What I mean is this: The law that came 430 years later does not revoke the covenant previously established by God, so as to nullify the promise. Sermons
I. DIVINE GRACE IS PLEDGED BY COVENANT. The grace here referred to is offered to Abraham and through him to all nations (Genesis 12:1-3). Thus offered in covenant, it is (1) definitely promised by God, (2) with the confirmation of an oath, (3) on condition, however, of our faith. We are not left to speculate about the grace of God as a possibility; it is distinctly revealed. Nor are we in doubt as to its permanence; it is pledged for the future. II. THE COVENANT OF DIVINE GRACE IS ETERNAL. 1. As a revelation of truth it is eternal. Truth does not vary with time. When once a genuine truth has been seen, no later knowledge of another truth can set it aside. The discovery of Australia did not invalidate the earlier discovery of America. 2. As a declaration of God's will it is eternal. God does not vacillate, like a fickle, capricious despot. He is constancy itself. What he wills now he wills for ever. 3. As a pledge of God's honour it is eternal. It is in infinite condescension to our weakness that God makes us a promise. We ought to be able to rely on his love and goodness alone. But since he has mercifully stooped to encourage us in our poor faith by promise and pledge, herein lies the greater assurance to us of his changeless grace. III. THE COVENANT OF GRACE IS MORE ANCIENT THAN THE CURSE OF THE LAW. The Judaizers claim precedence for the Law over the gospel because of its greater antiquity. But St. Paul reminds them that the promise on which the gospel is founded is a still more ancient Divine word. Grace precedes wrath; love is anterior to Law. The first vision of God is a revelation of loving-kindness. The weight and dignity of hoary age are with the blessings of God's goodness. A shallow research discovers Law; dig deeper, penetrate further, and you find love. IV. LATER DIVINE UTTERANCES MAY OBSCURE BUT CANNOT ABOLISH THE COVENANT OF GRACE. 1. They may obscure it. The severity of the Law appeared to hide the gracious promise to Abraham. Dark dispensations of Providence sometimes come between us and God's love. We cannot reconcile the harder with the more pleasing utterances of Scripture. Stern voices sometimes repel us when we are hungering for gentle voices to comfort. 2. Nevertheless, these later revelations do not nullify the earlier promises. The grace is still undiminished, though for a time it is beyond our gaze and grasp. Presently it will break out in more than its pristine splendour, as the sun shines more brightly than ever after it has been hidden by a brief summer shower. The purpose of grace both precedes and outlives the threatenings of Law. The thunders of Sinai are but an interlude between the promise of love at Bethel and its fulfilment at Bethlehem. - W.F.A.
And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul. A covenant is an agreement or contract, in which the parties to it solemnly bind themselves to the fulfilment of certain conditions. When we speak of a covenant as entered into by God, we understand that He, who has no rule of action but His own will, has been pleased to bind Himself, in His dealings with men, to the observance of certain specified conditions; whilst those with whom the covenant is made are hound to fulfil the obligations imposed upon them, under pain of forfeiting the promised blessings, and incurring the attendant penalties.1. The covenant under which all men are born is that of works; in other words, the moral law, the law of Adam's nature, written in his heart, and afterwards republished from Mount Sinai, The terms of this covenant are, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." The sanctions by which it is enforced are, on the one hand, "This do, and thou shalt live," and on the other, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." This covenant is one by which an unfallen being, continuing in his obedience to it, might merit life; but to creatures such as we are, it can only be a dispensation of death. Of mercy to transgressors it knows nothing. It is law for man, as God made man — perfect — and to man in that condition, and in that only, is it a law that can give life. We ask, therefore, is there any other covenant whereby (letting go the first, and laying hold on this) we may have that eternal life which we have forfeited by the covenant of works? 2. The Scriptures reveal to us the covenant of grace, so called, inasmuch as it is grace which especially distinguishes it from the former covenant of works. The terms of this covenant are contained in the gospel of Jesus Christ: by it God is graciously pleased to bind Himself to bestow all spiritual blessings upon those who give up entirely their hope of life by the works of the first covenant, and, embracing this, plead the gracious provisions of it as the ground of their acceptance with God. But besides these two covenants, which form the groundwork of all God's dealings with men, there is a third — that, viz., which was entered into with Israel at Sinai. 3. The Sinaitic Covenant was(1) national, as made only with one people, the Jews;(2) temporary, as designed to fulfil certain special ends, and to cease when those ends were accomplished;(3) mixed, as partaking in part of the covenant of works, while containing certain provisions which had in them an echo, and something more than an echo, of the covenant of grace. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.) I. THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT VIEWED IN ITSELF (Genesis 13:15; Genesis 17:7). The prominent feature in it is grace, and it clearly looks forward to Christ. Its chief blessings are —(1) (2) (3) (4) II. THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT VIEWED IN ITS RELATION TO THE COVENANT OF SINAI. The covenant of grace was announced to Abraham in the promise made to him and his seed, Christ, long before the giving of the covenant of Sinai; its conditions were fulfilled by Christ during the Incarnation, at a period long subsequent to the giving of that covenant, it was therefore independent of and superior to it; it was designed for the benefit of the whole human race, whereas the Sinaitic covenant was confined to a single nation, was limited in its application, imperfect in its provisions, and, as far as the Jews were concerned, a failure in its results. We may conceive of the covenant of grace as stretching through time like some vast geological formation, having its beginning in the ages that are past, and reaching onward to the ages that