Chuck Larsen

In Galatians 3:21-23, Paul turns from denouncing the law as a means of salvation to talk about what the law actually is. The law is good. God gave us the law as a mentor to lead us to Christ. It does that by pointing out our need for a savior. It convicts us all of sin. Here’s what Paul said, “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.” We were all “captives” of the law. That means we were slaves. It is only through Christ that we are set free. The law brings home the reality of our sinfulness and opens the door to our salvation through faith in Christ. It does not save anyone. It just makes it clear we need to be saved!

Evangelist Fred Brown used three images to describe the purpose of the law. First he likened it to a dentist’s little mirror, which he sticks into the patient’s mouth. With the mirror he can detect any cavities. But he does not drill with it or use it to pull teeth. It can show him the decayed area or other abnormality, but it cannot provide the solution. Brown then drew another analogy. He said that the law is also like a flashlight. If suddenly at night the lights go out, you use it to guide you down the darkened basement stairs to the electrical box. When you point it toward the fuses, it helps you see the one that is burned out. But after you have removed the bad fuse, you don’t try to insert the flashlight in its place. You put in a new fuse to restore the electricity. In his third image, Brown likened the law to a plumb line. When a builder wants to check his work, he uses a weighted string to see if it is true to the vertical. But if he finds that he has made a mistake, he does not use the plumb line to correct it. He gets out his hammer and saw. The law points out the problem of sin; it does not provide a solution.

The purpose of the law has always been the same. When we preach salvation by grace through faith alone, we are preaching the gospel message that has come down through history from the time of Christ. John Calvin wrote, “From this we see that the law was not given to the fathers so that they might purchase salvation; nor were the ceremonies added so that, by observing them, men might attain righteousness. The only purpose of the law was to remove all confidence that people might place in works, so that they might rest all their hope in the grace of Christ.”

Paul reminds the Galatians that the law was quite late on the human scene. Abraham lived long before the law even existed. God had made promises to Abraham and to those who through faith, became children of Abraham. The law, the late comer, does not cancel God’s promises at all. He argues that God’s promises to Abraham had been signed, sealed, and delivered. They were “ratified” by God himself in Genesis 15. The promise of the blessings to Abraham was pointing to the Messiah, not the whole nation that had its physical roots in Abraham. This is the way Paul explains it in Galatians 3:15-17, “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 off springs,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.”

The blessing promised was specifically for Christ and then all those who are children of Abraham through faith in Christ. The blessings are mediated to mankind through the promised offspring. Those promises that God made to Abraham regarding Christ have come to pass. The promise has been ratified and nothing can change it. It is through Christ that every nation will be blessed just as God promised. The law, the latecomer, did not change that. The blessings are not doled out for obedience of a legal system that was established 430 years after the contract had been signed. The law changes nothing!

It is obvious that the “promise” given to Abraham is far superior to the law that was given to Moses. As the author of the book to the Hebrews points out, the law was mediated through angels. The promises to Abraham came directly from God. Paul is going to spend some time explaining God’s purpose for the law. Far from annulling God’s promises to Abraham, the law serves the promises of God in several specific ways. The primary way, as Paul will explain later, is that the law points us to God’s promise by exposing our sin. By revealing our sinfulness, it leads us to Christ. The law does not save us. It does not bless us in anyway. It merely condemns us. Why would we ever want to return to living under the law when we have God’s grace? In light of the finished work of Jesus, it offends God to go back to the law. Jesus is what we need. Jesus is all we need. Jesus paid it all! We worship Him because of who He is and what He has done. Spurgeon said that God’s grace meets us where the law has left us. “If the sinner is dead, it gives him life; if he be filthy, it gives him washing; if he be naked, it gives him clothing. Is the sinner hungry? It feeds him. Is he thirsty? It gives him drink. Do the sinner’s wants grow even larger after he becomes a saint, or has he a deeper apprehension of them? Then the supplies are just as deep as his necessity.” Where the Law leaves us, God’s grace picks us up!

Living under the law is indeed a curse. Paul is adamant on this and points it out frequently in several of his letters. But the curse of living under the law was lifted from us. As Christ was lifted up on the cross, He took the law with Him (so to speak). He did that so we could find the blessings of Abraham overwhelming our lives. This is what he says in Galatians 3:12-14, “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, ‘Cursed 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.”

