Many of the letters written by Paul, the Apostle, were the results of controversy. His letter to the church at Galatia is no exception. The local believers were on the verge of being sidetracked from the truth of the Gospel. Paul had to do something about it. "Stay on course", he urged them. It reminds me of a story about Winston Churchill. He once gave a speech at Harrow School that lasted less than a minute but it drew a standing ovation. With his unforgettable, deep, gruff voice he said, "Never give up. Never, never give up! Never, never, never give up!" was all he had to say. Paul was similarly emphatic. The Galatian Christians had received the truth of the Gospel - on no account must they give it up.
The problem was that the transition from Judaism to Christianity was a slow process with some of the early Jewish believers in Jesus. Those who had been steeped in the Jewish religion for many years found it hard to shake off some of its teaching and traditions, even though they had believed in Jesus as their Messiah, their Saviour. Some of the Pharisees who had been converted taught that before a Gentile could become a Christian he must first become a Jew by undertaking to observe the Law of Moses.
Unfortunately these people weren’t content to hold their erroneous views privately, but went around inflicting their opinions on unsuspecting churches. These Judaizers, as they were called, had gone to the Ga1atia, a city in what is now modern Turkey, with their unsettling teaching and had thrown the little worshipping community into turmoil. What should they believe? Was it really the case that some 1aw keeping, at least, was necessary for salvation? How did one become a Christian? By faith in Christ and by obedience to the law?
When Paul heard of the crisis in the Galatian church caused by the Judaizers he wouldn’t have been surprised for they had dogged his steps all his life. But he was deeply disturbed in his spirit that the Christians should be in danger of compromising the purity of the Gospel and being led away from the liberty they had gained through faith in Christ. It’s no wonder then, that Paul writes so passionately. His soul is at white heat as he deals with the burning issue at questions at issue: What is the genuine Gospel? What is the relationship between Law of God and the Lord Jesus Christ? Of course we’re now two millennia on from those days - the details of the questions are different but the principles remain: What is the genuine Gospel?
It’s most important that we should have a close understanding of the points raised, as it will indicate if the foundations of our faith are secure. Many false cults have gained converts because people weren’t sure of their faith. Paul was saddened to see how quickly his converts could be turned aside from the truth. He called them deserters! Paul longed to re-establish them in the truth. To do this he had to go back to first principles. Let’s include ourselves in his analysis, for he is dealing with the biography of "everyman", at least every Christian. In the first place, he tells us:
WHAT WE WERE: SUBJECTS OF THE LAW
The Law that Paul writes of to the Galatian Christians is that which was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, summarised in the Ten Commandments. It affected every part of the people’s life. We may well ask: what was the purpose of the Law? It wasn’t to bring salvation. Paul declared "it was added because of transgressions" (3:19). The Law’s main work was to expose sin. It was intended to make plain that sin was a revolt against the authority of God. It acted like a prosecutor at a trial exposing wrongdoing of the person in the dock. When we compare ourselves with the righteousness demanded by the Law, who can honestly say they’ve kept the Ten Commandments? The Law, of course, is part of God’s design, for unless we realise we need to be saved from sin, we should have no desire for salvation.
Paul uses an interesting illustration to explain the purpose
of the Law. He says the Law kept men shut up in prison, so bringing home to them a sense of guilt and the power of sin. The Law was like a prison guard keeping us confined (3:23). Rather like the Berlin Wall kept people in the communist sector from escaping to the West. And then the Apostle gives another illustration, saying that the law was a kind of tutor. In Paul’s day the tutor or guardian of boys would be a trusted slave whose job it was to take the children of the family to and from school. He had the supervision of them and was often a stern disciplinarian. Like the children’s tutor, the Law rebukes us, but it’s for our benefit as it prepared the way for Christ. The Law shows the will of God, telling us what to do and what not to do, and warns us of the penalties of disobedience. We can thank God for the Law for, although it shows us as under its just condemnation, it points us clearly to Christ who can free us from its prison and the discipline of the tutors.
