9. Abraham, Moses and Christ
The apostle Paul is still explaining ‘the truth of the gospel’, namely that salvation is a free gift of God, received through faith in Christ crucified, regardless of any human merit. He is emphasizing this because the Judaizers could not accept the principle of sola fides, ‘faith alone’. They insisted that we must contribute something to our salvation. So they were adding ‘the works of the law’ to faith in Jesus as another essential ground of acceptance with God.
The way Paul hammers home God’s plan of free salvation is from the Old Testament. In order to understand his argument, and to feel its force, we need to grasp both the history and the theology which lie behind its reasoning.
a. The history
Paul takes us back to about 2000 bc, to Abraham, and then on to Moses who lived some centuries later. Moses is not named here, but he is without doubt the ‘mediator’ (19) through whom the law was given.
Let me remind you of this part of the Old Testament story. God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees. He promised that he would give him numerous descendants, that he would give him and his descendants a land, and that through his descendants all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. These great promises of God to Abraham were confirmed to Abraham’s son Isaac, and then to Isaac’s son Jacob. But Jacob died outside the Promised Land, in Egyptian exile, to which a famine in Canaan had driven him. Jacob’s twelve sons died in exile too. Centuries passed. A period of 430 years is mentioned (17), which refers not to the time between Abraham and Moses, but to the duration of the captivity in Egypt (Exod. 12:40; cf. Gen. 15:13; Acts 7:6). Finally, centuries after Abraham, God raised up Moses, and through him both delivered the Israelites from their slavery and gave them the law at Mount Sinai. This, briefly, is the history which links Moses to Abraham.
b. The theology
God’s dealings with Abraham and Moses were based on two different principles. To Abraham he gave a promise (‘the land I will show you . . . I will bless you’, Gen. 12:1–2). But to Moses he gave the law, summarized in the Ten Commandments. ‘These two things (as I do often repeat),’ comments Luther, ‘to wit, the law and the promise, must be diligently distinguished. For in time, in place, and in person, and generally in all other circumstances, they are separate as far asunder as heaven and earth.’ Again, ‘unless the Gospel be plainly discerned from the law, the true Christian doctrine cannot be kept sound and uncorrupt.’ What is the difference between them? In the promise to Abraham God said, ‘I will . . . I will . . . I will . . .’ But in the law of Moses God said, ‘You shall . . . you shall not . . .’ The promise describes a religion of God – God’s plan, God’s grace, God’s initiative. But the law sets forth a religion of human achievement – human duty, human works, human responsibility. The promise (standing for the grace of God) had only to be believed. But the law (standing for human works) had to be obeyed. God’s dealings with Abraham were in the category of ‘promise’, ‘grace’ and ‘faith’. But God’s dealings with Moses were in the category of ‘law’, ‘commandments’ and ‘works’.
The conclusion to which Paul is leading is that the Christian religion is the religion of Abraham and not Moses, of promise and not law; and that Christians today are enjoying the promise which God made to Abraham centuries ago. But in this passage, having contrasted these two kinds of religion, he shows the relation between them. After all, the God who gave the promise to Abraham and the God who gave the law to Moses are the same God! Some commentators think that this is the meaning of the enigmatic phrase ‘God is one’ (20), namely that the God of Abraham and the God of Moses are one and the same God. We cannot set Abraham and Moses, the promise and the law, against each other, accepting the one and rejecting the other. If God is the author of both, he must have had some purpose for both. What, then, is the relation between them?
Paul divides his subject into two parts. Verses 15–18 are negative, teaching that the law did not set aside the promise of God. Verses 19–22 are positive, teaching that the law illuminated God’s promise and actually made it essential. Paul backs up the first part by an illustration from human affairs, and the second by answering two questions.
1. The law does not set aside the promise of God (3:15–18)
The apostle begins the paragraph: let me take an example from everyday life (15). This illustration is taken from the field of human promises, not a business contract but a will, what we sometimes call someone’s ‘last will and testament’. The Greek word in verses 15 and 17 (diathēkē) is translated covenant because it is used in the Septuagint for the covenants of God. But in classical Greek and the Papyri it was in common use for a will. (Cf. Heb. 9:15–17, where the two ideas of a covenant and a will are also linked together.)
The point Paul is making is that the wishes and promises which are expressed in a will are unalterable. It is true that in Roman law, as in English law today, people could change their will, either by making a new one or by adding codicils. For this reason Paul may be referring to ancient Greek law by which a will, once executed and ratified, could not be revoked or even modified. Or he may be saying that it cannot be altered or annulled by somebody else. It certainly cannot be altered by anybody after the person who made the will has died. Whatever the precise legal background may be, it is a convincing argument that if a human will cannot be set aside or added to, much more are the promises of God impossible to change.
