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Sunday, 20 June 2010 - Real Freedom - Law and Faith: Galatians chapter 3.

So - why did God give us the Ten Commandments and the laws that come from them? And no - I haven't lost the plot and think I'm to talk about one of the 'Big 10' today! In fact - I'm going to be leading us through a study of Galatians chapter 3. But the reason that's a valid question this morning - is that Paul makes it so in Galatians ch.3. Interesting isn't it the way the whole Bible - Old and New Testaments - has a certain continuity. Phil gave us the answer to my question in March in one of our Big 10 talks - but I'm not expecting you to remember that right now as we'll be coming back to see Paul's answer later.

In a fairly recent TV programme on the Bible - historian and author Tom Holland referred to Paul's letter to the Galatians as - "the Biblical equivalent of an e-mail - fired off in the heat of the moment". John Knox (in days well before e-mails) said that Paul's arguments "tumble over one another". It's certainly a letter that has the feel - even today, and without us knowing all of its background - of an angry letter filled with passion. But today's passage also has the feel of a barrister presenting a closely argued case in a first century court. Which is just one of the reasons why in our twenty-first century it doesn't fall into what you might call the 'easy reading' category.

And by now I hope you've found Galatians chapter 3. And as it's imperative that we hear what I say in the context of what the Bible says - we're going to read the whole of chapter. So - starting at Galatians 3:1:

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4 Have you suffered so much for nothing - if it really was for nothing? 5 Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

6 Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." 7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." 9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10 All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." 11 Clearly no-one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them." 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

15 Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no-one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds", meaning many people, but "and to your seed", meaning one person, who is Christ.

17 What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18 For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

19 What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. 20 A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.

21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22 But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

23 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Paul's argument will progress virtually seamlessly on into chapter four - but we - restricted by the somewhat arbitrary chapter divisions - stop our reading here. But I would encourage you again to try and read the whole of this letter at one sitting. After all, that's the way it was originally meant to be read and understood.

Have you Galatians totally take leave of your senses!! Or has someone cast a spell on you?! Or maybe as F.F.Bruce puts it in his paraphrase of this passage - "My foolish Galatian friends! Who is it that has hypnotised you?!"

Paul is undoubtedly angry. I talked about arbitrary chapter divisions just now. If you look back at the end of chapter two - there's a lot of "I", "I", "I" - finishing with - "I do not set aside the grace of God...". But you Galatians - what are you doing?!

What they were doing was listening to other teachers who had come into the church - often referred to as Judaizers - who were trying to get their Gentile Christian brothers to add Jewish ritual and law-keeping to the salvation Paul had preached as a free gift, complete on it’s own, and without any add-ons. Their teaching was turning free-gift faith into a - legalistic - obedience-based - tick box religion. They probably weren't saying you don't need to accept that Jesus died in your place to take your punishment on the cross. But what they were saying was that 'just believing in Jesus' wasn't good enough. To be perfectly complete as a Christian - you needed to keep the Mosaic law - and to start with (and in submission to it) you needed to be circumcised.

But Paul says to the Galatians - "Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified." Now it might have been that these Jewish agitators were also trying to lead them astray by undermining the idea of a crucified Messiah. That idea doesn't sit comfortably with Jewish tradition. So Paul might also here be addressing in a sort of short-hand form the whole concept of the 'why and wherefore' of Jesus crucifixion. Maybe.

'Portrayed before your very eyes' literally means 'placarded'. Now today placards aren't a significant form of communication for us. But our TVs are.

When I was in New York a short while ago I took the opportunity to visit Ground Zero and visit the tribute centre to 9/11. In some ways I was playing catch-up, because I was nowhere near a TV when this event happened. But imagine Paul is saying to them - it's as if you were watching the crucifixion happening on TV - and it was as real to you, as watching the twin towers come down - and I think you'll begin to get Paul's emphasis"

Paul then launches into two strands of argument in support of salvation by faith alone, and against keeping the law playing any part in it. The first is “How did you receive the Holy Spirit?". He's actually asking them what their experience of God's dealings with them tells them?

How do you become a Christian? How did you become a Christian? There are many people today - religious and atheistic alike - who think that it is by doing things - or not doing things. But that isn't the Bible's answer. And it can't be yours, if you are a Christian this morning. The best answer is given in the Bible itself - and by Paul - and it's found in Ephesians Ch.2 - "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no-one can boast."

Grace is unmerited blessing given to us by God. Or as someone's said - using grace as an acrostic - God's Riches At Christ's Expense. God initially accepted you into His family on the basis of faith - not by anything you can do - and the result was - He gave you His indwelling - guiding - empowering Holy Spirit - which in Ephesians 1:14 Paul calls the guarantee of the fact that you are now in a new kingdom - God's Kingdom. You have a new citizenship - given - not earned. They'd received God’s Spirit by faith alone.

But as I said earlier - the false teachers who'd entered these churches might not have been taking a totally legalistic line on salvation - but one that said, 'OK - now you are Christians - these are the things that you now need to do to stay in God's good books and become complete, perfect, Christians'.