Paul has explained to his Christian friends in Galatia what the Law is and its purpose and its benefits. He then makes clear what was their state as subjects of the Law. "Your state under the law," he tells them, "was that of children." Paul asked them to picture a boy who is an heir to a great estate. One day it will all be his. In fact, it’s all his by promise, but not yet in experience, because he’s still a child, he’s under age. As long as the heir is a young child, he’s no better than a slave, even though he’s the owner of it all. He’s under guardians until he reaches the age that his father has fixed.
Pau1 applies the parable: "so with us," (4:3) he says. Even in Old Testament days, before Christ came and when we were under the Law, we were heirs - heirs of the promise that God gave to Abraham. But we hadn’t yet inherited the promise. We were like children in the years of their minority. Our childhood was a form of bondage. It was true the Jews had the teaching of the Law, but the devil tried to twist it so as to enslave men and women. God meant the Law to be a stepping stone to liberty: Satan used it to drive men to despair.
We’ve seen - What we were: Subjects of the law, but now we turn to see:
WHAT GOD DID: SENT FORTH HIS SON
Time after time in Scripture a situation is depicted which is full of gloom for mankind and then the writer chases the darkness away at a stroke of the pen with the words "but … God" (4:4). Paul’s word picture so far was bleak - words like slavery, prison, tutors, disciplinarians - all descriptive of the position of those still subjected to God’s Law and powerless to help themselves. Now, dramatically, the situation is reversed because of what God did: "but when the time was come God sent forth His Son’ (4:4). Man’s bondage under the Law continued for about 1,300 years. It was a long and arduous minority. But at last the fullness of time arrived, the date set by Father when the children should attain their majority and be freed from their guardians and inherit the promise.
The coming of Christ is historical. When Luke introduced his account of Christ’s ministry, he did so by locating the events firmly in their historical setting. His method was rather like a TV camera zooming in onto a precise spot. When God sent forth his Son, Caesar was on the throne, giving the idea of the Roman Empire. Then he indicates it was in the time of Pilate and Herod focusing attention on the land of Israel. The focus is narrowed stil1 more when he mentions Annas and Caiaphas, setting the stage in Jerusalem. It was "when the time was fully come" - it was exactly the right moment when Christ came. The Romans had conquered the known Earth. They had built roads to facilitate travel. The Greek language was widely known, making communication easier between the various peoples. At the same time the common people were disillusioned with the heathen gods of Greece and Rome, so that the hearts of men and women were hungry for the truth. And then the Law of Moses had made people long for the freedom with which Christ could make them free.
The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ was in great humility. He was, Paul states, "born of a woman." He writes this to emphasise that our Lord was indeed truly human. There can be no doubt from the record of the life of Jesus in the Gospels that he was really a man. He had had grown up through childhood and boyhood as a member of an ordinary Jewish family with brothers and sister. He had the usual physical needs and emotional characteristics of a man. The Gospel historians note how he became hungry and thirsty, he became weary and required sleep. Like his fellow men he was capable of being grieved and angry. He was a fully accepted member of society - he had been educated and learned a trade. His way of dress, customs and manners were those of his fel1ow men. And yet, at the same time he was God the Son. The Christmas carol sums it up so well: "Veiled in flesh, the God-head see! Hail the Incarnate Deity."
The sending forth of Christ into the world wasn’t an afterthought, as it were, because off the failure of the Law to save sinful men. Rather it was the fulfilment of the promise given to Abraham some 400 years before Moses. The promise was that through Abraham’s Great Successor all the nations of the earth would be blest.
