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Category: Galatians (Page 3 of 9)

Chosen By God

July 24, 2018 / / 3 Comments

“Now that you know God — or rather are known by God…” ~Galatians 4:9

Paul is using Old Testament language in this passage. “Known by God” is the same phrase used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for the way God knows Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, and the nation of Israel. The Bible says they are all known by God. And that phrase is mostly used of very important people at very critical junctures in the story. To be known by God is to be chosen by God. It’s God acting on your behalf. It’s God choosing through no merit of your own — you’ve done nothing to deserve it — to bless you and work in you and through you in his salvation story.

The point is that God is the prime figure. He’s the main actor, the initiator. God determines the appropriate time for his Son to come (Galatians 4:4). God sent his Son (4:4). God sent the Spirit into our hearts (4:6). God made us his heirs (4:7). Paul is pointing to what happens when you are grabbed by God, when God’s attention is focused on you.

The Bible is consistently clear on this. Salvation always begins with God, not you.

“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one… No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law… Righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” ~Romans 3:11-24

People don’t seek God; God seeks people. Humans are so caught up in their sin, they’re so in love with their sin, they don’t seek holiness and righteousness on their own. God always has to make the first move. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

“The one who loves God is known by God.” ~ 1 Corinthians 8:3

In Genesis 18, God promises to bless Abraham and make him a great nation and save all people of the earth through his family. Why? “For I have known him.” God speaks to his people through the prophet Amos and reminds them, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; you only have I chosen.”

God promises David that he will be king and that all David’s enemies will be defeated and that David’s family will reign on the throne forever. And David’s a little shook up. This is overwhelming news and David feels sort of inadequate. And he prays to God:

“Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign Lord, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with people, O Sovereign Lord?” ~2 Samuel 7:18-19

What David knows about himself and about the throne, what David knows about God, is confusing and incomplete. Who am I that this is happening for me? Why am I so chosen and so blessed?

“What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Sovereign Lord.” ~2 Samuel 7:20

The answer is simple and profound and comforting. You know me. You chose me. That’s first. And that’s more than enough.

Peace,

Allan

Known By God

July 23, 2018 / / 0 Comments

“Now that you know God — or rather are known by God — how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?” ~Galatians 4:9

Paul corrects himself here in the middle part of his letter to the churches in Galatia. Knowing God is good and it’s important, but it’s not the main thing, it’s not the main point. Rather, Paul says, or more importantly, you are known by God. That’s the primary thing.

When Paul says “or rather,” he’s saying “This is more important.” “Or rather” shifts the emphasis to this second thing. The accent, the force, is not on “you know God,” it’s on “you are known by God.” Being known by God is infinitely more important. God knowing me takes a much larger salvation priority than me knowing God.

Think about it. Our knowledge of God is incomplete at best. You might even say our knowledge of God is sometimes distorted or even flat out wrong. Me knowing God is important, it’s needed. But it’s lacking. It’s not perfect. God knowing me — that’s everything.

And we’re not talking about God’s general omniscience here. This is not about God’s knowing all things about all people at all times. Of course, that’s true about our God. But Paul’s talking about something different here. He’s talking about something deeper. Richer. More personal.

This is very personal. This is one of the very few places in all of Paul’s writings where he uses the singular pronoun for “you.”

In ninety-nine percent of Galatians, when Paul writes “you,” it’s plural. You all. Y’all. Y’all are children of God through faith, y’all belong to Christ, y’all are no longer slaves. But now that you — singular, not your spouse, not your dad, not the person who’s gone to church longer than you, not the one who knows more about God than you — are known by God. The Bible wants you to hear this personally.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, Lucy and Edmund and their cousin Eustace are on a ship searching for Aslan’s home country. Eustace and Edmund are having a conversation about Aslan and Eustace asks Edmund, “Who is Aslan? Do you know him?” Edmund replies, “Well — he knows me.”

