Understanding the Church Age Believer's Relationship
to the Law
Romans 7,
Galatians 1-3
I want to start off briefly telling
you about the conference/seminar. I'm not going to go into it in
tremendous detail. This seminar was started about five years ago as an
academic outreach ministry of the Baptist Bible Seminary
which is a GARB, Greater Association of Regular Baptists, school in
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. I think I saw a few furrowed brows going,
“What is GARB?” The Northern Baptists kicked the Southern
Baptists out in the early 1850's because they couldn't support missionaries or
pastors or any kind of ministry by anyone who might have a slave. All the
denominations in the US split between the north and the south between the late
1840's and 1860. Gradually over time in the 19th century they
tended to merge back. Northern Baptists and Southern Baptists did
not.
The Northern Baptist Church
basically went liberal, starting in the 1890's in what is known as the
fundamentalist/modernist controversy. In the late 1920's and 30's, about
every three years or so another group of conservative, and I mean that lower
case 'c', conservative fundamentalist in the classic sense of the Word, were
the ones who believed in the basic infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture,
Deity of Christ, virgin birth, miracles, and the literal Second Coming of
Christ. Conservatives in the Northern Baptist churches would get fed up
with their liberalism and leave. One of the groups that left in the
mid-thirties is a group that came to be known as the CBA, Conservative
Baptist Association. One of the three men who started that was Dr.
Richard Beale, who had a daughter named Betty Beale, who married a man named
Bob Thieme.
Another conservative group that
split off the Northern Baptists was the Regular Baptists. They became
known as the Greater Association of Regular Baptists, GARB. Some of
us who worked at Camp Peniel met a few people from
the school called the Grand Rapid School of the Bible and Music. They were
a GARB school. They were as legalistic as Bob
Jones. They couldn't watch TV or go to movies or anything like
that. They would come down and work at this Christian camp in Texas with a
bunch of grace-oriented Christians and they would just walk around the first
couple of weeks with their eyes wide-open. They just couldn't believe
these Christians, who, when they got a night off, would go into town and go to
a movie. And they wouldn't even think there could be anything wrong with
it. The GARB students would be pretty much converted to grace by
the end of the summer and then they'd have to go back up north and it was a
rude awakening for them.
They're not quite that legalistic
any more. Bible Baptist Seminary is an excellent school. The academic
dean of the seminary is a classmate of mine from Dallas Seminary, Mike Stallard, who is very committed to dispensationalism.
They started this academic study group bringing together top scholars and some
pastors who were committed to traditional dispensational theology who meet
together on an annual basis to further probe, develop, and understand critical
issues within dispensational theology. I went to Clark's Summit last year; this
year they're meeting at the College of Biblical Studies and next year they'll
be back in Clark's Summit.
Each year they pick a little bit
different topic. This year the topic was on dispensationalism and Biblical
preaching. The first session we had yesterday morning had two main
presenters: Dr. Rod Decker, who teaches at the school up there, and Dr.
Christopher Cone who is now the president of Kendell
Seminary in Fort Worth. Their topics were complementary, although they didn't
agree on every detail. Dr. Decker spoke on preaching in the Biblical
languages and emphasized the importance of the languages for the pastor.
A pastor must know the original languages.
Chris spoke on integrating exegesis
and exposition. He subtitled it: Preaching and Teaching for Spiritual
Independence. Most of us in this group would have a lot more sympathy for what
Chris said. Dr. Decker, although I appreciate a lot of his scholarship, is
unfortunately, I believe, like too many great scholars. I know of some
academicians who when they're in a seminary or academic classroom, they are as
technical and as detailed in the languages as possible. In a response to
a question someone asked Dr. Decker about the use of the original languages in
the pulpit, he said, “Well, I've been in a pastoral ministry for thirty years
and I don't think I ever referred to Greek or Hebrew in the pulpit more than
ten times.” I continue to challenge him on this.
When it came to dealing with the
importance of knowing the languages he had many good things in his
papers. I thought I would read to you some of the excerpts from it.
He had a two and a half page ten point-typeface quote from Martin Luther, who
initiated the Protestant Reformation in 1517. Luther, like every other
pastor who has a sin nature, did not get everything right. In fact, dear
old Martin didn't get a lot of things right. But he did get two things
right. One was sola scriptura, the Scripture alone and sola fide, by faith alone. Those
were the Latin terms that were two of the five phrases that became sort of the
marching banners for the Protestant Reformation.
