Gospel of John [17:13-16]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 18. Gal 3:12-14.

Title: Gospel of John [17:13-16]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 18. GAL 3:12-14.

 

 

For, opposition ever brings into clearer light positive truth, just as judgment comes never alone, but always conjoined with display of higher mercy. [Alfred Edersheim; The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah]

 

GAL 3:12 However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, "He who practices them shall live by them."

 

Law and faith as a means of justification are mutually exclusive.

 

The law was given so Israel would be led to Christ; to their need for a Savior and then the commands of the Law would have been seen in a completely different light. A man who lived during the dispensation of Israel, if he knew he was saved, would have loved the Law, for all of it pointed to the gift that saved him. And he therefore would have fulfilled the greatest commandment of the law, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And if God could deliver him from sin through a sacrifice so full of amazing grace, couldn't God also take care of his every need while he fulfilled the second greatest commandment of the law by loving his neighbor?

 

MAT 22:37-40

'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

 

GAL 5:14

For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, " You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

 

For us in the Church age, many of the commands are different and who we are in position is miles apart, but the fact of the love for God as the way or means of fulfilling the law, in our case, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, is the same.

 

JOH 14:15

"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

 

JOH 15:10

"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love.

 

And the commandment stated as the second greatest by our Lord is echoed by Paul in his epistle to the Romans.

 

ROM 12:14

Bless those who persecute you; bless and curse not.

 

ROM 12:17

Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men.

 

ROM 12:20

"But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head [he may repent]."

 

The burning coals here would be idiomatic, referring to a burning in his conscience where the desire for eternal things is in every man with the result that he may change his mind concerning his love of evil. Overcome evil with good, ROM 12:21.

 

ROM 13:8-10

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.

 

I don't work to love, I am regenerated and the epitome of love, Jesus Christ, lives in me. Faith in the word and Spirit brings me to the maturity, completeness, of fullness of love. As I progress towards that fullness of maturity I see more and more the love of God's ways, God's order, God's direction, God's purpose, i.e. God's righteousness.

 

The more I mature through the teaching, leading, and empowering of God the Holy Spirit the more I will fully love God's righteousness (God's way, order, direction, will).

 

Since righteousness is God, loving it is loving Him.

 

God is righteousness, but God also loves righteousness. We say God does what is right because that's who He is, but do we realize how much He loves who He is and loves His way, order, direction, purpose, and will?

 

PSA 11:7

For the Lord is righteous;

He loves righteousness;

The upright will behold His face.

 

PSA 33:5

He loves righteousness and justice;

The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.

 

As we grow in conformity to our Lord we will not attempt to live sanctified or righteous only because we should, but because we love to. It becomes our greatest love because He is our greatest love. And if you don’t think you love it enough yet for it to become a lifestyle, keep learning and let it be a hope, a joyful, confident expectation of the future deliverance from the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

What would have certainly been a stumbling block to Saul of Tarsus and many other learned Jews living at the time of Christ was the fact that He died on a Cross. If there was any chance that this Jesus was in fact the Messiah it was fully negated in their eyes by the fact that He became cursed. And yet we see in Paul such a transformation that he sees the truth and beauty of Christ's curse.

 

GAL 3:13 Christ redeemed [exagorazo - to purchase as one would a slave] 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" — 

 

The curse here is that which the legal passages of the Mosaic law pronounced upon those who did not perfectly obey its demands. The law pronounced a blessing [Mt. Gerizim] and a curse [Mt. Ebal].

 

Any blessing that came from keeping a part of the law by a person without faith proved barren, for the law made no allowance for human sin and frailty.

 

Say an Israelite in the OT kept the requirements of the law to the best of his ability but rejected the promise of a Savior. He tithed, prayed, went through the proper rituals and cleansing procedures but never accepted the sacrifice of the coming Messiah. First, he is violating the command to love the Lord your God and second, he is still in his sins and under the curse of death. A very moral man to say the least, but a man who has taken his stand on the commands of the law and not the blood of the Savior.

 

The curse, which involved the wrath of a righteous God, brought condemnation upon the offender.

 

From this hopeless state of condemnation, helpless to satisfy the just demands of God and His law, Christ redeemed us by satisfying those demands for us.

 

From this hopeless state of condemnation in which the sinner was not only helpless to redeem himself, but helpless to satisfy the just demands of the law, Christ redeemed us by satisfying the just demands of the law which we broke, all of our sins, paying the penalty in our stead, leaving a holy God free to bestow mercy on the basis of justice satisfied.

 

There are three expressions here that paint a vivid picture.

1) under a curse - 3:10

2) made a curse for us - 3:13

3) redeemed out from under the curse - 3:13

 

Paul quotes DEU 21:23 but leaves out the phrase "of God".

 

DEU 21:23

for he who is hanged is accursed of God

 

He was not accursed of God. It was the curse of the law, our violation of it, that fell upon Him.

 

When Paul, before his conversion, and the other learned Jews realized that Jesus hung on a tree and so became a curse they concluded that Jesus was accursed of God, but what they did not realize was that He was not cursed as a law breaker but for all the other law breakers. This Paul recognized on the road to Damascus. Paul doesn't make a mistake when he quotes the passage. He is revealing his learning and understanding of the most profound act of love and righteousness in the history of the universe.

 

1CO 12:2-3

You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the dumb idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you, that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus is accursed"; and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

 

GAL 3:14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

 

Finally we have two purpose clauses that extend from verse 13 to the effect that Christ became a curse for us in order that the blessing of Abraham, justification by faith, and also the Holy Spirit, might be given to both Jew and Gentile.

 

And so we conclude from this passage that the fullness of Christ's joy in us is a gift by His grace and not a matter of what we do. When we have His joy by means of faith in the words given and in the Holy Spirit given, we will in great joy do what the Master asks us to do and then that joy, seeing the fulfillment of the purpose that God has given me, will reach its maximum, almost more than the human soul, body, and brain can handle.

 

JOH 17:13 "But now I come to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy made full in themselves.

 

JOH 17:14 "I have given them Thy word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.