Through the Bible - Galatians

Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;) ... Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father. (Galatians 1:1–4)

The letter of liberty—Paul's passionate defense of a gospel of grace against the bondage of legalism.

The Letter of Liberty

How many of you read through the book of Galatians this last week? It's a little easier to tackle—six chapters—and many of you did. As you read, you saw that there's a lot crammed into this little letter. When I first started teaching the Bible to the junior high group back in 1999, this was the very first book I taught through. We spent about six weeks, a chapter a week, and I was amazed at the different things in this book as I studied it verse by verse.

It's easy to skip over things as you read quickly, and in our Bible-reading-in-a-year programs we can pass over things that are very important. When we cover this whole book in just one night, it's impossible to really grasp the great treasures found in these six chapters. So I highly encourage you to go back and read through it carefully and slowly. As you do, you'll see this is like the Bill of Rights for the Christian, or the Magna Carta for the Christian—a Declaration of Liberty.

Background: The Churches of Galatia

On his very first missionary journey, beginning in Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas were separated unto the work God called them to. They took at least John Mark and ventured to the island of Cyprus. After Cyprus, John Mark went back to Jerusalem while Paul and Barnabas went north into the region of Galatia.

Unlike Colossians or Philippians, which were written to single churches, Galatians is written to a whole group of churches. It was there that Paul first ministered, and Timothy was from that region—cities like Lystra and Derbe are mentioned. There Paul was met with opposition and persecution. In one city, people first said he was like a god when he brought the word; then, fickle people that they were, they dragged him outside the city and stoned him almost to death, leaving him for dead. In that context these churches were birthed.

After leaving, Paul and Barnabas went back to Antioch and shared how the Lord had opened the door to the Gentiles. While they were there, a group of Judaizers came into Galatia and seduced the church, telling them that faith in Jesus Christ is not enough for salvation—that you also need to follow the Jewish feast days and be circumcised. Word came back to Paul, and you'll remember the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, where they discussed the gospel going to the Gentiles and gave Paul and Barnabas a letter affirming justification by faith alone. This letter to the Galatians was likely written around that time, just before Paul's second missionary journey.

Paul's Fear: Labor in Vain

Paul is deeply concerned about what happened there. He says in Galatians 3:1, "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?" In 4:11 he says, "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." These are heavy statements that reveal his passion. He gave so much to see this church birthed, and now it has been seduced.

This was an eye-opener for Paul. He talks in this letter about how he once persecuted and sought to destroy the church—and now the churches he planted are being torn down by people doing the very thing he once did. It's almost as if he's watching the work he gave himself to being torn down.

If you were a farmer, how would you know you had labored in vain? There would be no fruit. You would have plowed, planted, and tended the ground, and yet when harvest came, nothing. Paul says, in effect, "I plowed, I planted, I watered, and I left hoping for fruit—and now I hear tares have been sown among the wheat." Yet he says in 4:19, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." He's saying, "I'll labor in birth again that Christ would be formed in you. I'm coming back to share the gospel with you once more."

A Concise Declaration of the Gospel

Notice how he opens in chapter 1. In several other epistles Paul calls himself "a servant" or "a bondslave," but here he says, "Paul, an apostle." He lays out his credentials because he's about to rebuke this church. He writes to "the churches of Galatia"—plural—and even though he stands in doubt of them, he still extends grace and peace.

Whenever we see these two words, we must recognize that they are always from God. You cannot have grace or peace apart from Jesus Christ and God our Father. And grace always comes before peace, because you can't have the peace that surpasses understanding until you've first received by faith the grace of God.

Then in verse 4 he outlines the gospel: Jesus "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world." Nobody took His life from Him; He laid it down of His own accord, as He told Pilate in John 19. In two verses Paul gives a concise, clear declaration of the gospel.

Another Gospel That Is No Gospel

Right after his greeting, Paul says, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel." Just a short time after he brought them the truth, they had been swayed. Yet he adds, "Which is not another"—there is no other good news besides the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. "There be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ."

What the Judaizers taught was a perversion of the complete gospel of Jesus. So Paul says, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." In case they missed it, he says it again in verse 9. The word for accursed is anathema.

