Gal 3:15–18 — God’s Irrevocable Promise

Paul’s Argument

We are coming now to another major step in Paul’s doctrinal section, the doctrine of gospel liberty. This section here, beginning in verse 15, is a wonderful, important, critical passage, not only for this letter, but for understanding the entirety of the Bible. To be honest with you, brothers and sisters, this is one of my favorite passages in the Bible, this whole section here in Galatians 3. And now we are beginning to get into the very heart of it.

And he shows how this promise of God is related to the law that was given to God’s people at Mount Sinai. Paul is engaging here in biblical theology. Biblical theology is looking at all of the various, the historical unfolding of God’s relationship with his people, and seeing how all the different parts of the puzzle fit together. He is showing us the relationship between the promise and the law, and also between the promise and the law and Christ, who is the fulfillment of the law and of the promise. It is all interconnected. It is all gloriously fulfilled in Christ, in His death and resurrection.

The Apostle Paul does not explicitly refer to the New Covenant in this passage. You will not find that phrase, the New Covenant, anywhere in Galatians chapter 3. And yet, the more you reflect upon this passage, the more you let it somewhat steep into your soul and think about what Paul is saying, that is really what Paul is describing in this chapter.

He is describing for us the reality of the new covenant. And he is showing us how that new covenant stands in contrast with the old covenant, which was based upon the law, and this curse, that cursed is everyone who does not abide by everything written in the book of the law. This new covenant is different from that covenant, the covenant of law that pronounces a curse if you do not obey it fully. And furthermore, this new covenant in Christ and his blood is not only different from the old covenant, but it is actually in continuity with and is in fact the fulfillment of God’s promise with Abraham.

Exposition

A Covenant Ratified

Paul begins his argument by giving a human example. Verse 15, to give you a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now he is using a man-made illustration, he is using an illustration from human covenants, but he is already beginning to give us some insight into how he understands the new covenant. He is describing here the reality of the New Covenant, although he is describing it in terms of its Abrahamic precursor. In other words, he is looking at God’s promise to Abraham as the beginning of the New Covenant, as the anticipation of the New Covenant.

There are no terms or conditions hidden in fine print that must be kept. Even in human relations, we know that once a covenant has been ratified, no one can add to it or change its terms in a way that fundamentally alters its nature. One might ask whether that is always true, since human contracts can sometimes be modified later. Paul, however, is speaking about a particular kind of covenant. The word used here for covenant can also be translated as a will, or a last will and testament. Before the death of the person making the will, its terms can still be changed.

He could say, I do not want this child to be the heir, I want this child to be the heir. I am going to change the terms of the inheritance. But once the covenant has been ratified by the death of the one making the testament, then the covenant cannot be changed. You cannot come along after it and undo it and add modifications to it that change the fundamental nature of it.

Why do I think that this might be part of what Paul is thinking? He has his eye here on this particular somewhat covenant, that is, covenants that are testaments, that have to do with granting the inheritance to the heir. The reason why is because he mentions this idea of inheritance beginning in verse 18. For he says, if the inheritance comes by law, it no longer comes by promise. But God gave it, that is the inheritance, to Abraham by a promise. And continuing from, this is the first use of the word inheritance in the argument, but continuing from verse 18 and on, Paul is going to be talking about this idea of the inheritance, and the idea that we are heirs of the inheritance because of the work of Christ. He will mention this again, for example, in verse 29. He says, if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. And then in the beginning of chapter 4 he gives this analogy of a child who is going to inherit the father’s estate, but at this point in time he is just a child and therefore he is not really fully entering into his inheritance.

He is under guardians and managers until the time set by the father. And he says, in the same way, we too, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Meaning so that we might be heirs. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of a son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. So back in verse 15, when Paul says to give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, he is thinking in particular of this type of covenant that has to do with giving us the inheritance.

When a testament has been ratified, no one comes along after. No one has the right to cancel it or to even modify the terms of it and change the nature of that covenant. This is a wonderful reality, wonderful truth about the nature of not only the New Covenant, but also the Abrahamic Covenant, is that it has this irrevocable character to it. This language of the ratification of a covenant, making it certain and secure. This language of ratification, of certainty, of guarantee is found all throughout this passage. Look at all these words that are used there. No one can annul it because it has been ratified. These are all legal terms for covenant ratification, for sealing and making this covenant certain, certifying it with absolute certainty.

