Galatians 3:19 :

What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise has been made. It was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator.

We learn five things here about the Law of God given through Moses.

• It was an additive
• It was temporary
• It was given because of sin
• It was ordained through angels
• It was ordained by a mediator

I would like to focus on the first three things.

The Law, was an additive. It simply wasn’t available before the children of Israel got it on Mount Sinai. It was still wrong to break the 10 Commandments, it’s just that, no one knew exactly what they were doing wrong or what the punishment would be. They also didn’t know what the blessings might have been. This is important to know because one would naturally ask, “Why was it added?”

Also, the Law is temporary. Paul says that it only applied “until the seed should come to whom the promise has been made.” Because of this, we know that the scope of the law was limited in time. So the law was added at the time of Moses until the time of Christ. This describes a special economy between God and mankind. We are no longer in the “Mosaic Economy”. We are now in a different one. This still brings up the question of “Why?” Why was the law added temporarily?

This compact verse also tells us that it was given because of sin. Sin isn’t the same as “sins.” We are talking about who we are here, not what we do. We are sinners by nature. We don’t just sin.

The reason that sin is so hard to accept is because we often think that we are good. God says we are all evil. God doesn’t think we are good because we haven’t stolen or murdered anyone. God already knows that we are thieves and murderers at heart. The law does a great job of exposing that fact to us. Considering your own behavior against what The Law requires, causes it to be very clear that you continuously break the law and that you are not really a good person at all.

Notice what isn’t in scope here. The law can’t be used to improve our morality. It isn’t going to improve anything, in fact, it makes things worse as the law excites our deep-seated rebellion against God.

Galatians 3:17-18  :

Now I say this. A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by promise.

Notice here that Paul says that a new covenant “does not annul” an older one. We should keep this in mind regarding God’s covenants. There shouldn’t be any talk of God changing covenants. It is clear, here, that God doesn’t do that. I am very concerned that attempting to say so would be to imagine a doctrine that is not in scripture. I am speaking to the popular idea that, somehow, the promises God made directly to the nation and land of Israel somehow apply to Gentiles. It is clear that God did not make these promise to Gentiles and many of them have not yet been fulfilled.

Specifically, we see here that, in this case, it is the Mosaic Law that did not annul the covenant made to Abraham and to his One Seed. The Law of Moses was given 430 years after God made the covenant with Abraham. Abraham didn’t have the Ten Commandments. He didn’t have to keep the Sabbath. The law was not yet given. What was given was a promise, and that promise is also ours as Gentile believers.

I want to spend some time considering the difference between a promise and a law. A law is the measure of a persons behavior. The intent of the law or a rule, is to determine what good work must be done in order to merit a particular reward. The law doesn’t promise anything. It just says if you pass, you will get paid and if you don’t you will be punished. You could call a law a promise, but it is really just a measure that depends entirely on you.

A promise depends solely on the one who makes the promise. When benefit is promised, the only thing a person can do is believe it. Believing that you will receive a thing that is promised, changes how you behave. For instance, if you believe you will be given 10 years pay tomorrow, you would respond by being extremely happy and relieved that your debts would be paid off. You would feel like thanking this person and showing them your great appreciation. This proves that you really believe the one who is going to give you the money. You didn’t have to do anything to get it, you just believed the one who promised. It is by believing a promise that we are saved and live the Christian life, not by a rule.

When we really believe that God gave us such great promises, we are filled joy, confidence and happiness about the future. Our immediate circumstances begin to fade away. We all need to concentrate on the promises so that we don’t lose hope. That is why it is so good for you to be reading the Bible, praying and listening and singing good Christian music.

Galatians 3:15-16 :

Brothers, speaking of human terms, though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been confirmed, no one makes it void, or adds to it. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He doesn’t say, “To seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “To your seed,” which is Christ.

Notice how closely Paul looks at the scriptures here. It is important to get “detail oriented” when going over this part of the Bible. Some of the messages from God are highly detailed and need to be carefully studied in order to understand them well. This is very important for us today.