At this time Luther is moving away
from Roman Catholicism and he had been an Augustinian monk before he came to an
understanding of the gospel in his study of Romans so he doesn't move very far
but he moves far enough to understand the line between the gospel
of grace. He is so embattled over just this one doctrine of justification
by faith alone he doesn't have time to explore all of the other doctrines of
Scripture that gradually developed over the next century. He said some
important things about the preparation of a pastor.
Luther said, “In proportion as we
value the gospel let us zealously hold to the languages.” That needs to be
emblazoned over the door of every seminary in the world today because somehow
they fail to understand how that really relates to what you do and say in the
pulpit. He says, “Let us zealously hold to the languages for it was not
without purpose that God caused His Scriptures to be set down in these two
languages alone. The Old Testament in Hebrew; the New Testament in
Greek. Now if God did not despise them but chose them above all others for
His word, then we ought, too, to honor them above all others.” What a
great statement. The Bible wasn't written in Hebrew and Greek “just
because it just happened that way.” God oversees the project. There
was a reason for that. God chose Hebrew and Greek to be the vessels used
as the best vehicle to communicate the content that's in those two
testaments. When God considered it important to communicate in those two
languages, then we should honor that and should know that.
There's just a footnote in our
country that up until the late 1800's it would be typical that in a
congregation the size of ours on a Sunday morning, there would be at least
eight or ten men in the congregation who could follow along in the Greek text
because Greek and Hebrew and Latin were all taught in the classroom so they
grew up studying these languages so they could read it. Today we do well
if we can find a pastor in this computer age who can
deal with Greek, much less Hebrew.
“Nevertheless,” Luther goes on, “we
shall be sure of this, we shall not long preserve the gospel without the
languages.” What a profound insight. “The languages are the sheath in which this sword of the Spirit is
contained. They are the casket in which this
jewel is enshrined. If through our neglect, we let the languages go
which, God forbid, we shall not only lose the gospel but the time will come
when we will be unable to either speak, write, or correct Latin, German or even
the English. Then you say, 'but many of the fathers became teachers
without the languages. That is true. But how do you account for the
fact they so often erred in the Scriptures? How often does not St.
Augustine err in the Psalms and his other expositions and all those who have
undertaken to expound Scripture without a knowledge of
the languages? Even though what they said about a subject at times was
perfectly true, they were never quite sure if it was really present there in
the text whereby their interpretation they sought to find. When our faith
is thus held up to ridicule, where does the fault lie? It lies in our
ignorance of the languages and there's no other way out than to learn the
languages.”
He goes on to say later on, “A
simple preacher, it is true, has so many passages and texts available through
translations that he can know and teach Christ, lead a holy life, and preach to
others.” But when it comes to interpreting Scripture and working with it
on your own, disputing with those who incite it incorrectly [and that should go
to every single pastor who thinks he can go far without the languages.] he is
lost. What Luther is saying here is that you may be able to get so far
without the languages but when it comes to interpreting Scripture, working with
it on your own, or disputing with those who recite it incorrectly he is unequal
to the task.
“That cannot be done without the
languages. Since it becomes Christians to make holy use of the Scriptures
as their one and only book, it is a sin and a shame
not to know our own book and to understand the speech and words of our
God. It is still a greater sin and loss that we do not study languages,
especially in these days when God is offering us and given us books and every
inducement to this study”. This was in 1520 or so. They didn't have
computers. They had just discovered the printing press about fifty or
sixty years earlier so because of that they had just had books and tools to
study. He's not talking about Logos and Concordance and Bible Works and all
those other tools today so get that out of your head.
