Galatians – Thankful

I want to pause at this point in my study of the book of Galatians and just thank the Lord. When I started this book I blogged that in a way I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. I mainly picked it because I have a commentary on the book by John Eadie and I wanted to study through the book with him. He is by far and away my favorite commentator of all time, but he only wrote on about five NT books. So whatever he wrote on, I knew I would eventually study, Galatians being the one I looked forward to the least.

I said in that earlier blog that I knew already the book is basically a fight and I am not a fighter. I just didn’t look forward to spending hundreds of hours studying someone else’s fight.

On the other hand, I said back then that was exactly a reason why I was excited to study the book. One of the major reasons I enjoy studying the Bible is because it makes me think about things I wouldn’t have otherwise have even considered. It makes me think through things I really don’t want to think about. And whenever I come to those points, I am excited because I know the Lord is going to teach me something!

With that I launched into it apprehensive on the one hand but excited on the other.

As I studied, I certainly enjoyed learning whatever the Lord had for me, but on the other hand I found the book very tedious. Not only is it a fight but it is a fight over legalism which is a very unpleasant subject to me. I found in a sense I wasn’t enjoying studying the book. I was just slogging my way through.

Then I came to chapter 4, verses 1 through 7, which I blogged under the title “Overcoming Legalism, Jesus’ Way.” Those seven verses were a huge turning point for me! Paul there basically explains the OT, the Law, and the reason for it. I of course have read the section many, many times and I was familiar with the analogy of the Law being a pedagogue to lead us to Christ. But never having “studied” it, I totally did not comprehend the enormity of it all.

Wow. I am so pumped. This is exactly why I study the Bible! I feel like I’ve learned so much! The Lord has allowed me to understand so much! As He so often does, I feel like he stuffed my head with dynamite and lit the fuse!

I’ve never understood the difference between OT and NT believers. I have always and still do believe they were saved by their faith in the coming Messiah just as we are looking back to Him. But then it seemed to me they had to live out that faith the same as us. In fact, I have thoroughly enjoyed studying so many of their lives and learning from their faith. But still it seemed, this side of the Cross, something ought to be different. One thing I have noticed in the OT was that somehow their faith didn’t overcome their vindictiveness. Numerous times they plead for the cursing and/or death of their enemies, like Jehoiada’s son who lay dying, telling Joash’s appointed killers, “The Lord require it of you.” How different from Stephen, who prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

I also just simply didn’t understand the OT itelf, why people of faith even needed a pedagogue. I could understand the Law’s necessity to lead people to Christ, but then why, having found Him, did they still need 618 laws to live by?

And then I’ve never understood why we are all so easily allured by legalism.

Now it all makes perfect sense. The Messiah-purchased, NT-outpoured Holy Spirit is the difference. “…when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, made out of a woman, made under law, ⁵that He might redeem those under law, that we might receive the adoption of sons ... God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.” ⁷Thus you are no longer a slave but a son and if a son [you are] also an heir of God through Christ. The human heart is so desperately wicked, the only possible ultimate cure (short of death) is to have that heart indwelt by the very third Person of the Trinity! Until that time, whether Jew or Gentile, saved or not, we had to be kept under law. It’s the only language our darkened hearts can understand. “Do this. Don’t do that. Or else!” But blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who, because of the great love with which He loves us, is willing to actually come and take up personal residence in the dark, filthy stench of our evil hearts! Think of it! The Holy Spirit living in a desperately wicked heart! But He does! And that means, this side of the Cross, we have a power to actually live Christ, a power this world has never known. And unlike our OT brothers and sisters of faith, for us it is not an outside/in thing. We have available within us (!) the infinite power of the very Godhead to change our lives and help us be different!

No wonder Stephen was so like Christ when Jehoiada’s son was not. It wasn’t just the example of Christ (“Father forgive them, they know not what they do”) that made the difference for Stephen. It was the very presence of the Spirit of Christ in his heart!

This all explains too why Paul had to write this letter, why this was a fight he had to fight. For believers to live in legalism is a cosmic tragedy. It is missing the whole point of it all. And it guarantees that, in the end, they probably won’t live Christ well at all, which unfortunately is exactly the prevailing case today.

