For the world there is nothing yet executed, any more than the great results of grace for the saints as yet appear in their fulness. And this leads to another point, the relation of the law to the promises. Mark it well. Now, the word temperance is one we have a little difficulty with. Do I seek to please men? He is a new creature in Christ. If the promise be the only means of enjoying the inheritance, what is the good of the law? It was really part of God's wondrous ways with him, as indicating the true character of Christianity and of its ministry as contrasted with Judaism. But if ye bite and devour one another, [you better] take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. What a subversion, not only of the truth of God revealed in the gospel, but also of redemption, which is its basis! Impossible to serve two masters! Paul was preaching that Jesus paid the complete price for your redemption on the cross. We are crucified unto it by grace, as the world is crucified unto us by judgment. 1. And I'm thinking of God, and I'm thinking upon spiritual things, and the result of life and joy and peace in the holy Spirit. So here it is said that God was pleased to reveal His Son in him, that he might preach the good news of Him among the heathen. Don't despise the chastening of the Lord. The Greek word is pharmakeia, translated here witchcraft, because in the sorceries, they're into witchcraft. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump ( Galatians 5:9 ). How impossible, therefore, to add the law to the promise! The persuasion which is being exercised on you just now is not from him who calls you. Whatever might be the apostle's tenderness toward his nation elsewhere, not an earthly link but must be snapped. Here I've got this new twist on the scripture. Why, that though there were "false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage," Paul did not give place by subjection even for an hour, "that the truth of the gospel might continue with them." This would have flowed from Peter's conduct. Galatians 5:13 (NASB) Verse Thoughts We are not under the Law, but under grace. Nevertheless, there never was one that had a deeper sense of the importance of walking, if need were, alone with God. What gives power is the heart surrendering itself in everything, and thus set at liberty by Christ. Another reason inducing to love is taken from the pernicious Let us not be desirous of vainglory ( Galatians 5:24-26 ), Now, these men who were coming with this teaching were really out to get notches on their belts. It's faith in Jesus Christ that saves. "A little leaven," said Paul, "leavens the whole lump." But because they are not born of the Spirit and have no understanding of the spiritual dimension of life, you're talking riddles to them. Note, The best antidote against the poison of sin is to walk in the Spirit, to be much in conversing with spiritual things, to mind the things of the soul, which is the spiritual part of man, more than those of the body, which is his carnal part, to commit ourselves to the guidance of the word, wherein the Holy Spirit makes known the will of God concerning us, and in the way of our duty to act in a dependence on his aids and influences. It was therefore not only for him, but for the instruction of the Galatians, and of us all. They spring from unbelief from undue thoughts of self, from ignorance of God, from slight thoughts of Christ. Whoever despises the facts of Christianity, as if nothing in Scripture were worthy of meditation, or of ministering to others but exercises and speculative deductions, will be found, if he do not find himself often, on the verge of dangerous delusions, both for the mind and for the walk. There was no difference in the blessing of Christ: man's guilt and God's grace were alike indiscriminate. For the Jew leaven nearly always stood for evil influence. Was this the love the law claimed? You open the door for a little error, and it will soon magnify because you see, as you've opened the door for this error, then as you are challenged on the flaws of the error, you're going to have to develop further doctrines to cover or further concepts to cover, and pretty soon, you're going to be way out in left field.There is a group called Jesus Only, and they believe that Jesus is the Father, He is the Son, He is the Holy Spirit. Look at Abraham and his house; look at the maid Hagar; look at Isaac and Ishmael. And what is the end of them? Finally, he concludes by putting the sentence of death, if I may so say, on circumcision, and all such as might adopt it. you've taken a position Jesus is the only One. Thus, going up with Barnabas, he took Titus, a Gentile, along with him; and even so by revelation. The apostle takes notice of the latter here, because he is speaking of their behaviour towards one another; and, when he makes use of this as an argument to persuade them to mutual love, he intimates both that this would be a good evidence of their sincerity in religion and also the most likely means of rooting out those dissensions and divisions that were among them. This is what the law commands, but those who want to put themselves under the law cannot do it. The inheritance, therefore, depends on the grace of God fulfilling His promise, not on man's accomplishment of the law, even if possible. And so, the people of Galatia understood exactly what Paul was talking about. For if a man "keeps the whole law, yet he offends in one point, he is guilty of all" ( James 2:10 ). In its positive form (katharos ( G2513) , an adjective meaning pure) it is commonly used in housing