We live in an age that's gone way
beyond that and yet, the more that's available to us, the less we emphasize it
and the less that we use. He goes on to say, “The teacher or preacher can
expound the Bible from beginning to end as he pleases, accurately or
inaccurately, if there is no one there in the congregation to judge whether he
is doing it right or wrong. But in order to judge, one must have a knowledge of the languages that cannot be done in any
other way. Therefore, although faith in the gospel may indeed be
proclaimed by simple preachers without a knowledge of
languages such preaching is flat and plain. People finally become bored
with it and it falls to the ground but where the preacher is versed in the
languages there is freshness and vigor in his preaching. Scripture can be
treated in its entirety and faith finds itself constantly renewed by a
continual variety of words and illustrations. Hence, there is great
danger of speaking of God in a different manner and different terms than God
Himself employs. In short, they may lead saintly lives and teach sacred
things among themselves but so long as they remain without the languages, they
cannot but lack what all the rest lack, and to be useful to other
nations. Because they can do this but will not, they have to figure out
for themselves how they will answer for it to God.” Good words from 500
years ago.
Let's get into our study in Romans
tonight. There's no slide presentation with it. I want to take you to
some passages where I ended last time to understand the relationship of the
Christian to the Law. At the seminar today, this morning, we had a session on
hermeneutics as it applies to the Old Testament and the New Testament. The three
speakers were Joe Perle, the academic dean at the College of Biblical
Studies. He did a good job but he was up against two oldie, moldie, goldies: Bob Thomas who's
the best and Elliott Johnson, who's just half a one thousand point decimal
point of Bob Thomas because he's younger.
When we introduced ourselves to the
panel, I was going to start off saying that compared to the
other guys on the panel, I was older than dirt. But
considering that Elliott was there, I was the dirt but he was older than me because
he was my professor. Elliott Johnson is the hermeneutics expert at Dallas
Seminary whereas Bob Thomas, before he retired, was the hermeneutics guy at
Master Seminary. They have different perspectives and they don't always
agree. I'm not always sure what the difference is because they're slicing
the baloney very, very thin but it's significant.
Sometimes it's not always as clear
and I really appreciated some things that Elliott had in his paper, not that I
didn't appreciate Bob Thomas's paper which was excellent, but Elliott was
dealing with a number of passages like Romans 6:15 and Romans 7 and Galatians
3, which are passages we're in right now. So he was scratching where I
was itching. He had some interesting things to say which I'll read as we go
through these passages.
In Romans 7 Paul is talking about
the fact that we are dead to the Law. Not that the Law is dead but that
we are dead to the Law. In other words, the Law no longer has power or
authority over us. This is so foundational for us to understand that I
hope you understand how important it is to get to this. This isn't just
abstract doctrine. When you go to many, if not most, churches in this
country, the pastors do not know how to distinguish between Old Testament and
New Testament teaching to begin with. Beyond that they don't understand
what has really happened in terms of the Cross and the
Baptism by the Holy Spirit. They may understand it to a degree but as I
pointed out in our last few lessons what Paul says in Romans 6: 14 and 15, “sin
shall not have dominion over us because we're dead to the sin nature.”
It's still alive; it's still there. But we're dead to the sin
nature. That's Romans 6. Romans 7 says we're
dead to the Law. That's why we have a problem with legalists on the one
hand and people who are licentious on the other hand. But he's making the
statement that sin shall not have dominion over us because we're not under Law,
we're under grace.
As I pointed out when we hit that
passage a couple of weeks ago, what he is saying is that there has been a
dispensational shift. There has been a change in the way God relates to
human beings because of what happened at the cross. Because of what
happened at the cross, there is something radically different that happened to
believers since the day of Pentecost. It happened to the Church Age believer
but never happened to anybody before that Day of Pentecost.
On the day we believe Jesus died for
our sins, at that instant, God the Son uses God the Holy Spirit to cleanse us,
to identify us positionally with Christ in His death, burial, and
resurrection. We call that doctrine positional truth which means we're
dead to the sin nature. Because of that we're free from the power and
dominion of the sin nature. That's Romans 6. That never happened
before 33 A.D. Never! David didn't have that happen to him. Saul in the Old Testament, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Abraham, Moses. Name
your hero. None of them had that happen to him.
So the lesson we get from the Old Testament
is that the Law really doesn't work. Israel is under the Law, but what
happens? Failure after failure after failure.
There are a few bright lights. There are times when they step up to the
plate and they go above and beyond their fallen natures. That's why
they're heroes. That's why they're listed in Hebrews 11.
