Gal 3:19–20 — Why Then the Law?

Paul’s Argument

The law seems to have no purpose, seems to have no relevance. And yet, God did give it. And the Old Testament describes that extensively in the Old Testament. Most of the Pentateuch from Exodus on is about that. It is about how God came and he gave not only the Ten Commandments, but he gave all the other laws as well to the nation of Israel.

Exposition

And so it raises the question, “Why then the law?” And so Paul begins to answer that question here in our text today in verses 19 and 20. He is going to continue to answer it in verses 20 through 24, which we will look at not next Sunday, because next Sunday is Easter, so I will do an Easter sermon next Sunday, but the Sunday after Easter, we are going to get back to Galatians and look at the rest of the argument there. In verses 21 through 24, where essentially he says the purpose of the law in that section is to show us our sinfulness and to lead us to Christ. The law was a guardian until Christ. But before he gets into that explanation, he has this very important statement here in verses 19 and 20 about the nature of the law and how it was given in a very special way.

He says, verse 19, why then the law? He says, it was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come. It was added because of transgressions. And we need to focus on both of those words, the word added and the word transgressions. Both of those words are extremely important to understand.

And he is referring specifically here to a certain type of covenant, a promise covenant, that has this idea that is similar to a last will and testament. Now, before the owner of the estate dies, he is able to modify the terms of his last will and testament. If he said, I do not want this son to be the heir, I want that son, or maybe none of my sons, I am going to adopt somebody else completely outside the family, make them the heir. That is what adoption was like in the Roman times. You could adopt somebody outside the family and they become as if they are the son, as if they are the heirs. Before the, the man has died, he can modify it.

But once he dies, the last will and testament is ratified, it is set in stone. And he can no longer, nobody can come afterwards and modify the terms of that covenant, of that promised covenant, which has this character of being like a last will and testament.

And Paul is saying, look, when God gave the law, at Mount Sinai, he was not adding it to the promise in that sense, of adding it like a modification of the terms of the covenant. As if God made the promise initially to Abraham as a gift of pure grace, and then the law came along later to say, oh, we are going to somewhat change the terms of the covenant here, Abraham and your descendants. The way you are going to get the blessings and the way you are going to get the inheritance is by keeping the law. And Paul is saying, no, that cannot be, because that would completely undo the promise? As he says in verse 18, if the inheritance comes by the law, the inheritance was promised to Abraham. If it comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. A little brief footnote here, just note how Paul switches from talking about righteousness to talking about inheritance. And it is somewhat confusing at first, but essentially what he is doing is, he is talking about righteousness.

How are we right before God? How are we acceptable before a holy God? How are we counted as righteous before Him? That is the Gospel. The Gospel says we are righteous before God based upon the work of Christ alone, by faith alone, not by works. But then, he goes back to the Old Testament, he goes back to Abraham, and he says that the Gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham. But he is using Abrahamic language and Abrahamic metaphors to describe the gospel. So when he speaks about the inheritance, he is just talking about being righteous before God and having the right and title to eternal life, being able to live with God in heaven in the new creation. He is describing that, but it is an Abrahamic term. So he is couching the gospel now in Abrahamic language.

So you could say, you could translate verse 18 or interpret verse 18, if righteousness comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. But he is using the word inheritance there to show us that which righteousness secures. If we are righteous, then we are granted the inheritance, we are granted heaven, we are granted all the blessings that God has in store for those who are righteous. So end footnote, let us return back then to the main point, which is, so this then raises the question of why then did God give the law?

The Law Was Added

And he is saying it was not given as a modification to the promise. It was not given in the added sense of after it has been ratified, then now God is changing the terms of it and saying, now the way you get the inheritance, now the way you get righteousness is by keeping the law. No, rather it was added in a different sense. So the word added in verse 19, as I said, it is a completely different Greek word in verse 15. In 19, he says it was added not as a modification to modify the terms of the agreement and to say now you have to keep the law to be righteous. Now you have to eat considerably to obtain the inheritance.

But rather, it was added, it was superimposed, it was added on top of the promise as a temporary institution to turn sins into transgressions so that then it might become clear that the only way that the promise can be fulfilled is through Christ, who was the one who was in view all the way from the beginning, in the first place. So the added of verse 19 is a different somewhat adding. It is an adding that does not change the terms of the promise, but rather provides a temporary institution on top of the promise without invalidating the promise which continues all along underneath.

