Paul tells us, “you are all sons of God,” in Galatians. Paul uses sons, not “sons and daughters,” simply because with sonship in ancient cultures came the right to inherit. Are all people sons of God? Find the important qualifiers in this verse: “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” They serve as bookends for sonship: “in Christ Jesus” and “through faith.” We have all the rights and privileges of a child of God only if we are in Christ Jesus through faith. Without that, we are still in our sins. We are still in Adam. 

J.I. Packer says in his classic book, Knowing Faith, that there is a higher privilege the gospel offers, even higher than justification. The doctrine of justification made you right before God the judge, who made the declaration, “not guilty” from the bench. But what happened next is critical. The judge then got off the bench, came down to where you are and embraced you, and said, “Come home to live with me as my son.” JI Packer wrote, “To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.” In answer to the question, “What is a Christian?” Packer said, “The richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father.” Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, who is in heaven,” didn’t he? Sometimes I have a hard time moving past that first phrase without getting emotional. I have a perfect Father who loves me perfectly and wanted me to be in His family. 

Along with that, a son of God is one who is clothed in Christ, Paul wrote. The picture of baptism points to that moment of your salvation, when you “put on Christ.” Paul writes in Romans 6, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead…we too might walk in newness of life.” Therefore, water baptism follows spiritual baptism, and our primary identity is in Christ. We don’t have to wear a badge that says, “I belong to Christ.” We are closer to him than our clothing is to our body, and in our speech and actions we “practice His presence.” If we are clothed in Christ, we are growing in our love for Him and that changes how we think, and speak, and walk, and act. There is an intimacy with Christ that colors everything about us. 

That means also that we are one with every other believer, because we are all where? In Christ! We play different roles in the body, but there is no distinction among believers as far as our position in Christ. There are ethnic, social and gender distinctions among believers, and yet, we are one in Christ. Paul said, “There is neither Jew not Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Paul mentions this threefold affirmation in Galatians because, many believe, the same was used in a morning prayer that Jewish men prayed every day: “Thank you God that you did not make me a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.” The reason for this prayer, which Paul himself would have prayed before He met Christ, was not a disparagement of Gentiles, slaves, or women as persons. FF Bruce writes that it was because of the fact “that they were disqualified from several religious privileges that were open only to free Jewish males.” Paul affirms that in Christ, these distinctions are irrelevant.  The body of Christ is unity within diversity, but not sameness. All are welcome in Christ as in Him there is no difference, no distinction, no division.  

Nobody can pull this off except Christ. And only in His church. 

Galatians 3 26-4 7 We Were Adopted

Galatians 3 15-25 In Prison or In Christ

Paul tells us in Galatians the law did not come to tell us about salvation but to tell us about sin. “It was added because of transgressions.” Some have said the law is a mirror that when we look into it, we see who we really are. But you know that no one who looks in a mirror and sees dirt on his face then takes the mirror off the wall to clean the dirt away. The law can only show us our sinfulness. It cannot remove it. Paul said in Romans 7 that without the law he would not have known what sin was. “I would not have known what it is to covet,” he wrote, “if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’” On the one hand, then, the law was given to constrain mankind by clearly revealing God’s standard for holiness. It tells us how to live a life pleasing to the Lord.  

That is why we don’t have free-range children. At least, we shouldn’t. Instead, I would urge you to constrain your children’s tendencies toward misbehavior with rules and with loving discipline. We teach our children right and wrong because God tells us to! One of the things my wife and I did as we  raised our children was to ask this question when one offended or hurt another: “What was in your heart to make you do that?” We did not want to just correct behavior, we wanted to teach our children to examine their hearts. We wanted to teach them to pray with David, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts…Lead me in the way everlasting!” That’s what God does through the law when we read it and apply it: He shows us our sinful hearts, which causes us to cry to Him for help.  

On the other hand, we know that the law exposes and even inflames our sin. Paul wrote, “But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.” Is that the commandment’s fault?  No, Paul says, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Why then do we delight in breaking ourselves against the law? Augustine, an early church father, described how this worked in his own life: “There was a pear tree near our vineyard, laden with fruit. One stormy night we rascally youths set out to rob it and carry our spoils away. We took off a huge load of pears – not to feast upon ourselves, but to throw them to the pigs, though we ate just enough to have the pleasure of forbidden fruit. They were nice pears, but it was not the pears that my wretched soul coveted, for I had plenty better at home. I picked them simply in order to become a thief. The only feast I got was a feast of iniquity, and that I enjoyed to the full. What was it that I loved in the theft? Was it the pleasure of acting against the law? The desire to steal was awakened simply by the prohibition of stealing.” The law against stealing inflamed a desire to steal. It did not cause a sinful heart, it exposed one.  

A brand-new waterfront hotel in Florida was concerned that people might try to fish from the balconies so they put up signs saying, “NO FISHING FROM THE BALCONY.” After that they had constant problems with people fishing from the balconies, with sinker weights breaking windows and bothering people in rooms below. They finally solved the problem by simply… taking down the signs – and no one thought to fish from the balconies. Because of our fallen nature, the law can actually work like an invitation to sin.  

