Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Okay, so you can turn again to Galatians.
[00:00:06] You can see on the sheet, we're in Galatians 3, and we're going to continue our inductive Bible study.
[00:00:19] How do we study the Bible inductively?
[00:00:28] How do we study the Bible inductively? What do we do, Levi? Yeah, you look at words and you go to other places in the Bible just like words.
[00:01:00] That's a great explanation. It sounds silly to say you start with words, but you're right. See, we do that kind of subconsciously. Most of the time, you just kind of. You know how to read. You just understand the words. But sometimes there are difficult words or you need to see is this word translated where they can, you know, is there some controversy about how it's translated? So you really do have to start with the words in a lot of cases. But, you know, because we can read, thankfully, we can kind of do this subconsciously. But you're right, we start with the little details. We get bigger and bigger and other parts of the Bible. Because it's one book written by one divine author and many human authors, we can learn about each passage from even other passages. But we want to start near because that gives us the first clues to the meaning. So that's what we've been doing.
[00:01:57] Now, again, let's.
[00:01:59] Let's review Galatians.
[00:02:02] You might flip through Galatians 1, 2, and 3. What have we been talking about?
[00:02:08] What's the point? Why is Paul writing? Or maybe what are some of the themes that keep coming up?
[00:02:17] Yeah, yeah. Saved or what? What's the big word he's been using a lot?
[00:02:26] Justified. What does justified mean?
[00:02:31] Yeah, no, you.
[00:02:33] To be made or declared right or righteous before God's eyes. And so that's by faith alone, not by works of the law or works.
[00:02:45] Why is he telling them this?
[00:02:48] Yeah, yeah. They've been struggling with legalism.
[00:02:58] Are there a way, you know, is legalism still a problem?
[00:03:05] How is legalism a problem even for us?
[00:03:08] You know, do we struggle with it ever?
[00:03:14] Yeah, yeah. By thinking we have to clean ourselves up before we can come to God or before we can feel close to Him. That's really common. Right.
[00:03:26] There's some other ways we do this, too.
[00:03:30] Sometimes people just do outright think, I just need to be better. Or we compare our sins to the sins of others in an effort to make us feel better about ourselves.
[00:03:42] These are all ways that we can be subtly legalistic even while saying legalism is bad. We're saved by faith alone. We can kind of be inconsistent in our walks.
[00:03:54] And it's just a really subtle and silent killer of us, this legalism.
[00:04:01] And it's just really, I think, really natural for us, at least culturally, to kind of fall into that. So it's something to be watchful of. And it's something that reminds us that the Bible is just always relevant, even, you know, thousands of years after it was written.
[00:04:20] So now we're in chapter three, starting in verse 19.
[00:04:29] So he's brought up Abraham, how Abraham believed God. It was counted to him as righteousness. And God made these promises to Abraham before the law was given, 430 years before the law was given. And he's told us, told this to the Galatians, to emphasize that the promise came first, the promise that you are justified by faith in the Lord.
[00:04:54] For Abraham, faith in a promise, and for us, faith in the realized promise, which is Jesus.
[00:05:00] That is what justifies, that's what saves.
[00:05:04] So even though the law came and was important and was useful in a number of ways, which we'll get into today, it still is not ultimate, but at the same time, it's not done away with.
[00:05:17] And so that's kind of what he's been doing. So now we come to verse 19. And I'll just read. I don't think we'll get through the rest of the chapter, but I'll read to the end of the chapter.
[00:05:27] He says, why then the law? So why do we have the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. And it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
[00:05:43] Now, an intermediary implies more than one. But God is one.
[00:05:48] Is the law then, contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not.
[00:05:53] For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.
[00:05:59] But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
[00:06:08] Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
[00:06:15] So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.
[00:06:22] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
[00:06:33] There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free.
[00:06:37] There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring. Heirs according to the promise.
[00:06:50] Okay, so we'll start in verse 19 and break it down. Why then the law?
[00:06:57] Why is he asking this question?
[00:06:59] Why then the law?
[00:07:25] Yeah, if we can't receive.
[00:07:27] Yeah, you're saying if we can't receive the promise or justification through the law, why would he give it? Yeah, I think that's right. So the clue is in the preceding context of the argument because he's saying that the promise is ultimate. It came first. That is what God's going to keep. God does not change.
[00:07:52] But then he gave the law, and the law was so central and important to his people.
