LESSON 1:
THE NEED
“What’s your source for that? Did you fact-check it? Is that fake news?” Such is the buzz in our society these days. But as King Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9). People have always tried to refute messages they don’t like, either by finding holes in the argument, by discrediting the source, or by vilifying the messenger. And we must admit, if the argument, the source or the messenger are defective, well, maybe there’s something wrong with the message! It’s good to make sure. Are you sure? How confident are you about who’s called you, how, and to what as a Christian?
THE STORY
There’s a good chance this epistle is the earliest New Testament text. How fascinating to read it as possibly the first recorded witness of the Christian faith! And why did it get written? There was a crisis going on that threatened to shatter the newborn Church, the apostle Paul was right in the middle of it, and he was compelled to tackle it head on. In short, a faction of the earliest Jewish Christians, in the Jerusalem church, contended that non-Jews who received Christ in faith had to “finalize” their saved status by fully submitting to the Mosaic law, thus becoming truly the children of Abraham. This faction sent their missionaries out to Gentile churches planted by Paul to “fix” the “defective” gospel Paul had preached to them. Well, Paul had a few words to say about that! Those words are his epistle to the Galatians.
THE TEXT
I. The Ground of Grace (Galatians 1:1-5)
The apostle immediately paints a picture for the Galatian Christians. It’s the portrait of a God completely committed to completely extracting us from hostile territory. That’s the real sense of “to pull us out of this present evil age.” The true meaning of grace is not only what God has done but why: His fierce drive and unyielding passion to save.
Discussion: Why was redemption “the will of our God and Father” and what could “drive” our Creator to such lengths to make it happen? What do these verses tell us about grace as a quality of God (not just a thing that He gives us)? In the final analysis, what is the ground of grace on which we can confidently stand?
II. The Departure From Grace (Galatians 1:6-9)
Paul launches right into the matter that has driven him to write to the Galatians: his shock, yes, his outrage, that the Galatians are “deserting” him and his gospel to embrace…something else! Perhaps you’d expect Paul to say the Galatians are deserting “the gospel of grace,” but he says it a bit different, doesn’t he! They’re deserting the one “who called you by the grace of Christ.”
Discussion: Paul has a unique, unexpected way of putting things! He doesn’t simply say that he told the Galatians about grace. Rather, the apostle called them by the grace of Christ. How is that different from the way we usually think of evangelizing? In this light, what was Christ Himself doing through Paul while Paul preached? How does this relate to the Great Commission? What does this say about the authority of Paul’s gospel?
III. Revelation of Divine Grace (Galatians 1:10-17)
In these 8 verses, the apostle says essentially three things: “I’m no people-pleaser; my gospel came straight from the Risen Christ Himself; only God could have turned me, an enemy, into Christ’s devoted slave.” The central point the apostle seems to hammer is that absolutely no one “gave” or “taught” him this saving news other than God Himself.
Discussion: Why was it so important for Paul to hammer this point home, that only God turned him from a persecutor to a slave of Christ, only God revealed the saving gospel to him, and Paul wasn’t worried about winning any popularity contests? (An interesting question: what could the false preachers have been telling the Galatians about Paul that provoked him to set the record straight so fiercely?) Also, did you notice that Paul was called “by grace” the same way he called the Galatians “by the grace of Christ”? Key words here: “calling,” “grace,” “revelation.” What do these key words say about the true Gospel of Christ and its power?
THE IMPACT
Application: In your personal prayer and reading time, in your quiet communion with God, try reflecting on what God has done in your life that no one else, including yourself, could ever have done. Consider how each thing He has done—including the Ultimate Thing He has done for you—shows what “grace” means. And then…try to formulate your own working definition of “grace.”
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LESSON 2:
THE NEED
Fait accompli: a phrase we don’t hear so much these days. It means “accomplished fact,” a “done deal,” something you can’t turn back. What are there more of in your life: “done deals” or “not-done deals”? Christians speak about “assurance,” that is, the certainty we’re saved. Well, what about that? Is your salvation a fait accompli? Do you answer that question based on how you feel about it or based on what God has done? In other words, do we put faith in faith, or does faith mean absolute trust in God’s accomplishment? Finally, how does our trust in the fait accompli change us?
