FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture Reference: Galatians 3:25-4:7

Appreciating Just How Much Christ has Done – Continued

Paul makes it clear that it was the way in which God chose to send His Son that was crucial to His plan and its success. He was “born of a woman, born under the law.” He not only became one of us, but He also became one with us in order to be our Savior. He was also sent “to redeem those who were under the law”—that is, to purchase the greatest of all freedoms at the greatest of all possible costs, so “that we might receive the adoption as sons.” It was so that those who Jesus said by nature were “children of the devil” (see again John 8:44), could become the children of God Himself with all the rights of truly inalienable sonship.

In light of this, Paul goes on to say, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Galatians 4:6). The very way in which the apostle combines his words in this sentence serves only to reinforce the depth of intimacy that lies at the heart of the new relationship we have with the God who is the Holy Trinity. Not only are each of the Persons of the Godhead involved in this great salvation, but it is into their own fellowship that each of God’s children is brought through Christ. It helps us to grasp why it was necessary for Christ to go to such extraordinary lengths, not just through His incarnation, but ultimately by His crucifixion, and then resurrection, to bring us so amazingly near to God. The effect of such a perspective on the gospel is rightly to draw our attention away from the good things we have in salvation to the One in whom alone we have them. We can rightly look at the blessings and promises of God through Christ Jesus, but our Lord’s wish is to look beyond those “things” to intimately see Him!

The grand climax in all Paul is saying in his extended argument up to this point is heard in his declaration, “Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” There is simply no safer or better state we can be in. If you are already a Christian, I wonder if you have begun to fully grasp what you have in Christ. Or, if you have yet to take that step of faith, have you realized just what could be yours?

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Galatians 3:25-4:7

Appreciating Just How Much Christ has Done

The apostle John captured the essence of Christ’s mission when he recorded the words of Jesus to the Pharisees in an extended exchange over freedom and captivity when he says in the first place, “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). He then goes on to say, by way of clarification, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). This is exactly what Paul wants his readers to understand.

Paul echoed this sense of freedom as he continues to develop the logic of the gospel to his Galatian readers:

“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).

As we pointed out earlier, God had used the vast age of human history to expose the utter helplessness of the human race when left to its own devices. But “when the fullness of time had come” God acted decisively and definitively to provide the solution.

There has been a lot of discussion about what was special about that moment in time that marked its “fullness.” Some have suggested it had to do with the far-reaching influence of Greek culture by that stage of history in which the Greek language had become the multicultural language of the known world, allowing the New Testament writings to be disseminated with such ease to so many people groups. Others have pointed to the stability and connectedness provided by the Roman Empire and the Pax Romana that allowed for a freedom of movement hitherto not known in the history of the world. Whatever the reasons we might assume, the key issue is that it was the right time in God’s wise and loving plan made before the “foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4) to reveal the promised Savior. None of the mere human deliverers He had raised up to aid His people through Old Testament history, nor any of the pagan deliverers who had established great empires and had sometimes done great good could solve the problem of the human condition. Only God’s Son, who entered our world and became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary, had the authority and the ability to do what was needed. We may add also that no great leader since the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ has ever been able to meet the deepest need of our race.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Galatians 3:25-4:7

Grasping What We Used to Be – Continued

From Last Lesson: Paul wants his readers to realize that we can only fully appreciate what we now are in Christ against the backdrop of remembering what we once were without Him. “Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world” (Galatians 4:3).

This too is a fascinating choice of words on the apostle’s part because he speaks about the “elements of the world” (“elementary principles” as the ESV translates it) as opposed to “the law” as we might have expected him to say. But the reason for this is that he explicitly wants to include Gentiles in his purview. Even though they belonged to a different religio-cultural ethnic grouping, nevertheless they too were “in bondage”, although in a different manner. Effectively Paul was making the point that Judaism-gone-wrong was no different from paganism, any more than Christianity-gone-wrong is different from false religion in our day and age.

He uses similar language elsewhere in his letters in a way that suggests that the “elements” of this world and universe he’s speaking of, were attached to the gods of those civilizations and so from a Christian perspective were the instruments of the devil as false gods to whom their devotees were enslaved. This would certainly tie in with what Jesus said to the Pharisees about the way the devil had distorted the Jewish faith of their day (John 8:44).

