 We will continue now from verse 19 so Galatians chapter 3 verse 19 you know just to catch up on time if we could read out a larger chunk maybe we can cover verses 19 all the way up to verse 22 if we could have someone read out for us Galatians 3 19 222 please. Well Galatians 3 19 222 what purpose then does the law serve it was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made and it was appointed through angels by the hand of immediate it now immediate it does not mediate for one only but God is you muted I'm sorry now immediate it does not mediate for one only but God is one is the law then against the promises of God certainly not but if there had been a law given which would have given life truly righteousness would have been by the law but the scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. All right so here you know he in the earlier portion he clarified Paul clarifies that after 430 years after God had finished giving his promise after he had finished giving his word to to Abraham and to Christ 430 years after that the law comes into you know position and so he says God who had already finished making a promise he would definitely keep it it would be honored it would be fulfilled so the faith that was the righteousness that was credited to Abraham it was on the basis of faith it had nothing to do with the law now so if that is the case then what about this law you know which the people followed for thousands of years that's basically what what had been given to the you know people by Yahweh and that is what they followed for so many centuries so what about this law why was it given what role did it play you know so he wants to explain those things and so was 19 onwards he talks about it and he says why then was the law given at all it was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come okay so there would be a time a fullness of time when the seed would be sent then you know Christ would be sent to fulfill the promise so in the interim period you know over the thousands of years when people are still waiting for this seed to come and to fulfill the promise that that was made to Abraham in the interim period the people had to be preserved at least at some level of holiness you know if they had just been left to themselves they would have become exactly like all the other nations they would have gone in fact they already had gone into idolatry but things would have been even worse so just so it says over here law was added because of transgressions just to kind of keep people under control and restrain them from their transgressions to stop them from living in outright sin and rebellion against God so until the time when the when the promised seed could come along and fulfill the promise made to Abraham and you know because righteousness was credited to Abraham at that time but Jesus Christ had to first of all shed blood so that that righteousness could be imparted so the process had not yet been completed so until the fullness of time when the seed would come and do that task in the meantime these transgressions of the people these sins of the people their lifestyle had to be kept under control by somebody and it was the law who did that the law you know comes along and serves as their guardian he serves as their tutor you know if we were to personify law you know so if law would we would think of law as a kind of person then we would say law came along and then he controlled the people he kind of kept them in check and he tutored them he taught them what is acceptable in God size what set of values God regards as being good as being holy and so the law served as a guardian the law served as a tutor and trained these Israelites in what their God actually wants from them so it is very true that the people could not keep the law it is true that you know in their flesh they were unable to fulfill the requirements of the law but at least over the centuries they began to clearly understand that these are God's standards when they looked at the nations around them they saw lower standards people were doing whatever they wanted but then when they looked at the law they understood oh these are the actual standards of the living God he expects us to live in this way and many of them tried to meet those standards you know they were never quite successful but at least now they were aware of what was required and so the law kind of kept things under control it confined them in a sense they were imprisoned by it you know they were they were they were restrained and forced and made to follow it and so the situation was kind of maintained until a time when they would no longer be under its you know restraints now they would have the freedom to serve God in a completely different way through the Holy Spirit okay so that would come later so up to that point now for the sake of the transgressions the law was added and the law does its you know it does its function here there's something I mentioned over here in your verse 19 it says the law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator a mediator however implies more than one party but God is one what are they talking about over here it's talking about it's kind of drawing a contrast between the law and the promise because you see when the law was given it was it was given between two parties in the sense God said you know if you keep these laws if you do what the covenant is saying then I will bless you then I will protect you you know I then I will you know cause your enemies to flee before you so God says all of these things to them so there's a kind of a set of conditions that need to be fulfilled on the one side you have God on the other side you have the Israelites and there is a covenant that has been made