[00:07:58] So why the law? If that wasn't justifying them, that wasn't saving them.
[00:08:04] So it's kind of just the natural question people would ask.
[00:08:09] If you're saying the law sounds so utterly unimportant, why then the law?
[00:08:15] Well, so he explains it was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.
[00:08:26] So it was added because of transgressions. Someone explain what that means, what you think it means.
[00:08:49] They had a law because people were saying so they needed something to show them.
[00:08:56] Yeah, yeah. So transgressions are like sins, and they were full of sin, and they needed something straight to help them know what is right.
[00:09:09] They needed a guide, a guardian against sin.
[00:09:14] They were so enslaved to sin that they would have ultimately, almost certainly destroyed themselves. In fact, even with the law, we see Israel essentially destroy itself and be split into two kingdoms and then one by one, exiled.
[00:09:32] So by not following the law, they really eventually were destroyed. And so we could imagine how much quicker, how much worse it would have been and how permanent it would have been without this guide, this guardian of the law.
[00:09:49] Now, why, what does Paul say?
[00:09:53] Why do they need to be guarded and preserved by the law?
[00:09:58] He tells us it.
[00:10:36] He was added because of transgressions until what?
[00:10:46] Who or what is the offspring?
[00:10:52] Christ.
[00:10:54] Christ.
[00:10:56] And how do we know this?
[00:11:05] Well, yeah, that's true.
[00:11:08] But he explains what verse?
[00:11:19] Verse 16.
[00:11:20] Now, the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings referring to many, but referring to one to your offspring who is Christ.
[00:11:31] So he's directly referencing back to that.
[00:11:35] We discussed how he's using language and saying, yes, offspring does refer to a multitude, and he even uses it that way in what we just read. But he's trying to emphasize that the ultimate fulfillment was in one singular person, an offspring, and that is the promised seed, the true heir of the promises to Abraham.
[00:11:56] And he would come through Israel.
[00:11:58] So for there to be a King David and for there to be a lineage that holds strong until Christ comes, they needed to be guarded from their own self destruction by the law.
[00:12:12] And he continues and says it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
[00:12:18] Off the top of your head, does anyone know what this might be referring to? This feels a little strange, right?
[00:12:24] Yeah, I think it's kind of difficult, confusing. It was given by angels, you know, we thought Moses went up, God gave it to him, he went down.
[00:12:36] Well, I think reading some of the giving of the law to Moses will help. So Exodus 20. So if you go, you can hold your finger in Galatians and go to Exodus 20.
[00:12:55] I'm going to start reading in verse 18, Exodus 20:18.
[00:13:03] Now, when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountains smoking, the people were afraid and trembled. And they stood far off and said to Moses, and you speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.
[00:13:21] Moses said to the people, do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.
[00:13:30] The people stood far off while Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.
[00:13:39] What's going on? Someone gave us the context.
[00:13:42] Might be able to read a subtitle. What's going on?
[00:13:52] Yeah, he's giving the law to Moses while the people are afraid, rightly afraid to approach God.
[00:14:01] So this is the giving of the law.
[00:14:03] So based on this, who is.
[00:14:05] There are debates about who is this intermediary? Is this the angels or is it, you know, who is the intermediary of Galatians 3?
[00:14:15] Well, it appears to be Moses.
[00:14:18] I think that's what Paul is referring to. So he says, given through angels, right?
[00:14:26] Place through angel. It was put in place through angels by an intermediary. I think Moses is an intermediary. While, well, angels are there too. The presence of angels, as best we can see it, we don't really see it in Exodus 20. Right.
[00:14:43] I don't. I didn't see any hints toward that.
[00:14:47] But you don't have to turn here. Deuteronomy 33:2. But if you want to write down, you can. Deuteronomy 33:2 says, he said, the Lord, Moses, this is Moses. He said, the Lord came from Sinai, dawn from Seir upon us. He shone forth from Mount Paran.
[00:15:04] He came from the ten thousands of holy ones with flaming fire at his right hand.
[00:15:12] In addition, long time ago, some people translated the Old Testament before the New Testament was written. They translated the Old Testament into Greek. This was called the Septuagint. And in that translation they actually used the phrase angels with him instead of the ten thousands of holy ones.
[00:15:35] So they were reading and understood the 10 thousands of holy ones as referring to angels that accompanied God on Mount Sinai.