All of this language of covenant certainty is used in this passage. And this is how Paul is trying to describe the nature of the covenant that we are a part of in Christ, the new covenant. Again, the word New Covenant is not used anywhere in this passage, and yet it lurks beneath the subtext of this whole passage, because that is what Paul is describing. He is describing the New Covenant in Christ. He is describing this reality of the gospel that has been sealed for us by the blood of Christ. And he is calling the Galatian Christians not to listen to the Judaizers, who are saying what? They are saying, no, this covenant that you are a part of, it is not this certain guarantee of absolute promise.

The Judaizers are placing all of their emphasis, they are doing biblical theology too. They are looking at the whole story of redemptive history too, looking at the whole narrative of the Old Testament. The way that they are connecting the dots is totally different from the way Paul is. They are placing all the emphasis on Sinai. They are placing all the emphasis on what God did when Israel came up out of Egypt, and they came before God at Mount Sinai, and they entered into this solemn arrangement, a covenant in which they had to obey God’s law to be blessed.

And if they did not obey that law, they would be under a curse. And they are saying, that is the covenant that we are under. That is what you must commit yourself to. And Paul says, hold on a minute, hold on a minute. Yes, you are right, God does talk considerably about this law at Mount Sinai, but you are completely ignoring the covenant that God made with Abraham. You are completely ignoring this absolute promise that God made with Abraham that was like a testament in which God was promising that Abraham would inherit through his offspring, that he would inherit the inheritance that God was making. And so Paul says, look, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified.

The Promised Offspring

Now the promises, the covenant, was made with Abraham and his offspring. It was not just made with Abraham. And it was not made just with Abraham’s offspring in the collective sense, that is with all of his descendants. He says, he goes on to say, it does not say, and to offsprings, plural, referring to many, In other words, the way the Judaizers would think about it, the way that they would understand it is, Paul, you are right: We need to take into account that there is this prior Abrahamic covenant before God gave the law. But even that is directly tied to the law because it was made with Abraham’s offspring in the plural sense. And so Abraham’s offspring are going to be called upon to individually, each and every one of Abraham’s descendants, all of the people of Israel that are going to come, they are going to be individually called upon to keep the law that is going to come. And the giving of the law was simply the mechanism, it was simply the way in which the promises that God made to Abraham would be fulfilled.

Yes, God made all these wonderful promises, you are going to inherit this land, but how is that going to happen? It is going to happen because God’s going to give the law later on as the mechanism, as the means. Yes, you are going to inherit the land, but you have to keep the law to do that. You have to obey the law to dwell in the land and to be blessed in the land.

But Paul says, actually you are riding roughshod over the text. You are ignoring something critical in this covenant that God made with Abraham. Because the promises were not made to Abraham and to his offspring plural. Rather, the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring singular, which is Christ. Now, Paul here is making a very interesting point, which is, first of all, the first point is that in Hebrew, as well as in Greek, in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint, but in both Hebrew and in Greek, the word that is translated in English as offspring is a very interesting type of word.

In fact, it is not only in the Abrahamic narrative that you see in Genesis 12 and 15 and so on, that you see this use of the word offspring in the individual sense. But even going back to the very first promise of the gospel in Genesis chapter 3, after Adam and Eve sinned and God is pronouncing judgment upon the serpent, And he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. It is the exact same word. That word offspring there, it is this exact same word that is used in the Abrahamic narrative a few chapters later. And it has this same duality. It is a collective word, but it has a singular form.

And so even in Genesis 3.15, in that first promise of the gospel, you see this duality because In the first part of that verse, Genesis 3.15a, it seems like it is focusing on the collective?

I am going to put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring, that is the offspring of the serpent, which is the line of Cain, and the ungodly line, and between her offspring, which is the godly line, going down from Seth all the way down to Noah, and down to Abraham. But then in part B of verse 15, Genesis 3.15b, it switches to the singular, and says he, will bruise your heel or will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. Genesis 3.15b changes from the collective idea and just immediately switches over into the individual meaning of the word and speaks about the individual offspring. Yes, there is a collective offspring of all of the godly line and the people that go through from Seth down to Noah down to Abraham and then Abraham’s descendants, which is the people of Israel.

There is a collective idea of God’s people, the corporate community of God’s people who are the seed of the woman, the offspring of the woman. But there is also the individual idea focusing upon Christ, who is the one who will gain victory over the serpent. He, and it is very clear in Hebrew that it uses that individual masculine singular pronoun, he. Will bruise your head. He will crush your head, although you will bruise his heel. So Paul here is, first of all, drawing out this grammatical point.

