Scripture Reference: Galatians 6:1-10

Evaluating Your Work (verses 3-5) – Continued

If a Christian’s careful examination of his life indicates that at least to some extent the love of Christ is being expressed through his actions, then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. At first reading these words seem to contradict what Paul has just said. If he has just warned against the self-deception of pride, how can he now say that a Christian can boast in himself? What Paul is doing here is contrasting two kinds of boasting. These two kinds of boasting are clarified a few verses later where Paul says, “they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:13-14). The teachers of the law were boasting on the basis of comparisons between the circumcised and the uncircumcised. They were the circumcised, the faithful people of God; the uncircumcised Gentile sinners were despised and excluded. But such boasting on the basis of a comparison of national differences or religious practices was all passé. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything” (Galatians 5:6). Paul vows never to boast in his own standing as a pedigreed member of the Jewish nation or in his zealous devotion to the Jewish traditions. But Paul the Christian continues to boast: he boasts in the cross of Christ. That is his boast in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Paul boasted in the cross because the cross was the ultimate display of the love of God for sinners. When we are united with Christ in His death and resurrection, that love of God for sinners can be expressed through us by the power of the Spirit. That by itself is the reason for Christians to boast!

It is important to stress that the boasting of Christians is not in the “flesh” boasting in racial superiority and religious practices. Such boasting is like that of the Pharisee who said, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get” (Luke 18:11-12). Notice how his boasting is based on the kind of comparison with others which Paul expressly forbids in Galatians 6:4. The boasting of Christians is paradoxical: it is a boasting in something considered shameful by the standards of the world. That the Messiah should suffer on a Roman cross was shameful. But by His cross “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). That Christians should serve each other by carrying each other’s burdens was also considered shameful from the perspective of the world’s values. But when the self-sacrificing love of Christ is seen in the actions of Christians, there is reason for boasting. Christians should celebrate that they can love because of their experience of the cross of Christ and the power of the Spirit.

To Be Continued

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