Category: The Word (Page 23 of 34)

No smoking.  No dancing.  No movie-watching.  Requirements for membership in the church where I grew up.  Leaders meant to keep us from sin.  But they implied people observing the ban helped make “real Christians”.  Specifics in the 1st century Galatia churches differed, but in principle were the same.  In today’s text the apostle Paul concludes his argument against justification by human rule-keeping . . .

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).  “Christ redeemed (or, set us free from) the curse of the law . . . ” (3:13)  so we could be free from “a yoke of slavery”  (futile law-keeping as the way to justification with God).  “Stand firm,” Paul urges.  “stubbornly resist, hold your ground against the slavery-yoke Judaizers want to hang on your Gentile necks!”

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace (Galatians 5:2-4).  With “Mark my words!  I, Paul, tell you” Paul asserts his apostolic authority and issues three warnings . . .

First, get circumcised and Christ will mean nothing at all for you.  Second, get circumcised and you’re legally bound to obey all God’s laws.  And, third, try to be right with God by law-keeping and you’re cut off from Christ and, like withered blossoms on a flower, you’ll have fallen away from God’s undeserved, unmerited love and favor.

But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:5,6).  But, writes Paul, we who are justified by faith in Christ, are waiting by means of the Spirit the glorification in righteousness we hope for.  We are justified now.  Are being sanctified now.  And will be glorified in the new creation.

That’s because joined to Christ the circumcised Jewish believers have no advantage and the uncircumcised Gentile believers have no disadvantage.  Only one thing matters:  faith—faith that shows itself through acts of love.  Paul doesn’t mean faith plus love equals justification.  He means the faith that justifies works by doing love.  “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law [circumcision being the identifying mark of the law covenant]” (3:13).  ” . . . the whole law is fulfilled in one word:  ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself'” (5:14).

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?  That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.  “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.  I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be (Galatians 5:7-10).  Using a race analogy, Paul ruefully reminds them how well they were running.  But someone cut in and blocked them from continuing to obey gospel truth.  God who calls you, Paul asserts, isn’t the source of this change-your-course persuasion!  Like “a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough”, the Judaizers are affecting the whole church.  Yet, I’m confident because of the Lord, says Paul, the Galatians will focus on the gospel I preach and the confusion-planter will pay!

Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.  As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! (Galatians 5:11,12).  Puzzling what Paul means by “if I am still preaching circumcision.”  Perhaps the Judaizers argued, “Look, Paul had Timothy circumcised (Acts 16:3).  And he doesn’t stop the Jewish tradition. He still is pro-circumcision.  So get with it and get circumcised.  Paul retorts:  “If I’m preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?  If I were preaching circumcision, the offense of the cross would be a non-issue.”  (The Jews viewed a crucified Messiah as a shameful, offensive idea.)  To say it another way, Paul is being persecuted by Jews for the offense of the cross.

Let’s not “biblically correct” Paul’s words in verse 12.  He really means he wishes the gospel-agitators would slip with the knife and castrate themselves.  Slash off the whole of the private parts.  Paul is furious at the offense this heretical preaching brings to Christ and at the harm it ravages on Christ’s  church.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.  The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other (Galatians 5:13-15).  Taking a deep, calming breath, Paul calls his readers “my brothers” and repeats their call to be free (see 5:1)—free from justification by law-keeping.  But they must not use their freedom from law-keeping to “indulge the sinful nature”.  (Justification and adoption by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we still possess a sinful nature as long as we’re in this body.  We’re not to gratify its lusts.)  Freed from the slavery of law, not freed to indulge our sin-nature, but freed to be servants in love to one another!

What’s going on in the Galatia churches?  Chaos and division.  The Judaizers are preaching “a different gospel”.  Some are buying in, others aren’t.  Think of church splits you’ve been part of or heard of.  Believers become animals, “biting and devouring one another”.  Paul calls them back to what the law in summary calls them to:  love.  And he couples that call with a terrible warning:  “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

* * *

When we add rules and regulations to faith in Christ for justification, we make the cross valueless and puff up human pride.  Rule-keeping is like meriting a chest of medals.  (My medals are more than yours!)  And pride breeds “biting and devouring one another.”  Through faith in Christ we’re free.  Not to gratify our lusts.  But to serve each other in love.  Only Christ can make that happen.

This is one reason right doctrine is so important.  What we believe matters.  And what we must believe and stubbornly stand firm in is the truth of the gospel . . .

