Galatians 5:19-26 Set Your Heart!

Galatians 5:19-26  The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality,impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.  I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

In the above focus, Paul lists some of the negative characteristics of the flesh.  These negative traits have been inherent in mankind since the fall from God’s grace and goodness due to Adam and Eve's disobedience to his authority.  From the beginning, man has had problems controlling his self-willed, selfish actions.  During Noah’s time, God categorized all mankind as being evil, corrupt, and violent.   The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.  (Genesis 6:5).   In modern times and throughout history man has rejected this assessment of mankind’s nature by God.  Even today, with the imminent threat of nuclear annihilation always with us, we balk at this evaluation of God about man’s innate sinful state.  For many today, eradication of disharmony and violence within the human society can easily be solved by education and self-help tools that bring about the better person within us.  Many religions are based on that concept.  But the Bible is true and always will be true.  Within the hearts of men and women there is a contaminant that will destroy relationships and communities if allowed to operate out of control.  Consequently, we have police, regulating authorities of all kinds, and laws that attempt to keep harmony and cooperation within a nation, community, or neighborhood.  Paul says the acts of the flesh are obvious.  A person does not have to analyze any society, community or persons very deeply before you discover the negative traits within humans that Paul listed.  The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.  I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.  The question for each of us as Christians in our relationship with God is do we harbor any of these negativities in us?  Are we clean of all of these sinful thoughts and activities when we suddenly die of a heart attack or if we waste away with cancer?  We often claim that certain acts consistently manifested in a man or woman’s lifestyle will cause them never to see God without judgement on their lives.  But, if we die in a fit of rage, stressing our hearts out, causing a heart attack, will we be received into the kingdom of God?  If we die possessing dissensions, factions and envy toward others in our community will we see God?  If we sit in the house of judgment, hating our enemies, not loving or forgiving them, is God going to allow this small piece of disharmony to his will to enter into eternal life with him?  Is that our understanding of a righteous, holy God whose power and authority manifested itself on Mount Sinai by fire and smoke, when not an animal or human could be on it without extermination.  Is our God the one who can allow a bit of sin in his presence forever?  Did He make a mistake when He destroyed the people in Noah’s time?  Jesus said, He did not come to condemn or to judge: only God in the last day will judge the true character of men and women.  Only God will determine the depth of commitment to his authority and to the Lord, Jesus Christ.  God in his absolute holiness and perfection will divide the sheep from the goats.  He will choose eternal redemption for those who are completely righteous, perfect.  Only the perfect animal without blemish could be offered to God as a sacrifice.  Jesus was without fault, without blemish.  He was offered to God for the salvation of men and women, but Jesus is not the determiner of eternal life, God is.  To be perfect, Jesus said, you must be born again, without blemish or untruthfulness in your souls. 

Jesus often was very harsh with the people He spoke with in his time.  They had ears, but they really did not hear what He was saying.  They did not like his judgement of them at all.  In fact, some of the priests were determined to murder him.  They rejected his teaching.  They did not like the light that contrasted with their darkness.  They loved the darkness and did not want to come out into the light, for the light would expose their hearts.  If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?  Whoever belongs to God hears what God says.  The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”  (John 8:46-47).  The darkness was comfortable to them.  Their ears were stopped to the voice of Jesus Christ.  But Jesus assures the people He has not come to judge them but to provide a way for them to be right with God.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.  This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.  (John 3:17-21)  Jesus brought light into the world because he was THE LIGHT, the complete reflection of God among men.  However, the people rejected his words and teachings and their eyes discounted the miracles they saw, for they had another father other than God.  Jesus tells the unbelievers and especially his critics that their father is the devil, and that he is originator of all lies.  The devil understood that Jesus’ presence would soon ruin his rule over the people of the world.  Jesus had come to set men free from eternal damnation through his sacrifice for all mankind on the cross.  The demons understood well Christ's presence was detrimental to their mission of leading humans away from God’s authority.  Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”  (Mark 1:23-24)  Man’s nature, his inability to please God because of the works of the flesh inside of him, was coming to the end with Jesus Christ on the earth.  The devil no longer would be in control, making sure men were clothed in Adam’s nature of disobedience to God, but soon with Jesus on the cross, men would be clothed in the nature of Christ, establishing righteousness in the lives of men and women. They would wear forever the cloak of Jesus and his perfection, not of the imperfection of the flesh.  