The law shows us our need for salvation. It can lead us to Christ, but no further. When Jesus draws us, by grace and through faith, He is waiting with open arms to release us from the prison of the law and call us sons and daughters.

Galatians 3 1-14 The Righteous Live by Faith

Paul called Abraham to the witness stand as an expert witness in his plea with the Galatians. This must have been a shock to the Judaizers and some of the Jewish believers, because Abraham was their guy! They prided themselves on being the sons of Abraham. Jesus had told the Jews that if they were really sons of Abraham, they would be doing the works that Abraham did. What were the works Abraham did? There was only one that Jesus was referring to. God told Abraham to look at the stars and try to count them, because that was how many descendants he and Sarah would have, both in their 90’s, and her barren. And the Bible says, “And he believed the Lord, and he (God) counted it to him as righteousness.” What was the “work” of Abraham? He believed God. What did God do? He credited, he accounted righteousness to Abraham. Something that did not belong to Abram was given to him because he believed. Paul said of this Genesis account, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” It is incredible but true that God justifies the ungodly. He saves sinners and calls them righteous even while we as saved sinners still battle with sin. That is the Great Reversal that Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 5 in the simplest of terms: “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Our sin was imputed (transferred) to Christ on the cross, and Christ’s righteousness was imputed (transferred) to us. This is our only hope for salvation.  

Abraham is still on the witness stand with Paul, and he is asked again: “Are you saying sir, that you did nothing to please God? That all you did was…believe him?” “Yes.” And then Abraham, in my imagination, turned to the Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Sikhs and every combination of Jesus-Plus-Works people in the world and said, “That’s all I did. I believed God. I didn’t just believe in God. Even demons do that and tremble. I believed God. He told me Sarah and I would have a child, and we were both as good as dead in that department. He even told me that in me, all the nations would be blessed, and I could not fathom how that would be so. But I believed God. Period.” Paul replied with Habakkuk’s powerful word, “The righteous shall live by faith.” The righteous doesn’t just become righteous by faith. He lives by faith. 

When Martin Luther first read Habakkuk 2:4, he was living in a monastery and he didn’t understand it at the time. Later he entered into deep depression and illness and believed he was under God’s wrath. He thought he was about to die and he remembered Habakkuk, and he started saying that simple truth over and over, “The righteous shall live by faith.” When he recovered from his illness, he went to Rome. And the pope at that time had promised an indulgence, a forgiveness for punishment of sins in purgatory for any pilgrim who came to Rome and mounted the tall staircase at a famous church. You were to pay your money, climb the staircase, and get either your punishment or someone else’s punishment in purgatory removed through this work. People were flocking to the staircase and climbing it on their knees, pausing to pray and kiss the stairs as they climbed. Luther’s son later wrote about that day: “As he (Luther) repeated his prayers on the Lateran staircase, the words of the Prophet Habakkuk came to his mind: “The righteous shall live by faith.” Thereupon he ceased his prayers, returned to Wittenburg, and took this as his chief foundation of all his doctrine.” Luther later wrote himself, “Before those words broke upon my mind, I hated God and was angry with him…but when, by the Spirit of God, I understood those words—the just shall live by faith!—then I felt born again like a new man; I entered through the open doors into the very Paradise of God.” 

The righteous shall live by faith. Believe it.  

Believe God. 

We had a covered dish lunch last Sunday at church. And everyone sat at tables in the fellowship hall wherever they wanted to sit. We didn’t have a section that was marked out for “people who had devotions every day this week.” They would have all been beaming with pride at each other. We also didn’t have a section marked out for “people who are gladly holding something against a fellow believer.” That would have been a sad group for sure, even if they didn’t know it. We also didn’t have a section for “those who like each other,” because we don’t need that sign. But many years ago in the church at Antioch, not the one in Elon, there was a covered dish meal and the Gentiles were asked to sit in the back room where no one could see them. And they were told they couldn’t go through the same buffet line with the real Christians. In fact, the Gentiles had to bring their own food. Everybody else was terrified to even touch their ham sandwiches and popcorn shrimp. 

The story in Galatians is a familiar one, but it is still shocking to me every time I read it. That Peter the apostle would give in to the fear of man and treat Gentiles with disrespect. Peter had already heard from Jesus that what goes into a man doesn’t defile him. He heard Jesus pronounce all foods clean. In other words, he had heard Jesus say in effect that He was the fulfillment of the ceremonial laws. Peter needed further convincing later so God sent him a vision showing that we should never call something (or someone) unclean that God had pronounced clean. Right after that he met Cornelius, an uncircumcised Gentile whom God was drawing to Christ. Peter preached to him and to all the Gentiles gathered in Cornelius’ house and they believed the Gospel and were filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter saw with his own eyes those whom he had considered to be unclean made clean by the same faith in Christ which had made Peter clean! Now here he was in Antioch, eating with the Gentile believers, enjoying their fellowship. And suddenly when “certain men came down” from Jerusalem, Peter forgot everything he had believed before about God not showing partiality. And he refused to eat with the Gentile believers. His hypocrisy set up a powerful scene, where Paul confronted Peter because of his sin. 