between them and you have in the middle you have you know Moses standing like a mediator the person who takes the covenant from God and delivers it to the people so you have a mediator in the middle and you have the two parties God and the people and God is saying I will keep my part of the covenant without fail now you people need to keep your part of the covenant okay so it's conditional on the other hand when you look at the promise that promise that was made to Abraham involved and you know if we were to go to Genesis chapter 15 and if we look at verses 17 and 18 so Genesis 15 you know we we looked earlier at Genesis 15 we saw that you know God credits it his faith to him as righteousness and then God goes on to say I will give you this entire land and then Abraham says Lord how do I know that this will be fulfilled and then God formally enters into a covenant with him he asks him to you know cut those birds and animals and place the two halves on either side and then we look at what happens in Genesis chapter 15 17 to 18 if someone could read out when the sun had gone down and it was dug without a smoking fire caught and a flaming torch passed between these pieces 18 on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham Abraham say yeah we'll leave out the details yeah I know he says a lot of things but yeah the basically that covenant takes place but now when you look at how this covenant was formed we don't see two parties walking you know in between those those two sets of sacrifices the sacrifices were cut into one portion was placed on one side and on the opposite side you have the other portion being laid and then according to the custom of that time according to the culture of that time you would need to have both the parties walking through those split halves of the sacrifice um symbolically saying that if I fail to keep my part of this covenant may I be cut into just like these sacrifices you know so it's some some kind of a commitment that you are making but over here when you look at this particular covenant we don't see Abraham and God walking through the two um you know through the split sacrifices we see only one person walking through and that is God you know he can he comes down in the form or I mean we don't we don't see him visibly coming down but we only see the smoking fire pot with the blazing torch passing through the pieces and you know God is saying I will keep the promise that I have made so it's like as if God is saying if I do not keep my promise then may I be cut into pieces just like these sacrifices and it's only God who walks through that and makes that you know declaration Abraham does not walk through so for the law you have two parties both the parties are supposed to keep their side of the covenant if both of them fulfill the conditions that they need to fulfill the covenant will remain valid if one of them breaks you know their their side of it then the covenant would break down in the sense the other party would no longer be obliged to fulfill their conditions because the other party broke their part of it you know that kind of of a thing but here when it comes to the promise that was made to Abraham God says on my own I will you know unilaterally you know fulfill it whether or not you know so Abraham is not involved Abraham is not required to fulfill any portion in that so it looks like as of the law and the promise were were given in a in a different manner and so he says does that mean that the law is opposed to the promises of God is the question he raises in Galatians 3 21 and he says absolutely not because you see the same God gave the law and the same God gave the promises so the the two are not opposed to each other they just simply fulfill different functions because we see I'd say he says in verse 282 scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin so what was promise being given through faith in Jesus Christ Christ may might be given to those who believe so the law did what it was meant to do it confined the people it kept them you know under its control it showed to them that they are helpless to fulfill it on their own and so in that sense they were placed under the law places them under the control of sin and says look at you people you're unable to fulfill my requirements so you are under the control of sin you are a bunch of slaves and so it tutors them and shows them that they are helpless on their own they desperately need a savior no way will they ever be able to save themselves through the law if they're brought to a position where they understand that and once they have understood that once they have learned that lesson in the fullness of time the seed will come and fulfill the promise which was made originally to Abraham because people can never ever become righteous by keeping the law they would need to do it through faith in Jesus it would be achieved only through faith in you know Jesus so so this is the law the poor the part played by law where it serves as a guardian it serves as a prison guard and it serves as a tutor it serves in these three capacities to show the Israelites that they can never gain righteousness by keeping the law they would just have to come humbly to Jesus and accept what he is freely offering and that's the only way that they can gain righteousness so moving on very quickly to chapter four maybe we can look at verses one up to five yeah if someone could please read out all the five verses Galatians four verses one to five I mean that the hair as long as he is a child is no different from a slave though he is the owner of everything but he's under guardians and manager and by his father in the same way we also when we were children we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world