The Galatians
are so much like us. We seek constantly to justify ourselves by our good works.
It is as if we say to God, “thank you for the sacrifice of your Son Jesus but
we don’t think it was quite enough to satisfy you. So we’ll add a few conditions
for our justification and salvation.” And so we did, throughout the so called
Dark Ages, Middle ages right up to and after the reformation the church added
requirements for salvation they, created purgatory, indulgences, feast days,
fast days, celibacy, no dancing, movies, all as requirements for salvation. Even now
there are those who believe that there must be some purification or punishment
after death to make us worthy of heaven. Luther, in his commentary on Galatians
over and over again accuses the Roman Church of heresy because they
circumvented the free gift of God’s grace by adding to it like the false
apostles Paul talks about in Galatians. Much has changed since Luther’s day but
our need to help God justify us has not changed. We constantly seek to add to
God’s grace good works as a means of self-justification for our salvation.
Paul in this chapter gives the Galatians what my dad would call a “Dutch
Uncle” talking too. Paul asks the simple question, “Did you receive the Spirit
by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?” He then takes us all on a journey back to
Abraham and shows us that Abraham was saved by grace before the law and before
he was circumcised. “Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness
(Genesis 15:6). Abraham received the promise before Moses received the law and
before he was circumcised. Paus tells us over and over again that it is by grace we are saved through faith and not our our selves so we cannot boast. (Ephesians 2:8) Paul goes on to tell that the law is a whole, break
one little part and you break the whole thing. Jesus tells us that we commit
adultery by just thinking about it. So even thinking about sinning is a sin.
One of my favorite movies is the Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino as
Shylock. My favorite scene is in the court room where Shylock is about to get
his pound of flesh. The knife is ready and he is about to make the cut. Just
then the lawyer tells him that he is to take one pound of flesh no more and no
less and he may not make the man bleed, for the contract was for one pound of
flesh and there was no provision for drawing blood in the contract therefore no
blood may be shed. Shylock is lost he cannot make the cut for the man will
definitely bleed nor can he cut because there is no way to measure exactly how
much flesh is one pound before cutting. The law is like that if we break one
little thing we break the whole law! It’s like going 56 miles an hour when the
speed limit is 55. We broke the law and we deserve a ticket. Though the police
may offer grace and allow 5 miles an hour over the limit
before ticketing. We broke the law and deserve a ticket. Under God’s law
breaking it or even thinking about breaking it makes us a law breaker and
deserving of damnation but God showed his love for us in that while we were yet
sinners Christ died for the ungodly,(Romans 5:8) paying our debt of sin in full
and by His sacrifice He Justifies us before the Father. Praise God for his
mercy and grace!
We must be ever watchful of thinking about the law as a means of
salvation. The Devil will continuously tell us that we are not worthy, that we
haven’t done enough to be saved from God’s wrath. He tells us that we must do
more good works and stop sinning. Then just as we think we've stopped sinning
the Devil brings more sins to light vexing our soul and making us impotent by
focusing our thoughts not on God’s grace and mercy but on our own unworthiness.
Our good works once done out of love become works done out of fear and we fall
again into trying to justify ourselves before God a thing we cannot do. when the Devil puts those thoughts into our mind we can say to him, "I am saved by the grace of God, I'm no longer yours I'm His bought with a very high price. He is my justification and the propitiation for all my sin. I'm under God's grace not the law because by works of the law shall no one be justified I believe
on God's Son and receive His gift of grace freely."
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