An Impossible Standard to Achieve...

This election season at the church where I serve we are involved in a sermon series entitled vote no on religion that is looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament in our Bibles called the Book of Galatians. And just as it was for the members of the churches of Galatia, we discovered that, every day, we cast a ballot in an election for one of two candidates. Either we cast a ballot to vote to live our life as a religious-centered person; or we cast a ballot to live our life as a gospel-centered person.

Either we choose to live our day to day lives as a gospel-centered person whose life is driven to respond to what God has done for us through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection by placing our confident trust in Jesus and following His message and teachings by faith as Lord and Leader. Or, we can live our day to day lives as a religious centered person who follows one of two different forms of religion. Last week, we discovered that we are to vote no on religion because religion does not make us right with God. Religion does not make us right with God because religion cannot rescue us from our selfishness and rebellion. Our rescue and right relationship with God is revealed not as a result of our activity for God, but as a result of the Holy Spirit’s activity as God in our lives.

Now this week, I would like to pick up where we left off last week, where we see Paul provide evidence to prove that religion does not make us right with God. And it is in the evidence that Paul provides that we will discover another timeless reason why we are to vote no on religion. So let’s look at the evidence together, beginning in Galatians 3:10:

For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM."

Paul begins this section of his letter to the members of the churches of Galatia by providing the first piece of evidence to support the claim that religion does not make us right with God. When Paul uses the phrase “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse” he is referring to those who were trying to do things for God in order to be right with God by keeping the Law, which were the lists of commands that are found in the first five books in our Bibles today. For those who were attempting to do things for God in order to be right with God by keeping a list of religious rules for God, Paul explains that they are under a curse. In other words, their activity for God resulted in them being under divine condemnation instead of being in a right relationship with God.

But why would those who attempted to do things for God be under divine condemnation from God? The Apostle provides us the answer to that question by quoting from a section of a letter that is found in the Old Testament in our Bibles called the Book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 27:26, we see the Jewish people enter into a covenant commitment to God as His people. As part of that covenant commitment, the Jewish people agreed that, in order to live in a right relationship with God, they would have to abide by all the things written in the book of the Law, to perform them. Now this word abide literally means to persist or persevere in something, in this case keeping God’s commands. And it was not just some of God’s commands; it was all the commands.

The point that Paul is making here is that the Jewish people entered into a covenant relationship with God that required them to be perfectly obedient to all of God’s commands. God made it clear to the Jewish people that His standard was perfection and the Jewish people agreed to that standard. And the Jewish people agreed that the consequence for failing to perfectly keep God’s commands was to receive divine condemnation for their disobedience. You see, God’s standard was clearly communicated from the beginning and has not changed. To be in a right relationship with a perfect God requires perfection.  

Now you may be saying to yourself “but Dave nobody is perfect”.  And that is Paul’s point. As we saw a few weeks ago, because nobody is perfect religion can only reveal the problem because every human being on the planet ends up breaking a rule on their religion’s list. So, for the members of the churches of Galatia, for humanity throughout history, to attempt to be right with God by keeping a list of rules for God only results in revealing that we have a huge problem with God. Even when we try to make up our own religion, we end up breaking a rule on the list. Religion can reveal and diagnosis the problem of our selfishness and rebellion, but religion cannot provide the solution or cure the problem of selfishness and rebellion. This leads Paul to his second piece of evidence, which we see in verse 11:

 Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, "THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH."

Paul provides his second piece of evidence in the form of a huge statement: “Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident”. Now, as we have seen previously in this series, the word justified is a legal term that meant to be declared not guilty of something. If Paul was making this statement in the language we use in our culture today, this statement would have sounded something like this: “The fact that no one is declared not guilty of having a huge problem with God as a result of their selfishness and rebellion because of what they do for God by keeping a list of rules is clearly understood and self evident.”

Paul then backs up his strong statement by quoting from a section of a letter in the Old Testament called the book of Habakkuk. In Habakkuk 2:4, we see God respond to the prideful arrogance of the Babylonian King, by stating that the righteous man will live by faith. When you see the word righteous in the Bible, a simple and accurate definition of this 50 cent word is that righteous is the quality or state of being right.  Paul quotes this Old Testament verse to reinforce the reality that the person who is right with God is right with God not because of what they did for God by keeping a list of rules for God.

A person who is right with God is right with God because they have faith in God and live their life by faith in God and His promises. A person who is right with God and who will experience eternal life in the relationship with God that they were created for will live a life of devotion to Christ based on their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel.

Tomorrow, we will see Paul hammer his point home by providing a third piece of evidence…