but when the fullness of time had come God said for this son born of woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons all right so you know at the end of the previous chapter at the end of chapter three you know Paul says so the law served its purpose but now because you people just like Abraham you have placed your faith in in in Christ so in the same way Abraham was saved because of the faith that he placed in God you two have now been saved because of the faith you have placed in God so you are now heirs of Abraham your children of Abraham he's the father of faith and you are the children of faith uh you the both of you have placed your faith in God and what he has done and so salvation has come to you righteousness has come to you by faith and not by works so now he goes on to explain now the now that you people are heirs of Abraham um what do we know about heirs he says over here you know as long as an heir is still a child and he's still under age he is in no way different to a slave uh a slave is under his masters he's he's under the control of people who are you know superior to him in the same way even the air he's under the control of people who have been placed above him uh so as long as uh the israelite people uh they were under age you know symbolically speaking they were under the control of the law all of the ceremonial laws which were given by moses to the people they were under the control of those things you know they had to eat only certain foods um they had to wash themselves ritually in in a certain is in a certain way um they had all kinds of rules regarding you know the clothing they should wear and the uh the sacrifices that they should perform and the feasts in which they should participate all of these things they were under the elementals you know the term used over here is elemental forces you know they they were placed under all of these things these things uh these laws uh kept them restrained kept them controlled did not allow them to go into outright sin so in that way they were under these guardians these all of these mosaic laws were the guardians which looked after them so at that point of time the air was in no different from a slave the same way the slave is under a whole bunch of superiors even the airs also were under a whole bunch of superiors but now you know now that Jesus Christ has come what did he do he was able to he was also born under the under these elemental forces he was born under the law so he too had to go through all of these rituals of you know eating the correct foods uh you know going to the temple and performing all the necessary rituals so he too did all of those things and the thing he did is that he was able to keep it perfectly he was able to fulfill it perfectly so you could say technically speaking that he's the only one who got his righteousness not that Christ ever needs righteousness but you know by fulfilling all of the law perfectly the Lord could declare him completely righteous so his brothers the human beings you know they were unable to do that so one person among all humans was able to fulfill the law and be declared by be declared righteous by the law so now this one who is perfect this one person who is perfect under this entire law he was in a position to take the punishment of all these other people who had been condemned by the law so because now he's he's also been born just like all the other human beings have been born and because he has been under the law just like they all have been under the law he is able to be their representative and so because he has been approved by the law and has been able to fulfill it he says you know I am now perfect so can I take the punishment for my brothers what they were unable to you know you know do for themselves as a result of which they are now under condemnation and under judgment can I take that judgment upon me and give my righteousness to them so it is like an exchange which God did why because he became like us he was born as a human and he fulfilled you know he fulfilled the requirements of the law the same way we all have tried to fulfill the requirements of the law he became our representative and he could do this exchange deal because he had been able to fulfill the law and keep it so our his the righteousness which he had achieved he gave it to us the the sinfulness and the failure which we had on our part that he took upon himself and so the entire wrought of God the entire judgment of God came upon him and not upon us so all of this happened and so afterward after Jesus Christ did this we are now no longer under the law we have you know whatever the law required it has now been fulfilled Christ did it and he took the punishment so now we are no longer under the the requirements of the law under the condemning you know accusations of the law so he says now that you're in a position of freedom why on earth are you again going back to it and placing yourself under it Christ Jesus freed you from its requirements freed you from its judgment by you know imparting his righteousness to you he finished doing that it's all done it's all finished so after being set free why are you going back again to it and placing yourselves under it you know is the point that he is making over here so if someone could read out verses six and seven please Galatians four six and seven and and because you are sons sons God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your heart crying out above father therefore you are no longer a slave but a son and if a son then an heir of God through Christ thank you so yes so he says now your entire status has been changed okay so Jesus Christ came down became a human just like you came under the law just like you and then the