Untitled Sermon (3)

Read: Galatians 3:10-14

Paul continues the argument he has been making throughout this letter to the Galatians that it is foolish and even contrary to the Gospel to add the law, circumcision or any works to the requirement of salvation in Christ Jesus. Adding to the Gospel is abandoning the Gospel. Last week we saw that even before the appearance of Christ and before the administration of the law, that Abraham was justified by faith. The Gospel of faith alone in Christ alone includes the Gentiles and not the Jews only, as evidenced by God’s promise to Abraham, “in you shall all the nations be blessed.

The argument of Galatian 3:10-14 is the second half of the answer to the question Paul poses in 3:2, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith.” Last week, Marshall covered receiving the Spirit by faith and today we see the curse of attempting salvation or the receiving of the Spirit by the works of the law. The argument of the curse of the law must be kept in the context of the blessing Abraham. All who are of faith, those who believe in the saving work of God through the Son, Jesus Christ, are blessed alongside Abraham. Because the blessing was Christ, the blessing was the presence of the triune God amongst his people. “I will be your God, and you shall be my people.”

“On contraire” to those who are blessed by their faith are those who are cursed for relying upon the law. Now we must understand the idea of curse in it’s context. This curse is not the curse of a witch or some form of magic. It is not a Disney curse like the sleep of sleeping beauty or transformation of Kuzco into a llama. The curse in a covenant context like that of the law of Israel is to be understood in the judicial sense. To be cursed for not keeping the law was to receive the just penalty for not keeping the law. In our modern day, if you are caught speeding the just penalty according to our law is a fine, or if you are caught going fast enough, you are thrown in the slammer and your car is impounded. This is the curse, or the negative consequence of the action you committed. The curse of the law is the consequence for not keeping it, it is the just penalty disobeying the law.

in contrast to those who are blessed by faith, if you rely on the works of the law, you are under a curse. Why? Because “cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Paul quotes Deuteronomy 27:26, which was the last of a list of twelve curses that was to be given to the people of Israel as they entered the land. The book of Deuteronomy is the re-establishing of the covenant between God and Israel. The covenant relationship was that Yahweh, God, would be the God of his people, and the people of Israel would be the people of God. God had demonstrated his relationship to the people by bringing them out of slavery in Egypt by the visible presence of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and the establishment of his presence among the people in the building of the tabernacle. God’s presence was visibly among them. The obligation of the people of Israel was a response to God’s saving work and presence. Because God had brought them out of Egypt and dwelt among them, they were to live a certain away, according to God’s law. This law or instruction, was not an arbitrary list of rules, but was a way for people to live in love for God and one another. The law had two outcomes, follow it, and receive the blessing of living in the visible presence of God, prospering in the land of Israel with the tabernacle or the Temple. Or, if they failed to follow the law, they would be exiled or expelled from the land, from the visible presence of God.

The key words of presence of God, curse, and exile should bring us back to the garden of Eden, where God created mankind to dwell in his presence, where Yahweh would walk in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve. In response to the gift of his presence, Adam and Eve were to obey the singular rule to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The punishment for disobedience was death. The first humans decided they wanted to be their own standard of right and wrong, choosing to eat of the fruit of the one tree they were commanded not to eat. The result was the curse, exile from the garden where they dwelt in the presence of God. They would also face death, where if they did not believe in the one to come who would save them from their sin they would be sent into eternal exile from God. The curse of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and the curse of Israel’s disobedience was exile from the presence of God. The result of this curse would be fresh in the mind of the Jewish people, who had only been back in the land for a couple hundred years after being exiled by the Babylonians and the Assyrians. The nation of Israel had communally experienced the curse as a result of their failure to keep the law, to, in summary, “Love the LORD their God with all their heart” and to “love their neighbour as themselves.”

Simply attempting to do a better job at fulfilling the law was not the solution. No one is justified before God by the works of the law (v. 11).. No amount of meticulousness or adding stricter rules could make anyone right before God. The Pharisees had tried this and received strong rebukes from Jesus because their strict rule following was in the way of them completing the heart of the law, “Loving the LORD their God, and loving their neighbour as themselves.” No one is made right, no one’s sins are forgiven by strict rule following. No, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Here Paul quotes the prophet Habakuk. Faith was the means by which Abraham was declared righteous, and the prophecy of Habakuk towards the end of the OT demonstrated that faith was still the means by which a person was made right before God. All through the OT, people were justified by faith in God, not by their good works.

