Monthly Archive for March, 2000

Positional truth [in Christ Jesus] is the Christian’s status quo before God forever. The moment we become a Christian, God gives us the same status that Jesus has in His eyes forever. God views us just like He views His son. Jesus is perfect; therefore, God views us as perfect. Jesus has eternal life; therefore, we have eternal life.

The entire Christian life revolves around our position in Christ. Our status in Him is purely spiritual. There is nothing outward or mechanical about it. It is not dependent on religious rites such as circumcision or baptism.

neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything,

“Circumcision” was the outward sign of being a Jew. Legalism does not have power to produce results with God.

The word “avails” means to be strong, to prevail indicating forceful ability. There is no overpowering force in circumcision or in uncircumcision, that is, legalism.

but faith working through love

Genuine faith shows itself in love. It is not passive and inactive. Faith does not need the law to move it toward love. Love energizes faith.

The New Testament always uses the word “working” for a supernatural work. God supernaturally works on our faith through love. God’s love is a great motivating power.

You have become estranged from Christ,

When Christians involve themselves in legalism, they becomes “estranged from Christ.” The word “estranged” means to make inoperative, bring to nothing, make of no effect. Legalism renders our relationship with Christ ineffective. It paralyzes our spiritual life by producing a deadening effect on our spirituality.

you

The second word for “you” in this verse means whoever. The emphasis is upon the class of people who attempt justification by law. The principle of this verse applies to everyone, saved or lost – it is a universal principle. In the immediate context, Paul addresses weak Christians in Galatia who were in the process of changing their theology of salvation by grace to one based on works. Even if people change their theology, this does not change their status quo with God but it will render them ineffective in their spiritual life.

who attempt to be justified by law;

Those who attempt to be justified by the law estrange themselves from Christ and fall from grace. The present tense of the word “justified” implies that the Galatians were contemplating justification by the law. They had not fully come to that place yet.

you have fallen from grace

The words “fallen from” is literally to fall out of. Legalists are outside grace. They cannot experience God’s grace while they are in the way. A person falls from grace when he seeks salvation by merit. The Greek tense [aorist] indicates that at the point people enter legalism, they fall from the grace principle.

Paul challenged Galatian Christians to take a stand on their liberty [grace] (5:1,2) but they fell from the privileges of that standing. They put themselves in a place where they could no longer benefit from Christ. Either Christ must be everything or nothing to us. He does not accept divided loyalty. We must not lose our hold on Christ for daily living otherwise we will fall from the higher level of living by grace to the lower level of legalism. It is possible to receive the grace of God in vain (2 Corinthians 6:1). God wants us to “continue” in the grace of God (Acts 13:43).

“Grace” is not salvation in itself but it is God’s way for us to engage salvation. Paul does not speak of someone losing their salvation in this verse but of the method by which one engages in a relationship with God.

Indeed I, Paul,

Paul asserts his apostolic authority on the issue of trying to gain God’s approbation by works or merit versus Christ gaining the merit for us. “Take note of what I am about to tell you regarding works righteousness.”

say to you that if you become circumcised,

Circumcision was a Jewish ceremony of cutting off the foreskin of a male child to initiate him into Judaism. It was a sign of God’s covenant relation with His people (Genesis 17:11,14). The issue is not circumcision itself but circumcision as a religious method to gain God’s favor. It is not a factor in salvation or sanctification.

Christ will profit you nothing

The word “profit” conveys the ideas of to assist, to be useful or advantageous. We have no advantage in Christ, if we do all the work. Seeking God’s acceptance by merit violates Christ’s person and work. The sacrifice of Christ is no advantage to us if we use religious ceremony as our basis for approaching God.

Paul uses an historical situation to illustrate the superiority of grace over legalism. Although the Greek word for “are symbolic” is the term for allegory, this is not an allegory in the sense of hiding a truth behind fiction. We can translate this phrase as “which contain an allegory” [NASB]. Paul uses the actual history of Sarah and Hagar as an illustration allegorically. He does not interpret Genesis 16-21 allegorically. He carefully connects these women with an interpretation that is true to the facts of Scripture.

The word “which” means which class of things. Therefore, we can take these things in principle and can apply it to our lives today.

For these are the two covenants:

Hagar, the slave, represents the Mosaic covenant – the Law. Sarah represents the Abrahamic covenant, the covenant of promise. The Abrahamic covenant was an unconditional promise. The responsibility to fulfill that covenant rested entirely on God, not on Abraham.

Paul already made the point that the purpose of the Law is to demonstrate our need for a Saviour (Galatians 3:10). It is not a system of salvation or sanctification.

the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—

Paul uses the situation of the birth of the two sons of Abraham as a “symbolic” illustration of the contrast between law and grace. He turns an historical situation into an illustration. In the illustration Hagar, as a slave, represents the law. Sarah, as free, represents grace.

Legalists appeal to the Mosaic covenant. Grace oriented people appeal to the promise of grace in the Abrahamic covenant.

for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—

Paul introduces another corresponding metaphor – the contrast between the earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusalem. The word “corresponds” is literally to stand in the same rank with. The Jerusalem that “now is” is the Jerusalem of Paul’s day. “Mount Sinai” is the location where Moses received the Law. Both the Jerusalem of Paul’s day and Mount Sinai stand in the same rank with legalism.

but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.

True believers are children of “the Jerusalem above” and this Jerusalem is “free.” We do not gain God’s favor by merit; we receive God’s grace freely (Galatians 5:1; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18). Freedom is the mother of grace. Salvation and sanctification are free because of the finished work of Christ on the cross.

For it is written:

“Rejoice, O barren,
You who do not bear!
Break forth and shout,
You who are not in labor!
For the desolate has many more children
Than she who has a husband.”

This verse is a quotation from Isaiah 54:1, which is a prophecy of the future of Israel. The quote speaks of Israel’s captivity in Babylon. Israel was like married woman without children. The woman with “many more children” is Israel restored to the land especially during the Millennium when Christ will reign on earth. Christians operate in the new Jerusalem by grace, not works. Whether in the new Jerusalem in heaven or in the restored Jerusalem in the Millennium, Christians reside there by grace.