The big point Paul is making in these verses is that, regardless of whether his hearers had been well-meaning Jews or outright pagans in their former life, they had been “in bondage” or enslaved. So, the irony in this was that, as with the Jews of Jesus’ day, although they thought they were “free” in reality they were not (John 8:33). This is one of the most sobering realities of our own age when the dream of “freedom” is seen as the hallmark of humanity come of age, but in which even the most “liberated” of people are not truly free at all. We may think we are our own masters, but we are caught in the vice-like grip of the sins that control us. It is only when we recognize how true this is that we will realize what we really need is to be rescued.

The Galatians had forgotten that it was out of a deep sense of their own helplessness that they first cried out to God for salvation when they heard the good news through Paul. They were now being misled into thinking that the very law that had been powerless to set them free back then could somehow release them now. It was only as Paul took them back to their enslaved past could he impress on them afresh just how free they had been made in Christ.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Galatians 3:25-4:7

Knowing Who We Really Are – Continued

From Last Lesson: Throughout the history of the church, it has often been the case that God’s professing people have been too eager to be identified by their own particular doctrinal obsession rather than by the One for whom they were named in their baptism.

It is not without significance that the name “Christian” first given to the people of “the Way” in Antioch can be read as “mini-Christ” (Acts 11:19-26). The Antiochians looked at them, but could not help but see Christ Jesus! Paul goes on to show that the ways we instinctively try to put people into different categories to determine how we relate to them no longer applies in the church of Jesus Christ, yet sadly today, we still categorize fellow believers. He states dramatically, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (see again Galatians 3:28). To truly grasp the gospel and what it means to be in Christ should eliminate all our pride and prejudice.

Then comes the clincher as Paul speaks into the confused and conflicted situation in Galatia:

“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29).

It is fascinating to see how he seems to backtrack in this verse: just a few verses earlier he strongly insisted that the “Seed” is “one” and not “seeds” (see Galatians 3:16). But this, as he has also stressed, does not conflict with the “many” of verse 27, whom that unique One will redeem. Even more significantly, it does not exclude Gentiles. Despite there not being a drop of Jewish blood in their veins, in Christ they were every bit as much the offspring, or seed, of Abraham as were their Jewish brothers and sisters in God’s family, enjoying the same fullness of blessing through God’s Spirit that was promised.

Grasping What We Used to Be

Clearly what Paul has just been saying carried such weight and presented such a challenge to the prevailing ideas that had entered the church in Galatia that he needed to further clarify himself. So he goes on, “Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father” (Galatians 4:1-2). He is linking back again to what he had said about the law functioning as a “tutor” or guardian (see Galatians 3:24), but again with a view to emphasizing that now with the coming of Christ, a whole new chapter in redemption’s story had dawned. Paul wants his readers to realize that we can only fully appreciate what we now are in Christ against the backdrop of remembering what we once were without Him. “Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world” (Galatians 4:3).

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Galatians 3:25-4:7

Knowing Who We Really Are – Continued

As Paul stated in Ephesians 1:3, he says the same thing to the Galatians, but from a slightly different perspective when he states, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). To modern ears such a statement might come across as sexist, and indeed some translators prefer to paraphrase the text at this point with “sons and daughters” to ease the supposed offensiveness of such male-only language. But to do this is to completely miss the point, not only of what Paul is saying, but also how his words would have been heard by women in that first century world. In those times daughters had few if any rights under the culture of their day. So for Paul to say that “all” believers, male and female, were regarded and treated as “sons” was little short of revolutionary: even more so because they were “sons of God.”

There is no discrimination of blessing between men and women, old and young, rich or poor, or whatever permutation we might choose, when it comes to being in the family of God. The apostle makes that point very clear in a couple verses later in Galatians 3:28.