The idea of redemption is a bit too religious for me. All it really means is the payment of a price to secure the release of a prisoner or a slave. It was used also of prisoners of war and even of criminals in jail and especially for criminals that have been placed under a death sentence. Redemption always means the payment of a price to secure a person’s release. As humans living under the curse of sin, we are all slaves to sin. We cannot set ourselves free from that slavery. It is part of who we are. I know it stinks! I do not like it. You do not like it, but liking it has nothing to do with its existence. I do not like limburger cheese! My dad loved it. My not liking it did not affect its existence or my dad eating it! Limburger cheese is still there, and sin is still there. But Christ’s death on the cross was the payment of a ransom price by which sinners are set free. Now that we are redeemed, we are free! Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last!

A.B. Simpson is reported to have said that the gospel “Tells rebellious men that God is reconciled, that justice is satisfied, that sin has been atoned for, that the judgment of the guilty may be revoked, the condemnation of the sinner canceled, the curse of the Law blotted out, the gates of hell closed, the portals of heaven opened wide, the power of sin subdued, the guilty conscience healed, the broken heart comforted, the sorrow and misery of the Fall undone.” I would add and the smell of limburger cheese eradicated! We are now a sweet-smelling savor to God through faith, not through works.

Along the way in life, we can adopt the attitude that we are either blessed or cursed. I know people who say that if anything bad can happen to them, it will. Others say that if anything good can come today, it will come to me! These represent two different attitudes towards life. The pessimistic outlook sees bad even in good things. When something good comes their way, they just wait for the other shoe to drop (so to speak.) The optimist finds the good even in the bad things. Thomas Edison was a well-known optimist.  Thomas Edison’s manufacturing facilities in West Orange, N. J., were heavily damaged by fire one night in December 1914. Edison lost almost $1 million worth of equipment and the records of much of his work. The next morning, walking about the charred embers of his hopes and dreams, the 67-year-old inventor said: “There is value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Now we can start anew.”

Paul argues in Galatians 3:9-11, that people of faith should live their lives expecting great blessings. On the other hand, those who live by the law find nothing but a curse. He writes, “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.’” God loves us! He has our best interest foremost in mind and regardless of our current situation, everything is going to work out for our good. Under the law, we know we have blown it and feel discouraged, dejected, and defeated most of the time.  It is a matter of faith and trust in a good God or a condemning God.

Those who live by faith are much happier and really are more successful in life. Psychologist Martin Segilman of the University of Pennsylvania advised the MetLife insurance company to hire a special group of job applicants who tested high on optimism, although they had failed the normal aptitude test.  Compared with salesmen who passed the aptitude test but scored high in pessimism, this group made 21 percent more sales in their first year and 57 percent more in their second.  A pessimist is likely to interpret rejection as meaning “I’m a failure; I’ll never make a sale.”  Optimists tell themselves, “I’m using the wrong approach,” or “That customer was in a bad mood.”  By blaming failure on the situation, not themselves, optimists are motivated to make that next call. It is that way with people of faith. God is not out to get us (the curse), He’s out to bless us! Now, it is our choice. We can live under the curse of the law, or we can live under the grace of God. He expressed His love and concern for us on the cross. If He loved us that much, is there anything He will not do for us?

Paul uses the example of Abraham’s faith as evidence of his gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone. It was not Abraham’s “works” that made him righteous with God. If you study Abraham’s life, you find many examples of his many failures, yet God continued to bless Abraham because of his faith. In Galatians 3:6-8 Paul writes, “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, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’” Paul’s point is that the blessings promised to Abraham came through faith not works. Those blessings are ours as well and we are sons or heirs of Abraham not by blood lineage but by God’s grace through faith.

In the story of Abraham, we see God’s grace given to a man who had only one thing going for him; he believed God. He came from a pagan religion and even carried the remnants of it everywhere he went. He often took matters into his own hands rather than rest in God’s promises, but God never deserted him. Notice there was nothing about Abraham that commended him to God. There was nothing about Paul that should have commended him to God either. Actually, he was a murderer and didn’t deserve grace at all. It was only God’s grace through faith that obtained God’s blessing on his life.

I like the way Max Lucado explains this in his little devotional, “Grace for the Moment.” He says, “Grace is created by God and given to man.… On the basis of this point alone, Christianity is set apart from any other religion in the world.… Every other approach to God is a bartering system; if I do this, God will do that. I am either saved by works (what I do), emotions (what I experience), or knowledge (what I know). By contrast, Christianity has no whiff of negotiation at all. Man is not the negotiator; indeed, man has no grounds from which to negotiate.” Max is so right! Neither Abraham nor Paul had anything to commend them to God. They had nothing that God wanted or needed to negotiate with. Neither do you or I. But in all our trials, tests, temptations and turmoil, God’s grace is sufficient for us as it was for Paul and Abraham.

