The Promise by Faith

Allow me to pray. Most gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we ask that you would use this time to build up those gathered and to glorify yourself. Comfort believers in their salvation while convicting them of their continuing sin, convict and convert those who are not yet believers. Keep me from error as I share your word. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Pastor Keith has been leading us through a chapter by chapter study of the Old Testament book of Genesis up until a few weeks ago, we had been deep into the story of Abraham or Abram. We learned in chapters 12 and 15 about the covenant between Avram and God. And in the next few weeks, we will hear about this covenant again in chapter 17. As Abram is renamed Abraham and circumcision is instituted as the sign of the covenant and in subsequent chapters, as Isaac, the child of the promise, is born. But we interrupted that story in the last few weeks in order to focus on the Easter season and the New Testament story of the atoning death and life giving life, giving resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, I would argue that it wasn't an interruption. At all. In fact, the story of Jesus Christ is the glorious continuation and fulfillment of the story of God's covenantal promises to Abraham. The New Testament makes this continuity abundantly clear in many places, but perhaps never more so than in Galatians three, where the apostle Paul explicitly connects Christ's crucifixion to God's promise to Abraham, which Abraham received in faith. Please turn with me now to Galatians chapter three. As we read this passage, I want you to listen for four groups of words, these words appear over and over in this passage, and they will help us to identify the message that Paul is giving. First, faith and believe. Which are just the verb and noun forms of the same Greek root. Second, righteous righteousness and justify, which means to make righteous again, all from a single Greek root. Third, I want you to listen for the word promise. And fourth, I want you to listen for references to a member of the Trinity, whether it be the spirit, Christ or God, the father. Of the twenty nine verses in this chapter, only three don't contain at least one of these word groups. And they're going to help us to hear the message in today's lesson, we're going to hear that we need to have faith, that we need to believe, we're going to hear that God is righteous, that he provides righteousness for us in Christ and he thereby justifies us. We're going to hear that God has been faithful to fulfill his promises, and we are going to hear that an all powerful triune God is at work in our salvation. Here now, God's word for us, Galatians, chapter three, beginning in verse one. Oh, foolish Galatians. Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish, having begun by the spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. Preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed, along with Abraham, the man of faith. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Now, it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law for the righteous shall live by faith. But the law is not of faith, rather, the one who does them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, curse it is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. To give a human example, brothers, even with a man made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now, the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, who is Christ. This is what I mean, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterwards, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it is no longer it no longer comes by promise, but but but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now, an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law, the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither June or Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's The newer Abraham's offspring airs according to promise. Amen. The text that we're looking at today can be divided into three sections, verses one through nine, I'm going to call faith versus works. Versus 10 through 14, the righteous shall live by faith. In verses 15 to 29, the law versus the promise. Let's look first at verses one through nine, faith versus works. John Bowman preached on Good Friday about the greatest trade in history, the sweet exchange on the cross, when Jesus, the perfect law keeper, gives believers his righteousness in exchange for the wrath, do them as lawbreakers. the sweet and glorious message of the gospel. Yet here, less than 20 years after the crucifixion, the believers in Galatia have already forgotten that. Oh, foolish Galatians. Here, in what is probably Paul's earliest writings, only a year or two after he has visited the Galatians in person on his first missionary journey, Paul sends them an urgent message. They've already forgotten the gospel. Lest we judge the Galatians too harshly, let us remember that at Mount Sinai, the Israelites went from accepting the Lord's covenant with fear and trembling to worshiping a golden calf with calf with wild parties in less than 40 days. The Protestant Reformation was necessary because after 1500 years, the church had essentially lost the doctrine of grace by faith. Even reformed churches today struggle with works, righteousness and self-righteousness until Christ returns. The church will always have to fight