The apostle goes on to explain how this is so:

“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

He uses the language of baptism to convey the weight of significance bound up with this symbol and all that it represents. Far from using this language merely as a picture, he is reminding his readers it is also a pledge. Just as for Abraham under the Old Covenant the rite of circumcision was not only a “sign”, but also a “seal” of the righteousness promised in God’s gracious covenant with Him (Romans 4:11), so also baptism is a symbol as one of the two covenant signs and seals Christ instituted for the church in the New Covenant era. It points to the depth of our identification with Christ and of Christ with us.

Paul fleshes this out further by saying to these Galatian Christians that they had also “put on Christ.” What we wear says a great deal about who we are and what we are like (Pastor/Preacher Tim Keller used to use uniforms as a vivid illustration of this) so for Christians to be “clothed with Christ” speaks volumes about our true identity. In Galatia it was obvious how “the circumcision party” (Galatians 2:12 ESV) got its nickname. So too, throughout the history of the church, it has often been the case that God’s professing people have been too eager to be identified by their own particular doctrinal obsession rather than by the One for whom they were named in their baptism.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Galatians 3:25-4:7

Knowing Who We Really Are

The closing verses of chapter three draw together the major threads of what the apostle has been saying so far in this letter, and he does so in a way that shows how deeply connected its component parts all are. Even though there have been times when some of his ideas and thoughts appear to be quite unrelated, at this point in his reasoning, all the pieces begin to fit together with greater clarity. Or, to give a simpler illustration, Paul is helping his readers to see how all the different pieces of the jigsaw he has been laying out actually do fit together to form a picture; the portrait of what it means to be a genuine Christian. The genius of the way he does this is to show that all the things these people had been conned into thinking they were not, they actually were. The false teachers who had come among them had conned them into believing they had been short changed by Paul’s gospel and they needed something to be added if they were to be the kind of people with the kind of experience that they thought should be theirs.

So it is enormously significant to see Paul’s inclusion of the little word “all” in what he says at this transition point in his letter. The Judaizers had been creating the notion of a two-tier understanding of the Christian faith, with the implication that Paul’s teaching only (if even that) represented only the “entry level,” while theirs brought those who embraced it to the next stage. But as Paul has deliberately opened up the Hebrew Bible in careful detail and with carefully reasoned argument in light of the coming of Jesus as God’s promised Messiah, he has demonstrated unequivocally how wrong these false teachers were. Therefore, the climax of his reasoning has been to spell out in rich detail that if a person has been united to Christ, then in and through Him he or she is blessed with every blessing that Christ can confer. Paul makes a similar point in his letter to the Ephesians where he states that God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). That means that any blessing heaven can and is willing to give us, we are entitled to in Christ. That is not arrogance; it is the promise of Christ Jesus, Himself!

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Galatians 3:25-4:7

There was a series on British television called Heir Hunters that was all about teams who set out to trace individuals who have been named as beneficiaries in someone’s will, but are unaware of it. The key moment in each episode is when the camera zooms in on the face of the person who has just been told, “You are an heir to a small (or sometimes a large) fortune!” In many ways this illustrates what Paul is doing with the Galatians in his letter to them. Having spent so much time challenging them and arguing against the false teachings they had embraced, he now says, “Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:7).

The whole passage straddles two chapters, but is a veritable treasure trove of some of the richest insights into what it means to be a Christian. For these Galatian Christians who had been duped into believing a distorted understanding of the gospel, what Paul says in these verses is a world away from the teaching by the false teachers attempting to mislead them. More than that, it represents a totally different kind of experience from that which they had found by trying to live by a message that was far removed from what Paul had preached to them when they first came to faith. As Paul pressed home the implications of what he has been saying in his letter so far, it was as though these Galatians were discovering the liberating power of the gospel all over again.

The fact that the apostle has been using the language of “growing up” and “coming of age” throughout this section, although in the larger sense of God’s unfolding purpose in redemption, it would surely not have been lost on his readers. They had effectively regressed spiritually into a second childhood under the damaging teachings they had embraced. We can assume that is why we see Paul make the choice of using second person plural pronouns throughout this section, thus directly applying what was now true in principle regarding salvation to them in person. Since God was no longer treating them like children in this new gospel epoch, they should stop acting like children in what they chose to believe and how they were behaving. As we delve into the detail of what Paul says here, we not only understand more fully what he means by this, but also the grounds on which he is able to say these things.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved