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You're listening to the 10 minute Bible hour podcast. It's fast, fun, free, daily, deep dive Bible. And right now, we're talking about Galatians. I've got a really good friend who's brilliant, I mean, literally a rocket scientist, super talented, really good at the things he does. And. And I suppose what comes with the territory being that smart and that good at things is that you'd be tempted to believe your own hype and get real cocky. And to my dear friend's credit, he really pushes back on that. He's built things into his life to avoid believing his own hype, including seeking out negative feedback. He's always talking about that. I want people to tell me what I'm doing wrong. I want people to find the flaw in this thing I'm building or find the flaw even in my character or my habits. And that is scary. I don't like the way that feels. But dang it, he's right. It's true. You get in your own little thought bubble, you get in your own little mental, ethical, critical ecosystem, and things get safer and safer. And the more you live in that little bubble, the more you just tend to look right in all your decisions. And people who want to keep you happy just tell you how good you're doing at them things and all of that. And every now and then, you know what, it's pretty helpful to have that disrupted and for somebody to say, hey, little miniature wannabe emperor, you have no clothes in this area and it hurts and it's not fun. But my buddy is right that negative feedback is really important. And knowing which negative feedback to listen to is really important. I mean, you got to consider the quality of the people who are giving it to you. Because somebody could give you negative feedback for all kinds of compromised reasons, and it wouldn't be good negative feedback. It would be false neg feedback. So he's also very thoughtful about who he solicits that negative feedback from. And just in general, if you can't tell, I really admire these things about my buddy. Well, likewise, there's a negative feedback loop that is built into the Bible, built into the relationship between God and man. And Paul is talking about that in the book of Galatians. The negative feedback loop that's on screen here in Galatians, chapter three is the law. Now, the law wasn't the first thing that God did in his relationship with humanity. Paul points out that the first thing, well, it was creation. And then after that, a little ways into the Old Testament, real close to the Beginning of the Bible, God picked Abraham and made a bunch of promises to him that include the redemptive plan for all of humanity and all the nations being blessed through him. And Abraham simply believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Then Paul goes on in Galatians to point out that 430 years passed after that, before the law was put into effect through angels by a mediator, and that the law was added to the promise because of transgressions, and that the law ultimately would be fulfilled and completed in Christ. So then Paul is wrestling with the question, so why is there a law? Why did God even do that? Why didn't he just have the promise he made to Abraham? Why wouldn't that have been good enough? And to quote my buddy, one of the reasons is negative feedback. It's not fun. Nobody wants to hear it. Everybody wants to be told, including me, that all our ideas are good. We're so smart and everybody's so lucky to have us. But the truth is we're flawed. We're all flawed. We all do dumb stuff. We all get ketchup on the side of our mouths. Sometimes we all say crap. Sometimes it was just stupid that seemed right or funny or like we were reading the room. But we look back on it later and realize we were an idiot. Or worse yet, we never look back and never realize how stupid stupid we came off in that moment. Negative feedback checks our own limitations, our own inability to see the reality of ourselves. Negative feedback holds up a mirror to us and puts it at unflattering angles on unflattering parts of us. But like my friend has figured out, it's needed. So Paul is wrestling through this question. Galatians 3. Why do we have a law? Why did God do that? Why don't we just stick with the promise? Why wasn't that enough? Well, I talked about a couple of those reasons already. What then was the purpose of the law? One, it was added because of transgression. Transgressions. We've talked about that the last few days until the seed that's Christ, to whom the promise referred had come. Jesus said that he fulfilled the law and the prophets. That had happened relatively recently when Paul is writing the book of Galatians here. But now Paul is going to track down another line of questioning about what the deal is with the law. Verse 21. This is a rhetorical question. Paul asks, is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Okay, I get why he's asking the question. Maybe somebody could be listening to what Paul's saying here throughout the book of Galatians and be like, oh, so you just like this part of what God did. You like the whole promise to Abraham thing, but you don't like what God did with Moses. You don't like the law. The law is hard and it's a lot of work. And you know, the Gentiles, the outsiders, you know, they can't handle it. So you're just trying to make it easy for them. So you're propping up Jesus at the expense of the law. That's what a critic of Paul might listen to him and that's what they might accuse him of. Paul's sensitive to that. And so he's going to deal with the question, is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not. For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. Okay, not hard to follow his reasoning here. If