In this enlightening episode of Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip delves into the profound understanding of justification beyond the rigid adherence to the law. Explore how the biblical principle from Deuteronomy highlights the impossibility of achieving perfection through the law alone, asserting instead the power of faith as laid out in the New Testament. Discover why the law, though important, is described as a curse due to its inability to cleanse sin, contrasting with the liberating promise of faith found in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Thanks for joining us today. Here at Connect with Skip, our mission is to help you know God’s Word and apply it to your life through clear, practical Bible teaching and real encouragement every day. And if you’d like to keep growing in your walk with Jesus, sign up for Pastor Skip’s free weekly devotional. You’ll receive biblical insight, teaching highlights, and exclusive resource offers straight to your inbox. Plus, when you sign up today, we’ll send you a free digital download of a chapter of Skip’s book, Biography of God. It only takes a minute to sign up. Go to connectwithskip.com and join the list today. That’s connectwithskip.com. Now let’s dive into today’s teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig.
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Now he’s quoting Deuteronomy 27. to show them you can’t be justified by the law unless you’re perfect. If you’re perfect and you always keep every law, okay, I haven’t met anybody like that yet. And this is the reason you can’t be justified because cursed is everyone who does not continue. in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. God gave the law to the children of Israel through Moses. The people of Israel had told Moses when he was going up to Mount Sinai, they were afraid of going up because of the fire and the lightning and the smoke. And they said, you go, Mo. You go, you hear, you find out what God wants and you tell us what that is and we’ll do it all. That’s what they said. We’ll do it all. We’ll obey all that God says. God would later on say this, oh, that my people had such a heart that they could or would keep all my law. God knew they couldn’t do it. He gave it and he opined, oh, that they had that kind of a heart. They were unable to do it. You cannot perfectly keep the law. That’s why the law is not a blessing, it’s a curse. Because all the law can do is reveal how bad you really are. You can’t do anything about how bad you really are. So it’s not a blessing. It’s a curse. It’s a blessing in that it provides you as under the curse. So it tells you the truth so that you will seek help. He’ll make that point in a moment. But verse 11, that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident for, now he’s quoting Habakkuk chapter two, the just shall live by faith. You’ve heard that verse before, right? Of course you have. If you’ve just read the New Testament in three books, they quote this verse out of Habakkuk. Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. The just shall live by faith. Yet the law is not of faith, but, now he’s quoting another Old Testament scripture, the law is not of faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. Now he’s quoting Leviticus chapter 18. Leviticus chapter 18. The man who does them shall live by them. You see, The law doesn’t ask a person to believe. The law asks a person to obey. Obey this. Do this. Do this and you will live. Faith says believe this and you will live. So the law isn’t a blessing, it’s a curse because it says obey, do, continue, work. Only when you get to the New Testament it says no. He did the work, so just believe it. And if you just believe it, like Abraham, that predated the law, you will be justified. It will be accounted to you for righteousness. Now, I think he’s making a fine point here. He’s saying, if you are going backwards to the legal system of Moses… and you are under the law, that means you are not relying only on faith. And if you’re not relying only on faith, you have a problem because the just shall live by faith. If you’re living by the law, you are under the law, not faith, so you are not just. You are not righteous. You are not right with God because the just shall live by faith and you’re not living by faith. You’re living under the law, so you’re not just and you are not justified. Very, very powerful point. Verse 13, Christ has redeemed us. Verse 13 and 14 are summary verses of this paragraph. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Now look at the word in verse 13, the word redeemed. The word redeemed is a word from the slave market in antiquity. It means to purchase a slave and set him free or to be set free by being purchased. So somebody would come in, purchase a slave and If he set him free, he would be redeemed. Now, that typically didn’t happen. If a person went to the slave market and laid down cash, he would buy a slave not to set free, but to set him at work in his house. But Jesus comes into the slave market, buys the slave, and gives us our freedom. That’s the idea of redemption. to be set free by paying a price. He paid the price of his own blood on the cross and he has redeemed us, setting us free. The problem with the Judaizers is they were taking people from one form of slavery into another form of slavery. We’re gonna take you from the slavery of sin and move you into the slavery of legalism. Why would you, that’s what he’s saying, you dumb Galatians, you spiritually dull people, why would you be set free, redeemed, only to go into another form of bondage that says you can’t be right with God unless you do, you keep, you add? Why would you do that? And then he quotes another scripture, Deuteronomy 21 in verse 13. Here’s the verse, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. That’s in the Old Testament. That’s in Deuteronomy 21. Now let me explain that. The Jews never crucified people. If somebody was guilty of a capital offense, they were killed by what method? Stoning to death. We have a couple instances in the Bible of people being stoned to death. One in the Old Testament, a guy by the name of Naboth who owned a vineyard. Jezebel, the wife of the king of Israel, wanted the vineyard. And Ahab, or Ahab wanted the vineyard, the king of Israel. And he