purity for purity in the doctrine of salvation. We're reminded of this even this very day as the pope takes the first step to declare his predecessor a saint based on his good deeds and miracles resulting from prayers to him. As verse five makes abundantly clear, it is not to dead men that we look for wonder working, but to the living God. Let us dig in to Paul's writings, beginning in first verse one. Oh, foolish Galatians. As in the Proverbs, where foolishness is contracted, contrasted with wisdom, foolishness here means lacking in understanding. Having a misguided moral sense doesn't refer to being stupid or lacking the capacity to understand, but rather having a lack of understanding. The Galatians are foolish because they lean on their own works rather than on faith, because they look to themselves rather than looking to the cross. And they should know better. Paul makes it clear the heart of the gospel had been publicly portrayed to them. Jesus and him crucified. And Paul says that it was not a subtle message. It says it was publicly portrayed language that indicates that it was held up on a placard and put in their face. He tells them that if the law could save, then Christ's death was unnecessary and in vain, it took Christ's crucifixion, his death and his resurrection before they could be saved. Verses two and verse five ask essentially the same question in slightly different words. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? And Paul's obvious answer is that they had been saved by Paul's preaching of Christ crucified. Yet even our necessary faith is not of ourselves, but as a gift of God. Verse two tells us that it was something that they received from the spirit. It was given to them. Verse three tells us that it was something that was begun by the spirit in them. Ephesians two verses eight, nine tells us that for by grace, you have been saved through faith and this not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. He tells them here that instead of Their works, their salvation was the result of them hearing. It's not what you do. It is what you've understood and believed. So Paul asked the question again. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Are the works of the flesh going to be superior to the works of the spirit? If salvation begun by spirit, given faith. If salvation is begun by spirit, given faith, does it take works of the flesh to complete it rather than moving ahead in their spiritual life, they have moved backwards to their life before the spirit indwelt them. He repeats the key question in verse five, does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law? or by hearing with faith, and then he reinforces the obvious answer that it is faith. Please notice here that an all powerful triune God is at work in our salvation. Jesus Christ, the son, is lifted up in verse one for the work that he does on the cross in verses two through four, we see the work of the spirit and regenerating our heart and guiding us as mature Christians. And in verse five, we see the father, who is the one who has sent the son and who has sent the spirit, who is doing this to complete his perfect plan. In verses one through five, we've been looking at the experience in the lives of the Galatians. In verses six through 18, he moves from a discussion of experience to a discussion of scripture, because experience is not enough. It is possible for us to have false experiences. It's false. It's possible for us not to understand what's going on around us. And we need to always be grounded thoroughly in scripture. So he goes to scripture in verse six, quoting from Genesis 15, six, he says, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. In the traditional rabbinic teachings, Abraham was considered justified by his works, what he had done. But in Galatians three and Romans four, Paul makes it very clear that it is Abraham's faith that saves him. Abraham heard the promises of God and believe them, and he was justified. He was counted righteous. It wasn't that he was circumcised. and then follow the law and then believed and then was justified. Because we know that he's not going to be circumcised until Genesis 17. The promise given to Abraham occurred before his circumcision. It occurred before Jews existed as a nation. Jacob was not yet born. It happened four hundred and thirty years before the law existed. And we know from our study in Genesis that he didn't even keep the law all that well. So Paul's argument is pretty straightforward. Righteousness, salvation, the promise come from faith because Abraham had it before any of these other works of the law requirements, rules, external regulations and law keeping or even in place. Verses seven and nine. Thankfully, expand that to even us. They tell us that those with faith, not those with physical heredity from Abraham, are the ones who are truly Abraham's sons. And we can see that in the New Testament, in Matthew three and Luke three, where John the Baptist is facing down the Pharisees and he's they say that they are sons of Abraham. And they're told that God can raise up sons of Abraham out of the stones, that they are, in fact, out of God's favor. And Jesus himself makes the same argument in John eight, where he talks about those who are the sons of Abraham, those who follow after him and have faith and those who are the son of the devil, those who do not follow after him in faith. Verse eight is a little hard, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to