Abraham, my Friend 54

The Child of Promise

The typology of Isaac does not only relate to the true Son but also to all true sons. Paul the apostle refers to Isaac as a ‘child of promise’:

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. (Gal 4:28 NKJV)

This verse is the last of a series of 10 references to ‘promise’ in the epistle to the churches of Galatia. Paul immediately goes on to say:

But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. (Gal 4:29 NKJV)

The nature and purpose of the Law

We have to understand the nature and purpose of the Law to understand the implications of this. We must never slip into the kind of thinking that regards the Law as an enemy:

Is the law then 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. (Gal 3:21 NKJV)

Paul expands this truth in the letter to the Romans:

Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. (Rom 7:12 NKJV)

And again in his letter to Timothy:

But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully… (1 Tim 1:8 NKJV)

This last reference takes us to the heart of the problem. In its essential nature, the ‘law is good if…’ Almost everything in life ‘is good if…’; an axe, a knife, and more surprising things like anger and hate; they are all ‘good if…’

The ‘law is good, if a man uses it lawfully’; this is an ‘if-then’ clause. The clear implication is that if it is used for the wrong purpose it is no longer ‘good’ in absolute terms. This had been the problem of the Law for the Jewish people; they had not used it ‘lawfully’. That is to say, they had not used it for the purpose for which it was intended. They had used it as a ladder by which they could achieve merit and consequent acceptance with God.

The basic truth is that there are only two ‘faiths’ in the whole of world history; the first says ‘something in my hand I bring’, and the other says ‘nothing in my hand I bring’. The rest of religion is peripheral; the heart of the first ‘faith’ is that I can and must do something to contribute to my salvation. The heart of the second ‘faith’ is that I cannot and must not!

Again, in Romans, Paul expounds this issue:

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Rom 10:2–4 NKJV)

One definition of the fanatic is someone who doubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim. If we have the wrong destination in mind the doubling of our effort will actually result in us becoming farther away from the right destination. The simple fact of the matter is that the Law was never intended as a route to God. Anyone who uses it to get to God is not using it ‘lawfully’ and the result will be death rather than life. For the Christian in his daily walk, the same truth will operate. If I attempt to ‘do’ something to qualify me for acceptance with God I am not using that thing ‘lawfully’ and the result will be, not life, but a death. If I repent in order to gain acceptance with God, I am not using repentance ‘lawfully’ and the result will be death, not life. If I attempt to use prayer or Bible reading or fasting or any ‘thing’ to gain or improve my acceptance with God it will bring a ‘death’ into my experience of him. The purpose of these disciplines is not ‘acceptance with God’.

Likewise, the purpose of ‘doing’ the Law, is not acceptance with God. This ‘doing’ of the Law is sometimes expressed, in the New Testament, as the ‘works of the Law’. What then was the purpose of the Law? That is a question which Paul himself asks… and answers.

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made;(Gal 3:19–20a NKJV)

The Law: its purpose

Why give the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made… (Gal 3:19-20a NASB)

It was ‘added’ says Paul ‘until’. These two words are vital for a proper understanding of the nature and purpose of the Law; it was additional and it was temporary. The Law then was a temporary expedient with a definite cut-off date.

But why was it ‘added’? Because of transgressions. That is to say, the focus of the Law was not salvation but sin. It put sin firmly in the spotlight. It made it possible, in a measure, to quantify sin. The Law was never intended as a means of qualification and consequent salvation but as a measure of disqualification and the utter impossibility of ‘achieving’ salvation by personal merit. Again, Romans provides an expansion:

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” (Rom 7:7 NKJV)

It was as a result of the Law that Paul recognised his true condition. Anyone can fool themselves into believing they are fit until someone sets up a standard for fitness; this was Paul’s personal testimony:

Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. (Rom 7:12–13 NKJV)

As a result of the Law ‘sin’ was recognised in its true colours or as the New American Standard Bible has it, utterly sinful.

The Law: as a funnel

There was another function of the Law, which was to funnel the people of Israel into only one possible direction. If they adhered to the Law and its provisions it was a one-way street with no turn-offs which must inevitably lead to Christ. Have you ever watched sheep being transported, and seen the way the farmer uses fences and gates to funnel exactly where he wants them to go? They trot along in their little woolly-headed ignorance and each step leads them closer to the place that the farmer wants them to be.

