Galatians 3:29 - Our Sweet Inheritance

"But if you [are] of Christ, then of the Abraham’s seed you [all] are, according to promise - heirs.’

-Abraham’s seed.  The man of faith, the man of promise, the one to whom God gave the promise, who believed God, and was made totally right in God’s eyes through his faith.  This promisee is now our great great great great grandfather, and we are his heirs - thru faith.

-Heirs.  This word meant a whole lot more to the ancients.  It was about oikos, about clan.  It was about livelihood.  The promise to Abraham was about land, a wondrous, fertile land.  And it was about becoming a great family, a clan of clans, one whose influence would extend to every other family on plant earth.  A tremendous promise this, a monumental legacy.  We become heirs, we are actually brought in as members of this great family when we choose to trust in Jesus.  And to be sure, this family’s greatest possession was not the land God gave them, but rather the promise.  The promise of blessing.  The promise of being declared right with Him through faith.

-Inheritance for moderns is mostly about the death of the dad, and is typically held in trust until a child turns 21.  But in the ancient world, inheritance was about birth.  or adoption.  Either way, one became joint-possessor of the family inheritance simply by being a member of the family.  Thus it holds true, the inheritance of Abraham is available to us today, to anyone regardless of race or gender or station in life. all we enter in to the joy of the promise, the ineffable blessings of being totally right in God’s eyes, simply by belonging to Christ.  No more work - He did it all.  We can sit back today and relax, sip our sweet tea and enjoy our sweet inheritance, knowing that in God's eyes we've done everything right.  Thru faith.  Ahhhhh...

Galatians 3:28 - All... One.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female.  For all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’

-Tremendous truth in these preceding verses, but one thing we’ve needed to notice is the recurrence of a tiny little yet humungous pronoun - all.  All are sons.  All are clothed with Jesus.  And Paul uses it again here - all one.  One hundred percent.  Not just those of Jewish extraction (in other words, circumcised).  In fact, it totally does not matter who you are or your status or your gender - there is no distinction in Christ, for those who have put their trust in Him.  And there are no special seats on the bus, no preferential treatment, no fastpass line or first-come first-served thing going on here.  We are all treated the same in Christ, same access, same status, same family.  All one.  And it’s not even that we are all for one and one for all (altho that can certainly be part of our mindset).  There is a oneness, a common unity, an amalgamation of every last part into one entity, one body, one universal organism which transcends all would-be differences of race and ethnicity and status and gender, of age and personality and gifting.  Together we are the Bride of Christ, and we are to glorify Christ our Bridegroom in the beauty of love and devotion to Him AND to one another.  Forever and ever.  This bond is stronger than anything that would push us apart (or should be).  God help us.  Truly...

Galatians 3:27 - Off the chain party robes

"For as many as unto Christ you were baptized, you put on Christ.’

-Baptized into Christ.  This is not about water.  It is not about any salvific work - it is about faith.  That’s what he just said (in v. 26) - we are sons of God THRU FAITH.  All that we are as Christians, all that we become, what happens to us, is entirely through faith.  So we cannot (ever) seize on a single verse like this one here and take it out of context.  The promise is by faith (14, 22), hearing with faith (2, 5), to the ones ‘faith-ing’ (trusting), justified by faith (8, 24), son of God thru faith (7, 26)(interesting to note how Paul is restating all these truths twice in this chapter - he is really serious about emphasizing this point!).  That's not to say that water baptism is not commanded of all those who trust in Christ (it certainly is).  But here it is not about water or any good work to which we might be tempted to attach some merit - it is about faith - and that, the OBJECT of our faith.  And what happens when we DO transfer our faith/trust from ourselves into Jesus is that we are put into Him.  God Himself puts us INTO Jesus.

-But thus you did put on Christ (or rather, He was put on you).  If you have put your faith and trust in Him, you are literally clothed with Him, like a royal robe.  That is what the Father did, and that is what He sees (and by extension that is what the world should see).  Jesus is our dazzlingly white robe of righteousness, placed on us by One Who has indeed removed and replaced every last one of the filthy rags of our sin and guilt and shame (cf Isaiah 61.10, Zechariah 3.4)(FESTAL robes! which is in fact how the Father rolls - He is a festival, a fiesta, a party waiting to happen, and the returning prodigal gets the best robe... to wear to the party! cf Luke 15.22).  Now we stand before the throne of heaven and before the Lamb clothed in white robes (Revelation 7.9) - clothed WITH the Lamb Himself!  It’s quite figurative of course, and holds true on more of a spiritual level, but truly, blessed are those who wash their robes, who are clothed with Jesus, so that they may have the right to the tree of life - all who have done so may enter in by the gates of the city (Revelation 22.14)!  Get ready for the fiesta of your life, off the chain, out of this world...!

