Galatians 3: Living Only for JesusSýnishorn

Just recently I went to my solicitor to have my will brought up to date. As soon as that will was signed, it was fixed for good. No one can now change it. I’m the only person who can alter it. Nor can anyone fiddle with it after I have died. At the same time, my solicitor drew up an agreement between me and some special friends of mine. When we signed that agreement, it was fixed.

These two examples illustrate an important biblical principle called a covenant. A covenant is an agreement. The most famous covenant is the one that God made with Abraham when He promised to bless him. 

It’s not the only covenant (or agreement, or promise) that is found in the Bible, but it’s one of the most important. (If you read Genesis 9, verses 8 to 17, you will find another very important covenant that God made.)

In Genesis 12 God said to Abraham, ‘I am going to bless you and I am going to bless your offspring. This is my promise. This is the covenant that I make with you this day. This is the agreement that I have with you.’

Did you notice that Abraham didn’t have to do anything? He simply believed what God said. Or to put it another way, he had faith in God’s word. He believed God’s promise.

Now, just like my illustrations above, concerning my will and my agreement, the agreement or covenant which God made with Abraham could not be changed. Once God said it, that was that! No one could come along later and cancel it, or try to change it. It was fixed for good.

Just think for a moment. Who came first, Abraham or Moses? Try to work it out before you go any further. (In fact there were many hundreds of years between them.)

Try to get this. God gave Abraham a promise (He made a covenant or an agreement with him). Then four hundred and thirty years later, God gave a set of laws to Moses to give to the people (the Ten Commandments). Did those laws cancel out the agreement which God had previously made with Abraham? Can you see that nothing could ever alter that agreement—not even the law that He gave through Moses?

If this all sounds a bit complicated or rather dull, it would not be that way if you were a Jew listening to Paul preach. The law was terribly important to the Jew. No other nation on earth has ever been given a set of laws directly from the living God. The Jews were, and still are, very proud of their law given through Moses.

So when Paul came preaching faith, the Jews were very suspicious. They thought he was saying that the law was not important. What he was trying to get across to them was the great fact that the law came after God’s agreement with Abraham. That agreement was based on faith. Abraham was accepted by God simply by believing, not because he kept some law (because the law was still four hundred and thirty years away!).

At this point re-read verses 15 to 18. Notice that I have not talked about verse 16, which refers to Abraham’s descendant. This is an amazing verse. When God made the promise to Abraham (that is, to bless him—to give him an inheritance—to give him a great gift), Abraham thought only of how he could have a son so that all this could come to pass. 

What Abraham never realised was that when God made the promise He was referring to just one person. One person in all history! Yes, of course God was going to bless Abraham. Yes, of course God was going to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham. Yes, of course God was going to keep His word. But it was all going to happen through just one person—a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son—of a son of Abraham’s...

JESUS CHRIST!

So Paul is telling these Jews, and us too, a fantastic truth. All God’s blessings to a human being, no matter who he or she is, come through Jesus. And they come to us in exactly the same way in which they came to Abraham—by faith. By believing. Not by doing. Not by obeying law. But by faith. God has made a covenant with us through Jesus but, like Abraham, we only know it, and receive its blessings, through faith.

If I were a Jew, the first question I would want to ask Paul would be: ‘If the blessing from God is received by faith, then what’s the law for?—why did God give the law?’. Well, that’s a good question. Why did He give the law?

It’s really very simple. If there were no law, we would not know what sin was. If we did not know what sin was, we would never know that we needed to be saved! The law forces us to see that we cannot obey its demands. It shows up how sinful we are and how much we need God to do something to salvage us. The law leads us to have faith in Jesus Christ.