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THE GOOD NEWS OF GOD'S GRACE FROM GOD THROUGH MENGalatians 1:1-5INTRODUCTION I have a good friend who is about 80 years old and who had four children. His children are about my age now with children of their own. One of his daughters, when she was in high school, began to hang around with the “druggies”. She quickly embraced their way of life and began doing drugs herself. My friend and his wife discovered what was going on and began placing restrictions on her. They would argue with her and brought her to counselors and even called some of the kids she was hanging around with and told them to leave her alone. She deeply resented their attempts to help her. She would run away from home and stay away for days on end. They would take her to school and as soon as they were out of sight she would head away from school. She gave large amounts of grief to her parents. The situation got so bad that at one point my friend not only took her to school, but for two weeks, took vacation time from his job and actually went with her to class and sat next to her in class, to make sure she was going to school. As you can imagine this teenager hated that more than can be told. However, as a result of their persistent, relentless, passionate intervention in her life she made it through high school and didn’t end up in jail or permanently addicted to drugs. She has on many occasions as an adult thanked her parents for their persistent love. We all know it was love that motivated my friend’s extreme efforts in pursuing his daughter and arguing with her and seeking to keep her away from the bad influences in her life. While his daughter was convinced that a life of irresponsibility and drug use was the happiest way to live, he knew that was a life that would lead to destruction. Her parents did not simply say, “Whatever you want to do is fine with us, honey. If it makes you happy to not graduate from high school and to use drugs, then go right ahead.” Out of their fierce love for her they pursued her and sought to defend her from herself and those who sought to harm her. I thought about my friend and what he did with his daughter as I studied Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia this week. If you’ll turn over to chapter 4, verse 19 I think you will see why. “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!” Again, if you’ll notice 3:1, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” The emotion Paul has towards these Christians is very much the emotion that parents have when their children are heading down paths of destruction. When your child is heading down a path of destruction, the pain you feel can only be described as the pain of childbirth. The language of Paul in this letter is fierce, often angry and always passionate because he views these people as his children who are heading down a path of ruin and he is going to do everything he can do to rescue them from that devastation that is coming. When we remember that this letter was written by the direction, under the influence of God’s Holy Spirit and is thus part of God’s word to his people we understand that the passion of Paul for these people to return from the foolishness that they are embracing is the passion of God for his people. God, in this letter is passionately pursuing his church, his people. The churches of Galatia are the churches that Paul and Barnabas founded in the cities of Iconium, Lystra and Derbe as recorded in Acts 13-14. The people in these churches are primarily Gentile or of non-Jewish origin. They became Christians out of a polytheistic, idol worshipping, grossly immoral way of life. Paul spent a great deal of time among these people teaching them the gospel and developing relationships with them. These people to whom he writes are friends, not strangers. They are Christians as a result of his hard labor. He was almost killed in Lystra by a mob stoning him because of his preaching of the gospel to them. Paul personally established the churches in all these cities, even appointing elders to care for each of these small flocks after he and Barnabas left. After Paul left the region of Galatia and returned to his home church in Antioch, Syria, a group of Jewish Christians from Jerusalem came to these churches and began to tell these non-Jewish Christians that it was not enough to have faith in Christ in order to go to heaven. These teachers from Jerusalem said that if the Gentile Christians were going to be accepted by God they must also become Jewish by being circumcised and following Jewish religious customs. They claimed that they were speaking on behalf of the apostles in Jerusalem, that this is what the original 12 apostles taught in Jerusalem and that Paul, who wasn’t really an apostle, had changed the message and had taught them an incomplete gospel. I’d like you to turn to Acts 15:1-2 (p. 783) to get a first hand account of what these false teachers were saying. Read it. What happened then in these churches of Galatia is that the people listened to these teachers from Jerusalem and began to adopt Jewish religious ceremonies and circumcision. They began to believe that in order to be accepted by God they must not only believe in Jesus but also obey the OT law as interpreted by the Jews through the centuries. You can see how violently Paul opposed these teachers and their message in 1:8 & 5:12, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” “As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.” He was as mad about what these men were teaching the churches of Galatia as any parent in here would be to find out that your child’s school teacher was telling the children that doing drugs and shoplifting was a great way to live. His opinion of what was going on in these churches was the same as yours would be if you found out that the Boy Scout leaders in your son’s troop were teaching the boys how to be Islamic fundamentalists and how to blow up buildings and people as suicide bombers and your son was buying into what his Scout leaders were saying. In this letter, God through the apostle Paul is pursuing his people and defending them so that they are not destroyed but are saved. It is a fierce letter that is motivated by the fierce and jealous love of God for his people. In this opening paragraph, the apostle Paul takes the gloves off and