Galatians 3:23a
"But before faith came, we were kept under the law,..."
Here we've got to explain something. You've heard us say it and you've
heard others teach that all the way back to Adam the criteria for
salvation was trust. "Taking God at His word." Faith
began just as soon as God dealt with Adam and Eve after they had sinned.
Adam had to take God at His word. So what does this verse mean?
Galatians 3:23a
"But before faith came..." Well without doing any violence to Scripture, and we hope it can enhances it, after the word faith we like to put "way." we think that will help. And we could add.... before the faith way came...
Galatians 3:23a
"....before the faith way came we were kept under the law..."
What
do we mean by that? All we're saying is that we're not under Law, but
rather under Grace, and Grace says, "Keep the Law?" No! Grace says, "By
Faith, and Faith alone + nothing!" Remember we were only under the
penalty of sin and death or the law of sin and death because we were
separated from the commonwealth of God. So we like to think that
clarifies it, at least hopefully. Before the faith way,
before men and women could be saved by faith + nothing, without the
Law, now again that actually means the regulations and ordinances which
were added only to be a corral or tutor for the nation of Israel, only.
As a means to keep them in check and separated from the influence of the
spirit of the world. But it did not as they like Adam chose to partake
of that which God told them NOT TO DO! The priest's polluted what God
had given them. We know that it didn't work, as they became totally
corrupted and profane before God. The reason Jesus came was to bring
them back into a right relationship. But before that came in - and here
Paul goes back and speaks as a Hebrew-
Galatians 3:23a
"...we were kept under the law..."
Now don't brush off the meaning of that statement, "under the Law."
We don't know if any of you have ever been under a heavy burden, but
have any of you seen the slaves or women of foreign lands caring water
pots or farm produce to market, we're just amazed at these women. Some
of them would unload a ship that had rice on board, and would lay a 100
pound sack on their shoulders or heads, some of these little women you
would swear must be 90 years old. They would just take right off with
that huge bag of rice. Now most of us would have no idea of what that
would feel like, but can you imagine it? That was a burden. Now, we
speak of the donkeys and oxen of the ancient times as beasts of burden,
because they were loaded down with their commodity. And again most of us
don't know what it's like to carry a burden. It's just something that
weighs you down, but listen that's what the Law was. It was a burden
that just rested on the shoulders of the people that were under it, and
they knew nothing of liberty and they knew nothing except constant fear
of the Law because of the severity of the penalty for breaking it. So
before the faith way, Israel was under the burden of the Law constantly
24 hours a day. Paul is speaking as though to Hebrews only throughout
this epistle and that is why he uses this kind of terminology. And they
were -
Galatians 3:23b
"...shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed."
One of our favorite statements concerning Scripture and that is "it's a progressive revelation."
and remember that inspiration of revelation is illumination or divine
Light and Truth and that it is upon this that Christ builds His Church.
God didn't tell everything up in front, and so when He gave the Law did
He tell Israel and the rest of the world that one day Christ would die
and all of a sudden the word, Grace? No, He didn't. So here they went
1500 years under the Law and then progressively God reveals these
tremendous doctrines of Grace or the mysteries, secret things of God
through the Apostle Paul. So paraphrasing verse 23 it says, "So before the faith way came we were kept under the Law shut in (they were shut-ins just like an elderly person is when they have no way of getting to market on their own) during this time with no alternative way out, until the faith which should after-wards be revealed."
As we showed the whole world came under the influence of the Ten
Commandments , not just the Hebrews. There is our releasing then of
something that had been kept secret. We're always referring to Paul's
use of that word, so come back with us to the Ephesians chapter 3 and
let's look at verse 9. This verse says it all in a nut shell.
Ephesians 3:9
"And to make (Paul through his apostleship) all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, (secret) which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:"
Now
there is the reason, it had to be revealed. It had been kept secret all
the way up through the Old Testament, there was not a word about God
going to Gentiles with the Gospel of the Grace of God. As we saw
recently in Galatians 3:14 that salvation came to the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ, but in the Old Testament it was supposed to have been
through the Nation of Israel. Israel was to be the light to the
Gentiles, Israel was to have been the vehicle, but they dropped the
ball, they rejected it in unbelief. And then what did God do? He opened
up the windows heaven for Grace to be revealed through the Apostle Paul,
and revealed to that man these secrets that had been kept in the mind
and heart of God all the way up through the Old Testament economy. We
are now in a time that these things are now clearly revealed. Looking at
the fact that Grace has now been revealed - another verse comes to mind
in Romans chapter 15, verse 4, all of these verses are so appropriate.
This is exactly where we're coming from.
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