It is the spirit which has mastered its desires and its love of pleasure. "Then after three years," he says, "I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter." That's all the law is saying to you. Can you seize the gravity of this? This is indeed strong language for you who want to live after the flesh. Paul always triumphantly satisfies that test, just as here the whole matter is brought to the acid test of daily living. Those in Christ must stand firm against anyone who would try to drag them into slavery under the law (Galatians 5:1). There is no depreciating of any soul, but the plain statement of the positive truth, which after all is the best and the humblest way, that most of all magnifies God, and edifies His children. He had derived the gospel that he preached from the Lord, and not from any of his fellow-servants who had been engaged in the work before him. What he preached was the truth as to this matter. If the world were the great enemy at Corinth, the law perverted is that against which the Spirit of God raises up the apostle in writing to the Galatians. For in Jesus Christ it is not of the slightest importance whether a man is circumcised or uncircumcised. You couldn't believe the things the Jehovah Witnesses believe, unless you read their screwy attitudes and ideas in their books. There is nothing that requires more the power of grace; for even the truth itself, if severed from grace, ceases to be the truth. What the Jews would have liked, no doubt, was power (and the Galatians, after all, were in danger of slipping into the same snare; for the law suits the world, as grace does not), and in the world present power and honour. And he gives to us here a listing, incomplete to be sure, because he ends it by saying, "And do such things." Note, If we should approve ourselves to be Christ's, such as are united to him and interested in him, we must make it our constant care and business to crucify the flesh with its corrupt affections and lusts. Now, in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Acts, when this same issue had arisen in the church in Antioch, when certain of the brethren came down from Jerusalem and were hassling the Gentile saints in Antioch and said, "You can't be saved unless you are circumcised and keep the law of Moses," Paul and Barnabas and others from Antioch took these brothers right back to Jerusalem, because they came unto the pretense of, "We have the authority of the Jerusalem church to declare these things." And this I say, that the covenant confirmed before by God unto Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, can not annul so that it should make the promise of none effect." The salutation ( Galatians 1:1-5 ) a. Now these things are an allegory. (a) Eros (compare G2037) means the love of a man for a maid; it is the love which has passion in it. The contents of the greeting ( Galatians 1:3a ) ii. He had been himself (could they deny it?) How little is man to be accounted of! Strife; originally this word had mainly to do with the rivalry for prizes. Even though it might be a minor departure from the truth, be careful. Do not abuse your freedom (13-15) I. Christ has set us free (1-6) Discussion Questions What has Christ set us free from? After all, what God had at heart was the accomplishment of His own promise in grace. But as for the apostle Paul, he says he was called, and this by his master from heaven; but by his own showing nobody heard the call of Christ but himself. And so Paul is standing against this teaching in his letter to the Galatians, and in chapter five, he said. Rare in N.T. The law of Moses tells a man to do his duty in his own place. . Exhortation to Stedfastness; Persuasives to Stedfastness. This then is what the law brought in. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith," not by becoming proselytes of the gate, or entering on a legal basis, but "foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." Christian faith and behavior are never more frustrated and disgraced than by spiteful criticisms, derogatory remarks, snide observations and poison-tongue fulminations of Christians against each other. This epistle, as those to the Corinthians, opens with an assertion of his apostolic place. He feels what he ought to do, but he does it not, and thus is increasingly wretched. No, rejoins the apostle; you are going back to heathenism. The Christian's faith is founded not on a book but on a person; its dynamic is not obedience to any law but love to Jesus Christ. Having begun in the spirit, you did all right in the beginning, but. So, they went right up to settle the issue, and the church had one of the first church councils gathered to settle a dispute, a problem within the church. Now. These words are used by him emphatically; for he did not merely say Bite, which denotes an angry person, but likewise, Devour, which denotes one who persists in wickedness. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ( Galatians 5:14 ). You were running well. The apostle stands to the truth preached and received. "Ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." I can't go back to my mother's womb and be born again. All is confusion. So, I think Paul could also have included here baptism or no baptism as far as the physical immersion in water. That's the old nature that wants its way, that wants to insist on its own way and all. Once the spirit has come alive, now there comes this striving for the mastery of me. The Lord did stamp the testimony of Peter as being truly the revelation of His Father. It was to demonstrate his sinfulness, not to gain the inheritance. 