Galatians 3

March 4, 2018

Evening Service

Sean Higgins

Download the Kids’ Korner.

Or, Why the Blessing of Justification Never Comes by Works of the Law

There is something that draws human beings to rules. There is something divine about it, and something damning about it. The part that’s divine is that we are made in the image of a holy God. He is not just righteous, He is perfect. That’s who He is, so He created us bent to be straight. His first recorded words to Adam and Eve were a commission and a prohibition because His righteous character will express itself necessarily in definable ways. As creatures created to mirror Him we innately want to identify and prioritize standards.

The part that is damning is when our bent is bent, and in particular when we want to go beyond receiving His rules to determining the rules. We are built to run according to certain laws, so we are laws-loving machines, but then sin causes us to tweak the laws, or the purpose of the laws, to our own benefit. This sort of law-altering is, ironically, breaking the actual law of God, and it also causes us to overestimate what the law can do. This approach persuades us to give the law creative power when actually the law only has reflective power. It can show what righteousness is like, but it is powerless to produce righteousness.

Because we are sinners we are both benefited by the God’s law and threatened by it. Because we are sinners the law can help us but only by pointing away from itself to the Savior. Those who treat the law as a savior find that it’s actually a curse.

In order to be righteous we need God’s blessing. Justification, as in being declared righteous in the sight of God, only occurs by God’s promise, not by our productivity. We receive His work by faith, we cannot work to make Him receive us. The two approaches are contradictory schemes, as John Calvin referred to them, and the contrast between them rumbles back and forth in Galatians 3.

The churches in Galatia had been “deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (1:6). But Paul was eager “that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” (2:5), that the death of Christ and the grace of God not be nullified (2:21).

In Galatians 3 Paul presents these contradictory schemes of justification, one of which does not actually enable justification, and shows that the schemes are not similar elements such as unleaded or leaded gas, but are opposed to each other, like fire and water.

1. Receiving the Spirit and Being Counted Righteous Happens by Faith, Not the Law (verses 1-6)

The Galatians had experienced salvation and witnessed miracles and endured suffering, and they knew that none of that happened because of their works. As Paul gave his own testimony of God’s direct and immediate grace at the start of the letter, now he reminds them of their testimony.

They were foolish for attributing power to the law, and Paul implies that they were bewitched, as in, dark forces must have cast a spell and gained control over their thinking. They had heard the message about Christ so vividly that it was as if they had seen Him publicly portrayed as crucified, but now were acting enchanted by something else.

They had also received the Spirit. Let me ask you only this, as if he said, “there’s only one thing you need to tell me. You had one job, to remember your faith.” How did it happen, by works of the law or by hearing with faith? To ask was to answer; it was as basic as asking how did you get full, by fasting or by eating? And really, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? That’s not how it happens.

Their suffering, and their witnessing of miracles among you didn’t come about because by works of the law. That’s never how it’s happened, actually. Righteousness, both in conversion and in consecration, comes by hearing with faith. N[...]