Not only does Paul explain scripture, he shows us how to study it. Paul was a well trained Jewish scholar and knew how to properly study the scriptures. It make sense for us to learn from his example.

This is an important passage for Paul to explain for another reason. In English, the meaning of the word “seed” can be used in two ways. It can mean all of the seeds of a kind, or a single physical seed. Paul’s explanation here makes it clear that the Old Testament was using the singular form when it was giving us information about who Abraham’s promises were spoken to. This turns out to be critical to the Gospel.

It’s important for us to pay attention to the Bible and not just to those who talk about it. You should study and understand the basis of the interpretation so that you can read the Bible for yourself. When you do this, however, remember how important it is to pay attention to all of the words.

So, what’s the big deal about God referring to a single seed? Well, it means that the promise wasn’t given to all of the physical children of Abraham. It was only given to one, and that was Jesus Christ. Anyone who wants to participate in these promises, must come through The One, Jesus Christ.

Let’s also not forget the nature of God’s promises. Human covenants are only valuable when they can’t be changed. Mankind breaks covenants, but God doesn’t. When He promises, He follows through. God made this promise to us in Jesus Christ, the seed, and we can depend on it.

Galatians 3:13-14 :

Christ 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 on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

God went global with salvation through Grace. Up to the point that Jesus came, God’s plan was only being worked out through the Jews and those who were willing to become Jews. God’s intention was to save the whole world by His act of dying. Paul quotes the Bible where it says that hanging a man on a tree was to be considered a curse. That’s exactly what Jesus allowed to happen to Himself to save us. With the curse of the law paid for, the law was satisfied for all who had ever sinned and would ever sin in the future. Since God recognized the punishment of all of the sins of mankind when Jesus died, non-Jews were included.

The blessing of Abraham, remember, is righteousness that is credited to your account by believing the word of God. It isn’t payment but a credit. Jesus paid, and gave the benefit to us. He is now alive, and because of this so are we, because we were “in” Christ when He died, and are still in Him today as He lives.

Everyone who believes in Jesus receives “the promise of the Spirit through faith.” This is an amazing Gift that was entirely new. Up to that point, the Jews were never given the Spirit to live in them. As we learned earlier, the Spirit and His power are received through believing in God’s word, and that was made possible by Jesus taking the curse. This is why we get to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Resurrection everyday!

Galatians 3:11-12 :

Now that no man is justified by the law before God is evident, for, “The righteous will live by faith.” The law is not of faith, but, “The man who does them will live by them.”

Paul quotes two verses here: Habakkuk 2:4 and Leviticus 18:5. These are pretty amazing verses. The Habakkuk verse tells us how righteous people actually live. Notice that it doesn’t say how they are “saved.” It is true that we are saved by faith, but not only are righteous people saved by faith, they also live by it.

In contrast to this, we have the law. The righteous cannot live by faith and live by the law. That is the point that Paul is making here. It is evident to me that there are many people who think that you can do this. Paul says you can’t because the law is lived by following rules alone. That’s what we learn in Leviticus. The rules do not allow faith to be used as a means to obtain righteousness. You must do the rules or else you don’t have the righteousness. Notice that rules are a natural replacement for faith.

Rules are a mechanical adherence to a requirement. True righteousness comes from the heart. The law demonstrates the failure of rules by requiring righteousness from an unrighteous heart. Eventually, the evil heart breaks the rules because mere outward observance cannot hide the source of the problem forever.

Rules make it so you don’t have to learn or believe anything in order to be good. It is a cop-out because you don’t really have to accept any specific belief system or change your own view of reality. It’s also prideful because people who follow rules actually believe that they can be better than everyone else before them. In sight of the message of salvation, following rules, as I mentioned earlier, is saying that you can do it yourself without Jesus death. That is to call God a liar (oops you broke Leviticus 19:3).