Paul himself writes a lot about all the things we should and shouldn't do if we're Christians. And much of this sort of Bible teaching is the bread and butter of our teaching here in this church - week in - week out - month in - month out. But Paul taught it - and we teach it - as the natural obligatory consequence of being "in Christ" - but not - repeat - not - as a necessary way to complete our salvation! Or in horticultural terms - it's the 'fruit' of our relationship with God - and not the roots that produce the relationship. So Paul asks them - having started by faith - are you now trying to complete God’s work by attempting to be good enough for Him by keeping the law? Later He'll explain why that's impossible. It's like trying to mix oil and water.

I want to stop here for a moment and ask a question. I could ask it at various points through this morning's talk - but this does seem the most convenient point to do so. It's simply this. "What about us?".

I became a Christian when I was fourteen - in this church - out in what's now the Joslin Room. I saw clearly that afternoon that Jesus had gone to the cross to take the punishment for my sin. That's all I needed to know - then.

All churches have their weaknesses and blind spots (just because we're human) and ours is no different. So I grew up being told how I aught to live - but not - sadly - how to do it in the power of God the Holy Spirit. It made for a hard Christian life - and one that tended towards just trying to 'tick the boxes' to please God. It was behaviour based Christianity - not relationship based. And as someone who's home life wasn't strong on the expressions of open love - I had no model to work with to modify this experience. And as we're all products of our history - I'm still on the learning curve on this issue.

But if we really are God's children - He doesn't abandon us to struggle on the best we can on our own. "We've not left as orphans", says the Bible. So I've also experienced Him bring into my life some great times of His reality - proving beyond doubt that He is the real, supernatural, prayer answering, caring God. And I go on travelling the journey of my life with that certainty.

But what about you - if you're a Christian this morning? Be honest with yourself - is your's a behavioural tick-box merit amassing sort of Christianity - or a relationship with the living God? Is your 'right behaviour' a result of knowing God - or more the attempted manipulation of a God with a pen in his hand and a mark sheet in front of Him? And only you can answer that?

Back to Galatians Ch.3 - and Paul finishes up his bit about their experience of God by asking them if miracles happen because of what they do - or because they trust God? It is of course a rhetorical question.

He then proceeds to his second argument "What do the Scriptures say?" It’s a call to study and understand the truth of the Bible.

We usually identify moderately easily downright error. But half-truths and miss-interpretations have been the blight of the church since it’s inception. For instance the main heresy behind JW's teaching was around in the early centuries of church history. It didn't go away after the Council of Nicaea. It just found a set new clothes. And behind these Judaizers' theology was the miss-understanding of how you became a son of Abraham when you became a Christian. (Please note - 'son' - not 'son or daughter'. I've no real problem with gender inclusive language when it doesn't effect the meaning - but here, it has to do with inheritance.) So Paul tackles the matter head on.

One commentator has written, "evidently the Judaizers had told the Gentiles of Galatia that in order to be true children of Abraham they had to be circumcised, as Abraham himself was, and as he was commanded in the covenant given him by God. In presenting his case Paul seeks to 'put the record straight' regarding Abraham, highlighting what the real situation was and refuting the Judaizers’ claims."

You see, the 'promise' was in place before Abram had his name changed and was circumcised. Clearly so. In Genesis 15:6 it says "Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness". And not until Genesis is the rite of circumcision given. And the Mosaic Law - cornerstone of the Judaizers methodology - didn't appear until (Paul says) 430 years later. Of course, those propounding a law-based system of pleasing God knew this. But their argument (enshrined in a long tradition of rabbinical teaching) was that Abraham was already keeping the law before the law was given at Mount Sinai, and before it was mediated to the nation via Moses (and in rabbinical tradition, also by angels, hence the obscure comment in v.19).

So Paul says - OK - you want to see things happening before they happened. Then let me show you non-Jews being saved by faith - before, and apart from - circumcision - and before the Mosaic law was enacted.

Which is were we are at Galatians 3:8 - which refers to three references in Geneses - the first in Ch.12. Incidentally - before Paul was even converted - Peter was making the very same point about the 'seed of Abraham' in Acts 3:25. So this isn't just Paul's teaching in this letter. The same thing was Gospel truth right back in the first few weeks of the Church's existence.

But Paul wants to move on (and we need to as well) to tackle their reliance on the Law and to give a right understanding of its role.

The question is a valid one. If salvation is by faith alone - why did God give His people the Ten Commandments and the detailed laws (His genuine laws that is) that cascaded from this set of ten principles?

Let me try and create a parable. On some high winding mountain road with a long drop one side to a valley floor, there is a very sharp bend. The safe speed around that bend is 20mph. Faster than that - and you're over the edge. For years people had been coming around that bend fast and going over the edge, but not exactly knowing why. Then one day a sign goes up - "Maximum safe speed 20mph". But people still take the bend too fast. They even tried to prove the sign wrong! And of course, they went over the edge. But now they knew the speed they should be doing to avoid disaster. So now they had no excuse. That, in essence, was the purpose of the Law - to set the standard we should live by - and to quantify our failure to do so.

