Christ, Our All In All--Gal.3:10-14
Galatians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 9 viewsChrist has done what nothing else could do in a way no one ever wanted to give us what no one can go without.
Notes
Transcript
HCPT: Christ has done what nothing else could do in a way no one ever wanted to give us what no one can go without.
SP: The listener should be convinced of and have confidence in Christ alone to save them completely.
Christ focused
He Did What Nothing Else Could Do (vv. 10-12)
He Did What Nothing Else Could Do (vv. 10-12)
The Law Contains a Curse (v. 10)
The Law Contains a Curse (v. 10)
10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
For--this is a further reasoning on the previous verses: why are the faithful blessed alongside Abraham
Rely on—this is key; even Christians do the works the law requires (Rom. 8.1-4) but we do not rely on them for our standing before God. For those who do, they receive their only result.
Works of the law--the works required by the law
These are known by all humans (Rom. 2.15) from the beginning of Creation.
are—present tense, happening right now
under a curse--κατάρα, curse/imprecation
What is a curse?
A curse is God’s displeasure exercised in time.
Curses go back to Genesis 3, when the first curse was pronounced again the serpent.
To be under God’s curse is to be on the side of the enemy and to face God’s displeasure on being on that side.
All who seek to be saved via the Law are facing that curse. Right now. You who are seeking God’s love by your good deeds and not by the cross, you are under God’s wrath and displeasure. Right now.
For it is written--we know that all who go by works are cursed, here’s why
Perfect tense—completed with present implication
26 Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Continueth—stay in, live in, presently live in the law.
Moses speaking to the Israelites; he is recounting the summary of the cursings that would be proclaimed; this is the concluding and final one that would cover the entire Mosaic law
In Moses’ words, would “everyone” here mean only those who knew the law or literally “all people”?
15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
That there exists in the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead.
John Calvin
It would apply to Israel in terms of the ceremonial and certain civil laws. However, those were merely applications of the eternal moral law that binds all people and all times.
App: Why, then, does Paul use this quote here? What is his point? This: All who seek to to be saved by the Law must live in and abide by every single detail, or they will face God’s curse.
And you cannot do that.
You go into the Law, and there you find that the Law itself demands perfect, personal, entire, and exact obedience for time and eternity.
The Law contains one thing for you: a curse. God’s wrath. If you go to God any other way than by the Cross of His son, you must bear the entire load yourself. Every deed, every action, every thought, every desire, all of it.
The slightest misstep, the smallest infraction, and that is it.
All you can get from the Law, all you can get from any system of good deeds, is cursings. That is why you need Christ, you must have him.
He did what no one else could do. All the Law could do was to curse you.
Paul keeps building on this in verse 11
Secondly
The Prophets Pointed to Faith (v. 11)
The Prophets Pointed to Faith (v. 11)
11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.
Paul has just made it clear what the Law contains. He is hammering that point away here. And remember who is arguing against: the Judaizers, those who love the OT and uphold it.
So now, after he has shown that the Law contains a curse, he uses the same OT they have to show that faith was there in the OT as the way of salvation
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: But the just shall live by his faith.
In its original context, the line Paul quotes is part of the Lord’s answer to Habakkuk’s complaint that the Lord is punishing Israelite unrighteousness by an invading nation even wickeder than Israel. God seems to “remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he” (Hab. 1:13). In reply, God urges Habakkuk not to judge his justice by present conditions but to wait patiently for God to finish his work. Eventually, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). The righteous person, the Lord says, shall live by his steadfast trust in him (Hab. 2:4). Frank Thielman, “Galatians,” in Romans–Galatians,
In other words, this passage shows the principle that the righteous men live by faith in God: in salvation and in the mysteries of divine justice, it is always faith.
The faith that saved you is the same faith that carries you.
App: I want to speak specifically to those people who are very sensitive in their conscious this morning, those people who are striving after God’s pleasure by combing through the pages of Scripture for Do’s and Don’ts.
That very Scripture you hold, that very list of Laws, is trying to tell you to stop.
The Prophets of the OT hammered away that the righteous man is the one who trusts, not in his own good deeds, not in his list of perfections, but the one who has faith in Christ.
You are probably tired of hearing me say that phrase. I can’t help it! It’s the main message of this book!
The way to God is the way of the cross, the way of faith, the way of Christ!
It isn’t the law, it only has a curse, and the prophets point to faith.
Third,
The Law Pointed away from Itself (v. 12)
The Law Pointed away from Itself (v. 12)
12 And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.
The Law is not of faith in the sense of providing the way of salvation by faith: the way of Law-keeping is not the way of faith-living.
This is clear, Paul says, from the Law itself
5 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.
It is very easy for people to make the law into something it is not.
We read commands like this and think that we are actually supposed to try and obey.
That is not the point. We are supposed to read this and think, “Wow, really? All of them?”
One commentator noted how you can see this in Lev.26—3-13, ten verse of blessings, 14-39, 25 verses of cursings.
App: The very Law that people try to use to save themselves, the very thing that they try to obey is waving it’s hand in your face, saying, “Do not look at me! Look away! I cannot help you!”
Trans: The Law contains a curse, the prophets point to faith, and the Law points away from itself.
All of this shows us that Christ did what nothing else could do.
Second, He did this
In a Way No One Ever Wanted (v. 13)
In a Way No One Ever Wanted (v. 13)
13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
redeem--“to obtain release or freedom by means of payment”
Christ bought us back from God’s curse, he purchased us. How?
He became a curse.
He became damnation.
He became filth.
That is what the cross is. Filth and ugliness, damnation and wickedness, punishment and justice, Christ became all of that.
23 His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
“Every criminal sentenced to death under the Mosaic legislation and executed, usually by stoning, was then fixed to a stake or ‘hanged on a tree’ as a symbol of his divine rejection.”
Apply
Transition: Christ did what nothing else could do in a way no one ever wanted,
Third
To Give us What No One Can Go Without. (v. 14)
To Give us What No One Can Go Without. (v. 14)
14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Look at the parallel structure: Abraham’s blessing was the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not a luxury meant to make deluxe Christians, as an illuminated frontispiece and a leather binding make a deluxe book. The Spirit is an imperative necessity. Only the Eternal Spirit can do eternal deeds.12
A. W. Tozer
Christ has done what nothing else could do in a way no one ever wanted to give us what no one can go without.
Christ is our all in all.