I am so excited now to study the rest of the book. I know that at least beginning in chapter 5, Paul will be talking about what it means to live out this life in the Spirit. I’m quite sure at this point I don’t really understand what that means. But I am so pumped to think, at least in some ways, I am going to begin to really learn.

I no longer feel the book is tedious and I am no longer slogging through. I am excited to go on.

Thank the Lord. This is so much like Him. It is exactly why I study. Hopefully He is preparing to pack my head with more dynamite and light the fuse again!

What a trip it will be to be in Heaven and learn from Him!! If it’s this good on earth, what will it be like then??

He’s so awesome!

Galatians 4:19 – “Cause It’s All About You Jesus

As usual, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:

¹⁹My little children, for whom I am in labor again until Christ be formed in you …

Over the years, I have become more and more thankful for musicians. In every generation, the Lord raises up scores of people He has gifted to encourage the rest of us with their music. One of those musicians is Michael W. Smith who wrote “Heart of Worship.” The song is so appropriate to this generation, as the chorus says:

I'm coming back to the heart of worship
And it's all about You,
It's all about You, Jesus
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it
When it's all about You,
It's all about You, Jesus

It’s true of me and I think of pretty much our entire generation that we got so caught up in “religion” that we missed the point of it all. Jesus.

And I quote the song here because I think that’s what Paul is trying to tell the Galatians. They’re missing the whole point of it all. Jesus. The Judaizers have them thinking it’s about the rules. And even though what they’re talking about is the very OT itself, when it takes the place of Jesus, even the OT law, inscribed by the very finger of God, becomes “weak and beggarly elements.” As he says in Colossians, those things “were a shadow of things to come; the reality however is Christ.”

Thus in his emotional frenzy of concern, Paul blurts out, “My little children, for whom I am in labor again until Christ be formed in you…!” and never finishes his sentence. “Until Christ be formed in you …” The point of it all. Jesus.

Alas, for us! Children of Adam. Born with dark hearts. Alienated from God. Enslaved to our own desires. Literally hell-bent in self-destruction. Made in the image of God but twisted and broken.

But from the very beginning, God promised the Seed of the Woman who would come and crush the head of the serpent! At that time, God covered them with the skins of animals but He intended so much more. He is a saving God, a Redeemer. From the beginning, He planned to send Jesus to win the victory of the Cross, pay the penalty of our sins, and make it possible not just to somehow cover our sins, but to send the Holy Spirit, the very third Person of the Trinity, to literally take up residence in our dark hearts, and empower us not just to “do right” but to be right.  Through the indwelling Holy Spirit, fallen, darkened, self-destructive, hopeless sinners can actually become like the perfect man, Jesus. Christ can be “formed in us.”

I confess until I studied this book of Galatians, I never really understood the enormity of all of this. The New Covenant Holy Spirit indwells us to actually empower us not just to do right but to be right, to be Christ-like. I’m not just a redeemed sinner trying to live a Christ-like life. I have Divine power living in my heart, there to totally change who and what I am! That I might be not Adam but Christ! Not a child of sin but a son of God!

“Until Christ be formed in you.” Back in Deut 5:25-29, Moses gave the people God’s law, and they responded, “… tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.” The Lord told Moses, “I have heard what this people said to you … Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always …”    “Oh, their hearts …” Even then, the Lord wanted their hearts. What they failed to realize was they could not make such a promise, “We will listen and obey.” While a few Israelites (David, Daniel, etc.) rose to exemplary lives, yet the nation as a whole was living proof that there was something grossly lacking. 1400 years after Moses they proved the depths of their depravity by crucifying the very Messiah Himself.

Jesus quoted Isaiah 54:13 when He reminded them of a time of future blessing, “It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’” And of course Joel prophesied, “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days” (2:28-29). And Peter explained this was exactly what was happening on Pentecost: “These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:15,16).

What was going on? The Lord was fulfilling His own desire, “Oh their hearts …” Jesus' victory on the Cross meant He could now send the very Holy Spirit of God to not only “help” people but to literally take up residence in their hearts! Born children of Adam? Yes. Still their natural heart rotten even with faith? Yes. But when indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God they can be said to be “born again!” The change is so dramatic, Paul could actually tell the Thessalonian believers, “Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other” (I Thess 4:9). Again this is the very change of which Jesus quoted Isaiah 54:13, “It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’”

Holy Spirit indwelling. That our heart may be changed. That “Christ be formed in you!”

