here from Leviticus 18:5. This is the heart of legalism. They choose a single law above all others and exalt it, it being circumcision for the Judaizers in Galatia.

- It was circumcision for them, but baptism for the Apostolics in Redlands, Sabbath keeping for the Adventists in Loma Linda. Keep one and keep all! You can't pick and choose!

• Galatians 3:13,14 : "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree'), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." : What a joyful moment this is for Paul. The law is condemning and has brought a curse. What a dismal picture!

- Truly, without Christ, a life that exists only in the shadow of the law is one that is most miserable indeed! That's why verse 13 is so wonderfully bright!

- Christ has redeemed us. He has purchased us. He has bought us. He has ransomed us! A legal transaction has taken place in the market place for your soul. He is your Redeemer!

- He bought you out from under the curse of the law! The law had possession of you. It had the right to do with you as it pleased and in fact, according to what you justly deserved!

- As a slave to the law, there was nothing but a curse to look forward to. How did He do this? He became a curse for us! This is the meaning of the quotation from Deuteronomy 21:23.

- That passage speaks of a man who has done something worthy of death being hung on a tree. The law prohibited leaving him there overnight as that would defile the land.

- In Israel, anyone who was treated this way was considered one who was accursed by God!

- Jesus was that curse for us Paul says! "Us" being all that have believed, either Jew or Gentile! Now, the blessing of Abraham, the righteousness of belief, can flow to all in Him!

- He was cursed and we receive the promise of the Spirit through faith! That is the blessing of salvation to every nation!

• Galatians 3:15,16 : "Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, 'And to seeds,' as of many, but as of one, 'And to your Seed,' who is Christ." : Let's look at this from an earthly perspective, though we are talking about a heavenly reality.

- If a man makes an agreement with another man that is publically ratified, it cannot be changed, either to do away with it or to add to it.

- How much more does this apply with God who has given His Word to Abraham and his Seed, that Seed being Christ!

- God made a promise to bless people and He ratified it in what is a very strange story to our ears, found at the end of Genesis 15.

- In Chaldea, Abraham's hometown, two parties agreed to a contract by cutting up animals, and laying their parts opposite of one another, leaving a row in between.

- It was their way of saying, "If you don't hold up your part of the bargain, you will be treated like these animals!" It was brutal, but simple to follow!

- God told Abraham to cut up the animals and that He'd meet him there. But after waiting for hours, Abraham was only able to stay awake long enough to keep the birds from taking the pieces!

- Ultimately, he fell asleep and had a dream of his children's future. While he was dreaming, this occurred:

• Genesis 15:17 : "And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces." : God passed through the pieces alone and left some barbecue for Abraham to enjoy when he woke up!

- God takes full responsibility for the carrying out of His promise, His people simply need to rest in His promise and receive that which He has ratified alone!

• Galatians 3:17,18 : "And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise." : This is an amazing piece of logic here. When was Abraham justified by God? Over 400 years before the law of Moses came into effect!

- How could Abraham have possibly been saved by a law that did not exist!? How could the law be made to apply to Him?

Conclusion
- The Galatians had begun by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. They were now seeking to improve upon that. Are you? May it never be!

- The grace that was good enough for Paul and Abraham is good enough for me!