God knowing me is much better and much more important then me knowing God. That’s why Paul corrected himself in Galatians 4:9. And I’d like to explore this together in three or four posts this week. Tomorrow we’ll look at how the phrase, “known by God,” is used in the Old Testament in the context of God’s choosing. Wednesday, we’ll consider how God knowing us means God really understands us. Thursday we’ll look at how God knowing me gives me security and a sense of permanent belonging with God. We’ll conclude with some closing thoughts on the topic this Friday. It’s a rich concept and a powerful truth for followers of Christ: You are known by God.

Peace,

Allan

Salvation Through the Promise

July 9, 2018 / / 0 Comments

All the add-ons and extras are being ripped down on the west side of our church building at Central, preparing for the construction of the new façade and entrance. The stairs and foyer and overhang in front of the offices are gone and the porch and foyer in front of the Gathering Place exist no more. It’s loud and there’s a lot of dirt. The whole building shakes with every blow of the heavy equipment against the concrete foundation. The daily changes are noticeable around here now — on the outside and the inside. Things are falling off the walls in Vickie’s and Gail’s offices.

 

 

 

 

 

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“The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.” ~Galatians 3:16

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing… and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” ~Genesis 12:2-3

This promise reveals and establishes God’s universal intent and plan for salvation: all peoples on earth will be blessed through Abraham. It’s universal. It’s for the whole world. God calls Abraham out of the blue and says, “I will bless you and you will be a blessing. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Paul says Abraham believed that promise and it was credited to him as righteousness. Abraham was saved by believing in God’s promise, by trusting in God’s Word. That’s how the covenant was established.

Abraham didn’t make a covenant with God; God made a covenant with Abraham. God did not lay down any conditions for Abraham to meet. In fact — you can look it up! — when God ratifies the covenant in Genesis 15, Abraham is sound asleep. It’s a covenant of pure grace.

God’s people are chosen by grace. God establishes the relationship by his own initiative apart from any law. They’re his people before there is such a thing as the law. The promise came first. The relationship came first. God’s people never obeyed the law in order to be saved. God had already saved them by his promise. There’s a big difference between “Do this and I’ll save you” and “I’ll save you so you can do this.”

Salvation is founded on God’s promise. And that promise is unchangeable.

What God promised Abraham is eternal. It’s irrevocable. God’s promise can’t be nullified, modified, or altered in any way — not by anybody’s personal preferences, not by any group’s cultural or national agendas, not even the Law of Moses can change God’s promise.

“The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.” ~Galatians 3:17-18

The law is really a latecomer to the salvation scene. The law doesn’t change the eternal arrangement God made with Abraham and his descendants. The promise is unchangeable. So the way we relate to God today is the same was it’s always been and always will be: through faith, not through works of the law. God saves people when they trust his Word, when they believe his promise, not when they keep all the details of the law.

The law is not God’s most important revelation. It’s the promise. God’s eternal promise and our faith in that promise to save is the basis of everything God has planned for us and his creation. Faith, not works, is the foundation of our righteous relationship with God and with each other.

In Romans 7, Paul says the law is holy, righteous, and good. But we are unholy, unrighteous, and not good. The law doesn’t make us sinners; it reveals to us that we are sinners. The law is a holy mirror that shows us we have dirty faces. But you don’t wash your face with a mirror. We are cleansed, we are made holy and righteous, and good, by the faith of Christ and our faith in Christ — the fulfillment of God’s great promise.

Peace,

Allan

People of Promise

July 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

What we believe about how we are saved matters. What we think saves us matters a great deal. The apostle Paul spends all of Galatians 3 reminding us that we are saved by God’s promise, not by God’s law. And he thinks it matters a lot.

“The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed…” 3:16

“If the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise…” 3:18

“The Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through the faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe…” 3:22

“If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” 3:29

God in Christ has fulfilled the entirety of the law’s purposes for us. We are no longer condemned by the law, we’re not threatened by the law; the era of the law is over! The promise is fulfilled and the new age of righteousness and grace and freedom in Christ has begun! We are the people of promise.

God’s promises are not like the promises you and I make and receive every day. This is God. It’s his promise. No fine print, no out clauses, no surprises. God doesn’t make promises with his fingers crossed. He promises to save us, knowing he would have to die to make it happen. And — praise the Lord! — he did!

