Amen. Indeed, the faithfulness of our covenant God and let us turn now and read concerning those covenants. Our text for this morning. Galatians chapter three versus 15 to 22. I'll say before we begin this morning, there is some slight changes to the outline We're going to essentially take the second point and consider that next week. So that's one God, which was especially coming from the language from the middle of 19 to the end of verse 20. We're really going to consider that next week, Lord willing. Galatians 3.15 through 4 verse 7 is all very interwoven. There's too much going on to try to take it all in one week. But we should very much think of this and next week as being part one and part two of kind of one bigger sermon. And so we're going to move one offspring, that will be our second point. So instead of one God, point two is one offspring. And point one is now one inheritance. So the three points are now one inheritance, one offspring, one liberator, and we'll return to the idea of one God next week. It's really, it's not the easiest phrase to understand there with the intermediaries and what's going on. It's really more fully explained in the verses that come after. That then being our outline, let us read Galatians chapter 3 verses 15 to 22. Let us hear the word of God. To give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring, It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ. This is what I mean. The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. So far the reading, the grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, imagine walking into a courthouse 430 days after someone has died and holding a will in your hand and saying, this will must be changed. I did not receive the inheritance that I should have received. What this says should be changed and it should say this instead. Well, I don't think that would go over very well, would it? A will cannot be changed once the benefactor, once the person who wrote the will has deceased. It can't be changed whether it's 430 days later or 430 years later or 43 hours later. It doesn't matter. You can't change it. You can't walk into a courthouse and change that. It's been ratified. It is once the person who has made the will is deceased, that's it. It is finalized. Now the testament, the covenant, covenant promises of God, they are ratified in a different way than by his death. But the point of this passage is that the covenant God made with Abraham is not something that can be changed after the fact. It would be absurd if someone tried to pull off that courtroom scenario we just described. It would be equally even more absurd to think that something which comes after the promise made to Abraham can change that promised inheritance. No, the law, which came more than 400 years later, can in no way change. It does not add to, it does not take away from the sure promise, the inheritance promises that God made to Abraham. Through and through, from start to finish, God's covenant is not dependent upon man. And man's obedience or lack of obedience to the law, the law itself, does not change the promise that God gave to Abraham. And so now we come to our three points. Again, our first point is now one, inheritance. There are a few similarities, we've already touched on this a little bit, but there are a few similarities that we can walk through that make the illustration of the Last Will and Testament an especially useful human example, as the Apostle says. There are also at least two important differences. First, let's walk through the similarities. First, both the Last Will and Testament And the covenant promises that God made to Abraham involve gifts of inheritance. Different kinds of inheritance. Obviously, there's only one eternal inheritance, but they both involve inheritance. And so, this man-made example, this human example of a man-made covenant, especially of the last will and testament, is a good illustration. They both involve inheritance. Second, as we've already considered in our opening words. Once these kinds of wills have been ratified, finalized, they cannot be changed. It's another similarity. And third, these are both one-sided guarantees. There are two words in the Greek for speaking about covenants that the Greek world would use for speaking about man-made covenants. This is the word that focuses on a promise that has a one-party guarantee. It's the one-party covenant word. We can think about it this way because even to this day we have two-party agreements and one-party agreements, right? When you have the purchasing or selling of a car, that's a two-party agreement, right? Both the seller and the buyer must put their signature on the deed in order for the transfer of the sale to be made. And so that title, that pledged agreement, is only finalized with signatures from both sides. I'm not very familiar with Last Will and Testaments, there probably is something that the person receiving it has to sign. But essentially, it's a one-sided thing. It's the benefactor who's giving it to the beneficiaries. And it really just requires the benefactor's action, his one-sided guarantee, his one signature or her one signature. And so in the Greek world, you have the kind of together with, that together with kind of two-party covenant, and then you have the word for one-party covenant. This