galatians 5:1-5:12

we'll read it quickly.

1. It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
2. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
3. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.
4. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
5. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.
6. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
7. You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?
8. This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you.
9. A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.
10. I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt no other view; but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
11. But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished.
12. I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.

so...what do we see in this passage?
paul there is a bit of an emotional peak here. or at least it seems that way to me.

you'll see paul's personal appeal here -
he encourages them, he warns them,
he's upset with them for their failure.
it's a lot like you feel after your kid runs into the street. you're scared, you're mad, you want to make sure they don't do it again.

on the bright side, it's not hugely difficult to grasp either, which is a nice change after his illustrations involving mountains and slaves.

v1 - the start of the summary

you should have a pretty good idea of where paul stands on this whole law vs grace thing at this point.
the law is slavery to a standard that you can't meet.
in the language of top gun, your religion is writing checks your humanity can't cash.

"it was for freedom that christ set us free"

prior to christ, they were guilty - they had violated the law of god.
romans 1:18,19 speaks of humanity without christ being under the wrath of god.
i'll, um, read it.

18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19. because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

that's the state of the galatians before christ. us too actually.
then christ came and set us free.

- free from the wrath of god, from guilt ('real' and emotional)
- also free from the goal of attempting to earn our own innocence, a bit of a fools errand anyway..

"therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery"

well, when you say it like that...
this is about 90% of galatians here right?

(galatians background in 3 sentences)
some folks came and told them that they were jr level weebelos until the earned their innocence.
everyone who wasn't doing so wasn't really all *that* innocent...

but actually, what looks like a powerup for christians turns out to be...slavery.

so - if you didn't have this done yet - earning righteousness through the law is not part of the gospel. it's the opposite of the gospel.

v2-6 - the bottom line

that's pretty direct eh? we'll go verse by verse

2. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.

you get snipped, you get cut. as in from the team.

3. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.

basically...if you decide to embrace circumcision, you're up for the whole law

but but but i have this 'friend' who is circumcised? is he under obligation the law?

no, no...relax little buddy. your 'friend' is ok.
paul is talking to the people who are getting circumcised to be more 'law' abiding.
to earn innocence before god.

you may be surprised to learn that paul was circumcised. and that he had timothy circumcised (a chapter after the jerusalem council, for those of you pushing for an 'exceeds expectations'). acts 16:1-3

1. Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. And a disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek,
2. and he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium.
3. Paul wanted this man to go with him; and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

so...to be clear...the problem isn't the foreskin. the problem is the meaning.

christians are not saved because they are good people.
in fact, a christian *can not even believe* that they are saved because they are a good person.

capiche?

4. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

those of you who believe you can earn your innocence by the law...you're not christians.
ouch.
but really folks. they're mutually exclusive beliefs.

you can't believe both that jesus covered your sin and made you inncent...and that you earned your innocence.

besides that...can you ever undo guilt? i mean come on here.

if you've ever sinned, you're guilty.
unless your name is marty mcfly, you'll never be able to undo your guilt once you've earned it...unless there's a way that doesn't depend on what you do (paging mr christ)

5. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.

two nice things about this verse:
1 - a great picture of salvation.

we are currently in a state of waiting. waiting for the final completion of our salvation, when we are freed from 'this body of sin and death' and united to christ.

2 - an intro the theme that the life we now live is by the Spirit

this is going to be developed with some wonderful detail in the rest of the book...

6. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

fantastic!
again, paul is going to develop this more in the coming weeks. but faith working through (expressed through) love...that is of the spirit.
that's the mark of christianity.

so...summary of 2-6?

circumcision, keeping the law...doing stuff to earn innocence?
not the gospel.

v7-10. throw the bums out!

"you guys were doing great! everything was great!"
(and then...this?)
"somebody convinced you of this crap...get rid of them"
"...ah...you'll turn out. i know you'll be ok. but those guys teaching lies to you, they're gonna get what they deserve."

v9 leaven?

leaven is what they used for yeast. basically yeast in fact.
they would take some dough that had yeast in it, and introduce it to other dough...and the yeast would grow.
like we dough with sourdough.

more importantly than bread baking for our current discussion is that leaven is a picture of sin.
at passover, you had to make a big show about finding and getting rid of all the leaven.
paul uses the leaven-as-sin picture in 1 cor as well.

it really is a good parallel. the spread of yeast through dough, how it grows and permeates...

note: you were running well...

please note this.
just because you were doing well yesterday doesn't mean you will be doing well tomorrow.
it is hard to believe that unfortunately when things are going well, but we are reminded to abide, to run, to perservere, to fight, etc all over in scripture.

you can not coast in christianity.

v11-12 - paul verses the false teachers

v11 "if i still preach circumcision"

what? did anyone say paul did?
well...not in galatians. but maybe somebody said he was? either way it's clear that he isn't about to.
also, note that if he was doing so, that his ministry would be much easier. the jews are the ones who make life difficult for paul in his ministry as you read acts.
so christ may be good news, news of freedom. but it isn't always well received.

v12 strong words from paul

preaching circumcision? i was kind of hoping you might just slice the whole thing off.
most everyone takes this as some strong rhetorical sarcasm/hyperbole from paul.
strong words, strong feelings. the kind of thing where you'd look at the crowd and be like, well...(shrug)

conclusion

so...i kinda want to revisit v3-4.
i'll read it for you.

3. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.
4. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

as we talked about, you can't believe both that jesus covered your sin and made you inncent...and that you earned your innocence.
that's the core message of galatians.
we can talk about the ethics of living as a christian, about how that should look.
but we can not talk about what saves us, what gives us peace with god, and why we don't deserve hell any longer - that's absolute.

an example: testimonies

christians have a habit of asking other people in a church for their 'testimony'.
in general, the story can pretty much have any details you want, so long as it centers around you realizing your guilt and the wrath of god, you understanding that christ died and made a way for you to be innocent, and you accepting this through faith ('repent and believe').

sadly...if you hear many of these, you will hear a lot of people talk about being 'good people'.
that is not the gospel
we go to heaven because we believed that christ suffered and died and covered our sins, and gave us innocence - we place our faith in him, not in ourselves.
the christian needs to believe that he/she is guilty, and can't undo that guilt by trying harder, by avoiding porn, or by feeding orphans.
the christian needs to believe that christ's blood covers our guilt - and that we don't have it anymore. it's gone, nothing left to do.
change these things, and you have a different religion.

when i was in college, i spent some time doing street evangelism.

kind of two motives behind it:

- it's not fun. so you kind of feel like...well...maybe i don't want to do it because it's not fun, but i should. so doing it shows yourself that you're trying.
- the second one...well, basically it's a "if you haven't done it, how do you know it doesn't work?"
anyway, i did it for a while.

hindsight? i probably should have done something else, especially with my inability to converse with humans.
but one odd thing - the people that would talk to me, all talked about how they were good people because of something they did, or because their grandfather was a pastor, or whatever.
that is a sad thing to hear from the perspective of the gospel.

so here's my prayer for us:

that we would be able to clearly convey this aspect of the gospel.
in our own minds, and in our words.

1 cor 6:9-11 expresses it a bit interestingly:

9. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
10. nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
11. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

that's who the christianity is for - those who recognize themselves as such.
may god help us to hang on to that, to avoid pride, and to avoid believing that we earned our innocence.

overview: v1-12 is sort of a summary. the transition to paul's conclusion.