I might should have included today’s Verse in yesterday’s Lesson, yesterday’s discussion. About angels and the Law, the Law of Moses.

“Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.” Galatians 3:20

Although admittedly the Sentence (its first half) is somewhat difficult to comprehend, its Essence is fairly clear, in context I mean.

It means: if something requires a mediator … there are of necessity two parties (at least) involved! Quite logical!

But God entered into agreement (covenant) with Abraham … and Abraham did NOTHING to receive those blessings! Abraham just “believed!”

No mediator was required.

No Moses.

No Law.

No Mountain.

No anything, anybody!

Well then, Who initiated such a Covenant?

God!

God alone, without aid from any human, certainly!

And (the rest of our Verse) … “God is one.”

Wow!

So Peter could truly preach: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts 4:12

Or, even earlier, Jesus could teach: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6, remember … God and Jesus are One! (We believe in the Trinity, folks!)

Or Paul: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:9-10

Salvation … not through the Law (as mediator).

Not through an angel (as mediator) either.

But ONLY through God, Who is one!

Hallelujah!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

A Greek scholar expresses the Verse like this: “Now the mediator or go-between [in a transaction] is not [needed] for just one party; whereas God is only one [and was the only One giving the promise to Abraham, but the Law was a contract between two, God and Israel; its validity depended on both].” Expanded, but accurate!

 

Paul nearly tells us something (about the Law of Moses) in Galatians 3:19, that last clause, that it not blatantly mentioned in the Old Testament, at all!

Specifically:  “… and it (the Law of Moses) was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” As I have just indicated, “it” being the Law!

But yet again I emphasize, this fact is not definitely told us by Moses … at least not anywhere in his Exodus Account of the Receiving of God’s Law, there on Mount Sinai. Not that I can find, for sure!

But now Stephen, the martyred Deacon/Preacher, as he testified before an angry mob … proclaimed: “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: who (the Prophet Moses for the Jews) have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.” Acts 7:52-54

Stephen believed in those “angels” at Sinai!

But Psalm 68:17 may be the “clincher!” There David wrote: “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.” According to David (the Psalmist) here … Not just one angel at Sinai (Was this when the Law was being given?), but thousands of them!

Then … maybe … Deuteronomy 33:1-2 will help … “And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.” With the noun “saints” perhaps carrying the meaning of “angels.” Literally here “saints” (“qodesh” in Hebrew) means “holy ones.”

Then Paul (the writer of Hebrews at least) perhaps had angels at Sinai in mind when he wrote, warned certain Jewish Christians: “For if the word (the Law?) spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.” Hebrews 2:2-3

Wow!

From these Scriptural “possibilities” or “verities” (you decide as the Holy Ghost leads you) … Paul certainly was convinced that angels “mediated” the Law, right alongside Moses, on the Mount those days long ago!

And since the Same Holy Spirit “inspired” Paul to write these words in Galatians 3:19 … I am accepting this information as Fact! Angels were there! I’ll take my Bible as inerrant, praise the Lord!

But still, what is Paul’s “point” this morning?

“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.” Galatians 3:19 our Text for the past few days now!

Paul is certainly here saying the Law is “inferior” to Jesus!

The Law needed a “mediator,” and that’s not just Moses now, but the angels too! Maybe even thousands of them!

But for real Salvation, God Himself came to earth! Yes, Jesus IS God the Son! (God did not entrust some middle-man!) Not in getting sinners saved, and into Heaven!

And by the way … Jesus is “better” than the angels! (Explicitly stated in Hebrews 1:4 … “Being made … Jesus Christ … so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” Amen!)

All Paul is saying (still preaching the same Theme) is that the Law is NOT the way of salvation! God designed a Better Way, Jesus Christ and His Shed Blood! 

To which we should all be shouting, “Hallelujah!”

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

This Lesson has been very enlightening to me, as a Preacher. I trust it will help your understanding of the Superiority of Jesus as well.

 

“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.” Galatians 3:19, the unusual red print indicating today’s Text!

“Till” here (“achri” in Greek) simply means “until” in English, as you would suspect.

People are NOT to serve the Law!

The LAW was given by God TO SERVE the PEOPLE!

The Law was a needed “addition” to God’s overall Plan, man having sinned as he did. Sinned serially, again and again! The Law reveals God’s Holy Standard of proper behavior! His “Code” of Righteousness!

Romans 3:10 … “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” This is Paul at his best, on the subject of the Law!

Romans 7:17 … Paul’s personal testimony even! “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”

Wow!

And all this … “UNTIL THE SEED SHOULD COME!”

What Seed, Who is this coming One?

I certainly believe it is JESUS, God’s Darling Son!

The One who could remove the transgressions the Law so clearly revealed!

