THE PROMISE
O
foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth,
before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This
only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the
law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in
the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered
so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He
who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do
it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? – just as
Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore
know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the
Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached
the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the
nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are
blessed with believing Abraham. Galatians 3:1-9.
Introduction
In the following, we’re going to look at the promise of the gospel. The promise of God is eternal life to all those who keep on believing in Jesus Christ. We’ll focus on a couple of things to do with this wonderful promise: How the promise is displayed and how the promise is conveyed.
The
Promised Displayed
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Righteousness
has to do with justice. At the cross God dealt in a just manner with our sins. Sin
is the breaking of God’s Covenant commands, which is to break His Law. Our
disobedience shows us our rebelliousness towards God. But Jesus Christ perfectly
kept all the commands of God’s Law, as a, nay, as the Adamic Covenant of
Works, the pre-Fall covenant that Adam failed to keep, the covenant that
condemned Adam and Eve and all of us (Rom. 5:12, 17-21).
So,
we ask the question: Why did God punish Jesus Christ if He never broke the Law?
And the answer is: Jesus took the punishment you and I deserve! He did it
because you and I had no righteousness of our own. You and I were covenant
breakers. Which means that we are unrighteous, and in need of righteousness to
be right with God.
All
of mankind outside of Christ are covenant breakers. And God’s justice demands
they pay the price for breaking God’s law, that justice be done. But God not
only displays justice at the cross, but there He displays His mercy too – in,
whosoever believes in the Righteous One who hung on that cross pouring out His
blood shall never perish but have everlasting life. In this is the Promise
displayed that all who believe, i.e., believe in the One who was crucified,
will never be put to shame. They have been transferred from being under the
condemnation of the old covenant, and they have entered into a new covenant
relationship with God – in and through Jesus Christ.
They
now belong to the covenant community of God. They have a new relationship to
the Law of God. No longer is the law something which condemns them to death,
For them, the Law has taken on a new role, a spiritual role. Paul says
elsewhere, “For we know that the law is spiritual” (Rom. 7:14). Spiritually
dead people cannot discern spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14). Therefore, the Law
only condemns them. But the Law of God is spiritual. The Word of God testifies
to this. Therefore, the Galatians are demonstrating a lack of discernment by
their faulty view of the Law.
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It
is at the cross we see the proper spirit in which the Law of God is to be kept.
Christ on the cross kept the Law out of a pure love for God and for His neighbour
– including you and me as believers. For this is how God the Maker of the Law
so loved the world. That whoever believes in His righteousness, His Law as
revealed in His Son, shall not perish but have everlasting life. In other
words, we are are to believe in the Gospel, “For in it the righteousness of God
is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by
faith’” (Rom. 1:17). So, we live by faith alone and not by works or
even faith plus works.
However,
the Lord expects to see the evidence of this belief displayed in those who are
in covenant with Him. This is displayed by keeping the spirit of the spiritual
law of God, which is obedience to God out of love for Him and your neighbour, and
not by trying to keep the Law as a Covenant of Works, i.e., to earn salvation.
(We’ll be covering the fruit of the Spirit separately a little further on.)
When
we compare our feeble efforts at keeping God’s Law to the great Law keeper
Jesus Christ, we clearly see that we are sinners in need of salvation. The
teaching of the Gospel has always been that it’s salvation by grace alone
through faith alone in Christ alone according to Scripture alone
to the glory of God alone. And the promise of salvation always has been
integral to the Gospel. Indeed, the heart of the good news is that promise. And
now that Christ has lived, died, resurrected, and ascended, the promise is made
more sure.
The
Galatians are on the verge of departing from the clear teaching of the Gospel. They
are in the process of turning their backs on the Word of God, Scripture. So,
Paul displays the promise again as he goes through the Gospel point by point
with the Galatians. We can take it for granted that they had a good working
knowledge of the whole Bible, if not, how would you justify Paul referring to
them as “foolish” Galatians? By his choice of words Paul demonstrates that they
know the Biblical doctrine of the Gospel.
Paul
had taught them the Gospel as it is contained in the entire Bible. He didn’t
teach them a gospel contained in a nutshell. He called them foolish because
they were turning their backs on the clear teaching whole Bible, (i.e., as per
the whole Old Testament and whatever New Testament books were available to them
at that time). Paul expected them to recognize heretical teaching from a
hundred paces away. Hence, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you
should not obey the truth?” “I gave you the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth when I gave you the Gospel! You know that the sacrifices of God
are not sacrifices of burnt offerings, but the sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit, a broken and contrite heart.”