[00:15:46] So I believe this is why Paul is just assuming that the people having knowledge of the Greek Old Testament, that's what they would have been reading, would know. Oh yeah, obviously there were angels there. It's a little less obvious to us as English readers, but they all would have understood this. So that's why he's bringing it up. It's not crucial to the text. I just wanted to answer maybe a potential confusing question.
[00:16:13] But the angels are there.
[00:16:15] They are God's messengers. Law is sent, it is put in place by them, but through an intermediary, which we think is Moses.
[00:16:25] And he goes on in verse 20 to say an intermediary implies more than one. But God is one.
[00:16:31] So what is an intermediary and how does it imply more than one?
[00:16:51] An in between person. That's a great definition.
[00:16:54] A lot of times we would see an intermediary type person as an attorney who comes to help settle a dispute, hopefully before something goes to court. Between two parties. Yeah, you can hire an attorney to help decide something. An unbiased third party. If you have a dispute with someone else, you can do that. That's sort of intermediary.
[00:17:17] There must be at least two parties for an intermediary. If there's just one, why is.
[00:17:23] Who's the intermediary communicating from and to?
[00:17:27] So you would think there needs to be at least two.
[00:17:31] But then he says God is one. Is there any significance to the phrase God is one? Just in the Bibles.
[00:17:39] Is there any significance, anything you can think of that you might remember?
[00:17:59] The Trinity. Yeah, that's a good answer.
[00:18:03] Is there maybe a passage or a verse?
[00:18:07] It's one of the most maybe important verses of the Bible. It definitely was the most important verse to Jews.
[00:18:13] Does anybody happen to know? That's a good trivia question.
[00:18:20] I'll give you the nickname of it. It's called the Shema.
[00:18:23] Anyone ever heard that?
[00:18:25] Shema just means here in Hebrew, like H E A R.
[00:18:33] Deuteronomy 6, 4. You don't have to flip here. I'll read it. This is one of the most important texts for Jews growing up. It's still one of the most important texts in the Bible.
[00:18:43] They would memorize this and recite it often.
[00:18:47] It goes, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
[00:18:53] And it continues from there. But that's how it starts. A reminder that the Lord our God, he is one. God is one. Don't ever let people try to tell you that Christians really believe in three gods or anything of the sorts.
[00:19:10] No, from the very beginning.
[00:19:13] And the Israelites are not monotheists. There is one God. The belief that Yahweh is the one true God is absolutely central to all things.
[00:19:21] So Paul's not just saying God is one arbitrarily. He's trying to remind them of one of the most important truths about God in the whole Bible.
[00:19:32] Our God is one.
[00:19:35] And so the promise that came to Abraham about the offspring, about the seed of the promise and the God that gave the law to Israel is one God with one plan, one way to save his people.
[00:19:52] That's so important. That's what he wants to emphasize. These aren't different gods. They're not completely different eras. They're just. It is just one God with one progressively unraveling, revealing plan to save his people.
[00:20:11] That's why he says God is one. There is an intermediary with Moses. But remember, God is one. There's. This is not a wholly different deal. He's not going to plan B. He's not, hey, there's a promise. But man, they're really bad. They're really sinful. So plan B, we got to give the law and eventually we'll get to plan C. We'll send Jesus. That's not how it works. This is one revealing, progressively moving forward plan.
[00:20:40] But let's ask what, what is Paul getting at in these two verses, 19 and 20?
[00:20:48] Well, he's showing that the law is less important than the promise to Abraham.
[00:20:54] Last week we noticed that the promises were given before the law. We just read that the law was given to restrain sin or transgressions.
[00:21:04] Now Paul's making the case that the law is less important because of how it was delivered.
[00:21:09] So we may not have seen that, but. So we've talked about how it came before the promise came before the law. But he's also saying, look, it was delivered by an intermediary.
[00:21:20] The promise to Abraham was straight from God's mouth to Abraham.
[00:21:25] There was not this. There were not these angels. There was not a Moses, There was not a tablet of laws.
[00:21:33] There was not the people at the bottom of the mountain, God at the top.
[00:21:37] No, God spoke to his person, Abraham, face to face.
[00:21:41] The intimacy of that promise also shows that it is more important than the law.
[00:21:50] So verse 21.
[00:21:52] Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Does it contradict? Well, he says, certainly not. Absolutely not. He says, no, no, that's how it's written. No, no, we should not think that the law is in opposition to the promises because it's not opposite of the gospel.