exchange happened and now because he has the spirit of God in him now he's imparting to you not just righteousness but also his spirit so the same spirit which is in him has now been given to you the same righteousness which is there in him has been given to you in no way is he holding back anything all that he has is imparting it to you so because now you have the same spirit within you people that he has within him the same way he addresses God as above father no longer as judge no longer as you know the the divine enemy who is looking down upon you with wrath but you know because you can personally go to him and have a very intimate relationship and call him abba in the same way the Jesus is able to do that now you two are able to do the very same thing so you are no not a slave to the law now nor are you a slave to sin you are now a freed person so he says do not go and place yourself once again under slavery under the guardianship of the law you're no longer under its control so he says rather than going to the law and you know placing yourself under it you should instead be coming to the Lord and you should be coming to him as a son and as an heir and you know using that affectionate term abba that would be a term which generally only young little children would use you know it would be like you know like you have little kids who say dada you know they don't they don't they don't yet know how to say daddy they just say dada they say papa you know so it's a very informal very intimate term so he's saying you've been brought into that kind of an intimacy that level of intimacy with the Lord so after having achieved that status where you're on such an intimate position with him why on earth are you going back to the law and placing yourselves as slaves under that it makes absolutely no sense to pause that they would even be trying to do something like that and so he goes on to say he says something more here regarding that he says if we could read out verses eight to eleven yeah formally when you did not know God you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods but now that you have come to know God or rather to be known by God how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world who slaves you want to be once more you observe days and months and season and years i'm afraid that i may have labor over you in vain okay so here he says something rather stern he says formally when you did not know God you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods and over here it's talking about you know slavery to the law to the mosaic law to all the requirements of the mosaic law he says if you go back now when you place yourself under those mosaic laws it's almost like idolatry you know and idolatry is something that the Israelites had finally understood is something that God hates okay it took a lot of generations for them to understand that but finally after God sent them off you know as prisoners to Babylon and they did not even have they were no longer even in their own land they no longer had their own king they were just a bunch of slaves in someone else's country when God finally reduced them to that level then it finally got into their heads that God hates hates idolatry so finally when they come back from that exile you know and they return back to Jerusalem it's true that they continued you know in all kinds of sinful ways because they were still under the law still trying to keep it still realizing that they're helpless on their own they were still going through that process but at least you never see them again setting up high places and placing idols over there and performing all those idolatrous rituals at least that one thing got wiped out of their system they got to know that idol worship is one thing that God is not going to put up with so he says now if you people go and place yourself once again under all of those mosaic ceremonial laws what you're actually doing is you're going back into idol worship you're worshiping the mosaic law and the mosaic law is not meant to be your god okay so he says to not go back to that and he in fact calls all of those ceremonial laws he calls them weak and beggarly you know weak and beggarly elements in the sense those ceremonial laws could not make you strong they were not able to make you they were beggarly in the sense they could not make you spiritually rich the law simply did not have the capacity to do all of that it only had one function to serve as your garden keep you under control because you were still a child you do not know how to behave it kept you under control till Christ could come along and fulfill what was required so that you no longer need to be like a child now you can be a grown up now you can have that intimate fellowship with the Lord and go to him and grow in him okay so he says now that you have no left behind all of the those things that was an earlier phase of life now you are meant to be an adult you're meant to be a grown up in the Lord and you know enjoy what he has for you in this new phase of life so he says don't go back to what we what you had earlier and then we move into verses you know 12 to 16 because of the time that we lost we kind of you know need to just skip through that whole passage but it's actually very touching you know I mean just to you know briefly talk about that versus 12 up to verse 16 he says you know don't be so you know against me because you see that they're going after those judicers who are preaching the wrong stuff and they're not sticking with what Paul had originally taught so he says you know he reminds them of the relationship which they have shared he says when I first came to you people you know I had the sickness it looks like he had some kind of an