That's the question Paul begins answering in verses 19-20. He's working hard to surgically remove the spiritual shrapnel among the Galatian church left from the attack by the Judaizers.
They've convinced these believers that Jesus saves but it's up to each of us to work like crazy to maintain our salvation by religious rule-keeping.
He's flipped through the pages of the OT to disprove this idea while explaining that God has always said, "The righteous shall live by faith" (Gal 3:11; Hab 2:4).
So what's the deal with the law? That's the obvious question at this point. If God's promise to Abraham is not voided by God's law that came some 430 years later, then what's its purpose (Gal 3:17-18)?
Paul addresses the 800 pound gorilla in the room: So what's the deal with the law anyway? "Why then the law?" (v19). Let's be clear what "law" he's talking about. This is the law that God gave Moses at Mt. Sinai after God freed His people from slavery in Egypt (Ex 19-31).
If you're scoring along at home, that's not just Ten Commandments but 613 laws Yahweh gave His people after busting them out of Egypt. All they had to do was obey them perfectly and everything was peachy.
But there was just one small problem. God's standard is perfection. God's standard is absolutely impossible.
You see, God didn't give His law to save. God gave His law in order to reveal just how jacked up we are. Paul says it this way: "It (the law) was added because of transgressions" (v19).
Yahweh handed the law to us through Moses to reveal our sin, our inability to save ourselves and our desperate need for a Savior.
God gives us the law as a wall that we slam into. The very moment we try to save ourselves through obeying the list, we quickly realize that we've brought a toothpick to a knife fight. We would have better luck trying to reach the moon with a step stool. It's just not possible.
I soon find out that when I attempt to follow the law, I'm actually fighting the law. It surrounds me. Everywhere I turn, the law never stops its unending attack on me. The fight is pointless. I fought the law and the law won. And it does so EVERY time.
So again it forces us to ask, "What's the deal with the law?" The apostle tells us that the law "was added because of transgressions" (v19).
I think Matt Chandler explains this incredibly well. He says the law is simply a diagnostic tool. It's like an x-ray, MRI, CT scan or ultrasound machine. All it does is reveal our desperate condition.
No matter how many times we go back for another diagnostic test, these miraculous medical tools don't heal. They simply disclose the disease.
God gives us the law so that we can understand there is only one cure: Jesus Christ. That's Paul's point in both Romans 7 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11. The law is good. We're the problem.
For those who think that Jesus ignored the law or softened the law, you may want to crack open the Gospels. Ever tried to obey the Sermon on the Mount? Sheesh!
Christ takes the OT law and lets us know that God's impossible standard is even higher than we've ever imagined. Jesus didn't ignore the law. It reminds me of the company in the commercial that doesn't make anything, they just make it better.
I fought the law and the law won. And it wins EVERY time.
Paul goes on to say that God gave us this diagnostic device called the law "until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made" (v19).
He's clued us in earlier that this "offspring" is actually Jesus (Gal 3:16). And God made His promise to Abraham and his descendants (Gen 12:2-3). In other words, the Jewish people.
Jesus came first to the Jews to then offer God's salvation to the entire world (Gal 3:7-9; Gen 22:18). Remember, the majority of believers in Galatia aren't Jewish.
They need to know they don't have to become Jewish in order to follow Christ. That's what the false teachers have told them.
The apostle uses the phrase "the promise was made" (v19). This is the verb επαγγελλω/epangello. It's the verb form of the noun επαγγαλια/epangelia, which means promise or pledge.
Paul uses both of these words a total of eleven times in this short letter. Nine of those occurrences are in chapter three.
What's this promise? Glad you asked. The Gospel. Jesus. God fulfills EVERYTHING in Him!
Paul pulls back the divine curtain just a bit to let us know that the law "was put in place through angels and by an intermediary" (v19).
A couple of different times we read in Scripture that angelic messengers play a role in delivering God's Word (Acts 7:53; Heb 2:2). But that's about all the info we get.
The intermediary he writes about is undoubtedly Moses. The Israelites wanted know part of any face-to-face contact with an awesome God. They begged the Mighty Mo to do it for them (Ex 20:19; Dt 5:5).
The meaning behind verse 20 is a little murky. "Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one." Most likely it refers to God's role as both the initiator of the covenant promise to Abraham as well as the ratifier. It describes God's grace to us.
There was absolutely nothing Abe did to instigate such a promise, ratify such a promise or keep such a promise. It was only through the sovereign and amazing grace of God.
In the end, Paul lets us know that God gave us His law to break us, not to save us. It's a diagnostic tool. Not a therapeutic treatment. Only Jesus saves. Only Jesus heals.
I can fight the law, but the law wins. EVERY time.
©2012
Jay Jennings
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