We have been crucified with Christ and the old “us” no longer lives.
And the life we now live we must live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved us and gave himself for us.
We must not nullify the grace of God,
for if righteousness were through rules,
then Christ died for nothing.

“Having begun in the Spirit, can you be so stupid as to end in the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3, NJB).  The apostle Paul understood that the Christian life begins by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, not the result of a preacher’s persuasive sermon or moving music or a hand raised or prayer prayed.  Similarly, the Holy Spirit brings believers to a successful end of the Christian life, not the result of keeping the Ten Commandments or daily devotions or church attendance.

Jewish Christians were trying to convince the Galatia churches otherwise.  Yes, faith in Christ.  But to succeed in this life as God’s people a Gentile must be circumcised and adhere to Jewish law.  Paul was furious and wrote this letter to call these new believers back to faith in Christ crucified working through the Spirit.  This next section of Galatians divides into three parts headed by a summary question . . .

How can you go back to slavery?

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods.  Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again?  You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years.  I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted” (4:8-11).

For Paul, law-submitting is slavery.  Who can keep all God’s laws all the time?  No one.  And “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them” (3:10).  How can these new believers go back to that?  Faith alone in Christ alone saves and keeps saving to the end.

Have I become your enemy?

The heretical teachers not only drove a wedge between Paul’s gospel and theirs; they also drove a wedge between Paul and the people.  “What has become of the goodwill you felt?” he asks.  “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?”  Paul is pained . . .

Friends, I beg you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You have done me no wrong.  You know that it was because of a physical infirmity that I first announced the gospel to you;  though my condition put you to the test, you did not scorn or despise me, but welcomed me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.  What has become of the goodwill you felt? For I testify that, had it been possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.  Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?   They make much of you, but for no good purpose; they want to exclude you, so that you may make much of them.  It is good to be made much of for a good purpose at all times, and not only when I am present with you.  My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!  I wish I were present with you now and could change my tone, for I am perplexed about you” (4:12-20).

TV preachers have more charisma than our pastor.  More clout.  More success.  More power.  (After all, they’re on TV!)  Beware!  99% of the time the TV preacher’s a heretic and our ordinary pastor has the truth.

What does the Scripture say?

Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law?  For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman.  One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise.  Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.  Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.  But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother.  For it is written, “Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children, burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs; for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the one who is married.”  Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac.  But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.  But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.”  So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman” (4:21-31)

This is an allegory, says Paul.—“a story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).    This is not the normal way of interpreting Scripture.  Paul uses it here to make his point.  Hagar, Sarah’s slave-maid, had a son, the result of Sarah wanting a child and urging Abraham to produce one with Hagar.  Hagar, in Paul’s allegory, is like “present Jerusalem” still in slavery, trying to live under law.  Sarah, had a son as a result of God’s promise.  She is like “the Jerusalem above.”  When Paul writes, “Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac”, he is saying that believers in Christ are descendants of Abraham, right with God by faith.

The child born according to the flesh (Ishmael and his descendants) persecuted the child born according to the Spirit (Isaac and his descendants).  So it is now, says Paul.  “But what does the Scripture say? . . .Drive out the slave and her child”.  Kick out the false teachers!

How are we to apply this passage?

1.  Trust that ” . . . he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).  In the new earth we will praise Jesus for saving us, for keeping us, for sanctifying us and, ultimately, for glorifying us.  We’ll know then that all was of grace and nothing was of us.
2. Don’t treat the TV pastor or popular book author as your buddy while giving less credence to your pastor.  The Lord has set your pastor in place to study and pray over and serve you his Word.  Don’t be awed (and misled) by the “superstar”.
3. “Kick out” the false teacher.  More often than not, the really popular guys preach a popular gospel, not the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Don’t watch them on TV.  Don’t buy their best-selling books.  “Kick ’em out”.  Be a good student of the man God has placed in your church.  And feed daily on the bread of God’s Word.

We never considered adopting Anthony or Tina.  Just foster-parenting them.   But, we soon realized we couldn’t do even that.  Stress on our own three-child family and frustration with the byzantine bureaucracy became unbearable.

In Galatians 4:4-7 Paul tells us a happier story.  God redeemed us “so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:5).
God’s redemption-aim was to adopt us!  We’ll unpack that next post.  For now, let’s follow Paul’s words as he concludes his argument against “the circumcision party” (2:13).  They were the Jews troubling the Galatia churches (Acts 13:13-14:48), insisting that circumcision and law-keeping (think:  Ten Commandments) must be added to faith in Christ to be justified.  No, cries Paul.   ‘ , , , if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law” (3:21).  Rather,  ” . . . the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.”  Faith in Christ plus works of law?  No.  Faith in Christ alone.

Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.   [for] You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,  for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise (3:25-29).

Faith’s coming was an objective, historical event.  We can mark it, date and place.  We know that because Paul’s words in Galatians 4:4 are parallel to his words in 3:25—“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son . . . ”  When Christ came, faith came.  And when faith came, law’s supervision ceased.

I’d have expected Paul to write, “Now that faith has come . . . . you are all justified through faith in Christ Jesus.”  Wouldn’t you?  After all, justification has been his topic.  Instead, however, he writes, “Now that faith has come . . . you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 

Imagine a courtroom.  Now a family room.  That’s the difference between justification and adoption. In justification God grants us right “legal” standing before him.  He declares us “NOT GUILTY” for our sin.   He gavels the decision final. Justification is a courtroom word.  In adoption God makes us members of  his “household”.   He WELCOMES us home from our lost-ness.  His arms open to pull us close.  Adoption, therefore,  is a family word.   Even though Paul doesn’t use the word “adoption” until 4:5, it lies behind Paul’s announcement here:   “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Like justification, adoption comes by faith.  We express this faith in baptism, which, Paul writes, is like clothing ourselves with Christ.   Was Paul thinking of the prophet when writing that?  “I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness . . .  ” (Isaiah 61:10).  By faith expressed in baptism, the Lord strips off the filthy rags of our “righteousness” and dresses us up in Christ’s.  His righteousness becomes ours.  

When I read this image I see the dozens and dozens I baptized as a pastor.  Every one I pulled up—whether in a lake, pool or baptistry—came back out dripping, covered with water.  By faith expressed in baptism, Christ covers us with himself.   He is the Son of God; we become sons of God.  Members of our Father’s family with Jesus as our older brother.  Jesus the “natural” Son, we the adopted, through him.

Suddenly our identity is changed.  Secondary now is our race, social standing, sex.  We’re still Jew or Greek or German or American.  Still free or a prisoner of an unjust economic system.  Still male or female.  But first we’re Christ’s.  The distinctions that divide us are swallowed up by the Son.

And this family is big.  Bigger than our church.  Bigger even than the world-wide church today.  We have brothers and sisters from all times and places, even way back to Abraham.  For ” . . .  now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and now all the promises God gave to him belong to you” (NLT).

I can think of two problems with all of this.

One, we’re sin-nature-wired not to believe.  Or, we’re sin-nature-wired to work.  It’s hard for us to trustingly accept the free gifts of justification and adoption.  Maybe it’s our pride.  Can I really be so lost that there’s nothing I can do to save myself?  We’re always wanting to tinker a bit with what God is doing, so we feel as if we’ve contributed.  But we have nothing to bring but our sinful selves.  All is God’s grace in Christ.

Two, God’s family seems insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  The church in American society is of no account.  Fellow believers aren’t always the cream of the crop.  But we are still waiting for our “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).  Meanwhile, “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19).   Let’s not be fooled into thinking that what we see of God’s family now is all we’ll ever be.  There’s a day coming when the Son of God will come again.  Then we will all be like him, “because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Let’s end this on a majestic note.  Celebrate in praise with the video above!

In 1992 Daniel Fuller authored The Unity of the Bible to show that Genesis to Revelation tell one overarching narrative.  That’s often hard to see when we open that big 66 book Book.  It  can seem  rather disjointed, even contradictory.  Take, for example, the apparent disconnect  between promises to Abraham to believe and commandments to Moses to obey.  Well, which is it—faith or obedience?  Can we just pick and choose the passages we prefer?  Or,  is there an overarching narrative, a unity which we can trust?

Judaizers (professed Christian Jews who preached justification  with God comes through faith in Christ plus Jewish circumcision and law-keeping) were troubling the new Galatia churches (1:6,7).   Paul passionately pushed back.  Look at Abraham, father of the Jewish nation, he said.   He “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness . . . Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (3:6,7).  And  ” . . . we (Jews, descendants of Abraham) know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (2:16).   Justification comes by faith alone in Christ alone, as God’s covenant with Abraham (before circumcision and the law) reveals.

Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case (2:15).