eye disease at that point of time he says you people receive me like as if I'm like as if I'm an angel you receive me almost like as if I'm Christ himself I mean that was the love that you showed me and he says I know at that point of time if you people could have you would actually have toned out your eyes and given your eyes to me because I mean that is the way you trusted me you loved me in that way so he says now you know please you know have the same attitude which I have towards you so he says in verse 12 he says I plead with your brothers and sisters become like me for I became like you you know I regard myself as part of you I regard myself as part of your family so why don't you people have the same attitude towards me and regard me as family you know because he says in verse 19 he says you're like you know children that I have given birth to okay so where is my verse 19 okay I think I'm not put it down over here in my list of verses if someone could read out you know verse 19 children for whom I am again in the language of childbirth until Christ is born in you okay so it's like as if he is you know birthing them giving birth to them you know in the Lord so that is the way he sees himself all the people that he wants to bring to Christ he's not just seeing them as converts that he is bringing to God rather it's like as if he sees them as people who had once been heathen pagans but now he is through his teachings and through the work of the Holy Spirit it's like as if they are being birthed a new into a new creation and he's involved in that birthing process he's that spiritual father who is assisting and enabling that to happen so he talks to them he teaches them and the Holy Spirit works along with him and in the process these people who once were pagans and heathens are being birthed into a new creation and they are born into Christ and so he is like the spiritual father who is giving birth to them you know so he takes it very personally like as if they are you know his own children and so when they go away from the faith he says do I have to you know give birth to you all over again that would be very unnatural right I mean you give birth to a child once you shouldn't have to go through that whole process again and give birth to them once more so he says why are you doing that you know so don't subject me to that kind of you know misery so he says I should not have to again go through the pains of childbirth and give birth to you hold on to what I had you know taught you originally okay so here it's like a plea he's crying out and saying you know rather than being antagonistic towards me accept what I am saying because I'm not saying this you know out of anger I'm saying it out of love and out of concern because I am your spiritual father okay so that's the point that he's trying to make in all of this passage yes yeah brother Sheyi if you if you could go ahead with your question yeah thank you pastor on this same verse that we just read I've also tried to see it in another light here we have this Galatians who were who Paul you know preached the gospel had started by way of the spirit for some reason as we've been learning so far they now switch back to the law now Paul now stays here that my Institute in my travel that Christ be formed in you I'm just looking at it from another point of view could it be that Paul would say that the Christ that they had received he's always praying daily that they come to this mindset of Christ that their minds will be filled with Christ that the character and the person of Christ will be formed in them so that they can stay in cause of what they've received in their spirit already because I'm just wondering that truly speaking like you said they shouldn't have to go through another new birth they're already born again but something has happened along the line whereby their minds have been stolen to go back again to the law somebody has done something to detract them from the way they had started so I don't know if this is right to interpret it as such that what Paul was trying to say was that Christ be formed within their minds like their whole soul will be permanently with Christ such that they know that truly that this is the gospel that makes them who they are not the Lord is able to give them the victory over life situations and sin but only Christ and so for that to happen their mind has to become like Christ they have to have that mindset of Christ Christ has to be formed in their soul I don't know if that's a good interpretation to that yeah that would be very much in line you know with what the rest of scripture says because these people were born again you know the holy spirit had come into them and given birth to a new creation so yes they had been created a new in their spirit so yes the birth experience the spiritual but experience has already happened but now at the level of the mind it's true they are going off into false teachings and before before their mind can again drag them right back into the world you know Paul is coming over here quickly to warn them and he wants Christ to be formed in them so yes we could definitely see that Christ should be formed in their mind as well a renewal of the mind which of course you know is urged in the scriptures right so Paul says that we must renew our minds so yes it would be very much in line with all of that so yes we can say that over here Christ needs to be formed even in their mind though he's already been born in their spirit yeah so so yes yeah we could say that yes thank you pastor yeah so yeah we have only a little time so you know we really need to get into this last portion where you have that entire allegory of the law and the promise so that would be verses 21 to 31 okay