Paul understood well the purpose of God, to disentangle men and women from the grip of evil and its characteristics.  He knew death was the consequence of living in the flesh under the control of self-will and the devil.  As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  (Ephesians 2:1-5)  The message to the Galatians was set in Paul’s mind, not by the works of the law have you inherited the grace and mercy from God, but by faith in Jesus Christ and the cross.  As Paul tells the Colossians, Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle!  Do not taste!  Do not touch!”?  These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings.  (Colossians 2:20-22)  The law is weak to control human nature.  It functions for only a short time and is set on earthly behavior, not on eternal conditioning that will last forever.  Only Christ and him crucified can satisfy the work of the law by fulfilling God's standard of holiness.  Since that is the truth of the gospel, change your way of thinking about life.  You have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  (Colossians 3:1-3). Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, for you have been born again, fix your new-life sight on the realities of heaven, not on the things of earth.  For you died to this life of the flesh and the realities of living in the flesh.  Place your life in the the presence of Christ, who sits by God’s right hand.  Concentrate on the attributes of God: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Let the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT flow abundantly through your life.  Reckon your fleshly pursuits and attitudes as dead, for your life is new IN CHRIST JESUS.  Eternal life is a gift to you.  Therefore, feed the living, eternal life inside of you.  You have died IN CHRIST, therefore live for Christ, not for the old works of the flesh.  Flee from the works of the flesh, for you owe it nothing.  Your flesh will never be good enough to satisfy God’s requirement of holiness on your life.  Eternal life if a gift to all humans who place their faith in CHRIST’S WORK.  It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  (Ephesians 2:8-10)  SO BE IT!  Remember you are God’s creation with good works in your spiritual DNA created in advance by God to bring glory to his name.  

Galatians 5:13-18. Called to Be Free!

Galatians 5:13-18  You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.  But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.  For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.  So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Humans from the very beginning were made to be free, for we were made in God’s perfection and likeness.  Adam and Eve had the authority, ability, and freedom to rule over all that was in the Garden.  We had an inner consciousness to know God’s desires for us and his creation.  Within his likeness and freedom, we could live as He functions, except for partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”  (Genesis 2:15-17)  Adam received these words as a commandment that was good.  He knew God’s words were solid and powerful, for God created all things through his pronouncements in and through his Son, the Christ as Genesis 1 explains to us.  Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  So God created mankind in his own image in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.  (1:26-27)  Adam also was powerful in words and deeds.  Therefore, when the violation happened by Eve, using her freedom to eat of the fruit of good and evil, God removed Adam and Eve from the Garden.  God would keep Adam and Eve away from the tree of life, for their disobedience would be disruptive to the harmony of eternal existence.  The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.  He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”  So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.  (Genesis 3:22-23)  Men and women would now live for a finite amount of time.  They would have to work the ground and tend the animals for their own existence.  Sin had disrupted the harmony of creation.  And now a law crept into the hearts of men and women that was anti-authority, disharmonious with God the Creator.  This law, spawned from Eve’s disobedience, was recognized by Paul, even though he knew what was right to do.  The law of sin and death was alive in his soul.  So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  (Romans 7:22-24)  Paul, as with all humans, still possessed this powerful likeness of God, the ability to do what he desired, knowing he does not have to be under any authority but himself.  This freedom to rebel against God, even an inner resentment to God's control is a constant struggle against goodness in his life.  His fleshly rights over the laws’ authority in his life made him know that he is carnal, not righteous.  He knows that the flesh, sin, leads to death, but he is a captive of it.  He is not capable of separarting himself from the destructive nature of his willful self.  We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  (Romans 7:14).  

From the very beginning God endeavored that men and women would be free as He is free, for humans were made in his likeness.  Now since we are new creatures in Christ, made in Jesus’ image and not Adam’s, we once more are in freedom, eternal beings in the likeness of God.  Paul reminds the Galatians that they were called to be free.  The Spirit of God within us is the engine of the freedom that we have inherited from our faith in Jesus Christ and his works.  The Spirit of God within us is the fountain of positive, right choices that are helpful to all people.  Because our fleshly inclinations are still with us, for we have not as yet been transfigured into our spiritual bodies, Paul warns the Galatians, do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.  Do not sell your rights as a new creature in Christ to the will of your flesh as Esau did when he chose a meal of food over his firstborn rights.  See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.  (Hebrews 12:14)  God is in the redemptive business of providing all new creatures with their firstborn rights, the freedom that comes from being in the image of his Son.  We too should be in that redemptive business if we are spiritual and not fleshly.  If the Spirit motivates our lives, we will follow Christ’s command to Love your neighbor as yourself.  (Matthew 19:19)  However, if the flesh is the captain of our lives, our vessels will be used for selfish reasons, taking advantage of the people around us, not serving them as God desires us to serve them.  We will not be washing their feet, an allegorical image of serving people, but we will be asking, demanding, others to serve us as we desire.  The latter is not love, not harmonious, not helpful in expressing the will of the Father God to the people of the world.  Sin, selfish interest, brings disharmony and violence into any community.  If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.  Sadly, the law given on Mount Sinai has no power to control this aggressive nature of sin within humans or to change hard hearts.  This cancer of carnal and fleshly desires has metastasized within all human society to the depths of constant warfare and violence, chronicled in the history of mankind as a testimony to the evil in the hearts of man.     

Paul is stating a fact to the Galatians when he says, the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.  The flesh will centralize its life on self-interest, on control of others, not on servanthood.  Anger and quarreling are a product of the flesh.  The law can be used to break down the cohesiveness within a society.  The law can be used to champion unholy actions and hurtful words towards others, but God has asked us to live in peace with others, to promote love towards all people.  You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.  He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?  Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?  Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.  (Matthew 5:43-48)  What is perfection?  It is holiness, as the Father is holy.  The law could only show imperfection.  But Jesus came to forgive all people.  He shed his blood, a symbol of forgiveness for everyone who would trust in his work and his work alone. The blood of Abel represents the need for justice.  God is a just God, and He will recompense all sin with harsh judgment.  But Jesus shed his blood as a payment for sin.  Each drop contains forgiveness for mankind.  However the law has not this efficacy.  Paul is battling the introduction of circumcision into the Christian lives of Galatia.  He knows the law has no efficacy in it, but it will just bind the Galatians into ideas of right and wrong, good and evil as the Tree of knowledge did for Adam and Eve.  These ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, do not bring people closer to God; they just accentuate man’s waywardness and inability to be holy and good.  Right away after they sinned, Adam and Eve felt naked; therefore, they clothed themselves.  Right and wrong, good and evil cannot save us from destruction.  Men and women need a Savior.  Mankind needs a Savior-- someone to step in front of people's march to destruction.  They need someone to pay for their sins, someone to cast the love of God over their lives, forgiveness over their lives.  Jesus came to do that.  The law could never halt this march to destruction; only a living God could do that.  Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me.  The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me.  I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.  (John 12:44-46)  Man does not have to live in darkness, uncomprehending of the reason for life, thinking that life is only an accident.  Jesus came to identify that life has a strong dynamic purpose, loving others and loving God with all our mind, soul, and spirit and therefore living forever.  Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to nurture real, eternal, life within us.  Paul is advocating turning to God’s Spirit in our lives, setting ourselves free from right and wrong, good and bad by law.  He tells us to keep in touch with God’s life in the Spirit inside of us.  We who are alive IN CHRIST NOW should keep in step with the Lord through the voice of the Holy Spirit within us.  If we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law.  But we are FREE INDEED as God is free to love and care for everyone and everything that has been made.  Amen!  

Galatians 5:1-12 Run a Good Race!

Galatians 5:1-12  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  Mark my words!  I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.  Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.  You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.  For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.  The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.  You were running a good race.  Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?  That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.  “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”  I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view.  The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty.  Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?  In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.  As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.

The Jewish law addressed a division in the relationship between God the Creator and man the created.  This separation was called sin, a permanent condition of alienation between man and God that could not be overcome by effort, for man needed a spiritual transfiguration.  This condition of sinfulness in mankind, a self-willed nature, separated men and women from an eternal God of goodness and love.  Through miraculous events, God delivered his chosen people out of slavery.  On Mount Sinai, God gave Moses laws and regulations that would provide the Israelites a right relationship with the God who freed them from Pharaoh’s hands.  The law, the word of God written by God’s own hand, given to Moses on Tablets of stone became a way to life for the Israelites.  God’s written words on these tablets revealed his holiness and his demands on the Israelites’ lives.  Along with the law came demands to offer sacrifices to God to keep the people safe from judgement because of the sinful nature of mankind.  Sin separates man from God.  Sin will never exist with God; it has to be dealt with by death.  Millions of animals were put to death on altars to keep open a safe relationship between man and God.  Otherwise, as in the day of Noah, man would be abolished from the face of the earth.  We see the Israelites sacrificing bulls, sheep, goats and birds to satisfy God’s wrath on sin.  God’s holiness is so great that sacrifices were demanded from them, for even their unintentional sins.  If any member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, when they realize their guilt and the sin they have committed becomes known, they must bring as their offering for the sin they committed a female goat without defect.  (Leviticus 4:27-28)  In addition to the sin sacrifices there were burnt offerings, guilt offerings, and peace offerings.  All of these sacrifices were required by God to keep the Israelites in a place of favor with him.  If they failed to obey his commandments and regulations, they would come under severe discipline, especially if they offered their servitude to other gods by worshipping idols.  Paul, because he knows Jesus’ transforming power, is telling the Galatians not to add circumcision to their free redemption, for circumsicion will not bring them any closer to God, but will be a yoke of slavery.  Adding any part of the law will not achieve a better relationship with God.  In fact, doing so will harm them so much that Christ will be of no value to them at all.  The law and its obligations were allowed so that God the Father could have a relationship with his chosen people.  But the law would never make people holy: only Christ could do that by presenting to the Father a complete sacrifice of a perfect and righteous man in the flesh.  God desires a familial relationship with those He created.  Sin had to be done away within the sight of God; Christ did away with sin before God’s eyes by paying the full price for sin on the cross.  Sacrifices of birds and animals never opened the door of man’s heart to God; only Christ’s sacrifice could do that.  You take no delight in sacrifices or offerings.  Now that you have made me listen, I finally understand--you do not require burnt offerings.  (Psalm 40:6)  God needed a transformation in the heart of mankind, and this transformation was achieved through the death of Jesus Christ.  He brought God’s holiness to the human heart though the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Now humans can say, I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart.  (Psalm 40:8)  

Paul is warning the Galatians do not assimilate the law into their salvation, for if they do, they will have to be obedient to all the law to satisfy God’s requirement on their lives.  The law will make them entangled into something that no one has ever completely performed, for God will not accept a person in his domain who does not even have knowledge that he has sinned.  Otherwise, the person dies, not knowing that he is not pleasing to God for his sin had not surfaced in his conscience.  Paul warns them that ever jot and tittle of the law will be required of them, not their perspective of the law, but God’s understanding of his law.  I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.  James extends this theme of doing what God considers right or wrong by saying, if you discriminate between people for various reasons, you are violating the nature of God, which is love.  Loving God and loving your neighbor sums up the whole law.  Therefore, any lack of love for others is open for eternal judgment.  If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.  For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.”  If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.  (James 2:8-11). The law is comprehensive and reflects the righteousness of God.  No man will see God without judgment unless he is completely righteous, holy, and eternal as God is.  Christ alone has brought righteousness, holiness, and eternal life to us.  Therefore, we walk in the presence of God securely and safely forever.  But following the law jeopardizes that freedom of being with God in harmony with him.  The law only reveals wickedness and waywardness, does not bring a solution to our sinful condition.  But God’s grace and mercy through the sacrifice of Jesus completely satisfies the judgment of God on sin.  We are not to be judged by any other standard than Jesus’ grace and mercy towards us.  God is the judge who is satisfied by the work of Jesus on the cross, not on our rightness or wrongness.  His love for us through Jesus is the standard of judging anyone.  James reminds us of that by saying,  Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another.  Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it.  When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.  There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy.  But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?  (James  4:11-12)  We might assume in this scripture that James is referring again to the cardinal law of love.  God is love and we ought to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We speak against this love when we judge our neighbors.  By not loving others because of some act of the law, we are judging God’s love, determining who should be loved and who should not be loved.  There is only one Lawgiver and Judge.  Whether people have experienced circumcision or not, they are not to be judged as being more holy or less holy.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.  The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.  Our assessment of others should never be based on the deeds of the law, but upon people’s commitment to Jesus Christ as their Lord and their love for others.

Paul is concerned for his Greek brothers in Galatia.  He is fearful that his teaching of faith in Christ alone is being distorted by the Jewish brethren.  If this yeast of the law is able to take a foothold in the churches of Galatia, it will destroy the work of faith in Christ alone.  He knows the Galatians will lose their freedom and their place in the household of God if they seek God’s favor through the law and not through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross.  The law had its place in the Jewish community.  Jesus told the  people to obey the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, for they are the experts in Moses' cannon.  Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must be careful to do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.  (Matthew 23:1-4)  The culture and the society in Israel revolved around the law and its regulations.  Order and awareness of God the Creator came through the law, but as with the Pharisees and teachers of the law, their lives did not reflect the mercy and grace of God.  In fact, they were willing to place the burden of the law on the people, with additional pharisaical demands that crushed the people.  We see in these verses a seeming contradiction.  Jesus tells the people to follow their instruction, but then says they are being horribly burdened by them.  He knows they are not living by their own standard of how to please God.  In fact, Jesus tells the crowd that they are hypocrites and children of the devil, not God.  Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.  (Matthew 23:15)  The law kills unless it is summed up in loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself.  By being faithful to the law of Moses, you should understand that it is a vehicle to love God and to love your neighbor, to treat God with reverence and all people with respect.  The  Pharisees were doing the opposite.  They were taking advantage of the people, loving the people's deference to them, but not loving the people.  Jesus knew that, and He castigated them for their boldness to corrupt the law for their own advantage within the Jewish culture and society.  Now we see Paul upset that this sanctimonious attitude of obeying the law to gain favor with God was creeping into the churches of Galatia.  Paul understood well as a rabbi that the law will never satisfy God’s demand on the human condition.  Sin is endemic in people: a law of waywardness to God’s authority is in the nature of mankind.  No law or regulations will make man give up on his nature.  A new creature must be formed in the hearts of men and women.  Faith in Christ alone and his works changes that nature of willful disobedience to God.  Paul is disgusted with this teaching of circumcision.  He tells those who teach this cutting of the flesh as a means of righteousness should go all the way and emasculate themselves if they think they gain favor by cutting away parts of their flesh.  I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.  He knows favor with God only comes through Jesus Christ, "hear ye him."  God acknowledges only his Son as a means to righteousness.  Abraham tried to achieve God’s favor through Hagar, but God said, Sarah’s dead womb would actualize God’s promises to Abraham.  Only Jesus Christ's death on the cross achieved God’s promise to us of eternal life.  We live according to that promise today!          

Galatians 4:21-31 Be Glad!

Galatians 4:21-31  Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says?  For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman.  His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.  These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants.  One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar.  Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.  But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.  For it is written: “Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child, shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”  Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise.  At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit.  It is the same now.  But what does Scripture say?  “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”  Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

In the above passage, Paul explains the difference between the people of the law and the people of God.  The people of the law are Hagar’s children; they are children who are attempting to please God through their own efforts, implementing the covenant given to Moses through their own plan of how to be right with God.  Hagar’s progeny are locked in the jail of restrictions and rules, attempting to please God through regulations and rituals.   Paul is exasperated with the Galatians because he sees them beginning to bind themselves to the law.  He knows this will lead them into slavery to these restrictions and rules, where they can concomitantly lose their freedom in Christ.  The covenant they are beginning to follow will never lead them to God, but away from him and his redeeming work through Jesus Christ.  One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar.  He also includes the Temple in the Holy City of Jerusalem in this description of depending on man’s works to know God .   Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.  All of man’s efforts to know God through the law and his sacrifices are not a substitute  for the efficacious work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  Only Jesus’ work and his work alone wins freedom for men and women from their sins and causes them to be right with God.  Paul is upset with the Jews preaching circumcision because the work of the cutting away of the flesh does not identify people as God’s people, only the cutting way of the fleshly heart signifies who belongs to God and who does not.  This cutting away of the fleshing heart is an act performed by Jesus Christ on the cross.  Jesus died as the flesh dies in circumcision when it is severed from the living body.  Jesus died outside the city, dead to people and dead to God.  Jesus cried, Why have you forsaken me or why am I abandoned outside of your Holy Presence?  Jesus experienced the full penalty for sin: his flesh severed from the living God.  No human could pay the debt for the sins of others: only God himself in the flesh could pay the complete price for the sins of mankind.  Jesus died to his position of power for the sake of sinful men and women.  The sacrifices of bulls, sheep, and goats would have to go on forever if people found their rightness with God in the sacrificing of these animals.  The animals are but temporary on this earth; their existence is finite.  But the eternal God through Jesus Christ, the complete representation of God on earth, dies once and for all, for mankind’s complete eternal salvation.  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.  (Hebrews 1:3)  In the grave of permanent death, the Holy Spirit is sent to raise Jesus from death to life.  We who are IN CHRIST have this same hope of being raised by the Spirit of God from death to life.  But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.  And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.  (Roman’s 8:10-11)  We now live with this glorious promise of life because the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in us and gives us life.

