The author of a tract entitled Come To Jesus got engaged in a
theological dispute, and he wrote another publication in which he
cut his opponent to pieces with razor sharp sarcasm. He let a friend
read it and then asked if he had any suggestions for a title. His
friend said, "How about Go To The Devil by the author of Come To
Jesus." The author recognized the inconsistency and responded to
the rebuke by not publishing the product of his anger. Be ye angry
and sin not said Paul. That is a easier thing to preach than to
practice. Many men of God have failed by displaying improper
anger. Moses let out a burst of rage and it cost him the privilege of
entering the promised land. Jonah's character will always be
marred by the fact that he was angry at God's mercy being shown to
those who deserve judgment. The fact is, it is very hard for any
servant of God to keep a proper balance, and be able to hate sin and
love the sinner.
The book of Galatians is an example of the fact that it can be
done. This is the only letter we have by Paul that was obviously
written in anger. Paul was fighting mad as he dictated this Epistle.
He reveals more of his emotions in this letter than anywhere. He is
angry at the Judaisers for trying to get the Galatians to give up their
liberty in Christ and go back under the law. He is angry and
frustrated at the Galatians because they are so foolish as to even
consider such a move.
Henricksen writes of the Epistle, "The spiritual atmosphere is
charged. It is sultry, sweltering. A storm is threatening. The sky is
darkening. In the distance one can see flashes of lightning....when
each line of verses 1-5 is read in the light of the letters occasion and
purpose the atmospheric turbulence is immediately detected."
Every commentary points to the atmosphere of anger surrounding
this letter. Paul uses restraint in the first few verses, but as soon as
he gets through the introduction he lets go with both barrels, and in
verses 6-9 he blasts both the Galatians for their folly in listening, and
the Judaisers for their folly in preaching a perversion of the Gospel.
Let them be cursed says Paul, and then he repeats it for emphasis.
Paul is angry because he loves Christ and the church too much to
see it injured by the folly of man. A study of this letter will not only
help us grasp better what we have in Christ, but it will help us also
to see just what we should get angry about as believers. We are too
often angry at the wrong things, and not angry about the things that
made Paul angry. Jesus and Paul both got angry when other people
were being robbed of their liberty by legalism.
Paul did not thank God for the Galatians, or for anything about
them, as he does in all of his other letters. It is not only what he
writes but what he leaves unwritten that tells us of his anger. There
is a legitimate place for anger in the Christian life, and even toward
fellow Christians. If it is handled properly it becomes a powerful
blessing. Paul's anger that motivated him to write this letter
changed the course of human history. We must grasp something of
the background of this letter before we study its contents, or we will
never come to appreciate its contents.
All of the first Christians were Jews, and as Jews they continued
to live under the law of Moses even as Christians. They did not
immediately throw off the Old Testament, for it was their Bible, and
the law of Moses was still their guide, and the temple was still their
holy place of worship. Most all of the leaders of the early church
were also Jews. When Paul began to bring Gentile converts into the
church, and establish Gentile churches, the Jewish leaders felt it was
their duty to go to these Gentiles and make it clear to them what was
required of them to be good Christians. These Judaisers, as they
were called, were sincere Christians, in many cases, who wanted to
make sure the Gentiles obeyed the law of Moses.
The problem was that they cast doubt on the sufficiency of
Christ. They said that faith in Christ was not enough, for you must
also keep the law. This was confusing to the Gentile Christians, but
they had no basis to argue with men of authority. They assumed
that they must know what they were talking about, and since they
wanted to do what God demanded they began to conform and make
their Christianity a part of the Old Testament system of law.
When Paul heard this he was angry, for this action robbed the
Christian of the liberty that Christ brought, and put them back
under legalism. Galatians is the great proclamation of religious
liberty in Christ. G. Campbell Morgan said, "The essential message
of the letter has to do with liberty." Hendriksen called Galatians,
"The Christian Declaration of Independence." If Paul had not
written this letter and fought against those who sought to lead
Christians back into bondage to the law, Christianity may have
become a mere branch on the tree of Judaism. Christians would
have been just another sect like the Pharisees and Saducees. Thanks
to Paul the church escaped from the bondage and limitations of the
law, and launched out into the vast uncharted world of the Gentiles
with a message of good news to all people.
If Christianity would have had to require circumcision and
dietary regulations of the law of Moses, it never would have had a
universal appeal. The whole mission and history of the church
depended on Paul gaining a victory on this issue. That is why this
letter is one of the most revolutionary documents in the history of
mankind. We are what we are today in large measure due to this
letter. Wilbur M. Smith put it, "Had the Judaisers in the early
church been allowed to force the Christian Gospel into a Judaistic
strait jacket, the church would have always remained weak, narrow,
and small, and you and I possibly would never have heard the
Gospel."
