A (0:00)

Foreign. Hey, my friends, it's Matt. This is a 10 minute Bible hour podcast. And I don't remember when it was a while back, you and I were talking about how there are certain verbs in, in the English language action words that are very specific and they almost only ever get used on a couple of specific things. So for example, if I say hoist, what do you hoist? Well, I mean the sails, a flag, a trophy, like the Stanley cup, but that's about it. You just don't use that word for most things. It's very specific. Okay, renegade. What do you do that with? It's on a deal or a promise, right? You go back on it. How about spruce up? What do you spruce up? Well, the house or the living room or the kitchen. That's it. Okay, how about wax? What do you wax? Obviously the correct answer is a chump, like a candle. How about fulfill? Fulfill? What does that go with? I mean, I think of a promise, right? You say you were going to do something and then you do it. You fulfilled that or you fulfill an obligation. I guess that would work as well. I have to do this. It might not be my first choice, but I saw it through. I fulfilled my duty. You would say duty as well, but to fulfill the law. That's a weird phrase, right? It doesn't seem like it agrees. Like hoist the cranberry sauce. Huh? Even if you lift cranberry sauce over your head, you don't say hoist. Oh, you hoist an engine too? Hoist, yeah. Fulfill the law. That's a weird one. And in Matthew 5, 17, I mean, really one of the most crucial verses of the entire New Testament and the Bible and Christianity, kind of the glue, the bridge between the Old and New Testament. Matthew 5, 17. It's in the Sermon on the Mount. It's right at the beginning of the New Testament. It's Jesus having just laid out some of the descriptions of what the kingdom of heaven is like, and it sounds really good. And no doubt his followers and even his soon to be critics are listening to this description and they're like, this is a new religion, because we already have one. What does this mean for the law and the prophets? And the law would mean the rules and everything, but it would also mean the whole story of the Old Testament. What does it mean for all of that? And Jesus says, don't think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but. But to fulfill them. Well, how does one fulfill a law? Because I don't think that verb makes sense. If the speed limit is 55 and I do 55, I didn't fulfill the law. I obeyed the law, I kept the law, I honored the law, I did the law. That's pretty flat writing, but it seems better than fulfilled. You just don't use the word like that. It doesn't mean that. Except it does in Matthew 5, 17 when Jesus says it that way. Why? Because Jesus views himself as the completion of all the stuff that happened before. He is the completion of the whole story of the Old Testament. There are loose ends that are still out there unsatisfyingly from the Old Testament story wise. We're like, yeah, but how's that going to work out? Why did they have blood that they put above the door and on the sides of the door? What is that supposed to mean? Why are we sacrificing lambs? What does that mean? How does a sacrificial system. It points to something, but it's not finished. I don't know what. Jesus, I believe is clearly saying that he is the fulfillment of all of those loose ends from the Old Testament. He is the fulfillment of all of the loose ends of all of the prophecy from the Old Testament that isn't resolved yet. He's the fulfillment of all of the stuff that, that historically has a certain rhyme and a rhythm to it coming out of the Old Testament, but it just isn't finished yet. It's like a half done song. Ba da da da da. Do the last two notes. Well, Jesus is the completion. He's the last two notes. He's the rhyme that finishes out the stanza. He is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. We got to remember that law and prophets doesn't just mean the rules and the predictions. It means the whole Old Testament. That's what that expression means there in Matthew 5:17 and in this very important, very central, very challenging passage that we've been looking at in Galatians 3. Paul is dealing with the exact same material is what Jesus is tackling there in Matthew 5:17. He's dealing with the question of, well, how does the law work then? What is the point of all the stuff from the Old Testament relative to now in light of Christ? And he opens this line of reasoning with a rhetorical question. Galatians 3:19. What then was the purpose of the law? Paul asks. It was added because of transgressions. Okay, yesterday we talked about that. The first thing that happened was not the law. The first thing that happened was a promise Rooted in faith and the mercy of God made to abram anybody who's ever had right standing with God. It's a result of the character of God and faith in God. Believing God is how it is credited to you as righteousness. So the promise came first. God keeps that promise. He develops the family, the descendants of Abraham, into this great nation, and then adds to the promise the law. This doesn't augment the promise. This doesn't change the promise from Abraham. The ground rules aren't different. Rather, the law is meant to make order out of chaos and also to point out the sinfulness of humankind, the character of God, and to point people in that realization of God's greatness and holiness and our notness. It's meant to point people toward the mercy of God. Okay, so the law is there for a lot of reasons and a lot of good reasons. But what it is not is a replacement or augmentation of the promise God made to Abraham. That's still in play. A few episodes back, you and I took like a week, and we went through the whole Old Testament. The plan never fluctuates. The law then is doing a different thing than the promise. Okay, we got that. It's in our hip pocket. So Paul says once again, Galatians 3:19. What then was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come. And that's where we get into that stuff about fulfilling the law, the promise, the one made to Abraham, the whole thing about faith, that's forever. The law, however, isn't the big thing. The law is a tool in service of the big thing, a very important tool, a very good tool, one made very well by God. He didn't screw up the law. He did a lovely job on it. But if the point is right, standing before God, defeating sin, bridging the gap between finite unholy people and an infinite holy God, the law, the doesn't do that. It's a tool in service of the thing that does what actually does that well, the mercy of God and people responding to that in faith. Ultimately, all of that promise is realized, is summarized. It all focuses on. It all happens in Christ, in Jesus. Ultimately, the entirety of that law, given to Moses 430 years after the promise is all completed in Christ, he said to himself, remember, it's fulfilled. Matthew 5:17. So here Paul is saying the law was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come. Okay, well, if you haven't been with me for the last couple weeks. It's going to be like, seed. What on earth is going on? What does that mean in my Bible? And I think in all translations, probably seed there is capitalized because it's Jesus. So let's just back up a couple verses here in Galatians 3, where Paul is laying out his point, and you'll see how seed equals Christ. Paul says, 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. 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. That was like two sentences before what we're looking at today. So Paul has already established that when he says seed, he's talking about Christ. What is Paul saying then? Well, that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. He's echoing Christ's own words about himself, that Christ did not come to abolish the law and the prophets. What? Those things weren't bad. God got those things right. Of course God did them. Rather, Christ is the fulfillment of their purpose. He's the completion of the ark of the law, the completion of the ark of the prophets. Or to use Jesus own word for it, he is the fulfillment of all of that, the fulfillment of the whole story, the fulfillment of all of the narrative themes of the Old Testament, the fulfillment of the trajectory of history from the Old Testament, the fulfillment of the redemptive plan that pops on every single page of the Old Testament, the fulfillment of all of the predictive prophecy of the Old Testament, the fulfillment of all of the thematic prophecy of the Old Testament. And indeed, he's even the centerpiece and the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham and that Abraham believed and that was credited to Abraham as righteousness. I would still say that generally speaking, fulfill is not the most natural verb in everyday parlance to attach to the noun law. I don't think you and I do a lot of law fulfilling. But Jesus is unique and different from us and plays a very different role in the history of everything and redemption. And for him, it just makes dang perfect sense to use that verb, fulfill, to describe exactly what his relationship is with the law. And Paul here in Galatians chapter three, when answering the rhetorical question, what then was the purpose of the law? Is saying the exact same thing as Jesus. And finally, speaking of paying off loose ends and fulfilling things, I said a while back that the next person who signed up to be a patron and put their address in there, their mailing address, that they were going to receive a snow baby from me. I just kills me to part ways with this thing, but a promise is a promise and I intend to fulfill it. So, Nate Bocca, you were the person who signed up closest in proximity to when I made that announcement. So you're getting the snow baby. It is a great one too. One of the best probably snow babies that there ever was. It's the little ice skating snow baby in the super warm ice skating snow baby onesie. You're gonna love it. It's going to be a family heirloom. I know it's something you will treasure. It will come with a handwritten certificate of authenticity by me verifying that it is an actual thing that you're holding. So that's going to be a pretty precious addition to all of that as well. All joking aside, Nate, thank you for supporting the program. It means a lot. Also, all of you support the program now or have in the past. Thank you for doing that. If you're interested in that, there's a link down below if you enjoy this thing and you want to help make it go. This thing really does only exist because some of you support it. So thank you so much to all of you who do that. Thank you also to everyone who does. You never have to. Don't feel weird or any pressure about it. But Nate, you should feel something, and that is overwhelming joy and bliss at the cherished snow baby that is on its way to you as we speak. I'm Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again. Sam.