begins his relentless pursuit of these people. In the opening paragraph we immediately see how it is that God pursues his people. MAIN POINT God pursues his people…I. Through his word delivered by people (vv. 1-2) Paul begins his letter by asserting his authority. He is doing this, not because he is insecure and can’t handle being disrespected by others. He isn’t vain and can’t bear the thought that these churches think someone else is a better preacher or more astute teacher. Rather, he knows that one of the arguments that these teachers are using to undermine his doctrine is to undermine his authority. The false teachers are calling into question his claim to be an apostle of Jesus. Their line of attack goes something like this. “We all know that Jesus, during the days of his flesh, after a night of prayer called all of his disciples together and appointed 12 of them to be apostles. He gave his teaching authority to these apostles, telling them that they were to be the foundation of his church. After Judas betrayed him he lost his place among the apostles. However, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, the 120 Christians who were gathered in Jerusalem along with the eleven remaining apostles selected, by lot, Matthias to take the place of Judas. The condition of Matthias’ selection as that he had to have been a follower of Jesus from the time Jesus was baptized by John until his ascension after the resurrection. Paul did not even know Jesus during his earthly life, thus he cannot be an apostle.” These men went on to claim that they were appointed as teachers by the real apostles in Jerusalem and were in the churches of Galatia as their representatives. In short they claimed to come from the Jerusalem apostles and were teachers by the appointment of those apostles. Now consider what Paul says in v. 1. First, he says he is an apostle. He immediately claims that he is on the same level of authority as Peter, James and John, the apostles in Jerusalem. He does not represent any man or group of men and he did not become an apostle by any man appointing him to the office of an apostle. This is in complete contrast to the teachers. They claim to come from the apostles in Jerusalem. Also, they claim to have been appointed as teachers by the apostles. Paul says he is not an apostle from men or by men. Rather he is an apostle by the appointment of Jesus Christ and God the Father. In Luke 6:12-16 we are told that Jesus spent a whole night in prayer prior to appointing the 12 apostles. The implication is that while Jesus appointed the apostles he did so at the direction of God the Father. Therefore, all the original apostles could claim to be apostles by Jesus Christ and God the Father, just like Paul. The problem is that Jesus was no longer living on earth in the flesh when Paul claims to have been appointed by him as an apostle. This is why, as soon as Paul says that he was made an apostle by Jesus and the Father, he immediately says that this is the Father who raised Jesus from the dead. The point Paul is making is this: if Jesus in the days of his flesh had the authority to appoint the apostles of his church, then why does he not, as the resurrected Christ, who is seated at the right hand of God, have the right and the ability to appoint him as an apostle? Are they going to argue that the resurrected, glorified Christ has less authority than Christ in the days of his flesh? Now, simply saying that the resurrected Christ appointed him as an apostle does not make it true. He is going to defend this claim at the end of this first chapter. However, he begins his pursuit of these people by clearly declaring that he has more authority than these false teachers because unlike them his commission does not come from men or by men but by the resurrected Son of God and by His Father. Now notice in verse 2 he then adds that he is not writing to them by himself but with all the brothers who are with him. This is a unique phrase in the 13 letters of Paul. Every other letter is only from him or from he and one or two other named individuals. It is either from “Paul to the saints in Ephesus” or from “Paul, Silas and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians.” But here it is Paul and “all the brothers with me to the churches of Galatia.” Why mention an entire group of unnamed Christians as the coauthors with him of this letter? The point is that there is an entire community of Christians who acknowledge Paul as an apostle and who confirm that the message he is delivering is the gospel of Christ. Again, the false teachers are trying to show that Paul is a “Johnny-come-lately” who is working outside of the established church. They have painted Paul as a loner, a renegade and therefore not to be trusted. Paul, on the other hand, wants them to know that there is a great number of Christians who acknowledge his authority and his message. It is very important to remember that Paul is not making this defense of his authority because he can’t stand not being respected. He knows that the eternal life of these people hangs on whether they treat him as an apostle or not. If they submit to these false teachers as having true authority and reject him, he knows they will go to hell and he is going to exert all of his powers of persuasion and use every godly means at his disposal to keep that from happening. Let me say a word to our teens at this point. You often find yourselves at odds with your parents. You feel you are getting old enough to make a lot of decisions on your own and you resent their interference in your lives. It is true that you are becoming an adult and that the day is drawing closer when you will be on your own and fully responsible for every decision you make. Your parents, most of the time, are not simply trying to make you do their will because they can’t stand not being respected or obeyed. They really are seeking to direct you for your good. When you ask them why you should do what they say and they answer, “Because I am your parent,” they are not just being insecure and unreasonable. God put them over you for your good and if you want to live a good and happy life, you will respect them and listen to them, just like all of us must listen to what Paul says because he is an apostle. To ignore or resist those whom God has placed over us for our good is unwise and unsafe. No