The promise continues to be valid not only for Abraham and his son, Isaac, and for Jacob, but also for the people of Israel that come after them. Jacob has 12 sons. The whole nation of Israel comes from Jacob. They go down to Egypt. They come to Mount Sinai.

The promise is still there. The promise is the underlying foundation of Israel’s relationship with God. And even though the law has been added in this superimposed sense, it has not changed, it has not invalidated that promise that continues all along. One way to bring this out is to think about the way in which the coming of the law turns sin into transgression.

Sin and Transgression

Prior to the law, before the law came at Mount Sinai, there was sin, not only in the world at large. Just read the story of Noah? The whole world was wicked. All the nations around God’s people were wicked. There was sin in the world, but when the law comes, it turns sins into transgressions. It makes sin worse. It exacerbates it. It highlights it as being a violation of a revealed command. And thus, it brings about wrath.

He says, the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression. And then in chapter five, verse 13, also of Romans, he says, sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. There was sin in the world before Mount Sinai.

But when Sinai happened, when the Law came in this covenantal revealed form, it transformed sins into transgressions. And as a result, it activated the curse of the Law. Just think about the experience of Israel, the people of Israel, before and after Sinai. Before Sinai, whether they are living in Egypt or whether they are out of Egypt and now they are wandering in the wilderness. Before the law came, they were sinful. They sinned many times.

But you do not have this idea of God breaking out in wrath against them the moment that they sin. But then as soon as the law came, you do see that? Remember in Exodus chapter 32, right after the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, what happens to the people of Israel? They are like, Moses is somewhat, he is up there in the mountain with God.

We do not know what happened to him, but we need to do something here. And so, Aaron sinfully led God’s people in making a golden calf. He said, everybody bring your gold and jewelry and we will melt it in the fire and we will create this golden calf to worship God through it. And we will have a festival in honor of the Lord, in honor of Yahweh. And we will say, this is your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

And as soon as that happened, they are now breaking the law as a revealed covenant, a law covenant. And now, unlike before where they would sin but nothing major would happen, now as soon as they sin, they are under the curse of the law. In fact, God even says to Moses, the people that you brought out of Egypt, it is funny that he even somewhat turns it on Moses, the people that you brought out of Egypt have sinned against me, they violated the covenant that I just made with them, so I am going to now destroy them and start over with you, Moses, and make a new people through you.

And what does Moses do at that moment? Moses, in this moment, is a type of Christ. That is, he is a picture of Christ who intercedes for us before God. Moses pleads with God. He says, Lord, He says, remember your covenant, remember your promises that you made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is Exodus 32, verse 13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self.

You made an absolute guaranteed promise, swearing by your own self. You yourself passed between the pieces and took that curse upon yourself. Remember that. And you swore, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven. And all this land that I promised, I will give to your offspring. And they shall inherit it forever. There is that idea of the inheritance again?

And so the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. So you see right there at that moment, right when the law comes, you see that it is doing its work. It is highlighting sin now as being transgression, as being violation of a known revealed command, as a covenant. And the curse of the law is activated right at that moment.

The Bible would be a much shorter book, if it ended right there in Exodus 32, and God says, I am done with Israel. Forget it. All my promises that I made to Abraham are done. I am not going to fulfill them. Praise God that God’s promises of grace made to Abraham, but pointing ahead to the coming of Christ. We are there to be the foundation for the nation of Israel. So you see this idea then that the law was added not in the sense of modifying the terms of the promise and saying, now the way you get the inheritance is by keeping the law. Rather, the law was added as a superimposed structure on top of the promise without violating, without undermining that promise. And it was temporary.