adequately explain it to you. But it says, and the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham. It's an interesting personalization of scripture, it has scripture foreseeing and it has scripture preaching to Abraham. The best I can make out of it is it's telling us that the very word of God is scripture. And when God was speaking to Abraham, he was speaking scripture and he was giving him the promise even before Abraham fully understood fully understood what that promise was going to be. And Paul here. quite explicitly equates the promises to Abraham with the gospel itself. And we see how that's going to be worked out in verse eight, where Genesis 12, three and 18, 18 are quoted in you, shall all the nations be blessed. Jesus himself. talked about this in John, chapter eight, verse fifty six, he said, Your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. Just as verse eight confused me, John eight fifty six confused the Pharisees. They didn't understand what this 30 year old man could mean by saying that Abraham had seen his day. But he had the promise. And Jesus and his death upon the cross were the promise. And verses six through nine, we see the positive idea of justification by faith, we need to have faith, we need to believe if we are to be sons of Abraham and inherit his promised blessings. But in verses 10 through 14, we turn to the negative side of justification by works. Verses 10 through 14 focuses on the righteous shall live by faith. I want you to take a look in your Bible at these verses and see if you notice something unusual. Look at all those quotation marks. Galatians 3 shows us the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, and it's a good reminder of why we're studying Genesis. This chapter quotes the Old Testament no fewer than seven times. We've already cited Genesis in verses six and eight. Now, in this section, the Old Testament is quoted four times in four verses. Verse 10 comes from Deuteronomy 27, 26, verse 11 from Habakkuk 2, 4, verse 12 from Leviticus 18, 5, verse 13 from Deuteronomy 21, 23. And we're going to see another quotation from Genesis in the next section. What's interesting is that Paul uses the law itself, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, to show that if we depend on the law for justification, we are hopeless. Verse 10 tells us if we don't abide by all things written in the book of the law. We are cursed. If we can't do all the law. We are cursed. Verse 12, verse 12 tells us that if we don't do the law, we can't live. But verse 11 tells us that indeed, since none of us can keep the law, The righteous shall live by faith. Verse 13 shows us that Christ imputes this righteousness to us by taking our curse on himself at the cross, he took the curse as our substitute. This is what theologians call substitutionary atonement. Now, I'm a substitute for Keith today. He may be taller, better looking and have more theological training and sermon experience, but I hope you came to worship God today not to enjoy the preacher. And I was reminded by a quotation from A.T. Robertson, a Southern Baptist scholar of the early 20th century, who said, One proof of the inspiration of the Bible is that it has withstood so much poor preaching. I may not be as good as Keith, but I am wearing a tie. No matter how poorly I do, I won't completely fail. I have some knowledge and some skill. I'll mess it up, but it'll be good enough. God can still use me as a sufficient and adequate, if not perfect, substitute. And even Keith makes the occasional mistake. Christ, on the other hand, is the perfect substitute. and should be the focus of all our attention. Without him, we utterly fail no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try. We are completely insufficient in our works and inadequate in our ways. Without the benefit of his substitution, we are still under the curse, still under God's deserved wrath. We are dead. God is righteous and he provides righteousness for us in Christ and thereby justifies us. Verse 14 tells us in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. Yes, we even we, the Gentiles, are heirs to the promises of Abraham by faith. I'm going to move a little bit more quickly through the third section, verses 15 through 29. The law versus the promise. There are actually several complicated verses here, but I think the main idea will get the point across. Paul is trying to compare the promise to Abraham versus the law. And he tells us that the promise came first. There are two reasons why that why it trumps the law. The first is it is first in priority, it's irrevocable. God made a deal with Abraham and he can't come back later and come up with a new deal. With changed circumstances, he can't tell him, I promise you this is going to happen and then come back later and change his mind and tell him, oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about the law. You need to do this as well. Secondly, as I said before, the promise is just older than the law. It was four hundred and thirty years between the law, excuse me, the giving of the promise to Abraham and the giving of the law to Moses. Then beginning in verse 19, it talks to us about the purpose of the law. And again, there's a lot of complicated argument here, but I think it really boils down to two main things. One, the law is good because it shows us our sin. We know the difference between right and wrong because the law we know that God has