In a sense, there is no bigger question than the one Galatians attempts to answer: How do we relate to God? How do we engage with him? Do we experience God as a reward for good works? Do we gain fuller and more complete revelation of him by keeping more of his law as revealed in nature, conscience, or Scripture? Or do we encounter God by his grace? Do we enjoy him through faith in his promises? How do we relate to God?

Your answer to this question will impact your eternity, but it will also impact your psyche. Much of our current joy or despair, contentment or strife, peace or unease, stems from our answer to these questions. If we can answer them correctly we have a great odds of enjoying God. And enjoying God will shake itself out in thousands of ways in your life.

If you've been here for the bulk of our study of Galatians, you probably already suspect that the answer is that we come to God by his grace, his promise, and our faith in that promise. And in recent weeks, we've learned that the false teachers in Galatia had emphasized the law of Moses, telling even new non-Jewish Christians that they had to keep it. And they were bothered that Paul had told the Galatians that they were free from God's law.

To them, this was problematic. They thought Paul had fused Abraham and Jesus together, forgetting Moses. Paul made it all about faith in Christ like Abraham, but they thought it was about works of the law like Moses. Paul first told them that justification could not come through keeping the law because a curse rests on anyone who fails to keep it without error (Gal. 3:10-14). Our good works before God are not enough to be approved before God. The law cannot produce righteousness with God; law-keeping cannot make us right in his eyes.

But God had given the law to Israel on Mt. Sinai. They centered their entire nation upon it for centuries. When they obeyed it, they flourished, and when they didn't, they floundered. They were blessed when they delighted in the law of the Lord day and night (Ps. 1:2). And now Paul comes along with his seemingly low view of the Mosaic law; he preached that we could not be justified (made acceptable) before God through law-keeping.

So what is the purpose of the law? Paul thought of the law as a divine and wonderful complement to the gospel of promise, and this passage shows us how.

1. Because It Arrived After Christ Was Promised (15-18)

15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 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. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

The law complements the gospel because it arrived after Christ was promised. Here, Paul pointed out that the law arrived over four centuries (430 years) after the promise made to Abraham and to his offspring (16). This timeline is incredibly important. The law complements the gospel of promise because it came so long after the promise.

To illustrate this, Paul gave a human example (15). In a man-made covenant, no one arbitrarily changes it once it has been ratified (15). You cannot merely decide to pay less interest on your mortgage, less money on your cell phone bill, or less tuition for your education. To start a mortgage, a mobile data plan, or college classes, you have to enter into an agreement. Once ratified, you cannot change the agreement at will.

And if that is the case with a human covenant, how much more the promises God made to Abraham and his offspring? (16). So when the law of Moses arrived 430 years after the promises God made to Abraham and his descendants, the promises were not altered in any way.

How was Abraham accepted by God? By believing God's promises, partly that from his line would come a figure who would bless the whole world. And this is how we are always accepted by God: by believing the promise of that figure who would bless the whole world. And, on this side of the cross, we no longer wait for that figure to be revealed for the first time. We look back at the cross and recognize God's promise to Abraham was fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the promised offspring, seed, or descendant of Abraham through whom the whole world is blessed (Gen. 12:3).

Imagine Abraham living an incredibly long life of 500 years. Imagine he lived all the way up to the days of Israel's slavery in Egypt and their deliverance at the Red Sea. Imagine he was there when Moses climbed the mountain and received the Ten Commandments. He would have loved the law God gave.

But he would not have been accepted, saved, justified, approved, or considered righteous by God by keeping the law. He was "in" with God because he believed. No law could change that. And Paul saw how that pattern of justification by faith did not die with Abraham—the law only came centuries after Abraham and his faith set the template for all of us.

It is good for us to recognize that the law arrived many years after the coming Christ was promised to Abraham because that promise was the seedbed of the gospel. So, in a sense, the gospel predates the law. And since God began by relating to Abraham through promise and faith, he always relates to his people through promise and faith, not by works of the law.

This is abundantly good news because it shows us that Christ and the gospel of grace still stand. The Galatians wondered if—after they'd believed in Jesus—God was now ready to relate to them by works, law, or contract. But since God's promise and Abraham's faith are much more ancient than the law, we can know that God still relates to us by promise and faith.

In an improv comedy class, amateur students can get off track, so the instructor will sometimes jump in to recover the plot. And sometimes our hearts are like that group of amateur comedians—we get off track. We begin thinking our gospel days are over, and we now relate to God through our works. And that either deflates you or inflates you. It either fills you with despair or fills you with pride. You either think you're doing terribly or that you're the next great saint to grace God's green earth. You either become like Zacchaeus, thinking you could have nothing to do with the Lord, or like the Pharisees, thinking you are above others and don't need him. Because of this tendency, the plot must be recovered. We do not relate to God based on our goodness. No one ever has. We relate to God by responding to his promises by faith.

Rejoice! Having begun with the Spirit, having begun by gift and grace and faith, we are not perfected by our human effort or performance. If we were, then God's gift would have been canceled out. His promise to Abraham would be void. But God's promises cannot be altered. God still relates to us by grace, gift, and faith.