We are not people of the law. We are a people of promise. And that matters. It matters big time. If we think we’re saved by law or by rules or works or behaving correctly, then we’re going to treat people harshly. We’ll be arrogant and judgmental. We’ll be unbending and unforgiving. We’ll be nervous and unsure and we’ll fight and divide over the weirdest little things. And we’ll turn off a lot of people.

When we know we’re saved by the gracious promises of God, we’ll be a people of mercy and love. We’ll give others the benefit of the doubt. We’ll be flexible and forgiving. We’ll seek to bless other people. We’ll be kind and hospitable. Our words will be encouraging, our actions will be inviting. We’ll be unified by a focus on the really big important things and we’ll inspire a lot of people.

We are not people of the law. We are not people of the rules or people of the regulations or people of the guilt trip or people of the coercion. We are not people of correct interpretations or proper practices. None of those things save us! Those are the things we use in order to gain control. Or to be more prominent. Or better. Or right. Those are the things that divide us and separate us. Those are the things that lead to jealousy and anger and strife and condemnation.

We are free. Free from guilt. Free from condemnation. Free from punishment. We are rescued from the present evil age according to the will of God our Father to whom be glory for ever and ever! Amen!

The Good News today is that your forgiveness, your salvation, your eternal life does not depend on rules or regulations or interpretations or practices. Your righteousness rests solely in the unchanging promise of our loving God.

The Bible says no matter how many promises God has made, they are all “yes” in Christ. Every one of God’s promises — all of his blessings, all of his hope and peace and joy, everything God wants for you, everything he created you to be and to have — are available to you if you’ll put your faith in Christ.

Peace,

Allan

Out of Line with the Gospel

May 30, 2018 / / 4 Comments

When I was in elementary school, I remember several conversations I had with my friend Terry. Terry lived around the corner from me, we played together almost every day. And I remember several times telling Terry he was not going to heaven because he didn’t go to church. I also remember telling Sherry across the street she wasn’t going to heaven, either. Sherry did go to church. She just didn’t go the right church.

This was the way I was raised.

We were focused on our Church of Christ distinctives. We were obsessed with what makes Churches of Christ different from everybody else. We took pride in it.

It’s “gospel meeting,” not “revival,” because “revival is not a biblical word. Although, it is.

It’s “preacher,” not “pastor,” because the biblical word “pastor” is really for elders. But we don’t call our elders “pastors” either because that’s what the denominations say.

Oh, the denominations! We are NOT a denomination! We’re different from everybody else!

We baptize by immersion. We do it the right way. And, yeah, we know there are some denominations that immerse the right way. But they do it for the wrong reasons. So we’re still more right.

We eat the Lord’s Supper every week and we only sing with the instruments God gave us in our throats. We call it an “offering,” not a “tithe.” It’s an “invitation song,” not an “altar call.”

Some critics have said, “If we’re so obsessed with seeing just how different we can be from everybody else, why don’t we put bars on all the church doors and go in and out through the windows?”

Well, no, that would be silly. But we call it an “auditorium,” not a “sanctuary.”

Our focus on our distinctives, our obsession with what separates us from the rest of the Christian world, has resulted in several generations of us referring to the CofCs as “The Church.” You know what I’m talking about. “She was raised in the Church.” “They’re members of The Church.” “Does he belong to The Church?” We say “The Church” and we’re only talking about us!

We’ll admit that folks in other churches are Christians, we’ll admit they’re saved. But we’re not so sure we should be calling them brothers and sisters in Christ. The way we talk and the way we behave, we’re claiming to be more saved. We’re claiming to be better, more correct, and closer to God’s will because of our Church of Christ culture.

If you want me to call you a brother or sister in Christ, you have to belong to MY group. You have to conform to OUR rules and adopt OUR customs and embrace OUR traditions. We’re saying that salvation and the unity of God’s people is based on methods and interpretations and not grace and faith.

When that’s the case, we are clearly in the wrong. In Paul’s words, we are not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel.