couldn’t have it. It was Naboth’s vineyard. He wanted to buy it. And Naboth said, no, it’s a family inheritance. Why would I sell it? I don’t want you to have it. He kept it. And so the king went home and pouted. Jezebel said, where are you pouting? pouting, acting like a wimp. I’ll get it for you. So she hired conspirators to come in and throw a big feast for Naboth. And in the middle of the feast, stand up and accuse Naboth of blasphemy against God. They accused him of blasphemy against God. They took Naboth out and stoned him to death. Second time that we see stoning in the Bible is in the New Testament where Stephen preaches the gospel and the Jewish people take him outside the city and stone Stephen to death. They accuse him also of blasphemy. And the clothes of the people who stoned were thrown at Saul, Paul the apostle at the time. So the Jews never killed by crucifixion or by hanging. They always stoned people. However, And this is why it’s in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 21. If there was a notorious criminal who was killed because of a capital offense and he would be killed by stoning after he was dead from the stoning, they would take his body and hang it up for a period of time, for a few hours. They wouldn’t let it rot because they want a Jewish burial is almost immediate. But they would raise the body up for shame, for humiliation, for an object lesson to the people. Look at, this person’s cursed. So if a person was killed and he was notorious and hung and then taken down, it shows that he was cursed. Well, Paul remembers this verse out of Deuteronomy 21 and living in the times in which he is living, when the Romans have perfected the horrible art of crucifixion, they crucified tens of thousands of Jews, He saw this crucifixion as a fulfillment of that. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Well, Jesus was hung on a cross made out of a tree and he bore our sins. He bore our curse. So that verse is fulfilled in Christ at the cross. That’s how Paul sees that is happening. So he became a curse for us because cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So Jesus was cursed. He took the curse. God made him, right, 2 Corinthians 5.21, God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That’s substitutionary atonement. So because of that, verse 14, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. What’s the blessing of Abraham? Justification by faith. Abraham believed God. It was accounted to him for righteousness. Jesus died on a cross, became a curse for us. We believe in that. The blessing of Abraham, justification by faith, is given to us. That’s his point here. Brethren, I speak in the manner of men, though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. And to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say and to seeds as of many, but as of one and to your seed, who is Christ.
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This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. When you give to this ministry, you help reach thousands of people every day with God’s life-changing truth. encouraging them to know Him, trust Him, and walk in His freedom. And this month, we want to thank you with a special resource package. You’ll receive Skip’s book, Biography of God, which helps you explore God’s nature, His power, the mystery of the Trinity, and the hope that comes from removing the false limitations we sometimes place on Him. Plus, you’ll get Skip’s six-message CD series, Expound Galatians, where Skip unpacks the book of Galatians and the freedom believers have through grace, not works. Your gift today helps bring the life-changing message of Jesus to people around the world through Connect with Skip. Request your resources when you give $50 or more at connectwithskip.com slash offer or by calling 800-922-1888. Now, here’s more from Pastor Skip.
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And this I say, that the law, which was 400 years and 30 years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. And let me unravel that. God made a promise to Abraham, Genesis 15 says, as you see the stars, so shall your descendants be. Abraham believed God. That promise was made around 2000 BC, over four centuries before the covenant that God gave to Moses, to the children of Israel, of the law. The covenant God gave to Abraham was an unconditional covenant. The covenant of the law through Moses was a conditional covenant. If then, if you do this, then I’ll do that. If you don’t do this, I’ll do that. But Abraham, he just believed. And then God made a covenant with him. And there was a little ritual. If you remember the 15th chapter of Genesis where animals were cut up, there was a burning torch and Abraham walked between the pieces. Some of you are familiar with that. You remember that. There were no conditions for Abraham to fulfill. God didn’t say, no, Abraham, I’m gonna make a covenant with you and you have to do something. Abraham was asleep during the whole thing. And he woke up, whoa. And he saw all this happening and he walked between the pieces. So God was making the covenant with Abraham. Abraham was not making the covenant with God. God just unilateral. Unilaterally, unconditionally made a promise to Abraham. So shall your descendants be. And Abraham believed God. And that was accounted to him for righteousness. So he says this. Brethren, I speak in the manner of men. In other words, we have human examples of this. When humans draw up contractual agreements, a contractual agreement is binding by law and can’t be annulled. If you make another covenant or another contract, you have one in place that is legally binding. So the covenant to Abraham, which predated the law by four centuries, is not negated by the covenant that God gave to Moses, the giving of the law. But notice what he says. In verse 16, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ. Now, way back in Genesis 3, verse 15, God said, I will put enmity or conflict between your seed… and her seed. He was speaking to Satan at that time. I’m going to put enmity between your seed and the seed of the woman. And there has been enduring conflict through the ages in the seed of Satan and the seed of the woman, between children of God, believers in God, and Satan and his kingdom, his minions. There’s been this conflict. But he said… I’ll put enmity between your seed and her seed and he, singular, he, the seed of the woman, he shall bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. The seed is referred to as both plural and singular. So Paul is making a point that the seed, singular, is the reference to Christ. the one who would come and bruise the head of Satan, destroy the kingdom of Satan, and he did on the cross. In other words, the ultimate blessing that was coming came from one person, and that is Jesus. And the Jews always believed that. The Jews were always looking for the seed of the woman, the Messiah to come, the deliverer. And Paul said he came. The Messiah came. So ultimate salvation came through one single individual Mashiach, anointed one. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer a promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. What purpose then does the law serve? Well, what good is the law then? He answers his own question. This is the rabbinical style of teaching. So what about this? Well, this is the answer. What about that? And that is the answer. That’s kind of a rabbinical form of teaching to ask and answer supposed questions. What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions. Notice added, not it didn’t replace the covenant of faith. It was added because of sin or transgressions. until the seed should come to whom the promise was made and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now, a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. So there’s a couple things about the law here, he says. Number one, it’s temporary. It was there, it was added until. It was temporary, it was not to be permanent. Second, the law was given third hand. He mentions angels. So does Stephen, by the way, in Acts chapter seven, that at Mount Sinai, God gave the law to angels who gave the law to Moses, who gave the law to the children of Israel. So they got the covenant third hand. Whereas the covenant God made with Abraham, the covenant of faith was firsthand, was from God to Abraham. God himself made the deal unilaterally with Abraham. So the law is temporary. The law was a third-hand mediation. Verse 21, has the law been against the promises of God? Certainly not. For if there had been a law given, which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the scripture has confined all under sin. that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. So what God did is simply, by the law, condemned the entire human race. We’re all condemned. The wrath of God abides on us, it says in the Gospel of John 3. We are born, naturally born in sin. And by consigning the world as sinners, God can now freely justify the sinner when the sinner says, I believe. As soon as the sinner says, I believe, God says, you’re justified. Period. The scriptures can find all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore, the law was our tutor, old King James’ schoolmaster, new King James’ tutor, better word, guardian, somebody who would personally guard a young person toward adulthood so they could release that child into adulthood. The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. The law has fulfilled its purpose. It pointed us to Christ. Then Christ came, died on a cross, once and for all sacrificed. We believe in him. Done. No need for the law. The law has fulfilled its purpose. It’s condemned us. It showed us our need, but it couldn’t cleanse us of our sin. Jesus did that, so we are no longer under a tutor. What was sad is that the Jewish nation did not recognize Jesus as their Messiah and Savior. Because they did not recognize him as their Messiah and Savior, they’re still under sin. Here they are today without a temple. No ability to have sacrifice, no ability to shed blood. Without the shedding of blood, there’s no remission of sins. They have no covenant. They have no king. We as Christians have them all. We have the new covenant. We have a king. We have a savior. We have an altar. The altar was the cross, once and for all sacrifice. We have it all in Christ Jesus. For you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, Then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. When we tackle chapter four next time, I’ll, like I did this week, tip a little back into chapter three to catch up to chapter four for next time. But notice the barriers are gone. No Jew, no Gentile, no female, no male. Of course, it’s important to recognize the Bible could recognize the difference between between male and female. There was no ambiguity or identification. Everybody even thousands of years ago understood that simplicity. But the point he’s making is that barriers were set aside. You see, the Pharisee would wake up every morning and he would pray this prayer literally. God, thank you that I’m a Jewish man, that I am not a slave, a Gentile, or a woman. That was his prayer. God erased the distinctions that separate us. We’re all one in Christ. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed or offspring, descendants, and heirs according to the promise. Abraham was the prototype of salvation by grace through faith. We believe we’re accounted as righteous. We are justified, declared, and treated by God as if we have never sinned. God treated Jesus like you and I deserve to be treated. Died on a cross, a miserable, painful death. God the Father treated Jesus like you deserve to be treated so that he can treat you like Jesus deserves to be treated. treats you as royalty, sons and daughters of the living God, in covenant with him, because you believe, period.
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Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember, your generosity helps share God’s Word around the world, bringing truth and hope to people who need Jesus. And this month, we’d love to thank you for your support by sending you a special resource bundle, Skip’s book, Biography of God, along with his Six Message CD series, Expound Galatians. Together, these resources help you explore who God really is and how to live in the spiritual freedom He offers. Give today at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time on Connect with Skip.
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Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing.
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