Dwell in the Word: Galatians 3:15-29

Think on these questions as you dwell in Galatians 3:15-29:

1. How does Paul contrast the role of the law as a guardian with the significance of faith in Christ, particularly in the context of the promises made to Abraham?

2. In light of Paul's argument against the necessity of rituals like circumcision, how does he emphasize the unifying nature of faith in Christ, transcending societal divisions and establishing a new identity for believers?

3. What implications does Paul's message hold for individuals who might have felt excluded or distant from the promises made to Abraham, and how does this concept of being heirs according to the promise impact the understanding of salvation?

Transcript:

This passage is really good news for us, those people who are not of the Hebrew persuasion. Paul is making his case here that in Christ, we are all Abraham's offspring. It's not by blood, it's by faith in Christ. And that's good news. That's why we have hope. That is why we know that we have salvation. Now, Paul is talking here. He says in verse 18, For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by the promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. And this comes from what he was saying beforehand, right? That God made the promise to Abraham, and then the law came later. The promise, the promise of grace, the promise of salvation to all people through Abraham's offspring, that isn't done away with because the law came. Instead, Paul calls the offspring a guardian. This was the way by which the message went to the people by the means by which God showed us that we needed a savior. It was a means by which God kept the line to the promised Messiah intact, that he kept this good news of the offspring coming in the future.

 It's the way it traveled down through the Hebrew people. And eventually, He did come. We know that to be true. That is what we have faith in. We see here, verse 24, So then the law was our guardian until Christ came. But now that he has come, we do not rest in the law. Now, we desire to keep God's moral law. We desire to live our lives in honor and in faithfulness to Him. But look at the point that Paul is ultimately making. Remember what the issue is here. Paul is going up against these Judisers who want all the people, regardless if they're Jew or Gentile, to be circumcised in order for them to be a part of the Christian community, in order for them to be saved. But Paul is saying, You don't need any of that because Paul is saying, There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's neither male and female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus. In other words, because of what Jesus has done, we don't need this ritual of circumcision anymore. We don't need to rest in the law. We need to rest in Christ.

 And so, Paul gets down to the heart of the matter in verse 29, when he says, And if you are Christ, if you have faith in Him and you belong to Him, and you're neither a Jew nor a Greek or a slave or free or any of these things, if you're His, then who are you? Then you are truly Abraham's offspring. It is not by the genetic line that this is passed down now. It is by faith. You are heirs according to the promise, this promise that was made to Abraham. Not the law that came after it, the promise that was made to Abraham, you have that by faith. You are now in Christ. You are now a part of the family of God. You have salvation because of what he has done, not because of any works of the law that you might do, whether that is following the moral law or following a ritual, or being circumcised. None of that matters because you are now an heir of that promise, that thing that was better because of what Jesus has done. We see that we are a part of the family of God here.

 To be a part of the family of God means that we are heirs. We receive the inheritance of eternal life. This is good news. We can look around and we can see that all those who are in Christ are our brothers and sisters. We are neither slave nor free. We're not Jew or Greek. Our nationality doesn't matter. What matters is that we have the promise in Christ. That is good news for us because it means that those of us who were once outsiders, for lack of a better term, genetically, we are now insiders by something better, by this faith that we have been given in Christ. So, may we relish that truth and may we trust in this fact that we are heirs according to the promise.