I want to talk a minute about
heroes. I've been reflecting on this the last few weeks because of one
sentence I heard on a talk radio show that I think it was accurate. We
live in a era since the fifties and sixties where a
certain segment of our intelligentsia and academicians have been in full mode
to destroy American heroes, to assault the founding fathers and attack
them. This is to be expected from a liberal. Why? Because as
Thomas Sowell so clearly points out in his book Conflict of Vision, ultimately what
makes a difference between the person who looks at the world and comes to
liberal conclusions and a person who looks at the world and comes to
conservative conclusions is that the liberal thinks that man is basically good
and improvable. Conservatives believe that man is basically evil, not that he can't do good things but that his nature is basically
evil and so he needs to be controlled. Even
government must be controlled by law; otherwise evil will have its
day. Either the people will become evil or the government will become
evil, but law is what controls evil and controls the sin nature.
Now if you're a liberal and you
believe everybody is basically good then you're going to look at Thomas
Jefferson or George Washington or Benjamin Franklin or any human hero and
you're going to say, “They're not all that heroic. Look at all the things
they did that were wrong. Look at the sins in their life. Look at
their moral failures.” You just tear them down because your assumption is
that everyone is basically good and they did bad things so how can you say they're a hero? The reason they're a hero is because they're a
corrupt fallen sinner and they had moments when they rose above their nature
and they lived and operated above their sin nature. That's what made them
heroes. They didn't stay there the whole time.
You look at those heroes in Hebrews
11. Those men that are listed there all had tremendous spiritual
failings. Every single one of them from Abraham to Moses to Isaac to
Joseph, all the way through to Gideon and Jepthah and
the judges and David, they all had great moral failures. That's to be
expected. They were fallen sinners and we know from Romans 6 that they
didn't have a sin nature whose power was broken by the Baptism of the Holy
Spirit. So it's just amazing they rose to the level they did but they rose
above their natural sin nature inclination and they did what God wanted them to
do. They obeyed God. Maybe they did it just for a moment, just for a
day, just for a week, but there was an instant or more when they were above
their nature. That's what made them heroes.
Heroes are people who rise above
their natural sinful inclinations. It may not be a lot but that's what's
heroic. When everyone just goes along and does what their sin nature leads
them to do then they're just being normal. When the Founding Fathers or
any other great hero in American history failed, that's only to be expected
because they were fallen sinners. What's not expected is for them to rise
to the level of the heroics of the Founding Fathers or the great military
leaders we had or the great civic leaders that we had in the our
history. That was exceptional. That's what makes a person a
hero.
What we see here in Romans is that
we have to recognize the fact that we're sinners. You're married to a
sinner. Whether I'm talking to the wife or the husband that person
you love is a lousy, corrupt sinner, and you need to be realistic about
that. They're going to fail and fail miserably;
sometimes or many times, depending on the person. That's what you should
expect not in a way that excuses it but that they're just a sinner, just like
you. Guess what? You're going to fail too. Many times.
The grace of God is that many times
we won't fail; maybe because of the Word of God and
maybe there'll be a few times of significant failure. That's the
reality. That's why we have to forgive one another in marriage because
that other person is not any better or worse than we are. Their sin,
whatever it is, their failures in the marriage, whatever it may be, and we all
have them, on either side, is just to be expected by a sinner. What's
exceptional is that we rise above that because we love that person.
That's what makes it significant.
We can do that in the Church Age
because of what happened at salvation when we're identified with Christ in his
death, burial, and resurrection. That's revolutionary. That had never
happened in 4,000 years of human history. All of a sudden on the day of
Pentecost and from that day to now the power and dominion and tyranny of their
sin nature is ended. If it operates fully in our lives its
because we choose to let it happen. It's only because you choose to
let it happen and I choose to let it happen. It's our
responsibility. We put ourselves back under that tyranny but that tyranny
is broken for the first time in human history. That is mind
boggling.
The Law never handled it. The
Mosaic Law was a complete failure. Look at what it produced in terms of
the history of Israel, the bondage, and the failures. There had to be
something different and what's different is the shift from Law to grace.
It doesn't mean there wasn't grace in the Old Testament. It doesn't mean
there aren't mandates, ethical, moral absolutes, in the New Testament. But
now, as Elliott pointed out today, we're going to emphasize truth with
grace. Because we recognize we're all fallen and we have to deal with each
other in grace. That's what makes for successful relationships in any area
because we deal with one another in grace and humility.
