Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written… In a shipwreck, when the ship is dashed in pieces upon a rock, how heavy is the case of the crew among the raging waves? The ship can no more carry them to the harbour, but, failing them, leaves them to the mercy of the waves. If one can get a broken plank to hold by, that is the greatest safety there; but that doth often but hold in their miserable lives for a little, till the passengers are swallowed up. Such, and unspeakably worse, is the case of sinners under the broken covenant of works, which leaves them under the curse, as we see in the text. In which we have — 1. The covenant-state of some of mankind, yea, of many of them. They "are of the works of the law;" it is the same thing as to be of the law of works; that is, to be under the covenant of works. 2. The state and case of men under that covenant; they "are under the curse." The covenant is broken, and so they are fallen under the penalty. As the blessing or promise, which they have lost, comprehends all good for time and eternity, soul and body; so the curse comprehends all evil on soul and body for time and eternity. 3. The proof and evidence of this their miserable state and case. I. I shall evince the truth of this doctrine, that THERE ARE SOME, YEA, MANY OF MANKIND, WHO ARE STILL UNDER THE BROKEN COVENANT OF WORKS. This will clearly appear, if ye consider — 1. That there are but "few that shall be saved" (Matthew 7:14). Christ's flock is but a very little flock (Luke 12:32). The truth is, all men by nature are under it, and so are born under the curse (Ephesians 2:3). 2. The Scripture is plain on this head. It curseth and condemneth many; Galatians 3:10, "Cursed is every one," viz., who is under the law; for its curse cannot reach others, there being "no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). It condemns all unbelievers; John 3:18, "He that believeth not is condemned already," viz., by the sentence of the law as the covenant of works; for the covenant of grace condemns no man (John 5:45); said our Lord to the Jews, "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust." Chap. John 12:47, "And if any man hear My words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world but to save the world." 3. As all men in Adam were taken into the covenant of works, so no man can be freed from the obligation of it, but they who are discharged from it by God, who was man's party in it. This is evident from the general nature of contracts. And none are discharged from it but on a full answering of all it could demand of them (Matthew 5:18). This no man can attain unto but by faith in Jesus Christ, whereby the soul appropriates and applies to itself Christ's obedience and satisfaction offered in the gospel; and so, pleading these, gets up the discharge; "For being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). 4. Freedom from the covenant of works is such a privilege as requires both price and power, each of them infinite, to invest a sinner with it. 5. There are many who still live as they were born; in the same state wherein their father Adam left them when he broke; who were never to this day in any due concern how to be discharged from the debt he left upon their head, or of the bond of the covenant of works which in him they entered into. 6. There are but two covenants, viz., of works and grace (Galatians 4:24), as there never were but two ways of life and salvation, by works and by grace; and but two federal heads of mankind, the first and second Adam. II. THOSE UNDER THE COVENANT OF WORKS DESCRIBED. 1. Men may be under the covenant of works, and yet living under the external dispensation of the covenant of grace. 2. Men may receive the seals of the covenant of grace, and yet be under the covenant of works. 3. Men may be convinced in their consciences of the impossibility of obtaining salvation by Adam's covenant of works, and yet remain under it still. 4. Men, upon the offer of the covenant of grace made to them, may aim at accepting of it, and so enter into a personal covenant with God, and yet remain under the covenant of works. But more particularly and directly — (1) All unregenerate persons are under the covenant of works. That man or woman is yet a branch of the old Adam, growing on the old stock, a stranger to ,the new covenant, because not in Christ, the head of the covenant. (2) All that have not the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them are under the covenant of works, for "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Romans 8:9). Galatians 5:8, "But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law." It is one of the first promises of the covenant of grace, the giving of the Spirit (Ezekiel 37:27), "A new Spirit will I put within you."(3) All unbelievers (John 3:18). Whosoever is destitute of saving faith is under the covenant of works; for it is by faith that one is brought within the bond of the covenant of grace, is married unto Christ, being dead to the law. (4) All unsanctified, unholy persons (Romans 6:14). So that true holiness is an infallible mark of one delivered from the law; and unholiness, of one that is yet hard and fast under it (Galatians 5:18). (5) All profane, loose, and licentious men are under the covenant of works (Romans 7:5 and Romans 8:2). These men of Belial are under that heavy yoke. (6) All mere moralists, such as satisfy themselves with common honesty and sobriety, living in the meantime strangers to religious exercises, and without a form of godliness. These are under the covenant of works, as seeking justification and acceptance with God by their conformity (such as it is) to the letter of the law (Galatians 5:4). They are under the covenant of works with a witness, having betaken themselves to their shreds of moral honesty, as so many Broken boards of that split ship. (7) All formal hypocrites or legal professors, these .sons and daughters of the bond-woman (Galatians 4:24, 25). These are they who have been convinced, but never were converted; who have been awakened by the law, but were never laid to rest by the gospel; who are brought to duties, but have never been brought out of them to Jesus Christ; who pretend to be married to Christ, but were never yet divorced from nor dead to the law; and so are still joined to the first husband, the law, as a covenant of works. III. THE EFFECT OF THE BROKEN COVENANT OF WORKS UPON THOSE WHO ARE UNDER IT. 1. It has and exercises a commanding power over them, binding them to its obedience with the strongest bonds and ties of authority. (1) It commands and binds to perfect obedience under pain of the curse. (2) It commands, without any promise of strength at all to perform. 2. It has a debarring power over those under it, in respect of the promise. It bars them from life or salvation so long as they are under its dominion, (1) There is no life to the sinner without complete satisfaction to justice for the wrong he has done to the honour of God and His law; Hebrews 9:22, for "without shedding of blood is no remission."