Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray once informed a man who had appeared before him in a lower court and had escaped conviction on a technicality, "I know that you are guilty and you know it, and I wish you to remember that one day you will stand before a better and wiser Judge, and that there you will be dealt with according to justice and not according to law."
Some time later the same man was surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, the thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down the other side, and found himself in the city jail (Oops: The Book of Blunders, 1980).
Having escaped bondage, the thief found himself drawn back into crime and back into bondage.
In our passage from Galatians today we find the Apostle Paul dismayed that His Galatian friends having been set free from the bondage of sin, were so willing to head into bondage of another sort--the bondage of the law. Because of his deep concern about them he tries to help them understand the difference between the way of the Gospel and the way of the Law.
Transition: .The passage breaks down neatly into three paragraphs each contrasting a different aspect of Law vs. Gospel. The first is the...
1. Contrast of Freedom
vv. 8-11 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.
Actually we have a comparison of three states here: The state of these gentile believers before their conversion, as pagans serving other gods; their state after conversion, trusting in Christ for salvation; and their state if they should choose to follow the teaching of the new teachers to follow the Law of Moses.
For those of you joining us for the first time in this series of sermons, it’s important that you understand that the occasion of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is that a group of Jewish teachers, that we know as the Judaizers, have been telling these non-Jewish Christians that if they really want to be acceptable before God they need to follow the Old Testament teaching of the Law and basically that they must first become Jews to be good Christians.
Paul on the other hand is arguing that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the price for their sins and that the only way to be acceptable to God is to accept His sacrifice, to trust in what Jesus did. That is, we are saved by faith alone, we don’t earn it by following any set of rules, it is a gift of God in response to our trust in Jesus Christ.
This is the message that Paul preached when he was in Galatia, the message that the Galatians had received and trusted in. Paul makes it clear that they had left a life of Idolatry. In verse 8 he says "when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods."
But then they accepted the Gospel message and "knew God" or rather were "known by Him" this emphasizes the fact that ultimately their salvation was not by their choice to know God, but by God’s choice to reveal His truth to them.
Now the Judaizers have come along with their new message: you need to follow these rules if you want God to accept you. Amazingly Paul equates this bondage with the first bondage. He doesn’t even say that it’s bondage of a different kind. How can this be? After all wasn’t it God who gave the law to Moses? Imagine the looks on the faces of the Judaizers when this letter was read aloud in the church! "how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?"
How can the law of God be equated with pagan worship? When it is used for a purpose it was never intended for. Over the last few weeks we have learned that the law was never intended to make men acceptable to God, Faith has always been what God really wanted from Man, the law was given as a stop gap measure until the promise was fulfilled in Christ, it was protective custody to spare God’s people from the harmful effects of sin. To use it to try to earn God’s favor is a misuse.
Satan has always specialized in the misuse of a good thing, and we see it even today. Perhaps the Lord has convicted you of a certain thing in your own life. We’ll say for the sake of argument that it’s tithing (giving 10% of your income to the Lord’s work). As you implement that in your life it’s a good thing, it reminds you to put God first in your life, and that all that you have belongs to Him. It’s a symbol of your devotion to Him and it helps advance His kingdom, HOWEVER if you begin to think that tithing makes you worthy of God’s blessing, or if you think it makes you more spiritual than those who aren’t convicted of that principle yet, then that’s become a bad thing, it’s become sin and you have traveled back into bondage.
Pastor and Author John Piper commented on this passage that "[the Judaizers] offered the law as a means of enjoying one’s pride in a morally acceptable way. And so their teaching was not as radical and humbling as Paul’s was. It was very appealing to people who wanted to be religious and moral but did not want to become putty in the hands of God.... It doesn’t take a genius to see that, when Christ shapes and forms our inner life after his own image, our freedom from the law will hardly result in a lawless self-glorifying license. On the contrary, it is the power of Christ living and reigning and forming himself within us that frees us to delight in God’s will. We are freed from the burden of the law when we are given the power to fulfill it from within [John Piper, sermon: "Oh that Christ Might be Formed in You."]
