Galatians 3:15-29 Be a Child of Faith!

Galatians 3:15-29  Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life.  Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.  The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.  Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.  What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.  For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.  Why, then, was the law given at all?  It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.  The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator.  A mediator, however, implies more than one party; but God is one.Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God?  Absolutely not!  For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.  But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.  Before the coming of this faith,we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.  So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

In the above scriptures, Paul explains that the law that happened 430 years after God’s promise to Abraham could not be negated by the law of Moses.  The Lord had tested Abraham’s love and faithfulness to him by demanding that Abraham sacrifice his only son, Isaac.  This was a huge demand from Abraham for God had given Isaac to Sarah and him when they were very old.  Isaac was a miracle baby, coming to them only because God had activated Sarah’s dead womb.  And God’s promises to Abraham could only come through his one and only son, Isaac.  However, God asked Abraham to sacrifice this miracle son on Mount Moriah.  So, Abraham was in the process of carrying out God’s wish when an angel interrupted the scene.  The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.  Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”  (Genesis 22:15-18)  From that one act of obedience, God would bless all nations through THE SEED that would come from the womb of Sarah, Abraham’s descendant.  So later we see John the Baptist under God’s direction seeking the Seed God had promised to Abraham.  When Jesus came to be baptized, John knew he was the One.  John was looking for the man who would have the Spirit remain on him after he was baptized in water.  As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.  At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”  (Matthew 3:16-17)  Paul was assuring the Galatians that the law did not do away with the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.  God’s promise to Abraham that his descendant would bless all nations on the face of the earth had come in the form of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  Paul is telling the Galatians that God’s words are eternal: what He says will be done.  The law and its strictures could never save anyone or make them into new creatures who would be acceptable to a righteous and holy God.  Eternal life was for the born again, not for the unredeemed, members of the kingdom of darkness.  The DESCENDANT of Abraham came to deliver men and women out of a finite existence into an eternal existence.  But for that to happen, people must find that life through faith in Jesus Christ.  He alone amongst men is eternal: therefore, men and women are transformed to eternal life by being IN CHRIST, dying with him and resurrected IN HIM.  This is the Good News Paul ministered in every city.

What then is the law?  Why was it given if it has so little power to save men from destruction?  The law was given to protect the Descendant who would be coming.  The law is good, and it shows God’s holiness and perfection.  The law contains  orders and commands.  Many regulations were written to guide men and women to a good life, a righteous life.  A given in people’s lives is that they are sinful and easily fall away from following their Creator.  This instability on the part of men and women, their tendency not to be faithful to God and their willingness to destroy others that God has created, brought on the necessity of the law which is a revelation of the nature of God. The demands of the law literally locked men and women into condemnation, for its demands were always unreachable to people.  No matter how disciplined or religious they were, the law would lead them into failure to please a righteous God.  God put the law and its regulations into their existence so they would realize God has expectations on their lives.   Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  The law was a harsh guardian, for the Jewish people failed miserably in obeying the tenants of the law.  Because of their waywardness to God’s commandments, they were punished harshly.  They were even driven away from the Promised Land.  They were slaves in foreign countries, living under the harshness of slavery.  In the days of Nehemiah and Ezra, we see a remnant of Israelites back in their own land.  They rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem, the holy city of God.  They also worked hard to restore everything in Jerusalem that had been destroyed by the armies of their enemies.  On the first day of the seventh month, the people gathered to hear Ezra read the law and all of its regulations.  As they were weeping, they realized how evil they and their ancestors have been to a faithful God.  How wayward they were to the God who freed them from Pharaoh’s hand. This day was the day of the Trumpets.  This holy day was announcing several days of repentance before celebrating the Passover, the day of deliverance from Egypt.  As Ezra was reading the law, the people were in great mourning, understanding how unfaithful they have been to God.  But then the leaders of this small remnant who are now back in their land said to the people “This day is holy to the Lord your God.  Do not mourn or weep.”  For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.  (Nehemiah 8:9)  Instead they were to celebrate with rich foods and dance in happiness for their faithful God had brought them back to the Promised Land.  This scene reveals clearly God’s love for the Israelites even though they could not accept the strictures of his laws and regulations.  The guardian was always present before them to insure that the Seed would be brought to the world.  Out of this remnant,   the line of David would be preserved, and Jesus would come from tribe of Judah.

Paul is pressing the point to the Galatians that they are no longer under the obligations of the law, that their perfection in God’s sight does not come through obedience to the law, but through the grace and mercy that God gives them because of the work of the SEED.  He wants them to know the promise to Abraham is still in effect.  He is warning them, if they feel it is necessary to be circumcised or to follow the regulations of the law, they will miss out on the redemption effect that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.  The law has only the power to condemn.  Jesus came not to condemn but to save people from their sins.  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.  (John 3:17-18)  The Seed that was conceived by Abraham’s faith in God’s word brought salvation to all people.  God's plan from the beginning of time was to transpose man from his nature into the nature of the eternal God, to take on God’s nature.  Animal sacrifices could not alleviate man from his sinful nature.  Animal sacrifice could stave off God’s immediate anger for sinful man’s reluctance to serve him or honor him, but animals are not in the nature of humans, only Christ carries that nature.  He humbled himself to redeem mankind from their sins.  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!  (Philippians 2:6-8)  Why humble himself and take on the nature of humans?  He humbled himself, making him the complete man.  He called himself the son of man.  Salvation comes to us through and in Christ.  You might see it this way.  Lying on the ground looking up, Jesus comes to you, lying on you, transporting every part of your body from hand to hand, from joint to joint, to arm to arm to leg to leg.  He is transposing his nature into every part of your body, making you a new creature in his image.  Of course, the real nature of this action is spiritual, not physical.  But the transition is complete.  We are in the nature of God, but not in the nature of finite flesh.  We are acceptable to a holy God for we are in unity with him.  Animals are not in the likeness of humans.  Their sacrifices could not satisfy the righteousness of God who demands a complete change.  But Jesus in the likeness of men could satisfy God’s desire for mankind: to be with him forever.  The law could never perform this act of transference; the law could only condemn us, telling us we are not like God, perfect and holy.  Paul tells the Galatians the reality of the transition from death to life.  in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.  Our friends around this breakfast table, we are new creatures.  We belong to the Seed promised to Abraham long ago.  We are like him; we belong to him; we are part of the family of God.  Live not in the condemnation that the law brings; instead, live in freedom under God’s mercy and grace.  If you come alive in that freedom, you will know what it means to be alive in Christ.   

  

  

  

  

        

Galatians 3:1-1 Live by Faith!

Galatians 3:1-1  You foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you?  Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.  I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?  Are you so foolish?  After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?  Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?  So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?  So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.  Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.  Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”  So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.  For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”  Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”  The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”  He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

In the above focus we see Paul concerned about the Galatians interspersing the law with the freedom they have earned through their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.  He knows the law is a killer of the soul, for man’s strength to follow the law has been weakened by sin.  Man’s inner nature is one that is in rebellion to God’s full authority over their lives.  In the beginning they broke God’s one law, not to eat of the tree of knowledge.  Eve was deceived by Satan, then Adam.  Paul is now asking a rhetorical question of the Galatians.  You foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you?  Paul knows the answer:  Satan.  Satan is using people, probably mainly the Jews, to do his work to bring the believers under condemnation for no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.  Jesus did not come to condemn the world, to point out people’s sins, but to deliver them from sin and to place them in the land of freedom that is inherited by faith.  There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  (Romans 8:1-4)  The righteous requirement of the law must be fulfilled down to every jot and tittle.  However, man’s nature is not one of obedience to God; therefore, it is impossible for unrighteousness to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law.  Men and women will always fail in pleasing a holy, perfect God.  And Satan knows that eternal life will escape those who try to please God through their own efforts.  Eternity is righteous; no man or woman can abide there unless they are completely holy.  Satan despises God and desires to destroy God’s plan of salvation that comes only through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ.  Jesus was born out of the womb of Mary.  He came in the nature of weakened flesh, but the Spirit of God conceived the baby Jesus.  Mary was the vehicle of this miracle and holiness was on Jesus' head.  Jesus knew who his real father was as a young child.  When he was a twelve-year-old, He and his parents went to Jerusalem to attend the week-long Festival of the Passover.   After the festival in Jerusalem was over, Jesus chose not to go back to Nazareth with his parents at that time.  He stayed in Jerusalem, probably living and sleeping in the Temple.  Since Nazareth was a considerable distance from Jerusalem, it took a few days to walk back to Nazareth.  After one day the parents of Jesus realized Jesus was not with them.  They had assumed Jesus was somewhere in the crowd of Galileans who were walking back to their homes in the district of Galilee.  After discovering Jesus was not with them, they went back to Jerusalem to find him.  Instead of going directly to the temple area, they searched for Jesus in other places in Jerusalem for three days.  When they discovered Jesus in the Temple, they were relieved, but Jesus said to them, why were you searching other places for me, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?   God HAD called him to the temple at that young age.  He was not being disobedient to his parents, but obedient to his true father, God.  Jesus was obedient to God from the very beginning of his life, for we know Jesus did not sin but lived a perfect life.  Therefore, He was the Lamb of God, a lamb without blemish or imperfections, the perfect offering to eradicate sin from mankind.  God would accept Jesus’s sacrifice for an eternal payment for mankind’s rebellion to his authority.  God rescued men and women from their sins by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  The devil realized this plan of redemption, which had been previously hidden from him in God’s heart, was now to be implemented by the baby Jesus.  The angel Gabriel had announced this Good News to Mary, even though Mary did not know the particulars of how her baby would bless all people on the face of the earth.

Paul is now wrestling with the Galatians about what the Good News entails.  It does not include the works of mankind to be right with God.  To include works as a way to know God would lead to failure, for man has not ever been able to please God through his own efforts or works.  The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.  All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.  (Psalm 14:2-3)  The scriptures clearly say that all people have gone astray, unto their own way, unwilling to seek God in a faithful manner or appreciate the Creator who made them.   Without the Spirit in men and women, their thoughts are foolish to God.  They do such things as worshipping gods made out of stone and wood, decorated by gold and sliver.  Men and women even worship and slavishly honor other humans who they believe are superiors to them in some area of life.  They will make shrines to them by plastering their walls with pictures of these people or purchasing every article with their names written on them.  Even in Christendom, carnal Christians elevate ministers and prophets above others who minister the word of God faithfully.  The Corinthians argued over who they thought were the best spiritual leaders: Paul, Peter, Apollos, or even Jesus.  Paul said that this fighting over who was the best spiritual leader revealed their immaturity and fleshliness.  God alone is to be elevated, worshipped, and honored.  Paul wishes for the Galatians to understand that the Good News is Christ alone.  No other man or woman or actions should be honored above the knowledge of knowing Christ through faith in his work on the cross.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.  The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.  (1 Corinthians 2:13-14)  Seeking God through the effort of good works is foolishness or elevating anything above God’s plan of salvation is spiritually devastating.  For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”  Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”  Paul knows the devil is planting ideas about knowing God that will destroy them.  He has planted the idea that following the law can elevate them in God’s eyes.  But only the faith of Abraham, which is his faith in God’s words, can make a person right with God.  Abraham believed in two things about God. First, God made all things out of nothing.  Only He can create something out of nothing.  He can make life where there is no life.  Secondly, He can raise the dead.  Abraham and Sarah were dead in the flesh, no descendant would come from Sarah’ womb.  The Gentile Galatians were alive to God because they had faith in God’s Word, which is Christ.  They had Abraham’s faith: God creates something out of nothing and resurrects the dead.  Both of those things happened to the Galatians; they were dead to God because of their sins. God raised them, making something out of nothing.   

Paul tells the Galatians emphatically that their new life has come to them only through their faith in Jesus’ Christ, not their works or effort to know God. “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:19-21)  Christ’s work on the cross is magnificent, for it brought the possibility of life to all humanity.  All that was necessary was to believe in this work.  Through Christ and IN Christ, we will never die.  The penalty of sin has been paid,  No more death in our future but freedom from death.  Christ has sealed our souls for eternity.  Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ.  He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.  (2 Corinthians 1:21-22)  The Galatians needed to understand that their new life comes directly to them because of faith, not because of works.  Works lead to bondage and constant condemnation, a position of never knowing that you are right with God.  But faith in Christ leads us to be bonded with God as a member of his household.  Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.  Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  (John 8:34-36)  If the Galatians fall back into the thought to be right with God demands a good-works effort, they will fall back into slavery and condemnation.  Paul is asking the Galatians did God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?  Did God give you his love for people and the joy in your heart through your own effort or was it his unmerited grace given to you?  Are the miracles that you see in your midst his work or your work?  Paul is asking them to reflect back to their old unredeemed life.  He wanted them to look at what God has done for them.  They are now connected with their families and other brethren in love, not in dispute and envy and argumentation.  He wants them to know the Good News of being right with God did not come from their effort, but it was a gift from God through the works of Jesus Christ on the cross.  Now the Spirit of God, the power of God is in them.  They love God and they love others.  Is this but an accident?  No, this is a purposeful work of God because of faith in God’s words.  Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.”  (Mark 12:29-31)  Our friends around this breakfast table, we must not try to enter into union with God based on our own good works or behaviors; that will never make us right with God.  Faith in Christ and his works makes us right with God.  We will bless all people if we hold that truth in our lives.  Others will be envious of our stability and happiness.  They will want what we live and express.  Truly our lives will bless all nations as God promised Abraham.  The fields are ripe for harvest.  Dear friends we do not live by the burden of the law.  If so our countenance will fail to reflect the light of the world: Jesus Christ.  However, if we live in his freedom by faith, people will see it in our faces, in our eyes, in the way we live.  They will desire to have the same Good News in their lives.  Let us be harvesters, portraying the Good News of Jesus as the light of the world.  Let him shine in you today!  Love, Dad and Mom   

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Galatians 2:11-21 Serve Humbly!

Galatians 2:11-21  When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.  For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles.  But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.  The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.  When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew.  How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?  We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.  So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.  “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin?  Absolutely not!  If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.  “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

In the above focus, we see Peter, a foundational apostle, the one who said by the Holy Spirit’s unction that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God, now wavering in his understanding that the uncircumcised Gentiles and the circumcised Jews are equal before God.  Paul was fully convinced that circumcision and following the law added nothing to being right with God.  He died to the idea that the law was necessary to know or please a righteous God, I died to the law so that I might live for God.  Every aspect of being right with God through his own works was crucified on the cross.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  I live by faith in the Son of God.  Peter understood this too, for he had seen the Gentile Cornelius and his household baptized in the Holy Spirit.  After the Jerusalem elders came to Antioch, Peter’s preference to eat only with the Jews bothered Paul a lot, for Peter was now making a distinction between the Jews from Jerusalem and the Greeks in Antioch.  The Jerusalem brethren believed that circumcision was a necessary step for all Christians who come to believe in Jesus as their Lord. Along with circumcision as a necessary act in being right with God, they also believed in the customs of the Jews as important to follow, such as following the Jewish hygiene procedures before and after eating a meal.  The Pharisees condemned Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands before eating.  The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.  (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders.  When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash.  And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.  (Mark 7:1-4)  Now out of fear of the Jewish brethren from Jerusalem who were law-bound, Peter and Barnabas chose to eat with them only and not with their Greek brethren.  Paul knew that both Peter and Barnabas knew that to be right with God, one must have faith only in Jesus’ work on the cross.  They knew Jesus alone purifies people, rids them of their sins and makes them right with God; no other work pleases a righteous, perfect God.  After Jesus the Christ had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.  (Hebrews 1:3)  This choice of Peter to sit only with the Jews at meal time was pure hypocrisy.  Peter’s hypocrisy was a dangerous leaven.  Paul had to address openly this hypocrisy, for it was leading other Jews in Antioch to make a distinction between the circumcised and the uncircumcised believers. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew.  How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?  Peter was living in freedom that Christ won for him by his work on the cross.  He was free from the shackles of the law.  Paul reminded him that Christ made him right with God, not the law. Then why would he shackle the Greeks with the law when he is living in the complete freedom that faith in Christ has earned for him.

