Galatians 3:15-18 Descendants as the Stars
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: June 5, 2020 Galatians 3:15-18
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
(Understanding the Text) Paul says that when there is a legal agreement, later legal agreements do not cancel out the first agreement. The first agreement is still binding. Thus, the law did not cancel out the promises made to Abraham that the whole world would be blessed through his offspring.
Paul makes a point that the offspring is singular in the promise. He states that Jesus is the offspring of Abraham that would bless the world. Paul says that our inheritance is from God through His promise to Abraham that Jesus would bless us. Our inheritance does not come because we keep laws that were put on the books 430 years after the first agreement to give us our inheritance.
What is the promise of inheritance that Paul is referring to? “And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5). Abraham understood “offspring” to be his son Isaac, but Paul says that “offspring” referred to Abraham’s many times grandson Jesus. Paul is applying this to the Gentiles coming into the family of Abraham through Jesus. The Jews were not the number of the stars of heaven, but the followers of Jesus are. I guess we will all be calling Abraham father in heaven, more so than Adam because Abraham chose God and kept choosing God even when he had misconceptions about God and what God expected of him. Because of this, God called Abraham His friend. “But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend;” (Isaiah 41:8). Here, Israel is the offspring of Abraham. Pastor Ty Gibson makes the point that Jesus was Israel. He went through Israel’s path individually and succeeded at every point where Israel failed. Pastor David Asscherick says that this is the theme of the whole book of Matthew. I am having a hard time understanding Paul’s logic. “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ.” The original promise is that the one offspring will be as the stars in heaven. The implication of many is in stars so that it seems to me to mean that from one offspring will come a multitude of descendants. In Isaiah 41, offspring is definitely referring to one group rather than one individual. However, that group might be referring to spiritual Israel who were called by Jesus and composed of both Jew and Gentile. “you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, ‘You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off’”;” (Isaiah 41:9). Also, in the next chapter, servant definitely means the Messiah in the first part of the chapter. I guess Paul looks at these prophecies and says that hereditary descendants cannot be interpreted because many of the hereditary descendants had not been loyal to God. Thus, it has to mean something else.
Inheritance implies being a child or blood relation of the person giving the inheritance. Paul is saying that through Jesus’ blood, we have become children of Abraham, and thus, even Gentiles are inheritors of the promise given to Abraham. My first stumbling block is that God was making a big point that the inheritance would come through Abraham and Sarah’s body/genetics rather than an adopted servant, but Paul answers that. He says that the inheritance does come through a blood relative–Jesus. My second stumbling block was that inheritance comes through someone dying, and God is giving Abraham an inheritance, but God can’t die, but of course, God did die. Jesus died and gave the inheritance to us. Thus, when God was giving the inheritance to Abraham, it was a promise rather than a reality because He had not yet died to give the inheritance.
What is the inheritance? Descendants as the stars of the heavens and a promised land. In a smaller sense, Israel were the descendants and Palestine the land, but that was temporary. In the greater sense, all who accept Jesus as Lord are the descendants and the whole earth restored, renewed, and without blemish is the land. The Old Testament is full of object lessons that are shadows of the real thing. The temple was a shadow of the one in heaven. Thus, Israel was a representative of the real inheritance.
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) The covenant was a promise. The covenant did not come from keeping the laws. The covenant was an agreement between God and Abraham that there were be an offspring of Abraham’s body that would result in descendants as many as the stars in the sky. Abraham was thinking about a worldly inheritance. God was thinking about becoming Abraham’s many times removed grandson in order to redeem the world. Abraham did not have to do anything to receive the covenant promise. God went through the path between the severed animals. Abraham didn’t have a clue what was going on, except that God was reassuring him that he would have a child who would bring many more to call Abraham their ancestor. Abraham had to know that there was something more going on than what he saw.
(Application / Prayer) I guess my application for myself is that there is a lot that I don’t know or understand, and what I do understand is not anything close to the real picture that God has in mind, but that is okay because I just need to believe You and accept Your promises and live in the path that You have revealed to me. I have to trust You and let You take care of the details. Abraham only got into trouble when he tried to manage the details instead of leaving them up to God or when he lived contrary to God’s ethical standards, like when he lied to Pharaoh about Sarai not being his wife. Even then, God rescued the situation because Abraham continued to choose to follow God. I need to live according to God’s ethical standards, trust God to take care of His promises, and always, always continue to choose God.