Galatians 3:17 tells us that the law which
came 430 years after the promise to Abraham cannot annul or cancel the promise
which God had made to him and his seed. You see, the law that the
Israelites were given that conditioned either blessing or curses was given long
after God promised a blessing to Abraham. That law cannot add conditions to the
promise God gave him. God won't hold Abraham and his seed accountable to the
law in order to receive his blessing. That would be adding terms to a contract
already ratified by himself.
The question arises though as to
what this has to do with us. God had made these promises to Abraham and his
seed, so where do we fit in and why should it matter?
To answer this I’d like to jump
down to Galatians 3:26 and 29 and put them together. Basically God is saying
that we are sons of God by faith in Christ. If we are Christ’s then we are
heirs according to the promise. He had summarized this earlier in 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.” The blessing of
Abraham… That blessing is ours! That means when God made the promise to Abraham
and his seed, the seed he is
referring to is us-- those who have believed in Christ.
The Christian answer then is that God blessed Abraham
and his seed unconditionally. The law that came later could not cancel that
blessing otherwise God would have been a liar in making such promises to
Abraham. If I’m a Christian, I am an heir of that blessing because I am part of
Abraham’s seed. That means that the promise that I am a recipient of supersedes
and precedes the giving of the law. There’s nothing in the keeping or the
not-keeping of the law that can affect my status of blessing given by the
promise of God. If I am required to keep the law in order to be blessed, he
would be breaking his promise to Abraham. There is no curse hanging over the
Christian. Let your mind and spirit think on this.
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