Part LXXXIII on The Study of Galatians

Acts 15:10
"Now therefore (since Gentiles are not under the Law of Moses) why tempt (or test) ye God, to put a yoke (of bondage to the Law of statues and ordinances) upon the neck of the disciples, (or believers) which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?"
Remember the Law had demands on the Hebrew race that were almost impossible to keep and the reason being that God had to show mankind through the Hebrews that there was no way they could measure up to His standard of Holiness and Righteousness. So the Law then became a yoke which neither the forefathers back in Old Testament days nor the Hebrews of Peter's day nor of our day are able to bear. Now then when we come back to Galatians we're going to see before we go too far in chapter 4 that Paul also refers to them as almost the same kind of thing, they were beggarly. They begged to be something better than they were. The Law could not do anything to bring a person out of his sin. All the commandments in statutes and ordinances could do was to convince him of his sin. As pointed out so often all the way back to Romans chapter 3. But remember that from chapter 9 of Romans on through 11 we have revealed Israels true state of lack of spiritual understanding and its yoke to religion and its legalism, which became idolatry. All do to blindness of heart and ignorance of mind, unbelief. All right so looking at verse 3 again.


Galatians 4:3
"Even so we, (speaking as a Hebrew) when we were children, (when the Hebrews were still in the Old Testament economy, in the corral and under the tutor, for most they've never moved out of it) were in bondage under the elements of the world:" (system)
Now we've got to remember that Israel as a nation, when they came out of Egypt and had been surrounded with all of that pagan culture, when God gave them the Law at Mount Sinai, God didn't lift them out of the world. They still had to live and move, eat and sleep in the midst of all that paganism. So the whole world system was still working even though Israel was now under the Law as a separated people. In other words, God didn't suddenly transport them into a whole spiritual world all their own, and that's why they failed so often. They failed miserably, and it was always because of their unbelief, but nevertheless they were in bondage under the elements or the workings of the world and the forces of evil around them. And how long had they been under it? 1500 plus years. 


Now remember Abraham was called out of Ur at approximately 2000 BC, and then 490 years later Moses led them out of the land of Egypt and God gave them the Law. So we're talking in terms of about 1500 BC from the giving of the Law to Israel until the time of Christ. At what we now refer to as 0 AD so there were 1500 years that Israel labored under this yoke of bondage, they were corralled within restraints. It's no wonder that they were in such rank unbelief and rebellion and we suppose a lot of the time they just gave up as they couldn't keep the Law anyway. And of course that's what legalism does. Legalism just destroys the incentive.


Oh we've had people come where they've been under some of these abject teachings and preaching, and this is what they tell us. "When I was young and I heard all that kind of preaching I thought, well what's the use. I can't measure up to that." Well that's what legalism and forms of religion have always done, and so even Israel, God's Covenanted people, how many times did they go into abject sin, rebellion and unbelief because they just couldn't hack it. Now verse 4, what's the first word? "But." We know if it weren't for the flip side of all of this, where would we be? Well we'd be back to where they were. And so even though Israel had been 1500 years under yoke, the Law, in bondage, but then flip side appears.


All of a sudden God stepped in and changed the format. We hope that, as we came up through human history, we can see how many times God changed the format totally. Although God Himself never changed, the format was changing. We always like to go back all the way to the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden living was totally different than it was out of the garden. Wasn't it? All you have to do is just stop and think. What was life like in the garden? Oh it was easy, no sin, no opposition, no weeds or thorns, it was just a beautiful spiritual lifestyle. What was it like after the garden? Just the opposite. All of a sudden now they're confronted with all of the opposition of nature fallen, weeds, thistles, briars, thorns, and insects and that was the curse. It was totally different, but had God changed? No, God never changes. 


Then you take that economy up to the flood, and Noah and the family come off the ark, and again we draw the analogy, was it the same after the flood as it was before? Why heavens no. Everything was different. God's whole economy for man was going to be set up differently. Where as before the flood there was no law and order, there was no system of worship prescribed per se. They couldn't eat meat, and they didn't. They ate of everything that grew naturally, but now as soon as they come out of the ark what does God tell them to do? Now you can kill and eat. Whatever lives and moves are for you to partake of. But God also at that time instituted capital punishment, or government. For the man that kills another man he must be put to death. See that was a whole new economy, but had God changed? No, not a bit. 

So then we come to the call of Abram, and again God does something totally different without changing Himself. God says to Abram, "I'm going to make of you a separate race of people. I'm going to let the vast majority of mankind just go on their way, but I'm going to work through this nation that will come through you and your wife." So all the promises that God made to Abraham, although they took 490 years to come to fruition, there they came.


The Nation of Israel makes their appearance then God again does something totally different. What did He do? He put them under His Law. Now listen, that was something totally, totally different from anything that had happened previously. God sets down these Ten Commandments, the Law along with the priesthood and the Temple, and all of its rituals. And He tells Israel by instruction explicitly everything that they were having to do. He built the corral around them as a tutor or governor and as a means of an aid to protect them and help them keep the Law. Not only what we call their spiritual life but in their everyday way of living, and everything was now prescribed. Everything was laid down as to what they could and couldn't do. What they could now eat and what they couldn't eat. Now listen that was all different.


Now then Israel lived under those circumstances up until the last days when Jesus came on the scene as promised and then the work of the Cross was finished. But the work of the Cross couldn't be finished until first Christ had to be born at Bethlehem, and that's what we have now in verse 4 after 4000 years of varying types of responsibility. All of a sudden God does something totally different and how does it begin? With the fulfillment of a promise that He made to way back in Genesis Chapter 3:15. But let's read verse 4 before we go back and look at that.