GALATIANS 3:15-29 | GOD’S COVENANT PROMISE

No one has ever communicated what is so binding about the smallest digit on your hand, but it definitely elevates the seriousness when the pinky is included in the promise.

And then you step into the serious realm at the next level.

If you are making a serious promise when you were a kid, it didn’t get much more serious than to spit in your hands before shaking hands with each other.

Some how, some way, the combining of spit in a handshake made solidified that promise nearly in concrete.

It was now unbreakable.

As you get older, you make other promises to people.

When Tressa and I got married, we did much of the same things we did when we were kids.

It started with a promise of words

“I do” “I promise”

The fingers are once again involved as we place a wedding ring on each other’s hand

And I guess you could say we didn’t stray to far from the “spit oath” when you reach the end of the ceremony.

What are we doing in these situations as kids and even as adults?

We are demonstrating our commitment to a promise by words that we say and actions that we perform.

EXPLANATION: Here in the 3 chapter of Galatians, Paul brought to the table the ultimate example of God’s powerful miracle.

Last week we talked about just how powerful the miracle of salvation is!

We reflected back on Galatians 3:5

Galatians 3:5 KJV 1900

He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

We saw the power of it’s deliverance from the curse of the law both before and after salvation.

And then we came to v.14 where Paul introduces his next powerful truth with regards to salvation by faith and not by the works of the law.

In v.14 Paul says Galatians 3:14

Galatians 3:14 KJV 1900

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

For the first time in the chapter Paul brings up the topic of the “promise” that God made to Abraham.

In the next 16 verses, 9 times, Paul talks about this promise.

It is a promise that God made all the way back to Abraham, and it is a promise that affects us still today.

APPLICATION: For a few moments this morning, I want to look at that promise that was made all the way back in Genesis.

And then I want to see some truths from here in Galatians that makes this promise just as important to us today!

EXPLANATION: To understand what this promise is that Paul is writing about, we have to make our way back to Genesis 15

Genesis 15 begins with the words, “After these things”

In chapter 14, Lot, Abraham’s Nephew had been captured by a league of kings out of the country of Sodom and Gomorrah that he had made home.

When Abraham hears of Lot’s capture, Abraham rounds of 318 of his own men and chases them down.

While the enemy was sleeping, Abraham and his men surprise attack them and escape with the people who had been captured and with his nephew Lot and they are returned back to Sodom.

And as we reach the beginning of chapter 15, the reality of what just happened has set in for Abraham.

Sure he and his people were able to win a surprise attack on those kings, but what if they decided to retaliate?

What if they decided to come back after Abraham.

Abraham’s small group was surely no match for the kings and their kingdoms should they decide to retaliate.

And now Abraham is in his head thinking what if they come back

What if they kill me?

I don’t even have any kids to carry on my lineage, and that was the worst thing that could have happened.

Genesis 15:1 KJV 1900

After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

Abraham was in a dark moment in his life.

He was afraid of what the future held

He didn’t know how everything was going to work out.

And in that moment, God comes alongside Abraham and encourages him, “Fear not… I am thy shield”

APPLICATION: Friend, sometimes in life, things can get dark

There are moments where you will feel like Abraham, “God, what am I gonna do”

Fear and anxiety are real things, and even the great heroes of the faith dealt with them, so why would we think we wouldn’t face them?

But in those moments of darkness, don’t forget that God is there with you!

And He wants to remind you, “Fear not, I am your shield!”

Psalm 23:4 KJV 1900

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Psalm 56:3 KJV 1900

What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.

When Joshua was getting ready to become the next leader of Israel and step into the shoes of the great leader Moses, he was terrified

But God came to him with the powerful reminder, Joshua 1:9

Joshua 1:9 KJV 1900

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Isaiah 43:1–2 KJV 1900

But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, And he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

Friend, Abraham was comforted by the word of the Lord in a dark moment of fear in his life.

And when you find yourself in the dark moments in your life, allow the Word of God to comfort you there!

EXPLANATION: After the word of God comes to Abraham, we find his great concern that he was struggling with the most.

Genesis 15:2–3 KJV 1900

And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

Abraham asks God, who is going to carry on my name?

He didn’t have any children and he somewhere are 75 years old at this point, so as we talked about last week, this seemed impossible.

And God answers Abraham with what is known as the Abrahamic Covenant.

Genesis 15:4–5 KJV 1900

And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

God tells Abraham, go out and look at the stars and number them.