contracts to describe a house that is left clean and in good condition. In Paul's case there was nothing of the sort. He is baptized into Christ's death, which is the sole means of deliverance out of his state of sin. Hereon the apostle puts before them another expostulation: "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." Idolatry; this means the worship of gods which the hands of men have made. adds. Accordingly the duty here recommended to us is that we set ourselves to act under the guidance and influence of the blessed Spirit, and agreeably to the motions and tendency of the new nature in us; and, if this be our care in the ordinary course and tenour of our lives, we may depend upon it that, though we may not be freed from the stirrings and oppositions of our corrupt nature, we shall be kept from fulfilling it in the lusts thereof; so that though it remain in us, yet it shall not obtain a dominion over us. There is such a thing as, by patient continuance in well doing, to seek for eternal life. And what sort of life can this be? The law was given them with all pomp and solemnity. Christ lived, died, and was resurrected so that we might be free. All therefore becomes a matter of the pure grace of God; and He is pleased to bless the Gentiles in the Seed, even Christ dead and risen. Now when Adam sinned, his spirit died just as God had warned, "In the day that you eat, you will surely die" ( Genesis 2:17 ). The apostle stands to the truth preached and received. In the epistle to the Galatians we have another tone and style, a serious and grieved spirit, with feelings not less deep it may be, even more profoundly moved than in writing to the Corinthians; and for this reason, that the foundations were still more deeply affected by that which was working among the assemblies of Galatia. I have not. (2.) Dissension; literally the word means a standing apart. Old wine is called chrestos ( G5543) , mellow. to bite, N.T.o. In so many things. Nor had he conferred even then with flesh and blood; his mission as well as conversion and call were alike independent of it. They are acting like animals, satisfying their own desires of the flesh, in order to get back at those who differ with them. Now you're, you know, chopping Jesus up, and said, "Well, He is God here, and but, for a while He wasn't God and the universe was without God for a little bit here, or whatever. "Bite" refers to the sudden action brought on by uncontrolled emotions that hurt other members of the church. But the liberty is not a liberty to indulge my flesh in anything that I may desire to do after the flesh. A final appeal to walk in the liberty of Jesus. When Jerusalem is humbled by the mercy of God, and betakes herself to her Messiah and the new covenant, she will "hear the law," and the prophets will be accomplished in her blessing, and in the largeness of love the present children of promise (even Christians, as being in a certain mystical sense children of Jerusalem) will be her boast. THE INTRODUCTION ( Galatians 1:1-10) 1. If you are circumcised, Christ is no value to you. But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Whom did their principle make them resemble? "Wherefore then serveth the law? Now, in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Acts, when this same issue had arisen in the church in Antioch, when certain of the brethren came down from Jerusalem and were hassling the Gentile saints in Antioch and said, "You can't be saved unless you are circumcised and keep the law of Moses," Paul and Barnabas and others from Antioch took these brothers right back to Jerusalem, because they came unto the pretense of, "We have the authority of the Jerusalem church to declare these things." with the affections and lusts [with its desires]. Now. ", I have nothing to do with the law any more, even if I had been once under it as a Jew. It is not an old creation, but a new one. "The child of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise." Do not suppose that idolatry has its character saved because Jesus is worshipped. Whereas the Holy Ghost by the apostle draws attention to the contrast of "thy seed" (as one) with the numerous seed, with earthly blessing attached to them; whilst to "thy seed " simply, without reference to stars or to sand, no more is annexed than the blessing of Gentiles. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" It brings in deliverance for man in the accomplishment of God's purpose in Christ. Peter would have been horrified at such a conclusion. But the apostle here does not reason about the matter. The promise is therefore entirely distinct from the law, which was not heard of for four hundred and thirty years after. Now, man was created and by God as a living spirit. True freedom; true Christianity (5:13-26). No doubt he heard Peter use it there in Acts 15 , and he said, "Stand fast in the liberty wherein Christ has set you free.". And Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and with all thy strength; and thy neighbor as thyself. I am perfectly delivered, and the measure of my deliverance is Christ, and Christ raised from the dead. That is, the most simple and most obvious truth is just the last thing a man thinks about. Therefore, that righteousness is perfect. All rights reserved. Having begun in the spirit, you did all right in the beginning, but. wolves should enter in among you and not spare the flock; but It is not only that we are put now where we can be the witness to grace in all its outgoings, but, besides that, we are where flesh might show itself. He who bites has exhausted