But the Scripture has confined 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. (Gal 3:22–23 NKJV)

But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. (Gal 3:22-23 NASB)

The NASB’s ‘kept in custody’ is not too strong; the word means to be under armed guard!

The Law: as a child-conductor

Paul then gives another description to the Law; it was, he says, our Child-Conductor; paidagOgos, i.e. a guardian and guide of boys. Among the Greeks and the Romans, the name was applied to trustworthy slaves who were charged with the duty of supervising the life and morals of boys belonging to the better class. Before arriving at the stage of manhood, the boys were not allowed so much as to step out of the house without their paidagōgos.

Therefore the law was our tutor [paidagōgos/child conductor] to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. (Gal 3:24–25 NKJV)

That was the other function of the Law — making sure that the ‘children’ really got to the place they set out for.

In these passages, Paul frequently uses phrases to divide time; ‘until the Seed should come’, ‘before faith came’, ‘faith which would be revealed later’, ‘faith having come’. He is clearly distinguishing a new era that postdates the era of the Law; these eras are mutually exclusive. There is a clear time-line in his writings at this point. Something has changed. Something ‘was not’ but ‘is now’.

The paidagōgos, the superintending function of the Law, was only active up to this point. Up until this point, this was a ‘lawful’ function of the Law, but beyond this point, such a function of the Law would be ‘unlawful’. At this point the paidagōgos was redundant:

But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. (Gal 3:25 NKJV)

The Law: redundant

Throughout this section, Paul has constantly used the personal pronoun ‘we’; he is referring to those, like himself, who had been ‘under the Law’. When the Law has done its job of bringing Paul and his Jewish Christian brethren to genuine conviction of sin and to Christ, its work is over. We can see why Paul was so adamant that the Law having been honourably retired could not be re-commissioned in the lives of Gentiles who had already come to Christ; it could have no legitimate, lawful, purpose in their lives.

Are the Law and the Promise in conflict with each other? Not if the Law is used ‘lawfully’. An axe and a surgeon’s scalpel are not in competition with each other unless someone is using one of these tools ‘unlawfully’.

Is the law then 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. (Gal 3:21 NKJV)

The Law had not been given to ‘give life’ but to ‘describe death’ and to channel men into the only ‘giver of life’. It never was intended to be a life-giving Law, but was always intended to shut up every other possibility and to direct men to the life-giving Saviour.

Christ, and the new era

Did you notice how Paul described Christ in his Galatians explanation of the nature and purpose of the Law? He might have simply said ‘Christ’ or ‘the Lord’ but he wants us to be following the flow of his thinking — he describes Christ as the Seed… to whom the promise was made. (Gal 3:19) Salvation was always to have been as the result of God ‘keeping his promise’, not of man ‘keeping the Law’. Christ is the Promise-Bearer.

Of the 10 references to ‘promise’ in Galatians, eight of them are in the last 16 verses of Chapter 3. If we asked the question, ‘But what is the promise?’ we could provide many different aspects of the one true answer. The promise is Christ, and He is the Promise-Bearer. But how can Christ become real to me? How can I receive the promise? Christ died, according to Paul’s argument here…

…that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Gal 3:14 NKJV)

Isaac, of course, was not ‘born of the Spirit’ in his natural birth. Paul is using the ‘type’ of Isaac as one whose life was due to the direct intervention of God. Isaac’s was not a ‘virgin’ birth but it would not have been possible without the workings of God’s ‘life-giving’ Spirit in the bodies of Abraham and Sarah. Nevertheless, his birth was a direct result of God keeping His promise and as such he can serve as a type for the ‘Spirit born’.

All who have received the Spirit of the Son are ‘children of promise’ as Isaac was. Their beginnings and the whole of their lives are the consequence, not of men keeping law, but of God keeping his promise. They are the reality of which Isaac was the type. In their lives, there can be no mutual peaceful co-existence of the era of the Law and the era of the Spirit. If the old era of the Law and the flesh is allowed to survive there will inevitably be a relentless harassing of that which lives in the Spirit.