Galatians 3:1-5
What Faith Gave
Background:
The Galatians were part of the generation that lived in an changing
dispensational time. Many of them would have been born under the
Law. The Law was a method of worship and obeying God that God
Himself had established. But they also lived after the death,
burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That placed them into the
same dispensation of worship as we live. Don’t you know that had to
be difficult for them?
Some of the Jewish Christians had come into the church at Galatia and
were teaching the saved believers that they needed to keep the Law.
They were not saying that it is wrong to believe in Jesus, but they
wanted to add to faith in Christ. They believed Christians had to
keep at least some parts of the law.
Paul wrote this letter to deal with that type of false teaching.
1. God has ordained several ways to worship Him.
a. All Adam and Eve had to do to worship God was to worship
God. No temple, no sacrifice, no church,
b. From the fall to Moses - Worship with sacrifices but no
temple, no law governing worship.
c. Moses to Christ - Worship with sacrifices at specific place,
time, reasons.
d. Christ to rapture - Worship without sacrifices but under
the direction of the Holy Ghost.
e. In the tribulation, it appears things will go back to the Law.
f. In the millennium, a form of temple worship with be
reinstituted.
g. In eternity, we will be back to just worshipping God.
But the way you worship does not provide your salvation. It only
provides your worship.
2. No one has ever been saved by the law. Salvation has always been
by faith in Jesus’ atonement.
Galatians 2:16 Knowing that a man is not
justified by the works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in
Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the
faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law:
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be
justified.
Galatians 3:11 But that no man is justified by
the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for,
The just shall live by faith.
Hebrews 10:4 For it is not possible that the blood
of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
a. I am not saying the sacrifices had no part in the Old
Testament worship system because they did.
(1) I believe they demonstrated the worshippers obedience to
God.
(2) I also believe the sacrifices themselves combined with
faith and obedience provided some type of tempoary
covering for their sins.
(3) But the sacrifices themselves could not save. They were
incapable of that.
(4) Instead, as we look backward to what Jesus has done, the
Old Testament saints looked ahead to what He would do.
Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the
truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me.
I. \\#3:1\\ The Galatians Condition - Paul has already told the Galatians
that he marvelled \\#Gal 1:6\\ at how soon and how far they had gotten
off course. \\#Gal 1:9\\ Paul says these Galatians had "received" the
gospel and so, I gather, were saved but that did not stop them from
backsliding. Now, they were:
A. Foolish - Foolish is the opposite of wise.
1. Wise means to see things as God sees them.
2. Foolish must mean that we are seeing things different from God.
3. It is possible for Christians to be quit foolish and out of step
with God.
B. Bewitched - Charmed or controlled.
1. Faulty thinking has lead to faulty actions.
2. Christians must be careful of what they are exposed to for, like
anyone else, they can be influenced.
C. Disobedient
1. The ultimate truth is that they might be acting like they were
bewitched but they were just being disobedient.
2. Knowing the truth but being influenced from without, they had
made a choice against the Scriptures.
3. Christians are responsible for our actions!
D. Blind - Christ had been evidently set forth.
1. They had seen much evidence of salvation in their life.
2. Now, because of influence and wrong choices, they were far from
the place of power in their life.
II. What we of the grace dispensation have over those of the law
dispensation (and those who would try to earn salvation by
keeping the law).
A. \\#Gal 3:2-4\\ The Holy Spirit
1. The saints worshipping under the law did not have the abiding
relationship with the Holy Spirit.
a. Old Testament saints had no comforter.
Laminations 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary,
that was full of people! how is she become as
a widow! she that was great among the nations,
and princess among the provinces, how is she
become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears
are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she
hath none to comfort her: all her friends have
dealt treacherously with her, they are become her
enemies.
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he
shall give you another Comforter, that he may
abide with you for ever;
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will
come to you.
b. Old Testament saints had no Teacher.
Luke 12:12 For the Holy Ghost shall teach you
in the same hour what ye ought to say.
c. Old Testament saints had no Power.
Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that
the Holy Ghost is come upon you:
d. Old Testament saints had no Seal.
Ephesians 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of
God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of
redemption.
2. Not only were the Old Testament saints missing these
gifts, so were these Galatians before their
conversion.
3. But after salvation, they had experienced them because
by faith that had walked in Him (the Holy Spirit).
B. \\#Gal 3:5\\ Ministry and Miracles
1. No miracle was ever done, Old Testament or New, by the law.
They were all done by faith.
2. The only Old Testament saints who were granted a ministry by the
law were the Levites.
3. New Testament saints are granted both ministry and miracles as
our service and faith allows.
C. \\#Gal 3:6-7\\ Righteousness
1. Righteousness never came by the law. It has always
come by faith!
a. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him
for righteousness.
Romans 4:1 What shall we say then that Abraham
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath
found?
2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he
hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham
believed God, and it was counted unto him for
righteousness.
b. David also \\#Rom 4:6-8\\
Romans 4:6 Even as David also describeth the
blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works,
7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will
not impute sin.
c. Hebrews 11
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
"by faith" is used 15 times and associated with Abel, Enoch, Noah,
Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the conquerors at Jericho,
Rahab the harlot and many more.
2. The righteousness that the Old Testament saints had is
different in one aspect from our own.
a. They were looking ahead. We are looking behind.
b. Our sin debt is paid. Theirs, by time’ s
measurements, was not!
c. A temporary atonement for them was made on an
earthly altar. That atonement had to be
constantly reapplied with the meager blood of
bulls and goats.
Heb 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good
things to come, and not the very image of the
things, can never with those sacrifices which
they offered year by year continually make the
comers thereunto perfect.
d. We have a heavenly altar adorned with the eternal
blood of Jesus.
Heb 9:11 But Christ being come an high priest
of good things to come, by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that
is to say, not of this building;
12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood he entered in once into
the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us.
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats,
and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the
unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the
flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from
dead works to serve the living God?
e. The OT saints had a righteousness that was
dependent upon what Jesus would do.
(1) If Jesus had not died on the cross, they
would have lost everything!
(2) That is the reason they stayed in Paradise
until the price for sin was paid.
(3) It is also the reason that they were moved to
heaven as soon as the price was paid.
III. \\#Gal 3:10\\ What they of the law dispensation had that we do not.
A. A curse! The emphasis on \\#10\\ should be on the word "all."
James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one
point, he is guilty of all.
B. If you broke one aspect of the law, you were guilty of all!
Your walk with God was all or nothing!
C. \\#Gal 3:13\\ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law!
We are no longer under either the demand or the penalties of the
law. (We do still abide under the morality of the law.)
Several questions answered in this text:
1. Can a Christian backslide? YES. He can be influenced, disobedient, foolish,
and blind.
2. Can a Christian be saved and get confused about how they got saved?
Apparently so.
3. Can you be saved any other way than by trusting what God has provided? No.
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