Promise

What is the most significant promise you have ever made and then kept? Conversely, what is the most important promise you have ever made and then broken? How do you feel when someone makes a promise to you? What do you expect from them?

A promise is a vow to follow through on something. Promises are meant to be kept, and breaking them has consequences. We expect others to keep their promises, and our view of them changes if they fail. God made many promises in the Bible, and the way He kept His promises revealed His character and secured glorious consequences for His children.

The Judaizers had Paul in a corner. He had just finished proving from the Old Testament that God’s plan of salvation left no room for the works of the Law. But the fact that Paul quoted six times from the Old Testament raised a serious problem: If salvation does not involve the Law, then why was the Law given in the first place? Paul quoted from the Law to prove the insignificance of the Law. If the Law is now set aside, then his very arguments are worthless because they are taken from the Law.

Our faith is a logical faith and can be defended on rational grounds. While there are divine mysteries in the faith that no man can fully explain, there are religious reasons that any sincere person can understand. Paul was trained as a Jewish rabbi and was fully equipped to argue his case. In this section, he makes four statements that help us understand the relationship between promise and Law.

Take a moment to read Galatians 3:15-18. How did Paul understand the idea of a promise? What did it entail? What didn’t it entail? What were some of the promises that God made to Abraham? How is Christ the fulfillment of the promise of offspring? What is the difference between the Law and the promise? How do the Law and the promise work together?

Paul understood that a promise could not be changed or altered; once it was made, it was final. In this text, he focused on the promise of offspring to Abraham. God’s promise was not focused on many descendants, but now, Jesus Christ. Paul wanted the Galatians to know that nothing would change the promises of God, including the Law. The Law came 430 years after the promise to Abraham, but the Law, just like the promise, was meant to point God’s people to Christ.

In concluding this section, Why did Paul say the Law exists? Look at the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. How do we break these most basic “rules” of life every day? What is revealed about our lives when we look at the standard set by the Law? How does that make you feel about yourself? How does God intend for you to feel?

The purpose of the Law was to show our desperate need for God. The Law sets the standard for righteousness and highlights our sinfulness and need for a Savior. What does God’s intervention through Christ reveal about God’s plan? What does it reveal about God’s feelings towards us?

A quick review of the Ten Commandments shows how easily we fall short of God’s standard. Our inability to fulfill the Law proves we need a mediator between God and us. That’s precisely what Jesus’ death on the cross was all about. By embracing faith as the basis for our relationship with God, we move from attempting to please Him and earn His love to being adopted children blanketed in Christ’s righteousness. Paul wrote that we are “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (v. 26). By faith, we become Christians saved by God’s grace, and we live as Christians, furthering His kingdom and spreading the gospel. As believers in God, our works become acts of obedience and faithfulness that mirror His love for the world.

Friends, ask God to remind you of His promises continuously. Then, pray that you would focus on Christ fulfilling the promise and the Law. Finally, pray that Christ would be glorified at our church as you proclaim who He is and what He has done.