What divine promise is he referring to? God promised an inheritance to Abraham and his descendants. Paul knew perfectly well that the immediate, literal reference of this promise was to the land of Canaan, which God was going to give to Abraham’s physical descendants. But he also knew that this did not exhaust its meaning; nor was it the ultimate reference in God’s mind. Indeed, it could not have been, for God said that all the peoples of the earth would be blessed through Abraham’s offspring, and how could the whole world be blessed through Jews living in the land of Canaan? Paul realized that both the ‘land’ which was promised and the ‘offspring’ to whom it was promised were ultimately spiritual. God’s purpose was not just to give the land of Canaan to the Jews, but to give salvation (a spiritual inheritance) to believers who are in Christ. Further, Paul argues, this truth was implied in the word God used, which was not the plural ‘children’ or ‘descendants’, but the singular seed or ‘offspring’, a collective noun referring to Christ and to all those who are in Christ by faith (16).
Such was God’s promise. It was free and unconditional. As we might say, there were ‘no strings attached’. There were no works to do, no laws to obey, no merit to establish, no conditions to fulfil. God simply said, ‘I will give you a seed. To your seed I will give the land, and in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed.’ His promise was like a will, freely giving the inheritance to a future generation. And like a human will, this divine promise is unalterable. It is still in force today, for it has never been withdrawn. God does not make promises in order to break them. He has never cancelled or modified his will.
We are now ready to consider verse 17: What I mean, Paul continues, is this: the law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. If the Judaizers were right, our Christian inheritance (justification) is given to those who keep the law; and if it depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise, because you cannot have it both ways. But God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise (18). Notice that he gave it. The Greek word kecharistai emphasizes both that it is a free gift (a gift of charis, ‘grace’) and that it has been given for good (the perfect tense). God has not gone back on his promise. It is as binding as a human will; indeed, more so. So every sinner who trusts in Christ crucified for salvation, quite apart from any merit or good works, receives the blessing of eternal life and thus inherits the promise of God made to Abraham.
2. The law illuminates the promise of God and makes it essential (3:19–22)
Paul now explains the true function of God’s law in relation to his promise by asking and answering two questions.
a. Question 1: ‘Why then . . . the law?’ (3:19–20)
One can almost hear the indignant outburst of one of the Judaizers, saying something like this: ‘Really, Paul, you are the limit! If it is through faith alone that we are in Christ and become beneficiaries of God’s promise to Abraham, what is the point of the law? Your theology so merges Abraham and Christ that you squeeze out Moses and the law altogether. There’s no room for the law in your gospel. You wicked, chaotic man, your message is like blasphemy. You are teaching “everyone everywhere against . . . our law”’ (Acts 21:28).
But Paul had his answer ready. The Judaizers misunderstood and misrepresented his position. He was far from declaring the law unnecessary, for he was quite clear that it had an essential part to play in the purpose of God. The function of the law was not to confer salvation, however, but to convince people of their need of it. To quote Andrew Jukes, ‘Satan would have us to prove ourselves holy by the law, which God gave to prove us sinners.’
The apostle’s own statement of the purpose of the law is given in verse 19: Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions. He expands on this in his epistle to the Romans: ‘through the law we become conscious of our sin’ (3:20); ‘where there is no law there is no transgression’ (4:15); and ‘I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law’ (7:7). So the law’s main work was to expose sin. It is the law which turns ‘sin’ into ‘transgression’, showing it up for what it is, a breach of the holy law of God. ‘It was added to make wrongdoing a legal offence’ (19, neb). It was intended to make plain the sinfulness of sin as a revolt against the will and authority of God. And it was added until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come (19). Thus, the law looked on to Christ, Abraham’s seed, as the Person through whom transgression would be forgiven.
The rest of verse 19 and verse 20 are acknowledged to be difficult. They have been interpreted in various ways. The apostle is probably emphasizing the inferiority of the law to the gospel. He says that the law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator (19b). The activity of angels in connection with the giving of the law is mentioned in Deuteronomy 33:2; Psalm 68:17; Acts 7:53; and Hebrews 2:2. The mediator is doubtless Moses. So when God gave the law he spoke through angels and through Moses. There were two intermediaries. But when God spoke the gospel to Abraham he did it directly, and that is probably the meaning of the phrase God is one (20). We can sum it up in the words of Bishop Stephen Neill: ‘the promise came to Abraham first-hand from God; and the law comes to the people third-hand – God – the angels – Moses the mediator – the people’.
b. Question 2: ‘Is the law . . . opposed to the promises of God?’ (3:21–22)
This second question is different from the first in that it seems to be addressed not to Paul by the Judaizers, but to the Judaizers by Paul. He is accusing them of doing just this, of making the law contradict the gospel, the promises of God. Their teaching was: ‘Keep the law and you will gain life.’ And they thought they were being practical! Paul denies it. Their position was purely hypothetical: if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law (21). But no such law has been given. Turning from hypothesis to reality, the fact is that nobody has ever kept the law of God. Instead, we sinners break it every day. Therefore, the law cannot justify us.