THE STORY
Emissaries from the Law-faction in the Jerusalem church were preaching to Paul’s converts in Galatia that the deal wasn’t done. Their pitch was, sure, you took a great first step by believing in Jesus, but God’s promise to make Abraham “the father of many nations” will never come true in your lives until you completely follow the Old Testament law. This was backwards theology, as one commentator points out this way: Paul says the law was given to lead us to Christ, but Paul’s opponents preached that Christ was given to lead us to the Law. Can you imagine two more opposite gospels? No wonder Paul says that their “gospel” was no gospel at all!
THE TEXT
I. Blessings by Faith (Galatians 3:1-5)
What’s the key thing the apostle drives home here? What is the Big Thing that’s already happened, the thing that should settle the whole controversy? Paul says it clear: “The only thing I want to know is this! How did you receive the Spirit?” This is a cornerstone argument of the epistle: God already gave you His Spirit—it’s a fait accompli. And what was God’s basis for doing so? Your faith. If that was God’s basis, how dare anyone say it’s not good enough! God would never have given His Spirit to those who weren’t His children. Therefore, nothing these “Jerusalem missionaries” are pushing on the Galatians, as if to make them God’s children, is legitimate.
Discussion: What’s better, to focus on the strength of our faith or the strength of God’s accomplishment that we believe in? What kinds of issues in your life are settled by “the Big Thing” that God has done for you?
II. Justified by Faith (Galatians 3:6-9)
“Justified”—a crucial word in Holy Scripture! It is based on the idea of righteousness. That, in a nutshell, means the opposite of everything that is sin. It means being in no way opposed to God or clashing with His character and will. It’s perfect harmony with the Creator’s holiness and love. Now that’s a tall order! But here Paul stakes his entire gospel and life on this non-negotiable: God receives us as righteous when we, like “Father Abraham,” believe Him. Which the Galatians did when they received the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No form, brand or version of law can top that.
Discussion: Perhaps you believe you’re “made righteous” by faith, but you don’t feel very righteous (especially like the “tall order” definition given here!). How could such feelings make the Galatians “easy pickings” for these false preachers? How can fuller understanding of Christ’s accomplishment help you with these feelings?
III. Living by Faith (Galatians 3:10-12)
Relying on the works of the law is a hopeless exercise, since no amount of human effort can accomplish what God actually has accomplished. This is Paul’s constant refrain: God has done it! Relying on anything else means dooming oneself to endless frustration. Now let’s be clear: the prophetic words that Paul quotes, from Habbakuk 2:4, do not say that all a person needs for salvation is the right idea in his/her mind. Salvation is far too concrete for that. We are not saved by ideas. First of all, we are saved by God’s concrete act in Christ. Secondly, the faith that the righteous will live by is faithfulness, a whole-hearted submission to the truth, proven by a life transformed by truth.
Discussion: Whose “faithfulness” saves us, ours or Christ’s? What door did His faithfulness open to us? To whom is Christ “faithful”? How should your answer to that question encourage you?
IV. Freedom by Faith (Galatians 3:20-25)
The apostle is appalled at this “other” gospel, because it misses the whole point. And by missing the point it invites the Galatians back into slavery. Freedom lies at the heart of Christ’s redemption; it’s a liberation from the powers of sin and death, won by Christ’s faithfulness. Keep in mind: Paul is writing to Gentiles who never followed the Mosaic Law. Yet he writes that “we” were in prison under the law “until faith came.” Whether it was Moses’ law, or the law of our own consciences, we were all trapped in law’s hopeless cycle before Christ shattered it. Twice in this passage Paul emphasizes that faith has now been revealed, has come, with Christ. That is, a whole new dimension of faith has come with Christ’s Resurrection (2 Cor. 5:17).
Discussion: What responsibility comes with this unprecedented freedom we have in Christ? If we are not under the law, then where do we get our cues for living the way God wants? Is this realistic? Do you believe it?
THE IMPACT
Application: How can faithfulness express your faith in the coming week? How can God’s Spirit prove you belong to Christ?
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LESSON 3:
THE NEED
“The other day I was on the phone with (ahem) the queen of England, and I said, ‘You know, Liz, the outfit you wore to the state dinner wasn’t quite your best color….’”