(2) There is no life and salvation without perfect obedience to its commands for the time to come; Matthew 19:17, "If thou wilt enter into life," says Christ unto the young man in the gospel, "keep the commandments." This was the condition of the covenant; and it is not enough that a man pay the penalty of a broken covenant, but he must perform the condition of it ere he can plead the benefit. 3. A cursing and condemning power, in respect of the threatening. 4. An irritating influence upon all that are under it, so that, instead of making them better, it makes them worse, stirring up their corruptions, like a nest of ants, being "troubled by one's touching of them (Romans 7:9, 10, 11). Now this is accidental to the law as the covenant of works; for it is holy, and just, and good; and therefore ,an never bring forth sin as the native fruit of it. But it is owing to the corruption of men's hearts, impatient of restraint (Romans 7:12, 13), forecited. While the sun shines warm on a garden, the flowers send forth a pleasant smell; but while it shines so on the dunghill, it smells more abominably than at other times. So it is here. There are two things here to be considered in the case of the law. (1) It lays an awful restraint on the sinner with its commands and threatenings (Galatians 3:10). The unrenewed man would never make a holy life his choice; might he freely follow his own inclination, he would not regard what is good, but give himself a liberty in sinful courses. But the law is as a bridle to him; it crosses and contradicts his sinful inclinations. It is to him as the bridle and spur to the horse; as the master and his whip to the slave. So that the sinner can never cordially like it, but all the obedience it gets from him is mercenary, having no higher springs than hope of reward and fear of punishment. (2) In the meantime it has no power to subdue his corruptions, to remove his rebellious disposition, to reconcile his heart to holiness, or to strengthen him for the performance of duty; "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). As it finds the man without strength, so it leaves him, though it never ceases to exact duty of him. Though no straw is given to the sinner by it, yet the tale of the bricks it will not suffer to be diminished. IV. I now proceed to show, WHY SO MANY DO STILL REMAIN UNDER THE BROKEN COVENANT OF WORKS. 1. It is natural to men, being made with Adam, and us in his loins; it is engrained in the hearts of all men naturally. "Tell me," says the apostle (Galatians 2:21), "ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?" And there are impressions of it to be found in the hearts of all among the ruins of the fall. We have a clear proof of it — (1) In men left to the swing of their own nature; they all go this way in their dealing with God for life and favour. (2) In men awakened and convinced, and in moral seriousness seeking to know what course they shall take to be saved, and plying their work for that end. They all take this principle for granted, That it is by doing they must obtain life and salvation (Matthew 19:16). (3) in the saints, who are truly married to Jesus Christ, O what hankering after the first husband, how great the remains of a legal spirit, how hard is it for them to forget their father's house! (Psalm 45:10). 2. The way of that covenant is most agreeable to the pride of man's heart. A proud heart will rather serve itself with the less, than stoop to live upon free grace (Romans 10:3). Man must be broken, bruised, and humbled, and laid very low, before he will embrace the covenant of grace. While a broken board of the first covenant will do men any service they will hold by it rather than come to Christ; like men who will rather live in a cottage of their own than in another man's castle. 3. It is most agreeable to man's reason in its corrupt state. If one should have asked the opinion of the philosophers concerning that religion which taught salvation by a crucified Christ, and through the righteousness of another, they would have said it was unreasonable and foolish, and that the only way to true happiness was the way of moral virtue. 4. Ignorance and insensibility of the true state of the matter as it now is. There is a thick darkness about Mount Sinai through the whole dominion of the law, so that they who live under the covenant of works see little but what they see by the lightnings now and then flashing out. Hence they little know where they are nor what they are. (1) They do not understand the nature of that covenant to purpose (Galatians 4:21). (2) They are not duly sensible of their own utter inability for that way of salvation. V. APPLICATION OF THIS DOCTRINE. 1. For information. Hence learn — (1) That some, yea, many of mankind, are under the curse, bound over to wrath. (2) See here whence it is that true holiness is so rare, and wickedness and ungodliness so rife. (3) Here ye may see the true spring of legalism in principles as well as in practice. (4) See whence it is that the doctrine of the gospel is so little understood, and in the purity of it is looked at as a strange thing. 2. For exhortation. Be exhorted then seriously and impartially to try what covenant ye are under. For motives, consider — (1) It is in the region of the law that we all draw our first breath. And no man will get out from its dominion in a morning dream. We owe it to our second birth, whoever of us are brought into the covenant of grace; but that is not our original state. (2) Till once ye see yourselves under the covenant of works, and so lost and ruined with the burden of that broken covenant on you; ye may hear of the covenant of grace, but ye will never take hold of it in good earnest (Galatians 2:6). Here lies the ruin of the most part who hear the gospel; they were never slain by the law, and therefore never quickened by the gospel; they never find the working of the deadly poison conveyed to them from the first Adam, and therefore they see no beauty in the second Adam for which He is to be desired. (3) Your salvation or ruin turns on this point. (4) There is no ease for a poor sinner but severity and rigour, under the covenant of works. (5) While ye are under that covenant ye are without Christ (Ephesians 2:12). And being without Christ, ye have no saving interest in his purchase. (6). All attempts you make to get to heaven while under this covenant will be vain. The children of that covenant are, by an unalterable statute of the court of heaven, excluded from the heavenly inheritance; so that, do what you will, while ye abide under it you may as well fall a-ploughing the rocks, and sowing your seed in the sand of the sea, as think to get to heaven that way. (T. Boston, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. |
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