Study of Galatians (Part 2)

It is a joy to return again to the letter to the Galatians. This is most probably one of the first letters Paul wrote, one of the earliest Christian writings we have in the New Testament; by around AD 49 he had already penned it. We in the twenty-first century carry our own set of struggles, but the issue facing the first-century church was a different one. Galatians 3:28 opens a window onto the whole book: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The conflict was rooted in ethnicity. The Jewish believers regarded themselves as the pure line, the called ones. When the Gentiles came into the church, both groups believed in Jesus — and yet a sense of pride, an ethnocentrism, a spiritual superiority crept in. The Jewish believers looked down on the Gentiles and effectively told them, "First become like us, and then God will accept you." That was the issue.

Paul could easily have let it pass. He could have said, "Which church is perfect anyway? They believe in Jesus, that is enough." But look at how seriously he takes it. He is intolerant. You feel the temperature of this letter from the very first verse: "Paul, an apostle — sent not from men nor by a man." There is no search for middle ground here, no settlement being offered to the Jewish party, because they have added to the gospel. For Paul the matter is settled: a person is accepted by God by faith, and the word that keeps surfacing is that these teachers "confuse" the Gentiles. They had so unsettled them that the Galatians were on the verge of giving up. Paul writes in 5:2, "Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all." He is on his way to Jerusalem to address the matter in full at the council, but he cannot wait. Somewhere between the first missionary journey and that council he dashes off this letter, because he cannot tolerate the distortion. Studying this, I rededicated my own life — we too should be like that. Even now Scripture is distorted and diluted for personal gain, and we cannot be people who hear it and shrug, "It is not my business." We are to take the time to confront error from the Scriptures themselves.

Why were these teachers so eager to add to the gospel? Galatians 4:17 gives the motive: "Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good." They wanted followers; they were afraid of losing their position and their power. If belief in Jesus alone were enough, then their special standing collapsed and they became no different from the Gentiles. Their ethnic pride would not allow it. "We have the law of Moses, we are Abraham's descendants — if you want to be like us, be circumcised and observe the special days." That is the context of the letter. And though we may not face that exact ethnic division, the parallels are everywhere: the prosperity gospel, hyper-grace, all the additions and dilutions of our own day.

There is, however, a balance Paul models that we must not miss. On the one hand he says in 2:6 of the men held in high esteem at Jerusalem, "whatever they were makes no difference to me" — which can sound almost arrogant. But set beside that his tone in 4:19: "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth." When we stand for the truth and confront those who are wrong — perhaps a close relative caught up in a false gospel — our posture must hold both sides together: uncompromising and intolerant toward the error, yet burdened, in birth-pangs, praying sufficiently before we ever go to that person with the truth. That is what we gather from Paul.

Let me give today's study a title: Who are the people of God? Or, the marks of the covenant community. How do you recognize a group of people who truly belong to the covenant? For first-century minds this was the natural frame of thought — God had made a covenant with Abraham, and now it sounds as if Paul is saying that is obsolete and God is doing something new. So the question presses: who really are the people of God? The heart of the letter begins at 2:15: "We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified." Three of the most important verses not only in this letter but in the entire New Testament. From them come three marks that will never lead us astray.

The first mark of a true covenant community is that it is gospel-focused. The phrase Paul keeps using is "the truth of the gospel." In 2:5 he says, "We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you." In 2:14, "When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel..." So what is this truth he refuses to compromise? It is simply this: a person is justified by faith, not by the works of the law. An individual is on track when he is centered on that truth.

That word "justification" appears three times in verses 16 and 17, and it is not one we use every day, yet it is crucial to understanding salvation. It comes from the law court. To justify is to declare someone to be in the right — it is a relational, legal term. Before, you were not in the right with God; now, by a declaration, you are. How did that happen? When you put your faith in Jesus, you are declared righteous and brought into relationship with him — by faith, not by the works of the law. This is the very nerve of the Galatian conflict, which is why Paul repeats it again and again: not by works of the law. Like many believers today, the Jewish teachers had fallen into the error of self-righteousness. Romans 10:3 names the same disease: "Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness."