Galatians 3:26 - The Ultimate Lifetime Membership

"For all you are sons of God thru faith in Christ Jesus."

-Sons of God.  All in Christ are sons of God.  Let that sink in.  And at this point we need to put it in context.  What we really are (or were), in our heart of hearts, in the very core of who we really are, is rebels.  Enemies.  Objects of wrath.  Destined for destruction.  Forever separated from the life of God, falling short of His glory.  Separated.  Estranged.  We were enemies and strangers, excluded from any experience whatsoever of God’s breathtaking goodness (apart from the common grace which all of God’s creation can access).  What we deserve(d) is judgment, condemnation, eternal separation from the gloriously good God of love, consigned forever to the outer darkness reserved for the devil and his demonic hordes.  Yet what we get, is a Father...

-Sons of God.  I will say it again - sons (AND daughters) of almighty God.  Thru Jesus Christ.  This was the promise - God wanted to bring us in to His house, into His forever family.  No longer strangers to the promises, and not as mere houseguests.  Neither is this some form of temporary foster care - we are full-fledged permanent members of the royal family.  Protection, provision, promises, privileges, and the Perfect Parent.  Permanently.  It's the ultimate lifetime membership.  Full access, full privileges, fully heirs (more on that in v. 29) - on some kind of mind-blowing, unforeseen level footing with the Son, Who is our Brother.  Jesus is our Brother, and God Himself is our Father, our heavenly Daddy!  We know Him personally and relate to Him (by His Spirit) as His children.  We approach Him now not from a distance nor in any kind of awkward estrangement or unfamiliarity, but freely, openly, confidently, intimately - completely accepted and fully loved.  Through Jesus.  (We do also approach with reverence and a healthy dose of fear and trembling - He is, after all, not a tame lion...)  But yes, thru Christ, through what He accomplished on the Cross.  And by placing our complete trust in that, in His sacrifice, through faith in Him.  Not by any religious work or ritual or any amount of self-effort.  Totally by faith, totally accepted, totally in.  Amazing love, amazing grace - how can it be...?

Galatians 3:25 - School's out! Sort of...

"But the faith having come, no longer under a pedagogue are we."

-Again, faith was in play as long ago as Abraham, but what has taken place more recently is that faith has come into full flower, full clarity.  It has come full circle, so to speak.  Messiah has come, and we know His name - Jesus.  And the law, imperfect tho it was, has done what it was supposed to do - it watched over us, kept us in bounds as best it could, and brought us to Christ.

-That is not to say that the law is now entirely useless.  By no means.  But those who come to Christ, who come to place their faith in Him, are no longer under that pedagogue.  In the immortal words of Alice Cooper, "school's out."  The old strict one, that is.  That old school is out for summer, out completely.  When faith has come, the law has played out its role in our lives.  It is no longer in charge of us.  We are no longer shut up to faith nor are we kept under guard by the law.  The law was the surrogate, the substitute, the strict spiritual nanny, never intended to ever replace the Great Teacher Himself.  Through faith, by faith, with faith, in faith we relate directly to Jesus Christ, and in fact He lives right inside us.  Not some harsh cold external code, but a real live, living breathing Spirit Who writes His law in our hearts and Who abides with us and in us always and forever.  New school...!

Galatians 3:24 - God's Pedagogue

"Thus the law became our pedagogue unto Christ, in order that out of faith we should be justified.’

-Pedagogue.  That is literally the word in the Greek.  The law became our pedagogue.  A pedagogue was a teacher of children, or of one child, or more typically a trustworthy slave who was hired by the father to insure that the master’s child made it to school.  Such a tutor could also more broadly put placed in charge of supervising the upbringing and development of children among the upper classes.  A guide, and a guardian, and usually rather strict, this one.  They could literally escort the child everywhere, and make sure that their charge generally did not step out of bounds, and would not only make it to school but would one day in fact make it to adulthood.

-Such was the role of the law for God's children - not the end, nor even the means to the end.  The job which the law was hired to do was to help guide people towards Christ, to guard them on their way and prepare them to fully put their faith in Messiah once He had come, to help them make it to spiritual adulthood where they actually stand on their own legs of faith and no longer need any such childish guide.  Thus - at least in theory - the one who studies and follows the law ought to be brought by it to the place where they can clearly see that right standing with God can never be achieved thru observing the law, thru any doing of the works of the law, but rather only thru faith.  Strict tho it may be, the law is has good intentions, it ultimately serves a good purpose, ‘hired’ to do exactly that by the Father Himself.  He knows what He’s doing...