rules because of the law. But the law doesn't save us. Asher sent me a quote earlier in the week from Ravi Zacharias, which I thought was very appropriate. He said, You look at mirrors to see your face as dirty, but you don't clean your face by rubbing it against the mirror. And the law is that mirror, it shows us that we are not holy, we are not righteous, we have failed before a holy and righteous God and we are not worthy. But it doesn't solve the problem. We need Christ in order to solve the problem. Secondly, the law disciplines us that it might set us free. Just as it teaches us the difference between right and wrong, it acts as a hedge against our bad behavior. It gives us a moral standard. Following the moral standard doesn't save us, but it keeps us from going into the deepest, darkest recesses of our sin. By setting out rules for us in verse 24, it's called a guardian. The underlying Greek word is the same word we get the word pedagogue from in Greek times, a pedagogue was not the person who taught you at school. It wasn't the nanny who taught you when you were a little one. But it was a guardian and a disciplinarian, someone who wasn't worried about education or moral advancement, but he was a stern disciplinarian, a harsh taskmaster, albeit a protective one. And that's what God's provided for us in the law, a protection against the worst ravages of sin. It's a reminder to us that if we go too far, there will be consequences. And just as a disciplinarian might slap our hands to let us know that we have gone into a bad area and that we need to move on, the law acts as that prick on our conscience. Now, I want to focus a little bit more on verses 26 to 29. I want to spend our time here because it takes us from the historical to the personal. How is our life going to be changed by what God has done for us in Christ through faith? I want to go ahead and read verses 26 through 29. For in Christ, you are all sons of God through faith, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ to put on Christ. There is neither June or Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. Verse 26 explains where we are for. It explains what's going on in verse 25, why we no longer need a harsh disciplinarian or a guardian. For you all. Actually, in the Greek, the word all is the first word in that sentence, emphasizing that it's not just for the Jew, but for the Gentile, that is for everyone. You are all sons of God. I don't think that there can be a more assuring statement for a believer to know that he is truly a son of God. But then it tells us how this is going to happen. You are all sons of God through faith, not through the works of the law, not through discipline, not through what you've done, not from biological descent. But as John tells us in chapter one, verse 12, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name. He gave the right to become children of God. And finally, in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith, because honest, sincere belief in God gets you nowhere without Jesus Christ. He's the only way, and without him, you are hopeless. Then moves on into into verse twenty eight in the context of baptism in verse twenty seven. It tells us in verse twenty nine that there is neither June or Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Why is this important? There's several reasons. One is it reminds them that no matter where they came from, They are now one in Christ. As Ephesians four, four through six tells us, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all. There's one path through faith in Christ Jesus, and for those who have faith, there is one result. Whether you're male or female, rich or poor, black or white, young or old, you are one. You are a child of God. The sense of unity and spiritual equality is obviously an issue here with the discussion between the Jews and the Gentiles, but it's hard for us to imagine exactly how countercultural this kind of declaration really was. In the third century B.C., Socrates was cited as expressing gratitude for having been born human and not a brute, a man and not a woman and Greek and not barbarian. And by the second century after Christ, a morning prayer had been had become part of the standard prayers of a Jewish man. And this prayer goes like this. Blessed are you, O God, king of the universe, who has not made me a Gentile. Blessed are you, O God, king of the universe, who has not made me a slave. Blessed are you, O God, king of the universe, who has not made me a woman. And you may remember when Joe Lieberman ran for vice president, he actually got into a little bit of hot water because as an Orthodox Jew, he continues to pray this prayer on a regular basis. We have to realize that these walls were very real. You may have noticed in the New Testament that there seems to be an outsized role for what are called the God fears. These are Gentiles who believe in God, but aren't Jews. It's very difficult barrier to cross to become a Jew. The first Gentile converts were God fearers. The Ethiopian who had come to Jerusalem to worship Cornelius, who it also is labeled and acts as a God fear. It was very difficult to become a true Jew under the law, they would literally have to leave their lives and go and move in. With Jews and separate themselves from everyone they'd ever known, because that was the only way that they could fulfill the law. They were already partway there. And they discovered through the preaching of Jesus