Picture the Galatian congregation. You can spot the Pharisee standing tall: "God owes me a place. I fast twice a week, I take a three-day fast every month — I am right with God." And there sits the poor Gentile with no ancestry to boast of, who can only say, "Three months ago I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior." The Jewish believer carries himself as the senior. That is precisely the error. So Paul says, in effect, "We who are Jews by birth — the supposedly superior ones — even we know we were never justified by what we did." Why did God establish his covenant with Abraham? Not because Abraham was the best man available. Even after God called him, Abraham lied, looking at his wife and calling her his sister.

Someone has put it beautifully. Genesis 1 through 11 sets out the problem of humanity — disobedience, wickedness, the dishonoring of God, running from Adam and Eve through Cain and Abel to the flood. The lesson of those eleven chapters is that human beings are incapable of glorifying God, because their own interests always intrude. Then in Genesis 12 God chooses Abraham as the solution to that problem. But look closely: the solution is himself part of the problem — Abraham ends up lying about his wife. So God's covenant community was chosen by grace from the very beginning. It was grace even in the Old Testament. The descendants who now boast of their superiority have forgotten this, and Paul is correcting them: we were declared members of the covenant not because we achieved something, but by grace.

Here I want to comment briefly on the law, because the Jewish believers had a strong case: who gave the law? God himself. And sometimes, if we cannot discern the ways of God, we end up fighting against God while clutching something God once gave. So Paul anticipates the objection in 3:21: "Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not!" The law was never given to impart life. Romans 5:20 says it plainly: "The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase" — its purpose was to make people conscious of sin, to preserve a community, and to bring them to the point of saying, "I cannot fulfill this; I need a Savior." The very thing meant to lead people to Christ had been turned into a hindrance, because they mixed the law with Christ.

Galatians 3:23-24 makes the function of the law clear: "Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith." Note that word — until. The law was a custodian, a guardian, for one stage in salvation history; but now Christ has come. There is a new beginning. Yet the Jewish teachers will not surrender their pride; they keep dragging people backward. Paul confronts this again in 4:9: "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 forces?" The law, once Christ has come, is portrayed as weak and miserable by comparison. Why return to custody, to a guardian, when you now have a Father? This is the language of 5:1, a verse we often quote out of context: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

All of this comes to a head in the incident at Antioch, which lies just behind 2:15. The trouble was over food. Jewish law forbade eating with Gentiles, yet before certain men came from James — James being something like the bishop in Jerusalem — Cephas, that is Peter, used to sit and eat freely with the Gentile believers. His theology was right; he was fully convinced that the Gentiles were accepted and that he could claim no superiority, so he had no problem sharing their table. But when the men from James arrived, Peter withdrew, and 2:13 says the other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy. Think of the message that withdrawal sent. While Peter ate with the Gentiles, the silent message was, "You too are justified." The moment he pulled back to protect his own face before the Jerusalem party, the message became, "You are not good enough; you must become like me before I will sit with you." That is precisely the betrayal of the gospel Paul confronts.

So at the heart of the gospel is this: you are declared to be in the right with God by faith in Jesus — nothing more, nothing less. We must guard this truth, and never fall into the error of the Pharisees, unable to accept a brother because his dress, his hairstyle, his background, or his ethnicity is not like ours. Faith in Jesus is the one carpet rule. If a person has faith in Jesus, he is accepted; he is in the right with God. But why does Paul press justification by grace so relentlessly? Here is what I learned: because when we know that we ourselves are saved by grace, we will extend grace. That is the great principle. The Pharisee, convinced he stands by his own effort, cannot show mercy. But the one who knows he was saved by grace will pour out grace on others. So Paul challenges Cephas and Barnabas — come out of your hypocrisy. Stop protecting your standing as covenant insiders. You did not earn your place; therefore accept the other.

And this is the test of a covenant community. Where you find division based on ethnicity, social status, or gender, that is not a covenant community. If a group claims to follow Jesus, yet you walk in and find the rich divided from the poor, the "super-spiritual" lording it over the newcomer, gender bias entrenched — then the gospel has simply not been understood. It is as plain as that. The first mark of God's true people is that they are gospel-focused.

The second mark is that the true covenant community is Christ-centered. In 2:19-20 Paul writes, "For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Notice that this is not passive: Christ lives in me, yet I am living — I live by faith. But how did Paul die through the law? The answer is in 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." Jesus was born under the law, lived a sinless life, and yet took the sin of humanity upon himself; the whole punishment of the law fell on him. So when Paul says, "Through the law I died to the law," he means that the curse of the law came upon Christ — and that he, Paul, identifies himself with that death: "I have been crucified with Christ."