[00:22:10] I think that is a common misconception placed on the Old Testament that people were saved by keeping the law and now we're saved by faith.
[00:22:19] I hear people talk like this. A lot of people do believe this, but it's just a misconception. It was always faith in the promise of the gospel that justified.
[00:22:29] But the law was given as a guide and a guardian to the people.
[00:22:33] God's plan has remained the same.
[00:22:37] He continues, for is a law.
[00:22:39] He continues in verse 21.
[00:22:43] For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.
[00:22:53] Does that make sense?
[00:22:58] If a law had been given.
[00:23:00] So if he had given a law, and hey, this law justifies you, it gives you eternal life, then righteousness would be by the law.
[00:23:12] Would that be a good thing?
[00:23:14] Surely God could make that system such that a law can justify you.
[00:23:22] But would that be good, that you could be justified by works of the law?
[00:23:33] God could make that the system.
[00:23:36] In theory, right?
[00:23:39] But I saw someone say, no, we would not be able to do that.
[00:23:45] We would still be lost in sin. That doesn't undo the sin in Genesis 3 and the consequences thereof.
[00:23:54] We would still be just as enslaved, but with a standard that we have to meet rather than a standard that his son met.
[00:24:06] So the law does not give life and righteousness is by faith. That's what he's saying by this question or that sentence at the end. Now, verse 22, he says, but the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin.
[00:24:24] So he's using some sort of figures of speech.
[00:24:29] So he actually personifies a couple of objects. So he makes a couple of things that are not people and he personifies them. What are the two things that are being personified here?
[00:24:48] Scripture is one. Did you say the other? Yeah, Scripture is one. It's.
[00:24:53] The scripture is an object, but he's speaking of it like a person doing an action with some autonomy.
[00:25:00] What's the other? It's maybe a little harder to see.
[00:25:07] That's a good guess. But I think it's maybe more so sin. But maybe in a way the world is being personified too. But I want us to focus on scripture and sin scripture. So some people think he means the law when he says scripture. How is the scripture imprisoning people? It's kind of odd language we don't see elsewhere.
[00:25:27] But he's been using the word law so much. So I don't think he's using scripture to refer to the law.
[00:25:34] Why not just use the word he's used dozens of times?
[00:25:38] So the fact that he's using this new term, scripture, he hasn't used it in this book.
[00:25:43] He is. I think it's significant we can take notice that he's trying to refer to something new.
[00:25:50] So I believe he's referring to all of scripture, the whole of the word of God.
[00:25:56] It all is in some way imprisoning everything under sin.
[00:26:00] Now, sin is also personified as a force that is causing everything and everyone to be imprisoned or enslaved.
[00:26:09] So the word everything is written in what is called this will kind of help us understand it. The word everything in Greek, all these words can be masculine, feminine, or neuter, which would be neither now. And it. The word everything could be written in any of those senses, but it's written this time in the neuter, which is different than what people might expect. And I think that's important. It gives greater clarity that he's just saying literally everything, masculine, feminine, everything is imprisoned by sin. He's trying to show us just how far reaching sin is in the world.
[00:26:53] Everything is imprisoned by sin. And when he's saying scripture imprisoned, what he's trying to say, what I think is maybe a clear way to paraphrase, is that the scripture teaches this.
[00:27:06] We read the scripture and it shows and reveals that everything is imprisoned by sin. And this is God's will for the world.
[00:27:20] Now, how do.
[00:27:23] Trying to remember the rest of this illustration. I was thinking of how do cowboys drive cattle or how do shepherds lead their sheep? What do they do?
[00:27:39] How do they make them go one place to the next without just running in a bunch of directions?
[00:27:52] How do they scare them?
[00:27:59] They could have a. Yeah, there could be like a sheepdog or some sort of herding dog, you know, that nips at their ankles, moves them along, keeps them in line.
[00:28:11] Yeah, I thought in Oklahoma we would have a lot of people. Oh, I know all about these cowboys.
[00:28:15] You know, they got cow pokes, they're poking the cows.
[00:28:19] They kind of stay on the outside. If one strays, they'll kind of push it back in with the group. They're trying to keep the herd together and move it to grass or water or to a Pen or wherever they're trying to take the animals.
[00:28:35] And I think the law was like a cowboy.
[00:28:38] That's what I'm going to stick with the law in this way.
[00:28:42] When people are straying and leaving, was bumping them back when they would see it, bumping them back into the herd to go in the right direction. They're being led and guided by it like a cow is by a cowboy, in at least in a similar way. Not exactly one to one.