In this early transitional period,
in the early part of the Church Age, especially the Jewish believers were
wrestling with the whole idea of what is the role of the Mosaic Law to
believers. Last time we looked at Acts 15 in terms of the Jerusalem
Council and there I pointed out that the issue there wasn't just the issue of
whether or not male Gentile believers should be circumcised but really the
whole issue of the role of the Law in their life. As the apostles met and
worked through the issues, understanding God's call to Peter to take the gospel
to the Gentiles and how God had used Paul and Barnabas in their first
missionary journey to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, they realized there was
no longer an obligation to the Mosaic Law placed upon believers in the Church
Age.
However, there were problems of
offending Jews because of their belief in the Law. This is what we see in
that Acts 15 passage as one example of many of how the more mature brother
should be sensitive and aware of problems with a weaker brother. That's
all that is. I read the issues last week where they should avoid eating
meat sacrificed to idols and adultery and immorality. Why? Because that offended the Jews. Not because it was not
spiritual and not because they couldn't grow and mature if they did those
things but so they would not offend the Jews.
That's the basic argument that's
there: that the Law as a rule of life, as the basis for any
sanctification, had ended so neither Jew nor Greek was under it any more.
However, the moral laws, the eternal spiritual laws, that
the Mosaic Law reflected were still in effect. Now from there I want to
look at a second important passage in the New Testament dealing with the
relationship of the Law and that's in Galatians. Galatians is between 2
Corinthians and Ephesians. Galatians is the first epistle that Paul
wrote. It is one of my favorite epistles because of the simplicity of it,
the way it's laid out.
The first few chapters focus on the
fact they distorted grace in the gospel. The remaining chapters deal with
the fact they distorted grace in sanctification. In the first chapter Paul
doesn't mince words. He just basically assaults them very strongly,
telling them that they deserted the gospel of the grace of Christ for a
different kind of gospel, not the one he preached, but one that was taught by
the Judiazers. “It's okay to believe in Jesus as
Messiah but He's not enough. You also have to follow the precepts of the
Law,” the Judaizers said. It was grace plus
something. Whenever you add anything to grace, you destroy grace. It
was another gospel, not the same kind of gospel.
It's a heteros gospel, a gospel of a different kind. That's
how we get the word heterosexual. You have a relationship with someone
who is a different sex. Not a homosexual, who is someone of the same
sex. So you have two different Greek words for' other', heteros, which is means another of a different
kind and allos, which is someone
of the same kind. So they desert to a different kind of gospel.
The issues in chapters one and two
really relates to grace and the gospel of justification by faith alone. That's
why you have the great passages like Colossians 2:16, “Knowing that because a
man is not justified by works of the Law but by faith in Jesus
Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified
by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law.” Notice how he completely
juxtaposes faith in Christ with the works of the Law. Works of the Law
cannot get you the kind of righteousness that He requires. He expands on
all of this in Romans 3 and 4. He goes on to say in verse 20, “I have been
crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live...”
See that relates to Romans
6. He's making a transition here at the end of chapter 2 to talking about
sanctification. He says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is
no longer I who live...” What does he mean? Does he have a multiple
personality syndrome? No, what he means by that is that the old man is
dead. It's not me, the unregenerate person I once was who lives but
Christ who lives in me. We have been identified with Christ in His death,
burial, and resurrection, that power of the sin nature is broken,
I'm a new creature in Christ so that I live on the basis of this new
empowerment. Christ lives in us. The Holy Spirit lives in us.
He now says, “The life I now live in
the flesh, I live by faith.” See, the spiritual life is still by grace,
through faith. It's not by works. Does that mean there aren't things
we have to do? There aren't mandates to follow? No, but we follow
those mandates by faith. God said, “Do this.” I say, “I believe it
so I'm going to do it.” We fulfill the mandate by faith; it's not
legalism. It's only legalism if you think that's what gets you credit with
God or if you think you can lose your salvation if you don't do it or something
like that.
Paul says, “The life I live in the
flesh [he means in this corporeal body] I live by faith in the Son of God who
loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God for
if righteousness comes through the Law then Christ died in vain.” Righteousness
doesn't come through the Law either as justification righteousness, that is,
imputed righteousness, or experiential righteousness. It doesn't come
through the Law.
