STUDY THEME: GALATIANS: THE CHARTER OF GRACE 7-20-03

"GOOD NEWS! FREE TO SERVE." Gal. 4: 8-9; 5:1-8, 13-15.

GALATIANS 4: 8-9; 5:1-8, 13-15.

PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO GALATIANS 4,

In Galatians 1-3 Paul explained that salvation is by grace through faith. In Ch. 4-6 he explains the dynamics of the Christian life. Paul was very concerned that Christians know about all aspects of their salvation. He wanted them to know that Christ saved them from sin and at the same time to a life of holiness. Christians today need to learn this truth just as much as the Galatian Christians in the first century did.

We have seen in the previous lessons that the Galatians, who had been brought out of heathen darkness into the light and liberty of the gospel through the ministry of the Apostle Paul, had fallen under the charm----shall we say----of certain Judaizing teachers who were carrying them into subjection to the law of Moses; telling them that unless they were circumcised and kept the law of Moses they could not be saved, that while they began in faith, they had to complete their salvation through works of their own, acquiring merit by obedience to the commands of the law.

The apostle Paul has been showing them that the law could only condemn, could only kill, could not justify, could not give life, neither could it sanctify, and that our sanctification is as truly by faith as is our justification.

In today’s lesson Paul reasons with them, trying to show the folly of their course in giving up Christianity with all its liberty and light for the twilight and bondage of Judaism. "Why," he says, "you were heathen when I came to you. You were enslaved to heathen customs, you served those that you esteemed to be gods who really are not gods, you were worshippers of idols, and you know that in those days you were misled by pagan priest-craft. There were certain things you could not eat, places you could not go, things you could not touch. There were different kinds of offerings that you had to bring, there were charms against evil spirits, and amulets and talismans. You were slaves to worldly customs in those days of your heathenism. The thing that amazes me is that you should be willing to go into another bondage after having known something of the liberty of grace.

Paul was telling the Galatians not to turn back to the life, rules, and law from which they were saved. Why turn back to slavery once they are freed? Although some Americans have ancestors who were slaves, Americans today have not experienced personal slavery. A slave has no rights and is regarded as property. It is not likely that a person who has been a salve and was then set free would choose to return to slavery. Paul argued that the Galatians had done just that.

Paul asked how they, who had know the true God, could turn back to weak and worthless elemental things. Elemental things could refer to the demonic spiritual powers that dominated the lives of the Galatian Gentiles before they became Christians.

1. PLEASE READ GALATIANS 4: 8-9.

In Galatians 4 Paul began to explain truths about Christian discipleship. He compared the lives of the Galatians before they were saved and their present lives that were under the influence of Judaizers. The Galatians needed to remember their former lives as slaves. Before they were Christians, the Galatians consulted all kinds of pagan spiritual teachers who claimed to have a direct connection to God. These teachers took advantage of the gullible Galatians much in the same way as many gurus, psychics, and spiritualists take advantage of people today. Paul expressed dismay at the irony of current events in the lives of the Galatian Christians. Having fallen under the spell of these false teachers, the Galatians had lapsed right back into their former way of life.

The Apostle urged them to stand firm in their freedom and not to yield to the yoke of slavery. Trusting the law excludes trusting Christ. The Christians life involved hope, faith, and love. Paul emphasized that freedom in Christ was not freedom to sin: instead, true liberty frees and empowers believers to serve one another. The three points in today’s lesson seek to answer "The Life Question. If Christ has set me free from the obligations of the Mosaic law, what do I do now?"

Paul warns us of idols. The Bible warns of two dangers of worshipping idols. For one thing, idols are made by humans, out of wood or metal: they are not living beings; certainly not gods. At the same time, demonic powers often use idols to gain entry into people’s lives.

The words but now in Vs. 9 introduce a contrast----"You know God." The word for knowing God refers to knowledge or acquaintance that leads to personal relationship. All of us know about the famous people of our day, but most of us do not know them personally nor do we have an ongoing relationship with them. Many people know about God, but they do not know Him. True believers know Him and have a relationship with Him.

Paul added the words; "or rather are know by God" to remind his readers that God knew us, loved us, and sought us before we came to know Him. His loving knowledge of us moved Him to send His Son to die for us while we were still sinners. People do not seek and discover God on their own. God’s love always seeks us before we turn to Him.

We have heard of the little boy who was approached by a Christian worker who said to him, "My boy, have you found Jesus?" And the little fellow looked up with a perturbed expression and said, "Why, please sir, I didn’t know He was lost: but I was, and He found me." That is it.

In Vs. 1-7 Paul showed how life under the law was like slavery but life in Christ is like that of a son. In Vs., 8-9 he asked why they were considering returning from the status of a son to that of a slave. Notice what had enslaved them—the weak and beggarly elements. The word elements is used this way of the basics of the faith in Hebrews 5:12 They are called, the (First principles of the oracles of God.)

