GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
GALATIANS 3:19-20
Click to listen to this devotion.
19 Why then did he give the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the descendant came– the one the promise had been made about. The law was given through angels by a mediator. 20 Now a mediator is not used when there is only one, but God is one and the same.
Why then did he give the law? We should remember which law Paul means. He has shown that he is talking not only about the civil law, which was the everyday law of the Jews regarding land, trade, marriage, weights and measures (that is to say, money), and so on, but also about the laws that governed their worship life, the Levitical or ceremonial law. Those were laws about sacrifices, the lives of the priests, and what to do about being ceremonially unclean. But most of all, Paul has shown that he means the moral law, including the Ten Commandments. He has ruled out any connection between the law (the whole law) and the one promise. If no one gets to heaven through the law, what purpose does the law serve?
It was added because of transgressions. After the fall of man (Genesis 3:6-7), man’s eyes were darkened, and he no longer knew the will of God. Man did not know anymore, for example, that it is wrong to covet (Romans 7:7). When even the simplest and most obvious part of God’s will– having no other gods but him– was broken, all mankind except for Noah and his immediate family, all flesh was destroyed by God with the flood, since man’s sin filled God’s heart with great pain (Genesis 6:5-7). After the flood, when families had once again begun to fill the earth, God gave the promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3). But it was still necessary to give man the law to show man his sinful actions. The role of the law is to expose sin, rebuke sin, and pronounce God’s curse on sinners; to stop sinners in their tracks with the fear of punishment and damnation.
We cannot and must not try for a single moment to keep the law in order to be saved. That is not the law’s purpose. Yet “it is our duty to live in conformity with the law, for in it is exposed the eternal will of God which it is our duty to fulfill. And thus the moral law still shows us our transgressions and sins, and terrifies us on account of them. The law in this way also shows us in the New Testament, shows every impertinent, unbelieving sinner, that he is condemned already and is utterly helpless.” The law, however, cannot lead anyone to Christ. “The law brings wrath” (Romans 4:15); “I will not turn back my wrath because they have rejected the law of the Lord” (Amos 2:4). But the gospel has also come to sinful man, and through the gospel we each have a share in the promise of Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:6).
Until the descendant came– the one the promise had been made about. The law served its purpose of showing God’s will and condemning all sin, as well as the rule of living for the people of God, until the coming of Christ, the descendant, the seed, of Abraham. The purpose of the law was first of all as a curb, a wall, to keep sin from spreading too much as it had in the years before Noah. Secondly, the law is a mirror for each individual, which is what Paul means when he says, “because of transgressions.” The law says, “Honor your parents,” and only then do I realize that I have broken God’s will by dishonoring my parents. This is the case for each of the laws of God. I have not done them. I have sinned. I am condemned. But then Christ came, and the promise of salvation was no longer a promise only, but it became an historical fact. Our salvation was no longer in the future, but for a moment it was in the present, and ever since it has stood firmly in the past. When we confess in the creed that Christ suffered “under Pontius Pilate,” we are confessing the historical truth of Christ’s death and resurrection. It really happened, at a particular moment in time.
The law was given through angels. Here Paul makes a little digression. He says that the giving of the law happened through angels. The angels are described as having been part of the giving of the law by Moses and others:
“The LORD came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south, from his mountain slopes…” (Deuteronomy 33:2). Here Moses was recalling the giving of the Law in the desert.
“The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands; the Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary” (Psalm 68:17). The Holy Spirit acknowledges the presence of the angels when the law was given. This was from the pen of David.
“And now you have betrayed and murdered him– you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it” (Acts 7:52-53). Paul heard these words proclaimed by Stephen just before he was stoned to death.
“For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment” (Hebrews 2:2). In Hebrews, the actions of the angels are made more clear; they delivered the message from God by speaking it to Moses.
The Lord God did not therefore speak directly to Moses, at least for the most part, but through angels when he gave the law. For even when Moses writes, “And God spoke all these words” (Exodus 20:1) just before the giving of the Ten Commandments, he could certainly be quoting an angel speaking to him without mentioning the angel, since only the Lord’s own words were spoken. In fact, we should be careful to proclaim with absolute certainty: The law was given by the Lord God. Professor Gerhard: “The giving of the law and the conversation with Moses are uniquely attributed to Jehovah” (On the Nature of God, §37).
But Paul goes on:
By a mediator. Now a mediator is not used when there is only one, but God is one and the same. The need for a mediator comes when there is a dispute, a disagreement. There was no dispute before the fall, but afterward, man was wrong and God was right. Therefore at Sinai, there were two parties: God on the one hand, sinful man (even Israel itself) on the other hand. Certainly Israel was not the mediator, since they were the cringing cowards who were horrified to hear the voice of God coming with thunder and lightning out of the sky (Exodus 18:16; 20:18). But that there was a mediator at all implies a two-sided covenant or agreement. The usual way of thinking about this is that it was conditional: Obey God’s law in order to have God’s blessing. But the law wasn’t the way that we have eternal life. The law was a lesser thing, not the way to heaven. The gospel blessing isn’t a two-sided agreement at all. It’s purely a promise to trust. The promise to Abraham, for example, was one-sided. It was a gift (Galatians 3:18). Therefore we must understand that the law, the two-sided covenant, does not replace the one-sided gospel promise.
Paul ends with one of the great statements of the oneness of God in the Bible: God is one (“one and the same,” as I have translated it). God is triune, three in one, and there are passages that express both sides of that remarkable truth. This is one of the “God is one” passages, along with Deuteronomy 6:4; 4:35; Isaiah 41:4; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 and Ephesians 4:6. Remember that the “God is one” verses do not contradict the “God is three persons” passages (Matthew 28:19 and so on), but they are set side-by-side with them to express the great truth: “There is one divine essence, which is called and which is God, eternal, incorporeal, indivisible, or infinite power, wisdom and goodness, the maker and preserver of all things, visible and invisible. Yet there are three persons, of the same essence and power, who are coeternal: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Augsburg Confession, Article I:2-3). Our God is holy and flawless. Once he made the divine promise of the gospel (which happened immediately after the fall of man, Genesis 3:15), there was no need to modify or diminish that promise, which was the way to forgiveness and everlasting life. Even the law, given many centuries later on Mount Sinai, did not alter or change the promise, but helped mankind to see the need for the Savior on account of our many sins. Praise God for his clarity and holiness, and praise God for rescuing us through his promised redeemer, our Lord Jesus. “He has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3), and this could never have taken place if we stood eternally condemned and lost. We have been blessed, and we stand forgiven in Jesus forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Listen or watch Bible classes online.
Archives at St Paul’s Lutheran Church and Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel:
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Galatians 3:19-20 Through angels