We are firmly in a gift-promise relationship with God, not a law-wage one. But we have difficulty believing it. So much around us preaches a law-wage way of doing things. If we study hard, we earn good grades. If we work for a specific amount of time, we earn an agreed-upon wage. If we obey the laws of the land, we hope to be left alone. If we are nice to our spouses, they might be nice in return, and we're upset if they're not. The law-wage way of life colors everything around us, so it feels foreign when God invites us into this grace-gift way of relating to him.

Paul is trying to help us conclude that Christianity is "the religion of Abraham and not Moses."[^1] And since God dealt with Abraham in the promise/grace/faith category, and he wants us to continue in that way. But this is difficult for us and we often lose this perspective. As Matthew Harmon wrote, "We live in a world of broken promises...yet our hope as believers is grounded in the absolute faithfulness of God to keep his promises"[^2] All those broken promises might make us believe God has not kept his.

But God is a promise keeper, and he has told us that by faith, he will give to us "an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven" (1 Pet. 1:4). And right now, we have been given the Holy Spirit as a down payment for that inheritance, a constant reminder that the best is yet to come (Eph. 1:14).

2. Because It Combatted Sin Until Christ Arrived (19-20)

19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

The second way the law complements the gospel is that it combatted sin until Christ arrived. The Galatians—and the false teachers amongst them—would likely have wondered, "Why then the law?" (19). If it's all about believing the same promise God made to Abraham—if he was justified by looking forward to Jesus and we are justified by looking back to him—then why did God give Israel the law?

There is scholarly confusion as to how to interpret portions of this passage, but the generalities of Paul's answer seem clear enough.[^3] Why was the law given? Because of transgressions (19).

When I was a boy, one of my favorite games on a rainy day was the floor-is-hot-lava game. Because we imagined the floor was deadly, we did everything we could to stay off it. And the law became like that for the emerging Israelite nation. They had to know what would kill them as a people, and the law helped them discover it. What will happen if adultery is rampant among us? It will kill us; avoid it. What will happen if children don't obey their parents? It will kill us; avoid it. What will happen if we worship other gods? It will kill us; avoid it. What will happen if we are greedy? It will kill us; avoid it. What will happen if we obey any sexual impulse? It will kill us; avoid it. What will happen if we abuse the poor or the foreigner? It will kill us, avoid it.

The law helped them see what was good and bad for them. Like the nutrition facts on the side of food packaging, the law showed them the healthy (and not-so-healthy) forms of life. And you see this all throughout the historical books of the Old Testament, books like Judges or 1-2 Samuel or 1-2 Kings or Ezra or Nehemiah. When they obeyed the law, they flourished. When they disobeyed, it hurt them. When Samson worshipped God, refrained from uncleanness, and kept himself from foreign women, he was strong and mighty. But as he succumbed to temptation and increasingly walked away from a law-guided life, he lost his strength. When David walked with God, kept himself pure, and wrote his songs of worship, he excelled. But when he caved to his baser impulses, he lost his strength. And when the nation as a whole trusted God, he expanded their boarders and gave them peace. But when they rejected God's ways and adopted the ungodly ways of the nations around them, they suffered.

But Paul's point is that the law did not negate the promise. As he'd already said, "If the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise" (18). And that promise was an entirely one-sided affair. When Abraham believed God, they made a covenant. In those days, a contract was often made by cutting an animal sacrifice in two and passing through it. It was a way of saying, "May I be torn asunder if I break my vow to you." And God and Abraham even went to that length, but the thing is, Abraham was asleep for the whole event (Gen. 15:7-21). He was a mere recipient. God was the active party. God was the promiser. And God is a man of his word.

So when the law arrived, it couldn't negate Abraham's covenant with God because it was all based on God's promise. But what it added was rules for daily life until the Christ God promised Abraham should come (19). And the law was not one-sided—or God-sided—like the promise to Abraham was. The law was two-sided. When the law came, angels brought it to Moses, who brought it to the people—intermediaries (19-20). It was contractual, negotiated, and legal—sign here, please.

And it came, as Paul said, because of transgressions (19). Left to their own devices, Israel would have devolved and assimilated into the nations around them. They would have lost their distinction. They would not have been known as a God-fearing people. And once they lost their national identity, once the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were dissolved into the nations, the promised line would be lost! So they had to remain intact as a people—at least until Christ came! And to remain intact, God gave them the law to supervise and keep their sin in check. And through all those centuries, the law combatted sin in Israel, urging the people on until the promised offspring arrived (19).

I once drove by a southern California strip mall that had a Candy-4-Less store in a prominent corner location. I had never seen such a store. I was intrigued but knew that no matter how cheap their candy was, I would pay some sort of price. But, as I thought about what it would be like inside a Candy-4-Less, I noticed its immediate neighbor—a dentist. The presence of that dentist right next to a Candy-4-Less is like the presence of the law for Israel. Their sinful tendencies called them, but the law reminded them of the great price they would pay if they went in that direction. And, before we trust Christ, we need the law to restrain us from evil. We need it to say, "If you go there, you will pay the price."