A
broken spirit and the broken and contrite heart have always been the required
condition in those with whom God has covenanted. The Gospel, then, is designed
to break the hardest of hearts. It is designed to show you up as a hard-hearted
sinner against God. It is designed to reveal the love and grace of God to hell-deserving
sinners. The Gospel is the hammer that smashes the cold hearts of stone to
pieces. It is the arm of comfort around the broken-hearted. But the Galatians
were beginning a process of hardening their hearts toward God. Therefore, Paul
brings out the hammer to smash their hearts to pieces. But the Galatians know
that Paul isn’t doing this out of hatred toward them but out of love. They know
that Paul is doing this with a broken heart, with tears. But he is obligated
out of love for God and the Galatians to remind them of their covenant
obligations lest they be cut off.
I
put it to you that Paul is using Covenant language here in Galatians 3 and
following. It happens throughout Scripture where the Lord reminds His people of
His covenant. Paul is reminding the Galatians of the covenant God made between
Himself and them (with Christ as there Representative). See Amazon for a copy
The
standard form is that the Lord reminds His people who He is and what He has
done for them. Then He invites them to state their case as to why they are being
disobedient to Him. I’ll give a couple of examples: The Lord through Isaiah in
Isaiah 43:25-26 says, “I, even I am He who blots out your transgressions for
My own sake; and I will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance; let us
contend together; state your case, that you may be acquitted.” Or Micah 6:3-4,
“O My people, what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify
against Me. For I brought you up from the land of Egypt. I redeemed you from
the house of bondage; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.” “O
foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth,
before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?”
(Gal. 3:1).
The
Lord is saying here through His Apostle, “I am the God who loves you. I
redeemed you from bondage by sending My Son, My only begotten Son, to die on a
cross for you. Therefore, why are you being disobedient to Me? I have loved you.
I have made a covenant with you. The crucified Christ displayed before you in
the gospel is My covenant with you! Therefore, look to Him for life and not to your
own works. For in the crucified Christ, I promise everlasting life to all who
repent of their sins and believe in Him.”
The Gospel, then, is the good news promising God’s grace to fallen man. Therefore, the Gospel is the token or reminder, or sign of that promise. The Gospel, then, is the covenant, the covenant of grace. The covenant of grace began to be revealed early in Scripture, right after the fall and is recorded in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”. However, the covenant of grace wasn’t fully revealed until Christ was crucified, dead, buried and resurrected, yes, and ascended, and the canon of Scripture was closed.
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Those
who are in Christ are under the new covenant, i.e., the covenant of grace, as
were the post-Fall Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the Old Testament
saints. They then, and we now, are no longer under the old covenant, the covenant
of works, as were and now are all unbelievers whether Jew or Gentile.
A
person must believe in Jesus Christ and His works to be freed from the slavery and
bondage of the old covenant of works. He must believe in Christ alone and His
works alone to come under the covenant of grace. This is not to say that
there’re none under the covenant of grace who act as if they are still under
the covenant of works.
The
covenant revealed Mount Sinai with the giving of the moral, ceremonial and
judicial law, was still also the covenant of grace. However, the Pharisees in
particular, took the Mosaic covenant and made it into a covenant of works. And
the confusion among Christians today is that many believe God gave to Moses His
Law as a covenant of works on Mount Sinai, rather than an administration of His
grace, His covenant of grace. This causes some to pit law against the grace of
the gospel as if somehow, they were opposites. But this is only true when the
law is misapplied and misused as a covenant of works. We’ll go into this in
greater detail as we move through the Epistle to the Galatians. However, for the
moment, let us just say that the Old Covenant was the Covenant of Works God
made with Adam before the Fall, and the New Covenant was the Covenant of
Grace made with those who are in Christ, and began to be revealed as such right
after Adam fell.
Down
through the ages the Lord has always provided reminders of His grace to fallen
man. Perhaps the one that is most taken for granted is the sign of the rainbow.
“And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and
you, and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations; I
set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant
between Me and the earth’” (Gen. 9:13).
To
this day, the rainbow remains as a sign of God’s covenant of grace. But there
were also more particular signs for God’s people: Circumcision and Passover. These
of course were superseded by the New Testament pictures of Baptism and Communion.
