During this election season, we have been 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 choose to live our day to day lives as a religious centered person who
follows one of two different forms of religion.
This week, I would like for us to pick up where we left
off last week. And as we jump back into this New Testament letter, we see Paul continue
to 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 3:21:
Is the Law
then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been
given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been
based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the
promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Paul begins this section of his letter by responding to a
potential objection by the members of the churches of Galatia: “Is the Law then
contrary to the promises of God?” Now this objection, if communicated in the
language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this:
“Does the Law, or the first five books in our Bibles today, contradict God’s
promises? If the Law, as we talked about last week, reveals and provokes the
selfishness and rebellion that resides within us, then doesn’t the Law actually
oppose God and His promise to rescue from selfishness and rebellion? So, isn’t
the problem the Law and not us?” Paul
responds to this objection with the strongest negative response that is
possible in the language that this letter was originally written in.
Paul then provides two reasons why the Law is not in
opposition to and does not contradict the promises of God. First, in the second
half of verse 21, Paul explains that if a law had been given which was able to
impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. Now to
understand the point that Paul is making here, we first need to define some
terms.
When Paul states that if a law had been given, he is not
simply referring to the first five books in our Bibles today; instead, Paul is
referring to any list of rules or things that one could do for God in order to
be right with God. The phrase to impart life literally means to cause to live
and refers to one experiencing eternal life in relationship with God. As we
have talked about already in this series, when you see the word righteousness
in the Bible, a simple and accurate definition of this 50 cent word is the
quality or state of being right with God.
What Paul is saying here is “If any list of rules could
have been given to you that would result in you being able to do things for God
in order to experience eternal life with God, then a right relationship with
God would be have been based on what you did for God. So the issue is not in
the Law or any other list of rules when it comes to experiencing a right
relationship with God. The Law does not contradict the Promises of God”.
Second, in verse 22, Paul explains that “Scripture has
shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might
be given to those who believe.” But what does that mean? This phrase has shut
up, literally means to confine or imprison. The word sin refers to the
destructive and evil power of selfishness and rebellion that causes us to do
things that hurt God and others. So what Paul is saying here is that the
message and teachings of the Law and the Old Testament imprison us in the
selfishness and rebellion that is within us.
Once again, Paul here is revealing for us the reality
that the function of the Law and the Old Testament was never to provide us
rescue from selfishness and rebellion; the Law and the Old Testament were given
to reveal our need to be rescued from selfishness and rebellion. The Law was
given to confine and lock everything up under the destructive and evil power of
the selfishness and rebellion that resides within us.
Now a natural question that
arises here is “Why would God give us the Law and the Old Testament if its
function was to confine us and lock us up under the power of the very selfishness
and rebellion that separates us from God? If that question is running through
your mind, we see Paul provide the answer to that question by explaining that the
reason why the Law confines us and locks everything under the destructive and
evil power of selfishness and rebellion within us is so that the promise by
faith in Christ might be given to those who believe.
In other words, the Law was
given so that we would be perfectly positioned to receive God’s promise of
rescue from selfishness and rebellion as a result of placing our confident
trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. The Law and Old
Testament imprison us in our selfishness and rebellion so that we would be in a
position to entrust ourselves with compete confidence not in what we do for
God, but in what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.
Tomorrow, we will see Paul
unpack this for us…
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