This gospel of grace was given by divine revelation—not invented by Paul, Peter, or the other apostles. When God deemed it, He called Paul, set him apart, and sent him to preach to the heathen. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood," Paul says. He didn't ask the disciples in Jerusalem or seek Peter's permission. It was God who called and ordained him. And look at his testimony in verse 23: the churches "had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed." That's one of the coolest testimonies you could possibly have.

Not Justified by the Works of the Law

In chapter 2, beginning in verse 16, Paul makes his case to believers who had departed from the simplicity of justification by faith alone: "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ."

Before Christ met him on the road to Damascus, Paul tried to justify himself by his own works, doing everything in the law to make himself right before God. He fully believed he was doing God's service—even in killing Christians—fulfilling Jesus' prophecy in John that people would kill believers thinking they served God. In Philippians 3 he says that according to the law he was blameless. Yet "by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Underline that.

The Galatians had been deceived into thinking that now that they had faith in Jesus, a right relationship with God required keeping a whole long list—A, B, C, D, all the way down. That's not what God called them to. New believers often slip into legalism, coming up with a standard so that "if I just do these things, I'll be righteous." We don't call it law; we call them "standards." That's fine and good, and the Spirit may indeed lead us. But when you consider yourself righteous based on what you've done, and when you begin pointing fingers at others, you've certainly moved into legalism. This church had become divided over exactly that.

The gospel of grace is about the fact that we could not have done anything, because all our good works are as filthy rags before God (Isaiah 64:6). We must completely trust in and rely upon the work God did on our behalf at the cross.

Crucified with Christ

Paul asks, if while we seek to be justified by Christ we are found still sinners, is Christ the minister of sin? "God forbid." This was Peter's very error, which is why Paul rebuked him to his face. When Peter was among Gentiles, he had no problem eating with them—remember the sheet lowered from heaven, "Rise, kill, and eat." But when Jews of high regard showed up, Peter separated himself, binding himself again. So Paul says, "If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor."

"For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." The whole purpose of the gospel is that we might live unto God, with Christ in us. Then comes that great verse many of you have memorized: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

As Romans 7 reveals, we're dead to the law and dead to sin. That doesn't mean we don't follow the Lord in obedience—but not to win righteousness; rather, from the position of righteousness. We do good works to bring glory to our Father, as Jesus said in Matthew 5, "that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Paul adds, "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." If there were any way to be saved by the law, the cross was unnecessary. In Gethsemane, three times Jesus asked if there was another way, and what He heard was silence—because there is no other way.

The Spirit, Not the Flesh

"O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?" Then Paul asks, "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?... having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?"

When you came to Christ by grace through faith, it was a work of His Spirit causing you to be born again. To Nicodemus, a learned Pharisee, Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God... that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It's Christ who does the work. If you received the Spirit by faith, how could you possibly perfect yourself by the flesh? Paul even asks whether the miracles he worked among them came by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith—obviously, by the Spirit.

Abraham, the Father of Faith

Paul then shows that even before the law, Abraham was justified by grace through faith: "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness" (Genesis 15:6). Over the next chapters, from chapter 3 through 4, Paul reveals his excellent knowledge of the Old Testament, firing off verses like a machine gun from Genesis, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Isaiah.

"They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." Today we are grafted into Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ. The Jews emphasized being children of Abraham, but Jesus said God could make children of Abraham out of stones. Being of Abraham's bloodline means nothing—Ishmael was of his bloodline, born of the flesh, but not the child of promise. Paul uses Hagar and Sarah to illustrate this. As he says in Romans 9, "not all Israel are Israel." Those who come to God by faith receive the same blessing Abraham did.

The Just Shall Live by Faith

In verse 11 Paul shows that no man is justified by the law in God's sight, and it is evident—because Habakkuk 2:4 says, "The just shall live by faith." Those six words have transformed millions of lives, launching reformations and revivals.

Martin Luther, a Catholic monk in Germany studying the Scriptures at Wittenberg, read these words in Habakkuk 2 and Romans 1, and his understanding of the righteousness imputed by grace through faith was radically transformed—from which began the Protestant Reformation. So too with John Wesley. He believed himself a Christian and did many marvelous works, but had he died then, I believe he would have stood before God hearing, "Depart from me, I never knew you." Years later, at a small Bible study on Aldersgate Street in London, a man read from Luther's preface to Romans, and Wesley said his heart was "strangely warmed" as God transformed him by these words: the just shall live by faith.