Name-dropping. Letting others know that you know the famous and powerful and they know you. It makes us feel more significant, as if some of their importance rubs off. It’s comical when you stop to think about it, yet the temptation is hard to resist! Surely it’s because we were created to know and be known, and our deepest soul longs for recognition in the loving gaze of our Creator. To know that He knows us, and calls us His own….
THE STORY
The apostle Paul is continuing to untangle, both emotionally and “technically,” the confusing mess the law-faction emissaries have made of the pure Gospel of Christ. In today’s readings the apostle will passionately reiterate that we all, in Christ, are heirs, fully adopted, and no longer slaves. That means all of us no matter who we were before! Yes, even a Law-abiding Pharisee like Paul—he recognizes he was spiritually no better off than an idolater before the power of Christ broke in on him. He longs for his beloved Galatian believers to see that, too, once and for all. It’s the only way they’ll shake off the troublemakers and forge ahead in Christ.
THE TEXT
I. Heirs Through Christ (Galatians 3:26-29)
“All of you are one in Christ Jesus.” You “clothed” yourselves with Him, were “baptized into” Him. You “belong” to Him. In these few verses the apostles presses fiercely on his beloved Galatian Christians the all-sufficiency of Christ, which they should have understood already. Jesus is the consummation of every promise and provision in redemption’s plan. There is no addendum. Whoever “has the Son” (1 John 5:12) possesses the fullness of this redemption. There’s no first-class, business-class and economy section in Salvation. And no stowaways, either! There’s only family. “You are…heirs according to the promise” and the Christ we belong to is the Embodiment of that promise!
Discussion: How real is it to you that Christ is the full embodiment of God’s promises? How convinced are you that you are as much the inheritor of these promises as every other child of God? Why is it important to really see and live by these truths?
II. Adoption of Sons (Galatians 4:1-5)
Something subtle to us, but probably not so subtle to the epistle’s first readers, is how often the apostle writes “we.” The Law-gospel preachers must have been telling the Galatians, “You aren’t really with us yet! Believing in the Messiah is good, but without the law you remain slaves of the flesh, not inheritors of the promise like us!”
But look how Paul, a former member of the esteemed Pharisaical (purist) movement, writes to these Gentiles: “We were minors, we were enslaved;…we were adopted….”
Can this Hebrew of Hebrews really be saying that he was spiritually in the same boat as idol-worshipping pagans—until the moment was ripe for God to send His Son? It’s exactly what he’s saying. This must have infuriated the false preachers, who’d deny they were ever in such a sorry state.
But Paul is a radical for Christ; with him it’s all or nothing. Either all of us in Christ were redeemed from the same slavery, or no one was. And if redeemed from the same slavery, then ushered into the same sonship. “All who are in Christ are Abraham’s children—period!” says the radical Paul.
Discussion: How radically has Christ transformed your status? Who are you now that you were not before He was revealed to your heart? From what slavery exactly has Christ freed us? In what sense are you a “child of Abraham”? Why is that phrase meaningful in the history of salvation?
III. No Longer Slaves (Galatians 4:6-11)
Verse 6, so often quoted, set to melody, memorized and recited by Christians down through the millennia—this poetically simple yet vivid image of the Father directing the very “spirit” of His beloved Son to dwell in our hearts, to unite our voices to His in one cry of love, “Abba! Father!”….
Yes, verse 6 is all this. But in its immediate context verse 6 is also a brilliantly dry, technical, you might say lawyerly argument: Exhibit A in Paul’s case against the false preachers.
Those who have entered Christ’s kingdom, they are the ones—no, let’s say it Paul’s way: YOU are the ones God’s Spirit now inhabits. Therefore those law-gospellers are dead wrong when they say you’re still slaves. God would never give His Spirit to anybody less than His real heirs. Verse 6 is a shattering summation for the gospel of grace.
Verses 7-11 flow right out of this summation. Again we can imagine how infuriating Paul’s words were to the false preachers, because Paul is saying this shocking thing: “If you accept their so-called gospel, taking on their so-called Law of God to somehow ‘top off’ what God already gave you, it will be no different than going right back to your old paganism. And I’m aghast that some of you are already doing so.”
These verses express both the heights and the depths. The heights: God Himself has come to know you! The depths: I’m afraid my work for you has been in vain.
Discussion: Somebody argues: “But the Galatians were saved! If Paul was so confident about the power of Christ’s salvation, why would he get so upset over them following a few harmless laws? Even if it couldn’t help, it couldn’t hurt!” How do you answer them?
