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