STUDY THE BIBLE 24 (STB 24)
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free,
and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Gal 5:1)
BACKGROUND
Paul
writes this
epistle around 50 AD just after he
gets back from his first trip, 45 – 48
AD (the details being
in Acts
13-14), to the region of Galatia. In this epistle he also
records the
disagreement he had at a
conference
with Peter and Barnabas and their associating with the Judaizers, as
Paul calls
them ‘evil workers’, that had
come from Jerusalem.
It had been a very profitable trip in that he was greatly welcomed
in the region and many people, generally
Gentiles, had received Christ as Saviour. But after he left this
region,
there were certain false Jewish teachers that came along
on his
coat-tail, insisting that Gentiles could not
become Christians without keeping
the laws of Moses eg days, times and
festivals (Gal 4:10),
and in particular, circumcision (Acts 15:1). As Paul says
“…certain men which came down from Judaea
taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after
the manner of Moses, ye cannot
be saved.” (Acts 15:1). Paul
had spent his life teaching Gentiles
they could be
Christians without becoming ‘Jewish’, that is, reverting back to Jewish laws. This was
upsetting to the
Jews generally, for they thought that the Mosaic law, was binding upon all. They were bitterly
opposed against uncircumcised Gentiles who were presuming to call themselves disciples of the Jewish
Messiah, Jesus Christ. While Paul
taught Gentile Christians to stand firm in their liberty in Christ, as in
Galatians and Romans, he did not want
them to be prejudiced against their Jewish fellow Christians, but to regard them as brothers in Christ. Paul did not want to see two churches, a Jewish church
and a Gentile church, but one
church, Jews and Gentiles as one in
Christ.
These false teachers, Judaizers, were not
willing to accept Paul’s doctrine of getting
saved, and staying saved,
without
the works of the law. They insisted that a Gentile could not become a
Christian
unless he first adhered
to Moses’ laws. They made it their
business to trouble
and vex Christian churches, being
fixed in their
determination
to make Christianity a sect and a branch of Judaism. Much like today,
certain
Jews, and Jew loving people,
are infiltrating churches
with their demonstrations of Jewish rites and festivals. They are intent on
stamping the Old testament feasts and rituals, as found in the
Pentateuch
(Genesis to Deuteronomy) on everything Christian and drawing
believers away from the sufficiency of Christ.
Now the Galatians received
these false Jewish
teachers with the same enthusiasm that they had welcomed Paul. But Paul calls these
teachers dogs and evil workers who
put their faith in the flesh. He says to “Beware
of dogs beware of evil workers,
beware of the concision.
For we are the circumcision, which
worship
God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no
confidence in the flesh.” (Phil 3:2-3). You see, dogs rip and tear their meat
before they eat it. Similarly, Paul says these false teachers
would rip and tear at the true
spiritual circumcision that occurs when a person gets saved. God’s
spiritual circumcision is
a divine
operation whereby he separates a person from their sins of the flesh,
and
thereby creates a sinless inner man that is not contaminated by the sins of the flesh (Col 2:11). These false teachers
were ignoring God’s circumcision in favour of their own that
entailed
“Do this! Don’t do that! You can’t eat this!
You must get physically circumcised!” and so on. It was a ripping and
tearing
away of God’s perfect operation
of
removing sins and substituting it with their own physical laws of “Do’s
and
Don’t’s”. This is called concision. The only circumcision that
Paul recommended was that of the spiritual kind where “… ye are circumcised with
the circumcision made without hands,
in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ:” (Col 2:11).
So
what followed
in Galatia was a general explosion of circumcision among the Gentile
Christians. As we know,
circumcision
was the introductory rite into Judaism. Gentiles could indeed become
Jews
through circumcision and
the
observation of all the ceremonial laws. However the time for becoming a
Jew had passed and had been surpassed by the necessity for all
to become Christians.
Paul then writes this epistle to the Galatian
churches warning them with “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now
made perfect
by the flesh?” (Gal 3:3). He urges them to “Stand
fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be
not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold,
I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised,
Christ shall profit you nothing. For I
testify again to every man that is
circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. (Gal 5:1-3)
Although
a
necessary part of old testament Judaism, Paul clearly states that
circumcision
has nothing to do with
getting
saved and nothing to do with staying saved. It was obsolete! Instead of
becoming more perfect Paul warns the opposite would happen – they would end up in
a worse state.
CHAPTER SUMMARIES
Chap 1 = Paul’s authority & credentials
Chap 2 = Chief Apostle Gentiles
live by faith Chap
3 = Bewitched The curse
of the law
Faithful
Abraham
believed God The law is a
schoolmaster Chap 4 = Two
sons
Abraham
&
Ishmael Beggarly elements Chap
5 = Liberty Walk in the Spirit
No circumcision Fruits of the flesh and Spirit
Chap 6 = Bear one another’s burdens
Ch 1 = Paul’s Credentials direct from God
Paul states
that he marvels that just a couple
of years on from his visit to the region,
the Galatians churches
were returning to the beggarly
elements of the law (Gal 4:9). They had begun to walk in the
Spirit, and according to
Paul’s doctrine, after they
first got saved but were now guilty of the heresy and blasphemy of walking
in the flesh in order to become perfect (Gal 3:3).
Now Paul marvels they have removed
themselves from the sufficiency of Christ to another gospel
(v6) and that those preaching this
false gospel be
accursed (v8). He tells how he surpassed all others in his pursuit of Jewish law and tradition
(v14) and how
he spent three years in Arabia (v17) after his conversion. In essence he proclaims “Look
you Galatians,
I ought to know what I am talking about, because I was the chief of all these false teachers. I was the first and foremost Jew of a Jew! No-one surpassed me in my zeal for the keeping of the law and persecuting Christians!”
After
his three
years in Arabia, Paul then goes to Jerusalem and confers with Peter and
James,
the Lord’s brother. He meets with them to see if he is on the right track,
because he doesn’t
want to run in vain in his new found faith (v18). He wants to know if he is headed
in the right direction.
Ch 2 = Paul is the Chief Apostle
“Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem…”
(Gal 2:1).
This will be fourteen years after he first
went to Jerusalem to see Peter and James (Gal 1:18-19)
32 AD The cross |
34 AD Paul saved on the road to Damascus |
34-37 AD Goes to Arabia for three years (Gal 1:17-18). Visits Mt Sinai in Arabia (Gal 4:25) which is over on the other side of the Gulf of Aqaba. Mt Sinai is |
37 AD Returns from Arabia Then after three years (in the desert of Arabia) I WENT UP TO
JERUSALEM TO SEE PETER, AND ... JAMES THE LORD'S BROTHER.Gal 1:18-19 Paul
probably says “Look Peter, you’re the knowledgeable
head of the apostles, and you James, you’re the Lord’s brother, so you know a lot about Jesus. Let me run a few things by you what was shown me in the desert of Mt Sinai. Tell me if I’m on the right track or not?” |
43AD Paul caught up to the third heaven (paradise) 2Cor12:2-4 |
This
is God, no doubt, preparing Paul for his first trip to
begin two years later in 45AD. God takes him up to the third heaven where he hears “….unspeakable words, which it is not lawful |
45-48 AD Trip 1 To the churches in Galatia |
50 AD 14 years after 37AD Then FOURTEEN
YEARS AFTER I went up AGAIN to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. Gal 2:1 This is the meeting called the Jerusalem Council where Paul withstands Peter for being a hypocrite Gal 2:11. How the tables
have turned! Peter guides Paul in 37AD but now the reverse occurs where Paul teaches Peter! |
50 AD Writes Galatians Two years after his first trip to Galatia, and after the Council at Jerusalem, Paul marvels they are so soon removed from Christ (Gal 1:6) |
It seems
ironic that after
meeting with Peter
fourteen years previous,
he ends up withstanding Peter
to the face (v11) and confronts him
and Barnabas with their ‘two faced’ dissembling and
dissimulation (two faced
hypocrisy of saying one thing and
doing another) (v13). You see, the Judaizers had come from Jerusalem and had infiltrated
the
proceedings. Peter, Barnabas and others had bowed to their doctrine rather than to Paul’s (v12).