Until the Offspring Came

Who is that offspring? We know from verse 16. Paul has clearly said the offspring does not refer to many, but rather it refers to one, which is Christ. Until the offspring should come, to whom the promise had been made. All along. This reinforces once again this point that I have been trying to make very clearly, which is that when Paul says that the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham, and that Abraham believed in the gospel, and he was justified, that he was reckoned as righteous in God’s sight simply by believing in the promise, Paul thinks that when that whole gospel narrative happened with Abraham, that was not merely an analogy, for us today as Christians to say, we are like Abraham because we also have to believe in God’s promises. He is saying, not just an analogy, it was actually the same gospel. It was actually the same promise of the gospel made to Abraham and that the offspring that God was referring to when he said, to your offspring, I will give this land, this inheritance, the offspring ultimately is the individual offspring, Christ himself. Yes, it does have a collective fulfillment with the whole nation of Israel.

So why did God give the law? It was added in that different sense from not modifying the terms of the covenant, the promise, but it was added in this temporary sense to turn sins into transgressions so that, and the implication is, so that the offspring would be the one who would undo the transgressions.

He would be the one who would redeem God’s people from their transgressions. Helpful passage to bring out that thought is in Hebrews chapter 9. In Hebrews chapter 9 we have the same reference to the inheritance and the transgressions. What is the relationship between those two things? Transgressions threaten the inheritance? Just like back in Exodus 32 at the golden calf, because they have transgressed the law, because they have broken the covenant, they are in danger of not getting the inheritance. They are in danger of being completely destroyed and not receiving the inheritance. That is, in the first level of fulfillment, the land of Israel, but then ultimately, heaven itself, which is what the land pointed to.

So in Hebrews 9.15, it says, Therefore Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised inheritance. So that we may receive heaven, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions, there is that key word again, that were committed under the first covenant, that is under the law covenant that was made at Mount Sinai.

Christ redeems us from the curse of the law that is activated by our violation of the covenant, that is the law covenant. I love how Paul there is so clearly making this distinction between the promise and the law. The promise and the law. The promise is this guaranteed promise. It is based upon God’s own oath.

He took the curse upon himself. When he passed between the pieces in Genesis 15, God is saying, may I be a curse like these animals if I fail to keep my promise, if I fail to keep my word. It is absolute. Abraham does not do anything to receive that promise. But the law is very different. The law is a two-sided relationship. He goes on to describe this in 19b. He says, the law was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

Angels and an Intermediary

When you think of that idea of the angels being myriads upon myriads of holy ones, that is an awe-inspiring, somewhat scary thought. The angels are the heavenly armies of God. That is why God is called the Lord of Hosts. In that song that we sing, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, it mentions the Lord of Sabaoth. That means, that is just the Hebrew word for hosts, which means armies, which is referring to the armies of the angels, the angelic armies that are coming with God to manifest His holiness and to bring it in judgment upon all who are sinners.

The angels highlight the holiness and majesty of God. They strike fear into our hearts. But there were no angels when God made the promise in Genesis 15. It was just God alone. And four, when the law was given at Sinai, it was given by an intermediary. The intermediary here is Moses.

Remember in Exodus 20, and there is the same parallel in Deuteronomy 5, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 are the two passages in the Old Testament that give us the Ten Commandments. And right after the Ten Commandments are revealed, the next paragraph, there is this amazing story here where it talks about how the people They saw the thunder, or the lightning, they heard the thunder, they heard the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain was enveloped in smoke, and they are trembling, they are terrified by the presence of God.

Because when God is giving His holy law, it comes in judgment and wrath against them. They are terrified by it, they are trembling, they are even standing at a distance. And they even go to Moses and they say, If we continue to hear the voice of God, we are going to die.

So you go up and you get the commandments and then you come down and tell us what God said. And that is how Moses did it from that point on. The initial 10 commandments were given by the direct voice of God, but it was too terrifying to the people. And so all the other commandments in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, they were given by Moses as the intermediary who would reveal the commandments and teach them. He would say, this is what God told me. And then he would teach the people, this is what you must do when you go into the land. This is how you are to be obedient to God.

The law then is very different from the promise. There was no intermediary in Genesis 15 when God made the promise to Abraham. There was no go-between. He was saying, I know this is terrifying for you and it is too hard for you to hear this, so I am going to go and get it from God and then bring it back to you. No, it was just God Himself coming to Abraham in this promissory way and just saying, I will do it. I will fulfill my promise. Abraham himself is even asleep when he is receiving this promise of God. He is completely passive, doing nothing, simply receiving God’s grace. And believing in it and receiving the assurance that God will fulfill it.

