Fallen Away from Grace

Reading:  Galatians 5:1-6
    
    Paul’s concern about the Galatians adopting the Law of Moses boils over here.  “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”(Gal 5:1).  Since the Law makes slaves, it would be like returning to their former slavery to paganism (Gal 4:8-9).  But what exactly are they considering doing?  “Look:  I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.  I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law”(Gal 5:2-3).  These Gentiles—who are perfectly acceptable to God now through their obedient faith in Jesus—are contemplating being circumcised to be a part of God’s covenant people.  Paul warns that this will make Christ “of no advantage to you” and instead they will be signing themselves up for keeping the entire Law of Moses (not just one or two parts).

     His next words are his strongest:  “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace”(Gal 5:4).  Christ and the Law are two different paths; we cannot serve two masters.  Either we will be saved because we perfectly keep the Law or because we receive forgiveness from Jesus by faith.  When we attempt to save ourselves by law-keeping, we “have fallen away from grace” because we declare that we no longer need God’s mercy.  We’re fine on our own.  “For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love”(Gal 5:5-6).  Christians live by faith, awaiting our hope by the Spirit, working Jesus’ will through love, unconcerned with physical markers like circumcision.  It is a new path.

    “Fallen away from grace” describes the clear and present danger of Christians leaving Jesus behind and forfeiting his gift.  Yet the reason for this estrangement is not relapsing into sin, but our insistence that we can save ourselves.  Jesus’ grace has conditions—and one of them is that we trust him (rather than ourselves) to save us.  I never graduate past obedient faith in him.

-----------
One Thing to Think About:  How might I try to “save myself”?

One Thing to Pray For:   A faith that works through love

Freedom

Reading:  Galatians 4:21-31
    
    Paul’s strategy in this section is daring: he argues that Christians are children of Sarah while Jews who continue to keep Moses’ Law are not.  He does this by allegorizing (Gal 4:24) the Old Testament story of Hagar and Sarah, who both bore children to Abraham.  “But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise”(Gal 4:23).   Hagar represents both slavery and “the flesh”(because by her Abraham attempted to “help God out” by his own wisdom), while Sarah represents both freedom and “promise”(because God promised that she would bear Abraham’s son).  “One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.  Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children”(Gal 4:24-25).  Those who continue to keep the Law of Moses are slaves (see Gal 3:23, 4:1, 8-9), which means they have more in common with Hagar than Sarah.

    But followers of Jesus are not so.  We are citizens of “the Jerusalem above”(Gal 4:26).  In the same way that barren Sarah rejoiced when God blessed her, so we rejoice that God has fulfilled his promises to us (Gal 4:27).  “But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now”(Gal 4:29).  Ishmael (Hagar’s son) scorned Isaac (Sarah’s son) (see Gen 21:9), just as religious Jews persecuted believers in Jesus.  But Paul assures us that this is not the last word on persecution; just as Ishamel was cast out, so Jesus’ people stand to inherit while unbelievers will not (Gen 4:30).

    The thrust of Paul’s argument is that disciples of Jesus are free from slavery to the law.   We are not bound to a standard of complete perfection we can never meet, to sins we cannot rid ourselves of, and to a curse we cannot remove.  We are free.  He is also teaching the Galatians that any system that brings us back into slavery is not from Jesus (see Gal 5:1, 13).  God wants us to be free, but we must remain in (and guard) that freedom.

-----------
One Thing to Think About:  What do spiritual slavery and freedom look like?

One Thing to Pray For:   Confidence that whatever persecution I endure is not the final word
 

Have I Become Your Enemy?

Reading:  Galatians 4:8-20
    
    In this deeply personal section, Paul pleads with the Galatians not to “turn back again”(Gal 4:9) to something inferior to following Jesus.  While Jewish Christians were previously enslaved to the Law of Moses (Gal 3:23, 4:3), these Gentile believers “were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.  But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?”(Gal 4:8-9).  Beginning to keep Moses’ Law now is a retreat.  Intriguingly, Paul says that it will be the same as regressing to their former pagan polytheism.  He spells out the concern:  “You observe days and months and seasons and years!  I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain”(Gal 4:10-11).  By keeping the Jewish calendar (along with Jewish rules and regulations), they are signing up for a new way of being saved in which Jesus is dangerously absent.