his angry passion, but he who devours has given a demonstration of extreme cruelty. Chrysostom. You do not want to become the children of Abraham in that sense, which would be the revival of the flesh. It is for this freedom that Christ has set us free. Far from wishing to gain credit, either for the gospel or for his own apostolic place, in consequence of being linked with those that had been apostles before him, he insists on that very independence which they counted a reproach. The Galatians were succumbing to false teaching (7-12) III. "Now," says he, "if we profess to be of this number, and as such to have obtained this privilege, let us show it by a temper and behaviour agreeable hereunto; let us evidence our good principles by good practices." The history of the flesh its sad and humbling history is soon over; but the history that faith opens into never closes. You cannot lawfully add to it, any more than set aside its provisions. The superior Trinity is made up of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Having brought in the true character of the Christian's life as flowing simply and solely from Christ, and from Christ crucified too, so here he takes up the Holy Ghost. It's just, you know, too difficult. It describes what in regency England would have been called a rout. is the cement of it, which being loosened, threatens a You see, I don't always do the things that I would. Peace; in contemporary colloquial Greek this word (eirene, G1515) had two interesting usages. Copyright 2023, Bible Study Tools. So, "do not use your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love," the real key is love, "serve one another.". The Holy Ghost is given as the seal of faith in Christ on the accomplishment of redemption, not before nor otherwise. And now your spirit is alive. The rod was the thing the shepherd used to hit the sheep on the flanks when they started getting out, you know, roaming out. This is shown still more fully in the allusion to baptism: "As many of us as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." According to the prince of the power of the air, among whom we all had our manner of living. Our conversation will always be answerable to the principle which we are under the guidance and government of: as those that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, so those that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit,Romans 8:5. And this comes up every day in many situations, and I have actually the choice in this situation. take heed that ye be not one of another utterly destroyed. That is to say, after his flights of thought can he reduce it all to something that the ordinary man can understand and do? At first he prayed the Lord to take it from him; but no! Enmity; the idea is that of the man who is characteristically hostile to his fellow men; it is the precise opposite of the Christian virtue of love for the brethren and for all men. of Not so; it is exclusively of grace by Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. The Bible says, "The natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit: neither can he know them, they are spiritually discerned" ( 1 Corinthians 2:14 ). Those who lived in Jerusalem were too prone to preserve the clothes and the cradle which had their place and use at first, but had no claim to be kept up among the Gentiles. The allusion is to beasts of prey falling upon and devouring one another: for wolves or dogs to worry sheep is not strange; but for sheep to distress one another is unnatural. The allusion is to Eternal life is spoken of in this double way in scripture (Romans 6:22-23); and I also press this as a truth of no small importance and but too much forgotten. Fidelity; this word (pistis, G4102) is common in secular Greek for trustworthiness. (d) Agape ( G26) , the Christian word, means unconquerable benevolence. From the nature of the subject, as well as from the language employed, we may conjecture that the Galatians had disputes among themselves; for they differed about doctrine. It is interesting to note that Chara and Eirene both became very common Christian names in the Church. divided against itself, can stand long, so no religious one; and "Paul closes this little section on the idea of circumcision and all and he gets a little testy with those. It was by revelation, not by summons from Jerusalem, or to acquire a title thereby. There was no consciousness of the identification of the saint with Christ. As it is reasoned out in Romans 7:1-25, the law came, and he died. And so with the Mormons. He refuses all cover for different thoughts. To be under law was fatal to Jerusalem. of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God ( Galatians 5:21 ). Now Paul said. It has been defined as "readiness for any pleasure." Glory, the glory of man is indeed empty; it's vain. He said, "We haven't been able to keep the law, why should we put them under it?" And they say, "Oh, well, I was just waiting upon the Lord and reading the Scriptures, and the Lord showed this to me." It isn't a liberty to live after my flesh. A double intervention comes between God and man, in contrast with the simplicity of His ways of grace. ", At once the apostle launches into the troubled sea. After wishing those addressed grace and peace, as usual, he speaks of the Lord in a manner singularly in unison with the object of the epistle: "Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us" not from judgment, not from the wrath to come, but "from this present evil world." (I mean by this, of course, exclusive of sin and falsehood.) The