Galatians 3:15-18 – The Unchanging Promise

Have you ever made a promise that you had to break? As fallible humans, we sometimes make promises and break them. There are a number of different reasons for breaking a promise (forgetfulness, revenge, lack of commitment, and laziness among  other things). I would imagine many of us grew up making promises, which we then sealed with some kind of action or words – maybe a pinky promise, or a simple handshake, or the morbid sounding “I cross my heart and hope to die.” Though the consequence sounds very serious, I'm sure at one point or another we did not keep the promise we made and then sealed or guaranteed with those words or actions. Despite our greatest efforts and greatest intentions, we sometimes break our promises. One of the consequences of broken promises is distrust. We distrust others when they break their promises. Or others distrust us when fail to keep our word.

However, this is not true of God. He does not break His promises. He always keeps His word. We see this truth throughout Scripture. Numbers 23:19 says, “19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” Scripture assures us that God always keeps His promises.

Yet, we naturally struggle to trust God, don’t we? We find it hard to trust God completely and therefore, we find it hard to trust his promises. We often find ourselves doubting God’s faithfulness and goodness. We think, “Well if I don’t take matters into my own hands and try to control the outcome, nothing good will come from it.” This even slips into how we think about our justification. Certainly, we must contribute to our justification before God by doing good works. Certainly, our obedience to God’s law justifies us or at least it makes us more acceptable to God.

But that is not what God teaches through His Word. Ephesians 2:8 says, “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” So, God’s Word tells us that it is by grace that we are saved, not by works. Works do not justify us. We are justified by faith in the one who God promised could deliver us from our sins and save us. God made this promise all the way back in Genesis 3 and reemphasized it through the various covenants he made throughout the Old Testament.  This promise remains even today.

Scripture is clear that God has freed us from sin and gives us His promises so we can trust Him. And He does not break his promises. Therefore, we should trust God in general, and particularly when it comes to His promised inheritance for us.

In Galatians 3:15-18, Paul shows us three things that God has done to help us trust Him. You can see them printed for you on page 3 of the worship guide. We see:God has ratified the covenant of the promised inheritance. God has provided the offspring of the promised inheritance. God has established the means of receiving the promised inheritance.

The promised inheritance that God gave to Abraham is a promise for his offspring, Jesus, and all those who are connected to Jesus by faith. That promise has not changed. We can trust that we will receive the inheritance if we are in Christ. Not by works but through faith in the true offspring, Jesus Christ.

Let’s look together now at what Paul shows in these verses, starting with verse 15. The first point he makes is fairly concise and straightforward. He says, “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.”

Just prior to verses 15-18, Paul explained how Christ redeemed his people by becoming a curse for them. And those who trust in Christ by faith receive the inheritance. In other words, they receive salvation. Paul has belabored this point because of the teaching of the Judaizers that claimed obedience to the ceremonial law must be added to faith in order to be fully justified.

 So, after spending the previous 20 verses or so arguing this point, here in verses 15-18, he assumes a possible rebuttal from those false teachers, the Judaizers.

Their potential rebuttal may have gone like this: Let’s say we grant you that the promises of inheritance given to Abraham and his “sons” were realized through faith alone. You can’t tell us that when God made later covenants, this covenant with Abraham wasn’t annulled.

Specifically, Paul had in mind the covenant with Moses and the giving of the law. Why this particular covenant? Well, the giving of the Law had a direct impact on what the false teachers in the Galatian church, the Judaizers, were teaching. Remember, they were basically adding law obedience to faith as the means of justification.

So, Paul continues makes his argument in verse 15 by answering that potential rebuttal. He replies by pointing out that: Once ratified, a man-made covenant cannot be annulled, much less so a covenant established and ratified by God.

The term for “annulled” that Paul uses here is a legal term that literally means “to invalidate” or “regard as nothing.” The term for “ratified” means “to enforce.”

Essentially, Paul is saying that, “Hey, you guys know that once a man-made covenant or will is written, signed, and ratified, it can’t be altered as long as the person is shown to have written the will in good faith and was of sound mind. It is permanent.

For example, if a father has two sons and those sons grow into adults, and one becomes rich and the other is poor. The father then draws up his will, and in it he designates a larger portion of the inheritance to the poor son and a smaller portion to the rich son. The will is signed and ratified. That legal document will be binding even if the rich son loses all his wealth the day after his father dies. The will holds despite new conditions.

It is the same with God’s covenant/promise to Abraham in Genesis 15. He made a promise to Abraham and his descendants that they would have a great inheritance – a great nation, a great land, and a great blessing.

And so, what Paul is saying here is that if a human covenant cannot normally be revised or revoked, how much more immutable or indestructible is a promise made by the eternal God? In other words, God promises to Abraham could not be altered by some later covenant. This includes the later covenant between God and Moses at Mt. Sinai.

This is important for us to remember as well. The promise that God made to Abraham has not been canceled. It held true for the Galatians, and it holds true for us. The promised inheritance, which is ultimately salvation, that comes through faith has not changed.

We need to remember this constantly. Heb. 13:8 - 8 Jesus Christ (God) is the same yesterday and today and forever.  / 1 Thessalonians 5:24 - 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. / Malachi 3:6 - 6 “For I the Lord do not change; / James 1:17 - 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Paul’s point here is pretty straightforward. God made a covenant with Abraham in which he promised an inheritance. That covenant was ratified by God himself and therefore cannot be annulled. We can read about that covenant ceremony in Genesis 15.

We saw the implications of that earlier in chapter 3. Abraham was not counted righteous because of obedience, he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Do you believe God? Do you trust His promises? If so, renew that trust as you see the unchanging nature of His promise. If you have not trusted him, I call you to believe him today.

Now look with me at verse 16. Paul elaborates on who the promises were made to and for. It says, “16 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.

The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. Who is this? Paul points out that the singular “offspring” referring to one, not many, means Christ. The promise was for and secured by true Israel, Jesus and all those connected to him through faith, the natural branches and the ingrafted branches. He is affirming that Christ is the seed (descendant) to whom the promise finally refers, and anyone can become Abraham’s seed by virtue of their union with Christ through faith. To call Christ Abraham’s seed it's another way of calling him the true Israel.

In an article from Ligonier Ministries is states: “As the true Israel, Jesus most fully realizes the blessing for the corporate body of His people. All those who are in Christ by faith are Abraham’s offspring, or “seed”, and inherit all the promises made to him by virtue of their union with God’s Son. In Jesus, Abram’s blessing comes to all the families of the earth.”

That is surely what Paul is communicating here about the promises to Abraham and his offspring. That promise is fulfilled in Jesus. Author and professor J. V. Fesko writes, “God made an unchanging covenantal promise that finds its fulfillment in Jesus. And he made this promise long ago, not to the New Testament church but to the patriarch of Israel – to Abraham. This is an unbroken thread that continues throughout the Old Testament.” Fesko goes on to point out that even from the early chapters of the Bible, back in Genesis 3, God promised Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would conquer and crush the head of the serpent. From that point God continued his promise of a seed, of an offspring. It continued with God's promise to Isaac and it continued through to David when God promised to give him one descendant who would build a house for God's name. This one king would reign from David's throne forever. God told David in 2 Samuel 7: 12-14, “I will set up your seed after you…. I will be his father, and he shall be My Son.”

Who is the seed, the offspring of both Abraham and King David, in whom the covenant promises are fulfilled? Matthew 1:1 gives the answer, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

This is really the basis of seed theology. Maybe you have heard that phrase before. It essentially means that from the beginning, well beginning in Genesis 3 after the Fall, that God promised a Seed of the woman that would rescue/redeem His people from the Fall, from the curse of sin. And from that point, with every subsequent covenantal promise, God promised blessing via this Seed. The ultimate blessing was the Seed and the redemption provided by the Seed. Paul confirms this in his letter to the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 1:20 he writes, “20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him”, that is in Christ.

