Galatians 3:15-22 - Moses Serves Abraham

Paul is in the middle of his theological argument against the Judaizers, an argument which covers chapters 3 and 4 of Galatians. Here is what we have covered thus far in chapter 3:

First he argues from their experience (v. 1-5).
Then he argues from the Scripture showing how the Scripture backs up their experience (v. 6-18).

A. He first points out that Abraham was justified by faith alone. (v. 6-9)
B. Then he points out that the law brings a curse. (v. 10)
C. Next that the Scripture itself says we are justified by faith. (v. 11)
D. Then that law-keeping as a human effort is the opposite of faith. (v. 12)
E. Finally that the curse brought upon us by the law was taken by Jesus at the cross in order that he might give us the promise made to Abraham by faith. (v. 13-14)

Now, in the passage covered in this bible study, he switches gears just a little and makes an argument from everyday life, though he will still tie it in to Scripture.

Essentially his argument is this. The covenant promises made to Abraham were eternal and immutable. Something that happened 430 years later cannot change them. And those promises made to Abraham clearly stated that we are made righteous through faith. Nothing God did through Moses can possibly change that.

The covenant God made with Abraham was an unconditional covenant. That's why Paul uses the word "promises" interchangeably with "covenant." Those promises were not contingent on obedience. They were grace. They were and are for all those who believe. By contrast the covenant at Sinai was conditional and had a different purpose, as we shall see.

It has been pointed out that the promises made to Abraham are all God saying, "I will . . . " while the covenant at Mt. Sinai was all God saying, "You shall . . ."

This bible study was an important one because it helped establish the relationship between the covenant God made with Abraham and the covenant God made with the people through Moses and what that has to do with us in the New Testament. In other words it gives us the relation between law and grace. In doing so it puts a lot of things in order and in perspective as far as what we are to think about the relation of the Old Testament and the New. I hope you will take the time to listen to it and to think through these things. Beneath all this there is wonderful news. There is gospel.

To listen to the audio from this Wednesday night study just click the link below.

Click here: Galatians 3:15-22 - Moses Serves Abraham



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Partakers

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. (Philippians 1:7 ESV)

Remember that this epistle is a thank-you letter. It was inspired by the unselfish giving of the church at Philippi to Paul while he was in prison. That generosity brought on this letter in which Paul expresses his love for them.

Paul loves the people at Philippi who are members of the church there. He holds them in his heart. There is a bond between them, not generated just by this act of generosity, but established long ago upon solid grounds, things they share, things that go far beyond geography and culture and even language. Here he elaborates on those things. Today I want us to look at the first of them. Grace.

. . . for you are all partakers with me of grace . . .

As Christians we are undeserving, wholly undeserving of anything good from God's hands. As Christians we understand that anything we receive from God is because of his goodness, not because of ours. We have earned nothing from God but death. Yet God has given us life. We have earned his curse, yet he has given us blessing. This is grace.

Paul knows something of that grace. His own testimony is one of bitter anger against Christ and his church. Paul called himself the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church. But God, in his grace, confronted him on the road to Damascus. Instead of justice, Paul received grace.

Paul knows them, too, and how they are recipients of grace. One of the members of that church there had ordered Paul beaten unlawfully. Opposing Paul and the gospel this man had tried to silence Paul. And yet just a few hours later this man had come falling down before Paul, trembling, and asking how he could be saved.

Grace. Amazing grace. It is what every Christian has in common. We are unworthy sinners who, if left alone, would lead lives in total opposition to God. Yet we were not left alone. God intervened.

For this reason alone, one stranger can meet another and within just a few minutes there is a bond between them that the world knows nothing about. They are immediately allies. There is an immediate love. It is because they are Christians and they know what it is to experience grace.

Have you been forgiven? Then you know that grace. It is impossible for those who have experienced grace not to love others who are partakers of that grace as well. No wonder Paul held them in his heart. If you have been given grace then give grace freely. If you have been loved undeservedly, then love others in spite of the fact they are undeserving as well. After all, we are partakers of grace.

Assurance

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6 ESV)

Paul's joy at the thought of the Philippians being participants in the fellowship of the gospel leads him to make an emphatic statement. He is sure. He is certain. He is convinced that his fellows in the gospel will be with him in that fellowship until the culmination of Christ's redemptive work. How can he be so sure? After all, they are human. They are fallible. Paul, of all people, knows the weakness of human flesh. It is Paul who has spelled out for us, in his epistles, the doctrines of human depravity and original sin.

as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12 ESV) 

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23 ESV) 

For as in Adam all die, . . . (1 Corinthians 15:22 ESV)

So if the Philippians are incapable of saving themselves, how can Paul be sure that those same Philippians will be fully and finally saved at the day of Christ? Or, to put it another way, how can he be sure that when "the roll is called up yonder" they'll be there?

And make no mistake. Paul is assured of their salvation. He is confident. He is certain. He says so quite clearly.

The answer to the question is simple. The work is not theirs. The work is God's. Salvation is God's work from beginning to end. It is all of grace.

