Gospel of John [17:13-14]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 16. Gal 3:1-14.

Title: Gospel of John [17:13-14]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 16. GAL 3:1-14.

 

 

GAL 3:1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified [posting of a public announcement - Paul's gospel]?

 

GAL 3:2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?

 

They can only answer this - by faith.

 

GAL 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected [completed, matured] by the flesh?

 

GAL 3:4 Did you suffer so many things in vain —  if indeed it was in vain?

 

GAL 3:5 Does He then, who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?

 

GAL 3:6 Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

 

GAL 3:7 Therefore [conclusion from verse 6], be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.

 

GAL 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying [GEN 12:3], "All the nations shall be blessed in you." [not by means of circumcision or Mosaic Law]

 

GAL 3:9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

 

It is those of faith and not works that are blessed with salvation, which in the CA carries the promises of election and predestination.

 

GAL 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 quotes DEU 27:26 to reveal that everyone who seeks justification through the Law is cursed since laws cannot make a man righteous.

 

In this passage in Deuteronomy curses and blessings are pronounced that would come upon those who did not abide by the law and those who did, respectively. Keeping the commands brought the blessing and breaking them brought the curse.

 

The Law is God's commandments and so is holy. Conforming to it was conforming to a righteous system, yet that system did not make anyone righteous.

 

For instance, a man may not take another man's wife to his bed. If a man follows this command he is acting in conformity of what God deems right or righteous, but that in itself does not make him righteous in the sense that God is by nature. No man can accomplish that. And so the Law was righteous but it did not make any man righteous. Abraham was made righteous by faith, without the Law. That faith could make him righteous because of the work that Jesus Christ, his Seed, would complete on Mt. Moriah.

 

Our Lord said to the representatives of this system:

 

JOH 5:39-40

"You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life.

 

They thought that keeping the words of the Law itself would give them eternal life, or justify them, but those words all led to the person and work of Christ.

 

Paul argues that on the contrary, Israel has by its attempt to be justified by the law, entailed the curse of the broken law, for no man could keep the law. By saying that I'm going to stand on the law as the source of righteousness, I have broken it since there is always a part of it that I will not do or keep.

 

This curse is not merely the wrath of God in the form of the final banishment of the sinner from His presence, with all the sorrow and misery which that includes, but represents also a present condition of alienation from God caused by a violation of His law.

 

The NT has plenty of commands as does the OT. Yet none of those commands will make any man righteous. Only faith in Christ can make a man righteous.

 

And so one might say that just like the OT, if I break the commands of the NT I am under a curse and if I keep them I am blessed, but though this has some application to the experiences of joy and peace [i.e. I won't experience what I am in Christ], it is technically not true. Because I find myself on this side of the Cross where the work is finished and the Lord sits in heaven in victory, when I believe in Him I am completely changed into a brand new creature and so you are blessed with every blessing that God could bestow in Christ and the inheritance of Christ. I don’t work for any of these things. They are mine as a believer. As a new creature or a child of light I am now qualified to walk as a child of light. What if I don't? I'm disciplined, not cursed. The gentle guiding hand of God to whom the believer is in communion is changed to bit and bridle, yet that believer is still perfectly righteous and justified before God. He does not ever come under judgment. No understanding believer would view divine discipline or the natural law of reap what you sow as a curse, in fact, the understanding believer cherishes them from the love of God.

 

GAL 3:11 Now that no one is justified by the Law [en nomo - in the book of the law] before God is evident; for, " The righteous man shall live by faith." [HAB 2:4]

 

Obedience to laws cannot pay for sin, only blood can pay for sin, and the blood of Christ, meaning His substitutionary spiritual death, is the only qualified sacrifice. The wages of sin is death.

 

He is not here talking about the experience of faith in the life of the believer since that doesn't fit the context.

 

The righteous man shall live by faith means that God's righteousness, true life, eternal life, the life that is Christ, comes by means of faith.

 

The law had God's glory but it did not give God's glory to anyone. The ministry of righteousness is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in this world applying the finished work of Christ to anyone who believes in Him, which is termed the baptism of the Spirit. That is a greater glory because the very righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer and along with it the fullness of Christ, the fullness of His love, joy, and peace.

 

2CO 3:9-10

For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory on account of the glory that surpasses it.

 

‎"Righteousness in the biblical sense is a condition of rightness the standard of which is God, which is estimated according to the divine standard, which shows itself in behavior conformable to God, and has to do above all things with its relation to God, and with the walk before Him. [Biblico-Theological Lexicon, Cremer]

 

He continues:

 

It is, and it is called ‎dikaiosune ‎‎theou ‎(righteousness of God) (ROM 3:21; 1:17), righteousness as it belongs to God, and is of value before Him, Godlike righteousness, see EPH 4:24; with this righteousness thus defined, the gospel (ROM 1:17) comes into the world of nations which had been wont to measure by a different standard.

 

And continues:

 

Righteousness in the Scripture sense is a thoroughly religious [spiritual] conception, designating the normal relation of men and their acts, etc., to God. Righteousness in the profane mind is a preponderatingly social virtue, only with a certain religious background."

 

Justification in the Bible sense therefore is the act of God removing from the believing sinner, his guilt and the penalty incurred by that guilt, and bestowing a positive righteousness, Christ Jesus Himself in whom the believer stands, not only innocent and uncondemned, but actually righteous in point of law for time and for eternity.