If the law did not justify anyone, why were the Israelites required to keep the law? Because the law is not of faith. In response to God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt and his dwelling amongst them, Israel was obligated to keep the law in response to what God had done for them. The instructions God gave was to be a blessing to Israel as it taught them to “love God” and “love their neighbours” through the way they lived. Thus, “the one who does them shall live by them.” The following of the law would bring life, prosperity, delight. They would also live by them in the sense that the law was a requirement, an obligation, of the covenant they had made with God, to dwell in the land in the visible presence of God. Faith was required because no Israelite could keep the law. The Israelites had a bloody reminder of the cost of their inability to keep the law. They had to sacrifice a one-year old lamb, without spot or blemish, for their sins. This sacrifice did not take away their sins, but pointed to an ultimate sacrifice, a once and for all sacrifice that could forgive their sins, a man who would be born under the law, but who would never sin, never incurring the curse of the law for his disobedience. This, was the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” Christ did not receive the curse of the law, because he obeyed it as the embodiment of the law. Christ kept the obligations of the covenant, the law, that we could not. Not only did He keep the law, but he took on a curse of the law, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree,” by dying on a wooden cross, condemned by those he came to save. Christ took one of the curses of the law, found in Deut 21:23, by being hung on the tree. Similarly, he took the curse of Adam, by wearing a crown of thorns and being buried in the earth.

In response to the presence of God, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s instruction and they were exiled from the garden of Eden. In response to the presence of God in the deliverance from Egypt, his presence in the Tabernacle and the Temple, Israel disobeyed God’s instruction and they were exiled from the land. In response to the presence of God, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God dwelling amongst us, we sit under the curse because of our disobedience of God’s instruction, the curse is eternal exile from the presence of God, namely, hell. Christ lived the life we could not, perfectly obeying God’s instruction, taking the curse upon Himself and giving us the blessing. Verse 14 states, “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” Now, when we believe in what Christ did for us, we receive the Covenant blessing of the presence of God, namely the Holy Spirit. The presence of God in our lives the covenant blessing accomplished by Christ taking the covenant curse that we deserved.

If you have not put your trust in Jesus Christ, I want to urge you, that we are made for the presence of God. Humankind seeks the good, the true and the beautiful. The endeavour to find these is all around us. We see people fighting for social justice, they want to see what is good, and right and fair for all people. We see people seeking truth in our universities full of people learning about science, math and philosophy. We see people seeking the beautiful in the creation of art, music and architecture. The good, and the true, and the beautiful that we see all around us should point us to the Ultimate Good, the Ultimate Truth, and the Ultimate Beauty, the one who is the source of the good, true and beautiful all around us. We were made for the presence of the Ultimate Good, Truth, and Beauty but we settle for the shadow instead of the reality, believing the shadow to be all that there is.

What does this mean for the Galatians? The false teachers amongst the Galatians were teaching that in order to be saved, you need to believe in Jesus and then keep the law. But Paul argues that keeping the law has never saved anybody. It has always been by faith that the people of God are made right before Him. Since Christ has died there is no need to go back to the Old Testament law. The blessing of the law, the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, has been given by the work of Christ. There is no extra blessing for keeping the law, the blessing has already been given. The only thing to receive by going back under the law is the curse the of the law, because “all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.” This is why Paul stood so adamantly against legalism, against adding anything to salvation, because the only thing to receive by going back under the law is a curse. This is why he called the Galatians foolish, they had been freed from the curse of the law and were given the blessing of Abraham, the Spirit of God, and they were handing that in to go back under the law, to risk failing and falling under the curse. Going back under the law was not only pointless, but counter-intuitive to the gospel and faith they had first received.

As a kid, I had a pretty consistent bedtime of 8:30 that was inforced by my parents. My bedtime was a rule that was given to me as a grace, as a gift, that the next day I would have energy and joy and life. If I disobeyed, and did not go to bed at my bedtime, I would receive a punishment and often the consequence of being grouchy the next day. But as a kid, I could foolishly believe that my parents would love me more or give me more love and more toys if I obeyed really well. I could wrongly believe that my obedience earned their love, when in fact the opposite was true. I was loved before I was born. My parents demonstrate their love for me, not always perfectly, but I knew I was loved. When I was given a bedtime for my own good and prosperity, it was expected that I would obey in response to their love. Loving them in response to their love for me, would mean obeying them.

