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Commentary on "The Priority of the Promise"
Day 1: Sabbath Afternoon, October 29, 2011 - Introduction
Overview
For those Adventists who read the introductions to the weekly studies, the first day (actually afternoon) of study is a real blessing. It starts with an example of human failure: a politician willing to take pride in the fact that he fulfilled all the promises he made in his campaign—that is, all those he intended to fulfill. This case is an example of a larger problem: people breaking promises, either by a change of mind, or by not really meaning their promises from the time they made them. In contrast, God is presented as the one who wills and accomplishes His promises. The first day’s study ends with the introduction of the main theme of the week, the relationship between God's promise to Abraham and the law given to Israel 430 years later.
Observations
Without a doubt, this relationship is the central and most important feature of the entire book of Galatians. From the perspective of an eternity in heaven or in hell, this relationship between God’s promises and the law is not an indifferent subject. People may hold certain degrees of error in their understanding of God, but they cannot afford to be wrong regarding the way in which the law relates to the Abrahamic promise. The epistle to the Galatians was written to correct an error that was nothing else than another gospel, but the readers must reconstruct the erroneous teachings of the Judaizers from Paul’s counterarguments. When Paul goes to great lengths in explaining how the law which came after 430 years relates properly to the promise, without changing the terms of the Abrahamic covenant, he implicitly reveals that the false gospel of the Judaizers is the opposite of the gospel; The Judaizer’s insistence on adopting the law on top of the gospel is a wrong view regarding the proper relationship between the law and the promise. This idea effectively annuls the promise; it’s a view that makes the promise rest on something other than God’s exclusive fulfillment of His word. Adding law on top of the gospel makes the fulfillment of God’s promises depend on our obedience to the law. While the epistle of Galatians deals with a particular case pertaining to the first century AD, the problem of transforming the unconditional, free gift of Jesus Christ’s saving grace into a conditional, merited “gift” is perennial, making the heart of the epistle to the Galatians highly relevant.
Knowing God as He is in his abundant, amazing free grace has never been a smooth path. Knowing God by means of accepting the purity of the gospel is a reality that has never been left unhindered. There have always been those who add requirements back onto the promises of God.
Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised October 29, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
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