Are you familiar with the apocryphal tale of young George Washington and the cherry tree? Six-year-old George was gifted a hatchet and chopped on one of his father’s cherry trees. When confronted about the damage to the cherry tree, little George said, “I cannot tell a lie…I did cut it with my hatchet.” Because of his honesty, George’s father embraced him and chose not to punish him.
The version I heard said that he chopped the whole tree down and said that George confessed without being confronted. The story is a myth anyway, and I’m sure there are other versions. What I want to focus on is George’s confession. There are two reasons why George confessed. Either his conscience got the better of him and he wanted to let his father know of his sorrow for doing wrong, or he knew it was wrong in the first place and wanted to avoid or alleviate the consequences. From this, we can see the dual nature of law.
I grew up in a home where my father had rules, and there were consequences for not following the rules. I remember one time when I was about 15 years old and I was supposed to mow the lawn before some friends (who could drive) would pick me up so we could go to the big city and watch a movie. I wasted most of the morning away and realized after lunch that I didn’t have time to mow the grass before my friends came. I thought I would just do it the next day. My dad came home from work about the same time that my friends showed up. I was about to get in the car when my dad told me to get in the house because I was grounded and wouldn’t be going anywhere for a couple of weeks. I had broken the rules and had to pay the price.
I know another kid whose parents didn’t discipline him at all. Or very little, which turned into the parents almost apologizing for any punishment. One time he was sent to his room as a punishment (for whatever he had done that was wrong), but the next morning they gave him one of his Christmas presents (about three weeks early) because they felt bad that he had been punished. They then had to go buy another present because he would be short one under the tree. I lived under rules that had consequences whereas he lived with no real consequences at all. And therein lies the dual nature of law.
A law has to have a consequence or it is no law at all. For instance, everyone knows that getting caught speeding comes with a fine. The fine for speeding is also graduated based on how much over the limit you were driving. If it’s extremely excessive, you could lose your driver’s license as well as have a fine. All laws are the same way. If there is no punishment associated with a law, then there is no power in that statute. If there is a sign that says, “No Parking” but you park there anyway, you would expect to get a fine or have your car towed away. If you got a ticket that said, “Please don’t park here anymore,” what’s to prevent you from parking there again? There is no power to that sign. There has to be a consequence for there to be a law. That’s where grace can come in. But grace does not negate the consequence.
Adam was given one law to obey. Genesis 2:16-17 “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'” We know that Adam and Eve did not die the same day they ate the fruit. Instead, God gave them grace and covered their nakedness with clothes that He fashioned from animal skins. He further showed grace by removing them from the Garden to prevent them from eating the Tree of Life and ending up living forever in their sinful state. But God’s grace did not prevent them from dying. That was the consequence of their sin. They went from the realm of immortality to being mere mortals who would face death one day. As it says in Hebrews 9:27, “… it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”
Here’s something to note about the penalty for Adam breaking the one Law in the Garden. God said they would die in that same day but Genesis 5:5 says that Adam lived to be 930 years old. 2 Peter 3:8 says that one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like one day. Adam died within that thousand-year period, which is a “day” to God. God’s grace didn’t delay the penalty of death, and they did die in that same “day.” God’s grace just stayed the immediate execution of the punishment.
Galatians 3:19a says, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions.” What law is Paul talking about here? He says it was added, so there had to be something before this law. He also says it was added because of transgressions. Transgressions of what? There had to be something before this law for people to transgress. Let’s use Cain as an example.
Cain murdered his brother Abel. We know that murder is punishable by death. So why wasn’t Cain put to death by God? Was God showing him mercy and giving him grace? No. Up to this point, there was no law against murder even though it was against God’s standard. You can read it in Genesis 4. It says that God told Cain the ground was cursed for him because he shed his brother’s blood on the ground. The earth would no longer produce anything for him. Cain said his punishment was too much to bear, but it wasn’t a punishment that God gave to Cain. The curse of the ground was something God had established from the beginning even though the commandment not to murder hadn’t been given yet. Instead of being put to death, Cain was to wander the earth like a fugitive. And it was here that the commandment not to murder was established. God’s vengeance would be upon anyone who killed Cain. The same would be true of any murder. God reiterated this to Noah in Genesis 9:6. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.” There was now a consequence for murder, that being death. Paul shares this idea also in his letter to Roman believers. Romans 5:20 “For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.” God didn’t hold Cain’s sin against him because there was no law against murder at that time.