For the Galatians to go back under the law is for me as an adult man to go back to keep following the 8:30 bedtime because I believe my parents will still love me because I am obeying them. Not only that, but by placing myself back under the 8:30 bedtime I am giving my parent the right to punish me I fail to keep that rule. Following the 8:30 bedtime as an adult in no way improves my relationship with my parents, in fact they would think I am crazy but also it would hurt our relationship because it would reveal my heart that I think I am earning their love. It demonstrates a heart that tells my parents, you only love be because I obey.

To go back under the 8:30 bedtime is to make it something it was not. I am making it into a means of love that it can never be. Instead that rule is a response I give to my parents love that is for my own benefit. When the Galatians rely on the law, they mis-categorize the law as a means of salvation, as a means of ensuring God’s divine favour upon them, instead of as a response God’s grace to the grace of God.

What is our proper response to God’s grace now that we are no longer under the law? Living by the Spirit. In v. 15 we see that the the blessing of Abraham includes the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit regenerates our hearts, he calls our dead hearts to life. He turns them from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. He writes the law upon our hearts, and causes us to follow God’s commands. Since Christ has come the law is not done away with, but the law is impressed on our hearts, the Spirit causes us to be able to follow God’s commands. The Spirit enables us to love God and to love others.

What does this mean for us? Because of what Christ has done, the blessing of Abraham has been given to us and the curse of the law is gone. We may affirm this in our minds, but our heart motives and the way we live can demonstrate errors in our theology. We can imagine relying on the law or throwing away commands in Scripture all together as ditches on either side of the road. The one ditch is legalism and the other ditch is antinominiasm.

One side, we have those of us with a tendency towards a legalistic hearts. We believe that we get what we deserve, and this includes the grace of God. If we live according to strict rules then we can earn God’s favour. If I read my Bible every day, God will be happy with me. If I pray five times a day, God will be happy. If I an kind to people, God will be kind to me. This is putting the cart before the horse. This is believing that keeping rules the reason God’s grace is bestowed on us. Both Chronologically and Ontologically, God’s grace comes first.

Do we read our Bibles regularly in order to earn life or because it gives life? Do we pray daily in order to earn brownie points with God, or because we are in love with Him because of what He has already done for us?

The other side tends toward antinomianism. Christ has kept the law, so now I can live however I want! No, we live in the Spirit, the Spirit writes the law on our hearts, convicts of sin, and grows the fruits of the Spirit in us. Just like legalism, antinomianism can be difficult to spot in our own hearts. Just as a car has blind spots in which it is difficult to see another car beside you, we can have spiritual blindspots where we allow repeated, habitual sin. We’ve allowed it to drive beside us in our spiritual blindspot. Maybe it’s gossip, maybe it’s pornography, maybe it’s holding our preferences above everyone else’s, maybe it’s fighting for revenge. These sin’s have been in our blind spots for so long that we are unaware of the bitterness they have produced in our hearts, the selfishness, and the hurt that they have came others. It’s so easy to go on sin “witch hunts” in other people’s lives while completely ignoring the spiritual blindspots in our own hearts.

And if you don’t find yourself with a tendency towards one ditch or the other, then you are probably like me, with a perfect heart like Jesus. No, then you are probably like me, driving one of those massive sprayer tractors with the wide stance. Our wheels are so far apart that we have a wheel in each ditch. There are portions of our heart that we rule over meticulously, and because we think that it is by doing these things or not doing these other things, that we allow sin to build up in our spiritual blindspot.

What do we do? How do combat legalism and antinomianism? We understand that grace is a gift. That it comes before anything we can dob but that we do good in response to the good that has been done to us. The Spirit produces fruit in us, He causes us to do good by writing the law on our hearts.

Here is a litmus test for your heart.

Why are you good?

1. Legalism: I am good because I do good things

2. Antinomianism: I am good because Christ has forgiven my sins, and I can do anything because Christ has completed the law for me.

3. Christian view. I am good, because Christ has been good on my behalf and has died for my sins. Now the Spirit works in my heart producing good works in me.