Galatians 3:23 - Shut up and shut out

"But before of came the faith, under law we were being guarded, being shut up to the faith being about to be revealed.’

-An interesting verse, this.  The law of course came thru Moses, but faith in fact came before that, since as Paul has just reminded us, Abraham had faith, and was made right with God thru his faith.  BEFORE the law came.  However, here Paul is talking about a time before faith came, and yet after the law had been put in.  What HAS come more recently, of course, by Paul’s reckoning is the revealing of the fulness of faith and the fulfillment of the promise, now that Christ has fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law.

-Until this more recent time, we were actually shut up to the faith.  The same Scripture which was shutting us up under sin was shutting us up to faith, keeping us under guard, under wraps, shutting us out to the freedom of faith which would never be found under the law.  We were completely enslaved to futility trying to earn our way back into right standing with God.  And sadly, such has been the lot of humanity, sentenced to stumble along in darkness, groping their way thru uncertainty and endless attempts to curry the favor of the Almighty.  But Good News was on its way!  Rescue was coming.  And has indeed come - almighty God sent His only Son to fulfill the requirement of the law and to set us free us from the law.  In that time before Christ did come, we could say (as Paul does here) that faith - this Good News - was about to be revealed, uncovered so that all could (hear and) see.  And yet, therein lies the challenge, does it not?  All have not heard, they are in fact still shut up.  Vast swaths of humanity, countless millions have yet to hear about the promise of forgiveness thru faith in Christ.  And how will they hear, how will they know unless someone tells them.  Indeed...

Galatians 3:22 - On shutting up and being shut up...

"But rather the Scripture shut up the all under sin, in order that the promise out of trust of Jesus Christ should be given to the [ones] trusting.’

-Shut up.  Shut together.  Enclosed.  Like fish caught and trapped in a net (Luke 5.6), all of us are (or were) thus prevented from getting out, from escaping the power and penalty of sin.  And the Scripture - God’s law - is the net which seized and held us captive, enslaved to sin and disobedience.  And death.  Unable to NOT sin, never escaping its clutches, nor its consequences.  At least not on our own.  Romans 11.32 actually points the finger at God Himself.  But no fiendish jailer, this One - no, His end game is mercy, that He might show mercy to all.  Not meting out the punishment we all so richly deserve, but instead earnestly seeking to pour out the promise - justification, set free and being restored to a right relationship with Him - through faith.  To the ones who trust in Jesus.  This wondrous possibility of undeserved unending divine favor is available to all, to any who believe.  Simple trust in Jesus and in what He did, not putting any stock in what I might try and do, not through any amount of law-keeping.  

-See, the law didn’t establish or create the guilt or the alienation - we were already separated.  We were already guilty.  The law simply confirmed our guilt, and in so doing sealed our fate.  One day, when we stand before our righteous Judge in eternity, we will altogether be without excuse.  All are shut up now, but then it will truly be time to really shut up.  No (longer any) excuses.  All have sinned.  All fall short.  The penalty of sin is death.  All are shut up, trapped and dead in their sins, and staring at an eternity of death and separation from this One Who is the Author of Life, Who is the Source of all Goodness and Mercy and Love, the One Who sent His Son that we might have life, to any and all who simply trust in Jesus... Thanks be to God!

Galatians 3:21 - Don't throw out the baby...!

"Therefore [is] the law against the promises [of God]?  May it not come to be!  For if law given the being able to make alive, indeed out of law ever was the righteousness.’

-An excellent question, this.  Given the current line of reasoning, one might conclude that the law might somehow be at cross purposes with the promise of God.  The law results in a curse, not a blessing.  It is not of faith in any way whatsoever.  Yet Paul’s emphatic response?  May it never be!  No way!  Paul as much as says here that in fact, if there was any way that a law could have given life, then righteousness would have been based on (achieveable through) law, on keeping that to the best of one’s ability.  But therein lies the ultimate difficulty - even on our best days we fall way short.  The problem is not with the law - it is me.  Left to my own devices, my own efforts, I will forever fall woefully short.  Because life, the life of God, life lived with Him in paradise, requires perfection.  Perfect love, perfect peace and patience, perfect joy and gratitude and mercy - this is not within the scope of my abilities to attain by keeping any law in a thousand million lifetimes.  But the law is not bad or in any way contrary to the purposes and promises of God.  The law highlights in stark relief how high is the standard of righteousness and how great is my need for a Savior.  It points us to the promises...!  We just need to be reminded that our ultimate objective is not to try and perfectly keep the entire law but rather to trust fully in the One Who fulfilled it perfectly.  The baby is not bad at all in other words, we just have to change out the bath water...

