What Purpose Does the Law Serve? Galatians 3:19-25
Notes
Transcript
Galatians
Galatians
Message 11
What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.
Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
What Purpose does the Law serve?
-Love Westerns. Days gone by when marshall law was still in existence. Crimes were brought judgment quickly with a hanging.
-Throwing rocks at trains, swearing at an athletic event, throwing snowballs, pulling off the tag on your mattress.
Yet, such an important time as we think about the abuse or the lack thereof of living life in conformity to the law-murders, rioting, looting, destructive nature we see today.
There are many similarities in the day we live in as to the conditions Paul was ministering during Bible times to the churches of Galatia. The early churches in Galatia had Judaizers ruling the roost of early influence of the church after Paul and Barnabas departed in the birthing of the church. The people were starked into abiding by the Mosaic law. It was a part of their fiber and they struggled in not feeling that conviction to honor those laws. Unfortunately, even though the upbringing was there, the drive and the strive to obey God’s laws, just like today for us, they couldn’t keep all the laws. They had their shortcomings. They sinned.
The real struggle over time was there was a greater focus on the law than on the Lord, Yahweh.
We know this side of the Cross and our exposure to the NT is the idea that the spirit of the law is of greater significance that every dot and tittle.
Rom. 2:29
but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
Mt 5:17
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
Jn 1:17
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Well, given that we understand the importance of our relationship with Christ to afford our forgiveness of sins where we all have broken the law, we all have sinned. We want to address the nature of the law, its purpose, and what stake does it have in our lives today.
What Purpose does the Law serve us today?
Paul is trying very patiently but very pointedly to by use of what we call Christian apologetics to help the Jew, the newer Jewish convert, and the Judaizer that is still distorted in the blend from their past belief system to gain solid theology and understanding in the present.
Herein lies the struggle then and the struggle lies today. If you get someone who has never been reared in church, been exposed to the Bible, and never been confronted with the Gospel message, we as well could run into the same road blocks as people of Paul’s day that he encountered.
If you take a person today that married, has been faithful to their spouse, was gifted with children, reared those children to the best of their ability by nurturing them, schooling them, participating in their extracurricular activities, working hard and trying to get ahead in the workplace, and living a life as a well respected model citizen, they would sense that there future was bright. They have lived a respectable life, they have not lived selfishly, they have tried hard to provide for their family, to be a faithful spouse and to offer their family even the things they were not offered in their upbringing. Many people would feel under that setting and many of there circle would call them a “good person”. And no doubt, we would call them “good” people” .
There is only one problem, they are not a perfect person no more than you are perfect or the fact that I am perfect.
Ps. 19:7
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
Heb 5:9
And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,
Php. 3:12
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Heb 7:19
for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.
Why then the Law?
Added because of our Sin v. 19 Why?
19 What purpose then does the law serve? was added because of transgressions,
-My mother sold insurance and her gathering place for meetings with her agents was Howard Johnson’s on the E. Bypass. She got me a job there at 14. We were given one free meal per shift. I distinctly remember 2 details that teaches what the law was to accomplish
Noun: παράβασις (parabasis), GK 4126 (S 3847), 7×. parabasis means “transgression,” as in breaking a command of God’s law (Rom. 2:23; 5:14; Gal 3:19). Paul emphasizes especially that no transgression is possible if there is no law (Rom. 4:15; cf. also Heb. 2:2). Eve (and Adam too, of course) were both transgressors of God’s command in the Garden of Eden (cf. 1 Tim. 2:14). But through the blood of Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, a ransom has been paid that sets us “free from the sins committed under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:16). See trespass.
A. Preventative Nature
-bumper rails, it is restrictive in nature. The rules or law is like a heavy chain restraining a wild pit bull dog. Johnny has driven large trucks for his company, Appleton Wire. I would imagine that those trucks had governors placed on the throttle or the accelerator to prevent Johnny from driving at speeds that would put him at harm or others. I am talking about the fact that laws harness, restrict, or reserve us from yielding to the adamic nature. The sin nature birthed in each of us.
-story of life jacket. Fine in access of $200
Rules or laws are the bumper rails to our conscience and our actions. They keep in check our adamic nature.
B. Provocative Nature
The provocative nature reveals with clarity a plumb bob to our imperfection. If no laws were in place, we would not recognize our evil and immoral nature. “Breaking the law” for most brings upon a guilt or shame for our indiscretions. for our “missing the mark”, our sin
Mk 10:18
So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.
What I am saying to you this evening is to not offer slight on your psychic, to get you down on yourself, to take offence to your upbringing no more than I would want you to make critical statements about my upbringing. Tonight’s teaching is not the fact that you are dirt and lower than dirt because the fact remains you were “born in the image of God.”
Ge 1:26
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
You are not perfect and anything less than perfect under the law will not pass. Eternal judgment is at stake unless one accepts the Seed of Promise.
Yet, each of us have a universal problem of dysfunction called “sin”. Each one of us have done it, each one of us are victim of it, each one of us are cursed eternally for it, unless we allow the Seed to enter our source an birth new life.
Ro 3:10
As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
Ps 53:3
Every one of them has turned aside; They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.
2. Until the Seed Comes v. 19b
“till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made”
The Seed we talked a little about last week. The Seed was the seed of jesus Christ, the Messiah, who came as promise to forgive us of our sins.
Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born 1 of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
3. Through a spirit (divine being) as a Mediator
Rhetorical Question
Acts 7:53 who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”
Noun: μεσίτης (mesitēs), GK 3542 (S 3316), 6×. This noun derives from the Gk. adjective mesos, which means “in the middle.” Thus, a mesitēs is someone who mediates a disagreement between two parties in order to reach a common understanding. We still use the word “mediator” and “mediate” today for the moderation of disputes.
(1) The most famous mediator of the OT was Moses, who stood between God and the people, sometimes bringing God’s message to the Israelites (see Gal 3:19–20), sometimes bringing Israel’s complaints or sins before God. But there is no word in Hebrew for either “mediate” or “mediator.”
(2) The NT calls Jesus a mesitēs between God and us in 1 Tim. 2:5. We need someone to stand between God and us and to reconcile us to God (see reconciliation). This mediator is Jesus; he himself said no one can come to the Father except through him (Jn. 14:6). The writer to the Hebrews calls Jesus “the mediator of a new covenant” (Heb. 9:16; 12:24; cf. 8:6). While the notion of standing between God and us is present here, these passages take on an additional meaning. The mesitēs Jesus guarantees our salvation, since the blood he shed on Calvary is the blood of the sinless Son of God, it was shed once-for-all, and God accepted it in the heavenly Holy Place
1 Tim. 2:5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus
The New King James Version. (1982). (1 Ti 2:5). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.