Galatians 3:19–22 - Superior to the Law

In Matthew 5 in the NT, the Lord Jesus defines sin with greater detail. For example, He explains that if you have unrighteous anger and hatred in your heart, you are as deserving of God’s eternal judgment as someone who commits murder. Jesus also says, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus was showing that all of us, in many various ways, are commandment breakers.

Then in ch. 7, He utters these words regarding one of our natural inclinations. He says, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? We easily identify faults in others while failing to see our own.

Is there a greater hindrance in relationships than a person’s failure to see or their unwillingness to admit their own sin and the damage it causes? Perhaps someone comes to your mind; perhaps you come to someone else’s mind. There’s great value in being able to clearly understand and confess your sin.

Now, in Galatians 3:15-18, Paul explained that God’s giving of His law in His covenant with Moses did not cancel or annul the previous giving of His promise in His covenant with Abraham. And having explained that, Paul anticipates a question. See it there in verse [19], “Why then the law?” If forgiveness and salvation from sins comes through God’s promise, why did He give His law? It’s because there is great value in being able to clearly understand and confess your sin.

Paul answers the question by saying, “It was added because of transgressions.” We fail to see the existence of our own sins, and also the seriousness and the pervasiveness of those sins – and so God gave the law. The law defined sin specifically. It increased their awareness of their sins. And it showed the uselessness of trying to earn salvation by law keeping.

But also, in the law, God indicated the cure for sins. This next phrase comments on that. The law “was added because of sins,” verse 19, “until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.” Brock explained last week that Jesus Christ is that offspring. He is the descendant of Abraham who fulfilled the promise.

The law pointed to Jesus. It guided ancient Israel to the Savior, and like Abraham, ancient Israel was called to trust in God for their righteousness. They were called to receive the promise of God by faith – and so are we. We become Abraham’s seed or descendants through union with Christ, as we saw earlier in Galatians 3.

Now, Paul was making this argument because there were people in Galatia who were troubling new Christians by telling them that Christ alone was not enough to make them right with God and to entitle them to His promised inheritance. These new believers were told they need to keep OT ceremonial laws, and doing so, these false teachers were elevating God’s law over His promise.

It’s not that God’s law is bad. Paul says in Romans 7 that God’s law is good and holy. But God’s promise is superior to His law, and Paul tells us why. Notice the outline printed for you. Unlike the law, the promise comes directly from God, it results immediately in righteousness, and it delivers absolutely from slavery.

The law does none of these. It’s God’s promise that offers us hope and peace. So, while we must to hear about and understand our sinful breaking of God’s law, we must hear much louder about the grace of God’s promise. So let’s do that.

First of all, the promise comes directly from God. Notice the rest of verse 19. Paul says, “and it (the law) was put in place through angels by an intermediary.” In Acts 7, Stephen says that the Israelites “received the law as delivered by angels.” This agrees with what the writer of Hebrews states, who says, “the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution.” He was talking about God’s law as well. These angels played a role between God and Moses.

Now, if we look back at the OT, Leviticus 26 describes the law this way: “These are the statutes and rules and laws that the LORD made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.” Moses played a role between God and the people, and angels played a role between God and Moses.

So, there were parties in-between. Look again at verse [20] “Now an intermediary implies more than one, (or that could be translated, “the intermediary is not of one”). What does this mean? The intermediary is not a party in the agreement. The intermediary is not the one giving or receiving what is being offered. The simple meaning here is that the covenant with Moses and the giving of the law had a middleman. This is in contrast with God’s covenant with Abraham.

See that last phrase, “but God is one.” Deuteronomy 6 in the OT says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” The true and only God is one of one. He is the only one of His kind.

God and Abraham had direct interaction. God is not an intermediary for someone else, and He used no intermediary with Abraham as He did with Moses and the Israelites. God used no middleman when He gave His promise. He made it directly with Abraham, and by way of Abraham to all believers.

Now, that may sound like Abraham was an intermediary or middleman, but he wasn’t. The covenant with Abraham did have a mediator, but Scripture tells us that the mediator of this covenant of promise or covenant of grace is the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is fully God. Therefore, dealing with Jesus we deal directly with God.

Do any of you like to put together jigsaw puzzles? Have you ever been doing a puzzle and you have some pieces assembled over here and some more assembled over here, but you're missing that piece that connects them?

Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully human. He connects sinners to God. In that sense, He’s like the jigsaw puzzle piece that fits on both sides. You might say, “Oh well then is Jesus the intermediary between us and God?” Yes, He is, but you see, He is God – God the Son, the second person of the triune God.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus said things like, “I and the Father are one,” and “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father,” and “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” And Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” thereby proclaiming Himself to the great I AM – the one true God.

