Down-to-Earth Spirituality: Stand on God’s Promise( Gal.14-29)                                      2008.07.20    Pastor Richard Yu  

Are you fully convinced that God keeps His promises? Do you really trust His word that you can bet your whole life on His word? Let’s take a look at the nature of God’s promise the way the Apostle Paul tells it to the Galatian believers and see how it speaks to your own spiritual walk.

Thus far in this letter, Paul has argued in defense of the true Gospel that life in Christ comes to the believers by grace through faith alone; and is entirely apart from any works of the Law. Furthermore, the experience of the Spirit as saving presence in the believer’s life is that which makes anyone a Christian. It is the dynamic transforming work of the Spirit that changes anyone from a non-Christian to a Christian. Not only does the believer begins his life in Christ with the work of the Spirit, he must continue such life in the Spirit also, and not go back living the old mind-set of relying on human efforts or law-keeping.

Now he continues to argue for his case in terms of God’s promise – specifically, the promise of the Spirit (v. 14). On account of faith, we have received the promise of the Spirit, and together with the Jews, we share in common the blessing given to Abraham in a promise made by God. In Eph. 1:13, Paul gives us another clue to the meaning of this phrase: “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” Paul is saying that the dynamic experience of the Spirit in the lives of the believers, both Jews and Gentiles, means that God has brought about the new covenant, which has been anticipated as early as the time in Jer. 31:31-34, and Ezek. 36-37.

Through out this section of passage, “promise” is the operative word. Here Paul is saying that the fact that Gentile converts have already received the gift of the Spirit, whom God has promised to send into His people in the last days, proves that righteousness is not by works of Law but by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.

The promise God made to Abraham and his seed is like an irrevocable trust agreement. It is a trust which cannot be changed or canceled once it is executed without the consent of the beneficiary.  In this trust agreement, Abraham and his seed is the beneficiary of the trust (v. 16); the condition for inheritance is nothing less than the sheer grace of God (v. 18). On the basis of this “everyday analogy” and the promise made by God to Abraham and his offspring, Paul stresses that (1) Christ as Abraham’s one true offspring is the one who singularly inherits the promise made to Abraham; and (2) the coming of the Law some 430 years after the promise was made to Abraham cannot set aside that promise.

The promise has to do with “the inheritance,” which most likely has to do with becoming God’s children in the new era through the work of Christ and the Spirit, and especially with the inclusion of Gentiles among God’s people. In other words, this inheritance is realized, or became ours, through the coming of the Holy Spirit.

But there is an issue in the minds of the Jews. “Why the Law at all? Does the Law then stand over against the promise of God?” Paul’s answer is simply this: If a particular form, or an expression, of the Law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would indeed be possible via the works of the Law. But the problem with the Law is that it is not accompanied by the Spirit. It functioned only to keep people restrained awaiting the fulfillment of the promise, which was to be given to those who believe. The Law can only make people realize that they are sinners, but it cannot motivate or enable people to confess that they are sinners and seek God’s grace.

Today, we can stand on God’s promise because we have already received the promised Spirit, through whom all the blessings God had promised to Abraham and his offspring have been given to those who have faith. The trust Abraham had in God and in God’s promise provides us with an excellent example of how a person of faith can and should live today; and that it is good to live a life of trust knowing God is truly faithful (cf. Heb. 11:11).

We stand on the promise of God to bring us into the final consummation of His kingdom on earth; trusting that since He has been faithful to His promise in sending His Son to accomplish the full redemption of His People, and sending His Spirit to seal those redeemed, we can trust Him to bring us into His kingdom by His Spirit, and not reverting to human efforts.