Then he changes his focus in
Galatians 3. Chapters 3 – 6 focuses on the spiritual life, and it's
fabulous how he focuses our attention on this. Look at Galatians 3:
2. He says, “The only thing I want to learn from you is, did you receive
the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of faith?” Based on
what he just said in chapters one and two, we received the Spirit, not because
of what we did, not from following the Law, not through the ritual, but by
faith alone in Christ alone. That's how we received the Spirit. Then
he says in verse 3, “Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit [at
regeneration when we're identified with Christ in the Baptism of the Holy
Spirit and as a result we're indwelt by the Spirit, the Son, and the Father]
are you now being completed or matured by the flesh?” You
got saved by faith, do you grow by the Law? No.
What's important about this question
is [and you should circle these words 'Spirit' 'perfect' 'flesh']. The
next time these words show up is in Galatians 5:16. Everything between
this verse and Galatians 5:16—which says “we are to walk by means of the
Spirit and you will not fulfill [perfect] the works of the flesh [the sin
nature]—is to help us understand what he says in 5:16. Talk about an
anocaluthon, “going down a rabbit trail”. That's a three-chapter
“rabbit trail”.
It's important to understand what he
says so we can understand the command to 'walk by means of the Spirit'.
If you just go out and start saying, “I've got to walk by means of the Spirit”,
you're going to fall flat on your face because we have to understand all these
things that are going on. The most important thing to understand is what
he says in verse 3 as the starting point which has to do with
the purpose of the Law and how it functions in our life. He goes on
to say, “Have you suffered so many things in vain?” In other words, was it in
vain? They've had opposition because they became Christians and if you're
just going to opt for the Law then you went through all of that for no reason
whatsoever.
He says in verse 5, “Therefore, He
who supplies the Spirit to you...” Who's that? That's the Father who
sent the Spirit. And it's Jesus who sent the Spirit. “... and works miracles among you, did He do it by works of the
Law or by the hearing of faith?” If it's the works of the Law, then how
you grow up as a Christian is really different. If it's by faith then it's
different from anything that's preceded it in history. You can understand
why they might have been a little confused. “Since Adam fell, we haven't
done it this way before. It's a new way,” they say. It's a new
dispensation. For the first time in history their sins have been paid
for. He says the comparison is, one familiar to you if you've sat in this
Romans class for long, “...Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted and
imputed to him for righteousness.” That's a quote from Genesis 15:6.
This verse simply refers back to
Abram's original trust in God for salvation. He simply believed the
promise of God and God imputed the righteousness of Christ to him on the basis
of faith alone. So Abraham becomes foundational here. Abraham is the
first Jew; he is the head of the Jewish race and he becomes the covenant
partner with God in what is known as the Abrahamic covenant. God said,
“Through you, Abraham, I will bless all nations.” That's the
promise. Remember that, because we're going to hear that word 'promise'
about six or seven more times before we finish this chapter.
It all relates to inheriting
the promise of Abraham. Here's the issue: do we as Gentiles have the
inheritance as physical descendants from Abraham? No. We're not physical
descendants of Abraham. But we are heirs of the promise in this
passage. How do we become heirs of the promise? Paul says the
promise was given to Abraham and his seed. And he says that the fact the
word 'seed' is in the singular means it's referring to Jesus. When we
enter into Christ through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, we become heirs of
the promise to Abraham, not by our physical relation to Abraham but by our
spiritual relation through our position in Christ.
Paul is going to end this chapter
talking about the Baptism by the Holy Spirit. God has a plan that's
consistent in every one of these books. Isn't it incredible how it all
comes together? But if we don't immerse ourselves in the Scripture, then
it doesn't show up. This is one of the things Elliott brought up today
which I thought was very insightful, just adding a few little things together,
he said, “In the Gospels the Lord applies promises from the Law to Himself, but
not to the disciples.” Wow, that's good. That's what teaching at
Dallas Seminary for fifty years will get you. You see things.