The law can only lead you toward God. The law shows you your need for forgiveness. but only the promise comes directly from God and delivers you directly to God. That was God’s promise to Abraham. Therefore, the Abrahamic covenant is vastly superior to the Mosaic covenant,

Now, look at verse [21]. Paul asks, “Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?” Which is to ask, “Is the promise somehow in opposition to the law?” Paul says no, because they did not have the same purpose or function.

The law can show you the log in your own eye, but it cannot save you from that guilt. The law condemns you. It exposes your guilt. But the law cannot change you. God’s law – and specifically His Ten Commandments – shows us the best way to live, but also, as Jesus explained, the Ten Commandments convict us. They condemn not only our sinful actions but our thoughts and desires. We’re done!

Let me read verse 21 again, “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.” The law does not set sinners free from sin. The law does not impart spiritual life to those naturally dead in our sins.

The law was not the way ancient Israelites were saved. And that may seem obvious to you as you listen to this explanation of what Paul says. But many, many churches teach something contrary to this. Many wrongly believe that the Israelites were saved by keeping the law. And that’s just absurd. Paul says right here, “if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.”

No human born in sin could ever be justified before God through law-keeping. It’s impossible. In fact, in James 2, James the brother of Jesus writes, “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”

Do you realize that you are a rotten sinner? If so, you are in good company here! So are all of the rest of us. Our only hope of ever being made righteous before God is through His promise. That was how Abraham was made righteous. Gen. 15 says Abraham “believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” God declared the sinful Abraham righteous by faith alone – by faith in the promise of God.

Do you believe God? Do you believe He would save you and change you by His grace though faith alone? Do you believe He will accept you now, in spite of what you’ve done? Do you believe you can be like a firstborn son in His family, with all the rights of an heir – to inherit all the promised blessings of God? To receive those blessings – to receive that life – you cannot depend on your ability to keep His law. He never gave a law that could give life. But the promise gives life.

Maybe you’ve heard of the thief on the cross. When the Lord Jesus was crucified on His cross, two criminals were hung next to him on crosses, one on each side. And Luke writes, “One of the criminals who were hanged railed at [Jesus], saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”

This was obviously the end of the road for these two criminals. One speaks to Jesus in a blasphemous way, but the other is different. He had accepted his own guilt. He knew that he deserved condemnation. And listen to what he says. “He said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He simply believed Jesus was who He said He was. He trusted in Jesus.

Now, what might Jesus say? Does He look over at the criminal with disgust and say, “Well, it’s too bad you didn’t straighten up sooner. You knew the law, and you broke it gladly. You hardened your heart time after time. So now, you can have what you deserve.” Jesus did not say such a thing! “He said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

The promise results immediately in life, because the promise results immediately in righteousness. As they both hung their dying, that criminal had faith, therefore He had the righteousness required to come to God. And you must understand – He had that righteousness required because He now had Christ.

Do you have Christ? Do you know Him who makes rotten sinners right with God? He brings His enemies into an unalterable, unbreakable union with Himself, and He guides us in a new life – life in and with God. Humble yourself before Him today! If you’ve strayed, simply return to Him!

Now look with me at this final verse. There is no law that imparts life, “But,” verse 22 says, “the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” Paul is equating “Scripture” with “the law.” The law was put down in the OT, and the law clarified that the whole world was and is naturally enslaved to sin.

Scripture, i.e. the law, therefore imprisoned everything under sin. The law emphasized what was already in effect. It was clear that people were sinners, because they were sinning and dying. Death is the result of sin.

The law accentuated sin, but in doing so, the law also showed ancient Israel and the rest of the world that salvation is not possible through law keeping. So how would anyone ever escape the condemnation of the law? Look at the verse again. God gave the law, “so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

Sin – in whatever form it takes in your life, in whatever result it produces – is like an evil prison guard. It aims to control you and do you harm. It aims always to keep you down – to get you down and never let you up. To put you in chains. To take away all joy and peace and hope. Don’t you want to get free? It’s not the law that delivers us from slavery to sin. The promise delivers from slavery – absolutely. Once and for all.

Would you look once more over these points printed for you. The promise comes directly from God. The promise results immediately in righteousness. The promise delivers absolutely from slavery. When you are born again, what you receive, above all, is Christ Himself. And you see, the promise is Him.

When you receive Christ, you become entitled to all that God has for His people. Christ comes directly from God, and Christ imputes righteousness to us immediately, and Christ delivers us from slavery to sin totally and eternally. Through the law we are led toward God, but through the promise – through Christ Himself – we are delivered to God.

Christ is God’s gracious gift to us. He is our hope in life and death. He is our entrance into a new way of being and living. He is the medicine that heals the soul. He is the knowledge that soothes the mind. He is the grace that forms our faith and character. He is our guide. He is our God.

Trust in Him today. Trust in His perfect life, and His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. Look nowhere else for life – not another person, not money or possessions or success or pleasure or the law. Look only to Jesus Christ today, and rest in Him.

Let’s bow together in prayer.