Paul addresses the foolishness of abandoning the grace connection with God through His Holy Spirit for a “fleshly” works relationship. It is always tempting for Christians to default to a works relationship with God. But it is indeed “foolish.” It only brought us great suffering before, why do we think it will be different now? Paul writes in Galatians 3:3-5, “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?” The point is that we just kill ourselves when we abandon grace and focus on works of the law as the basis of our relationship with God. Through the Spirit we are connected to God through Christ’s righteousness not our own. We are so foolish to abandon grace for law! The law fails us, and we end up starving for communion with God that we once had in the Spirit.

When we lived in Dallas some years ago, fire ants had moved into the area. At that time, they had virtually taken over the southern United States since they were accidentally transported here a few decades ago. They are amazingly adaptable, fiercely aggressive, and multiply seemingly overnight. Worst of all, insecticide sprays generally cannot destroy the mound’s inhabitants. Like a mighty army they have marched in, impervious to brute force. Scientists have now found a rather crafty way to wipe out whole colonies. Pellets of the ants’ favorite food are tainted with a special tasteless, odorless poison and sprinkled around the mound. The worker ants immediately begin gathering up the tainted treasure and take it down into the heart of the colony. There, they unwittingly feed the poisoned pellets to their queen, slowly killing her! When the queen dies, no more workers are produced and so in a couple of weeks the entire colony starves to death. How ironic. Food that looked so good caused their starvation!

That is how it is with false doctrine, especially the false doctrine of salvation by works or salvation by grace plus works. It is deadly and eats away at the heart of the Christian message until it has wiped out every semblance of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, etc. The foolishness of the Galatians again refers to “not thinking” their way through the implications of this false doctrine. Paul says they lack discernment. Those who lack discernment import this false doctrine into their thinking until it works its way into the heart of the church, all the while thinking it is harmless and in fact quite good. If any discerning “ant” smells the poison and protests, he is ridiculed and in the end, the next generation starves to death spiritually. We will never earn God’s acceptance by being good. We can only receive God’s acceptance through faith in Christ. While filling our bellies with good deeds and holy effort we actually starve to death. Our hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness will never be filled by keeping the law, because it can only be filled by God’s grace through faith in Christ.

You can almost feel Paul’s frustration with the Galatians in his opening words of chapter 3. Galatians 3:1 says, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” You have been hoodwinked! You have been deceived! You have bought a bridge in London! You have been lied to, cheated on, and treated like dirt! The legalists want to make you somewhat less than themselves so they can trod all over you. You are letting them! They have seduced you! The actual word implies that some kind of “black magic” may have been involved. You have been hypnotized! Although Paul is standing against the warlocks of the law, he refuses to let the Galatians blame anyone but themselves for their predicament. They have allowed this to happen by not standing firm in the truth that Paul had previously preached and they had received. Paul goes on, “…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?” Paul confronts the Galatians for allowing themselves to be hypnotized.  The false teachers had cast their black-magic spell on them. It is an old spell of Satan originally cast in the Garden of Eden when he convinced Adam and Eve that they could do it themselves. Satan continues to cast his black magic spell of salvation by works on us. We often fall prey again.

Our relationship with God is restored by His grace through our faith in Jesus. It is faith that saves and buys us back from our condemnation under the law. Why in the world would you want to return to such slavery now that you have been set free? The laws of Judaism failed to save you in the past, what makes you think reestablishing them will save you in the future? Paul works to remind them that laws can never save. The world, the flesh, and the devil want us to believe otherwise! At best laws can merely control. The cross however, manifests the love of God and the grace that saves. The Galatians heard Paul gladly when he preached this message to them then. What has happened to their faith now?

The word here for foolish is not the normal word “moroneo” from which we get the word “moron.” It is a word that means lack of discernment. We are not thinking people anymore. Many Christians today are deluded by religious systems that try to attach something to the cross as a prerequisite for salvation. We become mesmerized by works and superstitious in our beliefs. But God does not save us by His grace through faith and observance of any law. Richison observes, “It is staggering how many people today cannot recognize error. We live in a ‘foolish’ generation. The Scriptures clearly put up a poster announcing that salvation and sanctification are by grace alone, not works, yet Christians buy into legalism on a regular basis.” The cults are ever growing because people have no “discernment.” Richison goes on, “Legalists love to mesmerize us into believing that we have something to offer God for salvation or sanctification. Many people have become victims of this.” We have nothing to offer God! But God has everything to offer us. He does so on the Cross of Calvary.