THE IMPACT
Application: Paul says “Now that you know God—or, rather, now that God knows you…”! This is one of the mountain-top revelations of Scripture: that redemption is about God doing all this in order to know us. All the other terms—heir, adoption, child of Abraham—really come down to that. How can God know you this week? How can He get closer to where you really “tick” this week? Do any “laws” operating in your life get in the way of “knowing and being known” with God? Where do they come from and, really, do they ever make anything “better”? Also, in what ways can you “name-drop” the King of kings this week: that you know Jesus? Are there other “names” that provide an easier significance-rush? Perhaps the name of a job, a hobby, a person, a cause, a role, an image? How did they earn a higher place than Jesus?
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LESSON 4:
THE NEED
Freedom! Who doesn’t like the idea? But do we always like its cost? And its responsibility? Is freedom just a clean slate, an empty plate, a blank calendar with no boring meetings to go to? In short, is freedom simply…nothing? Or is freedom something, and if so, what? What’s the connection between freedom and potential? How does potential make freedom exciting, thrilling, expectant? “For freedom Christ has set us free!” What potential—what great something—has God enfolded in Christ’s freedom for you?
THE STORY
We come to a crucial transitional chapter. The transition is from an exposé of the heresies in the “Law Is King” gospel to an exposé of the deficiencies in the Galatians’ “Christianity” that made them sitting ducks for that anti-gospel. You see, their problems didn’t start when the false preachers showed up; the false preachers merely capitalized on them. We can guess pretty clearly from Paul’s admonitions that the Galatians hadn’t been living right, in multiple ways, and this provided the Jerusalem missionaries with ammunition to say, “See? Faith alone hasn’t set you free from sin! That’s what you need the Law of Moses for! Paul was supposed to tell you that from the start, like they told him to back at headquarters, but he flunked his assignment!” This is indeed where the rubber hits the road, where Paul gets to the heart of the Galatians’ weakness and the heart of the new creation Christ redeemed them to be.
THE TEXT
I. Stand Fast (Galatians 5:1-6)
This apostle doesn’t beat around the bush. He says it plain: if the Galatians accept this Law-Gospel it will be no different than going right back to the slavery of their old paganism. “For freedom Christ has set us free!” cries the apostle. Embracing the anti-gospel means rejecting Christ’s direct revelation of freedom. That’s what lies at the heart of the apostle’s agony. It’s no contradiction when Paul says that being circumcised, or not, means nothing, though he just said that accepting circumcision alienates them from Christ. It’s actually simple: the physical act is perfectly meaningless, but, “if you Galatians intend to believe in that Law-Gospel, it means not believing in the Christ I preached to you anymore!” That is how they would forfeit the Spirit-charged hope and love-charged faith flowing from the grace-charged Gospel of Christ Crucified and Risen. It’s not hard to grasp why Paul was in such agony over his beloved Galatians.
Discussion: Obviously, we do not live in an age that prizes doctrinal purity! We certainly get no encouragement from society to “stand fast” in the non-negotiables of the Christian faith. Indeed, we're pressured to agree there aren't any. Are there things in our culture that it's almost an unwritten law we have to care about, even deeply, that are actually meaningless to our life and faith? How do you handle those "unwritten laws"? By the same token, how do you handle the pressure to compromise on the non-negotiables of our faith?
II. Run Well (Galatians 5:7-12)
“You were well on your way! What happened? Who put up the road block? It wasn’t me, and it certainly wasn’t the Lord.” Two things underlined by verses 7-8: a) the Galatians were absolutely capable of rejecting the anti-gospel, and b) there’s not a smidgeon of validity in that anti-gospel—none of it comes from God. So the Galatians should have known, and dealt with it. That they didn’t indicates a tendency to compromise. Reading between the lines, compromise appears to be a major stumbling stone with the Galatians. The apostle refers to yeast as a metaphor for it. Like yeast, just a wee bit of compromise can balloon into a whole “loaf” of trouble. But Paul the “mother hen,” aching with love for these confused children, clings to his assurance that they will come around. And he vents his fury (more like a mother bear perhaps) at those who’ve deceived them. Again reading between the lines, verse 11 suggests the Law-preachers were saying, “This is the gospel Paul was sent to tell you, but he completely messed it up!” Paul calls that a categorical lie: he never was and never will be a preacher of their “gospel.” In verse 12 he adds a few choice words about them! This apostle is…furious. Is he right to be?
