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Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 3 * PART 3 * BOOK 33
GALATIANS 3:15-29
In this lesson we will continue in Galatians chapter 3, and hopefully compare Scripture with Scripture. Let's pick up with verse 23.
Galatians 3:23a
"But before faith came, we were kept under the law,..." "Taking God at His word." Faith began just as soon as God dealt with Adam and Eve after they had sinned. Adam had to take God at His word. So what does this verse mean?
Galatians 3:23a
"But before faith came..." Galatians 3:23a
"....before the faith way came we were kept under the law..."
I'm always teaching that we're not under Law, but rather under Grace, and Grace says, "Keep the Law?" No Grace says, "By Faith, and Faith alone + nothing!" Before the faith way, before men and women could be saved by faith + nothing, without the Law, but before that came in - and here Paul goes back and speaks as a Jew -
Galatians 3:23a
"...we were kept under the law..."
So before the faith way Israel was under the burden of the Law constantly 24 hours a day. Galatians 3:23b
"...shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed."
God didn't tell everything up in front, and so when He gave the Law did He tell Israel and the rest of the world that one day Christ would die and all of a sudden the word, Grace? So here they went 1500 years under the Law and then progressively God reveals these tremendous doctrines of Grace through the apostle Paul. So paraphrasing verse 23 it says, "So before the faith way came we were kept under the Law shut up during this time with no alternative way out, until the faith which should afterwards be revealed." I'm always referring to Paul's use of that word, so come back with me to the Ephesians chapter 3 and let's look at verse 9. Ephesians 3:9
It had been kept secret all the way up through the Old Testament, there was not a word about God going to Gentiles with the Gospel of the Grace of God. As we saw a recently in Galatians 3:14 that salvation came to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, but in the Old Testament it was supposed to have been through the Nation of Israel. Israel was to be the light to the Gentiles, Israel was to be the vehicle, but they dropped the ball, they rejected it in unbelief. And then what did God do? He opened up the windows heaven of Grace through the apostle Paul, and revealed to that man these secrets that had been kept in the mind of God all the way up through the Old Testament economy. Romans 15:4a
learning,..."
Romans 15:4a
Galatians 3:24a
"Wherefore (because of how God is dealing on a progressive revelation.. Wherefore) the law..."
Sometimes the Law speaks of that whole system of Judaism. The ceremonial law, the civil law, and the moral law. Galatians 3:24a
"Wherefore the law (the Ten Commandments) was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ,..."
Well for 1500 years Israel was under the Law, and it was a system, by which God was training them and teaching them, and hopefully bringing them to the place where they would be mature understanding believing Jews. That's what God was hoping for. Galatians 3:24b
"...the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified (now not by Law keeping but) by faith."
Now you want to remember that all the way from Exodus chapter 20 Israel was under the Law, and of course it was still the operation of faith that brought an individual Jew into a right relationship with God, but it was Law and faith, There was no such thing as faith + nothing, as I teach, until the Law was totally, totally satisfied at the Cross. And when Christ died He satisfied the demands of the Law in my place and yours. UNBELIEF!
Unbelief. Their unbelief was just simply awful.. God said, "There it is, take it!" So God condescended, but that wasn't His first intent. God said, "Go in and take it!" Unbelief! The horror of unbelief.
Unbelief. The nation refuses to take this as the Word of God, and we're suffering for it. Paul makes a big deal of it, especially in Hebrews chapter 3. Why was God so provoked with that generation? Unbelief! And you see this all the way up through Scripture, how that mankind refused to believe the Word of God. Now let's move on with verse 25.
Galatians 3:25
Being saved by faith + nothing in what God has said. Once we come to that place in God's economy in this progressive revelation now then we are no longer under a schoolmaster. Galatians 3:26
"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."
So we're children of God not by keeping the Law, but by faith in Christ Jesus. Paul never speaks that just believing that He was the Messiah. When Paul speaks by faith in Christ he's talking about faith in that finished work of redemption. You have got your mind in the wrong places.

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