So, is that what Paul is talking about when he said that the law was added because of transgressions? Possibly, but not likely. In the case of Cain, murder was wrong in God’s sight already but the consequences for murder weren’t known because no one had ever murdered before. Did God just add the consequence to make the law against murder? Remember, there is no law without a consequence, and Paul said there is no transgression if there isn’t a law. Let’s look at Galatians 3:19 in context to see if consequences are what Paul is saying was added.
Galatians 3:19-21 “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. 21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.”
Here, Paul is talking about the righteousness of the Law. Is someone made righteous through the consequences of sin? Certainly not. Other religions may teach that, but the Bible says that righteousness comes from atonement and that from the shedding of blood. The question we previously asked is, what did Paul mean when he said the law was added? We know he wasn’t talking about the commandments because there is no sin if there is no law. We know he is not talking about adding consequences because there is no law if there are no consequences to that law. We also know he is talking about righteousness which comes neither from transgressions nor punishment. Paul is talking about animal sacrifices for sin that were added, and we can further see this in the second half of verse 19.
Galatians 3:19c “…and [the addition] was put in place through angels by an intermediary.” Many Christians like to say that Galatians 3:19 speaks of the Law of Moses as a whole, so therefore, it was only put in place until the Messiah would come. So, I would ask, was the Law given to Moses through angels? Scripture is very clear that God spoke directly to Moses when giving the Law. Paul cannot be speaking of the Law as a whole. He further says that this law was put in place through angels BY AN INTERMEDIARY. Many are quick to say that the intermediary is speaking of Moses, but again, angels were not involved in the giving of the Law. The dictionary definition of an intermediary is “a person who acts as a link between people to try to bring about an agreement or reconciliation.” Reconciliation is what we are talking about here. Now the question is, was Moses the person who brought the people to reconciliation? No. He tried but God rejected the idea.
After the Golden Calf incident, Moses asked God to forgive His people. (cf. Exodus 32:30-35) But if God would not forgive them, Moses asked for his life to be taken instead. God didn’t accept Moses’ offer of atonement. Moses was not the intermediary that would bring reconciliation to the people. Verse 20 says, “Now an intermediary implies more than one (meaning more than one party), but God is one.” This verse could be a message in itself. For now, we’ll just leave it as it is written. The transaction is between two parties. The intermediary stands in for the people and God is the one on the other side of this transaction. That means this intermediary meets with God to perform this reconciliation. It should be obvious from this information that the intermediary who meets with God is the High Priest who came into the presence of God once a year to offer the Day of Atonement sacrifice. The office of the High Priest fits with what Paul is saying to the Galatians.
Paul says this law was added because of transgressions. The aftermath of the golden calf incident gave the priesthood to the Levites instead of the firstborn sons. (That’s another message, too.) The means of atonement was established through the law of the Levitical priesthood. Paul says this law was added until the offspring of the promise should come. The office of the High Priest was in place until the Messiah rose from the dead and was made the new High Priest in the order of Melchi Zedek. And verse 21 solidifies this. I’ll pose Paul’s words in the form of a question. Could this law of the Priesthood give life? If it could, then righteousness would indeed be through the law of the Priesthood and the Day of Atonement. But we know that those sacrifices were temporary and had to be offered every year.
Hebrews 10:1-4 “For since the law (of the priesthood) has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”
Read Hebrews chapters seven through ten carefully and you’ll see that it is speaking of the Day of Atonement sacrifices. The High Priest was the intermediary until the promised seed had come. Need more proof? Let’s look at the usage of the Greek word for intermediary.
The Greek word used in Galatians 3:19 is mesitēs, Strong’s G3316. It is used six times in the New Testament. The first two times are in this passage in Galatians, verses 19 and 20. It appears again in Paul’s letter to Timothy saying that Christ is the one mesitēs between God and man. The remaining three times are found in Hebrews. All three times speak of the Messiah being the mesitēs of a better covenant. Those four times are referring to Yeshua being the High Priest, the mediator between God and man. So, when Paul is speaking of the mesitēs in Galatians 3, he is talking about the High Priest of the Levitical priesthood.
In conclusion, we can see that a law (statute, commandment) is a two-sided coin. There is the law itself on one side and the punishment for violating that law on the other side. That’s the dual nature of law. As a tangent, we saw that Paul is speaking of a separate law regarding atonement and not speaking of the two-sided coin. Incidentally, the law of atonement is not a two-sided coin, but we’ll save that for the next installment.
You can find Part 4 of this series here.