But the best commentary I know on the purpose of the law was written by Paul himself about ten years after he wrote to the Galatians. He wrote it in Romans chapter 7, verses 7-13. Let me read it to you using the NLT:

(In the context of Romans Ch.7 he says) Am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, "You must not covet." But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, and I died. So I discovered that the law's commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.

But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commands for its own evil purposes.

Another translation puts the last part of that reading as - "The law was added to show the sinfulness of sin". Which I think helps explain the phrase in v.19, "It was added because of transgressions" - which as we've got it in the NIV isn't so clear as to what Paul meant.

Pressing on - Paul here is building up pictures of the role of the law and it's purpose - and in verses 23 & 24 he refers to us being 'held prisoner' by the law. Under it's restraining control. Not being free. And as I was thinking about this - I though about racing cars. Not proper ones. Model racing cars.

On the screen you can see two photos of model racing cars.

They both show roughly the same scale models - but there is one fundamental difference between them. Can you spot what it is?

Yes - the one on the left shows a slot car racing track - where the cars are restrained to follow the track. Of course they can still jump off the track - and do. Paul says the law is a bit like the slot in the track - there to restrain us - and unforgiving if we didn't follow it.

The other car has no track. But it has got an ariel. It's radio controlled. It gets a signal - and if it responds to the signal - it goes where it's directed. I thought that it was a very good picture of being lead by the Holy Spirit.

Of course you can put the radio controlled car onto the same track as the slot cars - and it can follow the track without the restraining - provided it responds to the signal. The parallel's obvious. We're not absolved from following God's principles - it's just Christians do it relationally with their Creator empowered God the Holy Spirit - not by being imprisoned to the slot. I don't know if that illustration works for you, but it did for me!

You might have noticed I've skipped by Paul's own illustration of the 'human covenant' in v.15. I guess we've reasonably familiar with the idea of a 'last will and testament' that once ratified, is a legal document. Commentators argue about which covenants could and couldn't be modified - but we can see exactly what Paul's driving at here. God made a promise to Abraham - and Jesus was the inheritor. And Paul says, trying to modify that promise with the Law is - as I said before - like trying to combine oil and water. But how do we benefit if Jesus is the inheritor of the promise made to Abraham?

Well let's answer the question from vs.26-28. And the answer is this. We inherit because we are united with Christ Jesus. We're indivisibly part of God's family, says Paul. "Baptised into Christ" says Paul. By which does not mean baptism saves you! In the early church you only got baptised after believing. That is - before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. It was the 'outward sign of the inward fait'’. Still should be.

After all, it's not logical for Paul to be saying baptism as a ritual gets you into God's family. He would then be merely substituting baptism for the rite of 'circumcision' - and that's defiantly not what he's suggesting. But sadly parts of the church give this impression about baptism today - which is not the faith-based Christianity of the Bible. It's therefore a wrong understanding.

So what does save us from the consequences of our sin - our failure to stay on the track - our failure not to stay on the road? It's trusting the fact that Jesus took the punishment for us. How did He do this? Paul says in v.13 (and I know I'm jumping about a bit), He, Jesus the Christ, took the curse upon Himself when He was crucified in our place. Paul's already said at v.10 if you want to try and be right with God just by what you do, you've got to do absolutely everything right. Fail at one point - just in one single thing - and you are (to using this Old Testament language) cursed. And if we are honest with ourselves - we know we can't be good enough for God by what we can do by ourselves. For as Paul states in Romans 3:12 "there is no-one who does good, not even one"! And he rubs it in further in Romans 3:23 with, "All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God". Everyone.

But not only have we all sinned - we can all be put right with God. That's the good news! That's what putting our faith in Jesus is all about! It's as simple as this - Him taking our curse for Himself - and us receiving His inheritance for ourselves. All God's Riches at Christ's Expense.

It has been suggested that the Judaizers Paul was combating may have had a real problem with Non-Jews being co-inheritors with them at all in the promise of Abraham. At the beginning of the Jewish cycle of morning prayer was the prayer "Blessed be He (that's God) that He did not make me a Gentile; blessed be He that He did not make me a slave; blessed be He that He did not make me a woman?" So as we come towards the end of our passage this morning we read Paul emphatically rejecting the idea that those who were not Jews, not free, and not men could not be fully heirs with Jesus. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" says Paul - who may actually be quoting an early church hymn here.

For whom is Jesus' saving grace? Everyone.

And that includes you - even if you've resisted taking this step of faith for years - even if you don’t 'feel' good enough to be accepted by God. You don't have to be good enough. You can't be good enough. But you can be accepted, totally forgiven, and become a member of God's family. That is the genuine, Bible-based Christian message. Hallelujah! Amen.

Granville Richards