The Promise

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

THE PROMISE

Gal 3:15-18

15 Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ.   17 What I mean 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. 18 For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

NIV

Paul is still laying out in a very carefully crafted destruction of the theology of the Jews who were insisting the Gentiles be circumcised in order to become like Jews to become a believer. Those Jews wanted the Gentiles to follow the law in order to receive salvation. It is clear God made the promise to Abraham before the law. The promise was that all nations would be blessed through his seed and here Paul makes it clear the seed is Jesus, not the seeds as in many people. So then we should consider ourselves children of the promise. If then the promise was given so many years before the law, why then do we have so much of our lives wrapped up in trying to live by a form of the law? It seems we get more concerned about what we are not supposed to do, as least as far as certain activities, but we do not spend much thought as to what we are supposed to do, both in our attitudes and activities. Even then we ignore many of the negative attitudes we should not engage in and forget or ignore many of the positive attitudes. But we should also be careful not to make the beatitudes into a form of law as we live by the promise. Our salvation, our lives are based on the promise, Jesus. Because we know that if we try to live by some form of law, then if we break just one little jot or tittle of that form of law, we are guilty of the whole ball of wax. We have failed to live up to our form of law. What do we do then, if we look to that form of law as a means of being holy and righteous, or at least appear holy and righteous, such as the Pharisees did? Let’s face it, we cannot do anything to be holy and righteous. As much as we try to live up to all the standards we think God established for us or for those we established for ourselves, we cannot. We will always fail. We talk about justification as a one-time act of God, but this sanctification is a process. It is defined, in short, as the act or process of acquiring sanctity, of being made or become holy. If we think any of our efforts count, we might well be sadly mistaken. God is the one who started this good work in us and he is the one who will bring it to completion. How can one who is living in a corruptible body make itself holy? Only God who is holy can produce in us that which he is, holy. He makes us holy, we cannot. What we can do is allow, or submit to that which God desires to do in us, but it is still God who does it.   All we can do is live according to the promise.