Living by Faith - Galatians

No Annulment

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 8-19

Genre: Talk

Track: 08

Dictation Name: Tape 04B

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth; the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, unto whom all flesh shall come, we thank Thee that Thou art the judge of heaven and earth, and that it is Thy justice, Thy righteousness, which shall prevail. We give thanks unto Thee that day after day, all things move in terms of Thy holy purpose, that Thou dost give evil a chance to manifest itself, that it might be forever destroyed, forever revealed for what it is; its emptiness, its ugliness made manifest. Grant oh Lord that Thy righteousness also be made manifest in our time, that Thy justice role forth across this world in judgement, in deliverance, and that Thy people rejoice in Thee. Bless us as we give ourselves to the study of Thy word, and grant us Thy peace. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is from Galatians 3:15-22, and our subject: No Annulment. Galatians 3:15-22.

“15 Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.

16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

17 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, that it should make the promise of none effect.

18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

19 Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

20 Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.

21 Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”

This passage is of central importance. For us with a man centered perspective, the argument has primarily to do with us and our salvation; but we are wrong when we read Galatians that way. For Paul the whole issue is God centered versus man centered faith. In verse 16 Paul stresses this plainly. The promises of God he says, are not primarily to Israel, or by implication to the church, but to Jesus Christ. They are made to Abraham and his seed, which is not plural. It does not refer to either Jews or to Gentiles, but to Jesus Christ. The promises made are to Christ, and are ours only if we are in Christ. By virtue of God’s grace and the manifestation is present in our faith, as verse 22 makes clear.

The covenant and the promise refer to Christ. Adam is the Federal head of the old humanity, and now Jesus Christ is the Federal head of the new humanity. As a result, the usual interpretation of Paul and of Galatians is atomistic; it makes us the focus, and this is not valid. The focus is on Christ.

Why then the law? Paul asks. Why was the law given? He says, first, that every covenant because it is by nature a covenant of law, a treaty, a legal pact between two parties, involves therefore two parties. So when we talk about a covenant there are two; in the original instance God and Abraham. To Abraham and his seed were the promises made.

Moreover, when a contract, a covenant is made, it cannot be disannulled by anyone, though it be a man’s covenant, Paul says. Yet if it be confirmed, if both parties sign it, no man disanulleth or addeth thereto. If you make a contract with someone, you cannot change it at will, nor can any other man disannul it, alter it, or in any way revise it. A contract stands unless both parties involved agree to disannul it. Thus the contract with Abraham stands. This tells us something about the contract, the covenant, of the Old Testament and its relation to the New. The Old Testament covenant cannot be disannulled by one party; one party can break it, but they cannot disannul it. In other words, the feelings of one party cannot render a covenant or a treaty, or a contract void. God does not void it. He judges Israel for violation, and sets them aside and puts in a new Israel; and the church is a continuation of Israel, he judges the church, and he sets aside churches, and he judges churches; the contract, the covenant, remains age after age.

Peoples come and go, it remains. Moreover, second, when a covenant is made between a greater party and a lesser, it is not only a covenant of law it is a covenant of grace. When a king makes a covenant with a commoner, it is an act of grace; and how much more so when a God, the living God, the God of scripture, makes a covenant with mankind? Thus it is both of law and grace, and the penalty for breaking the covenant, sinning against its laws, always death.

Now, Paul says, the law was given 430 years after. He means the written form of the covenant law. Why, says Paul, was it given? It was given because of transgressions. Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, and it was ordained by angels in the hands of a mediator.

In other words, here was a contract between two parties. Let’s put this in human terms. You make a contract with someone and you say: “Our handshake is enough. We have agreed to the contract.” But after a while you have reason to distrust the person with whom the contract is made, and you say: “Here it is in writing, it is spelled out, and I am holding you to every letter of it.” And that is what Paul is telling us, the contract is spelled out.

Moreover, angels gave it. They were the mediators of it, in a sense. But in another sense it was not with any such mediation. God’s covenant with us being a matter of grace, no man can disannul it, render it void; God’s law is binding, God’s contract is binding, and it is the governing contract for all men.

This was recognized by the Jews. In our Lord’s day, no will for example, could be legal, if it did not conform with the Mosaic law of inheritance; nor could any other thing be legal if it did not conform with God’s law.

Parenthetically, in this passage, Paul finally calls them brethren after a good many sentences; so that he is saying ‘you are still brethren, if you obey God’s word, if you believe.’ But as against Phariseeism, which he is waging war against, he asserts God’s prerogative. He is making clear that God must govern, and that man cannot alter the covenant, nor God’s judgement be rendered null and void on any people, anywhere in the world.

Chrysostom commenting on this passage said: “If a man, says he, makes a covenant, does any one dare to come afterwards and overturn it, or subjoin aught to it? For this is the meaning of “or addeth thereto.” Much less then when God makes a covenant; and with whom did God make a covenant?”

