Jesus came to redeem those who were under the law, whether expressed in creational or Mosaic terms. Ultimately it’s all the same thing: do this and live. Adam was under a “do this and live eschatologically” principle. He failed. The Second Adam was born of a woman, under the (Mosaic and creational) law to fulfill it and to dispense to us sinners a gracious adoption (vv. 5-6).
In part 1 we looked at the expression “new covenant” in its prophetic context (Jeremiah 31). In part 2 we examined the usage of the phrases “old covenant” and “new covenant” in Paul (2 Cor 3) and in Hebrews chapters 7–10.
In the second survey we saw that, as in Jeremiah 31, the new covenant is regarded as new as measured chiefly against Moses, that the old covenant is identified with the Mosaic covenant repeatedly. We saw that the features of the new covenant found first in Jeremiah 31 and again in 2 Corinthians 3 and Hebrews chapters 7–10 are not absolutely new in the new covenant.
Galatians Chapters 3–4.
The Galatian Christians faced a grave threat to their spiritual life. Judaizing Christians wanted not only to take them back to the Mosaic laws and ceremonies but they made obedience to them a condition of justification (acceptance with God). They did not overtly deny the need to trust in Jesus but they marginalized him by attempting to add the Mosiac ceremonies to his finished work as the sole ground of acceptance with God.
In chapter 2 Paul brutally exposes their error and its effects even going so far as to highlight the Apostle Peter’s fall into theological error. In our politically correct culture, were one to write such a letter he would certainly find himself facing ecclesiastical charges for violating the ninth commandment. After all Peter was only being selective in his choice of dinner companions. Who was Paul to judge? Apparently Peter took a rather different view and he repented of his corruption of the gospel of Christ.
In chapter 3 Paul puts the question directly. Either the Galatians stand before the righteous God on the basis of their doing or by trusting in the finished work of Christ for sinners. As in Romans 4, the paradigm of the believing sinner justified by grace alone (sola gratia) through faith (resting and receiving) alone (sola fide), is Abraham (Gal 3:6). Of course the Scribes and Pharisees laid claim to being Abraham’s children (John 8).
Jesus denied their claim. He called them children of Satan because they weren’t trusting in Christ but in their own, inherent righteousness. Paul takes up our Lord’s prosecution of moralism and legalism. It is not those who want to present themselves to God on the basis of their doing who are Abraham’s children (Gal 3:7). Rather it is those, whether Jew or Gentile, who trust in Jesus alone for their righteousness who are Abraham’s children (v.8).
Again, it is the blessing of Abraham (v. 14) who comes to those sinners who trust in Jesus’ finished work. As in 2 Corinthians 3, to illustrate and confirm his case, Paul appeals to the nature of covenants and then to the history of redemption. In v. 15 he establishes his first premise. Covenants, in their nature, are inviolable. Once in place, covenants do what they do because they are what they are.
The second premise is that God made an immutable covenant with Abraham (v. 16). For Paul, the Abrahamic covenant is, if you will, the baseline account of the covenant of grace. This doesn’t mean that there are no other manifestations of the covenant of grace in redemptive history but that when he wants to explain the covenant of grace and give its clearest manifestation he appeals to the Abrahamic covenant, i.e., the promises God made to Abraham: I will be your God and a God to your offspring (seed).
Contrary to the Judaizers (John 8) national Israel is not the seed. Jesus is the seed, i.e., the fulfillment of the promise. Whatever blessing there is to be had from God, whatever blessings there are in the covenant are by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
From these two premises Paul tackles the inevitable Judaizing question: But what about Moses, what about the Sinai covenant? Didn’t God make inviolable covenant with us through Moses? In other words, like many American evangelicals and a few Reformed folk, the Judaizers want to make the Abrahamic covenant temporary and the Mosaic, Sinaitic, old covenant permanent.
Paul, however, has it the other way round. The Abrahamic covenant is the baseline and the Mosaic covenant, as important as it was, is subordinate to it. The law, i.e., the Mosaic covenant (as becomes clear in chapter 4) which came 400 years later cannot annul the Abrahamic covenant. Paul leverages Moses with Abraham. On the basis of Gal 3:15 we might even say that if the Abrahamic covenant is the definition of “covenant”
then the Mosaic law was not a “covenant,” at least not in the same sense.
Paul’s point here is that, in the terms in which he’s speaking about Moses and Abraham they operate on utterly different principles. The law, the Mosaic covenant, says “do and live.” The Abrahamic covenant says, “Receive freely, through faith alone, benefits you have not earned but that were earned for you by another.”
It would not follow at all to conclude that, for Paul, those under Moses were saved by works. That would contradict his basic principle in 3:18. The inheritance can only come to sinners by grace alone, through faith alone (see 2:16). For Paul, the legal nature of the law (the old, Mosaic covenant) was fundamentally pedagogical. It was intended to teach sinners that they could not meet the terms of the law and to drive them to seek a Savior outside of themselves. This becomes clearer in v. 19.
The law was added (προστιθημι), i.e., it was superimposed upon the Abrahamic covenant of grace. In it’s nature it was temporary and pedagogical. It was not intended to nor could it change the essentially gracious nature of the Abrahamic covenant. It had a specific function. It was designed to be obsolete. The pedagogical function and intent of the Mosaic (old) covenant is evident in the words: “because of transgressions.”
The temporary character of the Mosaic covenant is evident in the words “until the seed should come….” That Sinai is in view is clear in the phrase “through angels.” This is a reference to the giving of the law at Sinai, at which angels were said to be present (see Heb 1–2).
The Mosaic law is not contrary to the promises (v.21). In God they cohere completely! For us sinners, however, the law could not give life (v. 21). Righteousness before God by the law is not possible for sinners. To make the law a vehicle for life, for sinners, is to turn the world on its head. “Scripture imprisoned everything under sin” by the law. Righteousness and life are given to sinners only “by faith in Jesus Christ” (v. 22). The Mosaic law was schoolmaster, a harsh tutor (vv. 23-24). The intent of the law was that we might turn to Christ and be “justified by faith” (v. 24).
The great point of Galatians chapter 4 is to illustrate and elaborate on the tutorial, temporary, pedagogical function of the Mosaic covenant. The Mosaic covenant was a re-statement of the law given to Adam. This is why Paul calls the law the στοιχεια (creational principle; see also v.9). The Mosaic covenant was temporary but Jesus came in the “fullness of time” (v.4). The Mosaic covenant is contrasted with the arrival of the reality.
Jesus came to redeem those who were under the law, whether expressed in creational or Mosaic terms. Ultimately it’s all the same thing: do this and live. Adam was under a “do this and live eschatologically” principle. He failed. The Second Adam was born of a woman, under the (Mosaic and creational) law to fulfill it and to dispense to us sinners a gracious adoption (vv. 5-6).
He completes his contrast between Moses and Abraham by turning back to the story of Abraham. He had two sons, one from Hagar and one from Sarah (vv. 21–22). One is of “the flesh” and the other “of promise.” He makes Hagar stand for law and doing and Sarah, the sinner, to stand for the covenant of grace. He makes it explicit. Hagar = Sinai (Moses and the old covenant) who gives birth to slaves! (vv.24–25).
Those who are obsessed with the earthly Jerusalem (i.e., the Judaizers) are still in slavery. Those who have received the promises of the covenant of grace, through faith alone, look to the true Jerusalem, the real Jerusalem, in heaven (v. 26).
Again, everyone who was justified under Moses was justified (accepted by God) solely by grace alone, through faith alone. Hebrews chapters 11 and 12 say that all the believers who lived during the typology, before Moses and under Moses, were looking forward to Christ. The covenant of grace is the only way sinners are justified and, after Adam’s fall and in Adam’s fall, we are all sinners (Romans 3). The Abrahamic covenant was operative under and during the temporary, typological Mosaic covenant. They co-existed temporarily to accomplish a specific purpose.
These are rich chapters but remember the point here is that at every point Paul norms the Mosaic, old covenant with the Abrahamic covenant. To return to Hebrews for a moment, this is essentially the same argument made there. In Heb 3:1–6 the writer says, in effect, that the Judaizers want to make Jesus work for Moses. Not at all! Moses works for Jesus. The old covenant serves the new covenant. Moses was a servant in God’s house but Jesus is the eternally begotten, consubstantial Son of the builder.
By analogy, the model for the new covenant is the Abrahamic covenant. The Mosaic covenant was intended to nothing more than to serve as a historical footlight, to bring attention to the covenant of grace. More than that the substance of the new covenant is the Abrahamic covenant
(to be Continued in Part 4)
R. Scott Clark is Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary in California (see his full bio here). This article first appeared at Scott’s Heidleblog
and is used with permission.