human being throughout all the history of the world, apart from the eleven original apostles, Matthias who was appointed an apostle in place of Judas in Acts 2 and Paul can say what Paul says about himself here. He claims to be directly appointed by Jesus and the Father apart from any human intermediary. No pastor, elder, bishop or any other church leader can claim the same thing. Every other teacher in the church, since the appointment of Paul, is appointed by God but from men and by men. We see this in Acts 14 in these very churches when Paul and Barnabas retrace their steps through these Galatian cities and “appointed elders for them in each church”. Timothy, Titus and Silas are sent to the churches from Paul and by Paul. After these original apostles died, every other God ordained minister of Christ is ordained by means of human beings. I cannot claim to be your pastor, “not from men, nor by men but by Jesus Christ and God the Father.” I am your pastor by God’s will expressed through the council that ordained me, the committee of Forest Lakes District pastors and laymen that invited me here, the EFCA credentialing committee, the affirmation of you, the congregation and your elder board. I come to you from men and by men as Jesus’ undershepherd. Leaders in the church are appointed by other leaders or elected by the congregation. Any time you hear a man or woman say that they are directly appointed as a pastor or teacher or whatever title they may choose to use, by Jesus apart from the ordaining, confirming act of a recognized church governing body, you can be sure they are lying to you. There are no more apostles in the sense that Peter, John and Paul are apostles. There are God appointed men and women whom are appointed to leadership in the body by recognized authority in the church who bring to us God’s word. It is through these pastors, elders, and teachers that God pursues us, just as he pursued the churches in Galatia through the apostle Paul. God pursues his people…
II. By the work of Christ (vv. 3-4) Verses 3-4 are an astonishing summation of the good news of God’s grace to sinners. In these few words Paul essentially sums up everything he says in the rest of his letter. The logic of Paul is overwhelming. After asserting his authority he then goes to the heart of the issue that is confronting the Galatians. It is not just what Paul says but how he says it that is so impressive. He first expresses his desire that they experience the grace and peace that come from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t miss that this is God, our Father. In spite of the destructive and damning teaching they are beginning to embrace he does not hesitate to include they and he under the Fatherhood of God. He is not doing this naively or in some romantic notion that God is the Father of everyone. He is clearly going to say that whoever does not embrace his version of the gospel does not have God as his Father but as his enemy. However, he begins in a spirit of charity. He approaches them as brothers and sisters who need correction, not as enemies who need damning. He reserves the language of damnation for the false teachers who have troubled them. We can learn from the great apostle at this point. He was gentle and compassionate and believed the best until people gave evidence of their rebellion by forcefully refusing the correction he offered. His desire for these wayward people is that they experience the unmerited favor of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants them to grasp the free grace of God that is offered to sinners and the peace with God and others that flows from being a recipient of that grace. He is not out to win an argument just for the sake of winning an argument. He is not trying to set them straight because he cannot stand it when people don’t explain the Christian gospel right. His motive in this letter is that these people experience the amazing grace of God and the life of peace that his grace produces. Notice that this grace and peace come equally from the Father and Jesus. This is an offhand way of showing that Paul views God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ as God. Here is the doctrine of the Trinitarian nature of God showing up in the most natural of ways. Martin Luther in his commentary says this, "It would be sacrilege to do this (say that grace and peace come from both) except that Christ is God." Immediately in v. 4 Paul explains how this grace and peace come from God the Father and the Lord Jesus. Paul goes to the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ when he says that the Lord Jesus Christ, “gave himself in behalf of our sins.” There is hardly a person in the U.S. who does not know this phrase or one like it. However, there are few citizens of our land who believe what it says. Most people treat the statement that Christ died for our sins as a throw away statement. “That’s nice but could we talk about something that really matters, like being circumcised,” in the case of the Galatian false teachers or how important it is to read your Bible or have Family Worship or confess your sins or be baptized or feed the poor or stop homosexual marriage or speak in tongues in the case of multitudes of American Christians. I want you to know that it is my greatest goal for you that you will be able to say, believing it to be true, “Christ gave himself in behalf of our sins.” I want you to know with certainty that you belong to those for whom Christ gave his life. I aim to persuade you that there is nothing more interesting in the universe than what this statement means. There are three things I want us to see in this short phrase from Paul. First, we are sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to give himself on behalf of our sins. Our sins are not small, inconsequential things. Sin is our biggest problem. Sin is what damns us to hell. Sin is what enslaves us and places us under God’s just wrath. We are helpless to escape our sins. Whenever someone says that their salvation depends upon something that they do, they are automatically declaring that they are not sinners or that their sins are not really a very big deal. When I am able to overcome the debt of my sin by something I do or perform I am declaring that my sins are not all that bad, nothing to get excited about. However, God will not permit