“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. 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. 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. 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” Galatians 3:15-18.
This is so interesting to me; hopefully you’ll find it the same. As you may know, Paul writes this letter to the Galatians for 2 specific purposes. People are coming against Paul and, in his opinion, slandering the Gospel he has put forth. So, he writes to prove his apostleship and to prove that the way to salvation is by faith alone, not by the law. I’m not going to get into all the details today but this letter is truly fascinating. So much of the “how to” of Christian life can be found here. So much of the simplicity, the turning away from all the crazy things we sometimes do and follow and just “putting on Christ” as Paul continues to say in his letters. But listen to these specific verses above. He uses something apparently very common to them. Scholars don’t have a specific example of this human covenant but they think it’s something like a binding contract or final will of a person. We do know that it’s something that’s in stone, meaning it absolutely, positively cannot be changed or altered in any way. So Paul says here that the promises [notice the plural] that were made to Abraham have remained unaltered. This matters sooo much both then and now. The Judaizers of the time, the people going against Paul, were telling the Galatians that if they wanted to fully come into the fellowship of Christ [become a full believer] then they had to take on the Jewish Law AND have faith in Jesus. Essentially, the Gentile believers had to convert to Judaism and then believe in Jesus, while still keeping the Law. Paul sights all sort of issues with this but we’ll save that for another time.
Here’s Paul’s point: The covenant God made with Abraham was unchanged, as it had to be because a covenant could not change. Just because He was God and could change anything He wanted to, He did not change His promise [because He is God and perfect!]. The Judaizers wanted to say God had added the Law to the Abrahamic Covenant. The Covenant can be found in Genesis 15. Look here though, it says promises. And as you read through Galatians Paul handily supplies in that same chapter several of these promises. God promises Abraham that ALL nations will be blessed through him (Galatians 3:8; Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18). It says “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Galatians 3:6; Gen 15:6). This is faith in one of its first presentations. Abraham had faith and God gave him His righteousness because of it. This is Paul’s main point- that the law didn’t add, didn’t tack on to Abraham’s faith leading to righteousness. Again, the Judaizers were saying that yes, you have to have faith but you also have to obey the Law because God said you have to. And you know what? I bet that made plenty of very reasonable sense at the time. But Paul backs up his argument with the fulfillment of scripture. If God made this covenant with Abraham and then added the Law or added anything at all, it wouldn’t be a covenant. He would be breaking His promise if He added anything to it. This is HUGE. You can say what you want, there are plenty of evil people out there that pervert the gospel, but I think many of the Judaizers might have really wanted to follow Jesus rightly, they just thought the wrong thing (but I’m sure some were false too). But this is big! Paul’s saying that by making Gentiles follow the Law they are essentially saying God is a liar that couldn’t keep His covenant so He broke it by adding the Law to it. Do you see how crazy that is? It makes me wonder how often we add to His scriptures or try to make it say things it doesn’t. Makes me wonder if I’ve ever called God a liar. Look how easily they did it!
God didn’t change the promises. They stayed the same. The Law was a gap filler, essentially. It was a way to make sin evident and more prevalent. It was a way to make people see, without doubt, that they needed God desperately. We’re free from the Old Testament Law, all of it. Every single last letter of the Law was abolished on the cross and Jesus brought His own Messianic Law with Him that brought life, not death. God isn’t a liar. The Christian life is infinitely hard but the how-to is simple: have faith in Jesus. By believing in Him we will follow Him, which means we’ll learn about Him, get to know Him and do what He did and does. God’s promise from Abraham is extended to us: believe in Jesus and you’ll receive His righteousness [and so be able to enter eternal life with Him].
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