Galatians Journal: Chapter 3, verse 19

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. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.

Paul shifts gears here. As discussed before, the Judiazers (and Jews in general) saw the law as necessary. Without it, there would be no standard or guidance to live a moral life. Paul addresses this concern by defining the purpose of the Law.

“It was added” The promise given to Abraham was the foundation, the centerpiece of the Jewish faith. There are actually 6 separate covenants (7 if you count the promises made to Abraham as 2 distinct and separate covenants) in the Old Testament. The first was with Noah, where God promised not to destroy the earth again.

Then came the promises God made to Abraham – that his descendants would be too numerous to count, that he would receive the promised land, and all the people of the earth would be blessed through him and his offspring. God made this covenant with Abraham because Abraham was “righteous,” that is, the faith Abraham had was “credited to him as righteousness.” (see Genesis 15:6 and Galatians 3:6). This covenant was based on grace. (As an aside, some scholars consider the discussion between God and Abraham in Genesis 18 as a separate, distinct covenant. There, God pledges to be the God of Abraham and his descendants. This second set of promises seems conditioned on consecration to the Lord as manifested or symbolized by circumcision. Interesting! God had already made the covenant of grace with Abraham prior to introducing the concept of circumcision, and, even when introduced, it was always meant as an outward sign of an inner commitment).

Then came the Sinai Covenants, spoken of in these verses and traditionally as “the Law.” This covenant was a similarly conditional pledge of God being Israel’s Lord, Protector and Provider, with the nation of Israel corporately promising total consecration to the Lord as His people to live by His rules and to serve His purposes.

The last 3 historic covenants were all unconditional – God promised Phineas in Numbers 25 that there would an everlasting priesthood; God promised David in 2 Samuel 7 that there would be an eternal throne in Israel occupied by his descendants; and the “new” covenant of Jeremiah 31: 31-34, where God promised the unfaithful nation of Israel the He would forgive them, and “write the law on their hearts.”

First, following the course of Paul’s “legal” arguments in the previous section (Galatians 3:15-18), the last covenant, the “new” covenant, is completely based on grace, as is the original promise to Abraham. Second, as discussed more later, ALL of the Covenants were fulfilled in Jesus.

“because of transgressions” This concept would have made sense to both the Jews and the Gentiles in Paul’s audience. The function of the law as a moral code or a set of rules was designed by God to define evil, and define good behavior. Even the pagan philosophers agreed with this (although they thought those who achieved “wisdom” would naturally be a law unto themselves). Paul discusses this in Romans 2, where he notes that Gentiles could live ostensibly moral lives outside the law. Paul also discusses the purpose of the law as the guide to defining what is sin in Romans 7: 7-12.

“until the Seed” Paul continues his “singular seed” concept from Galatians 3:16 – of course, this is Jesus. Thus the law was added to the covenants between God and mankind not to contradict the promise of grace, but to help protect God’s people until the time when the Seed would come and provide the means both to fulfill the promise made to Abraham and to transform us and to fulfill the covenants made at Sinai.

“angels” Deuteronomy 33:2 say the law was delivered by the Lord with “myriads of holy ones.” In Acts 7:38, Stephen says that angels spoke with Moses on Sinai. Hebrews 2:2 says the Law was “spoken by angels.” The traditions of post Old Testament Judaism also held that the law was given to Moses by angels. I don’t have the time this morning to plumb the depths of the book of Exodus and other parts of the Pentateuch to compare and check all this out, but one concept is interesting – there are many times God spoke to men in the form of an angel, which was really the embodiment of the pre-incarnate Christ. (e.g. Jacob wrestling with an angel; the angels that appear to Abraham; the angel that appears to Joshua prior to the battle of Jericho; the angel that speaks to Samson’s parents; the 4th person who appeared with the "three hebrew children" in the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel – these are just a few examples) We might infer from this that Moses received the law while He was speaking to Jesus in pre-incarnate form.

“mediator” This is Moses, and this will be discussed in the next verse.