is the one-party covenant word. And that is the same as the binding agreements of the covenant promises of God to Abraham. That's a one-sided guarantee, a one-sided pledge. Abraham receiving it, God being the one party giving it. Now, two important differences. Two important differences between this human example of this man-made covenant and God's covenant promise to Abraham. The first one is is that God's covenant is not man-made. It's divine. And so there's the distinction between a man-made covenant and a God-made divine covenant. The second difference is, and we've already mentioned this just a little bit, but let's dig into this. They are ratified, of course, in different ways, because God cannot die. So the last will and testament, that's finalized. You can't change it anymore once someone has died. That's how it's ratified. But how was God's covenant promise to Abraham ratified, finalized? Because the apostle says it was previously ratified. He says that in the middle of verse 17. It was previously ratified before the law was given. Let us turn back to Genesis. God's words to Abraham and his care for Abraham occur through a number of chapters, but we see the ratifying act the sealing of the promise, we might say, in Genesis chapter 15. And God does not do this by dying. Again, of course, God cannot die. But God does do this by making a self-maledictory oath, a promise that if God does not do this, he will call a curse upon himself and die. That's how surely he makes and ratifies the promise. That's what we see in Genesis 15. And so we read from verse 8 to 17. And Abraham said, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? And he, that is God, said to him, bring me a heifer, three years old, a female goat, three years old, a ram, three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Again, Abram is the receiving party. He is not the active one making the guarantee. Abraham is sleeping. And behold, a dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. And the Lord said to Abraham, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve. And afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here to the promised land in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. And the sun, when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces. And on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, to your offspring, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, to the land of the Canaanites, the Kazites, the Ketamites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephraim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Gergesites, and the Jebusites. I'm defining this land that I am giving. And I am passing through these animals cut in two and saying, if I do not give this promise, such will happen to me. A self-maledictory oath, an oath saying, such will come upon me if I do not fulfill this promise. It's not ratified by God's death. It is ratified by his promise that if he does not do it, he will call a curse upon himself. Of course, God cannot do, so it speaks to the surety of what God will do. And it is, of course, much different than any way we can make an oath. So then, so then, understanding what a man-made covenant is, and knowing the history of what God's covenant to Abraham is, Surely, end of verse 17, the law does not make this void. Nothing can make this void. Nothing can get rid of the promise that God made to Abraham. The promise is life by faith. The law and nothing else can undo this, cannot add to it, change it, It is God's promise. The lawlessness of man and the law of God itself cannot make it void. Nothing can make it void. There is one inheritance. Even as it's one inheritance that is concentrated and does point especially to one offspring. That takes us to our second point. one offspring. Again, the promises to Abraham are restated. They are sealed as we read through Genesis 12 to 17 and then following. The clearest passage, the one referring to the one offspring that the Apostle now appeals to comes towards the end of those accounts in Genesis chapter 22. In Genesis 22, we see especially clearly a distinction between the nations who will be blessed and the one offspring through whom the nations will be blessed. And so Genesis 22, verses 16 to 18. And he said, by myself I have sworn. We just read of that, didn't we? By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and not withheld your son, your only son, so this is in the context of Isaac was just brought up to the mountain and then God provided the ram and the goat for the sacrifice. I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. Offspring. Now that could be understood in either a plural or a singular way, couldn't it? It's a collective noun. It can refer to one or it can refer to many. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. Wait, his is singular. So already we're seeing in the Old Testament there's something, there's one special offspring, isn't there? And then verse 18, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. Now again, in the Hebrew and in the English, that's a word that could be referring to a single offspring or to a collective, many offspring. And the apostle is telling us on no uncertain terms, you see this word back here, the word about one offspring through whom the blessings would come, don't understand it in the plural way, understand that one in the singular way. And the Old Testament is showing us this. The Old Testament is showing us that there is a concentration, even as all of the descendants of Abraham are the Israelites, even as all of his descendants, including Ishmael, and all of his house are circumcised, there's one, right? It's not Ishmael. There's one that it's concentrated in. It's Isaac. And then it's concentrated again, not in Esau, but in Jacob. And then it's concentrated many years later, even with another additional promise of ruling authority tied to it, not in Saul, but in David. Those were both descendants of Abraham, but it's concentrated again. And then this is all a winnowing, a concentration, leading down to the one offspring in whom, finally, it is completely concentrated and focused. That is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Only one. Only one through whom the nations will be blessed. Maybe you're thinking, Pastor, didn't we just talk about how we're all sons and daughters of Abraham? Yes. And there is a blessing to the many offspring, but it is through the one offspring. We must be in the one offspring, Jesus Christ. Faith in Him. All of it's pointed to Him. All the promises are yes and amen in Jesus Christ. This is one of those places where we clearly see, do we not, all of the Old Testament is bringing us to this one, our Lord and Savior. He is the Savior in whom we must trust and believe. It is in Jesus Christ that you are all sons of God through faith, as it says in verse 26. Or to read ahead again into verse 29, and which pulls it back to the language of inheritance again, verse 29, and if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. If you are in the one offspring Christ, then you are part of the plural offspring, who have that one inheritance. That pulls the first and second point together, doesn't it? I said, 15 all the way through 4 verse 7 is very interwoven, isn't it? Jesus Christ. But now we will ask, if the law doesn't add or take away from the promise to Abraham, does it serve any purpose at all? And related to this, we might add, why does everything have to be concentrated on the one offspring, Jesus Christ? What is he saving us from? Well, these things are both answered. Those two questions are both answered in our third point. because Jesus Christ is the one liberator and what he liberates us from is the imprisonment of everything under sin to use the language of verse 22 which the law clearly shows us because in verse 19 why do we have a law because of transgressions to show us that we are transgressors And so, for example, we would read in Romans 3, verse 20, therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law. Rather, through the law, we become conscious of our sin. Why then the law? Because of transgressions it had to show us what the transgressions are and what the severity of not being in accordance with the law is. That's something which the law shows us so clearly, doesn't it? The Mosaic Law. What is involved in the Mosaic Law? Not normally all these details and we could talk about all kinds of things, right? We could talk about cleanness and uncleanness, but let's focus on two things that the law shows us. Both tied to blood and the severe penalties of the law. Both tied to blood and the severe penalties of the law. How does the law show us transgressions? Well, the one way is in the fact that when you disobey the law, there's all kinds of death penalties tied to the law. There's all kinds of death penalties, aren't there? Nine of the Ten Commandments, there's death penalties. Nine of the Ten Commandments, in specific situations, there's death penalties. You say a few words of blasphemy against God, what is the penalty for that in the nation of Israel? What are they supposed to do? It's supposed to carry out the death penalty by stoning of the congregation. What if you're a foreigner and you walk into the land and you don't know that? What if you don't think it's any big deal to just flippantly use God's name and blaspheme His name? It's not only the people of Israel, Leviticus 24 tells us, it's also the foreigner that you must take and stone when he blasphemes the name of God. A few words, a few words, so serious? Absolutely. Absolutely. Not just blasphemy, but nine of the 10 commandments in one way or another have a death penalty tied to them. You work on Sunday. That man is stoned. You disobey your parents. That man is stoned. Now, very often people of God did not carry these things out. And under Roman rule, they had really no way to carry it out. The Romans did not allow them to. And it is true, you could make an appeal to the king to have a death penalty removed, and the king could make an appeal to God himself to have the death penalty removed. That's why David is not killed. The Psalms tell us that's what he did. There's a death penalty tied to the law. You steal something like Acre, what's the penalty? Stoned by the congregation. What does that show us? Do we sit there, when we read those accounts, when we read at the end of Leviticus 24 that they did stone a man for blaspheming on that day, what do we say? Do we say, that's terrible. Someone's stoned for just saying a few words. No, no. We stand back and we say, this is showing us what Disobedience to God's holy law