And so Freedom is the first contrast between the Law and Gospel the second is the...
2. Contrast of Fellowship
vv. 12-16 I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong. As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?
Paul notes that when they first heard the Gospel message from him it was because he was delayed by a disease affecting his eyes, they were filled with joy at the Gospel message and that joy caused their love and affection toward Paul to overflow.
But now that a new message has come along, their fellowship is strained and if you think about it you see why. The message of the Gospel is humility based: we must accept that we cannot save ourselves. On the other hand the message of the law is a self centered one, it says your perfection according to a set of rules makes you spiritual. It’s a message that stokes pride in an individual. So which of the two is conducive to fellowship? Which is likely to produce strife and division?
Having surrendered the truth of the Gospel, Paul says they’ve lost the joy that once made them close to him.
As Paul describes the Galatians as new believers we can recognize the Joy of the first love of Christ. Like young people with a new love they are excited about Jesus and naturally appreciative to the one who told them the glorious truth. But the quickest way to loose the joy of first love is to try on the shackles of the law, and these shackles are not the shackles of the chain gang, not those which bind us together, no they are handcuffs which bind us only to ourselves, making us self concerned, unable to embrace our brothers.
So the contrast of Freedom, is linked then to the contrast of Fellowship. And finally between the way of the Law and the way of Gospel there is a...
3. Contrast of Fervency
vv. 17-20 Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them. It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!
Here we see the contrast between the fervency of Paul and the Judaizers. Obviously Paul makes it clear that he is emotionally involved here, he is as zealous as the Judaizers. But Paul is fervent in his desire that the Galatians cling to the truth. The Judaizers, Paul says, are fervent to make themselves look good. Each gentile convert who is circumcised because of their teaching is a gold star for them, they’ve manufactured a competition between themselves and Paul. Their teaching is not for the benefit of the Galatians but to stroke their own pride. Paul on the otherhand wishes not to see himself exalted but desires that "Christ be formed" in them.
This is a theme we saw early in our series in Galatians, when we looked at a variety of passages about false teachers and noted this common theme, false teachers ultimately lift up themselves, not their followers, and not the Lord.
Paul also makes a note here about the Fervency of the Galatians themselves, implying that once upon a time they had been fervent in their acceptance of the Gospel message, eager to give thanks to God for his goodness. But now that new teachers have come along they have become fervent in their pursuit of the Law, keeping track of festival observances and so on.
Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems to me that Paul is perhaps hinting that the Galatians problem is that they have been "leader-focused" instead of Christ focused, even when Paul himself was the leader. He says "It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you."
This is a warning we would do well to heed as well. Our fervency should be Christ centered, not Pastor or teacher or author centered. People will fail you, Jesus never will.
ILLUSTRATION: John Wesley tells of a dream he had. In the dream, he was ushered to the gates of Hell. There he asked, "Are there any Presbyterians here?" "Yes!", came the answer. Then he asked, "Are there any Baptists? Any Episcopalians? Any Methodists?" The answer was Yes! each time. Much distressed, Wesley was then ushered to the gates of Heaven. There he asked the same question, and the answer was No! "No?" To this, Wesley asked, "Who then is inside?" The answer came back, "There are only Christians here."
Our fervency should not be for a denomination or a teacher or a preacher, but toward the only One Who died for our sins--Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION:
So having enjoyed the freedom of being set free from the Chains of sin Have you jumped the fence to find yourself in the Prison of legalism? I’d like to conclude with some diagnostic questions:
How is your Freedom? Do you find yourself measuring your spirituality against others based on performance? Is your devotion to the Lord pride based or power based? Is it adherence to standards or Holy Spirit empowerment, freeing you to walk away from sin?
How is your Fellowship? Do you find yourself isolated from your brothers and sisters in Christ because of the chains of duty or are you drawn to them by the joy of the Lord?
How is your Fervency? Are you fervent in your desire to please Christ regardless of who’s watching or is your fervency to follow some teacher?
If you don’t care for the answers to some of those questions, the good news is that Jesus is here this morning and he brought the key to the handcuffs.