And the law depends upon the human side of that covenant relationship doing their part. It is not a free promise. It is a conditional thing. You have to do these things to be blessed, and if you do not, you will be under a curse. The promise, by contrast, is one-sided. It is simply God taking the oath. It does not depend on the human side. It is a free gift. Yes, there is a response. Abraham and we as believers need to respond to it and receive that free gift with the empty hand of faith.

God Is One

But that is not the same thing as saying that it is conditional upon your obedience to receive it. So Paul says, Paul points out this contrast between the law and the promise. The law was given by an intermediary, Moses, but an intermediary implies more than one party. It implies this two-sided relationship, and therefore it depends upon the obedience of the human partner in that relationship.

But the promise is more in line with God’s character as being one. God is one. He is quoting there from the Shema of Judaism. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That is like the fundamental confession of faith of Judaism, of the whole Bible. God is one. Of course, we also believe the God is triune, but he is one God. One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one. Interesting little point here.

Most of the time in Paul’s writings, when he refers to God, usually he uses the word God to refer specifically to the Father, to the first person of the Trinity. For example, you know that common phrase where he says, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is a common phrase in Paul’s writings. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he is referring to the Father as God. He is not denying the deity of Christ, he will also speak of Christ as God, but often he speaks of God, he uses the word God to refer to the Father.

But there are a handful of times in Paul’s writings where he uses the word God to refer to the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I think this might be one of those cases when he says, but God is one. We could see that an example of that usage of God being a reference to the whole Trinity is in a few paragraphs later in Galatians 4. In Galatians 4, verses four through seven, it says, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, So already you are thinking in Trinitarian terms?

Because God has a son. God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. That ties in with our text as does not it? So that we might receive adoption as sons. And then notice verse six. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. I would have expected him to say an heir through Christ. Why does he say you are an heir through God?

because he has just described the triune work of the triune God here, in God sending his Son, and then the Son coming and doing the work, and then the Spirit of his Son being sent to apply that work to us so that we cry out, Abba, Father. So you see the whole Trinity involved in the work of salvation right there in that context. And so he alludes back to that reference to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit’s work in salvation using this one word, God. You are an heir. Through the work of this triune God, the Father who sent His Son, and then who sent His Spirit to apply the work of the Son, and then to bring us back full circle, because what does the Spirit do? The Spirit causes us to cry out, Abba Father. So we go back to the Heavenly Father because of the work of the Son and the Spirit bringing us back to the Father. We are able then to experience this reality that we are heirs. The inheritance really does belong to us in spite of our sin, in spite of our transgression and failure. We do have the inheritance because it is a promise. And the promise is fulfilled through the work of the triune God.

So I think, possibly, that Paul is anticipating that whole point. Back in chapter three, verse 20, where he says, an intermediary, which is what you have with the law, implies more than one party. You have got God and the people, and the whole thing depends upon the people doing their work, doing their obedience. But God is one. The triune God is one. And so the triune God is what stands behind the promise. Yes, the triune God stands behind the law, too, in a sense. The law was given by God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But there is something particularly about the promise that is more in harmony with, more in consonance with the reality that God is one. The law was given with a temporary purpose and view. It was given until the coming of Christ to whom the promise was made in the first place. Some doctrines that we can draw from this text. Number one, the law was chronologically limited.

It came 430 years after the promises were made to Abraham. We see that in verse 17, the law which came 430 years afterward. And it also has an end until the coming of Christ. It comes after the promise and it is given until the offspring should come. Our text today says that. It was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come. And he makes that same point later on in verse 24. He says the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. That is a key thing to keep in mind.

In Paul’s understanding of the giving of the law, it is chronologically limited from Sinai until Christ. Now, there is a sense in which the law, if we define it in a broader sense as the moral law, does exist before and after. It is always true, even before the law came at Mount Sinai, it is always true that it is wrong to commit adultery or to commit murder. The moral law, which is summarized in the Ten Commandments, did exist before Mount Sinai, and even afterwards, now that Christ has come, the moral law is still in effect, and we are still obligated to live in a manner that pleases God, and not to commit those sins that are forbidden in the Ten Commandments. But Paul is talking here about the law as a law covenant, he is not just talking about the Ten Commandments in the general sense of the moral requirements that are binding upon all mankind. Even unbelievers know these things through their conscience. He is not talking about that. He is talking about the Law as a covenant. A Law covenant.