somehow the law could give life, it already would have. But everybody in the conversation agrees that that hasn't happened yet. So Paul can hand wave that and move on. He goes on, but the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin. So that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Okay, so the scripture is declaring there's something wrong with us. The law is a mirror that points to the unflattering parts of us and gives us negative feedback. What is the negative feedback? You're not God, you can't be God. You can't earn Godhood. The holiness and righteousness of God is absolutely unattainable for you. You're never going to get it right. Any illusion that someone, during the age of Abraham, before the law was given to Moses, any illusion that they might have had that they could just be really, really good or really special, or they might just really charm God is completely obliterated by the Old Testament, but also by what Paul is saying here. The scripture points out that everybody is a prisoner of sin. How do we know we don't meet up? Well, God posted a sign, metaphorically, he posted the law. Here it is. Let me add this to the promise. Take a look at this right here. You got that? No, you don't. Cut that. And again, there might be some people who are still thinking like, oh, maybe I could do that. But then Jesus comes along, and it's not just that he fulfills the law by who he is and what he does, he also fulfills it by what he says. And in the early Going of the book of Matthew, he's like, you've heard it say, don't murder. Well, I say, if you hate or call someone this insult that's reflective of hate, that's akin to murder. And he goes on through and gives a bunch of other examples of simple, did you do it or didn't you do it? External laws that somebody might imagine they could keep all of. But he takes it down to the level of the heart and is like, you cannot guard your heart and your thoughts enough is what he's saying implicitly, to have gotten all of this right every single time. The Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner to sin. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous, not even one cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the Law. I'm quoting things at you from other parts of the New Testament, from the Old Testament, Paul is saying that everything declares this to be the truth. So in the same way that my buddy actively solicits negative feedback because otherwise he's going to get a skewed picture of himself and make huge mistakes. So the law provides negative feedback. You're not God. You don't have the standards of God. You don't abide by the standards of God. You don't have the character of God, you don't have the knowledge of God. And you can't get it apart from the gracious work of God. And the whole of scripture declares this. The Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner to sin. That's the bad news. But then good news. So that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. So the first part of that verse, the scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner to sin. There's your negative feedback that relates to the purpose of the law. But then the second half of that verse, being given through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. That corresponds to the promise to the Abraham thing. Again, the law is subservient to the promise. The law is a tool that advances the point of the promise and God's redemption redemptive plan, and that is fulfilled in Christ. God's mercy by faith is the way to right standing with God. The law points out our sin. So is the law opposed to the promises of God? No, not at all. It's perfectly in keeping with the promises of God. And further, it lays out why those promises are so needed and why God has built it the way he built it. I think if Paul couldn't speak to this, he's going to look really bad in front of his critics and is probably going to lose the argument here. But in just a couple of paragraphs, he has answered the question, why is there a law? Is the law a mistake? Is the law on board with God's larger plan? He's answered those questions quickly, efficiently and clearly. He's made it clear that we don't have two things that are in a fight, the law and the promise. Rather, he's made it clear that you have the promise up here, big umbrella gesture, and you have the law as an undergirding tool that advances that promise. This language, this vision for how the whole thing works, this explanation for it, is something that's going to make sense to that Galat audience, is going to give them language they can run with, to be like, oh, there we go. Now, I'm not confused about how these two things fit together, and I can move forward in confidence, understanding what the Old Testament does and what the New Testament does and how this all fits together. And it's not just the Galatians who benefit from this. So do you and I. This Chapter three stuff has been tough, but it is providing me with clear language, inspired by the Holy Spirit to know what to do with this, that I can keep in my head, that I can keep in my heart. That makes sense of this apparent tension that really is no tension at all. The law was added because of transgressions. It points out that I, like the whole world, am a prisoner to sin. And it pushes me with clarity and eyes wide open and forcefully toward faith in Christ, so that what was promised might be given to even someone like me who believes that's good. For now, I'm Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon. This podcast exists because many of you kick in to make it happen, even though you don't have to learn more@the tmbh.com support. We're grateful because that supports our family.