This is in one sense “the point of it all!” Not just “shadows of things to come” but “the reality which is Christ!”

This is the profound difference between Old and New Testament believers. Again, the Holy Spirit obviously helped OT believers, taught them, empowered them, and changed them. But there was an “outside/in” sense to it all. They still had those rotten hearts. This side of the Cross, He literally takes up residence in our hearts! We all have the indwelling presence of a power to put on Christ that simply didn’t exist before! We are no longer under the tutelage of the Law because we are children of God, we are the heirs. The time of tutelage ended. It is time to stand up and accept the inheritance, the estate.

Again, I have to confess I’ve never understood the enormity of all of this before. I think I have always seen myself much as an OT believer, working from the “outside/in,” trying to figure out how to live Christ, but in sense “on my own.” “Oh, yes, the Holy Spirit is there,” I would have acknowledged, but somehow it was still an outside/in thing.

But this is the glorious age of the outpoured, indwelling Spirit! I have dwelling within my very heart infinite Divine power to be changed, to be different, to be like Christ, to not just “learn” God’s heart, but to actually share it, to see the world through His eyes, to see myself through His eyes, to see others through His eyes!

This is all why Paul can say later in the book, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (5:22,23). “Against such things there is no law.” Why not? Because people who understand don’t need laws. People indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God have the power available within them to see God’s big picture, to see the goals, and to rise above the power of their flesh, to rise above the power of indwelling sin, and be controlled instead by the indwelling Holy Spirit!

In a sense, I only need to let Him! I still need to feed on the Word. I still have to make choices to live according to that Word. I still must “choose” to love. But it is also true in a sense it’s not up to me. I am indwelt. There is a sense in which the choice is only to “walk in the Spirit.” 
 

As John Eadie said, “Christ is the one principle of life and holiness, -- not Christ contemplated as without, but Christ dwelling within by His Spirit; not speculation about His person or His doctrine, nor the vehement defense of orthodox belief, not the knowledge of His character and work, nor profession of faith in Him with an external submission to the ordinances of His church. Very different – Christ in them, and abiding in them: His light in their minds, His love in their hearts, His law in their conscience, His Spirit their formative impulse and power, His presence filling and assimilating their entire inner nature, and His image in visible shape and symmetry reproducing itself in their lives.

This is all so liberating and encouraging! It is the “freedom for which Christ has set us free!” And it is the very reason Paul is so distraught about the Galatians resorting to legalism – which is totally an “outside/in” thing, at best, even when the Laws were God’s! They’re missing the “point of it all.” God wants us to be like Christ. And in the NT, it isn’t just a “hope so.” It is as present and real as the indwelling Holy Spirit Himself. My old rotten spirit (my “flesh”) is still there, but the infinitely greater Holy Spirit is there too and He will empower me to be like Christ!

I hope you see why I so identify with Michael W. Smith, as I quoted his song back at the beginning:

 I'm coming back to the heart of worship
And it's all about You,
It's all about You, Jesus
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it
When it's all about You,
It's all about You, Jesus

May we not waste our NT blessing. May Christ truly be formed in us!

Galatians 4:8-20 – Love and Legalists

As usual, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸But you, not then knowing God, were enslaved to ones not being gods by nature, ⁹but now, knowing God (or rather being known by God), how are you turning to the weak and beggarly basic principles to which you are desiring to be enslaved once more? ¹⁰You are observing days and months and seasons and years. ¹¹I am afraid of you lest I have labored in vain into you. ¹²Brethren I ask of you, become as I [am] because [I became] as you [are].

 You have not injured me at all. ¹³But I know that I preached to you at the first through weakness of the flesh ¹⁴and you did not treat me with contempt neither rejected my affliction in my flesh but you accepted me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. ¹⁵Therefore, where is your pronounced blessing? For I testify to you that, if [you had the] power, you would have given to me, plucking out your eyes.