such nonsense when he declares that the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself in behalf of our sins. Sin must be horrible if it took the sinless Son of God to die in order for it to be forgiven. The second thing to see is that the forgiveness of sins is not based upon what we have done but based upon what Christ has done. It is his death that secures forgiveness. He died the death we deserve. Therefore we cannot die. God has punished Christ for our sins therefore he cannot punish us for our sins. When we say that we must do something to pay for sins then we place ourselves outside of Christ’s death and thus under a death penalty. The wages of sin is death, not being circumcised and obeying the Jewish law. The only way to pay for sin is to die, not be baptized or pray a prayer asking Jesus into your heart or loving your wife or confessing your sins or being a missionary. If you get pulled over for speeding and go to court and tell the judge the reason you should not be required to pay the fine is because you baked him a dozen cookies and you have always paid your taxes, he will not be impressed. If you insist that you must do something in addition to what Jesus has done or instead of what Jesus has done, you put yourself on death row. Either you must die for your sins or Christ must have given himself in behalf of your sins. How easy it is for humans to presume that their final acceptance with God depends upon them. Many times in my life I have been overwhelmed with my sins or with my lack of obedience to Christ and have despaired of being forgiven and gaining eternal life. It is in those dark moments that I have been reminded that Christ did not die for people who are trying hard to be good, he died “for the ungodly,” “even when we were dead in transgressions.” It was, “while we were still sinners that Christ died for us.” I have done nothing and can do nothing to gain forgiveness. Either Christ has died for my sins and thus I am forgiven or I must die. There are no other options. Third, the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself according to the will of God. The death of Christ for our sins is exactly the plan that the great Triune God decided upon for the salvation of the people of God. When you believe that your salvation is dependent upon something you must do you are telling the God who made you that he is an idiot, that you are smarter and wiser than he. When you claim that God is going to welcome you into heaven because of something you have done, you are planning on looking God the Son in the eye as he manifests the glory of the Father and exercises his Spirit anointed judgment that he was wrong to offer himself on your behalf because you didn’t need him. The next thing to notice is that Christ gave himself in behalf of our sins in order to deliver us from this present evil age. Here is the final goal of salvation stated in the negative. We are delivered from this present evil age and by implication, into a future, holy age. Everything that is in this present age of men is evil whether it is the evil of sexual immorality or greed or deception or the evil of man-made religious performance. How can that which is a part of this present evil age deliver from this present evil age? That is Paul’s logic. You cannot deliver yourself from this present evil age by means of this present evil age. We are part of it and enslaved by it and therefore we must have a deliverer from outside of it if we are going to escape. This word translated “deliver” is used 117 times in the Greek translation of the OT. It is used to refer to Joseph escaping from the dungeon and being made the second in command of Egypt. It is used of God’s rescuing the nation Israel out of their slavery in Egypt. Over and over it is used to describe God’s deliverance of people from impossible to escape situations. What could Joseph do to escape his imprisonment and be made lord of Egypt? What resources did he possess in prison that he could use to effect his escape and his ascent to the throne? There was nothing he could do. God had to do it all. What could the Israelites do to escape their murderous slave masters? They were helpless in their slavery and had to have a deliverer. You cannot escape this present evil age and the doom that is coming upon it by using some resource in this age to escape. You are trapped by your sin and by the rule of the devil. To think you can escape by your own means is the height of folly and pride. Only the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself on behalf of our sins can deliver us from this present evil age and bring us into that future, holy age. God pursues his people…
III. For the glory of his name (v. 5) I cannot pass up the opportunity to show you again the ultimate reason salvation is this way. Grace and peace come to us from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ by his giving himself in behalf of our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of God the Father so that he is shown to be glorious forever and ever. God saves in this way for the glory of his own name. Therefore, when you claim that salvation can be had in any other way you are treating God with contempt, robbing him of the honor that is due to him alone. If salvation depends upon anything coming from you, any decision, any action, any emotion, then God is not the Savior. He is robbed of his glory if your salvation is not entirely his work, from beginning to end. As we work our way through Galatians over the next several months one way for us to think about what we are doing is seeing the various ways that God displays the glory of his name in our salvation and the ways that we humans try to rob him of his glory and seek to magnify the glory of our own names. The fact that God is committed to the glory of his own name is the best news you can hear. If God did not care about the glory of his own name all of us would be headed for hell. There would be no heaven, no salvation. It is because God is passionately committed to the glory of his own nature being made manifest that Christ gave himself for our sins, grace and peace come from God to sinners, Paul was sent as an apostle and we are delivered from this present evil age. God pursues his people…
© Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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