Faith isn’t like rule following at all. Faith requires that you believe something and actually live like you do. I’m not saying that you have to be perfect, but faith deals with the heart. You don’t want to do the wrong things anymore because you believe that they are dead to you in Christ. As Christians we learn and believe we are the children of God Himself. It doesn’t make sense for the children of God to behave in certain ways. We believe God created this world, so we look to Him for answers by reading the Bible. When we read the Bible, we believe it even if it says the world was made in only 6 days. We don’t bring our own concepts to it just because of the ideas of fallible people. We have faith and believe God more than people. We aren’t merely rule-following here, we are upholding faith in God and His word. See the difference?

One last thing. Notice how Paul uses the Bible. He quotes it as an authority. He doesn’t need a scientist or an expert to back him up. He was an expert in the law, but notice that he uses scripture as an authoritative final word in these matters.

Galatians 3:10 :

For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.”

It’s natural for us to promote ourselves by comparing ourselves with others. It is very important to realize that with God, this doesn’t work at all. That’s an important thing to understand about legal systems in general. It doesn’t matter how you compare to your friends, it only matters how you compare to the law.

Governments that are managed by adherence to a law above the will of people are called “Republics.” Laws can be good or bad and so can republics. God made a perfect law for Israel. They were unable to follow it completely. This is not to say that they weren’t better off than many of the nations around them. It’s just that they could not live up to the Holy standard of God. At least not until a certain Jew came on to the scene named Jesus.

Because of our tendency to compare ourselves with others, it is easy to overlook the important fact that God holds people who follow the law of Moses to the entirety of it. You can’t pick and choose between the parts that you think apply to you and the parts that don’t. This is a serious problem in the Church today. The Law is a single unit. It cannot be divided according to this verse.

If you are going to attend meetings on Saturday, then you had better also keep the other feasts of the Lord. If you are going to keep the feasts you had better prepare the proper sacrifices. There are even rules about how to wear your hair. It is important that you start stoning sinners, including those who pick up sticks on the Sabbath. See the problem? We shouldn’t gloss over this.

President Obama appears to have a problem with this as well. He mentioned in one of his speeches that he wasn’t sure which part of the Christian Bible applied and even joked about it. He tried to use it as a reason that we can’t just go with one religion. If that were the case, then no one could really believe any of them. The problem is that the President doesn’t understand the Bible well. That doesn’t mean that it can be safely ignored. I honestly hope that the President understands the Bible someday because it is salvation. Without understanding and believing the un-perverted gospel, a person can’t be saved.

So, if we can’t obey the whole thing, then obviously the purpose of the Law was not that it be a means to God but a revelation about what we are really like and who Jesus really is.

Galatians 3:6-9  :

Even as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Know therefore that those who are of faith, the same are children of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you all the nations will be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham.

The true children of Abraham, believe God for righteousness like Abraham did. This is the true meaning of what was written in the Old Testament when it says that Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Another way that we can put this is that it was “credited” to Abraham with no repayment terms because he believed God.

See how important believing is to Christianity. Anyone who says otherwise is a false teacher and should be avoided. What we read here are the words of Jesus through Paul and no one can change that fact.

Isn’t it amazing that God sees Christians as children of Abraham. We were the promised children that God told Abraham he would get from all the nations. It is a very interesting thing to read the subject of Abraham and having children. It explains much of what is currently going on in the Israel today. What’s so amazing is that God sees children of Abraham that are not physically of Abraham. It’s not that He doesn’t also see the physical children (See Romans 11), but that He also includes us. It is a shame that some preachers would try to say that God has given up on the Nation of Israel. He hasn’t at all. We should not listen to those teachers either because it is very clear what Jesus thinks about Israel in both the Old and the New Testaments.

Here we also have an example of the Gospel in the Old Testament. God was planning it all along even though it was somewhat mysteriously presented in these words to Abraham. There are no accidents with God. He knows everything that is going to happen right down to you and I. Jesus says that He knows how many hairs we have on our heads and when every sparrow dies. Not only does He know everything, He has planned everything and it is revealed in the Bible even if people don’t see it at first.