Even though our mortal bodies are subject to sin, since we are IN CHRIST we are alive as eternal beings right now.  Paul is upset with the Galatians because they are forsaking the life and freedom they have IN CHRIST for the dead works of the law.  They are doing something that will never win them favor with God.  Paul knows it is an impossibility for them to win God's righteousness through the son of Hagar.  Hagar is Abraham’s attempt to fulfill God's promises to him.  But God’s divine plan was to be executed through the dead womb of Sarah.  She was past the age of having children, Hagar was not.  From Abraham’s perspective, the fulfillment of God’s promises could come only through a woman who could bear a child.  However, this covenant that God made with Abraham was an eternal one, not based on man’s efforts or understanding, but upon God’s work.  Sarah, with her impossibility to have a child, was the woman God would use to materialize the promises to Abraham and subsequently to all mankind of eternal life because she was Abraham’s true wife.  Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child, shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.  Sarah lived most of her adult life in sorrow because she could not bear children.  But God used her womb to fulfill his promise to Abraham, through Sarah, the barren woman, God’s work would be realized.  Paul emphasizes that all of us who are born again are God’s workmanship, through Sarah’s dead womb and not through Hagar who could bear children.  He tells the Galatians if they do not separate their carnal idea of knowing God from God’s plans, they will lose their freedom that Christ has earned for them.  Their salvation is in danger.  But what does Scripture say?  “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”  Man’s efforts will never earn the inheritance of eternal life.  Only the son of Sarah, Issac, will receive that inheritance of being right with God forever.  Only through the Son, the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ, will the children of God be realized.  Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that He would bless all nations through his Seed.  As we read in Acts 13:26, Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent.  Because the Seed of Abraham passed from generation to generation until the fullness of time when God brought forth his Son, we are heirs of the promise of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus.

 

Paul categorizes the sons of Abraham as representing either slavery or freedom.  Ismael represents slavery because man’s efforts will never make him right with God; he will always be in the bondage of sin.  Issac represents freedom; standing right with God, without the restrictions of the law and its regulations governing life.  The former is man’s usual inclination of how to win God’s favor: right and wrong, good and bad.  But right and wrong, good and bad never bring mankind closer to God.  Circumcision, obeying all the law and its regulations, will never provide man with a close relationship with the Creator.  In the Old Testament we see God disciplining the Jewish people again and again as a consequence of their sins.  The Jews were a special people, selected from all the people of the world, known as God’s own people.  But they felt the heavy hand of God’s discipline many times.  Finally, God’s anger was so fierce against them that He dispersed them throughout the world as captives and foreigners in many lands.  The Jews never could be completely obedient to God’s demands on their lives.  In fact, they became so bad in their behavior that God told them their sins were worse that the six nations they replaced in Canaan.  They worshipped their ancestors, they sacrificed their children to Molech, a serpent idol, they bowed down to many different and strange gods of the other nations.  They were chained to to foreign gods in their daily routines.  They forsook the Creator God who had miraculously delivered them from Egypt.  Their lives were totally estranged from God.  Now Paul is saying, get rid of your bondage, your way of life, and serve the living God through the freedom of knowing Christ Jesus.  Christ alone has paid for your sin.  He has made you free, walk in that freedom.  If you bind yourself to circumcision and the law, you will die in bondage and never know the freedom God has won for you.  By serving the Lord through circumcision, the Galatians were putting something else, a work of circumcision, between God and themselves.  But the Holy Spirit has made all of us who know Jesus Christ as our Lord free to serve as his children.  We have a direct communication with the Father because we have been made right with him through Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit dwells within us.  He speaks through us when we cannot even find the right words to say to God.  He is perfecting God’s will in our lives by communicating to the Father when we are weak and unstable in our lives.  Paul is saying there is no bank shot to God through the law and its regulations; there is no intermediator between God and man other than Jesus Christ and him crucified.  Put aside the slave woman and her son.  You now have a vertical relationship with God, so pray as Jesus prayed: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us today our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.  As children of God, free as He is, we have a direct relationship with him.  We do not need circumcision, laws or regulations to know God.  We need only Christ who died for us and who is our propitiation for our sin.  He has made us free; free indeed.  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm,then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5:1  Accept your freedom today by accepting Christ Jesus as your Savior and Lord.  He wants to come in and be Lord of your life.