names of the different forms of government are suggestive. One of the most dangerous errors in Christendom is, that these two things are lumped together. In it there is one party, even God Himself, who gave it, and accordingly fulfils it in that Seed to whom the covenant was confirmed. If the world were the great enemy at Corinth, the law perverted is that against which the Spirit of God raises up the apostle in writing to the Galatians. This agape love is gentle; it is good. By-and-by will be fulfilled the promised earthly blessing, and power, and glory for Israel like the sand and the stars. But I have confidence in you that you're not going to be persuaded by this. He was saying that we each worship something - we seek to fill the God-shaped hole in our hearts, but our worship is all vain, it's all futile, unless we worship the one true God. Reckon that to be. Do you know what happens? Paul begins chapter 5 by stating flatly that Christ has set us free in order that we should be free. You cannot weaken his apostleship without endangering the very gospel that you have received yourselves. But this was not all. The liberty that we have is not to do the things of the flesh. (Compare John 1:9; John 1:17.). And that's why Paul was persecuted by the Jews, because he was saying, "The law of Moses is not necessary for righteousness or for salvation. This the apostle represents as our duty, and directs us to the most effectual means of success in it. In my attitude towards life. For what has a risen man to do with Israel more than the nations? "Be as I am." And at the end of each day, I can paste my gold stars on those that I've kept. Judaizers were saying that Gentiles had to join the old covenant if they wanted God's blessings and salvation (cf. The apostle shows that, so far from bringing in Christians and putting them on the ground of the Old Testament, God is really leading those who were in that connection out of it all by redemption. And you develop your own little following, which really appeals to your flesh. I said, "That's a lie." But responsibility is always according to the relation in which one stands, and the measure of knowledge which each possesses, or ought to possess. All of the law is fulfilled. The readers ( Galatians 1:2b ) c. The greeting ( Galatians 1:3-5 ) i. These works of the flesh, of course, are related to our body drives, so many of them. He wants to get rid of the first Adam and all its appliances, not to keep it on; and therefore he puts on Christ. "Yet undergirding all of Pauls admonitions regarding love and service is the reality of life lived by the Spirit, with references to the Spirit being more frequent in Galatians 5:13 to Galatians 6:10 than references to either love or service." And any kind of a relationship with God that causes me to strive with my brother, causes me to become contentious, is really something that I'm not interested in. Jesus, the rejected Messiah, was the Son of the living God, the giver of life, the quickening Son of God. Of none else could it be so said that "it Pleased God to reveal his Son in him." As we saw it in the Corinthians applied to judge the worldliness of the saints there, so here it judges their legalism. The brethren with him ( Galatians 1:2a ) b. This passage, however, indicates they are having disputes. For he had shown that our purchase by Christ delivers even the Jew from subjection to the law; whilst Gentiles are set at once on the ground of grace without the intervention of any legal apprenticeship whatever, "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. How could it be otherwise with one persecuting at the moment that he was arrested, in hot deadly opposition to God's church up to his most unexpected call from heaven? (ii) There is the obligation to our fellow men. Instead they are unkind and cruel to each other. Their predicament would only become worse, as evidenced by the fact that already they are biting and devouring one another instead of growing closer to one another. No doubt there was a difference of tone. He mentions another fact, and of the greatest gravity, closing this part of his argument that when Peter subsequently came down into the Gentile quarters, he had been himself affected by the subtle spirit of Judaism, i.e., the chief of the twelve! But if you bite -- By an improper use of the tongue. For devour, comp. The apostle urges that all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Oh, I'm comforted by that. Which son represented them? Therefore, it came to pass that there was nothing the apostle had not learned of which they boasted. They thought that Christianity would be all the better for adopting the ancient forms and beautiful figures of the law. Chrysostom said that it is the grace of the man who could revenge himself and does not, the man who is slow to wrath. Are you prepared for this searching judgment of what looked a small and indifferent matter? The truth of God to our hearts.So, you has he made alive who were dead because of your trespasses and sins. . "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Don't seek after it. The writer of First Maccabees ( 1Ma_8:4 ) says that it was by makrothumia ( G3115) that the Romans became masters of the world, and by that he means the Roman persistence which would never make peace with an enemy even in defeat, a kind of conquering patience. Then with flesh and blood ; his mission as well as conversion and call were alike independent it... You did all right in the blessing of Christ I mean by this from slight of! 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