I can see Abraham out there on a clear night trying to count the stars in the sky.

He might get to 300 or 400 and then the strain on his eyes becomes too much and he looks away for just a minute, and now he has to start over.

Astrologers today are still counting the stars and we still can number them all!

According to what I read they said there are at least 100 billion stars in our galaxy

And they said there are at least 2 Trillion galaxies in our universe

Abraham would have been counting for a long time!

God tells Abraham, just like I’ve blessed and multiplied our the stars in our universe, so I will bless and multiply your seed!

And then we have that familiar verse that we talked about last week

Genesis 15:6 KJV 1900

And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Abraham believed that God would do the impossible and that was accounted to his righteousness.

Was Abraham righteous?

No!

But by faith in God, God credited righteousness to Abraham’s account.

And then we come to the covenant… the promise.

Genesis 15:7–8 KJV 1900

And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

God tells Abraham I’m going to bless your seed and I’m going to give you a land for your seed to have forever.

It is a reminder of the covenant that God has made to Abraham back in Genesis 12:2-3

Genesis 12:2–3 KJV 1900

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

And Abraham asks a human question, “Lord, how can I know this is going to happen?”

So God tells Abraham, Genesis 15:9-10

Genesis 15:9–10 KJV 1900

And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.

Abraham knew exactly what was going on.

They were “cutting a covenant”

They would take the animals and cut them in half nose to tail.

They would spread the pieces out on the ground in two rows.

Then the two people making the covenant would bind their hands and then they would walk between the pieces.

As they passed through their robes would be stained by the blood of the pieces on the ground, and when they would see that blood on the robe in the future they would be reminded of the covenant.

The symbolism was that if either side of the covenant broke their side, their body was to be broken like those pieces.

This was a very serious moment in Abraham’s life.

He was about to enter a very real covenant with God!

Abraham waited during the day for the moment the covenant would take place.

For the rest of the day the bible says he waited and the birds would fly down and try to land on the pieces of meat, and Abraham would run them off.

Then, as the sun began to set, the Bible says Genesis 15:12

Genesis 15:12 KJV 1900

And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

God put Abraham to sleep.

Wait this was supposed to be a covenant between Abraham and God, and now Abraham is laying on the ground asleep.

What happened next is incredible: Genesis 15:17-18

Genesis 15:17–18 KJV 1900

And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

The smoking furnace and burning lamp were pictures of God and His Son.

God promised to keep His end of the covenant! He would provide a son to Abraham and would give him a land someday!

But God also promised to keep Abraham’s end of the covenant as well!

Back over in Galatians 3:20

Galatians 3:20 KJV 1900

Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.

Paul says normally a covenant is made between two parties and a mediator would mediate that covenant… they would bind the hands.

But no one bound the hands of God and Abraham, because that covenant was made by God Himself!

Hebrews 6:13 KJV 1900

For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,

Now here is the question, Has God kept his end of the covenant?

Yes, there is coming a day when Israel will have a land of promise, just as God said!

One day during that millennial kingdom, Israel will be in their land, and Christ will be their King

But did Abraham keep his end of the covenant?

No! In the very next chapter he’s trying to do things his own way with Hagar!

And so God did exactly what He showed He would do… He kept Abraham’s side of the covenant as well.

Jesus Christ’s body was broken because of sin.

His blood ran down the cross from the beating, and the crown of thorns, and as the nails pierced His hands and his feet!

Jesus died to fulfill the promise, that one day, every nation on earth would be blessed!

God always keeps His promises!

So what does that mean here in Galatians?

V.15-17, THE PROMISE CAN’T BE CHANGED

Galatians 3:15–17 KJV 1900

Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

EXPLANATION: Paul uses a word 2 times in these verses that we probably rarely every use.

In v.15, he says “no man disannulleth” and in v.17 he says the law “cannot disannul”

The word “disannul” means that something can’t be taken away from.

He says in v.15 that in a covenant between two men, no one will take away from that covenant or add to it.

Those two men take the covenant so seriously, that they would never break it be trying to add something to or take away from what was made in the covenant.

The covenant would be kept exactly the way it was promised.

And when it comes to the covenant God made, Paul says God wouldn’t add to it or take away from it!

If man will keep a covenant, you better believe God will keep His the way it was made.

And the point Paul is proving is that God didn’t add to his covenant of blessing on all nations by adding the stipulations of the law.