really deserves. And you know what, people of God? It's not that there could have been or should have been less. It's that there could have been, there should have been more. Now, man can't judge the heart. So the judges of Israel, they were not called to execute the death penalty upon the 10th commandment themselves. But that's what God does because the wages of sin, of all sin, is death. And when Paul goes on, and after saying that in Romans 6, to speak about what the law showed him, he specifically points out that the law showed him that coveting is sin. And if it had not told me that, I wouldn't have thought that, right? We, by nature, don't want to think that's sin. There was a pastor one time. He was sitting down with a non-Christian friend who was a police officer. They're in a diner. Let's just say the police officer made it very obvious that he was looking at the waitress. And then the pastor gave his friend a different kind of look and it was very clear to the police officer that his pastor friend was now looking at him for a different reason. And he basically said, Well, are you going to tell me that what I just did is a sin? I'm a police officer. I uphold the law. I know that I didn't just break any laws. I didn't just commit adultery. I've broken no laws. Are you going to tell me that's a sin? The pastor says, the Lord Jesus told us, it's not only do not commit adultery, it's do not lust. Yes, that is sin. Oh, come on. Oh, come on. Oh, come on. That was the response. People of God, there should not be less death penalties in the Old Testament. There could be more. There are as many as there are to show us the severe penalty which God can justly enact against every sin made against His holy name and His holy law. We should not read the passages of of those stoned for blasphemy, for dishonoring their parents, and think this is so cruel. We must read it and say, this is what we all deserve. This is what the law brings. We are transgressors. That's the very purpose of the law, to show us our transgressions. We are imprisoned. That's the language of our text, right? We are enslaved, as scripture also says. This is why the law was given. to show us these things to show us the serious nature of sin and and and to get past the death penalties to summarize what about all those other little commandments. Hebrews 9.22 actually summarizes that. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. What's the author of Hebrews saying there? He's saying, look, there wasn't a death penalty of humans for everything, but for everything, there was shedding of blood through sacrifices. There were times when the blood literally flowed like water through the streets of Jerusalem. Why? To show That sin requires the death and the spilling of blood to be removed, to be forgiven. All of that pointing to what? Pointing to the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what we're celebrating this morning. That there is a once for all sacrifice that brought an end to that. And it brought an end to that imprisonment in the sense of now we don't need the signs and symbols and shadows anymore. We know what Christ has done. We know the severe penalty that law requires because we know of the suffering of Jesus Christ upon the cross, which is the once for all suffering that really does take away sins and not only looks forward to it. This is what we celebrate. This is what we come and remember and rejoice in this morning. Take, eat, and believe. Be comforted, then, that though the law really does imprison, though it really does show us our transgressions and the severe penalty against transgressors of God's holy law, there is a liberator, the one offspring. The one offspring is the one liberator from all of this. Why then the law was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. He has come. He has delivered. There was an imprisonment. We needed to be shown all of the severity until Jesus Christ came and showed it in his very own blood on the cross. And now, now we look at that. Now we look at that. That's so much greater. That perfect love. that liberating sacrifice. Now, I'll say at least once more that as we're working through these heavy middle chapters, this doesn't mean that we have a freedom to disobey the law. No, we're talking about the foundation of salvation. We're talking about the root of salvation. We'll get to the fruit and the restatement of the summary of the law in Galatians 5. That's coming. But the first thing the law could do was only show us that we are sinners who need that one Savior, Jesus Christ. Let that full understanding of our sins be the dark sky against which the bright glory of salvation in Jesus Christ shines. remembering and celebrating what he has done to forgive our transgressions. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, we give thanks that the blood no longer needs to flow like water through the streets. because the divine blood of Jesus Christ has once for all been spilled for us. Drive us in every way then to know our sins, to confess our sins and know the penalty that we stand under, the imprisonment that we are in, but then to rejoice that by faith in the one liberator we are forgiven. Lord, make that the prayer of each one of us. Forgive us. Give us life by the blood of the one Deliverer, Liberator, Savior, Jesus Christ.