One surprise in these verses is the close relation of paganism and legalism. Paul considered Jewish legalism as dangerous as pagan idolatry. Another surprise is the use of the word desire, which means "to want" or "to wish." "Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?"
This was incredible to Paul. He couldn’t imagine a liberated slave wanting to become a slave again.

Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1854 this comment: "Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself."

PLEASE TURN TO GALATIANS 5.

2. PLEASE READ GALATIANS 5: 1-8.

In many ways Vs. 1 clearly expresses the main theme of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. The verse contains an affirmation, an exhortation, and a warning. It affirms the liberty we have in Christ, exhorts us to stand fast therefore in that liberty, and warns against submitting again to the yoke of bondage.

The law never tires of producing obligations that keep its adherents forever duty-bound. And just when you think you have completely observed the spirit and practice of one rule, you realize that you still have not adequately considered every aspect of faithfulness to a given commandment.

This is what Jesus meant when He told His followers in Matt. 5: 21-22: "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment." In other words, anger toward one’s brother is the moral equivalent of murder. If we realize what the law requires, we come to grips with the fact that only God can save us.

The affirmation says literally, "For freedom Christ freed us." or "For freedom Christ set us free." But from what has Christ set us free? He has set us free from all that enslaves us and keeps us from being what He wants us to be. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free."

Paul grouped together sin, death, and the law as powers from which Christ liberates believers. Sin is the problem. The law sentences sinners to death. The law becomes the means of our condemnation.

As we noted in comments on Galatians 4: 8-9, both paganism and legalism enslave sinners. The Judaizers no doubt promised freedom and enrichment through keeping the law. Paul disagreed. He had in mind what was called "the yoke of the law" when he warned, "be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

Christ has set us free from the law so that we can concern ourselves with serving Him and those He loves. Under the bondage of legalism, we are not free to serve others because every act that we do arises out of self-interest that seeks to gain favor with God. If we are not constantly worrying about gaining and keeping God’s favor, however, we can serve others out of spontaneous love for Christ and His gospel. Since the only ultimate progress in good works can be made under the covenant of grace, it is foolish then to say that subservience to the law helps one love God or serve others in the way God intends.

Paul’s opponents were fond of telling their followers to put themselves under the yoke of the law, as a means of guidance toward righteousness. Paul cut to the heart of the matter by commanding the Galatians, "Do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery."

Vs. 2-6 deal directly with the issue of circumcision. When Paul wrote these words the Galatians had not yet taken this fatal step. Therefore, he warned any Gentile seeking to add circumcision or anything else to the means of salvation, "You have been alienated from Christ", "Christ shall profit you nothing," or "Christ will be of no value to you at all." You are obligated to obey the whole law. You are fallen away from grace. Righteousness will never come to you. This indicates the seriousness of the path upon which the Galatians had embarked. With Christ it is either all or nothing. Trusting something else for salvation makes totally trusting Christ impossible.

We may need to distinguish what many mean by. "falling from grace" from what Paul meant. Many people today believe that a person can be in and out of a state of salvation. When they are out of the state of salvation it is said that they have fallen from grace. This is not at all what Paul had in mind when he used this expression. Paul was referring to the same thing as he had mentioned in Vs. 2. They could either place their trust in God’s grace in Christ as the sole means of their salvation and Christian life, or they could seek to add something to this as a requirement for salvation and keeping God’s favor. If they did that they would have chosen a way of salvation other than grace from start to finish. They would have fallen away from grace as their hope of salvation and maintaining God’s favor. As Timothy George wrote, "Paul did not here contemplate the forfeiture of salvation by a truly regenerated believer. He was writing to Christian churches that were founded on the doctrines of grace but that were in danger of forsaking that doctrinal bedrock for a theology that can only lead to ruin.

Paul insisted that both becoming a Christian and staying a Christian are the results of the grace of God. Grace gets us into the kingdom of God, and grace keeps us in the kingdom of God. God keeps us by giving us His Spirit, who teaches us through faith about the hope of righteousness, in which we will fully participate on the day of resurrection.

In Vs. 5-6 Paul mentioned hope…faith….love. Here the focus is on faith. Hope was an ordinary word in daily life, meaning much of what it does today. It combines expectation and desire, but our hopes are often more than wishful thinking. Biblical hope is confident assurance of the coming of God’s kingdom. Paul based his hope of righteousness on the grace of God through the Spirit. Righteousness includes justification, sanctification, and glorification. The work of the Spirit is emphasized in Vs. 13-25.

Many biblical students believe that this phrase, hope of righteousness, refers to the time believers will be made completely righteous when Christ returns to claim His church.

As Vs. 5 explains, all true believers endure to the end. "Faith that fails at the finish was faulty at the first." God desires for us to be righteous. By faith we believe that God delivers on His promise that we are righteous new creatures in Christ. We have faith as Paul explained in Ephesians 2:10, that God has already fore-ordained righteous works prepared in advance for us to do.