These six words appear in Habakkuk 2, Romans 1, and Hebrews 10, and each emphasizes a different aspect. Romans focuses on the just—how we are justified. Galatians emphasizes shall live—that having been justified by faith, we must also walk and live by faith. Hebrews focuses on by faith, with an entire chapter, chapter 11, dedicated to those who lived by faith.

The Whole Law, or None

"The law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them." Leviticus 18 teaches that if you're going to keep one of the laws, you must keep them all. A legalist is choosy—keeping five or six laws while neglecting the rest. Jesus dealt with this among the Pharisees: they tithed mint and cumin, counting nine pieces for themselves and one for God, delicate in certain laws while neglecting the weightier matters—love, justice, and mercy.

It's in man's sinful nature to pick the laws he likes and discard the rest. Even today people say we must keep all the commandments but needn't worry about the Sabbath because Jesus never mentioned it. The church remains choosy. But if you try to justify yourself by even a few laws, you're in debt to keep them all; break the law in one point, and you're guilty of everything.

The Law as Schoolmaster

So what is the purpose of the law? We find the answer in 3:24: "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." Verse 19 says it "was added because of transgressions." The law was given so we would know that we are sinners before God who need a Savior. Without the law there is no knowledge of sin; as Paul says in Romans 7, "I had not known sin, but by the law... Thou shalt not covet."

The law brings us to Christ "that we might be justified by faith." But here's the problem: the Jews and many religious people get stuck on the law itself. Imagine telling your kids you're taking them to Disneyland. You drive all the way there, pull up to the sign, and then say, "All right, kids, we're here"—and you all sit down in front of the sign for six hours admiring it. "Isn't it a beautiful sign? Let's look at it from another angle." Yet you never enter the park to experience the joy of the rides.

That's what religion is. They get focused on the law instead of its fulfillment. The law was the sign pointing the way to Jesus, and they got so hung up on the sign they never entered into the fullness. The law was weak in that it could not justify—not because the law itself is bad (it is holy, just, and good), but because it exposes our weakness, our inability to keep it.

"After that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus... There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." For 2,000 years God let man try on his own, from Adam's fall until Moses; then for another 2,000 years He let man try according to His perfect law—all to show that man can't do it his own way or even God's way, and so must follow Christ, the only one who can.

Stand Fast in Liberty

These were hard words, and I'm sure they broke the Galatians' hearts. But the rest of the New Testament shows that this church received the word, for when Paul later visited them he was greatly encouraged.

In chapter 5 he exhorts: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing—because you'd then be a debtor to keep the whole law. "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace."

I fear there are people in the church in America today who have fallen from grace. That doesn't necessarily mean they're no longer Christians—it means they've become entangled again in the bondage of legalism, with set standards that say, "If I just don't smoke, drink, or chew, and don't run with those who do, I'll be righteous." God never said that. Some things aren't edifying or expedient, and Paul rightly refuses to be entangled by them—but God never said doing or avoiding these things makes you righteous.

We think people with tattoos or people who smoke must be unrighteous. But the unrighteous are those who have not placed their faith in Jesus Christ. Our righteousness is not according to our works but according to His work on our behalf: "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Are we practically righteous today—living perfectly? No. We are positionally righteous because we are in Christ. We still sin, but a day is coming when this corruption will put on incorruption. So "we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith," awaiting the manifestation of the sons of God.

Walk in the Spirit

"In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" You started well, but now you've been tripped up and brought back into bondage. "This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you." God didn't call you to this; you've entangled yourself with a heavy yoke you can't bear. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

Yet Paul has confidence God will finish what He began, just as he writes in Philippians 1:6. "Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh." Don't make liberty a license to sin. Many Jews feared that telling Gentiles about grace would send them running into sin—but that puts no faith in God's power to sustain, sanctify, and cleanse us. "By love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Here is the key to a life of righteousness. "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Circle that word cannot. It's not that you won't—if you have a new heart that desires to obey God yet you walk in the flesh, you will never fulfill what you desire; you'll always fail. That's Romans 7: the will to do good is present, but walking in the flesh, "the good that I would I do not." So we must walk in the Spirit. "But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law."