 ¹⁶Thus am I become your enemy telling you the truth? ¹⁷They are not earnestly desiring you rightly but they are wishing to exclude you that you might earnestly desire them, ¹⁸and [it is] fitting to be zealous always in fitting things and not only in my presence with you. ¹⁹My little children, for whom I am in labor again until Christ be formed in you … ²⁰and I was wishing to be being present now with you and to change my voice because I am perplexed with you.

In my last post I noted how much one sees the love of Paul in these verses. This is seen even the fact that verse 19 is actually an unfinished sentence. And obviously Paul’s love for these people had evoked a response of love in them. If they could have, they would have plucked out their own eyes and given them to him.

But another thing I can’t help noticing is the effect of legalism on them. Particularly notice Paul’s question, “Thus am I become your enemy telling you the truth?”  Wow. One sure way to make yourself a Pharisee’s enemy is telling them the truth. Jesus did and they crucified Him for it. Legalists purport to be champions of the truth. Like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, they may memorize extensive portions of the Bible. They’re all about the Truth. Yet, try just once telling them truth they don’t want to hear and watch the fangs and claws come out! They love to say, “I know I’m a sinner.” But if you ever point out any specific instances, watch them get immediately defensive. How can someone be a sinner who doesn’t sin? Interesting.

I guess it’s something that always bears watching in our own hearts. Does other people’s “truth” easily offend me? Do people make themselves my enemy by telling me the truth? Or can I honestly say, “Let the righteous smite me; it will be a kindness” and “faithful are the wounds of a friend.” Definitely food for thought.

Notice too what Paul says of the legalists in verse 17: “ They are not earnestly desiring you rightly but they are wishing to exclude you that you might earnestly desire them.”  As I’ve said before, Paul’s emotion-charged Greek doesn’t translate well, but I think the “obvious and simple” meaning is just that. The legalists present themselves as very interested in these people. They’ll travel over land and sea to make one disciple. But their real goal is not to help people become faithful followers of Jesus. It is to make people followers of them! They are “wishing to exclude you” or “separate you out.” They want you for them. Cults of course are always that way. But Pharisees never see themselves as cultists. Yet that is exactly what they are. Once again, we should turn this on our own hearts and ask, “What do I really want for others? Do I sincerely want them to enjoy God’s blessing whether it gains me anything or not?” Back to the matter of love – that is the difference between Paul and the Judaizers. He really did love the Galatians and his ministry produced a love response in them. But the Judaizers rob the people of love while purporting to do them good.

Hmmmmm. A lot to think about.

Galatians 4:8-20 – Love and Reality

As usual, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸But you, not then knowing God, were enslaved to ones not being gods by nature, ⁹but now, knowing God (or rather being known by God), how are you turning to the weak and beggarly basic principles to which you are desiring to be enslaved once more? ¹⁰You are observing days and months and seasons and years. ¹¹I am afraid of you lest I have labored in vain into you. ¹²Brethren I ask of you, become as I [am] because [I became] as you [are].

 You have not injured me at all. ¹³But I know that I preached to you at the first through weakness of the flesh ¹⁴and you did not treat me with contempt neither rejected my affliction in my flesh but you accepted me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. ¹⁵Therefore, where is your pronounced blessing? For I testify to you that, if [you had the] power, you would have given to me, plucking out your eyes.

 ¹⁶Thus am I become your enemy telling you the truth? ¹⁷They are not earnestly desiring you rightly but they are wishing to exclude you that you might earnestly desire them, ¹⁸and [it is] fitting to be zealous always in fitting things and not only in my presence with you. ¹⁹My little children, for whom I am in labor again until Christ be formed in you … ²⁰and I was wishing to be being present now with you and to change my voice because I am perplexed with you.

I have found this string of verses very interesting. It is very instructive both as a whole and also in parts.

As a whole, what we see is a very real and specific application of I Cor 13:4-7, a love that is “patient and kind, seeks not its own, always protects, always hopes, always perseveres.” Paul says, “You have not injured me at all.” We could obviously say, “Oh yes they have!” But here we are seeing a love that is overcoming judgment. Like Jesus Himself, though nailed to a cross of their foolishness and ingratitude, Paul’s heart is saying, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” He’s not taking it personally, even though their offense against him is in fact quite personal.