This is exactly what baptism signifies. It is not merely washing and coming up again; going down into the water and rising out of it symbolizes dying, being buried, and being raised with Christ. The world saw only Jesus on that cross, but Paul says, "When Jesus was there, I was there — he was representing me. The whole curse of the law was dealt with on the cross. Now I no longer live; Christ lives." And what is it in him that no longer lives? The egocentric Paul, the man full of Jewish prejudice and ethnocentric pride, the old Paul who once tried to destroy the church — that man no longer lives. In his place lives a new creation. Paul unpacks this in 3:26-28: "So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile... for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Once they had clothed themselves in Jewishness — circumcision, food laws, the Sabbath — and what people saw was ethnicity and tradition. Now Paul is clothed with Christ, with the righteousness of Christ; he has a new identity and, at the same time, a new nature. He is made new in the ethical sense as well — the man who once persecuted the church has been crucified, and a new beginning has come.

Galatians 5:6 confirms it: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." There is the immediate test of a Christ-centered life: faith that works itself out in love — and not just any love, but the love named in the second half of 2:20, "the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." That self-giving love is the proof. This is also where James and Paul are wrongly set against each other. James says, "Faith without works is dead," while Paul says we are justified by faith and not by works — but there is no contradiction once we read each in context. When Paul opposes works, he opposes the works that puff a person up, the self-righteous identity markers of first-century Judaism. He is not against good works at all; in fact, love is the very sign that a person's faith is genuine. James is affirming the same thing: faith without works is dead.

So a believer cannot simply say, "I am gospel-focused, I am justified by faith," and stop there. Wait — is that faith expressing itself through love? Throughout Paul's letters faith, love, and hope travel together; he cannot conceive of one without the others. By faith you are justified; in love you live it out, just as Christ loved you and gave himself for you. I am not building this on a single phrase. Look at 6:15, where Paul says the same thing again: "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation." And how do you know a person is a new creation, that he is regenerated? By the way he loves another person. Loving one another is the sign that a person is Christ-centered.

Let me make this concrete with two people I have known. I once asked a man why he no longer attended church — a man who, if you woke him at midnight, would instantly recite that he is justified by faith and not by works. He told me plainly, "If I go to church, the problem starts. You see someone struggling, someone in financial difficulty, and then you have to give." I knew another man, in a church I will not name, who left every single Sunday before the benediction. Not once to catch a bus or train, but every week, the moment the sermon ended, he was gone. When someone finally asked him why he could not stay even a few minutes for a cup of coffee and fellowship, he answered, "If I stay, then someone who lives near me will want a lift home in my car." What a fine Christian — in his own eyes. Galatians 2:16 was true of him; he was justified by faith. But the sign of genuine faith is love, and his values had never changed. Before regeneration it is all me, me, me — my family, my children, my car, my building. But once you put your faith in Jesus, Christ's life must shape yours, and Christ lived for others. Faith and works are not opposites; for salvation, faith alone, but where faith is genuine, love is inevitably manifested. Even Romans speaks of "the obedience that comes from faith."

The third mark, and the most important, is that the true covenant community is Spirit-filled — and notice how beautifully the letter is laid out. Chapter 2:15-16 sets out justification and the gospel; 2:19-21 sets out Christ-centeredness; and from chapter 3 onward the theme is the Spirit, one after another. In 3:2 Paul writes, "I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?" The answer is obvious — they did nothing but believe, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul's argument is the same as before: faith is enough, Christ is enough, and now the Spirit is enough. When the Spirit was poured out on you, did you not realize you were already accepted into the family? Why then go back and take up another identity of ethnicity to prove yourself? The Spirit falls on all flesh, with no distinction of ethnicity or gender — that is what God's family looks like.

There is a verse here that ought to challenge many preachers today. Galatians 3:14 says, "He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit." The Jewish teachers had confused the Gentiles by saying, "Yes, it is right that you have believed in Jesus, but Abraham's blessing — his servants, his cattle, his wealth — is reserved for those under the law. Come under circumcision and the dietary laws, and then you too will be blessed like Abraham." Even now people go about promising "Abraham's blessing," and the application always lands on material things. Abraham had many servants — but we want only one or two helpers in the house. Abraham had cattle — but we want fixed deposits. Abraham had many descendants — and when it comes to children we want one, two, three, and then we suddenly turn the descendants "spiritual" while keeping the wealth material. That is a distortion of Scripture. Paul redefines Abraham's blessing in 3:14: it is not physical, not material, not what you can see or touch. The blessing is the promise of the Spirit. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you have received the greatest gift God can ever give. If you are still longing for that moment, long for it with all your heart, for you need the Spirit to overcome the desires of the flesh.