are to come. As such formation, however, displays itself upon the surface of the earth, there is at one point a depression, a sinking of its outline, and that depression or valley is filled up by a formation of more recent growth, an overlying stratum which conceals the older formation from view, but does not destroy it. Such older formation crops up on the one side, and on the other of the later one, and in fact underlies it in all its parts; the one being limited and partial as contrasted with the other, which is comparatively unlimited and universal. Thus the covenant of grace stretches through the entire period of man's history; but at one point in its course it becomes overlaid by a covenant of recent growth, the national covenant of Sinai. But the older covenant is neither lost nor superseded; it recedes for a while from view; it gives place in the history of man to an intermediate covenant; but it does not vanish from our history. It had shown itself in Abrahamic times; it was to display itself yet more gloriously at the coming of Christ; but yet even during the period of its seeming obscuration, its operation was not suspended: the pious Jew looked through his own covenant to the covenant of grace — he dug, as it were, through the mixed and local deposit of his own economy, to the rock beneath him. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.) I. God made a covenant of grace with Abraham long before the law was given on Sinai.II. Abraham was not present on Sinai, and therefore there could have been no alteration in the covenant made there by his consent. III. Abraham's consent was never asked as to any alteration in the covenant, without which the covenant could not have been set aside. IV. The covenant stands firm, seeing that it was made to Abraham's seed as well as to Abraham himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.) I. TO BE THE TRUE SEED OF ABRAHAM THE GENTILES ARE TO SEEK JUSTIFICATION, NOT BY THE LAW BUT BY FAITH.II. FAITH HAS PRECEDENCE OF THE LAW, and consequently is not disannulled by it. It rests on promises given to Abraham. III. THE PURPOSES OF THE LAW ARE SUBSERVIENT TO CONVICTION AND PREPARATION (V. 19), and, therefore, were not designed to disannul it. IV. THE INFERIORITY OF THE LAW is marked by its being in the hands of a mediator, and not personal, as was the promise to Abraham. V. Nevertheless FAITH AND LAW DO NOT CLASH. There is harmony between the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic law. (Canon Vernon Hutton.) I. TIME cannot disannul it: neither the time before the law nor the time which has elapsed since.1. Some covenants run out in the course of time, or are annulled through non-fulfilment within a given time, or are abrogated in the very fact of their fulfilment. 2. The Christian covenant is independent of time. (1) (2) (3) II. THE UNFAITHFULNESS OF ONE OF THE CONTRACTING PARTIES did not disannul it. 1. During the four hundred and thirty years. (1) (2) (3) (4) 2. During the following years till the advent. (1) (2) III. THE INTERMEDIARY DISPENSATION did not disannul it. 1. The law itself did not. (1) (2) 2. The infraction of the law did not. (1) (2) III. It rests on the IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 1. Of His wisdom. He saw when the time would be ripe. 2. Of His mercy: He knew when it would be best to work in the interests of mankind.The covenant, then, was not disannulled by the law. 1. Because then the blessing promised by the covenant would not have depended upon that promise. 2. Because then in vain is any mention made of the seed of Abraham, that is, of Christ. 3. Because those who died before the law was given on Sinai, amongst others, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would have no claim to partake of the Divine blessing, no share in the promised inheritance. (W. Denton, M. A.) I. Its nature — a covenant of promise — of mercy:II. Its antiquity — older than the law — old as the first promise. III. Its Immutability — confirmed to (ver. 16) and in Christ — cannot be disannulled. (J. Lyth.) People Galatians, PaulPlaces GalatiaTopics 430, Afterward, Agreement, Already, Annul, Aside, Beforehand, Christ, Confirmed, Covenant, Disannul, Effect, Established, Formally, Hundred, Introduced, Invalidate, Later, Law, Mean, None, Nullify, Previously, Promise, Ratified, Saying, Thirty, Thus, Undertaking, VoidOutline 1. He asks what moved them to leave the faith, and hold onto the law.6. Those who believe are justified, 9. and blessed with Abraham. 10. And this he shows by many reasons. 15. The purpose of the Law 26. You are sons of God Dictionary of Bible Themes Galatians 3:15-186678 justification, Christ's work 4906 abolition Library July 8. "Having Begun in the Spirit, are Ye Now Made Perfect by the Flesh" (Gal. Iii. 3). "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh" (Gal. iii. 3). Grace literally means that which we do not have to earn. It has two great senses always; it comes for nothing and it comes when we are helpless; it doesn't merely help the man that helps himself--that is not the Gospel; the Gospel is that God helps the man who can't help himself. And then there is another thing; God helps the man to help himself, for everything the man does comes from God. Grace is given to the man … Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity God's Testament and Promise in Christ. The Universal Prison Lessons of Experience The Uses of the Law A Call to the Unconverted The Work of the Holy Spirit The Curse Removed Ephesians ii. 8 The Critical Reconstruction of the History of the Apostolic Age. Light for them that Sit in Darkness; A Case of Conscience Resolved The Substance of Some Discourse had Between the Clerk of the Peace and Myself; when He came to Admonish Me, According to the Tenor of that Law, by which I was in Prison. The Promises of the Christian Home. Retiring Before the Sanhedrin's Decree. The Ordinance of Covenanting Letter iv. You Reply to the Conclusion of My Letter: "What have we to do with Routiniers?... Here Therefore These Men Too Evil, While they Essay to Make Void the Law... The Right Understanding of the Law The Wrath of God The Gospel Message, Good Tidings The Impotence of the Law. Justification by Faith --Illustrated by Abram's Righteousness Adoption --The Spirit and the Cry Links Galatians 3:17 NIVGalatians 3:17 NLT Galatians 3:17 ESV Galatians 3:17 NASB Galatians 3:17 KJV Galatians 3:17 Bible Apps Galatians 3:17 Parallel Galatians 3:17 Biblia Paralela Galatians 3:17 Chinese Bible Galatians 3:17 French Bible Galatians 3:17 German Bible Galatians 3:17 Commentaries Bible Hub |