I have to confess, this passage is deeply convicting to me. My heart knows little of a love like this. I certainly enjoy “loving” people, doing whatever I can for them, even sacrificing on their behalf; but what happens when those same people, instead of accepting and appreciating that “love” instead turn on me, accuse me and malign me? My heart naturally doesn’t have “the time of day” for them. “Shake the dust from your shoes and move on,” my angry selfish heart piously quotes. And maybe I should, but what about my heart? Love always perseveres. Hmmmm. Mine certainly doesn’t. I noted early in the book that it amazes me that God committed an entire book of Scripture to confronting these foolish Galatians, that Paul wrote this entire 6-chapter letter energetically trying to reclaim this errant church. I said then, I hope God teaches me something that will help my own love be more like His. I can’t say I’m any different yet, but the Holy Spirit in my heart is certainly calling me to this Christ-like standard of love. I guess at this point, my conclusion is that we are here talking about a love that truly is heart business, that is a fruit of the Spirit, not a “rule” I can live out. I am praying, asking Him to in fact help me live this kind of love, and as I face these very situations, I am grieving at my hard heart and trying to let Him change me. But, again, I have to admit, such a love is “high, I cannot attain unto it.” By the power of His indwelling Spirit, may the Lord work His heart-changing miracles in this sinner’s heart!

Exegetically speaking this is another passage where the Greek is challenging to translate. Verse 19 is actually an unfinished sentence while the logic throughout this section seems abrupt and difficult. Concerning verse 19 Calvin notes, “The style is abrupt, which is usually the case with highly emotional passages. Strong feeling, from the difficulty of finding adequate expression, breaks off our words when half-uttered, while the powerful emotion chokes the utterance …[Paul] is now so oppressed with grief, that he almost faints from exhaustion without completing his sentence.” Barnes notes regarding this section, “There is great brevity in this passage, and no little obscurity, and a great many interpretations given of it by commentators …” However, Barnes goes on to say, “The sense of the passage, however, it seems to me, cannot be difficult”. And Eadie recommends, as always, the “obvious and simplest explanation” which can be derived “without resort to grammatical torture, undue dilation, or remote reference.” My translation offered above is very wooden as I’m trying to leave it as literal as possible. But I think all of the major translations offer reasonably good representations of the text, as Eadie says presenting the “obvious and simple.”

A couple of things that jump out at me in the text: Paul asks them in v9, “How are you turning to the weak and beggarly principles to which you are desiring to be enslaved once more?” He specifically points out, “You are observing days and months and seasons and years.” The obvious understanding is that they are embracing the Jewish habit of observing the Sabbaths, and new moons, and the various feasts (Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, etc.). This is the very thing Paul addresses in Col 2:16, “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day,” and  he goes on there to explain in v17, “These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”  Once again, a person could take offense at these OT-ordained practices being called “weak and beggarly elements”. But in this new dispensation of the risen, victorious Messiah and the outpoured and indwelling Holy Spirit, that is exactly what they are. They are the rules of the old childish tutelage. A Spirit-indwelt NT believer would be perfectly free to practice any one of these things if they wish, but only from the perspective of a mature heir doing so within the freedom of living out their very real and personal heart-relationship with God. The Galatians are practicing these things legalistically, as if they are a relationship with God. “Why in the world,” he asks, “would you grasp at the shadow, when the reality stands before you?”

Who would hug at the shadow of their child while the child themself stands before you? But that is exactly the absurdity of legalism. Why clutch after rules to somehow define our relationship with God, while as NT believers we are sitting in His very lap? Embrace Him! I would suggest the best place from which to discern His will, the best place from which to discern what truly is right and good and important, is to be found wrapped in His big arms with our face buried in His big strong loving chest. When we’re close enough to hear His beating heart, to feel the rise of fall of His breathing chest, so close He has only to lean down and whisper in our ears, then, and only then, can we expect to truly understand. And that is our place and our privilege as NT believers. Why on earth should the Galatians, and why on earth should we settle for anything less?

May my heart be filled with the reality of Christ, not grasping after shadows! And may my relationship with Him help me learn the kind of love that rises above and sees through to the need behind people’s sometimes unloving responses.

He’s so awesome. “Nearer my God to Thee”.