He says, “Now Paul in Galatians 3:
6-29 illustrates how two different promises can be applied to believers whether
Jew or Gentile. The promises belong to Israel. Romans 9:4,
right? Paul says, “The covenants belong to Israel.” They don't belong
to the Gentiles. So how do we get them? That's the issue. The
promises belong to Israel because they're addressed to Israel in Genesis but
they're applied through and in the Israelite, the seed, through Jesus Christ.
Elliott went on to say, “The first is a series of promises addressed
historically to Abraham in Genesis 12:2-3. One is a promise to bless
Abraham and a second is a promise to bless Gentiles through Abraham.”
Turn to Galatians 3:8. Elliott
says, “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify [in the indicative
mood in the Greek] which says that seeing God justifies the Gentiles by
faith...[see, it's that continuous action] God justifies the Gentiles by faith,
preaches the gospel to Abraham beforehand.” Now did God tell Abraham that
Jesus, the son of Mary, is going to be crucified on a cross called Golgotha
right outside Jerusalem which is right on Mount Moriah
where later on you're going to sacrifice Isaac? And by believing in that
substitutionary death of Christ on the Cross you're going to have eternal
life? Did He tell that to Abraham? No, He didn't give all that but
what Abraham understood was that man has a basic problem because he's a sinner
and God, and only God, can solve that problem so I have to trust Him through
His promise. More details will be added later. Stay tuned. Film at eleven.
So what was the good news that came
to Abraham in the context of Genesis 12? Think about it. Through you,
I'm going to bless all the nations. That was the good news. I'm going to
bless you and through you, I'm going to bless all the nations. That's the
gospel, the good news. So Elliott writes that there are three things to note:
first, that Abraham believed God and was blessed as his faith was credited to
him as righteousness; second, the promise extends to all nations through you
[Gen. 12:3]; the ambiguity of 'through you' at least means through
Abraham. But those addressed directly through Abraham were
limited. He was about maybe 70 years old at this time and he lived about
another 100 years so there were just a finite number of people he could
personally bless. That's what he's saying there.
Isaac was blessed through Abraham's
faith (Gen. 22: 1-19) and those who read about Abraham's case and followed his
faith are blessed as Abraham's son—Gal. 3:7, which reads, “Therefore know
that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.” Elliott then says,
“Third, it is then clear that all nations were not influenced directly through
Abraham. That awaited Abraham's descendant, Jesus Christ, who would
ultimately provide redemption, through which blessings are ultimately available
to the Gentiles. While Christ is the basis for blessing all nations,
ultimately Israel will also be the messenger through whom all nations will
hear. [Revelation 7:3 and 14: 4-6 which refers to the
144,000].
So let's look at what the text says,
“For seeing that God would justify or would declare the Gentiles to be just
before God, proclaimed the gospel to Abraham beforehand saying 'in you all
nations will be blessed'” That's the gospel as Abraham understood as its
stated in the context. “So then those who are of faith are blessed with
believing Abraham.” That would be Jew and Gentile.
Verse 10, “For as many as are of the
works of the Law are under the curse [that is, those who think they get
righteousness from the Law are under the curse] ...for it is written, 'cursed
is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book
of the Law to do them'.” [Deut. 27:26]. Then Paul says, “But that no one
is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident...” He then quotes
from Habakkuk 2:4, just as Paul did in the beginning of Romans, “For the
Scripture says the just shall live by faith.” 'To live by faith' deals with
post-salvation spiritual growth.
Then in verse 13 he says, “Christ
has redeemed us [purchased us, bought us so we are no longer in the slave
market of sin, under the curse of the Law.]” How did Christ redeem
us? By becoming a curse for us. And again Paul quotes from the Old
Testament in Deuteronomy 21:33, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”
What we learn here is that freedom
isn't free. Somebody has to pay. Always. There's no such thing as a
free lunch. When the Federal government gives money to anybody, it has to
take that from somebody who worked for it.And
somebody who earned it. Somebody always has to pay. There's no such
thing as free money. The government can't just sit up there and print
money because they're in charge of the treasury [hello, Mr.
Bernanke]. There's got to be some value there. Verse 14 says, “That
the blessing of Abraham...[so the purpose for Christ becoming a curse on the
cross is so the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles]...in Christ
Jesus.”