But get this about Jesus, about the True, Ultimate Seed of Abraham … yet God the Son as well … “till the Seed should come … to Whom the promise was made!”

God made Jesus a Promise?

Yes.

About His Saviourhood, I think.

That if Jesus would come to earth and die, a Body of people would believe on Him and make Him Lord of their lives! Peter speaks of a Lamb, of Christ … “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world.” (1 Peter 1:20) And in Isaiah 53 Jesus is prophesied to (at Calvary) … “SEE HIS SEED (future Believers), He shall prolong his days (His Resurrection), and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant JUSTIFY MANY; for he shall BEAR THEIR INIQUITIES.”

Praise the Lord! 

The Law … effective to show humankind their sins … TILL Jesus came and died for those sins! (And now, for the Christian, Jesus IS the Law, the Everything we need!)

Soul winners, it is still appropriate to use the Law of Moses … to show people how far “short” they have come of the Righteousness (the Glory) of God!

Then, once the lost man is convicted of his dangerous position … point him to Jesus as Saviour!

Wow!

What a Plan!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

Maybe today, in a single clause, Paul is teaching us that the Law (the Old Testament Legislation given by God on Mount Sinai to Moses) would have never been necessary … had man not sinned in the Garden of Eden. (Or sinned repeatedly since the Garden, for that matter!) Forget the “maybe” I just used, this is a “fact!” 

Galatians 3:19 … “It (the Law) was added because of transgressions ….”

Wow!

Eve and Adam sinned around 4,000 BC, Biblical conservatives believe. So did their children and grandchildren! All their posterity have sinned … egregiously! (Including you and me, their rather distant relatives!)

The Law was given (roughly) 1,500 BC, years and years after the first human transgression. Twenty-five centuries later! 

Still … Paul claims it (under the Guidance of the Holy Spirit too) … “It (the Law) was added because of transgressions ….”

That Greek word “added” is interesting. It is a blend of a preposition and a verb, really … “pro” + “tithemi” … meaning “to place” something right “in front of” a person! God “dropped” the Law on Israel because they needed to know some Standard of His Righteousness! A “direct hit,” you might say!

By the way, the noun “law” is “nomos,” meaning “anything established, a custom, something that has been acknowledged by lots and lots of accepted “usage!” These many precepts (613 of them) of the Law reveal God’s (normal, approved) Way of conducting human life!

Wow!

It is as if man needed some sort of “yardstick” (a gauge”) to show him how far short he was living in respect to God’s Perfect Standard! 

The Law is NOT a means of salvation!

It is a means of showing us what dirty sinners we are, in God’s Eyes!

How terribly we fail in being really “godly!”

In this sense, the Law is good!

Now tomorrow morning we shall learn of a precious Adjunct to this “why-we-need-the-Law” proposition, Declaration.

Sort of a Termination (better word, “Fulfillment”) to the Law!

One might almost say … JESUS IS THE LAW, anymore!

But now, I am getting ahead of myself.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

Today I merely plan to “introduce” our Text verse. We shall return to it again Monday morning, the Lord willing.

And the Verse?

Galatians 3:19, pivotal in several ways!

“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.”

This Saturday, just that opening question!

“Wherefore then serveth the law?”

Paul seems to have “downplayed” the Law for nearly three (in Galatians) chapters now. And here (surprisingly) he suggests it does have some value! 

The verb “serveth” is purposely “italicized” in our King James Bibles. Look at your Copy and you’ll see what I mean. The King James Translators (all scholars in their own right, back in the early 1600s) were thus (by italicization) showing us a word (sometimes a group of words) not in the original (Greek or Hebrew) Text. They did this for the sake of clarity, lucidity in understanding the “intent” of the Scripture verse at hand. (Hundreds, if not thousands of such italicized instances occur within our Bible’s 1,189 chapters.)

So … “Wherefore then serveth the law?”

But they (the team of translators who worked on Galatians) sure did a good job!

Paul wants to tell us what the Law is really designed to do, the “service” it performed in God’s overall Plan, in God’s Will!

The Greek here is “tis oun ho nomos.” 

Literally, “WHY THE LAW THEN?”

Or, “THEN WHY THE LAW?”

Paul will answer that question immediately, at least partially so.

He adds other reasons for the Law’s existence elsewhere in his Corpus, his Writings.

A Christian is never to “bad-mouth” the Law of God, within itself.

It is our Friend, when properly used.

But it is a horror when preached as a means of salvation!

Never minimize God’s Word! (And do remember the Law of Moses essentially spans Exodus through Deuteronomy, a lot of Bible Territory!)

Every Line (yes, of the Law too) divinely inspired!

Just be careful to rightly divide it!

As I’ve said, more Monday morning, the Lord willing.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Meanwhile, thank God for His marvelous Grace!