Galatians 3:20 - One true God, one great promise

"But the mediator is not of one, but God is one.’

-A mediator is not of one.  A mediator is for two.  When there are two parties involved in some kind of relationship or transaction, the mediator is the go-between, intervening between the two - in the middle.  Our English word derives from the Latin ‘medius’, meaning middle.  Similarly, the Greek noun here (mesités) comes from the Greek ‘mesos’, which also means middle.  And you can have (and might need) a person in the middle of two estranged parties, acting as a go-between.  The word is applied four times in the NT to Jesus, Who is the perfect go-between in this new relationship between God and man (cf 1Timothy 2.5, Hebrews 9.15).  However, here Paul is making a different point.

-The law, as is the case with any typical covenant arrangement, required something of both parties, God and the nation Israel.  Thus the need for a mediator (Moses).  Whereas the promise was simply made by God, centuries before Moses.  The promise He made to bless Abraham did not require anything of him, only belief.  It was a one-sided deal, made by God, Who is one.  This phrasing would surely resonate with the heart of any good Jew, as this was perhaps the core confession of Judaism.  God is one.  Not merely one of a plethora of competing options, a member of some pantheon of countless other deities dreamt up by the nations.  There is no other - He alone is God.  Hear o Israel, the Lord our God is one (Deuteronomy 6.4) - followed immediately by the great command (Deuteronomy 6.5), which together with the second which is like it encapsulate the entire law (Matthew 22.40).  Nevertheless, God is one, and as it relates to His great promise, He needs no middle-man.  His promise indeed rests not in the least on either a mediator or on the ability of man as the interested second party to keep up his end of the bargain.  It depends only on God, Who is exceedingly able to bring it to pass and is exceptionally faithful forever and ever.

Galatians 3:19 - A glitch in the matrix?

"Therefore why the law?  It was added for the sake of the transgressions, until the Seed the [one] who would come to the [one] having been promised, having been ordained through angels in [the] hand of a mediator.’

-The inheritance, justification by faith, comes not thru the law but thru the promise, which both precedes and supersedes the law.  So the natural question then becomes, why the law?  Why was it given in the first place if it wasn’t going to make a person right with God?  Why bother with it?  Why even pay any attention to it anymore - is there any use for it at this point?  Paul addresses this question at greater length in his letter to the Romans - why the law (Romans 5.20, 7.13)?  His simple answer here is that it was added for the sake of the transgressions.  Generally speaking, laws are made in order to clarify what is not allowed, and secondarily what the consequences are for transgressing them.  They mostly tell us what we mustn’t do (and sometimes what we must do, like pay our taxes), and what will happen if we do (or don’t) obey.  Where there is no law (or awareness of it), there is no awareness of law-breaking, and thus there is (very likely) no awareness of guilt.  Which is why God, in His love and faithfulness, gave the law to the nation Israel.  Law-breakers need to know that they are breaking the law, so that they have a keen awareness of their guilt, and a clear opportunity to repent and reform their ways.  Where there is no law, there is no repentance.

-Now, this law was ordained by angels.  Officially ordered and decreed.  The prevailing sense would probably be that God Himself chose Moses to be the mediator of His law and then gave Moses the entirety of what is fittingly refered to as the law of Moses.  But there are multiple mentions in Scripture of angels playing a role in the delivery of said law - Acts 7.38, 7.53; Hebrews 2.2.  Angels in fact are divine messengers, emissaries of the Most High God.  They normally do what they do in the (unseen) spiritual realm (i.e. Revelation 12.7, Daniel 10.10-14), and if they happen to show up, you generally know that God is up to something big (cf Luke 1.19)(and when they DO show up, we observe that they are clearly rather frightening beings - Daniel 10.12; Luke 1.13, 1.30 2.10; Matthew 28.5).  There's liable to be some kind of a glitch in the matrix, some kind of a change in the program, in the normal course of history.  Of course, God's always up to something big, right?  But we see that many of the more important events in all of creation have been entrusted to angels (guarding Eden, announcing Messiah, announcing resurrection, dispensing the plagues of God’s wrath in Revelation - to name a few).  They were held in highest esteem by the ancients, mighty beings of great power, worshipped by some (Colossians 2.18) - suffice it to say, if there's an angel involved, you need to pay attention.  Watch.  Or watch out.  And so when Paul points out here that this law was in fact spoken and ordained by angels, all the more reason that one would be wise to pay careful attention to it.  

-But to clarify, the law was added for the sake of clarifying sin - until the Seed would come.  We just read that the Seed is Christ.  The Messiah.  And when He came, something happened, something big.  A big-time glitch in the matrix.  Something changed.  Everything changed, in fact.  Read on...