How did he do it? We are told he confronted him “to his face,” and “before them all.” Why didn’t he speak to Peter privately? Because this was a public sin that had affected others and led them into sin. It required a public rebuke. I saw a bumper sticker last week that said, “Caution: Blind Driver.” I was laughing at the joke, but also thinking about the damage that driver could cause to himself and others. It made me think about Peter’s deadly sin in Antioch. It was certainly a sin against the Gentiles. But it was also a sin against God and against the gospel. Paul knew that, too, and wrote that their conduct “was not in step with the truth of the gospel.” That could also be translated, “not in line with the gospel.” The prefix “ortho” means straight, or to make straight. We go to orthodontists to straighten our teeth. Orthopedists can straighten broken bones. We believe in orthodoxy because it is correct doctrine, truths about God and man and sin and salvation that are straight, right in line with Scripture. Paul sees that Peter is out of line, acting in a way that speaks lies about the gospel. And that Peter stood condemned because of this. The gospel cannot be changed or made crooked in any way by anyone. It must be preserved at all costs, because eternity is at stake.  

Paul saw Peter acting in a way that would lead the Gentile believers in Antioch to think that they were not accepted, that they were unclean, and Paul was not a little bit upset. He pointed out their hypocrisy, Peter and everyone else, asking, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” In other words, “Peter, you have forgotten your welcome in Christ. And as a result, you have misrepresented the gospel in not welcoming the Gentile believers.”  

May God help us bring everything in line with the gospel, including our fears of man, our prejudices, our cowardice in the face of opposition, and our laziness in welcoming others as Christ has welcomed us.

Galatians-2-11-21-In-Line-with-the-Gospel.pdf

I remember hearing in my 20’s that some churches teach you are not saved if you don’t speak in tongues. Oneness Pentecostals, for example, believe this. When I heard that I remembered what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12: “Do all speak with tongues?” No. I also remember hearing some say that you must be baptized in order to be saved. That’s called “baptismal regeneration,” and it is taught by the Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, some Lutheran churches, and the non-instrumental Church of Christ denomination. My first thought was, “Surely Jesus did not lie to the thief on the cross!” This man believed in his final hours, and Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” I also believe what I see in the Word: baptism is a response that follows, not a cause that creates, salvation. In each of these cases, whole denominations are guilty of leading people into a false gospel, teaching that faith in Jesus is simply not enough. Teaching that you must add something to your faith, in order to be saved. Which means that not only is your faith not enough, but it means that Jesus is not enough. That struggle started as early as the first few decades of the church. And that struggle prompted Paul to write the letter to the Galatians.  

In the churches in the first century, there were false converts who were whispering into the ears of church members that they were not really saved. The gospel Paul preached, they were saying, is not enough. You must believe in Christ, but you must also keep the traditions and the customs of the Jews. These false brothers, Paul said, “slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus.” Why would they do that? Paul continues, “so they might bring us into slavery.” It is a reminder that not all who gather in a physical church building are believers. There are “false brothers and sisters” that may enter a church with the desire to bring people into bondage. They want to show us important traditions and works and regulations that they believe we must keep in order to be saved. That is the very definition of legalism. Anything added as necessary for salvation beyond grace through faith is a false gospel. How do we respond? Paul writes that we must not “yield in submission (to them) even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved.”  

In his book, What It Means to Be Protestant, Gavin Ortlund writes a great deal about the Reformation that took place in the 1500’s. “The heart of Protestant identity lies in two affirmations: justification is by faith alone (sola fide), and Holy Scripture is the only infallible rule for the church’s faith and practice (sola Scriptura). The first of these represents a material component of the apostolic deposit recovered by the Reformation; the second represents a formal principle by which we remain accountable to that apostolic deposit. The way I like to put it is that sola fide is the ‘what’ of the Reformation; sola Scriptura is the ‘how.’ The first is an object, the second a method. The first is a precious jewel; the second, the safe that protects it.”  

Sola fide eliminates the possibility for works-righteousness. 

We could argue that in the book of Galatians, Paul was doing a strike not only against the works-righteousness of the false teachers in the early church, but a pre-emptive strike against all churches and all denominations in future centuries who would elevate tradition and ceremony and works of any kind to the level of sola fide. To do so, Paul would say, is to invite people out of freedom and into bondage. 

What do we do when such teaching creeps into the church? Paul shows us by example: “to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment.” The saying goes that if you let the camel’s nose into the tent, his body is sure to follow. Don’t even let the nose of “works-righteousness” in. 

Galatians 2 1-10 The Gospel Tested