As we believe in this reality, we do the very things in which God delights. This is the same thing as faith expressing itself through love.

Vs. 6 sums up Paul’s argument: He states that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matter as a way to gain righteousness in the sight of God because people are saved by grace through faith. What does matter is "faith working through love for God and others," and this kind of love fulfills all that the law demands.

Paul often compared the Christian life to a race. This was not a short dash but a long-distance run. The Galatians had run well. Paul asked them, "Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?"

LET’S SEE NOW HOW PAUL THOUGHT WE SHOULD EXERCISE OUR FREEDOM.

3. PLEASE READ GALATIANS 5: 13-15.

Paul gloried in Christian freedom. Yet he recognized some threats to it. In Vs. 1 the threat was legalism. In Vs. 13 it was libertinism. Some people used the gospel of grace as an excuse to sin. In Rom. 6: 1-2 Paul asked, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? "God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

Paul said this idea contrasted with the true meaning of spiritual freedom.

A woman had recently arrived in America from a land with few freedoms. When she tried to cross a busy intersection against the light, she was about to be hit by an oncoming bus. Someone snatched her back and said, "Not against the light." She was heard to mutter, "Free country." The implication of her words was that she thought she had left a land where most freedoms were denied and had assumed that in America nothing was forbidden. Freedom does not mean the right to do as we please without regard to God or others. True freedom always includes responsibility.

Another contrast is that the person who is free in Christ seeks to serve others in love. Freedom from the law brings with it its own obligations---love and service. When Paul stated that Christian freedom is freedom to love and freedom to serve others—or more accurately, service in love—he linked the same two words he earlier had argued Christ delivered believers from—slavery and law. In Vs. 13 the word serve is from the same root behind the noun for slave. Thus Paul stated not only what believers are free for, but, what believers are slave to. We are to be slaves of one another. As Timothy George wrote "True freedom is realized only in the slavery of love." Thus Vs. 13 states the paradox of freedom in Christ. Never were we more free, yet never were we more bound. This paradox was clearly sated in two seemingly contradictory propositions by Martin Luther in "A Treatise on Christian Liberty."

He wrote: "A Christian man is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

A Christian man is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."

In other words, Christians are free from all that blights and free for all that is good. Paul used the word love to describe the motivation for moral and spiritual freedom. This is not the sentimental love of the world but the self-giving agape of Christ.

In Vs. 14 Paul gave the reason that mutual service through love is important when he referred to the law and the obligation of Christians to fulfill it.

Many people today claim that God’s law is out-dated and irrelevant for our times. They propose moral relativism in which each person in each situation determines what is right and what is wrong. Vs. 14 shows that Christian freedom does not mean freedom from God’s basic moral requirements. Paul wrote that the law is fulfilled by the kind of love set forth in Leviticus 19:18: Thou shalt lvoe thy neighbor as thyself.

Serving others with selfless love encapsulates the law. Having been the recipients of God’s infinite grace, we as believers must fan out into a needy and hurting world to show people that love which we found in Christ. According to Vs. 15 the one who insists on serving self brings conflict and harm.

People often say, "You can’t legislate righteousness." That is true. Only love can change people’s hearts. Law states a level below which behavior must not sink. Love demands far more than this minimum level of behavior. God’s law makes murder a sin. But love calls us to serve and help another. Love demands more than law, and its demands are from within and motivated by an experience of God’s love.

Vs. 15 points out the antithesis to believers serving one another in love. The three verbs Paul used in this verse (Biting, devouring, and destroyed), evoke the imagery of savage beasts in Greek mythology in a deadly fight. In such encounters, the contest was a fight to the death.

This describes the tragic results of the two extremes that depart from God’s purpose in grace. On the one hand, legalism destroys lives with its insatiable desire for perfection and total obedience. No amount of self-sacrifice ever satisfies a legalist. Unchecked legalism usually forms the basis for cults. Cults are religious systems that require unthinking conformity to man-made norms masquerading as divinely inspired commands.

On the other hand antinomianism says that since we as Christians are not under the law, we can do anything and act any way we wish. This means that we can indulge in all manner of sin without worrying about the consequences.

In an odd way, both legalism and indulgence are both out-workings of the desires of our sinful natures. One approach tries to wrest control from God by proposing impossible standards that we cannot achieve by ourselves. The other flees from the holiness of God through lives of lust, pride, and individualism. Both paths lead people astray and will ultimately destroy anyone who persists in them.

When Christians indulge their sinful desires either by establishing legalism or by participating in immoral activities, they destroy both themselves and those around them---people for whom Christ died. But by constantly reminding ourselves of the grace we received, we love one another and build up one another in the faith.

NEXT SUNDAY FROM GALATIANS 5 & 6 WE SEEK THE ANSWER TO THE LIFE QUESTION, "WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LIVE BY THE SPIRIT?"

A. V. DAUGHERTY 7-20-03