3. Because It Reveals Our Need For Christ (21-22)

21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

The final way our text shows us the law complements the gospel is that it reveals our need for Christ. It does not contradict the promises of God because it could never give life or righteousness before God (21). Last week, we thought about how there are technically two ways to God—law or faith. But here we see that the way of works righteousness is so impossible that it's considered a non-way—it could not give life (21).

But what it did was imprison everything under sin (22). We don't often focus on this aspect of the law (or Scripture). We usually come to the Bible for something to affirm or encourage us, but sometimes the good news cannot be appreciated until we know the bad news. And the law teaches us how morally helpless we are. When Paul says that the law imprisons us, he is referring to the power of sin in our lives. Paul is referring to the power of the law in our lives. The law was given to Moses to show us what sin is and to make us aware of our need for a Savior. Paul is saying that the law has “imprisoned” us because it reveals our sin and shows us that we cannot attain righteousness on our own. The only way to be free from the power of sin is to accept the promise of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Prison! What powerful imagery. We are locked up, shackled, behind bars, without freedom—not only because when we break the law, we become guilty, but because we can't not break the law in our natural state. Without Jesus, we are unable to obey!

So the law complements the gospel because it points us to our need for it. The law of God, as revealed through Moses, nature, and conscience, is to the gospel as baking powder in a chocolate chip cookie. Without the baking powder, the cookie won't become light and airy but will instead be flat and dense. And without the law, the gospel might seem flat and uninspiring to you. But once the law does its work by showing you your limitations and the impossibility of keeping it in its entirety, the gracious gift of the gospel begins to rise. As Paul said, "The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Christ Jesus might be given to those who believe" (22). It is the law that helps us see our sin problem. It is the law that helps us see our need for Jesus. As Paul wrote in Romans, "if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin" (Rom. 7:7a).

In Andor, the recent Star Wars show, a young Cassian Andor finds himself wrongly jailed in an imperial prison. When he realizes he is never going to get out alive, he pitches an escape attempt to an experienced older inmate who knows the prison inside and out and is able to devise an escape plan. And, on the big day—spoiler alert—he leads Cassian and hundreds of other inmates to freedom. But when they all finally work their way to freedom, a tall jump into a large body of water is required. But he hesitates. He won't jump. He can't swim. It is there his story ends.[^4] He could lead everyone else to freedom, but he could not be free. This is the way of the law—it can point you to freedom, but it is not the way. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

To again quote Paul in Romans, "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). And that knowledge of sin should cause us to turn from the law as a path to being accepted by God. And it should make us turn to Jesus!

Conclusion

Now that we've considered how the law complements the gospel, how should we respond? Since it arrived well after God began dealing with us by grace, promise, and faith, it cannot void his grace, his promises, or justification by faith, but what do we do with that information? It was useful among the Israelites before Jesus arrived as a way to suppress evil, but how does that impact us? And it reveals our deep need for Jesus Christ and his cross to save us from sin, but does that have any meaning for us after we've trusted in Jesus? How should we respond to this passage?

First, if God promised to be enjoyed by faith in his promise and not by works of the law, we should be encouraged to enjoy God by faith. Hebrews held out a man from Genesis called Enoch as an example of this type of faith. Enoch used to walk with God every day until one day he disappeared because God took him (Gen. 5:25). Hebrews then says that "without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" (Heb. 11:6). We cannot enjoy God by works and wage, but by grace and faith.

Second, if it was good for Israelite society that the law acted as a lid holding down the toxic waste of sin, we should rejoice that we are on this side of the cross. With the Spirit living inside us, we can be transformed from within. And that very real change in us—and new law within us—is bound to be a major blessing to the communities we are in. Our relationships, families, workplaces, cities, states, and nations all benefit when Christ changes us by his Spirit.

Third, we should recognize that if the righteous standard of the law points us to our need for Jesus, then righteous living fueled by the Holy Spirit is a powerful witness. We don't have to walk around trying to condemn anyone, but a holy life challenges accepted societal norms better than any placard in a protest ever could. Jesus said to let your light shine before mankind (Mat. 5:16). When, by the power of the Spirit, it does, your life serves as a signpost to Jesus.

Finally, thank God that he is a promise keeper who put you on earth at this moment in time. You can look backward to the cross of Christ. Abraham had to believe offspring would come to bless the world, but we know his name—Jesus! God fulfilled his promise. Respect God and the time he has placed you in. The law has been fulfilled. Christ has come. And now he can transform you from the inside out!

[^1]:Stott, John R. W. 2008. Galatians: Experiencing the Grace of Christ. Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press. [^2]:Harmon, Matthew S. 2021. Galatians: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary. Lexham Academic. [^3]: Dr. Douglas Moo is widely considered one of the great, modern experts on the book of Galatians. And in his class on this book, he says he is puzzled by Paul's answer in these verses. He estimates there are over 200 possible interpretations scholars have put forward about this text—and, remember, there is only one accurate interpretation. [^4]: Caron, Toby Haynes Susanna White. 2022. Andor. USA: Lucas Film. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9253284/.