3536—The Law in Galatians
Will you give me a little light on a couple of passages in Galatians, chapter 3, verses 9 to 13, and chapter 4:24, 25? A part of the passage in Galatians 3 was quite fully explained in a recent number of the SIGNS. We will therefore touch upon it lightly. Verse 9 declares that they that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. God counts them one in His family, because they have the same faith. Verse 10: "As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse." That is, those who are depending upon the law for salvation. Why? Because they are sinners, and the law condemns them to death because they are transgressors, and no law can save the man who is transgressing it. Consequently the justice of the conclusion in the 11th verse, "No man is justified by the law: . . . the righteous shall live by faith." That is always true; it has always been true; it was true before sin ever entered that the only way by which man could live was faith in God, with a heart open on the God-ward side, receiving life and blessing from Him, and pouring it out to others. And since man has sinned it is still true. The only hope for justification is by faith in Christ, and the only hope in right living is by the same faith. But the man who has that faith in God will live according to God's law. That law is the reflect of God, and faith will appropriate the power of God for the obedience to His law. But the law does not justify; it is the righteousness of God in Christ which justifies. If a man could do the law he would live by it, but he can do it only through Christ. Christ therefore redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. And He did that that upon every soul in this world, Gentiles as well as Jews, might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; and that blessing was that Abraham believed God, and God counted it to him for righteousness. And the same faith brings also the Spirit of God. Now God made a covenant with Abraham to give him all that, and the law did not take away from the covenant. The law was not designed to take away from the covenant. The covenant was given in order that that law might be established in the heart, and that covenant abides in Christ Jesus. The Seed of Abraham. Abraham had different posterities, but the blessing comes through one posterity—Christ—wholly and solely by promise. Why, then, was the law given?—In order that sin might be seen to be exceeding sinful, so that man might flee from the wrath and find refuge in Christ Jesus. See SIGNS of July 25, 1911, question No. 3516. Verses 24 and 25 of the 4th chapter emphasize this. Paul gives a parable of Abraham's two sons—the one by Hagar, the bondwoman, the other by Sarah, a freewoman. The one was born after the flesh, through the work of man wholly; the other was born after the Spirit, through promise and power of God, and man coöperating with that promise. God gave His promise to Abraham that through his seed all should be blessed. Abraham fixed it up in his own way, and in order to carry out his own way he had a son by Hagar, his bondmaid. God said, "This shall not be the seed." Abraham's plan brought sorrow and trouble only to his family. And that plan and scheme of Abraham's through Hagar was a type, or figure, of the covenant from Mt. Sinai that gendered, or bore, children to bondage. What the apostle means by the covenant at Sinai was Israel's promise to do God's will, promising by power which they possessed of themselves: "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." They felt that they could work it out of themselves (see Exodus 19). They left the Lord out of the question, save in the blessings. They wanted God's blessings, but they wanted to buy those blessings, or obtain them through their own works. But the child which was born through Sarah is a type of the new covenant, in which God promises, if we will but receive the promise, if we will but coöperate with Him by yielding wholly and absolutely to His plan, to save us. So He brought the promised seed to Abraham by miraculous power through Sarah. And so God brings to all His children deliverance from sin when they yield wholly to His own plan. We can see what the results of the two are. If the first were successful, man would glory in himself. If Abraham had been successful in his scheme, he would have taken the glory in himself. But as there is no success in that, but success lies wholly through God and His power, all the glory is given to God. Hagar stands for that type of religion possessed by those who would work out their own salvation, not through God working in them, but through their own power. Sarah, or Isaac, stands for the mighty power and promise of God that is able to work above all appearance, and bring out of what seems to be utterly impossible that which is eternally true and will eternally abide. Therefore the comfort, "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise."