GALATIONS 1: 1-5
AUTHENTIC AUTHORITY
A family, carefully executing their escape plan, dashes for the border at midnight...a man standing outside prison walls, gulping fresh air, awash in the new sun...a young woman with every trace of the ravaging drug gone from her system...they are FREE! With fresh anticipation, they can begin life anew.
Whether fleeing oppression, stepping out of prison, or breaking a strangling habit, freedom means life. There is nothing so exhilarating as knowing that the past is forgotten and that new options await. People yearn to be free.
Galatians is a trumpet blast for freedom in Christ. Martin Luther considered Galatians the best book in the Bible. It has been called “the battle-cry of the Reformation,” the great charter of religious freedom,” the Christian declaration of independence,” etc.
The book of Galatians is the charter of Christian freedom. In this profound letter, Paul proclaims the reality of our liberty in Christ-freedom from the curse of the law and the power of sin, and freedom to serve our living Lord.
Most of the first coverts and early leaders in the church were Jewish Christians who proclaimed Jesus as their Messiah. As Jewish Christians, they struggled with a dual identity: their Jewishness constrained them to be strict followers of the law; their newfound faith in Christ invited them to celebrate a holy liberty.
This controversy tore the early church. Judaizers-an extremist Jewish faction within the church-taught that Gentile Christians had to submit to Jewish ritual laws and traditions in addition to believing in Christ. As a missionary to the Gentiles, Paul confronted this issue many times.
Galatians was written, therefore, to refute the Judaizers and to call believers back to the pure gospel. The Good News is for all people-Jews and Gentiles alike. Salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus and nothing else. Faith in Christ is intended to bring true freedom (5:1).
I. THE BACKGROUND
II. THE AUTHORITY
III. THE RECIPIENTS
IV. THE RESCUE
Verse 1 begins with the author and his calling. Paul, an Apostle.
Paul and Barnabas had just completed their first missionary journey (Acts 13:2 - 14:28). They had visited Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, cities in the Roman province of Galatia (present-day Turkey). Upon returning to Antioch, Paul was accused by some Jewish Christians of diluting salvation to make it more appealing to Gentiles. These Jewish Christians disagreed with Paul’s statements that Gentiles did not have to follow many of the religious laws that the Jews had obeyed for centuries. Some of Paul’s accusers had even followed him to those Galatian cities and had told the Gentile converts they had to be circumcised and follow all the Jewish laws and customs in order to be saved. According to these men, Gentiles had to first become Jews in order to become Christians.
In response to this threat, Paul wrote this letter to the Galatian churches. In it, he explains that following the Old Testament laws or the Jewish laws will not bring salvation. A person is saved by grace through faith. Paul wrote this letter about A.D. 49, shortly before the meeting of the Jerusalem council, which settled the law versus grace controversy (Acts 15).
II. THE AUTHORITY, 1.
Paul immediately establishes why he should be listened to among all the voices clamoring for attention. Paul, an Apostle -not from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Fathers, who raised Him from the dead.
Paul was called to be an apostle by Jesus Christ and God the Father. There is no higher caller or higher calling. Paul is saying that his apostleship is genuine and hence the gospel he proclaimed is also. The Judaizers were saying he was not truly an apostle therefore his message was not authoritative, not truly of God. Their charge or insinuation was that men, the men at Antioch or the real apostles in Jerusalem, had commissioned Paul. They wanted to undercut him and therefore his message so that they could claim more authority for themselves and their message, that they were on equal footing with Paul.
The statement here is clear, Paul and his messages are backed by divine authority; the commission and authorizing of Jesus Christ and the Father who raised Him from the dead. If they opposed him they were in actuality opposing the very One whom God had honored; the very One whose work of redemption the Father had approved. By the act of raising Jesus from the dead, God had placed the seal of approval which designated Him the complete and perfect Savior, whose work does not need to be, cannot be, added to. This is the One Who from His exalted position in heaven called Paul to be an apostle.
The first part of verse 2 adds, and all the brethren who are with me. The implication is that through Paul’s ministry and the blessings of God upon it, many brethren were with him. Paul’s apostleship was authenticated by Paul bringing in and establishing many brethren in Christ Jesus. They were with him because the gospel he preached had won them. The Judaizers or legalists would not have won anyone in Galatia to the Lord, they simply steal the loyalty of those won by others.
III. THE RECIPIENT (2b-3).
The address continues in verse 2 by denoting the association of churches to whom Paul was initially writing, being, to the churches of Galatia.
This letter is not addressed to any specific body of believers but was intended to circulate through multiple churches of Galatia. It was written to refute the Judaizers who were teaching that Gentile believers must obey the law to be saved. On Paul’s first missionary journey there, Acts records some of the churches, in this Province that he founded, Iconium, Lystra, & Derby. Paul would again visit this region on his second missionary journey. (This letter was probably written around 49AD, just one year before the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 which brought the total impact of apostolic authority to bear on the issue of legalism).
