Wednesday Bible Study- lesson and application

So, last week we came upon a verse- or verse-set- that lead to a study more of the Old Testament than of the new.  This week, in Galatians, we have much the same sort of thing- and that will lead to my main point later on.

For now, we look at the verses at hand.  This is, if you know your Bible, what I call the "Oh, foolish Galatians!" chapter, as that is how Paul begins it.  Their foolishness is that Judaizers have come into their midst and made them start to live by the Law instead of faith.  Paul points out to them the two problems with that:

1- Anyone who lives by the Law is bound to keep the WHOLE LAW.  99% does not give you a passing grade.

2- They were NOT saved by the Law- they were saved by Faith.


The main problem here, and one that Paul will preach on often- without faith, the Law is a wedge that Satan uses to tell you you've lost the fight.  Satan uses the sin you know- the one that fells you often- blows it out of proportion (remember the "elephant in the room" Sunday Message?), and makes you lose out on your ministry.  If I may, let me go to the chapter in Proverbs I read just before composing this:

Pro 24:16  for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity. 

Even in the Old Testament, the righteous knew to live by faith.  But what then about the Law?  Here is were we come to our verses- and I want to thank Laurie for pointing out a great Dennis Miller sermon which pointed me in the right direction:

Gal 3:15  To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 

Gal 3:16  Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ. 

Gal 3:17  This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 

Now, how does Paul mean this?  The Law came 430 years after the Promise to Abraham, which was the covenant made by God with Abraham in Genesis 15.  It was a covenant made just as the custom was for men to make with each other in that day- EXCEPT that when it came time to pass between the offerings together, God put Abraham into a trance, and walked ALONE through them- indicating that no matter how men followed the covenant, God would be faithful and carry it out.  After establishing this, Paul reminds them that the culmination of the covenant was Christ, who establishes the new covenant based on the old.

And the Law?  It came later, to help Moses lead a group, some of whom would believe and some would not.  Because it was not based on faith but authority, it needed rules and regulations.  For those of faith, they would come natural.  For the rest, it needed spelled out.

Now, you have the fledgling Christians in Galatea, having been saved by faith, being told there are rules to this thing.  Rules that the Patriarchs never lived under, rules that the kings never lived by, and rules that the "scholars" had morphed into something never intended, despite being warned by every prophet worth his salt.  But they were not saved BY the rules- they were saved by the PROMISE.

Now, I want to make an observation given me by God that is waaay pertinent here.  A few months back, I discovered the "controversy" swirling around about the teachings of Andy Stanley, the son of Dr Charles Stanley of In Touch Ministries.  The controversy seems to stem from Stanley the Younger's teaching that if we want to gather today's lost, today's millenials, into the Church, we must "unhitch from the Old Testament."  Too many rules, too much archaic customs, too many differences between the actions of the old and new covenants- that was my sense of his point.

I will admit to not following his sermons and looking into his point.  So what I am about to say is based just on his pull quotes, and in particular the one above about unhitching, on its surface.

THAT is one of the dumber things ever said from a pulpit.

It came to me this week that both last week's verse and this week's show us that the Bible is just like a sermon.  The OT is the LESSON; the NT is the APPLICATION.  You can't teach application without lesson; the listener, without a reasoning before hand, will respond to the application with, "Why should I?"  IT REDUCES THE APPLICATION TO A SET OF RULES.

Is Andy Stanley a modern Judaizer?  I don't know, but application without lesson is what gave us the Pharisees.  That is why I have enjoyed this so much- we are finding the lesson to the application.  And this week, the application is this:

Yes, I stumble, yes I fall.  And if all I have is Law, that is enough to defeat me.  But we have faith, we have The Promise.  And so, we can rise again.