November 14, 2010 (Galations 1-6)

I've only read the first chapter at this point, and have to blog about this before I go any farther. Verses 3-5 sum up the Christian faith in a nutshell:

³ May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. ⁴ Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. ⁵ All glory to God forever and ever! Amen

And then Paul goes on to berate them from turning away from the simple message of salvation:

⁶ I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News ⁷ but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.

And he tells them that he can't please both God and people:

¹⁰ Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.

Next he explains how he learned the message he now preaches. That it came from a direct revelation of Jesus Christ. And in reality, we too, when we come to know Christ, have a direct revelation from Him. The Holy Spirit enlightens us, and reveals Jesus to us, and draws us to Him. This next section reminded me of when I was saved:

¹⁵ But then something happened! For it pleased God in his kindness to choose me and call me, even before I was born! What undeserved mercy! ¹⁶ Then he revealed his Son to me so that I could proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles.

Something happened to me! My life was changed by Jesus being revealed to me.

And now, chapters 2-6. This is difficult to write about, or to truly understand, because I fear I have fallen into the 'trap' the early Christians did. The 'law', God's word, was written to bring us to Christ, and we are not perfected by the law, but by the Spirit. The following passage shows how Paul explained it to those 'steeped' in the Jewish religion.

²¹ Tell me, you who want to live under the law, do you know what the law actually says? ²² The Scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his freeborn wife. ²³ The son of the slave wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise. But the son of the freeborn wife was born as God’s own fulfillment of his promise.

²⁴ These two women serve as an illustration of God’s two covenants. The first woman, Hagar, represents Mount Sinai where people received the law that enslaved them. ²⁵ And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery to the law. ²⁶ But the other woman, Sarah, represents the heavenly Jerusalem. She is the free woman, and she is our mother. ²⁷As Isaiah said,

“Rejoice, O childless woman,
you who have never given birth!
Break into a joyful shout,
you who have never been in labor!
For the desolate woman now has more children
than the woman who lives with her husband!”

²⁸ And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac. ²⁹ But you are now being persecuted by those who want you to keep the law, just as Ishmael, the child born by human effort, persecuted Isaac, the child born by the power of the Spirit.

³⁰ But what do the Scriptures say about that? “Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” ³¹ So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman; we are children of the free woman.

Galatians 5

Freedom in Christ

¹ So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

² Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. ³I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses.⁴ For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.

⁵ But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. ⁶ For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

The following verses in chapter 5 show the difference between following the desires of our sinful nature and following the desires of the Holy Spirit:

¹⁶ So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. ¹⁷ The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. ¹⁸ But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

¹⁹ When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, ²¹ envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

²² But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. ²⁵Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

And then Paul sums it all up at the end of the book in chapter 6. So much in this one little book to digest. God, please help us to live by Your Spirit instead of our flesh.

¹⁴ As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world died long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead. ¹⁵ It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people. ¹⁶ May God’s peace and mercy be upon all who live by this principle; they are the new people of God.