2. After all their vapouring about the law, they were biting and devouring one another. And I had some who were determined that they were going to convert me to their way of thinking.And I would listen to them and listen to them and listen to them; I don't really make a practice of arguing scriptures. Next: Galatians 5:4 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump ( Galatians 5:9 ). Christian churches cannot be ruined but by their own hands; but if Christians, who should be helps to one another and a joy one to another, be as brute beasts, biting and devouring each other, what can be expected but that the God of love should deny his grace to them, and the Spirit of love should depart from them, and that the evil spirit, who seeks the destruction of them all, should prevail? Further, it is laid down, if there had been a law capable of giving life, righteousness would be by the law. In other words, you did not get this from God. Arabia was regarded as the land of slaves where the descendants of Hagar dwelt. Was this then a reproach? We invite you to crucify our flesh every day so that we may walk in step with your Spirit. And they glorified God in me.". It is never used in the New Testament at all. But spite of, or rather because of, their use of law, they were self-important, without holy power, and judged instead of loving each other. What a gross inconsistency! God asks, and man is called to give, i.e., is called to obedience. They had been idolaters before they became Christians; and to take up Jewish principles in addition to Christ is to turn back again to their cast-off idols. It was Paul's belief and experience that the Christian died with Christ and rose again to a life, new and clean, in which the evil things of the old self were gone and the lovely things of the Spirit had come to fruition. Then, further, attention is drawn to another topic his own writing of this letter. At first he prayed the Lord to take it from him; but no! The salutation ( Galatians 1:1-5 ) a. Villages had an official who was called the superintendent of the village's eirene ( G1515) , the keeper of the public peace. What a subversion, not only of the truth of God revealed in the gospel, but also of redemption, which is its basis! In lxx metaphorically, Micah 3:5; Habakkuk 2:7. Accordingly he draws from this a most weighty argument against bringing in the law as the rule of life for the believer. If I am walking in the Spirit, if I am walking in love, then there can be no law to regulate my life. It was the very reverse of deriving his authority from either. Those in Christ must stand firm against anyone who would try to drag them into slavery under the law (Galatians 5:1). But there is more for us. Hagar stands for the old covenant of the law, made on Mount Sinai, which is in fact in Arabia, the land of Hagar's descendants. To this the apostle endeavours to persuade these Christians, and there are two considerations which he sets before them for this purpose:-- (1.) Paul was confident the Galatians would resist the one leading them in the wrong direction. take heed that ye be not consumed one of Can anything prove that it is not an old creation better than this that there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, which last at least is an absolute necessity for the perpetuation of the race? If Peter was acting rightly now, this had all been a mistake, and consequently the gospel nay, solemn to say, Christ Himself would be thus a minister of sin. #2 "were called" We should take great joy in the truth that we belong to the God who calls us chosen. I can say, "Well, this, these are the rules of righteous living. Paul has in mind the issue of circumcision. "Paul closes this little section on the idea of circumcision and all and he gets a little testy with those. But in truth the Lord "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. He will not hear of any pretended misunderstanding. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust [desires] of the flesh ( Galatians 5:15-16 ). And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Thus he accepts the challenge that was given by unbelief. Note, Mutual strifes among brethren, if persisted in, are likely to prove a common ruin; those that devour one another are in a fair way to be consumed one of another. No one's ever seen this before but oh, bless God, He's revealed it to us in these days. So "stand fast in that liberty wherein Christ has made you free." We saw the second of Corinthians characterized by the most rapid transitions of feeling, by a deep and fervent sense of God's consolations, by a revulsion so much the more powerful in a heart that entered into things as few hearts have ever done since the world began. And Paul said, "Hey, wait a minute. (b) It means being teachable, being not too proud to learn ( James 1:21). I need money to get home. Then, bringing in the name of Jerusalem, the Spirit leads him to apply the prophecy of Isaiah, which shows that millennial Israel (in their turn abandoning self-righteousness, and made free by God's grace in Christ) will look back and count as their own those now brought in as Christians, and find far more children begotten by the gospel, in the time of their own desolation, than even when they flourished of old, and had ,all that earthly power and glory could give. I'd say, "Open the doors and let me off." If I am a mere man, a sinner, the end of that is (for responsibility is not like power, destroyed by sin) the eternal judgment of God. Help us to express our faith in love every day by loving our neighbor as ourselves. "And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. THE INTRODUCTION ( Galatians 1:1-10) 1. Eternal life is beyond doubt the gift of divine grace; but, besides, the eternal life that I have now by pure and simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is what I find at the end of my course as well as at the starting. Note, (1.) Law is gone and grace ensures forgiveness anyway." And here we may observe that as sin is called the work of the flesh, because the flesh, or corrupt nature, is the principle that moves and excites men to it, so grace is said to be the fruit of the Spirit, because it wholly proceeds from the Spirit, as the fruit does from the root: and whereas before the apostle had chiefly specified those works of the flesh which were not only hurtful to men themselves but tended to make them so to one another, so here he chiefly takes notice of those fruits of the Spirit which had a tendency to make Christians agreeable one to another, as well as easy to themselves; and this was very suitable to the caution or exhortation he had before given (Galatians 5:13; Galatians 5:13), that they should not use their liberty as an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. But the son of the slave girl was born in the ordinary human way, whereas the son of the free woman was born through a promise. We'll send you an email with steps on how to reset your password. Therefore, it came to pass that there was nothing the apostle had not learned of which they boasted. You got to keep the law. This is the constitution of your priceless liberty. For Christ bought off those that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, bringing them by grace into a place of known salvation and intelligent joy in relation with our God and Father, out of that bondage and nonage which the law supposes. having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? And "Titus," as he says here, "who was with me, being a Greek," etc. In it there is one party, even God Himself, who gave it, and accordingly fulfils it in that Seed to whom the covenant was confirmed. comfort be destroyed, which is oftentimes done this way, though a It is therefore a feeling of the mind as much as of the heart; it concerns the will as much as the emotions. It describes the deliberate effort--which we can make only with the help of God--never to seek anything but the best even for those who seek the worst for us. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life" ( 1 John 2:16 ). I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded ( Galatians 5:10 ): Now Paul is now saying, "Oh, who did hinder you, you know, and this teach and all. And you keep dealing with me until I'll finally say, "Oh, God, I'm sorry. (Read Galatians 5:13-15) The gospel is a doctrine according to godliness, 1 Timothy 6:3, and is so far from giving the least countenance to sin, that it lays us under the strongest obligation to avoid and subdue it. The apostle now demonstrates, from the result, how destructive such proceedings in the church must ultimately prove to be. Venerable religion! Heathenism! The glory which comes from men is vain-glory, which, instead of being desirous of, we should be dead to. It describes what in regency England would have been called a rout. And he justifies this strength of warning: "For do I now persuade men or God? "Wherefore then serveth the law? Men were not his source, nor was man even a medium to him. (1.) Such is the application. But if ye bite and devour one another: Such actions are the opposite of loving their neighbor as they ought. He saw Peter; but "other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." Others are sins against our neighbour, and contrary to the royal law of brotherly love, such as hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, which too often occasion seditions, heresies, envyings, and sometimes break out into murders, not only of the names and reputation, but even of the very lives, of our fellow-creatures. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. The cross has sentenced the world; and this very sentence of the world is our deliverance from the world. "But of these who seemed to be somewhat." But in the old days the child who was born in the ordinary human way persecuted the child who was born in the spiritual way; and exactly the same thing happens now. take heed that ye be not consumed one of another; that is, either beware lest each other's particular peace and comfort be destroyed, which is oftentimes done this way, though a person's state and condition God-ward may be safe; or lest their church state should be destroyed and come to nothing, since love is the cement of it, which being loosened, threatens a dissolution; for as no civil community, either public or private, divided against itself, can stand long, so no religious one; and for want of love the Lord threatens to remove, and sometimes does remove, the candlestick out of its place. "I through law am dead to law, that I might live unto God." Thus, as he says most emphatically, "I do not frustrate the grace of God;" they did, every one who substituted aught but Christ and His cross. He next announces the true secret of it all: "I am crucified with Christ." Thus I am dead through the law. Romans 7 indicates that under the very law by which they are attempting to be justified there is no way, once a person sins, for the inner man to gain control of the tendencies of the flesh. "Are ye so foolish? But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" The allusion is to beasts of prey falling upon and devouring one another: for wolves or dogs to worry sheep is not strange; but for sheep to distress one another is unnatural. . Nay; he communicated unto them the gospel which he preached among the Gentiles. But if ye bite and devour one another,. Another reason inducing to love is taken from the pernicious consequences of a contrary spirit and conduct. To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use the convenient, Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, , . This then is what the law brought in. These works of the flesh, of course, are related to our body drives, so many of them. It was by revelation, not by summons from Jerusalem, or to acquire a title thereby. True to the Spirit. And this is always true in its measure, and shows the exceeding gravity of opposition where God raises up for His own special work in this world; but more particularly where, as in the apostle's case, the mere manner of his conversion, the special form of his separation unto God, bears the impress of the truth he was to preach. The word is hairesis ( G139) , from which comes our word heresy. They are now controlled by Gods Spirit (24-26). though he had prayed thrice, as his Lord had done on another and wondrous occasion, so the apostle was to have communion with Christ in this way, and learn that there is something better than the taking away of that which makes nothing of the flesh. 5:1 Tell me this--you who want to be subject to the law, you listen to it being read to you, don't you? But where the Gentiles are mentioned, God only speaks of seed without reference to number. Such is the only possible way in which blessing can be brought in, in order that such souls as we are should be blessed and maintained in it. they are in conflict with f sinful nature each other, so that you do not do what you want. Impossible to serve two masters! Ignorant or false men had made them hanker after circumcision. There is a work of God's Spirit within his heart, and he is born of the Spirit, and now again has a spirit that is alive and is conscious of God. We can understand a foolish man making a covenant, and the next day repenting of it, which is never true of the divine purposes. I cannot soil a life which God paid for with his own life. Witchcraft; this literally means the use of drugs. It is for the purpose of bringing in transgression, answers the apostle. Fidelity; this word (pistis, G4102) is common in secular Greek for trustworthiness. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" He also warned them against using their liberty as a license to sin to prevent them from overreacting. That was given by unbelief to be what does galatians 5:15 mean. course, are ye made! Day so that you do not do what you want 5:1 ) their neighbor they... Doors and let me off. apostle now demonstrates, from which comes our word heresy are related our... 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