No one got in Christ Jesus before
the day of Pentecost, before A.D. 33. It only comes when you're baptized
by means of the Holy Spirit, identified with Christ in His death, burial, and
resurrection, and placed in Christ. “The blessing of Abraham might come
upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that we [Church Age believers] might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith.” I don't recall the Spirit being
mentioned in Genesis 12. But it's the blessing by Abraham but not because
we're in Abraham but because we're in Christ. So we receive that promise
because we're in Christ, not because we're physically related to Abraham.
Verse 15, “Brethren, I speak in a
manner of men, [I'm telling you this in terms of human language] though it is
only a man's covenant, yet if it is confirmed no one annuls it.” He's
saying that when you enter into a contract with anyone else, once the contract
for your credit card, your mortgage, whatever is signed, you can't go in and
change it. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.” He does
not say seeds, but seed. This is one of those verses that emphasize verbal
inspiration extends down to the very letters, plural versus singular. Paul
is making a major doctrinal point on the fact that the word 'seed' in Genesis
is singular and not plural. That's how inerrancy extends to the minutia. So we participate in the blessing, not because of our relationship
to Abraham but because we're in Jesus, the Seed.
He says, “And this I say that the
Law, which was 430 years later...” See all these
promises were made to Abraham out of grace. Law doesn't come along for
another 430 years so how can Abraham's salvation or the promises made to him
have anything to do with the Law? These precede the Law by four and one
half centuries. “...the Law which was 430 years
later cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in
Christ.” Interesting. The Abrahamic covenant is
confirmed by God in Christ. “...that it
should make the promise of no effect.” So the covenant that comes later
can't nullify the earlier covenant. It's still in effect. It's an
eternal covenant.
Then, Paul says, “For if an inheritance
comes from the Law it's no longer a promise but God gave it to Abraham by
promise. What purpose then does the Law serve? It was added because
of transgressions.” Notice he says that the Law was not added to get you
to heaven or to get you spiritually mature. It was added because you were
dirty, lousy, rotten, corrupt sinners and you needed a Law to control your
sin. And to make it clear to you that you couldn't be perfect.
“It was added because of sin until
the seed [Christ] should come and to whom the promise was made. And it
[The Law] was appointed through the angels by the hand of a
mediator. Exodus 20 tells you nothing about angels being up there on Mount
Sinai but this passage does. “Now a mediator does not mediate for one only
because God is one. Is the Law then against the promise of God? Certainly not. For if there could have been a Law given
that could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the
Law. But Scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in
Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” The promise comes to us
by faith and that promise is the promise of blessing to Abraham
which relates to the inheritance.
We don't get it. It's not a
physical inheritance for us because we're not related to the physical
seed. It's a spiritual inheritance. And he says, “But before faith
came, we were kept under guard by the Law, which would afterwards be
revealed. Therefore the Law was our tutor...” The Greek is pedagogue. A
pedagogue
is a slave hired to train a young child until he reached maturity at age
thirteen or fourteen in Greek culture. And then he was to be treated like
an adult. In Hebrew culture he was bar mitzvaded and
then he became a child of the covenant. Mama couldn't scold him anymore like
a boy. He had to be treated like an adult. He could not be disciplined the
same way as he could have as a child, 'but as an adolescent if he mouthed off
at his mother too much, he could be taken out in the square and stoned. So
the Law is compared to that temporary period before maturity. After faith
has come, the tutor function no longer exists, Paul says, “You are all sons of
God through faith in Christ Jesus for as many of you as were baptized into
Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is
neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one
in Christ Jesus and heirs according to the promise.” But that inheritance
doesn't come by physical relation to Abraham but by being spiritually placed in
Christ by the Baptism by the Holy Spirit, which is what verse 28 is talking
about. That takes us right back to Colossians 2:11 and Romans 6: 1-4, the
foundation for the spiritual life. Then Paul goes on to talk about other
things in chapters four and five but chapter three is what tells us about the
believer's relationship to the Law.
Next time we're going to look at
Galatians 5:18 and 6:14 and connect those together. This is
fantastic stuff because it leads up to that great statement that Paul
gives in Galatians 5:1 because this is the foundation of our freedom in
Christ. Not freedom to do whatever we want to do but because of the
Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the death of the tyranny of the sin nature, we
have what nobody else in history had and that is the freedom to live apart from
the sin nature and to truly serve God. That's the point of freedom.