And God doesn’t take away from His promise by making it any less than by full faith in the promise.

APPLICATION: Friend, their is only one way to God and that is through the One Who would fulfill that promise!

And that is the next thing Paul points to in v.19

V.19, THE LAW POINTED TO FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISE

Galatians 3:19 KJV 1900

Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

EXPLANATION: Paul makes it clear that the covenant promise was fulfilled when the promised “Seed” came.

Who was that promised “Seed” that would fulfill the promise because Abraham broke the covenant?

It is the same “seed” that God promised to provide all the way back in the Garden of Eden.

When Adam and Eve broke their end of the deal and they ate of that fruit, sin filled the earth… and it filled their hearts.

Genesis 3:7 KJV 1900

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

Romans 5:12 KJV 1900

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

The relationship with God was broken!

But God desired so greatly to restore that relationship that he made a promise, just like he would do over 1000 years later to Abraham.

Genesis 3:15 KJV 1900

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

When the Bible speaks of the lineage of man, it is always passed down by “his seed”

But when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, God promised to send “her seed” to crush the head of Satan and crush sin!

And just like God promised to Adam and Eve, and just as He promised to Abraham, that seed did come!

John 3:16 KJV 1900

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Romans 5:8 KJV 1900

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

John 14:6 KJV 1900

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

APPLICATION: Friend, there are not many ways to heaven… if there were, God would have broken His covenant.

The promise of God would have been disannulled!

But there aren’t many ways to heaven.

There are only two ways to heaven!

Many say there is only one way, but there is in fact two.

The first way is total perfection… if you were to never once sin.

The Bible calls this the “Glory of God”… perfection.

It was Abraham’s side of the covenant!

Here’s the problem, Romans 3:23

Romans 3:23 KJV 1900

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Since God knew there is no way that Abraham or you or I could keep our end of that bargain, God sent the “Seed” Jesus Christ to die on the cross for you!

He made a way where there was no way!

Now here is the most incredible part of the promise and the covenant.

V.26-29, THE PROMISE IS FOR EVERYONE EQUALLY

Galatians 3:26–29 KJV 1900

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

EXPLANATION: This is so amazing, when you put your faith in Christ as you Savior… as the fulfillment of that covenant promise, you become a recipient of the promise that God made to Abraham!

When Paul writes about being “baptized into Christ” he’s talking about being totally washed by the blood of Christ, not water baptism.

If he was talking about water baptism, he would have said you “have been baptized into water”

But he didn’t, he said “baptized into Christ.”

You’ve been immersed in Christ!

What an awesome picture!

He even says that when you accept Christ, that you “put on Christ”

It’s as if you take off your old sinful self…

Your lying

Your cheating

Your bitterness

Your envy

Your addictions

Your wicked thinking

Your unfaithfulness

Your anger

Every sin that you deem as little sin

You take all of that off, and you put on Christ’s righteousness.

And now when God the Father looks down at you, He doesn’t see your sinful flesh, He sees His perfect Son!

WOW!

And this is so awesome!

It doesn’t matter who you are…

Jew or Gentile

It doesn’t matter your nationality

Bond or Free

Friend, you could be from the church house or from the big house

Male or female

This was huge because at this point in history, women were viewed as property, not as equal to men.

But God didn’t see it that way!

God has always seen men and women of equal value

APPLICATION:Friend, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from, the promise of salvation is for you.

There is no one that is outside the reach of God’s mercy and grace!

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done, God will forgive your sin and save you!

If you don’t believe it just ask:

The woman at the well who had been married 5 times and was living with a man that wasn’t her husband

The woman who was caught in adultery in the very act

The lying cheating tax collector, Zacheus

The Christ denying disciple, Peter

The God doubting follower, Thomas

The Christian persecuting murderer, Paul

Yes friend, God will save anyone… and you can put your name in that blank too!

CONCLUSION

If you’ve never received Christ as your Savior, do it today!

Don’t put it off any longer!

Recognize the incredible promise fulfilled by Christ, and receive His payment for your sins!

If you have accepted Christ as your Savior, I hope you will be so in awe of the Scarlet thread weaved through the Scriptures, that you wont be able to help but tell someone about it.

This miracle of salvation is so incredible, that I hope it stirs a fire within you that you cannot help but share!

May we live our lives in awe of the amazing covenant promise fulfilled by Christ, and given freely to you!

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