08 December

Bible In 365 Days                           

Galatians 4-6

Galatians 4

He now declared the process of freedom. "God sent forth His Son . . . under the law." Thus the law He kept was justified, and He lived thereby. But more than this, He bore its penalty, and so procured justification and life for those who, while under its tutelage, had broken it.

The result of this is that they are sons, and now cry "Abba, Father." Under the old bondage God was not known. But now they have come to know God. The return of these Galatian Christians to this ignorance is indicated by their observance of days and months, and seasons and years, that is, to Judaism. The fear expressed at the close of the last paragraph leads to a tender and beautiful personal appeal by the apostle. He beseeches them to become as he is: free from all these things, for he says, "I also am become as ye are."

He contrasts with himself those who have been troubling them, introducing the passage referring to them with the word "they." He does not deny their zeal, but declares their motive to be evil, and ends with an outcry over them like that of a mother. This is the final application of the doctrine of liberty. All that system which lived in the realm of boasted relation to Abraham he characterizes as being in the position of Hagar; and carrying his argument concerning the relationship of faith to its logical conclusion, he claims that the true Jerusalem from above is the mother of the saints. "We," he says, speaking of those who are in Christ, are the "children of promise," and, consequently, the bondwoman is to be cast out.

Galatians 5

The whole law of liberty is stated in the sentences, "For freedom did Christ set us free," "stand fast therefore," and "be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage."

He then refers first to circumcision. If a man receive circumcision, Christ will profit him nothing; he has become a debtor to the whole law. If a man desire to be justi6ed by the law, he is severed from Christ, he is fallen from grace.

The positive side of this is then stated. Faith working through love is the great principle of all conduct. The apostle then proceeded to a correction of popular mistakes concerning freedom. The idea that liberty means the absence of all restraint is false. The true use of freedom is stated in the injunction, "through love be servants one to another." The emergence from bondage through Christ is the passing into a sphere of life in which all the powers should act under the dominion of the true motive-love. In answer to an inferred question how such love is possible, the injunction is, "Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.''

The contrast between flesh and spirit is then made. First, "the works of the flesh." These are operations in the realm of death. Then "the fruit of the Spirit." This refers to an operation in the realm of life. As the apostle has said that the whole law is summed up in the word 'love," so now it is evident that the one fruit of the Spirit is love. All the words following form an exposition of the meaning of love, an analysis of the experience resulting therefrom.

Galatians 6

Having dealt with the conduct of liberty thus broadly, the apostle now made some detailed application of the principles enunciated, giving an important illustration pertinent to the whole question of the relation between himself and the Galatian Christians. They were to communicate to the necessity of the teachers in all things, remembering that God is not mocked. He is a God of law and order, and as the sowing is, so must be the reaping.

The conclusion of the epistle opened with a personal touch as the apostle referred to the large characters in which he had written. Finally, he summarized the whole subject of the false teachers. The principle on which they had attempted to compel the Galatians to be circumcised was the desire to make a fair show in the flesh in order that they might escape persecution. As against this, the Apostle declared that he desired only to glory in the Cross. This glorying is experimental. Through that Cross the world had been crucified to him, and he to the world; and in that very personal crucifixion which had endured persecution and suffering he gloried, and in naught beside.

He then pronounced peace and mercy on those who walk by that rule, glorying only in the Cross, and "upon the Israel of God." What a touch of splendid independence there is in the words, "Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus." The very shame and suffering and persecution which the false teachers would escape the apostle declares have stamped him with the true insignia of his office. The scars on his body left by the stripes and the stones speak of his loyalty to, and fellowship with, his Master, and render him splendidly independent of all human opinion and declining to be troubled by any man. The whole letter closes with a benediction.