The Superiority of the Covenant over the Law. Galatians 3:15-18.
Dear Family,
We look at another facet of the faith versus works discussion. We examine here the implications of a covenant on the status of the covenant makers.
The Permanence of the Pact(v. 15). Paul begins with the power of a human covenant. Once agreed upon it binds those who make it and cannot be varied or annulled. If men can make such binding covenants, we ought to take a divinely instituted covenant even more seriously.
The Person of the Promise (v. 16). When God made his covenant with Abraham he made Abraham the promise (Genesis 17:19) that Sarah would bear him a son, with whom God would establish an everlasting covenant. Paul takes Isaac to be a type of Christ and asserts that the covenant was with the Seed, not seeds of Abraham, meaning Christ. In other words, God’s covenant with Abraham was in Christ! Once the covenant was made, it could neither be varied nor annulled.
The Priority of the Promise( vv. 17-18). The law came four hundred and thirty years after the covenant. This means that the covenant stands irrespective of the law, not because of the passage of time but because the covenant was secured before the law. The law could not, therefore, annul the covenant.
The covenant has leapfrogged the law and is fulfilled in Christ. This is because the law was simply incapable of making good the promise because if the inheritance promised was received through the keeping of the law, it would have been earned and not of the promise. Since the covenant on which the promise was made cannot be annulled, the law finds itself without a claim to the promise. In other words, the law is done. Forget it and get on with claiming and living by the promise.
Again, please note, there is no room for the law in the scheme of grace.
Your Loving Pastor Chris.