They went and
sat at the Jews table as a sign of respect to the laws given to Moses (v12) and so treated
Paul like a
leper. Although Peter and Barnabas were Christians, they acted like weak babies when standing for their beliefs
when confronted by these hard headed Jews.
Paul says to Peter that it was wrong to now compel the Gentiles who had become Christians to live like the Jews (v14) and to do so is to sin (v18). In fact, Paul says to do this,
means that Christ
died in vain (21).
Ch 3 = Bewitched so soon
Paul just can’t get over the fact that a ‘witchcraft type spell’ (bewitched v1) seemed to have settled on the Christian churches in
Galatia. They were
trying to combine the Jewish law of festivals, days, times and circumcision into their
Christianity, like
the Jews, (v5) and Paul stresses the fact, that this mixture wouldn’t work (v2). As he
says “Are
ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (v2-3).
He goes on to
say that even Abraham, the Jews’ earthly father, and indeed their father in the faith, simply “…
believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. (v6).
For Abraham to be right
in God’s eyes, all God required from him was that he
believed God with no rites, laws,
rituals or festivals.
What
did God want
Abraham to believe? God wanted Abraham to believe (have the faith) the
impossible - that he would be the father of many
nations even though he was a one hundred
year old barren man, with a similar
aged wife. Abraham
says to himself “How can
this be possible? Well, if God promised this, it
must be true.” Dear Reader, you have to admit that this would be
the
ultimate in faith if you were told
something similar
by God?
This act of believing (having faith) God gave
Abraham right standing
with God (righteousness) (Gen 15:6).
Paul then says that if they wanted to keep the one law of
circumcision, then they had better
keep the lot. They
would be cursed if they didn’t keep all the laws given to Moses. As
Paul says “For as many as are of the works of the law are
under the curse:
for it is written, Cursed is every one
that continueth not in all
things
which are written in the book of the law to do them (v10).
This is
called the curse of the law (v13) because it demands 100% obedience.
Then Paul says
that anyone who can show faith like Abraham can be called,
and indeed are, “… the same are
the children of Abraham.” (v7) Paul says all those who have faith
like this
are justified before God – they will be
blessed (v8-9).
Paul
then hammers
home the truth that struck Martin Luther as he wrestled for years on
how to get
right with God. Luther
read Habakkuk
2:4 (also repeated three other places in the Bible Rom 1:17, Heb 10:28 and here in Gal 3:11) “But
that no man is justified by
the law in the sight of God, it is
evident:
for, The just shall live by faith.” (Gal 3:11). You see,
Luther had
submitted himself to all
sorts of
restrictions, laws, physical deprivations and self-inflicted tortures
with
whippings, fastings, starvations,
the
wearing of jagged metal that would pierce his skin under his clothes,
and
humiliations as he lay in doorways
and let others
stand on him and
wipe their muddy
shoes on him. Job
asks the question
“How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that
is born of a woman?” (Job 25:4).
How do
governments
reduce the crime rate? Simple, just abolish laws – abortion, sodomy,
fornication, drunkenness
and so on.
The opposite is true – introduce laws and people become aware of sin.
Not a popular
move.
Jesus
says “… Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great commandment. And the second
is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22:37-40).
Of
course, Paul’s
readers, indeed those of us today, are complete, utter and miserable
failures
when it comes to the
demands of
these two commandments! Even all the good things, our righteousnesses we do, are nothing but “…filthy
rags; and we all do fade as a leaf;
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken
us away.” (Is 64:6)
But they wouldn’t.
So
Paul concludes
by saying that anyone like the jailer who obeys “… Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved …” (Acts 16:31), will be called the
seed of
Abraham and have their faith accounted for righteousness (v29).
What
had happened
was that the Jew knew that Abraham was circumcised as a sign of his
believing
God (Gen 17:11, 24) and this circumcision took place after he believed. However,
after 430 years of pretending they were obeying
and believing
God, the formality of the physical ritual of circumcision had replaced ‘the believing bit’.
They assumed
that because they had been circumcised, they were OK with God and in his ‘good books’.