It was made immediately to Abraham and to his seed. Thus we are told the immediate person was Abraham, but the real person was Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was to come as the great Adam, the true Adam; the first Adam had failed, and so the promise was made to Abraham that in due time another Adam was to come and the covenant made originally with Adam, and established now anew with Abraham, was going to find fulfillment in his seed, Jesus Christ; that there would be a reestablishment of communion, that there would be a reestablishment of God’s plan that man exercise dominion over the earth and subdue it, that the whole earth become God’s kingdom, His Garden of Eden.

Moreover, in verse 19, Paul tell us this, that: “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made;” (which we have considered thus far) and then he says: “and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.”

What is Paul saying in that very difficult passage? Paul is talking as a lawyer, and legal language is always difficult to understand. He says that when there are two parties coming together to make a contract, each party has a representative at the bargaining table; so that there are normally two mediators. But this is a covenant of grace, so that there is only one mediator, Jesus Christ, ultimately. He comes as the mediator. Moses gave the law, the angels had a hand in the giving, but God had one mediator in this, the one who is to come, the seed of Abraham, through whom the covenant was to be established.

Ridderbos in commenting on this made this statement, which is very much to the point, and I quote: “And in the making of the covenant with Abraham, too, in Gen. 15, the fulfillment of the law is in symbolic form made to depend wholly upon the divine deed. Abraham is deliberately excluded — he is the astonished spectator. See Genesis 15:12-17.”

In other words, the mediator being one because it is a covenant of grace, is always Jesus Christ; and Abraham was there as a spectator and a stand-in for Christ who was to come.

Dummelow made a like point with reference to the making of the covenant: “Now when a mediator is employed, it means that there are two parties making a bargain; but in the case of Abraham there was but one party  — God — making promise out of His own free-will. It is evident, then, that the Law cannot affect God’s promise. The Law is subordinate to the Gospel, but it serves the ends of the Gospel — otherwise it would have been sufficient of itself, and the Gospel need never have been given. And the way in which it serves the ends of the Gospel is by convicting men of sin, and forcing them to realize that they can only be saved by God’s mercy through faith in Christ.”

Now, when Paul says it is impossible for the law to disannul the covenant and its promises, he is thereby saying also that the law only confirms the covenant and its promises. The law convicts men of sin, it bars self justification, it points plainly to the covenant man, Christ. Thus to set aside the law by reinterpretation or by antinomianism is then also to set aside the covenant and its promises.

The sad fact is that many commentators have done exactly that. For example, J. S. Howson says of verse 18, and sums up a common opinion and a very false one. And I quote; verse 18 is his subject: “The phrase “no more” is simply logical, not having any reference to time. St. Paul sums up in a simple antithesis all he has said in this paragraph. Law and Promise are mutually exclusive, just as Law and Faith are mutually exclusive. The antithesis in fact is the same, except that in the one case it is expressed on God’s side, in the other on man’s side.”

It is amazing how foolish people can be. If a man promises something to his son, and then protects that promise legally, are the two mutually exclusive? Does the promise become voided by the contract? If the law establishes theft as lawless and evil, can I no longer have faith in God’s judgement on stealing? This is nonsense.

Luther at this point was thoroughly right in his comment, when he said on verse 19 in part, and I quote: “Therefore the grumbling, “If the Law does not justify, it is nothing,” is a fallacious conclusion. For just as the conclusion is not valid if one says: “Money does not justify; therefore it is nothing. The eyes do not justify; therefore I shall pluck them out. The hands to not justify; therefore I shall cut them off” — so this conclusion is not valid: “The Law does not justify; therefore it is nothing.” To each thing one must attribute its proper function and use. When we deny that the Law justifies, we are not destroying or condemning it. But to the question, “Why, then, the Law?” we give an answer that is different from the one given by our opponents, who, in their distorted thinking, imagine for the Law a function and use that does not lie in the nature of things.”

The law was thus added, not to alter the covenant, but to reinforce it and preserve the integrity of its promise and grace. The idea that law is to be opposed to God’s promise to His grace is blasphemy therefore; law confirms the grace that God gave, and confirms the promises. The mediator is necessary because there is a separation. The law stresses the fact of separation to bar the presumption on man’s part, to bar Phariseeism. Therefore the Pharisees had to alter the law in order to talk about justification by law. Any man can jump over a church if he builds a model church that is about two feet high, and this is what Phariseeism did. Phariseeism was the attempt to separate the promise and the grace of God from God’s sovereign mercy. Life is a gift that no law can give, and God’s law tells us what the way of life is; but life itself is Jesus Christ.

Charles Simeon almost 2 centuries or more ago said of the law and the Christian:

“In order to establish the perpetuity of the law as a rule of life, let it be remembered that the law is a perfect transcript of the mind and will of God. It arises necessarily out of the relation which we bear to him and to each other... No change of circumstances whatever can alter its demands. In whatever situation we be, it must be our duty to love God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves: nor can this law by any means be dispensed with. In truth, God cannot dispense with any part of this law; for if he did, he would authorize men to despoil themselves of his image, and to rob him of his glory.

That the law is still a rule of duty to the people of God, appears from that injunction of St. Paul in the thirteenth chapter to the Romans: “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that love than other hath fulfilled the law.” Then, specifying the duties contained in the second table of the law as essential constituents of true love, he adds, “Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Consequently, if it is our duty to exercise love, it is our duty to fulfill the law, which is in all respects identified with love.

But to insist on this is needless: for, instead of the law being superseded by the Lord Jesus Christ, it is in his hand more imperative than ever, and comes to us with tenfold obligations to obey it.”

Thus Paul in this passage is stressing the law and God’s grace, but they are not in contradiction, but in harmony. Scripture has declared the whole world to be prisoners in subjection to sin, Paul says. The law makes it impossible for men to claim righteousness before God, to claim the covenant promises, because the law tells them ‘these tell you have broken the covenant, you have separated yourselves from God.’ Men are naturally Pharisees, and they are ready to say, as I have heard many a man say: “I am not such a bad guy, I will take my chances with God.” The law of God is death to all such claims, and hence the unpopularity of God’s law with men who seek their own unmediated standing before God.

Wherever men seek an unmediated status before God, they also create their own law; they become Pharisees and they make null the law of God with their traditions. This is what modern man does, with his humanistic justice by social planning, laws and education, he attempts to create a just order apart from God. All such efforts are shipwrecks. There is no way to the good life, to truth, apart from Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life. For all such Pharisees, their laws are efforts to enforce their particular doctrines of justice and order on men and societies, to be as God, to make their own good and evil. Antinomianism too sets aside God’s covenant, sets aside God’s mediator, and affirms that without Christ man can know the good life. It declares that man can by his believing provide the way, so that man’s believing becomes a substitute for Christ.

Moreover, the humanists believe that by human discovery they can find truth, they can find the way and the life; but it is not human discovery, it is God’s revelation.

Simeon said: “ or God to permit any part of His law to be dispensed with is to allow men to rob Him of His glory and “to despoil themselves of his image.” Men continually seek to set aside God’s grace and God’s law, for their own works and their own law. They do not like the law of God, because it tells them how impossible all human efforts and all human faith, human believing, will be in the face of God’s righteousness. Because God is the Lord, all man’s efforts are in vain. God’s law cannot be disannulled, or His grace denied. By grace we are saved through faith, and that not of ourselves. It is the gift of God. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word, for our mediator, Jesus Christ, for the law which convicts us and makes clear to us that there is no way but Jesus Christ. Give us grace day by day to be faithful unto Thee; to serve Thee with all our heart, mind, and being; to know that we have been saved to serve, to exercise dominion, to bring all things into captivity to Christ. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee, in Jesus name amen.

Are there any questions now on our lesson? Yes?

[Audience Member] I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, about the law, and he was telling me that we are no longer to look to the law any more, because anytime we look at the law it condemns, and we can’t keep the law, and that we are to look to Christ, that He gave us a new commandment to love one another.

[Rushdoony] Well, the law does more than condemn. We are told that the law also has promises, we are told if we honor our Father and Mother, this is the first commandment with promise; in Deuteronomy 28 we are told of the blessings that come from obedience, and we are the ones who as the redeemed can obey and be blessed. So to say that there is only condemnation in the law is to forget what both the Old and the New Testaments tell us; they are promises, not only of judgement, but of blessing.

In other words, to take a concrete illustration: Thou shalt not steal and Thou shalt not commit adultery. There is judgement if we do violate those laws. But are there no blessings if we keep them?

[Audience Member] Yes, there are blessings.

[Rushdoony] You see, it is absurd to see the law only as negation.

[Audience Member] Well, I was trying to point out that in my understanding the Bible talks about, we are not to look to the law as a means of justification any more, “but by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.” But to me, and you point out that it is the means of sanctification.

[Rushdoony] Yes. There is no justification in the law, and it gives condemnation to all efforts at justification, but it blesses efforts at sanctification.

[Audience Member] So when it says we are no longer under the law as a school master, to bring us into Christ, right?

[Rushdoony] We are now people who because we are in the covenant, because of Christ’s atonement, who have the law written on the tables of our hearts, so it is our way of life. Sin is no longer our way of life, God’s righteousness is, and the righteousness of God is expressed in the law.

So, the law says, if you are a sinner, an unregenerate man, murder, adultery, theft, false witness are written in your heart and are your way of life, or better the way of death. But now that you are in Christ the reverse is your way of life; observing God’s law is your way of life.

Any other questions or comments? Well, if not let us bow our heads in prayer. Thy word oh Lord is truth, and Thy word is life, and a light unto our way. Make us ever joyful in Thee and in Thy word, and grant that by Thy Spirit we may soar above all the opposition, the ugliness, and the evil of our times, and be more than conquerors in Christ, that we might transform all things by Thy grace and by Thy Spirit… [Tape ends]