And he is not denying the collective dimension, because later on in Galatians 3.29, as I already quoted, he says, if you belong to Christ, the individual offspring, then you also are Abraham’s offspring. So he is not denying that we are also Abraham’s offspring in the collective sense, but he wants to show us the individual dimension. And he is making his first point just as a grammatical point, that this word in Hebrew and in Greek has this singular dimension to it. But secondly, he is not only making a grammatical point, he is also looking at the entire narrative in Genesis concerning God’s promise to Abraham. When you think back upon Genesis 15, Genesis 18, all that whole section of Genesis where God is coming to Abraham and making his promises to him, you have this duality.

On the one hand, there is this focus upon the multiplicity of the offspring? God says, look to the stars above. If you can count them, that is how many your offspring will be. So there is definitely this collective idea, and there is going to be this great nation that is going to come from Abraham. In fact, that collective idea is the first thing that God says to Abraham back in Genesis 12. The very first moment when God comes to Abraham and says, I am going to make you into a great nation. But, side by side with that element of the collective, of the multiplicity, the numerous offspring that Abraham is going to have, there is also this strong emphasis in the narrative on the individual aspect.

And this has to do with the promise of Isaac. Remember how often in the Genesis account, for example, in Genesis 15, in Genesis 15, when This is right after Abraham rescues Lot. And Abraham refuses to take any reward for that from the king of Sodom. And so he really has nothing except God himself. And then God comes to Abraham in Genesis 15 and says, fear not Abram, I am your shield. I am your reward. Not getting many spoil and money from these earthly kings in the land.

But then Abraham says to the Lord, that is great, I believe you, but I do not have a child right now. And so maybe my servant, Eliezer of Damascus, he is somewhat like the head steward of his house and somewhat running the household, maybe he will be the offspring, maybe he will be the one. And what does God say to Abraham?

He says, this is Genesis 15, verse four, this man, Eliezer of Damascus, shall not be your heir. Rather, your very own son shall be your heir. Notice again that we have this language of the heir? So when you talk about offspring, we are not just talking about having lots of children, we are talking about having An heir, that is the key point.

How is Abraham going to inherit all of these promises that God is making to him, this glorious land that God is promising to give him? How is he going to inherit it? He is going to inherit it through an heir? He needs to have an heir who will inherit the inheritance.

And God promises Abraham that he is going to have a son who will be the heir. Now, in the very next verse, he does open that up to the collective idea. And he brings Abraham outside and says, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. And he says, so shall your offspring be. But before he gets to that, before he focuses upon that, he focuses upon the individual dimension of the son who is to come, Isaac.

Later on in Genesis 18, Verse 10, God comes to Abraham and to Sarah and says, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. Of course, Sarah did not believe it. She laughed? That is why Isaac is called Isaac, because Isaac means laughter in Hebrew. Then in Genesis 21, Isaac is born, and Isaac is this precious son.

He is the only beloved son. It is true that Abraham also had another son through Hagar named Ishmael, but he is not the true child of promise. He is not the promised son. He is not the promised offspring. It is Isaac who is the one. It is Isaac who is the promised one. And then God in Genesis 22 calls Abraham to offer up his only beloved son as a sacrifice. And Abraham obeyed God.

And just as he was about to raise the knife to kill his own son, the angel intervened and said, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son. That language of the only son, of course, is pointing us to Christ, the only begotten son of God. Because you have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is on the seashore.

Collective multiplicity, but then the very next verse says, and your offspring, singular, shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in the Greek translation there, it says, your offspring shall inherit the gate of his enemies. So this idea of the individual offspring, which of course is Christ, is not only simply rooted in the fact that the Hebrew language has this interesting quality to it where some words can be collective singulars.

It is also rooted in the narrative itself. The entire Abrahamic story is not only focused upon God’s promise to Abraham that he would have a great nation that would flow from him, but that he would have an individual offspring who would be the heir. And Isaac is the type of that. Isaac is the picture of Christ himself.

And in your offspring, this individual offspring, all the nations, that is the Gentiles, shall be blessed. So Paul is a good reader of scripture. He is a good reader of the narrative. He is a good reader of the Hebrew language, but also of the narrative itself.

And he is seeing in that, that when God made the promises to Abraham, going back to our text, Galatians 3, that the promises were made not only to Abraham and to his offspring in the plural sense, but specifically to your offspring, who is Christ. And that then changes completely your conception of how the Abrahamic covenant and the promise that God made to Abraham should be connected to the law which came later. Because now, the coming of the law later it cannot undo this previous covenant that was already made?

