As we come to the end of a series in Galatians in our men’s Bible study, I have a growing sympathy for the false-teachers(!).
The first century Galatian church is wrestling with what marks an individual as a true “seed of Abraham”… the inheritors of God’s promise to Abraham. As Gentiles come into the church, the issue of the day is: “How do you rule people in or out?” “What is the boundary marker for God’s people?”
The debate boils down to “faith in Paul’s gospel alone” vs. “faith + legal observance”. False teachers are “throwing [the church] into confusion” by “perverting the gospel” (1v7) by preaching faith plus legal observance (circumcision,…). Paul teaches that the true heirs of the promise to Abraham are those who trust in Christ as the fulfilment of those promises (Gal 5v26,29).
I came to Galatians seeing the Judaisers unsympathetically - they were out and out bad guys. Until that is, I re-read chapter 5v16-26…
Paul is defending the idea that the freedom that comes through the gospel (and the gospel alone) leads inevitably to holiness (v.13), and not to license. I don’t think its stretching interpretation too far to read in between the lines, and see some of the concerns of the Judaisers in Chapter 5. It’s not hard to imagine the scenario: As they see it “Gentile sinners” (2v15) are coming into the fold. They come from a pagan culture that is probably characterised by the “acts of the sinful nature” listed in chapter 5 verses 19 to 21.
In that context, concerns for the purity of the church community and personal holiness are natural. How are these Gentiles - saved by faith - going to be motivated to “be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy” (Lev 19v2)?
For the Judaisers, the answer is supplementing faith with the Law – Legal observance will provide the appropriate restraints on the Gentiles’ behaviour. Although their concern a right one, their answer stems from a religious bent, and an anaemic gospel.
The answer for Paul is the Holy Spirit that accompanies faith – The fruit of the Spirit is holiness (the Spirit which is given to all those with faith in the gospel; 3v3-5). Having the Spirit is inconsistent with indulging the sinful nature because they are contrary to one another (5v16-17). With wry humour Paul tells us: against the fruit of the Spirit “there is no law”.
The established Biblical pattern is for people to be redeemed by God for freedom exercised in worship (Ex 7v16), and for the LORD himself to make his redeemed people holy (Ex 31v13). That pattern is fulfilled through faith in Paul’s gospel, as Christ sets us free and Holy Spirit makes us holy.
My question is: Are we more like the Judaisers than we care to admit?
Out of a right concern for holiness, do we wrongly create cultural boundary markers for the church? Boundary markers that function as “laws”… For all our words of “faith alone” & “grace alone”, are we in practice reliant on church culture to limit behaviour?... Is functional religiousity is shown where we act on externals? Outward constraints curtail the external expression of our sinful natures – wrong belief concealed behind right behaviour.
Do we have our, unspoken, but silently communicated “laws”? Is it fear of breaking step with a Christian subculture that deters Christians from returning to the patterns of their old lifestyles? Is the young convert pressured not to sleep with his girlfrend for fear of the disapproval of his new Christian peer group? Or is God’s grace in the gospel teaching him to say no to ungodliness and wordly passions? (Titus 2v12).
Are we proclaiming a gospel that “takes the punishment I deserve” (full stop)? Or a gospel that calls people to “the obedience that comes through faith”? (Rom 1v5)… A gospel word through which the Holy Spirit works to transform us into the likeness of Christ?... Paul’s gospel which presents a new identity in Christ and calls believers to live out that identity?
That Paul is so emphatic in condemning those who supplement the Gospel with legal observance makes me more than a little uncomfortable!
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