Then a fair question arises: does this mean God will give us nothing — no house, no car? Not at all. Scripture says God will supply all your needs. Ephesians 1:3 says we are "blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ," and Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things" — food, clothing, daily needs — "will be given to you as well." Do not worry about them. But the promise that God will make you super-rich because Abraham was rich is wrong theology. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, be content with that reality. The Spirit is the climax: gospel-focused, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled — that is the new covenant community.

The Jewish teachers confused the Gentiles in two main ways. First, "If you want Abraham's blessing, come under the law" — and Paul answers that the blessing, the Spirit, is already given. Second, they argued, "If you are not under the law, how will you ever know right from wrong?" The Galatians, taught faith alone, were left unsettled by this. They even insinuated what Paul records in 2:17: "If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn't that mean that Christ promotes sin?" If faith alone and Christ alone, with no law, then surely Christ is encouraging lawlessness. Paul's answer is, again, the Spirit. In 3:3 he asks, "Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?" — and here "flesh" stands for the Mosaic law. (Paul uses the Greek word for flesh, sarx, in three ways in this letter: in chapter 1 simply for human descent, in 3:3 for the Mosaic law, and in 5:16 for the evil desires.) You began your Christian life by the Spirit; why imagine you can now perfect it by going under the law?

And as for knowing right from wrong, 5:18 settles it: "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." The Spirit is enough — to bless, and to guide. Yet this does not pit the Spirit against the law as simple opposites, and 5:14 shows why: "For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself." And what is the first fruit of the Spirit? Love. So the Spirit does not contradict the law; when you are filled with the Spirit, the fruit that comes — love — fulfills the deepest intent of the law. The whole law is summed up in loving your neighbor, and the fruit of the Spirit is love.

There is a third dimension to the Spirit, and it is the crucial one for which Paul writes this whole letter with such passion. In the Old Testament the law, given for a season, divided humanity in two — "we who are Jews by birth" and the "Gentile sinners" of 2:15. There was no unity. But God always intended one community in the world; the division was never his final word. The law was an in-between arrangement, yet it split people apart, leaving Gentiles feeling like outcasts. So Paul asks, in effect, "Are you dragging these people back under the law, back into a fractured community?" Look at his language in 5:15: "If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." The Galatian church had become like a zoo, biting and devouring — over what? "I have the law, you do not; I am spiritual, you have only just come to Christ." And in 5:26, "Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other."

We know this envy in every congregation. People provoke one another with their seniority: "When did you accept Jesus? Only in 2015? We have been in this church for twenty years." When a newcomer rises to sing, the seasoned singer bristles — "How can he go up when I have been here far longer?" That attitude destroys community, and Paul says he cannot stand back and wait, because this law-driven pride is going to tear the church apart. The worst of it is captured in 6:4: "Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else." The literal sense is: do not make a market for yourself by measuring yourself against others. If you are right with God, Christ-focused and Spirit-filled, then walk your own journey; do not look sideways and congratulate yourself that you are better. The error Paul is breaking in Galatians is exactly this — the envy, the competitive spirit, the sense of superiority.

Faith alone, Christ alone, Spirit alone — and the whole community is one. When everyone can say, "I am justified by faith, I am Christ-focused, I am Spirit-filled," then no one has anything to boast about. The Spirit is given to all, Christ is given to all, and faith itself is a gift to all; therefore all are one. As we have caught even a glimpse of Galatians, Paul's first letter, the central issue is disunity, and my prayer — and I put myself first — is that none of us would become agents of division. We must discern the scheme of the enemy. When the Galatians thought the Jewish teachers had Scripture on their side, Paul used that same Scripture to answer them: the law was never permanent; it was a custodian for a set time. So in the light of God's word, and as a servant of God, as we finish our study of Galatians, let us aim for unity in the body of Christ. Let us surrender our lives today and say, "Lord, thank you for filling me with the Holy Spirit — that is enough for me. Christ, you are not merely the one who saved me; you are the focus of my whole life."