This hypocrisy of pleasing God only through obedience to the law was very dangerous and would destroy the Good News in the Greek community. Paul knew the believing Greeks were not desiring to take on the likeness of Jews, but the likeness of Christ.  The Jewish customs and traditions were heavy burdens on people, so the Greeks were not seeking for these burdens to make their lives better.  They were seeking for a better way to be right with God.  The Greeks were heavily involved in serving many gods and in adopting the philosophies of learned men.  Paul's ministry was to both Jews and Greeks, who had very different ideas about life and about existence.  However, Paul preached only Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.  (1 Corinthians 1:23-25)  In today’s focus we see Paul concerned that the Jews are now trying to make the Greeks into law-abiding Jews.  This is an anathema to Paul.  This idea opposes the work of Christ on the cross and the freedom Jesus brings to people who trust in him.  Paul did not want the Jews to pursuade the Greeks to take on the burden of the law and the customs of the Jewish society.  If they attempt to do that they would lose out in their rightness with God that comes through faith.  They would lose their precious high priest who makes them eternally safe in God’s domain. Jesus came as a man to deal with the sins of mankind.  He alone makes us right with God and He alone is our high priest.  We have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.  (Hebrews 4:14-16)  If the law and works become a substitute for faith in Christ Jesus, then the high priest is no longer available to men and women.  The writer of Hebrews says, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  Paul is telling Peter and Barnabas to hold onto Christ, profess his righteousness, not their own righteousness, for their righteousness will NEVER make them right with God.  In the above focus, we see Paul is very fearful that this deadly hypocrisy of the Jerusalem Jews will spread through the believers in Galatia.  If it spreads, their souls will die, for they will trust in their dead works and not in Jesus’ ever-living works, finalized on the cross.

Jesus the Christ was sent to the world out of Mary’s womb.  The Spirit of God established this holy seed in Mary.  Jesus came in the weakness of the flesh.  Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.   (Hebrews 2:14-15)  Jesus completed the task that He had been commissioned to fulfill. He lived a sinless life even though He carried the weaknesses of the flesh.  He performed miracles and wonders that only God can do.  He paved the way to God for He did only the will of God.  He was filled with the Holy Spirit so He always had access to God’s directions.  Jesus made it possible to have the breath of life in the minds of Christians.  He breathed on the disciples and filled them with the Holy Spirit.  They would now have the words of God in their minds.  They would now be able to keep in step with the Holy Spirit.  They would be imbued with the fruit of the Spirit presented in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  This nature is what Paul was preaching to the Galatians.  He wanted both Greek and Jew to be fully filled with the love of God for all people.  He knew Law would separate people, not make them ONE IN CHRIST.  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.  (Galatians 5:13-15)  Peter and Barnabas had been wrongly influenced by this idea that circumcision brings rightness with God.  They began to separate themselves from the uncircumcised by not eating with them.  Law always separates, but love serves one another humbly.  Jesus prayed to his Father, let them be one as we are one.  Now in Galatia we see circumcision was separating, not uniting in love.  Paul knows the grace of God: Jesus Christ, has been given to all mankind, everywhere and forever.  Paul desperately says to the Galatians, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!  But Christ did not die for nothing.  Jesus said to Nicodemus, You must be born again.’  (John 3:7)  Born again is a simple step, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)  Breakfast companions, do not let the insidious work of the devil enter your life; he would tell you that works contribute to your salvation.  No, your works will never earn you salvation--freedom forever, bought by the blood of Jesus.  The only true sign of your salvation is what Jesus told the Pharisees, believe in the one who spent three days in death and then was raised again by the Holy Spirit to new life.  You, dear friends have been raised to a born-again life through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  You have died and are raised again because you through faith IN Jesus Christ have a new life.  So, enjoy your freedom IN CHRIST.  Walk in him, talk in him, live in him!  He is your everything.