In Paul’s day, Galatia was the Roman Province located in the center section of present-day Turkey in Asia Minor. Much of the region rests on a large fertile plateau, and a large number of people were drawn to the region because of its abundant productivity. One of Paul’s goals during his missionary journeys was to visit regions with large population centers in order to reach as many people as possible with the Gospel!
Although there are no words of their favorable ministry or conduct there is still the Apostolic blessing given in verse 3. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Though the apostle finds little to praise them about and much to be deplored, this does not mean he has given up on them. Far from it, this letter is a redemptive letter to what he considers Christian communities.
Grace, charis, is God’s unmerited favor in action, His freely bestowed loving-kindness in operation. It is God’s gift to sinful men who turn to Him for refuge. It pays the penalty, cancels the guilt of the offender and even adopts him as His own son.
Grace brings peace. We must receive God’s grace before we can know God’s peace. Peace is a state of being reconciled with God and a condition of inner well-being, even in a storm. It is not the reflection of an unclouded sky in the tranquil waters of a picturesque lake, but rather the cleft of the rock in which the Lord hides His children when the storm is raging. It is the refuge place under the wings to which the hen gathers her brood so that the little chicks are safe while the storm bursts loose in all its fury upon her.
Now this grace and peace have their origin in God. Our Father sends us this precious blessing which has been won and granted to believers by our great Master-Owner-Conqueror. He saves to the uttermost those who consistently draw near (Heb. 7:25).
IV. THE RESCUE (4-5).
When Paul thinks of Jesus, he is reminded of His receptive work. Verse 4, Who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.
It was a great magnanimous act of self-surrender by Christ that brought salvation to us. The true grounds of our acceptance before God is that Christ gave Himself for our sins. No one took His life from Him, He laid it down of His own accord, voluntarily for His Sheep (Jn. 10:11, 17, 18).
These days many people insist on their own rights and purposes. The biblical concept of self-sacrifice seems foreign. People don’t give without wanting something in return.
The sacrificial-giving of many in the past is what made our land great. In My Grandfather’s War William D. Matheson tells of a veteran who walked through the streets of his hometown with an empty sleeve. When a person commented on the loss of his arm, the veteran replied, “I didn’t lose it I gave it.”
That describes what Jesus did for us. He didn’t lose His life on the cross, He gave it. He paid the penalty for sin so that all who believe in Him would experience forgiveness of sin and have eternal life. In fulfillment of the Old Testament picture of the sacrifice of the lamb, He gave His life for us. [Our Daily Bread]
The purpose of His voluntary death is so that He might rescue us. The word rescue is very descriptive. It presupposes that those being held are in great danger or evil from which they are unable to extricate themselves. Joseph was rescued out of all his afflictions (Acts 7:10), Israel out of Egyptian bondage (7:34), Peter out of Herod’s hand (Acts 12:11) and as Paul would be delivered or rescued out of the hands of Jews and Gentiles (Acts 23:27; 26:17).
It reminds us of a swimmer who plunges into the fast-moving current in order to rescue a loved child that has fallen into the stream and is about to be thrown over the cliff of a waterfall to her death.
All comparisons fall short though, for we where held by something far worse, and far more deadly. We were rescued from the tyrannical power and destiny of Satan. This rescue from the present world dominated by evil, is not complete though until the last trumpet has sounded. It is progressive in character. It is being accomplished when-ever a sinner is brought out of the clutches of darkness into light and whenever a saint gains victory in His struggle against sin.
It is not enough to bow in adoration before the Son for His redemptive work was accomplished according to the will of our God and Father. Yes, He is now our Father. He spared not the Son of His own perfect nature but delivered Him up for us all. Let trouble-makers beware when they belittle the work of the Son, for they make light of the Father also!
When the apostle contemplates the Father’s marvelous love revealed in delivering up His own dear Son, His only begotten for our salvation, his soul is lost in wonder, love and praise. The result is that he exclaims in verse 5: to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.
Wicked infiltrators minimize God’s work of redemption, but Paul will magnify it, calling upon all men everywhere to praise His name! So marvelous is this work that it is worthy of never-ending praise. Hence, He is to be glorified to the ages of the ages. With a solemn Amen Paul affirms again his gratitude for God’s great undying love, the unfathomable depth of His grace and mercy in Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION
It is a tragedy in this life that the love of Christ which gave and suffer, which conquered sin and achieved redemption is so often frustrated. Jesus still bears the pain of loving yet not being permitted to rescue the one He loves. Satan, so full of cruelty, tragedy, temptation, and deception has blinded the eyes to so great a salvation.
Have you ask God to save you and keep on saving you from this present evil age? Does your life reflect your gratitude for being rescued by so great a price? Have you transferred your loyalty from this world system to Jesus Christ?
[message by Dennis Davison. pastorfbc@bellsouth.net]