The Works of the Flesh and the Fruit of the Spirit

The works of the flesh are manifest: "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before... that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

This verse has been used to destroy many believers—"You did this, so you won't inherit the kingdom." But the word do is in the present active tense: not someone who falls into sin, but who practices such things presently and actively. It's the same tense Jesus uses in "depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Those actively practicing such things prove they are not truly children of God, because a child of God will desire not to practice them. We might fall and fail—and then we confess, and He is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse us. But if you can practice sin with no conviction and no desire to turn away, you're not a Christian. If that's you tonight, you need to repent.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." The fruit of the Spirit is completely in line with God's law. If you want to fulfill God's law and be a glory to your Father, walk in the Spirit—because the fruit of the Spirit fulfills God's law every time. You'll never find a law saying "thou shalt not have joy" except among man's laws. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

Bearing One Another's Burdens

"Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." When we try to help someone in sin, we tend to look down—"I'll help you up, but you should never have gotten yourself into this." No: take heed when you think you stand, lest you fall. Restore in gentleness, because you may be tempted in that very thing.

"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." Notice verse 2 says bear one another's burdens, but verse 5 says "every man shall bear his own burden." This is where the English fails. The word for burden in verse 2 means heaviness or trouble; in verse 5 it's a different word meaning your weight, your load, your lot. You carry your own lot, but when a brother is overtaken in a trespass, go and bear his burden and fulfill the law of love.

"For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself." That's a good verse to memorize, especially for us guys.

Sowing and Reaping

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Here is the law of sowing and reaping. There's that old saying about a man who sows his wild oats on Saturday night and then prays for a crop failure on Sunday morning. "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." You'll reap the consequences of your actions.

But this works both ways: "he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Sometimes people say, "I keep trying to walk with the Lord and I keep failing; I'm ready to give up." No—sow to the Spirit, keep walking in the Spirit, and you shall reap. Don't grow weary in well-doing. "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith."

Paul's Closing Warning

Paul finishes: "Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand." Paul wrote this letter himself, whereas many of his epistles were dictated—in Romans 16, Tertius actually wrote as Paul dictated. It's believed from this very letter that Paul had trouble with his eyes; he had no good bifocals or transition lenses back then.

"As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ." The Judaizers pushed circumcision only to avoid Jewish persecution. But Paul didn't count his life dear. In Acts 20, when they warned him not to go to Jerusalem where he would be bound, he said, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself." He would preach Christ even if it meant persecution.

There are Christians today, maybe in this room, afraid to preach the gospel because someone at work might say something bad, tease them, or ask a question they can't answer. Paul is the great example: he didn't count his life dear. The Judaizers, by contrast, didn't even keep the whole law themselves; they only had an appearance of righteousness, not true righteousness. That's what religion is.

Ultimately, a legalistic religious life will never have two things: joy and humility. You'll have no joy because you'll always know in your heart that you fail; and you'll have no humility because you must maintain an appearance before men and pretend you have it all together. Religion doesn't lead people to the righteousness of Christ. That is found only by grace through faith.

That's what this letter is all about—grace, and the peace that comes from God as we place our faith in Him, as He gives us liberty in Christ and sets us free to live unto God. Not to go out and sin, but to live to God as we now desire to do—because when you're born again by the Spirit of God, He gives you a new heart that desires to follow and serve Him. That new desire is one of the first indications a person has been born again: a desire to follow and serve the King of kings.

Closing Prayer

Father, I thank You for this great book—just a very small letter, and yet so packed with truth. Lord, I pray that if there be among us tonight any who have found themselves bound by legalism, trying to do a long list of things to make themselves righteous or holy, that by Your word they would come to the truth and the understanding that righteousness is only found in You, by grace through faith. We thank You that You have given us Your righteousness; we are clothed tonight in Your righteousness because of the work You did on our behalf. I pray that You would set us free to live toward You, to walk in the Spirit, not fulfilling the lust of our flesh, and that the fruit of the Spirit would be evident in my life and in the lives of my brothers and sisters here—love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control. As we walk in the Spirit, may we do just what You have called us to do, obeying the truth of the gospel. And I pray You would give us opportunity to share the truth of the gospel with our family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers who don't know You. Give us boldness to speak the gospel of peace, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.