Paul illustrates from the legal system of his day.  Once a man-made covenant was ratified it was unmovable and unchangeable, written (we might say) in stone.  So, says Paul, with God’s covenant with Abraham.  Righteous-standing with God comes by faith in God’s promises.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say,                                
“And to offsprings,” as of many; but it says, “And to your offspring,” that is, to one person,
who is Christ. My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later,
does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.
For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise;
but God granted it to Abraham through the promise.(2:16-18).

Even though God promised Abraham offspring as uncountable as the stars (Genesis 15:5,6), Paul pointedly uses “offspring” “to one person, who is Christ.”    (Check Matthew’s non-exciting genealogy that starts with Abraham and culminates in Christ–Matthew 1:2-16.)  Paul claims that when God made promises to Abraham, he made them also to his offspring, Christ.

Remember the Judaizers are trying to dump law-keeping into the justification mix.  So Paul makes his point about Abraham plain.  “My point is this:  the law, which came four hundred thirty years later (through Moses) , does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God (see Genesis 15), so as to nullify the promise.”  Righteousness/justification/right-standing with God– comes through God’s promise to Abraham culminating in Christ.

But why the law?  If the Scripture narrative is a unity and runs from promised justification through faith to Abraham to promised justification through faith in Christ, law seems to intrude and shatter the unity.  No, Paul insists.  The four-centuries-later law doesn’t annul God’s covenant with Abraham.

What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.  A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.  Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.  But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.  Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.  So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith (3:19-24).

Through Moses the law was added, the Ten Commandments forming                                                                                                           
the core (Exodus 20:1-17).  The Lord gave this preamble to Moses
on the mountain:  “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians,
and how I bore you on eagles’ wing and brought you to myself.  Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:4-6).

Though the Lord had saved them from slavery by his grace, if the Hebrews were to live as his treasured possession they had to obey the law of the covenant.  Worse than telling a seven year-old child who’s been coddled and cuddled he has to start doing chores to be part of the family.  Abraham:  promises by faith.  Moses:  promises by obedience.

In this paragraph Paul explains critical distinctions about the nature of God’s law.  First, it was temporary.  “[The law] was added . . . until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.”    Second, “[The law] was added because of transgressions.”  By that I take Paul to mean, “The law was added so I might know my transgressions.”  This is what he wrote later in Roman 7:7— ” . . . if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.  For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’.”

Third, the law was “put in place through angels by an intermediary.”  The role of angels in giving the law appears to exalt the law.  But Paul means the opposite.  In some way God used angels to mediate the law to Moses who then announced it to the people.  But when God made his promises to Abraham, he spoke directly to Abraham.  Thus the promises hold a “holier” nature than the law.

Does the law, then, interrupt God’s narrative unity.  Is Moses an intruder?  Not at all.  God’s concern here is not to demand obedience to law but to “impart [a righteous, justified] life.”  Law cannot do that.  A lawfully-given speeding ticket may lighten my foot on the accelerator for a while, but soon I’m doing 60 mph in a 50 zone again.  And even when keeping the limit, my insides are frustrated by the ticket and crying, “Speed it up!”

Paul gives us two final purposes for the law.  Fourth, law “imprisoned everything under sin.”  “Imprisoned” suggests sin is a power we can’t overcome.  Prison bars restrain.  Lock us in.  No escape.  God gives Ten Commandments and, in almost no time at all, we realize we not only don’t keep them, we can’t. 

The fifth purpose for the law flows from the helplessness of the fourth.  The law is a guardian.  The NIV translation above translates the Greek noun, paidagogos, as a verb to describe its function.  A paidagogos was a slave who conducted a freeborn boy to and from school.  The ESV translates, ” . . . the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”  The law kept us reasonably on God’s right path.  It identified danger and sin.  It promised blessings and reward.  But it left us fallen short.  The road to right-standing with God wound up to a high and rugged holy mountain.  Our very nature rebelled against it (to say nothing of the devil stalking us every step of the way).

But note the narrative unity here.  God’s promises righteous by faith to Abraham and ultimately to Christ.  He gave us law so we could see our wretched transgressions against his holy and good will and to lead us to the only One who could put us in right-standing  with the holy God—Jesus Messiah.

So, you see, not only is the Bible one overarching narrative, so is the Gospel of our salvation.  It began when God gave his promises to Abraham.  Continued when he gave the law through Moses.  And it climaxed in the coming of Christ.  “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law . . . ” (3:13).  “And, if you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (3:29).