    Then Paul pulls out all the stops.  He reminds them of their past together (Gal 4:13-15) and how warmly they received him despite his “bodily ailment.”  “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?”(Gal 4:16).  He questions the goals of the teachers influencing them (Gal 4:17-18).  He opens his heart:  “my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!  I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you”(Gal 4:19-20).  Paul trades on all his credibility with them:  Don’t do this!

    “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?”  It is a bitter experience to watch friends become enemies.  Harsh words are said.  Past joys are tarnished.  We are bitter and angry all at once.  Paul’s words show us that gospel matters carry deep emotions with them.  It hurts when we disagree about spiritual things.  Yet there is also hope here that we don’t have to be enemies!  With open hearts and the humility to reconsider, we can often come to positive resolutions that preserve our relationships with both God and our brothers.

-----------
One Thing to Think About:  How would I approach someone who began to believe or practice something false?

One Thing to Pray For:   The humility to reconsider whether I am right
 

Abba!  Father!

Reading:  Galatians 4:1-7
    
    Imagine a child in a wealthy family.  He is, at the same time, the “owner of everything” and ill-equipped to handle his own business.  Many such families would put him under a guardian (or governor or tutor) until he came of age.  Paul says that this is the state of those Jews who lived under the law—simultaneously wealthy and enslaved (Gal 4:1).  When Jesus comes, all that changes.  “In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.  But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons”(Gal 4:3-5).  The slavery has ended, there is no longer a need for the law, and we can be recognized as sons!

    Paul makes clear that God has signaled this end by sending:  first his Son (Gal 4:4), then his Spirit (Gal 4:6).  “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba!  Father!’”(Gal 4:6).  The Galatians’ manifestation of the Spirit was obvious (see Gal 3:5), while ours is not so clear.  We have the assurance that the Spirit indwells us (“into our hearts,” Gal 4:6), but no details on precisely how that works.  Instead, we follow the Spirit and watch as he bears his fruit in our lives (Gal 5:16, 22-23).  God has given us a part of himself so that we may know that we are his children!  Why would we turn our backs on this great gift and revert to the guardian?

    “Abba, Father” speaks to a remarkable familiarity.  Where “father” is a description, “abba” is something like “papa” or “daddy.”  There is no evidence that this term was ever used in standard Judaism at this time to refer to God, probably because it seemed disrespectful.  Yet Jesus spoke of his Father this way (Mark 14:36) and God invites us to know him as our Dad—with all the closeness, emotion, and respect that implies.  

-----------
One Thing to Think About:  Why does God tend to use humble means to accomplish his will (Gal 4:4)?

One Thing to Pray For:   A sense of closeness to God as my Father
 

Now That Messiah Has Come

Reading:  Galatians 3:21-29
    
    If we can receive Abraham’s promise by faith instead of keeping Moses’ law, why did God give the law?  “It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made”(Gal 3:19).  I believe the sense of “because of transgressions” is that the Law identified sin and limited it until God acted to definitively deal with it in Jesus.  But this means that those who lived under Moses’ law had an odd predicament:  “The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe”(Gal 3:22).  The Law identified sin but could not remove it, leaving all who tried to keep it “imprisoned” and “held captive”(Gal 3:23).  Why would the Galatians want to return to this state?

    But this imprisonment and captivity had an endpoint:  “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian”(Gal 3:24-25).  Now that Messiah has come, sin is dealt with, we are free, and the condemnation of the Law has ended.  Not only that, but “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”(Gal 3:26-27).  Now that Messiah has come, we can be true children of God through faith and can clothe ourselves with Jesus in baptism.  Now that Messiah has come, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”(Gal 3:28).  We are a unified people; class, gender, and social distinctions lose their divisiveness.  And we can truly inherit the blessing of Abraham (Gal 3:29).    

     Now that Messiah has come, everything has changed.  The Law is set aside, its demands for perfection fulfilled by Jesus.  We have a new status as God’s children, all of whom unite together with one voice to praise him.  While we must respond to his gift by faith and baptism, we are not the ones who have brought this new state into being.  Praise God!  Messiah has come!

-----------
One Thing to Think About:  If I viewed all Christians as “one in Christ Jesus,” how might I treat them differently?

One Thing to Pray For:   The liberation only Jesus can bring