Page 57 - Laying Down the Law

Galatians 3:19
What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions,
until the Seed should come to whom the promise was made.

Truly, the covenant with Hagar was “added because of transgressions,” for it was
the unbelief of Abraham and Sarah that led to this work of the flesh.
Consider carefully that Yahweh permitted Abraham to follow this course in
taking Hagar as his wife. Yet the fruit of her flesh was not acceptable in God’s eyes.
Ishmael was not a product of faith and obedience. He arose from unbelief and
striving. Even so, Yahweh permitted His people to experience striving for 1,500 years
until the promised Seed should appear. This striving would reveal the vanity of all
fleshly effort to attain to the righteousness of God.
The Law could never satisfy the heart of Yahweh. He permitted it for a season
until the Seed should come who would fulfill Yahweh’s desire, which is “OBEDIENT
SONS.” The law could only offer sacrifice to temporarily atone for sins which were
continually committed. Yahweh wanted obedience, not sacrifice.

I Samuel 15:22
"Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying
the voice of Yahweh? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than
the fat of rams.”

Yahweh desired sons in His image in the same way that Abraham longed for a
son of his loins. We see Yahweh’s dissatisfaction with the Law in the following
passage.

Isaiah 1:11-14
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? saith Yahweh: I am
full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not
in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear
before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no
more vain oblations; incense is an abomination to me; the new moons and
sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure; it is iniquity, even the
solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth:
they are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them.
[Noah Webster’s Bible 1833]

Because the Law could not produce righteousness in the heart of man it was
never a pleasing wife for Abraham’s descendants in the eyes of God. The offspring it
produced were rebellious. Their hearts were always going astray. Like Ishmael, they
could not tame the unruliness of their own souls. All those born of Adam are like “a
wild jackass of a man.”