The Law Cannot Annul the Promise

So in verse 17, Paul says, this is what I am saying. This is the point I am trying to make. He’d begun in verse 15 by saying, to give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one comes along afterwards and annuls it or changes the terms of it. Let us apply that then. Verse 17, this is what I mean.

The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. And he is just focused upon this idea that the promise that God made to Abraham, not only is it like a testament that has to do with the inheritance, but also that it had to do with Christ. It had to do with Christ as the one who would be the heir, who would fulfill that promise. When he says the inheritance does not come by the law, but rather by the promise, he is saying it comes by Christ. It comes through the work of Christ.

The law, when it came to Israel afterwards, 430 years later, it came with a very different promise, or very different, quality and character to it. It came with conditions. It is very different from God’s promise to Abraham. God’s promise to Abraham is unconditional. It is guaranteed. It is focused upon Christ who is going to come.

It supplied the means for the fulfillment of the promise. God said to Abraham, I am going to give the land to your descendants. And then the law came along and said, here is how you can get it. It is by doing the law. Do this and you will inherit the land. There is like a seamless connection.

But Paul says, if you connect the dots of biblical theology that way, then you are annulling the promise. Even in a man-made covenant, especially if it is a testamentary type of covenant, once the testator has died, it is ratified, it is set in stone, you cannot change the terms of it. But if you add the law to the promise, the way the Judaizers and the Jewish people in general were trying to do, if you try to add the law to the promise and make it simply the mechanism or the means by which the promise is fulfilled, that is not possible because now you are annulling that prior covenant. You are completely changing the terms. Let us say in a human covenant or a human contract, it is one thing if you change the terms in a way that do not fundamentally undermine the very nature of that covenant. But it is another thing altogether if the modification that comes afterwards completely changes the covenant from being a covenant of grace and promise to a conditional covenant that pronounces a curse if you do not do it?

The curse of the law cannot be added to the promise without fundamentally changing the promise into the law and making the promise void. That is why Paul says in verse 17, the law which came 430 years after does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God.

Referring to God’s ratification of the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, when God passed between the pieces. When God passed between the pieces of the sacrificial animals, God was taking the curse upon Himself. It was not Abraham taking the curse and saying, I have to keep all this law to avoid the curse. It was God Himself taking the curse.

So the law, which does pronounce a curse upon those who have received the law, it would annul that previous covenant ratified by God if it was connected and joined together the way the Judaizers and the Jewish people in general were trying to do. It would make the promise void. For, verse 18, if the inheritance comes by the law, If the inheritance that God promised Abraham comes by keeping the law, then it no longer comes by promise. But God gave it to Abraham by a promise. And that promise already had in view that Christ would be the new and greater Isaac, that he would be the one who would be offered up as a sacrifice, that he would be the one who would take the curse upon himself to give us the inheritance.

The Inheritance

it is very interesting, is it not, that Paul clearly understands the inheritance in both the first level and the second level meaning. The first level meaning of the inheritance is the literal land of Canaan that God promised to Abraham and his descendants. And that was fulfilled at the time of Joshua when they went into the land and they took possession of the land.

But he also understands it in the second level meaning as referring to heaven. Referring to what we are receiving in Christ, the inheritance that we have in Christ, which is heaven itself. Or to be more accurate, not simply going to heaven when you die, but it is receiving a glorified body to dwell with God in the new creation. That is the fuller explanation of what heaven means? It is receiving a glorified body, escaping hell, and entering into the new creation with God and his people forever.

That is how Paul understands it. He has to understand it that way, otherwise this whole discussion about the Abrahamic promise and the inheritance that God promised to Abraham, this whole discussion would have been completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. The topic at hand is that we are justified before God and we are granted God’s favor and eternal life, not by keeping the works of the law, but by faith in Christ. And so for Paul to then immediately talk about Abraham and the Abrahamic covenant and the promises concerning the land, to immediately talk about that in the context of this discussion over how are we right with God and how do we obtain eternal life, it would not make any sense for him to do that unless he understood that the promise of the land was simply a picture of the ultimate inheritance which has been secured for us by Christ. Paul here then in verse 18 is returning back to his main point. When he says that the inheritance does not come by the law, but rather it comes by promise, he is returning back to his main point. It is another way of saying that justification of being reckoned as righteous in God’s sight and being granted the right and title to eternal life is not by works of the law, but it is by promise.

That is, it is by faith in the promise of God. If the inheritance that God promised Abraham was dependent on keeping the law, then this would mean that God was modifying the terms, adding an amendment to a previously ratified covenant. And those terms are so radical that it completely makes void the promise. And so clearly then, the Judaizers and the Jews’ understanding of how to connect the law and the promise is not correct.

Number one, consider how Paul carefully reads and interprets the Old Testament. He does not read Christ into the text where Christ does not belong. That is what many of our opponents think we do. They think you are just spiritualizing the text, you are allegorizing the text and reading Christ in where he does not belong. No, Paul is carefully examining the details of the text, both the grammar of the words, but also the context and the narrative.

Doctrine

The Promise Fulfilled in Christ

And he is properly understanding that God is making a promise that is fulfilled in Christ, that the offspring is ultimately Christ himself. And yes, there is the collective aspect, but that collective aspect is all that belong to Christ are also Abraham’s offspring. That is the first thing, to see how Paul reads the Old Testament.

Even the details are important. Even these little details, like the grammar of the words, are very important for Paul. And he is not just forcing Christ into the text. He is not just forcing his system into the text. He is patiently looking at the stories, looking at the narrative, and unfolding it, and showing us how it was talking about Christ all along.

Law and Promise

The second thing we can draw from this text is that the law–gospel contrast is a Law-Promise contrast. We speak considerably about the law-gospel contrast in the Reformed Church, but the best way to understand the law-gospel contrast is to use the language of Paul here, which is that it is a law-promise contrast.

Verse 18, if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. That means that there are two main types of covenants in the Bible. There are promise covenants and law covenants. The covenant that God made with Adam in the garden was a law covenant.

You shall not eat of the tree, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. But if you obey, then you will eat of the tree of life. The law, when it came to Israel at Mount Sinai, was a law covenant. It said, cursed is the one who does not continue in everything written in the book of the law. And anyone who puts themselves under that is under a curse.

Promise covenants, though, are very different. Promise covenants are promises of guaranteed grace because Christ is the ultimate focal point of those promises. Just as Paul points out here, that the promises that God made to Abraham were ultimately, ultimately had reference to Christ, the individual offspring, who will keep the law in our place, who will bear the curse of it in our place. And so, therefore, the promise that God gave to Abraham is fundamentally the same as the gospel that we think of in the New Covenant. It is the same promise. The only difference is that the Abrahamic version of the New Covenant is looking ahead to the coming of Christ, and the New Covenant that we experience as believers in Christ on this side of the cross and the resurrection is looking back to the fact that Christ has already come. The thing that is so important, though, is that promise covenants and law covenants cannot be mixed together. If a law covenant is added to a promise covenant, then it is no longer a promise? As soon as the conditionality of works comes in, it turns the blessing into a curse.

That is what Paul says. Cursed is everyone who places himself under the law. Everyone who relies on works of the law and tries to relate to God through the framework of a law covenant is under a curse, not a blessing. Even before one sins, living with the knowledge that failure may come at any moment is itself a curse. To live as though one false move would bring doom is a cursed condition. That is not our standing in Christ.

It is very important that preachers preach the legitimate call to obedience and the warning passages in the New Testament. It is very important that they teach that in a way that does not make void the promise. Verse 18, if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Verse 17, the law which came 430 years after does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. It is very important to preach and teach the call to Christian obedience, the call to live the Christian life and to serve the Lord and to obey Him.

Even the warning passages, or even church discipline, as we talked about earlier in the service. All of these things have to be understood in a way that is under the context of the promise. It is not under a law covenant, it is a promise covenant. Yes, we are called to obey the Lord. Yes, there is the warning that if we persist in unrepentant sin, then we may be under the discipline of the church. But all of that is under the category of the promise still stands true?

The promise is still there. Anyone can come, no matter how far they have fallen, no matter how much sin they have committed. Anyone can come back to the promise of the Lord. No one who comes to the Lord in true, humble faith will be turned away and rejected. We are not under the curse of the law.

Even church discipline is not a curse. Even church discipline is done with the purpose of seeking to reclaim the offender and to bring them to repentance and to be restored. We even have a liturgy in our Book of Forms and Prayers when that happens and that is a joyful day, a joyful occurrence when a sinner who has been under discipline is then brought back and restored. And there is a liturgy in our Book of Forms and Prayers for that glorious reconciliation, bringing that person back and saying, you are forgiven in Christ, and you are reconciled to the body of Christ, and the church welcomes you with open arms.

The only thing that is needed is repentance and faith. The inheritance comes by promise, not by the performance of the works of the law. Why was it that the Abrahamic covenant was not invalidated and turned into a law covenant when the law was added 430 years later? It is because that covenant was already made an irrevocable covenant with Christ in view.

Let us trust in him and look to him for his grace.