Christ came into the world for the purpose of redeeming those who were under the Law (4:5). To do this he had to be perfectly qualified. And he was. He was God’s Son. He was also born of a human mother, so that he was human as well as divine. He was born under the Law. He was born of a Jewish mother, into the Jewish nation, subject to the Jewish Law. Throughout his life he submitted to all the requirements of the Law. He succeeded when all others before and since have failed: he perfectly fulfilled the righteousness of the Law. And so he was uniquely qualified to be man’s Redeemer. It’s been summarised in some memorable words: "If he had not been a man he could not have redeemed men. If he had not been a righteous man, he could not have redeemed unrighteous men. And if he had not been God’s Son, he could not have redeemed men for God or made them the sons of God."
This great redemption was accomplished by the death on the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wasn’t compelled to die: Scripture insists that he laid down his life, he gave himself for our sins (1:4). The death of Jesus Christ wasn’t primarily a display of love, nor an example of heroism, although it was those things, but a sacrifice for sin. He has done for us on the Cross what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us (3:13). All that we have to do is to believe in Christ, coming to God in repentance and faith, and so we see:
WHAT GOD HAS MADE US: SONS BY ADOPTION
The Apostle Paul now disc1oses God’s purpose in redeeming lost mankind so that we might receive adoption as sons (4: 5). His grand design was not only to rescue us from slavery, but to make slaves into sons. The adoption of children was well known in the ancient world. It often happened that a wealthy man who had no children of his own would take into his family a slave youth. As soon as the legal formalities were completed the child ceased to be a slave and became a son and heir.
The Lord Jesus Christ was Son of God by nature, but for sinners to become sons of God entails a different relationship - it’s all of God’s unmerited favour. Children who are adopted are sometimes affectionately referred as "chosen boys and girls". The same is the case in Paul’s description of what God has made us - he chose us before we knew him. It’s true that we have to exercise our choice in responding to him, but we shouldn’t forget that in the first place the initiative was God’s - it is he who chose us to be his sons by adoption. This leads us to think of:
WHAT WE SHOULD BE: SONS IN STATUS
Paul often stresses in his letters to the young churches that doctrine must be matched by deeds. He does this to the Galatian church. "Now that you have come to know God," he tells his converts, "how can you turn back?" (4:9). Such a thing is inconceivable to the Apostle, and yet the danger was ever present. The solution is that we should live out our status of sons of the living God. If we are his sons we can talk like sons. We have a ready access to our Heavenly Father in prayer. It’s as we exercise this right that we receive the assurance that our sonship is secure by the witness of the Holy Spirit.
But not only can we talk like sons, we must act as sons. Once Jesus has become our Saviour he then should be our example to follow. His life was well pleasing to God and if ours are modelled upon his we shall make progress. It’s gloriously true that our salvation isn’t dependent on our keeping of the rules and regulations of the Law of Moses, as the Judaisers wrongly insisted. But let’s remember that the moral law, which it includes, hasn’t been annulled. For the Christian, the difference Christ makes is that before he was saved he tried in vain in his own strength to keep God’s laws. But now he’s a Christian he has the enabling of the Holy Spirit.
We must keep on reminding ourselves what we have and are in
Christ. The children of Israel were commanded by Moses: "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you" (Deut 15:15). The hope was that by reminding themselves constantly of the grace of God they would determine never to return to their old way of life. John Newton, the writer of "Amazing Grace", was in his youth a slave -trader. But when he was 23 his ship was in peril of sinking in a terrible storm. He cried to God for mercy and found it. He was truly converted, and he never forgot how God had taken mercy upon him. In order to imprint upon his memory he had the words of Moses written over the mantlepiece of his study, "Remember that you were a bondman … and God redeemed you."
If only we remembered:
What we were: subjects of the Law - sinners unable to help ourselves, incapable of keeping the Law and so coming under its condemnation.
If only we remembered:
What God did: sent forth His Son - to make possible our redemption.
If only we remembered:
What God has made us: sons by adoption - given us a family relationship.
If only we remembered these things we should have an increasing desire to be:
What we should be: sons in status: sons of God set free by Christ.
May he ever be our inspiration.