Christ that under grace they could be the truest followers of God through faith in Christ, based on the promise of Abraham and despite their biological heritage. Also, even to this day, Orthodox synagogues are divided and segregated with men on one side and women on the other. Lest I fail to point out our own failings, we have churches here in America that have balconies for the purpose of originally put in for the purpose of separating dark skinned Christians from light skinned Christians. It's very easy for us to set up these barriers. It's baked into Judaism. It's thrown aside in Christianity, it's thrown aside in faith in Christ, and we may not always live that out perfectly, but it's what we are called to. Those who are in Christ, no matter race, gender or social position, are the true children of Abraham and heirs to the promise God gave to him. God has been faithful to fulfill his promises. Let me close now with a few words of application. First, this chapter teaches us the great the great need to value the whole counsel of God, including the Old Testament. As Christians, we are literally creatures of the New Testament, the new covenant. As Baptists, we ought to seek to be a New Testament church following the teaching of the apostles in our doctrine, behavior and governance. However, we must be careful not to neglect the Old Testament scriptures. As we saw in Galatians today, knowledge of the Old Testament is necessary to fulfill to fully understand the New Testament. In fact, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus, the very Jesus whose words are the word of God, the very Jesus whose hands and sides bore the physical signs that could convince doubting Thomas. Jesus uses the Old Testament to teach the foolish about himself. In Luke 24, 25 through 27, it says, And he spoke to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Even Jesus uses the Old Testament to teach of himself. The Bereans in Acts 17, who examined the scriptures daily to see if the teachings of Paul were true, had only the Old Testament to rely upon. When Paul wrote Second Timothy 316, all scriptures breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, the Old Testament was the only collected scripture and some New Testament books hadn't even been written yet. We intentionally include a steady dose of Old Testament in our corporate preaching, teaching and Sunday school here at Jefferson Park. And you should intentionally include the Old Testament in your regular private scripture readings and devotionals. And following the example of Christ himself, you should interpret in all the scriptures the things concerning Jesus intentionally and carefully look for the gospel, look for Jesus as you read the Old Testament. Secondly, It's not about you. It's about God. The law can't save you because you can't keep it perfectly. God promised justification. Jesus kept the law perfectly and gave his earned righteousness to us. And the spirit regenerates faith in unbelieving hearts. You have no place for pride or for boasting as a believer, as it says in Psalm 105 that John read from earlier. Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments he uttered. Oh, offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones, for he remembered his holy promise and Abraham, his servant. Third, you must fight self-righteousness. You must fight self-righteousness, you cannot earn your way to salvation. And any attempts to do so not only fail, but they add to your sin by taking glory away from God. And that's true for those who count on their outsized generosity to the poor. That's true for those who count on their attention to rituals and ordinances. That's true of those who count on their outsized knowledge of doctrine and scripture or love of family or personal purity. God's the only one who's counting matters. And he only counts faith because that's the only way you get to Jesus. And without Jesus, you have nothing. As Paul Tripp has said, you don't need to argue your righteousness before God. The cross of Jesus Christ is the only argument you will ever need. Finally, we should have promiscuous evangelism and unity in the body. The gospel is for all kinds of people in both corporate and personal evangelism. We should never restrict our efforts only to those who look or talk or act like us. And our church body should reflect that rich and poor, black and white. educated and uneducated, local and international, male and female. Our body should reflect the heavenly church of all believers from all nations and across all time joined together in one unified voice, praising God in unity. Let's pray together. Gracious Father, We thank you for your word, both Old and New Testaments that you've given us as your special revelation, spelling out your plan for the salvation of your people. We thank you for your fulfilled promise to Abraham, through whom all the nations have been blessed. We thank you for Christ's death on the cross for the sins of his people, the righteous, justifying the unrighteous, that the son might bring the faithful into everlasting communion with you. We thank you for the spirit who convicts of sin and regenerates hearts. We boldly ask that the spirit work at this very moment to change hearts and draw men and women, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile to yourself. Let the various members of this body be bound together in unity as we come to your table. We pay all this in the name of our crucified savior. Amen.