firm in the faith" (1 Cor 16:13); "stand firm in one spirit" (Phil
1:27); "stand firm in the Lord" (Phil 4:1). Here he appeals to them to
stand firm in the freedom Christ has given to them. Paul illustrated
in his autobiography how he stood firm in his freedom against "false
brothers" who "infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in
Christ Jesus and to make us slaves" (2:4). He did not give in to their
pressure to make Titus, a Gentile convert, a Jew by circumcision. Now
similar false teachers have infiltrated the ranks of the Galatian
churches with the same demand. They have been putting the Galatian
converts under intense social pressure to become Jews by being
circumcised. Stand firm, Paul says. Do let yourselves be burdened
again by a yoke of slavery (v. 1).In Paul's day one could often see
oxen harnessed by a yoke to a heavily laden cart, straining to pull
their burden uphill while being goaded with sharp sticks. Paul uses
the word yoke, as it was often used by his contemporaries, to refer to
the yoke of the law. We can see from his statement in verse 3 that the
crushing weight of this yoke is the obligation to obey the whole law.
A similar use of yoke can be seen in Peter's speech at the Jerusalem
council, as reported in Acts 15:10: "Why do you try to test God by
putting on the necks of the [Gentile] disciples a yoke that neither we
nor our fathers have been able to bear?" The yoke of the law is a yoke
of slavery, because it places us under the burden of commandments we
cannot keep and under curses that we deserve for our disobedience. But
God sent his Son to lift this heavy yoke from our shoulders and to
take it upon himself: he was "born under law" (4:4) and kept all its
demands for us; he died under the curse of the law for us (3:13).
Since he has set us free from this yoke of slavery, we must not take
it on ourselves again. In contrast to the yoke of slavery under the
law, his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Mt 11:30).In order to
strengthen his readers' resolve to defend their freedom in Christ and
resist the false teachers' efforts to put them under the yoke of
slavery to the law, Paul sets forth the terrible negative consequences
of submitting to this yoke of slavery in verses 2-4. Then in contrast
to this negative picture, he sets out a positive description of
maintaining our freedom in Christ in verses 5-6.Negative Consequences
(5:2-4)Paul's list of the negative results of getting circumcised and
trying to be justified by law is prefaced by strong reminders that he
is speaking with authority: Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you (v. 2).
Again I declare to every man (v. 3). There must be no doubt about his
warnings. They come from Paul, "an apostle--sent not from men nor by
man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father" (1:1).His warnings are
given to those who are getting circumcised. The present tense
indicates that the process has just begun. Paul wants to stop the
slash of the knife. This is the first explicit reference in the letter
to this fact that the Galatians are being circumcised. Since the
surgical procedure of circumcision has no theological significance to
us today, it is difficult to understand why Paul is so upset about
it.In Paul's day circumcision was the mark of belonging to the Jewish
nation. For a Gentile to get circumcised in the Greco-Roman world,
where circumcision was repugnant, indicated that inclusion within the
Jewish nation had become a very high priority for him. But why would
inclusion in the Jewish nation become so extremely important to
Gentiles? Paul understood their motive as trying to be justified by
law. In other words, they thought they could gain God's approval only
by belonging to the Jewish nation. This meant they did not consider
faith in Christ to be a satisfactory basis for God's approval. They
were being convinced that faith in Christ had to be supplemented with
identification with the Jewish people through circumcision and law
observance.Paul lists four inevitable, negative consequences of adding
such a supplement to faith in Christ. First, Christ will be of no
value to you at all (v. 2). If you start to trust in circumcision to
gain God's blessing, then you have stopped trusting in Christ. If you
do not trust in Christ, then Christ is of no value to you. When you
put your trust in your own position or performance for God's blessing,
you are indicating that who you are and what you have done has more
value that who Christ is and what he has done. You have turned your
back on Christ.Second, the consequence of getting circumcision is the
obligation to obey the whole law (v. 3). Evidently the Galatians
thought that by observing a few important laws they could identify
themselves as full members of the Jewish nation and thus secure God's
blessing for themselves. But Paul now informs them that the law is a
vast, interdependent network of legal codes. Getting circumcised
indicates that you are relying on keeping the law for God to bless
you. If you are relying on the law, then you are obligated to keep the
whole law. You cannot be selective. You have embarked on an impossible
mission. Once you have decided to base your relationship with God on
your performance, you will not be graded on a curve. You must get 100
percent all the time.The third and fourth consequences of following
the demands of the false teachers are given in verse 4: You . . . have
been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. No doubt
the rival teachers had assured them that keeping the law was not
abandoning their faith in Christ; it was the way to "attain your goal"
(3:3)--perfection--in Christian life. But Paul says that those who
regulate their lives by the law are removed from the reign of Christ
over their lives. If you trust in your own efforts to keep the law,
then you are no longer trusting in God's grace. Circumcision or
Christ, law or grace: these are exclusive alternatives. You cannot
have it both ways. You must choose.The danger of apostasy, falling
away from grace, must have been very real, or Paul would not have used
such strong language. If we use the doctrine of eternal security to
deny the possibility of falling from grace, we are ignoring Paul's
warnings. People who ignore warnings are in great danger. Just observe
the person who sees the warning sign of a sharp curve and a
fifteen-mile-per-hour speed limit but keeps driving at seventy miles
per hour.Positive Description (5:5-6)Having painted a negative picture
of what will happen if freedom in Christ is given up for the yoke of
slavery, Paul describes in verses 5-6 how freedom in Christ is
maintained. Both verses focus on faith. Faith in Christ is the only
way to protect our freedom in Christ. Paul spells out in very concise
terms what this life of faith is like. His terms echo what he has
already taught at some length in the preceding chapters; they also
introduce the central themes of the rest of the letter.First, the life
of faith is life by the Spirit: by faith we eagerly await through the
Spirit (v. 5). By faith in the gospel we received the Spirit (3:2). We
now "live by the Spirit" (5:16), "are led by the Spirit" (5:18) and
"keep in step with the Spirit" (5:25). The presence of the Spirit
marks us the children of God (4:6), and the power of the Spirit
produces in us the character of God (5:22-23). The control of the
Spirit in our lives makes the yoke of the law unnecessary
(5:18).Second, the life of faith is a life of confident expectation of
righteousness: by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the
righteousness for which we hope (v. 5). Paul's focus here is the
future righteousness which is ours when God completes his work in us
by his Spirit. By depending on the Spirit, we can expect to reap the
harvest of eternal life in the future (see 6:8). In the past, when we
put our faith in Christ at the beginning of our Christian life, God
credited righteousness to us (3:6-9). In the present, by the power of
the Spirit, God produces righteousness in us (5:13-25). Or to put it
in more theological language, our righteousness--credited to us by
justification, produced in us by sanctification and perfected in us by
glorification--is always a gift received from God by faith.Third, in
this life of faith what matters is union with Christ, not union with
the Jews or Gentiles or any other racial or social group: For in
Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value (v.
6). The world's divisions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male
and female have been obliterated in our union with one another in
Christ (3:28).Fourth, our life of faith is a life of loving one
another: The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through
love (v. 6). Freedom from the law does not leave our life without
moral direction. Faith in Christ gives us not only moral direction but
also the moral dynamic to fulfill the true intent of all the law by
serving one another (vv. 13-14). The evidence of true faith will be
genuine love, for true faith in Christ is inevitably expressed through
love.
-Commentaries from InterVarsity Press =]
No comments:
Post a Comment