Like you, I am very human. I have often begun projects that I never finished. Sometimes I get tired of a project. Sometimes I decide a project is more trouble than it's worth. Sometimes I fail to count the cost. Sometimes I just lose interest. Sometimes I find I am simply unable to complete a task.

But not God. God is not a man that he should change his mind. He never makes an error in judgment. He never has to re-think anything. He never lacks what it takes to finish. When he starts something you can be sure it is worth starting and If it is worth starting it is worth finishing.

So if God has begun a work of grace in you, he will complete it. He always does what he intends.

all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,  

and he does according to his will among the host of heaven  

and among the inhabitants of the earth;  

and none can stay his hand  

or say to him, "What have you done?” 

(Daniel 4:35 ESV)

Paul said that to assure them. We need to be reminded that God is faithful--even when we are not. Has God begun a good work in you? Then trust him that he will not let you go.

Grace

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:2 ESV)

What is grace? Grace in our language connotes beauty and elegance. A swan is a graceful bird. A ballet dancer is a graceful dancer. Someone who has kind and beautiful words for us is a person of graceful speech. In our modern usage, sometimes the opposite of grace is clumsiness. Someone stumbles and we say sarcastically (and humorously), "Well, that was graceful."

But what is grace? In many Christian homes it is the custom that when the family sits down together for a meal they bow their heads, join hands, and someone says 'grace'--not the word, but a prayer thanking God for the food and asking his blessing on it. Is that what grace is? A prayer?

Not exactly.

Grace is favor. How often have you said to someone, "Do me a favor . . ."? How often has someone said it to you? What is someone asking when he says this? What does it mean? Well, it means you are being requested to do something that you are under no obligation to do. To do someone a favor is to act, not out of debt, but out of kindness. That's what grace is. It is kindness. 

But not just kindness. Sometimes we are kind to others because they are kind to us. Conversely there are people to whom we are not kind because they are unkind to us. It's sort of a tit for tat. There's nothing too special about that kind of kindness. Jesus put it this way: "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?" (Matthew 5:46 ESV) Anybody can give tit for tat. Even the worst of sinners do that. Jesus expects us to love those who are unkind to us.

And that's what grace is. It is the unmerited kindness and favor of God. It is God loving the unlovely. It is God blessing the undeserving. It is God reaching down to the lowest and lifting him up to the heights. In this sense it is the opposite of merit--and the opposite of justice. It is God responding to bad with good. Grace is counterintuitive, fundamentally unjust, scandalous. And it is also the most wonderful word in the human vocabulary.

Grace.

Have you received grace from God? (You have. Much grace. No matter who you are. But we'll get into that later.) Go ahead and ask for it. No, you have no right to it. Of course not. By its very definition you have no right to it. It's not reward you're asking for, it's grace. And the God of all grace will never turn down that request from a penitent heart.

Would God be kind to an undeserving someone like you? Go ahead. Try him.

Huckleberry Finn Teaches About Grace.

How can anyone not like Huckleberry Finn, the character or the novel? I empathize with him, I sympathize with him, I so want to educate him and help him along the right path.

If you've ever read the novel you might remember that the plot centers around Huck and Jim and their trip on a raft down the Mississippi River. Huck is running from his father and Jim is running away from his owner because he had heard he was about to be sold down the river (a fate worse than death). The story is related in the first person and in Huck's own voice. Twain captures the various dialects of the time perfectly.

Along the way they pick up a couple of con-men, known as the king and the duke, who use Jim, Huck, and their raft to further their scandalous trade. This brings us to the part where Huck really touched a chord in me.

The king and the duke are conning a local family into believing that they are long lost brothers to a man who has just died, arriving just in time for the funeral and, of course, the distribution of the will. The deceased's daughters are the ones being defrauded and Huck feels sorry for them. He begins working to foil the king and the duke in their plans. Finally he cannot contain himself and, in spite of his fears, he spills the beans to the oldest daughter that the king and duke are frauds and that he has a plan to expose them. There follows an emotional scene in which Huck expresses his admiration for her and she her gratitude toward him.

He writes her a note telling her all and hands it to her. Then this in Huck's voice:

It made my eyes water a little, to remember her crying there all by herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to her, I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says:

"Good-bye--I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you, and I'll think of you a many and a many of time, and I'll pray for you too!"--and she was gone.

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness too--she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.

This is a natural human response to grace, i.e. undeserved kindness. While Miss Mary Jane is offering this kindness to Huck because she feels he deserves it, Huck knows better. He knows that he doesn't really deserve any such kindness at all, for, in spite of the fact that he has helped this girl, and in spite of his own warped conscience and sense of morality, he still has a keen sense of his own depravity. In a real sense, Huck's response to the girl's offer of prayer is the Christian response to any and all goodness God shows to us in this life. We deserve nothing from God at all for we have spent our whole lives in rebellion to him in one form or another. And, yet, God loves us, and is kind to us, and when we grasp that our response to that grace should be similar to Huck Finn: I don't deserve any of this but I'll strive to show some kind of love in return in any way I can.