Discussion: To know we're "on the way," we need to know where we're on the way from and on the way to, right? Paul is brutally honest about himself: spiritually he was no better than an idol-worshipper before Christ broke in on his life. That's where Paul is coming from. And where he's heading to is the crown of righteousness (compare 5:5). How about you? How real to you are the place you came from, the horizon you're heading to, and the course you're running in between?
III. Serve in Love (Galatians 5:13-15)
Finally we see the underlying problem. The Galatians’ tendency to compromise opened doors to both sin and the anti-gospel. Paul reminds them: Christ's call is to freedom, a freedom both “from” and “to.” Their freedom from condemnation should blossom into freedom to serve in love. Evidently things weren't quite going that way. For the second time in today’s passage Paul urges love on them; first was “faith working in love” and, now, “through love serve one another.” This seems to lie at the root of their spiritual logjam, where they stalled: no grasp of this new life’s true potential, a potential released only in love. Failing to incarnate the Love of Christ, they sank into bitter squabbles, setting themselves up for deception.
Discussion: “Spiritual logjams” weren’t unique to the 1st-century Galatians. How does our own spiritual growth get stalled, how can we tell when it's happening, and how do we break up the "logjam"? How can the principle of "freedom to..." help break up a "logjam"?
THE IMPACT
Application: Consider this week what "foreign laws" (foreign to Christ's kingdom and freedom) you might unconsciously be obeying that threaten a "logjam." They could be cultural, religious, superstitious, interpersonal, or purely private. An acid test: do they help or hinder you in incarnating the Love of Christ? Could you "run" better by throwing them out in favor of Christ's "law of liberty"? Also, Paul was furious in defense of the true gospel. Is it a sin to get furious? What do you get furious about? Is it of eternal worth?
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LESSON 5:
THE NEED
“Yes, but what are the rules?” asked a student at the seminary, finally, as we approached the conclusion of our Galatians course. To him that was the missing part. It was all well and good for Paul to plant his flag on “Freedom in the Spirit Hill,” but, still, there’s got to be a list of rules somewhere! My answer: “There isn't one.” Happily, my student did not proceed to defenestrate me. Instead, he went quietly thoughtful, then in a hushed voice observed, “Paul was a radical.” Yes. A widely misunderstood, often lonely radical, and one who, by the way, believed in holiness. But how? How can my life be authentically holy without an exhaustive list of rules and regulations? How?
THE STORY
We look today at an earlier and a later part of the epistle. What unites them is Paul’s theological vision, the way he sees the big picture. In his confrontation with Peter in Antioch, Paul took a bold stand for right theology in practice, not just principle. We’ll talk more about this below. The apostle’s arguments are intricate but the key is the situation he was in, the conflict with the “Law Party” from the Jerusalem church and the false accusations being hurled his way. That will help us make sense, especially, of the passage from chapter two. The passages from chapter five likewise make better sense in light of the conflict going on in the Galatian churches. These excerpts focus on the contrast between living in the “flesh” and living “by the Spirit.” Clearly this was the major point of contention between Paul’s gospel and the Law Party’s anti-gospel: how can we achieve a holy life? Their answer was, “The Mosaic Law!” And Paul’s answer…?
THE TEXT
I. Crucify the Flesh (Galatians 2:17-21)
Paul explains an incident the Galatians had surely heard about. The Jerusalem missionaries must have reported it with their own spin: "That rebel Paul had the gall to publicly rebuke the chief apostle Peter, in front of Gentiles yet, and for what? For obeying God's holy law! That shows you what sort Paul is." Paul replies, "Yes, I absolutely did rebuke Peter, because he was wrong." Not for revering God's law but for theological vacillation. In principle Peter understood that all in Christ were one. But in practice he slipped. Intimidated by the arrival of Law Party representatives, Peter distanced himself from the Gentile Christians so as not to offend the brothers from Jerusalem. Seeing that, Paul exploded in indignation. Our excerpt today is likely not Paul's direct speech to Peter but a further explication of its meaning. Verses 17-18 seem to be his answer to the Law Party's charge that since Sola Fide believers are still falling in sin, "Faith Alone, Christ Alone" doesn't cut it. Paul's startling answer: "Don't blame Christ!" Which reflects how union with the risen Christ is at the innermost core of Paul's theological vision. As we say these days, "God's still working on me." If there's a problem, forsaking Christ's grace and might is no recipe for solving it! Verse 19 is the hinge turning our gaze from the law's incapacity to the Lord's glorious, conquering Life—the Life forever won through death, the Life no law can excel or, as we will see below, repress.