[00:29:04] So that's why he has the law. Everything is under sin. So they needed the law to push them in the right direction.
[00:29:13] God ordained that sin would befall us and entrap us. He knew his people would need the law to stay near to him while they awaited the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, which Paul explains by saying at the end of verse 22, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe this law was guiding them so that the offspring could come, faith could be granted.
[00:29:40] The fulfillment is there. They can be justified by faith because there's been the man, the God man, who did accomplish the law and fulfilled it perfectly, a way that we could not do.
[00:29:55] And then in verse 23, he continues and says, now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
[00:30:06] Now two more things, at least two more things are personified, like scripture and sin. What are they faithful? That's right.
[00:30:20] Yeah, I'll say faith and law.
[00:30:23] So Paul cannot be saying that faith did not exist in the Old Testament. He's already explained that Abraham had faith.
[00:30:30] This personified faith is made clear and evident in the coming of the one in whom we have faith. So you can say, now we live in the age of faith, the law.
[00:30:44] So the law, the personification of the law, is similar.
[00:30:47] He's contrasting two ages.
[00:30:51] Though people were still justified by faith, there was the age of the law where they were held captive and imprisoned by the law for their own good, and one where we are free of the law through faith in Jesus Christ. That's where we live now.
[00:31:05] These emphases direct us to the point of the Book.
[00:31:10] He wants the Galatians to see that they are in the age of faith, but they're living like they're in the age of the law, and really not even living in the age of the law. Appropriately, they are being legalistic, requiring observance to Old Testament laws and customs as prerequisites for justification and acceptance into God's people. And this is wrong.
[00:31:34] We are in the Age of faith. That's what he wants them to know.
[00:31:40] Verse 24. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.
[00:31:48] So how was the law a guardian? Well, we've talked about it. It seems to mean a lot of things. So we need to remember the context of Galatians as well.
[00:31:57] So this word guardian in Greek referred to a common type of slave.
[00:32:06] They were called a guardian or a paidagogas, or a custodian.
[00:32:15] Those are all words that would have been used.
[00:32:18] Their role was to be, as one scholar writes, in charge of children until their later teenage years.
[00:32:27] A custodian in the ancient world was not precisely a teacher, but more of a child attendant or babysitter keeping watch over children during their years of their immaturity.
[00:32:39] So he's saying the law was a custodian, it was a child teacher, it was a guardian.
[00:32:47] So the law was a custodian in that.
[00:32:50] That was an interim that watched over God's people in their infancy, in their immature childhood years, until God's plan had developed further.
[00:33:02] When God's plan develops further and his Son puts on flesh, this is the. We could say in this analogy, the age of maturity for God's people.
[00:33:15] God's people needed this guardian so that we could age and be safe and then be justified by faith once Christ came and be freed of the law.
[00:33:32] Verse 25.
[00:33:34] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
[00:33:40] So again, he's just emphasizing that faith has freed us from the law.
[00:33:48] Now, I know I have us through verse 26, but I will group that in next week.
[00:33:55] But I want us to reflect for a minute, while we still have time, about something, maybe about your parents. I want you to think about your parents, and I want you to think of something you appreciate about them.
[00:34:08] Or maybe something you appreciate about a babysitter or a nanny that you've had when you were younger.
[00:34:16] We appreciate parents especially because they watch over us in our years of immaturity.
[00:34:22] They protect us, they try to guide us, they keep us safe. They get us to a point where we can make decisions and live in the world like a normal adult.
[00:34:35] And though our parents have many failures, to varying degrees, there's one parent that does not.
[00:34:44] God the father. God is a good father.
[00:34:48] He's never abandoned their children in their need.
[00:34:51] He did not thrust the law and leave them. He did not see that their transgressions would destroy them. And just say, well, it's going to be by faith. Hopefully they get there. No, he protected them. He guarded them with the law. The law is a. A wonderful and good thing.
[00:35:08] And he continues to protect us and keep us and seal us through his spirit. When we have faith in the Son, so reflect on, you know, the goods in your parents, but also reflect on how good of a Father God is. Let's pray.
[00:35:23] Father, we love you and thank you for your glorious and graceful provisions to keep us safe. To help your people become mature in faith.
[00:35:35] Lord, today we pray that you would be with us as we worship with the church, and you would sanctify us in truth. And we pray this in your son's name. Amen.