This is the
danger of churches today that water baptize people - they assume they must be saved because
they submitted to the ritual of water. Many are like the Pharisees “Woe unto
Now an exasperated Paul asks further
“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? Ye observe
days, and months, and times,
and years.” (v9-10). He
can’t get over the fact that “If you are now sons of God (v6), why do you now want to return to the curse of the law which you couldn’t, can’t
and will never be able to keep? Why do you now want to rip the fulfilled law out of Jesus’ hands so that you can do a better job obeying it? The curse of the law is now dead and buried.
It’s a corpse that’s dead and buried,
so why do you now want to dig it out of the ground, give it
blood
transfusion, connect it back up to an oxygen tank, put
on some make-up and stick a wig on it’s head and pretend it’s still alive?”
You can see
Paul metaphorically tearing
out his hair by the roots.
It’s like reasoning with a person
who, after walking
on crushed glass in their industrial strength
boots, wants to remove these boots,
and continue their journey
with bare feet.
He then questions whether
he has just wasted his time with the lot of them (v11). He indeed has questioned them previously (Gal3:4)
whether they are
saved or not. The Galatians were excited and zealous with this new false teaching of the Judaizers, but Paul
says it was not the right thing
to be zealous about (v17-18).
The
foundation to
the story is this: God told Abraham when he was 76 years old, that he
would be
a father of many nations
with
countless physical children. So Abraham says to himself “Well, sounds
good.” So he waits and
waits and waits while he
tries and tries and tries with his wife Sarah. No children! So like a good wife she suggests
he goes in to her servant Hagar and see if she will give him a child. Success!
Ishmael
is born.
But here’s the catch – Abraham did it with his own efforts and this is
why Paul
equates this to the law
given at Mt
Sinai. God says at Mt Sinai “You, Israel, think you’re so clever, smart
and righteousness – well
try this on for size.
I am God and these are my standards. This is my law and you will utterly fail to keep it.
I am going
to curse you with its demands, but look, have a go anyway.” And so they try and try and try to
produce what
God wants but they fail and end up with their own righteous acts and obedience that Paul
equates to an
illegitimate child called ‘Ishmael’. Through their own efforts they will fail
miserably and completely.
This
is his
message to the Gentile Christians who were also trying to keep the
Jewish laws.
He says “If you, through
disobedience
to me by following the dictates of these evil workers and Jewish dogs,
are going to jump back into the cesspool
of the law, you will only produce
a rejected and castaway
spiritual child like
Ishmael. You
will come back under bondage because you insist on producing a bastard
and illegitimate righteousness by your own
efforts.”
He
goes on to say
“However you gentile Christians, consider that you are already now free
and are citizens of the
Jerusalem above. You now
live in this new city to come down from heaven. This new Jerusalem is Christ’s
wife.”
Now dear Reader, where do we find this in
scripture? In John’s Revelation we have
2
And
I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Rev 21:2
“…. saying, Come hither, I will shew thee
the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away
in the spirit to a great
and high
mountain, and shewed me that great city,
the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,” Rev 21:9-10
Ishmael
was the
result of Abraham’s action in taking matters into his own hand to
produce an
heir, while Isaac
resulted from
Abraham believing God. God miraculously gave barren Abraham and Sarah
the
proper heir. Paul
concludes by
saying “Look, do you want to return again under bondage? Of course you
don’t. Cast away the demands
of the law and be free.” (v30-31)
Paul
is very
perceptive when he says that keepers of the law don’t suffer much
outside
persecution from others
but true
Christians do (Gal 6:12-13). Here’s the reasoning: “As long as you are
working your
way to heaven or trying
to maintain
your own salvation, then others won’t worry you. Why? You’re just like
them. You climb two feet
up the slippery pole
but slide down three feet.” These Judaizers will bring you into bondage and domination (Gal 6:13)
and will
boast about it. He ends up with another sobering fact about who he, Paul,
is and that he is not to
be troubled by these evil workers and their converts
(Gal 6:17).
**** ****
Harley Hitchcock
This
website’s front page is:
www.
Australian Bible Ministries, PO
Box 5058 Mt. Gravatt East 4122 Qld, Australia
www.AustralianBibleMinistries.com