And the key to understanding that is the point that we made before about how the purpose of the Law was to turn sin into transgression. Sin did exist before the coming of the law at Mount Sinai, but turning them into transgressions is because the law is a law covenant. So the Law Covenant was chronologically limited.

Doctrine

A Temporary Purpose

It came 430 years after the promises to Abraham, and it was designed to last until the coming of Christ. Another doctrine we can derive from this passage is that the Law, the giving of this Law Covenant at Mount Sinai with its threatenings of curse upon those that disobey, did not annul the promises that God made to Abraham.

The Promise Continued

The underlying promise never ceased. As soon as the law came, Israel failed, and God was about to wipe them out. But Moses, as we mentioned, he appealed to the prior promise. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your servants. And that promise was still valid, even when the law came, even after the law came. All during the life of Israel, during their experience under the law, the promise was still valid.

One of the main ways that we see the promise being expressed to the Old Testament believers during this time, the time from Sinai until Christ, was in the sacrificial system. Anytime someone sinned, They were not immediately necessarily put to death, in many cases they were, but it was not an absolute necessity. King David committed sins that were worthy of death, according to the Mosaic law, but God provided a means of atonement, the sacrificial system of the offering of bulls and goats upon the altar to atone for sin. Of course, the bulls and the goats themselves could not atone for sin, but only insofar as they were pointing to Christ who would come and offer the final sacrifice to satisfy the justice of God for us.

The Law did not annul the promise. The Abrahamic promises, God Himself taking the oath, God Himself passing between the pieces. Those animals that were described in Genesis 15, those are the same kinds of animals that later on in the Mosaic Law are designated as being the ones to be used for sacrifice. So already back in Genesis 15, there is an anticipation of the coming of the sacrificial system under the Mosaic Law. The Mosaic Law did not annul the promise of God.

It never ceased. And of course, it was fulfilled when Christ came in the fullness of time. Another doctrine we can draw from this. So the first doctrine was that the law as a covenant is chronologically limited. Secondly, the law did not annul the promise. The underlying promise never stopped, never ceased.

Preparing for Christ

And then thirdly, the law was given to turn sins into transgressions and thereby to prepare us for, to show us our need of Christ, that He would be the one to deal with our transgressions. And Paul’s going to flesh that out later in the rest of the section there that we will get to in two weeks. That the law held us captive. It imprisoned us until Christ. It made Israel long even more for the coming of Christ. Just think of the experience of Israel under the law.

How often they failed, how often they broke the law, they worshiped false gods. And God again and again had mercy upon them, raising up a judge or a king or a deliverer to deliver them from the curse of the law. All those judges and kings like King David, they were pictures of the coming Christ, pictures of the offspring to come. How can we apply this passage to ourselves? Number one, I think the most obvious application, and this is just somewhat a simple thing, but just to adore the wisdom of God. To just stand in awe of God’s wisdom, how he took such care to reveal the truths of the gospel step by step in this very systematic and logical way.

He orders redemptive history, first by making the promises so clear. The initial giving of that promise to Adam and Eve in the garden of the offspring to come, and then bringing out the significance of that even more with Abraham. And then giving the law at Mount Sinai, which at first seems to make everything, turn everything upside down. At first it seems to challenge the promise. It seems to make the promise now going to be unfulfilled.

But yet, he has in mind, because of the wisdom of God, he has in mind a perfect plan to prepare us for Christ. The wisdom of God. Essentially what Paul is saying here in this passage is that if you want to get a big perspective, if you want to like take a, whiteboard and just draw the basic unfolding of redemptive history. It is three steps? Three basic, now we could add to it, we could go back to creation, but there is three big things that are going on. Promise, Law and Christ? Promise, law, and Christ.

God spends all this time, all this energy, revealing the promise, showing Abraham the fullness of the promise, leading him step-by-step to faith in the promise. You see this repeated also with Isaac and Jacob. At first, they do not fully understand the promise. They are living somewhat carnal lives, somewhat secular lives. But God is patient with them. He leads them back to understand the promise. He appears to Jacob at Bethel, and he says, my goodness, God is here. I did not even know it. God is present here. And he is coming to understand the depth of the promises of God. So God spends all this time, all this energy, this is the book of Genesis.

The whole book of Genesis, from Genesis 3.15 to the end of the book, is all about the promise and how God is leading his people at that time to understand it. Yes, he is using types and shadows, he is using the earthly land of Canaan as a picture of heaven, but he is revealing his promises to them. He is drawing them to faith in those promises. And he is even testing them somewhat? There are moments where Abraham is like, I am not sure this is really going to happen. I am not able to have a child. My wife is too old to have a child. Lord, is this going to really work? Is this really going to happen?

And God patiently leads him to trust in God’s faithfulness, to his absolute promises that are guaranteed in Christ. So that is the first major block of redemptive history is the promise. Then you come to the law. And the amazing thing is that when the law comes, that promise does not go away. The promise is still there, underlying and sustaining and keeping the people of God alive, even though they are under the threat of the curse of the law. But then you have the law. The law is the main thrust of the Old Testament, from Exodus to the end of the Old Testament. It is all about the law.

God showing His people what He requires. If you are going to dwell in God’s holy land, in God’s holy presence, in the inheritance, you have to be righteous. And God’s people fail at every turn. Again and again, they fail. They end up in exile. And it seems as if there is no hope. Just like at Sinai, it seems as if it is going to end right there. But what does God do even when they are in exile? He sends the prophets to them. He sends Isaiah. He sends Ezekiel. He sends Jeremiah.

He says, yes, for a while, I have turned against you. For a while, my wrath was poured out against you. But I am going to make a new covenant. I am going to fulfill my promises that were made back to Abraham. I am just thinking of a verse like Isaiah 54. For a brief moment, I deserted you. But with great compassion, I will gather you. In overflowing anger, for a moment, I hid my face from you.

But with everlasting love, I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer. And all throughout the prophets, God is coming again in grace and mercy to his people and saying, yes, you have sinned. Yes, you have broken the law. Yes, you deserve to be exiled and cut off from my presence forever. But I have made my guaranteed promises before and I will fulfill them with everlasting love. I will keep those promises.

And so that is why the prophets, like Isaiah, are the ones that speak the most clearly of the coming of the Messiah. Speak most clearly of how he is going to come and suffer for our sins. Isaiah 53 is the chapter right before the one I just read. I was reading from Isaiah 54. That is right after Isaiah 53, about the suffering servant. Who bears the curse in the place of God’s people, who bears their griefs, who carries their sorrows. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities so that we might receive the inheritance in spite of our transgressions.

Application

And so you have the promise, then the law, and then Christ himself. Christ himself comes in the fullness of time to deal with the law, to redeem us from the curse of the law, and thereby to fulfill the promise that was made all the way from the beginning. The promise which from the very beginning already had Christ in view, because the offspring to which the promise referred was Christ himself. Let us adore the wisdom of God in this sweep of redemptive history, how he puts each of the building blocks in place step by step and leads God’s people to understand his grace. Second application, not only let us adore the wisdom of God, but let us never read or apply the Mosaic law Apart from the promise. Apart from Christ.

You have to keep the Law to be saved. The entire Mosaic Law. We are not just talking about the Ten Commandments. The entire Mosaic Law is something that they have to keep as a covenant to be saved. And Paul is saying, look, they are completely forgetting the whole sweep of redemptive history. They are forgetting about the promise that was before that God made to Abraham, and then they are forgetting about the fact that Christ has come to fulfill the promise. They are functionally denying Christ. They are reading the Old Testament in a law-centered way, as if the Old Testament is all about this law covenant.

And yes, a large portion of it is about that Law Covenant, but it was given with a temporary purpose and view to fulfill the promise, to show us our need for Christ to come and to fulfill it in our place. So that is the second application.

Let us never read and apply the teaching of God’s Law in the Old Testament. Apart from the broader context of the promise that God made before and that has now been fulfilled in Christ. Let us read and interpret the law through the lens of Christ, so that when we see all that the law is requiring, we are seeing more and more of what Christ has done for us. We are not seeing a 12-step program for you to fulfill it. We are not seeing a way for you to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps and be saved by your own effort.