Merrill C. Tenney wrote, "Few books have had a more profound
influence on the history of mankind... Christianity might have been
just one more Jewish sect, and the thought of the Western world
might have been entirely pagan had it never been written." No
wonder Luther loved this book so dearly. It was the battle cry of the
Reformation. The battle Paul fought was fought all over again, and
thanks to Paul's letter Christian liberty won out again over legalism
and bondage to law. Luther said, "The Epistle to the Galatians is
my Epistle. To it I am as it were in wedlock. It is my Katherine." I
don't know how Katherine his wife felt about this competition, but
thanks to Luther's love of Galatians. We are under Protestant
liberty rather than legalistic bondage.
The value of this background is that it makes this letter exciting
to study because it has already been a major influence in our lives,
even if we have never read it. The truth of this letter has benefited
us even without us knowing it. It becomes even more precious,
however, as we enter consciously into its riches. In our study we are
not trying to understand something that is irrelevant, but we are
trying to gain a deeper appreciation of what is highly irrelevant to
our lives so that we can apply it more fully and personally. A
knowledge of this book will add greatly to the joy and liberty that is
ours in Christ. It will protect us from getting sidetracked in a world
of many voices, and it will make us more effective communicators of
the Gospel of grace.
There are two extremes that people fall into in their search for
the ideal life. The one is legalism and the other is license. The first
says touch not, taste not, handle not, and the second says eat, drink,
and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Neither of them represent the
biblical path to the abundant life. Paul in this letter shows us that
the way to get the best of both of these extremes, and avoid the
dangers of both, is by liberty in bondage to Christ.
If you are a slave to anyone or anything but Christ you are in
bondage, but if you are a slave to Christ, you are the most free of all
people. If the Son shall make you free you are free indeed. You
shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. This is what
the Galatian letter is all about. It is the Christian guide to the
balance life of liberty. Charles Erdman divides the book into three
sections of two chapters each. The first two deal with the Apostle of
liberty; the second two with the doctrine of liberty, and the last two
with the life of liberty. We have then in this letter a personal,
doctrinal, and practical perspective on Christian liberty.
Paul begins with the personal, and he exposes his soul for all to
see. We get to see Paul as never before. We get to see him when he
is angry and frustrated, and in a state of shocked bewilderment. In
the letter to the Philippians all is peace and joy, but in this letter we
see him on the battlefield engaging the enemy. His whole ministry is
at stake, and the foundation of the Gospel is at stake, and he fights
with all the weapons at his disposal. The very fact that this letter
exists teaches us plenty. It destroys completely the idea that the
saints of God are meant to be happy little islands isolated from the
turmoil of the world. This letter shatters that myth and shows us
that Christians are to be right in the middle of the battlefield. There
are always forces trying to move Christians off center and get them
to go to one extreme or the other, and so we must constantly fight
for liberty and balance.
One of the paradoxes of life that stands out here is the fact that it
was other Christians who caused Paul his grief and heartache. Paul
could glory in his sufferings at the hands of unbelievers for the sake
of the Gospel, but there was nothing to rejoice about when
Christians perverted the Gospel and tried to ensnare others, and
destroy his work and authority. The Judaisers accused Paul of
getting so involved with the Gentiles that he had gone astray and
had forsaken the law of Moses. They cast doubt on Paul's authority
and threatened to undermine all he had done in bringing the Gospel
to the Gentiles.
All of this was done by sincere Christians who disagreed with
Paul and his approach to the Gentiles. We see the paradox of
Christian history here. Most men of God have their greatest
problems, not in relation to the world, but in relation to other
groups of Christians who disagree with their emphasis. Being
stoned and blasted by the world is almost pleasure compared to the
criticism and folly one has to endure from others within the
kingdom. Paul would have been able to say amen to this poem:
To live above with the saints we love
Oh that will be glory.
But to live below with the saints we know
That's a different story.
Galatians is a record of just how serious and harmful the battles
can be within the body of Christ when any portion of the body gets
off center and begins to teach anything that robs Jesus of His
sovereign role as all-sufficient Savior. Liberty in Christ means that
there is only one requirement to be a Christian, and that is faith in Christ.
Any other requirement is imposed by men and is a threat to
both our liberty and the sufficiency of Christ as Savior. It is sad but
it is a fact of life that the fight for Christian liberty and balance is as
much a fight with other Christians as it is with the world.
As Christians we are constantly facing appeals to jump on the
bandwagon of other Christians and go off the deep end of one
extreme or the other. Satan knows there is great power when the
church is united and that it becomes weak and ineffective when it
fights itself and create division. That is why the church is constantly
being broken into divisive groups who have their own pet theology,
and that is why it is so important to study this letter of Paul that will
help us stay on the right track and maintain our liberty in Christ.