How, then, is it possible to create a harmony between the law and the promise? Only by seeing that we inherit the promise because we cannot keep the law, and that our inability to keep the law makes the promise all the more desirable, indeed essential. Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin (22), for the Old Testament plainly declares the universality of human sin; for example, ‘there is no one who does good, not even one’ (Ps. 14:3). And Scripture holds all sinners in prison for their sins, in order that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Luther expresses the matter with his usual forcefulness:
The principal point . . . of the law . . . is to make men not better but worse; that is to say, it sheweth unto them their sin, that by the knowledge thereof they may be humbled, terrified, bruised and broken, and by this means may be driven to seek grace, and so to come to that blessed Seed [Christ].
To summarize, the Judaizers held falsely that the law sets aside the promise and supersedes it; Paul teaches the true function of the law, which is to confirm the promise and make it indispensable.
3. Conclusion
The apostle’s categories sound foreign to our ears, and his argument is closely knit. Yet he is explaining some eternal truths here.
a. A truth about God
This could be expressed in the words of a well-known hymn: ‘God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.’ Some people seem to think of the Bible as a trackless jungle, full of contradictions, a tangled undergrowth of unrelated ideas. In fact, it is quite the opposite, for one of the chief glories of the Bible is its coherence. The whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation tells the story of God’s sovereign purpose of grace, his master plan of salvation through Christ.
Here the apostle Paul, with a breadth of vision which leaves us far behind, brings together Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ. In eight short verses he spans about two thousand years. He surveys practically the whole Old Testament landscape. He presents it like a mountain range, whose highest peaks are Abraham and Moses, and whose Everest is Jesus Christ. He shows how God’s promise to Abraham was confirmed by Moses and fulfilled in Christ. He teaches the unity of the Bible, especially the Old and New Testaments.
There is a great need in the church today for a biblical, Christian philosophy of history. Most of us are short-sighted and narrow-minded. We are so preoccupied with current affairs that neither the past nor the future has any great interest for us. We cannot see the wood for the trees. We need to step back and try to take in God’s everlasting purpose to redeem a people for himself through Jesus Christ. Our philosophy of history must make room not only for the centuries after Christ but for the centuries before him; not only for Abraham and Moses but for Adam, through whom sin and judgment entered the world, and for Christ, through whom salvation has come. If we include the beginning of history, we must include its end as well, when Christ returns in power and great glory, to take his power and reign. The God revealed in the Bible is working to a plan. He ‘works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will’ (Eph. 1:11).
b. A truth about human beings
After God gave the promise to Abraham, he gave the law to Moses. Why? Simply because he had to make things worse before he could make them better. The law exposed sin, provoked sin, condemned sin. The purpose of the law was, as it were, to lift the lid off our human respectability and disclose what we are really like underneath – sinful, rebellious, guilty, under the judgment of God, and helpless to save ourselves.
And the law must still be allowed to do its God-given duty today. One of the great faults of the contemporary church is the tendency to soft-pedal sin and judgment. Like false prophets we ‘dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious’ (Jer. 6:14; 8:11). This is how Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: ‘It is only when one submits to the law that one can speak of grace . . . I don’t think it is Christian to want to get to the New Testament too soon and too directly.’ We must never bypass the law and come straight to the gospel. To do so is to contradict the plan of God in biblical history.
Is this not why the gospel is unappreciated today? Some ignore it, others ridicule it. So in our modern evangelism we throw our pearls (the costliest pearl being the gospel) to pigs. People cannot see the beauty of the pearl because they have no conception of the filth of the pigsty. No-one has ever appreciated the gospel until the law has first revealed them to themselves. It is only against the inky blackness of the night sky that the stars begin to appear, and it is only against the dark background of sin and judgment that the gospel shines out.
Not until the law has bruised and smitten us will we admit our need of the gospel to bind up our wounds. Not until the law has arrested and imprisoned us will we long for Christ to set us free. Not until the law has condemned and killed us will we call upon Christ for justification and life. Not until the law has driven us to despair of ourselves will we ever believe in Jesus. Not until the law has humbled us even to hell will we turn to the gospel to raise us to heaven.