so maybe we could just start off by looking at verses 21 and 22 if someone could read out for us yeah 21 22 had two sons one by a slave woman and one by a free woman okay so he is saying you know you people who want to follow what the judicers are saying you know the judicers would be very familiar with the law and when we are saying law over here we don't mean only just the mosaic law we're talking about you know the entire five books you know Genesis onwards the first five books which are called the law so he says you definitely must be aware of what is mentioned in those first five books you know in the Torah and what does it say over there or there it talks about Abraham it talks about how he had two sons so you should be very familiar with the story and you should understand the implications of that story if you really were to understand the implications of that story then you would very very clearly see that you can never be saved by law you would have to be saved by the promise as it is so clearly illustrated in this story of Abraham and his two sons is what he says so just for us to kind of you know catch what is being told we you know just to kind of get a little bit into the background story we are aware that in Genesis chapter 16 is it you know yeah in Genesis 16 of course you have that clash between Sarah and Hagar and you know Hagar runs away she's carrying I mean she's pregnant with child and she runs away into the wilderness because Sarah is persecuting her and then God says to her go back go back to to your you know to Sarah and you know live under her so Hagar obeys she comes back and they both somehow coexist you know Sarah and Hagar they live together again for another 17 years or so and finally we come to Genesis chapter 21 in Genesis chapter 21 verse 9 that's basically when they're you know having a celebration because Isaac the baby Isaac has been weaned so now he's probably I mean I don't know two years old three years old or something and on this grand occasion when you know the weaning of Isaac is being celebrated at that point of time Sarah sees Ishmael making fun of the little boy and he was mocking him in some way and when she sees that she feels insecure about what's going to happen because this boy Ishmael has grown up in that home from babyhood he has been loved and accepted by his dad and so his father wants him to continue in the family wants him to inherit so now she's thinking in her mind look at the kind of stance that this boy is taking against this little child what's going to happen down the line you know who's going to get the inheritance what's going to happen so she's a little worried about for her you know biological child she's worried worried for the sake of Isaac and so she goes to Abraham and she says to him in Genesis 21 10 she says cast out the slave woman and her son for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit along with my son with Isaac okay is the terms that it's terminology that she uses now that word that is used over they cast out that's the kind of wording that's also used in Leviticus 21 7 it doesn't have to mean just simply send somebody away it could even be a kind of legal term where you know he she's saying you know divorce this lady after all she's the one who I wanted Abraham to marry her but then now she is saying you know formally divorce her because you see there should be no clashes regarding inheritance tomorrow so if you were to formally divorce her then Ishmael would no longer have any kind of inheritance rights and so she says over here the son of the slave slave woman shall not inherit along with my son with Isaac two times she knows when she repeats that in no way does she want Isaac to have to share his inheritance with Ishmael she wants it entirely only for her you know not for her biological child so now Sarah you know we can't praise everything that she said and did because she was just functioning at a you know human level and she didn't always have selfless righteous motives in her heart but in this particular instance we see God going along with what she has said and the Lord you know says to Abraham you know what she is saying is correct you know you must send Hagar and Ishmael away okay so what exactly you know is involved over here why would you know God allow something like that during the you know during the silent years when people came up with all kinds of writings you had some historical writings which were written and there were some purely fictional writings which were written you know this is after the time of Malachi during the years of silence when people came up with all kinds of literature and then you had the apophic apocryphal writings also being written out in just one of those writings in a few of them people you know have written down the Abraham story and they put in some details over there you know which are not mentioned in our Genesis so one of those is called I think the Jubilee or something one of those writings and so in that there's this one passage where it explains that on that day you know that feast was going on to celebrate the weaning of Isaac on that day it says in that book it's written that Abraham rejoiced at the site of his two sons and blessed the Lord for them okay that's the wording that is used over there that Abraham was very happy that now he has two sons and he blesses them in the eyes of the Lord and so it looks like as if Abraham all along has accepted Ishmael as his son so he is not thinking in terms of sending him away so ultimately when it comes to you know questions of inheritance in his mind he is planning that both his children you know should inherit but that is not what God wanted and why why was God against that so for us to understand that