Discussion: How does Paul's exultant ode to the life of faith, lived strictly in union with the indwelling Life of Christ, translate into our daily practical experience? What does that mean when we're buying groceries, running the kids to soccer practice, scrambling to finish a work project on time?
II. Walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-18)
Clearly the Jerusalem missionaries were capitalizing on the Galatians' moral compromises as a hook, pushing Mosaic-law observance as the cure-all: "God's Law will show you right from wrong. But wait, that's not all! It will make you Abraham's children, too!" In the second half of chapter 5 Paul's response is simple: the Holy Spirit abiding in you will never lead you into unholiness—period. Follow Him.
Discussion: How is the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:31-34 at the very heart of this controversy? What did Paul understand about this prophecy that the Law-gospellers failed to grasp?
III. Works of the Flesh (Galatians 5:19-21)
The apostle's exasperation shouts through these verses. The tone conveys, "What, you needed me to tell you this?" Again, the Jerusalem missionaries must have been saying things like, "Paul left you with no moral compass, no way to know what sin is!" The apostle's response: "Oh, please! I did tell you, and anyway it's obvious. Sin is stuff like this...." And he fires off a graphic, far from exhaustive, list of the obvious. In modern jargon we'd say "This isn't rocket science." Paul has no more patience for the Law-gospel. His only concern is to shake the Galatians out of their reckless dalliance with it.
Discussion: Without slipping into a pharisaical "I thank you I'm not a sinner like that one there," consider what evils God's grace has delivered you from. Yes, your life has problems, trials, griefs, even failures, but how is your life's portrait in Christ different from what it would have been without Him? Would you ever go back?
IV. Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-26)
Laws are made to stop stuff! To stop jaywalking, shoplifting, speeding, tax-cheating, etc. When there's nothing to stop, law means...nothing. That, in a nutshell, is the principle Paul shouts from the rooftop: no law will ever "fix" the perfection of the Spirit's manifestation. The Spirit shows Himself in "things like this," is what the apostle is getting at here. It's not an exhaustive list; rather, it's a partial portrait of the beauty of holiness enfleshed in a Spirit-shaped life. And these "things" look nothing like the sinful things in the preceding list. The contrast is stark and absolute.
Discussion: What's required for the Spirit to manifest freely and make "law" irrelevant?
THE IMPACT
Application: "Unobjectionable." There's a good word. What "unobjectionable" things can you do, freely and joyfully, for the Lord and His kingdom this week? Where will you get your cues on that? What is the relationship between "unobjectionable" and "holy"? Does "holy" simply mean not doing bad things? Is that the portrait of the Spirit's fruit painted by the apostle: "Doing Nothing"? What are the risks of active holiness? Does "unobjectionable" to God always mean "unobjectionable" in the world? How does the Spirit desire to transcend law in your life this week?
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LESSON 6:
THE NEED
"The need" indeed! Who doesn't need to be needed? (Raise your hand.) But it's such a two-edged sword in life, isn't it, the tension between "Stop depending on me so much!" and "What, are you saying you don't need me?" So many relationships, shipwrecked on the rocks of need wrongly understood! How can Christ's liberating law of love save us from shipwreck and steer us into vibrantly healthy mutual support?
THE STORY
And so we reach the concluding paragraphs of this fiery, poignant, radical epistle—and, as we have noted, perhaps the first written witness to the Christian faith. Just think of that: the earliest recorded testimony to Jesus, the Resurrection, the Church and, by the way, her theological crises. If not the absolute first, certainly one of the first. How ironic that, without such tragic crises, we wouldn’t have had texts like Galatians. There would have been no reason to write them! Two things we can be eternally grateful for: 1) that the nascent Church survived these titanic struggles, and, 2) those struggles generated New Testament texts like Galatians. Keep in mind that the apostle was doing something new in writing this epistle—a crisis compelled him to pen a manifesto of the Gospel, against hostile forces even within the Church! This was no dry academic exercise but a matter of life and death to Paul. In these closing paragraphs he assumes he’s proved his point and the Galatians will expel the false teachers. Thus, his closing thoughts shift to the way forward, under the law of liberty.
