already & not yet

Reading for Thursday, May 17: Galatians 2

I love this quote from the study notes in the Tree of Life New Covenant Bible (a NT translation by the Messianic Jewish Family Bible Project group): “In Galatians, Paul points us beyond divisions to the unity that we all share in Messiah — a unity of equal opportunity to come into relationship with God (3:28 – the same access); a unity of the same way of salvation (2:16 – through faith in God’s Messiah); and a practical unity that manifests itself in behavior (5:14 – love and self-sacrifice).” In this light, Paul is opposing those who would sow seeds of discord within the body of Christ. If we truly live in a “present evil age”, we should seek to maintain the unity of the body of Christ as we wage against the forces of darkness and evil — the “real” enemy.

Paul’s opposition to the Judaizing group — even his opposition of Peter that he describes in this chapter — is rooted in a desire to preserve the unity of the body of Christ and defend the nature of the true Gospel. Unity is always a central theme in Paul’s writing (especially Ephesians; see the “in Christ” language he employs there). But Paul clarifies what he means by “unity”. It’s not a watered down ideology that acquiesces to every opinion or position. What unifies the church is assent to a common reality: the grace of God manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The church is unified in the confession of our common failings; think of Romans 3.23, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” The church is unified in the confession of our common life, now found in the Triune life of God as Father, Son, and Spirit. God invites us into this life through Christ and — because this is solely HIS work — He doesn’t require our assistance to aid Him. Salvation is His work, His business. Those who are advocating circumcision in Paul’s day are elevating human works and corrupting the Gospel, creating a “different gospel” altogether. Against this position, Paul says “we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you,” (v5).

Paul wants to focus the faith-conversation not on ourselves — this is too limiting, a dead-end discussion. Instead, he directs us to the grandness of God’s faithfulness manifest through Christ Jesus. I love how N.T. Wright parses this in The Kingdom New Testament translation of Gal. 2:16: “But we know that a person is not declared ‘righteous’ by works of the Jewish law, but through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah. That is why we too believed in the Messiah, Jesus: so that we might be declared ‘righteous’ on the basis of the Messiah’s faithfulness, and not on the basis of works of the Jewish law. On that basis, you see, no creature will be declared ‘righteous’.”

It’s about Christ’s faithfulness. This is where we find our life. This is where the Law finds its fulfillment. And this is where I am declared righteous in the sight of God.

This is the Gospel.

Reading for Wednesday, May 16: Galatians 1

Sorry I’m a day late with this post. Not having internet at the house is killing me!

Today we shift from reading ABOUT Paul in the final chapters of Acts to words FROM Paul about the nature of the Gospel in Galatians. In this letter, Paul comes out swinging against “false gospels” — narratives or ideologies that would compete with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. The early Christians Paul addresses have turned away from Christ to embrace “a different gospel – not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ,” (v6-7). This sets the tone for some of Paul’s strongest statements in scripture: “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed,” (v9).

We can’t discuss Galatians without delving into at least a few of the specifics of this controversial teaching Paul opposes. We can infer from Paul’s writing that the Gospel message of justification by faith in Christ has been perverted by a group who want to “Judaize” these Gentile converts — to impose certain Old Covenant restrictions upon these who have recently come to Christ. A major issue here is circumcision, the external sign of covenant throughout Hebrew history. Paul’s presentation of the Gospel to these Gentiles could be easily summarized as an equation: Faith in Christ = Salvation. But these Judaizers are claiming this equation is incomplete, adding the following variable: Faith in Christ + Observance of the Old Covenant restrictions = Salvation. This is a bit simplistic, but it at least helps frame our reading. For Paul, adding anything to the equation is an affront to the atoning work of Christ Jesus. He addresses this heresy with some of his strongest and most colorful language, as we’ll see.

Paul knows he will surely be opposed by these false teachers as he seeks to correct the Galatians’ understanding. So he grounds his identity as an apostle in the opening line: “Paul, an apostle — not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father…”. He defends the pure gospel as God’s idea, not the product of human construction: “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ,” (v11-12). Paul spends most of this chapter spelling out his credentials, reminding the Galatians of his identity as a Gospel-bearing apostle before launching into his full-scale attack of the Judaizing heresy. We’ll address that more in depth in the coming days.

In light of our reading, we would be wise to guard ourselves against those things that would compete with the Gospel in our own context. Perhaps we fail to embrace the fullness of God’s Gospel of grace in our lives, believing that we must also somehow “earn” our salvation through a life of good works. Maybe we subscribe to the notion that we must “get it all together” before we can come to Christ. Maybe we bring certain behaviors or positional stances or experiences alongside our encounter with Christ and, like the Judaizers, we elevate these things — either willfully or not — to a dangerous level of equality with the work of Christ as it pertains to our salvation. There are a variety of ways this might be applied to our lives. But the point we should glean from Galatians is to be on guard against the false gospels that surely threaten our faith just as they threatened our Galatian forebears.

How do we counter this? By continually remembering “the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age,” (v4).