we would have to look at this next few verses you know where it talks about the the symbolic significance so we see over here that Sarah you know we see in verses 24, 25 onwards where it talks about the two women being compared to the two covenants and so you have Hagar and her children being represented by the mosaic covenant and then you have Sarah and her child Isaac being represented by the new Jerusalem okay so this is basically how we can you know just explain it Ishmael after having grown up in that home for that many years he had a legal right to take the inheritance this child who is now born is like a second child but so legally the property and inheritance should go to Ishmael he's the elder boy he has you know his mother is legally married to Abraham so he has every right legally to gain the inheritance but God makes a divine promise and he says this Isaac who is going to be born is going to be a child of promise even though he has no legal entitlement I give my word divinely that I will make this younger child the you know rightful heir okay so Isaac is a child of promise he has no legal rights but God has divinely promised him something by grace by mercy even though he does not even deserve it Isaac is being given a superior status on the other side you have Ishmael who holds all the legal entitlements but you know he does not have the divine promise on his side so these Gentiles who are one day going to become the children of Abraham they are going to become children of faith they all come under the promise and so through the promise of God they are going to become heirs of Abraham and so these two ladies are kind of metaphorically representing two entire different systems and God is saying you Judaizers by following the law you feel that you have legal entitlement to enter into my kingdom but you know what I have set up a new covenant you guys when you say that you want to become part of my kingdom by following the law you are like Ishmael who is claiming legal rights based on the law but I have set up a new system altogether a covenant of promise where people who don't deserve you know any kind of legal rights I have freely by mercy and by grace destine them to enter my kingdom it's not going to happen on the basis of law it's going to happen on the basis of grace on the basis of mercy the younger child isaac who did not deserve to be given this position of inheritance he would be given it simply because of grace and mercy and this is the system new covenant which I have set up so if you Judaizers want to come and join the kingdom of God you need to come out from the other Sinai mosaic covenant that is not going to get you into heaven this new Jerusalem which Sarah is representing people are going to enter that are going to enter it purely surely by grace and mercy and not due to any legal entitlement so now it's left to the people to make a choice whether they want to be under the covenant of grace and promise and mercy or whether they choose to continue being under the covenant of of illegalism and law which will anyway not and give you know gain them entry into heaven so that's basically the point which he know he tries to bring out if we had more time we could have gone it gone through it verse by verse and looked at the wording in it but this is the basic essence Ishmael had legal rights but he was not given the promise Isaac who had no legal rights was given a promise simply on the basis of grace and mercy and that's the way we all enter into heaven simply by grace and mercy not because we legally have a right to the righteousness you know so here Paul is trying to show the Judaizers you're on the wrong side you guys think that you're doing something good but actually you're on the wrong side there's a new covenant in place please give up your legal entitlements and all those demands that you're making humble yourselves don't be like Ishmael humble yourselves come on to the other side and just given to the mercy of God and humbly admit that you have no right because God has not given the promise to you he's given it to the people who come in by grace so humble yourself and say yes we do not deserve heaven but we choose to submit to Jesus Christ and through him we still have hope of entering into heaven so he says humble yourselves and come under the right covenant which God has now established don't hold on to what is in the past okay so that is just the you know summation of what he tries to bring out over here and we really have no more time so you know let's just close with the word of prayer Lord we just thank you so much for the things that we could learn from today's class it thank you a lot that we come under grace you we are completely dependent upon your mercy and your mercy is enough and adequate we don't have to follow the law we don't have to fulfill any kind of legal requirements it is enough Christ is sufficient the cross is enough for us to gain righteousness because it is all about us just trusting you holding on to your promise humbling ourselves and just accepting what you are saying rather than coming up with our own demands of our legal entitlements and all of that foolishness so thank you a lot that in your great mercy you have enabled us to come to you just through your sheer generosity and mercy and I pray oh Lord that you would help us to walk in gratitude towards you because of what you are really offering to us thank you Lord in Jesus name amen now there was no time to you know go into questions and all of that so next class you know if you would like more clarification on what we talked about now please bring it up and we will discuss this in greater detail but of course today we have to conclude right now all right yeah thank you so much