Galatians 3

It is an amazing fact that many people do not want to embrace the truth of the gospel. The substitution of Jesus for us before God is such very good news, and the way of life before us in Christ is so meaningful and good, though involving suffering. There is no better way of life than the gospel life, and there is no savior who can conquer death for us except Jesus Christ. Yet millions have not heard the good news of Christ, and millions more have rejected it as if it were a message that they should despise. Again, it is an amazing and sad fact that so many have not heard of Christ, and that many people who hear do not want to embrace His gospel.

Yet there is another fact that is more surprising than this. Many who have seemed to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ, and have even tasted something of the goodness of the life He has for those who trust Him, have then rejected the purity of the way of the Lord’s mercy, and exchanged that message for the polluted waters of some half gospel and half law mix that is no gospel at all. It is more shocking to reject the fullness of grace after seeming to embrace Christ, than to reject Christ without adequate and serious consideration. Should I prefer crabgrass to gold? Of course not! How much more foolish is it to throw away the gold that I had as a gift in my hand in order to have the privilege of picking up more crabgrass!

This is what the Galatian churches were doing as many people were accepting a false message containing the old rules of Pharisaic Judaism. “Who has bewitched you?” This is Paul’s question. These were people who had been presented with the true meaning of the cross. These were disciples who seemed to receive the Holy Spirit through hearing that word of the cross with faith. These were Gentiles who had been willing to suffer for their newfound Lord, and who had been given special manifestations of the Spirit of God in this groundbreaking ministry throughout an entire province of the Roman Empire. Was it possible that they would now decide that all that was just the appetizer of their spiritual meal, and that the main course would be the Law of Moses?

The way of full grace through trust in God’s provision is nothing new. It is older than Moses. Abraham believed God, we are told in Genesis 15, and it was counted to him as righteousness. The circumcision party is trying to make the Galatian believers better sons of Abraham through a ritual whose time has come and gone. The real way to follow Abraham is to follow Jesus. It is through this one descendant of Abraham that all the nations (the Gentiles) were to be blessed, not through Jesus as chapter one, and Moses as chapter two. Jesus is the whole book of salvation. Our growth as believers is in Jesus, and not in the customs of a covenant administration that is now obsolete.

The one who wants to be under the law in part will find the law to be a very demanding taskmaster. You can’t just take a sign from the Old Covenant like circumcision without some serious consideration of what that sign is all about. The Law was all about doing the commandments in order that one might then live. Can we stand under that kind of system? The Law says, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” None of us can have eternal life before God on the basis of the Law, except One, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who not only obeyed, but who, by His death on the cross, took the curse of the Law that was against us. He alone was able to be our Sin-bearer. Christ is the only way to blessing for any man, whether Jew or Gentile.

It is through Christ that we have received the earlier promises made to Abraham. Did God promise His presence in the Land of blessing? We have this gift supremely through Jesus, who has given us His Spirit, and has brought us into heaven itself through our union with Him. Why was the Law even given? It was given because of transgression, so that we would see our imprisonment under sin, and receive the good word of redemption from sin’s bondage through faith in Jesus Christ. The Law was a part of the plan of God, but it could never bring life to those who disobeyed. We needed the obedience of Christ and the grace of God through His merciful provision of the true Lamb.

The Law also functioned as a guardian for the people of Israel, until the time when the one true Son of Abraham came. Now is not a time to return to the Old Covenant ways, but to hear the words of the prophets that press us forward in the grace that is ours through the long-expected Messiah, the suffering Servant, and the only Savior of the true chosen people of God, a people that includes both Jews and uncircumcised Gentiles. In Jesus, we are sons of God through faith. If we have Christ, all other lesser distinctions that were once very important according to the Law have faded far into the background of an old day in the glorious light of this most important of all questions: Am I in Christ? This is the central question of identity for us, not our gender, not our economic status, not whether we are counted as Jews or Gentiles by those who want us to be circumcised, but only this: Am I in Christ? If you are in Christ, you are Abraham’s offspring, an heir of heavenly blessing, and a recipient of the ancient promises of God to His people. The land of heaven with the fullness of the blessed presence of God is ours only in Jesus Christ. This is the good news that you have heard and embraced. Never cast away the truth of salvation in Christ alone.