Are you a servant of the law or a free man in Christ?

 

Are you a servant of the law or a free man in Christ?

 

Galatians 3:15-17

『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.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. 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.』

The truth of the gospel that sinful human beings are justified and saved through faith in Jesus Christ is the most important core of Christianity. Paul emphasizes in Galatians that the justification of sinners through faith in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, is the gift of God, not through human merit or effort for the truth of the gospel.

Most people in this world have a negative view of being saved by this faith and think that they have to do something on their own.

When people do not have the concept of salvation established, they are working to achieve something by their own efforts. It is because they do not realize the depravity of human beings when they want to become a divine being or approach a divine being by doing something on their own. These people do not understand why man became a fallen being, and therefore do not understand God's plan of salvation before the foundation of the world.

People cannot understand God's plan of salvation through knowledge. Only by faith can we understand God's love. All human efforts and merits are useless in the sight of God. Without the grace of God, it is of no use. The grace of God is only achieved through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, because this is the only way to enter into the promise of God.

God promised Abraham a future salvation. The Apostle Paul was struggling with those who had to keep the Mosaic Law in addition to faith in the early church. The Apostle Paul reminds us of how wrong these claims are through God's promise to Abraham. Paul contrasts God's promise to Abraham with the law he gave to Moses. Abraham was before Moses. In Galatians it is said that the law was given 430 years after Abraham.

In Genesis 15:6, “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” God promised land and descendants, and Abraham believed them. Regarding the phrase “counted it to him for righteousness.” here, people sometimes think that God recognized Abraham as righteousness. This is only his faith, his righteousness because Abraham gave birth to Ishmael and did not believe in the child of God's promise when he was 99 years old. Of course, it was only when he was 100 years old that God recognized Abraham as a righteous man. It took 25 years to move from “one’s own righteousness” to “God-given righteousness”.

“Abraham was justified by God as righteous,” not by the law, but by faith in the promise.

After Christ, "the saints are justified of God" by faith, not by the law. The promise precedes the law and is more important. Paul explains in Galatians that the law is not a substitute for promises. The law is merely an instrument through which the promise is fulfilled.

Paul divided the roles of the law into five categories. First, the law cannot invalidate predetermined promises. “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.” (Galatians 3:17 I)

Second, the law is in effect until the promised descendants come. 『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.” (3:19)

The promised offspring is Jesus Christ. Isaac, born of physical blood, symbolizes Jesus Christ. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and Abraham obeyed God's word. This is a foreshadowing that the promised descendants will save all mankind through the death of the cross. The death of a ram in the place of Isaac is also foreshadowing the atoning death on the cross.

Third, the law states that all men are imprisoned under sin. “But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” (3:22)Just as sinners are imprisoned in prison, they are imprisoned in the sin. For sinners, this means that the world is like a prison. All people are born in the prison of sin.

Most church people think of the Garden of Eden when they think of sin. It is said that because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, all human beings in future generations became sinners. People say it's because sins are passed on from generation to generation. Then, Mary, the mother of Jesus, must also be a sinner. However, Jesus was without sin. Jesus was also physically born into this world through Mary. How are we to explain that the sin imputed to Mary was not imputed to Jesus?

Jesus is not a sinner because He was born of the Holy Spirit. It depends on how he was born. All human beings are born by the breath of a spirit by God. Can God-breathed clean spirits be polluted by the fall of men? If you think that human actions can contaminate the spirit that God has given to people, then you really do not know too much about God. Since the spirit that has sinned in the kingdom of God has already been imprisoned in the body called dust, they become sinners from the moment they are born. The story of the Garden of Eden symbolically expresses the events of the kingdom of God.

Fourth, the law binds everyone. “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.” (3:23)

"We were kept under the law" is that we were held prisoners of sin. We are not free from sin. It is not a saved faith until faith comes. My faith in Jesus was nothing more than the self-righteousness that Abraham believed in the beginning. He can be said to be the one who is called. The faith that Peter, who had been following Jesus for three years, denied Jesus before the cross was just his own righteousness. However, when faith comes from heaven to the saints, God acknowledges them as righteous. This is the faith of the elect.

Fifth, 『Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” (3:24-25)

At that time, in Israel, people had a servant who disciplined children, and that servant was referred to as a schoolmaster. The law, acting as a schoolmaster, serves to make people realize that they are sinners before God. When you meet Christ and enter Christ, you don't need a schoolmaster because, for sin, Jesus Christ solves everything. As we know from the book of Hebrews, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross becomes a substitutionary death for all who enter into Christ.

However, if they still want to keep the law, God will treat them not as righteous but as sinners. If sinners break even one of the laws, God will judge them. The reason why the Apostle Paul fought the legalists in the early church was to make them realize the importance of the gospel. Fundamentally, all human beings are imprisoned in the prison of sin, and this is to explain that God will set us free from the chains of sin through the gospel of Jesus Christ. To understand this, you must first understand exactly why all humans on this earth are living as sinners. When we know it, we can know the meaning of salvation. Do you understand the saying that if you believe in Jesus, you will be saved without even knowing the meaning of salvation? It would be difficult if we approach it in such a way that unconditionally, "If you believe in Jesus, you will be saved."

Most churches today omit these two. The first is that pastors do not explain who enters into Christ. When the members are in the church, the pastor treats them as if everyone were in Christ. It is also easy for them to think of themselves as those who have entered into Christ. To enter into Christ, we must be united with Jesus Christ, who died on the cross. Those who are in Christ are dead to the world, to sin, and to the law.

Second, pastors easily say, “Let’s increase our faith,” but they do not explain specifically how to increase our faith. This is the end of the sermon by praying “God, please increase our faith” and saying “Let’s increase our faith.” If we do well in church life, do good service, and donate well, will our faith increase if we do this? For faith to increase, it must come from heaven and obey the Word of God. To obey the word of God is to obey the word of the covenant of Jesus Christ.

The first word is to love God, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. To love God is not the same idea as mind control, but nailing oneself to the cross with Jesus Christ. So a life of self-denial is loving God. The reason for denying oneself is to revive the dead spirit. It is because raising the spirit that was dead before God is what God is most pleased with. Second, to love our neighbor is to save the spirit of our neighbor. By sharing God's word with our neighbors, we can bring their dead spirits back to life, so God is pleased.

In most churches, when we ask pastors to explain “what it is to love God and to love our brother,” they substitute the Ten Commandments. They explain that "the first five commandments are to love God, and the last five are to love brothers." So, they say that in order to love God, it is necessary to keep the first five commandments. Then, when we ask whether we should keep the fourth commandment, the Sabbath, pastors often say that the Sabbath has been replaced by Sunday today. The Lord of the Sabbath is Jesus Christ. Pastors sometimes explain this with strange substitutions.

To understand God's will accurately, we must understand why God is trying to save lost spirits. There is a spirit in the human body, and when we take off the clothes of the flesh, the spirit must return to the kingdom of God.