5:16-21 I tell you, let your walk and conversation be dominated by the Spirit, and don't let the desires of the lower side of your nature have their way. Galatians 5:16. Besides, we have a more daily duty: "Bear ye one another's burdens." And in the fifteenth chapter of Acts, we read how that Peter stood up and told the brethren how that the Lord had called him to go to the Gentiles to the house of Cornelius. Can I be righteous by keeping the law? In grace, God in the person of His Son speaks and accomplishes ALL; and thus He is glorified from first to last. Uncontrolled temper ; the word Paul uses means bursts of temper. The consequence is, that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God; and this he proves, not only from the promise, but from the prophets. Wantonness; this word (aselgeia, G766) is translated licentiousness in the Revised Standard Version ( Mark 7:22; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 4:19; 1 Peter 4:3; Jd 1:4 ; Romans 13:13 and 2 Peter 2:18). And thus it is with the promise. The very reverse of their system is true. Selfishness in the end does not exalt a man; it destroys him. Nor had he conferred even then with flesh and blood; his mission as well as conversion and call were alike independent of it. But we have a good deal more. Or literally, "I wish they were castrated who trouble you. By biting and devouring (89) he means, I think, slanders, accusations, reproaches, and every other kind of offensive language, as well as acts of injustice arising either from fraud or violence. If I am a mere man, a sinner, the end of that is (for responsibility is not like power, destroyed by sin) the eternal judgment of God. "If you keep the whole law yet offended in one point, you're guilty of all. I need money to get home. he does not say there shall be no flesh, nor any lust of the flesh in them if they walk spiritually; or that the flesh should not act and operate in them; or that they should do no sinful action; all which is only true of christ; and the contrary is to be found and observed in all true christians, though ever so spiritual; but that they That is why I encourage you just to read the Bible. You have fallen from grace. Let me press this gravely upon those who are here this night. It is thus, then, that grace uses it to give me death in my conscience before God. Take heed that ye be not consumed - As wild beasts contend sometimes until both are slain. The language would not have been applicable when the other apostles were called. It is the liberty not to do those things which the flesh once forced me to do. Thus the law was ordained by angels in the hands of a mediator. They had followed Jesus in His earthly path of presentation to Israel. What Satan aims at is, that people should not count themselves what they are, and that they should be always slipping into what they are not. The kind that were always talking about numbers. He shows that God would give us a deliverance from self-importance; and what a mercy it is to be so blessed, that one can afford to forget one's self! Now, if you're trying to be justified before God or being made righteous before God by the keeping of the law, then Christ is of no effect to you. If we are living in the Spirit let us also keep step with the Spirit. But if I have a whole page of gold stars but yet there's one little point over here where I blew it and I can't put a gold star, then I'm unrighteous. Those who lived in Jerusalem were too prone to preserve the clothes and the cradle which had their place and use at first, but had no claim to be kept up among the Gentiles. Enmity; the idea is that of the man who is characteristically hostile to his fellow men; it is the precise opposite of the Christian virtue of love for the brethren and for all men. The word Paul uses for goodness (agathosune, G19) is a peculiarly Bible word and does not occur in secular Greek ( Romans 15:14; Ephesians 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:11). You do not want to become the children of Abraham in that sense, which would be the revival of the flesh. It cannot and ought not to spare sinners. On the other hand, where unity becomes an object, it is never understood; and at the same time the walk of faith cannot be maintained. For the world there is nothing yet executed, any more than the great results of grace for the saints as yet appear in their fulness. So, joy is love's consciousness. Galatians 5:14. For he had shown that our purchase by Christ delivers even the Jew from subjection to the law; whilst Gentiles are set at once on the ground of grace without the intervention of any legal apprenticeship whatever, "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. All that the law can do, even when yielded by the might of the Spirit of God, is to force on a soul the consciousness of being dead before God. And how true all this is! Does not this make very light of it? To have been with the Messiah, the hearer of His words and the witness of His work, up to His departure, was ever a condition to those who were accustomed to the twelve apostles. Paul had a characteristically practical mind. Yet how true it is, the more we look below the surface; indeed, in our day it becomes more and more palpable to the eye. "Love suffereth long and is kind." . I said, "Oh oh oh oh oh," you see, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." 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