“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a person is not justified by works of the Law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by the faith of Christ and not by works of the Law, because no one will be justified by works of the Law.” ~Galatians 2:15-16

We are not justified by perfectly obeying God’s Law or by being in the right group, we’re not saved by our own merits or works; we are justified by the faith of Jesus. That was true when Peter was differentiating between Jewish and Gentile Christians back then and it’s just as true today when we’re differentiating between Church of Christ Christians and Methodist Christians and Presbyterian Christians.  We are all saved by the exact thing in the exact same way: by Christ’s death and resurrection through faith. Period.

If we are justified by the faith of Jesus Christ, then all Christians are included in the Christian community on no different level and by no different terms. That means we accept Christians with a different history, a different tradition, a different story to tell.

And, yeah, it’s not easy. It’s almost offensive. God’s matchless grace totally disregards human merit, his mercy and love totally break down barriers that are socially acceptable. And that kind of unity is hard to swallow.

Jonah got ticked off at God’s grace because the Lord showed favor to the Ninevites. The older son refused to join the family feast when the Father invited the runaway little brother. The Pharisee stands in the temple and thanks God he’s not like this other guy. But this is God’s way: He unites us as he saves us; he saves us as he unites us.

It is wrong to say your kind of church is God’s true church and demand that others come to your kind of church to find the truth and criticize other kinds of churches because they do things differently. That’s denominationalism and it’s a perversion of the Gospel. We can’t ever try to make people join a specific group in order to be acceptable to God.

Peace,

Allan

Clearly in the Wrong

May 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

“When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.” ~Galatians 2:11

Peter? Clearly in the wrong? Seriously? I mean, we know Peter’s got a big mouth and he’s a little impulsive, but clearly in the wrong? Peter’s one of the original twelve apostles, part of Jesus’ inner circle. He’s like the captain of the apostles. He’s a pillar, a foundation stone of God’s Church. He’s clearly in the wrong? Well, what in the world is he doing?

He’s refusing to share meals with Christians who have not been circumcised. He’s “drawing back and separating himself” from the Gentile Christians because some of the other Jewish Christians were starting to talk.

Apparently, the Jewish and Gentile Christians were all eating together. They were ignoring circumcision and food laws and Jewish holy days — they weren’t worried about the Law of Moses, they were all one in Christ. They ate together all the time. And when Peter came to Antioch, he joined in. He’s good. He participated in the practice of these fellowship meals, these symbols of unity. But then these “certain men from James” show up and Peter excuses himself from the table. Either the presence of these men or the message they brought — something — shook Peter up and he stopped eating with the Gentile Christians. He drew back and separated. And his actions were so obvious and so influential that “even Barnabas was led astray” and stopped attending the fellowship meals.

What Peter is saying by his actions is that Gentile Christians are only second-class Christians. If they want to eat with Peter and the other Jewish Christians, if they want the full benefits of God’s salvation, then you have to belong to a certain group: MY group. You have to conform to OUR rules, you have to adopt OUR practices, you have to embrace OUR traditions. What Peter is saying is that salvation and the unity of God’s people is based on circumcision and law and not on grace and faith.

And when Paul shows up at Antioch and sees what’s going on, he can’t handle it. It’s too much. “There is neither Jew nor Greek!” That’s Paul, right? “We are all one in Christ Jesus!”

So Paul opposed Peter to his face, “in front of them all.” This is a public rebuke because it was a public problem, I guess — because he was clearly in the wrong. This is strong language. Most scholars agree that Paul is saying more than “You’re wrong.” He’s saying, “You’re condemned by God.” Peter is perverting the Gospel with his behavior.

This isn’t just a minor disagreement over a trivial part of the Gospel; this is the very heart of the Gospel! It’s not a little squabble over an interpretation; this is about who you are in Christ, your identity in the Lord!

Peter and these Jewish Christians are withdrawing and separating from the Gentile Christians. They’re claiming to be better, to be more saved, to be more correct, and to be closer to God’s will because of their Jewish culture. Paul says they’re “not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel.”

Hmmm…. do we see any parallels today? I wonder about making application, particularly with those of us in Churches of Christ.

Tomorrow. I’ll finish this up tomorrow.

Peace,

Allan

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