Lesson 7 - The Seed and the Law
8. When Paul says the Law “was added because of transgressions” (v. 19), what does he mean?
Imagine being tossed into the cockpit of a passenger airplane mid-flight. Most of us wouldn’t have the first clue what to do (if you’re a pilot, please play along!). Maybe you have some idea how a few of the knobs, buttons, and handles work. But you probably don’t know any of the “rules” of flying a plane safely.
What altitude should you maintain? How should you set your transponder? Are your flaps adjusted properly? Is it okay that your engine gas temperature is that high?
You might not know what any of those questions mean, much less how to answer them. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t important! If you’re going to fly the plane, you need to know the rules. Ignorance of them doesn’t absolve you of the consequences of ignoring them. Exactly the opposite is true: the less you know the laws of flying a plane, the more likely you are to make a disaster of it.
When Paul says that the Law was added because of transgressions, he’s pointing out the reality that the Law was given so that we could know the rules. Because, transgressions against the holiness and righteousness of God is a reality regardless of our ignorance. Many people think God’s rules in the Old Testament are harsh and hard to live by. They are hard to live by, but how much harsher and unloving would it be if He hadn’t told us of them? The Law was given because transgression; so that we would know. Because the standard taught in the Law is a reality that can’t simply be ignored. It’s much better for us to know what violates God’s perfect standard, rather than fly blindly.
11. In v. 27, Paul speaks about our baptism into Christ. Do you think he’s talking about that time we made a profession of faith and got dunked under water? Or, does “baptized” here mean something else? If it does, what is he talking about? Consider Paul’s words written to believers in Corinth that he wasn’t sent to baptize (1st Corinthians 1:13–17) and that the Holy Spirit baptizes believers into Christ when they believe (1st Corinthians 12:13). How do these statements from Paul influence your answer?
The word “baptize” can sometimes cause a lot of confusion. It is an example of a word that hasn’t truly been translated. Instead, it’s been transliterated.
When a word is translated, the translator considers the word and its meaning in the original language, and then finds a word in the new language (called the receptor language) that best fits the word/idea under consideration. That’s not what happened with “baptize.” It was transliterated. This means that our translators took the Greek word baptizō and simply moved it over into English, maintaining the original spelling and meaning as much as possible. This isn’t a problem… unless we somehow forget or lose the original meaning(s).
Could baptizō mean to what we think of when we baptize someone on a Sunday morning? Sure. But it means more than that. Baptizō meant to dunk, submerge, immerse, or wash. You could baptizō (wash) the dishes. You could baptizō (dunk) your little brother. A good book could cause you to baptizō (immerse) yourself into it.
When we are baptized into Christ, it means much more that the physical, symbolic act of being dipped under water. We are being immersed into Him. We are being placed in Him.
12. Keeping in mind that Paul is writing to a predominately Gentile church, does it surprise you to read in v. 29 that they are Abraham’s descendants (“seed,” plural)? How does this relate to Jesus being the “seed” (singular)? How is it that Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, along with men and women can all be counted as heirs of God’s promise to Abraham?
I think this would have been surprising to any 1st Century audience, especially Jews. But this is one of the miraculous promises for those in Jesus.
This promise is made possible based on the extent of Jesus’ sacrifice. He didn’t die on the cross for one people group. His death wasn’t restricted to one ethnicity. Instead, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1st John 2:2).