Please do not disconnect Circumcision from Baptism or Passover from the Lord’s
Super. As were the former bloody ordinances, so now are the latter unbloody ordinances:
They are portrayals or displays of the promised Christ and Him crucified, i.e.,
the Gospel. Christ’s bruised heel crushed the serpent Satan’s head,
The elaborate Old Testament sacrificial system, the Ark of the Covenant, the Temple etc., was simply an ultra-visual display of God’s Covenant of Grace to His people. They were to trust in the One whom the pictures displayed, because it was all a picture of the Christ to come. But now that Christ the reality has come, the old pictures of God’s covenant of Grace are no longer needed. Now that the Lamb of God has shed His blood, the pictures of God’s covenant with us are fewer and simpler. i.e., Baptism and Communion. These are simply visual signs of the verbal proclamation of the Gospel. The sign of the Covenant of Grace today then is the preaching of the Gospel. That’s why the Lord through His Apostle is reminding the Galatians who He is. And He is reminding them of His goodness towards them. He is displaying the promise of everlasting life to them in the Gospel. The heart of which is Christ and Him crucified.
The
Promise Conveyed
The
promise is conveyed by the Spirit working with His Word in the hrearts of men,
women, and children. The Spirit conveys God’s grace to the individual individually!
Paul asks, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by faith?” (Gal.
3:2). The Galatians know about the Holy Spirit because they had received Him.
What
does it mean to receive the Spirit? To keep it simple, for now let’s just say
that to receive the Spirit is to receive Christ. To receive the Spirit is to
receive the promise displayed in the Gospel. Therefore, whether you speak of
receiving the promise or whether you talk about receiving Christ or whether you
talk about receiving the Spirit, you are talking about the same thing.
You
cannot receive the promise without receiving the Spirit, because the Spirit is
the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19). And yet at the same time the Spirit is
the third Person in the Godhead. However, His role in the Covenant of Grace is
to apply the promise displayed in the Gospel to all of God’s children, i.e.,
His elect. But to receive the promise as an individual is to have the Spirit
come and dwell with(in) you. And if the Spirit lives in you, then Christ is indwelling
you by His Spirit. In simple terms it means that you are a personal recipient
of God’s gospel promise.
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Without
the work of the Spirit the gospel falls on deaf ears. The Spirit then, is the
One who brings the message home. He conveys it to the individual, and He brings
him/her into a new covenant relationship with God.
What
did Jesus say He was sending the Spirit to do? “And when He has come, He will
convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment...” (John 16:8).
But He also says, “He [the Spirit] will testify of Me” (John 15:26b). So then,
when Paul proclaimed the gospel to the Galatians the Spirit was present. And
what was the Spirit doing? He was working in the hearts of the Galatians. He
was testifying to the truth of the Gospel message.
An
integral part of the Gospel is the revelation of the true spiritual nature of
the Law. For how else could the Spirit convict them of sin, righteousness, and
judgment? In brief, the Spirit was bearing testimony to the truth of the
everlasting gospel.
The
Judaizers who were misleading the Galatians were seeking to detach the Gospel
from the Law. If you detach the Gospel from the Law you end up with Legalism. If
you detach the Law from the Gospel you end up with Antinomianism. But either
way you end up with a false gospel – which is no Gospel at all. And Paul says
if anyone preaches any other gospel but his, “Let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:6-9).
And they are accursed because they are still under the condemnation of the Covenant
of Works and not under the Covenant of Grace.
Adam
was spiritually alive when he was under the Covenant of Works before the Fall.
Before he fell, Adam loved God with all his heart, soul and strength. And Adam
loved his neighbour (Eve) as he loved himself. Therefore, he could see the
spiritual nature of the Law because he was spiritual. He had not become
spiritually dead as happened when He broke God’s Law. But when he became a
covenant breaker, he could see only condemnatory judgment in the Law. Therefore
the Law of God became something he hated. He hated it because it was judging
him instead of excusing him (Rom. 2:15). But when he caught a glimpse of the
righteousness of Christ in the Gospel as God revealed it to him after the fall,
he clung to the promise. He clung to the promise of eternal life that he had
forfeited in the Garden. Christ alone is that promise.
What the Gospel displays to the ear and the eye externally, the Spirit conveys to the heart internally. The Spirit testifies in the believer’s heart that these things are true (Rom. 8:16). The promise then is displayed by the gospel and it is conveyed by the Spirit.
Conclusion
I
would like to encourage you to take a covenantal approach to the Gospel. How
else can the Gospel be understood if not in terms of God’s Covenant? The Church
Reformers understood the Gospel covenantally. The Westminster Confession of Faith
was written from the Biblically covenantal perspective because the whole Bible is
written from a covenantal perspective. Yet very few churches today hold a
covenantal theology. There’s a certain amount of lip service here and there,
but that’s all. But that’s because they are not Reformed.See Amazon for a copy
Reformed
Theology is Covenant Theology, which is the theology of the Bible, which cover
to cover is the Book of the Covenant. Therefore, if you want to see true
revival and true reformation in the churches, then pray for a return to
Covenant Theology! Or, to put the same thing another way, pray for a return to
the clear teaching of the Gospel.
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