THE TEXT
I. Bear One Another's Burdens (Galatians 6:1-6)
Mutual care and personal responsibility: the essentials to the law of liberty. Paul paradoxically underlines both: carry each other’s burdens, but bear your own load. And isn’t that common sense, really? No contradiction there. Indeed, the best equipped to support others are those experienced in taking responsibility for themselves. Do you see what replaces “Law” in Paul’s portrait of a Spirit-shaped Church? Yes! It’s the Church itself—people in whose hearts God has written His law of love. And did you catch the supernova Paul subtly tucks into verse 2? “You will fulfill the law of Christ.” On the question of the Jerusalem missionaries’ vaunted law, the apostle was adamant: you will never fulfill it! But when it’s the law of Christ, Paul pronounces with almost childlike assurance: you will fulfill it! Such is the promise and power and eternal prospect of the Spirit poured out upon us.
Discussion: To what extent can you bear another's burdens? To what extent can you bear your own? To what extent must all our burden-bearing depend on the Life and Grace that transcend us all? Is Paul's bright forecast that "you will fulfill the law of Christ" over-optimistic? Why or why not?
II. Do Good to All Men (Galatians 6:7-10)
"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked." These rapid-fire phrases could serve as the title for the whole epistle. The living God has achieved, at the price of the Incarnate Son's holy life, the redemption and liberation of our souls, and of His infinite grace has poured out the very Spirit of His Son crying "Abba! Father!," the living Law of Liberty to abide within. Think about that. Imagine then what it means to belittle, sideline, even offer a counterfeit of, the Act of God in Christ. No, "God is not mocked." Fearsome words. The "flesh" Paul had in view was not just sin-problems perhaps plaguing the Galatians, but primarily the Law-party's message causing such havoc among them; to live by that false gospel would be to sow to the "flesh," a graceless, lifeless, hopeless path to destruction. The apostle returns to hopeful tones, though, trusting his beloved children in faith to see and do right, pressing on in "well-doing"—the manifestations of the Spirit's fruit against which there is no law. What is "well-doing"? A hint: you can't answer that question without picturing someone you will "do good to"!
Discussion: We need each other. May I assume you agree? Perhaps you will also agree that when we hear that statement the first thing that comes to our minds is that we need others to help us in one way or another—you know, "to be there" for us, as the saying goes. But according to the verses here we need others, perhaps even more, so that we can be there for them. How vital is "doing good to others" to your spiritual development, and why?
III. Glory in the Cross (Galatians 6:11-18)
Paul concludes conclusively. In modern parlance, the apostle has had it! My paraphrase of verse 17: "Not another word about this. I am living and dying for Jesus—don't try and tell me I don't know the Gospel!" In this spirit Paul closes the epistle with a few deft, slicing strokes: the false preachers are nothing but a bunch of cowards driven by the principle that misery loves company; the glory of Christ's true people is the Cross that has brought us, not to Moses, but to a whole new creation; and then the coup de grâce, all those who live by this rule are...God's Israel. The last is a blow right to the jaw of the Law-gospellers with their claim that only by submitting to their Law could the Galatians become Abraham's children. Paul unabashedly declares, "You're there already, Israel of God!" The apostle knows full well what he's saying and how his enemies will take it. And he says it because...he means it.
Discussion: How real to you today is the "new creation"? How does a constantly deepening connection to the Cross generate ever more intimate connection with the Resurrection and, in turn, a continually clearer vision of the new creation where the law of Christ rules supreme?
THE IMPACT
Application: After demolishing the false gospel, Paul's message is, "Now I press on in the mighty flow of God's Spirit...with or without you, but I hope with you. I have a calling from the Risen Christ to fulfill, a kingdom of light to advance." Is your commitment to Christ marked by such un-swerve-able, "with-0r-without-you" devotion? What is the price of such devotion? What is its glory? Why do we need each other to model such devotion? How is it key to our bearing one another's burdens? What can you do this week to embody such devotion, even if in "baby steps"?
