Are You Perfect??

This week, we have been looking at a section of a letter recorded for us in the Bible called the book of Galatians. Wednesday, we saw Paul reveal the reality that Jesus Christ chose to do what humanity refused to do so that all humanity, whether Jew or Gentile, would have the opportunity to be declared not guilty of having a problem with God as a result of placing our confident trust in what God has done for us through His life, death, and resurrection. The gospel centered life that trusts in Jesus perfection to rescue us from our selfishness and rebellion does what a religious centered life could never do, which is to meet God’s standard of perfection.

You see, when we trust in Jesus as Lord and Leader, a great exchange takes place. We receive Jesus perfect righteousness and Jesus takes our selfishness and rebellion. Today, we see Paul provide an illustration to unpack this truth in verse 15:

Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it.

Now to understand the illustration that Paul provides us, we first need to define some terms. When Paul refers to a man’s covenant, he is referring to a person’s last will and testament. The word ratified means to validate or to make legally binding. When Paul uses the phrase to set aside or add conditions, this phrase conveys the sense of invalidating or modifying the conditions of something. With these definitions in mind, this illustration, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: “From a human standpoint, even though it is only a person’s last will and testament, once that will has been made legally binding, you are not allowed to invalidate the will later. Once a will has been validated, another person can’t’ come later and modify or add conditions to the will. The promises made in that will are binding and cannot be changed”. Paul then takes this illustration that involving humanity and applies the illustration as an analogy to God’s activity with humanity in verses 16-18:

Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as referring to many, but rather to one, "And to your seed," that is, Christ. What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.

Paul points the members of the churches of Galatia, and us today, to a section of a letter in our Bibles called the book of Genesis. In Genesis 22, we see Abraham demonstrate his faithfulness to God by not withholding his only son Isaac from God. In Genesis 22:18, we see God respond to Abraham’s demonstration of faithfulness by saying the following:

"In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."

Paul takes God’s words to Abraham and points out that all the nations of the earth would be blessed not because of Abraham’s descendants corporately. The Jewish people and what they did for God by keeping the Law was not what was going to bless the nations of the earth. Instead, God’s promise to Abraham was that all the nations would be blessed because of a single descendant of Abraham. And that descendant, Paul reminds the readers of this letter, is Jesus Christ.

Paul then hammers his point home in verses 17-18. Four hundred and thirty years after God promised Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Jesus Christ, in Exodus 20, the Jewish people received the Law. And since God had previously entered into a binding and valid covenant with Abraham as the Father of the Jewish people, the Law would not make void or cause God’s promise to lose its power of effectiveness. The Law and the religious centered lifestyle that followed did not invalidate God’s promise that flowed from the faith of Abraham. Paul’s point is that God’s way has always been the way of faith; God’s way has always been a gospel centered way. God’s way has never been about religion or a religious centered way that follows a list of rules for God.

But that raises a question doesn’t it? That raises the question “then why even give the Law?” Maybe that question just popped into your mind? If so, I have some good news. And that good news is that you are not the first person to ask that question. We see that question asked and answered in verses 19-20. Let’s look at it together:

Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one.

First we see Paul ask the question: Why the Law then? Paul then answers the question by saying that the Law was “added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.” But what does that mean? Paul here is revealing for us the reality that the Law was given to reveal and provoke the selfishness and rebellion in us. The Law was not given to provide justification; the Bible was given to reveal our condemnation. The Law was given to reveal the selfishness and rebellion that resides within us and to provoke that selfishness and rebellion so that it can be exposed for all to see.

Have you ever noticed that you do not have to teach anyone to be selfish or rebellious? We do not take a class on how to be selfish and rebellious. Yet, while we do not have to teach anyone how to be selfish and rebellious, how do we know we are selfish and rebellious. We know that we are selfish and rebellious when we are told that we cannot do something. A rule that tells us that we cannot do something provokes within us a desire to selfishly rebel against that rule doesn’t it? God gave us the Law because that is what the Law does; the Law reveals and provokes the selfishness and rebellion within us that we need to be rescued from.

In addition, Paul explains that the Law was ordered by God to be proclaimed to man by angels and was given to the Jewish people by Moses, who served as a mediator, or an intermediary, between God and humanity. But what does Paul means when he says “Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one.”? To understand what Paul is talking about here, we first need to understand the role that a mediator plays. A mediator is an intermediary between two parties that tries to broker an agreement between parties. Once an agreement is reached between two parties, then both parties have to keep the agreement for the agreement to be effective.

Now with that in mind, remember in verse 10, when Paul quoted Deuteronomy 27:26, where the Jewish people entered into a covenant commitment to God as His people by agreeing that, to live in a right relationship with God, that God required them to be perfectly obedient to all of God’s commands. Now, did the Jewish people keep their end of the agreement? No, they failed to keep their end of the agreement. The agreement to try to live a religious centered life only revealed their inability to do things for God by keeping a list of rules in order to be right with God.

However, as Paul reminds the members of the churches of Galatia, a gospel centered life that is based on confident trust in what God has done through Christ for us does not involve two parties forming an agreement. Instead, God’s promise through Jesus was incumbent on God’s activity and grace alone, which made it superior in its effectiveness. Because the timeless reality is that a right relationship with a perfect God requires perfection. And because of that reality, we are to vote no on religion because religion requires a perfection that no one possesses.

So here is the question: Are you perfect? Because a religious centered lifestyle requires a perfection that no one possesses.