It is Christ that is the true seed of the woman, and it is Christ that is the true offspring of Abraham. It is he who receives all the promises of God and secures those promises for the other offspring. As that true offspring of Abraham, Christ also secured the promised inheritance.

But for whom did Christ secure the promised inheritance? Who is able to partake in the blessings of the promises of God? Paul gives the answer in verses 17 and 18.

He says the law, which came 430 years after (the covenant with Abraham), does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.

Paul explains that approximately 430 years after God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, God made a covenant with Moses in Exodus 20 in which he, God, gave Moses the summary of the moral law, which is commonly called the 10 commandments.

Paul knows that some people (the Judaizers in particular) have concluded that since Moses's law was introduced later it cancels out the promise of the previous covenant, one in which the promise was inherited or received by faith and faith alone. In other words, some might think if we are to get the blessing of Abraham, we will now have to obey the law of Moses.

But Paul says, and shows, in verse 17 that this is a false conclusion. The word Paul uses here for ratified means “to make valid in advance,” and is used to make the point that the promise to Abraham was ratified by God prior to the giving of the law and is thus of incontrovertible validity. The later giving of the law cannot and does not change the promise to Abraham and his offspring.

He emphasizes this in verse 18. The law of Moses cannot turn God's promise to Abraham into something other than what it is - a promise.

This is a powerful argument. If the law of Moses came as a way of salvation, it means that God changed his mind. It would mean that God had decided that we didn't need a Savior, and that he would give out his blessing on the basis of performance, not promise.

One commentator I read put it this way, “The principle was that the very concepts of promise and law are mutually exclusive. Paul is adamant: either something comes by grace or works; either it comes because of the giver's promise or the receiver's performance. It is either one or the other."

For a promise to bring a result, it needs only to be believed, but for a law to bring a result, it has to be obeyed. Pastor and author Tim Keller gave an illustration in which he asked people to suppose this scenario: his uncle Jack wants to meet you and give you $10 million, and the only way you can fail to receive the $10 million is to fail to believe the claim. If you just laugh and go home, rather than going to see uncle Jack, you may never get the money. But if, on the other hand, his uncle Jack says he is willing to leave you his inheritance of $10 million, but you have to go live with him and take care of him in his old age, then you have to fulfill the requirement and condition if you are to get the money.  The difference between these two scenarios is like the difference between receiving God’s promise of salvation by belief or receiving it by works.

Scripture teaches the faith, the trust which secures the promises of God given to Abraham and to Abraham’s offspring continues to be the means, the instrument by which a person is justified before God. No later covenant anulls that.

So, Paul has shown us that God promised saving blessing to the nations through Abraham “and his offspring”, which ultimately is Christ. That covenant promise was ratified by God and was not cancelled by the later giving of the law through Moses. That helps us to trust God. Paul shows us that God promised and provided the offspring who would inherit the promises not just for himself but for all God’s people. And finally, Paul showed us that God established the means by which we receive the inherited promise, the promise of salvation.

What does all this mean for us today? It reminds us that we receive the promised blessing of God not by genetics but through personal trust in the Messiah.

But as I stated at the beginning, we struggle to trust God – to trust His promises and specifically to trust in His Son. But there was one, one descendant of Adam, one seed of the woman, one offspring of Abraham who did trust God perfectly. Jesus is the offspring of faith par excellence, for only He was completely obedient to the Father. The three things Paul has shown us reveal that God is trustworthy. We can trust in God to keep his promises. The essence, the whole of all the promises is that God sent his one and only Son to redeem His people from their sins and by way of that union to bring them into the promised inheritance, life everlasting in the presence of God. It is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone that we inherit that promise, through Christ alone that we are saved.

As we struggle to trust, we must remember that the promise has not changed. It is an unchanging promise. So, look to Christ today, trust in Him.  And as you remember the unchanging promises of God in Christ, may your trust in Him grow.

Let’s pray.