You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4 Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?
6 Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” 7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” 9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10 All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” 11 Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
My Understanding: The Galatians were deserting the true gospel of grace that was via Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection for our sins, and they were going back to following the Old Testament law as a means of earning merit with God. In other words, instead of trusting in Jesus Christ for their salvation, they were trying to earn it by following the law, i.e. through their own human effort. If they could attain salvation through their own effort, then the cross of Christ would not have been necessary. Yet, they could never be good enough. Their good works and deeds would never outweigh their bad.
The sad thing of it all is that they had begun their Christian lives by faith in Jesus Christ. They had received the Holy Spirit through faith. They had even suffered much persecution from the followers of the law because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Paul asked, “Have you suffered so much for nothing?” Through Paul’s questions to them he clearly was reiterating the fact that we are not saved and we do not receive the Holy Spirit of God into our lives through human effort. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
Then, Paul gave the example of Abraham, who believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. So, I’d like to look here at two other passages of scripture found in Hebrews 11:8-19 and James 2:20-24, 26, to see what Abraham’s faith looked like (from Hebrews):
• When called to a place… he obeyed and went, not knowing where he was going
• He made his home in the Promised Land, like a stranger in a foreign country
• He looked forward to the promise of his permanent home in heaven with God
• By faith he became a father, because he considered God faithful to his promise
• He offered his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God, believing what God had said about Isaac being the one through whom the promise would be fulfilled, and believing that God would provide another sacrifice and/or that he could raise Isaac from the dead
Notice the words describing Abraham’s faith: Called, obeyed, went, made, looked, became, considered, offered and believed. These are all action words. That is why James said that “Abraham’s faith and actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did.” He also quoted, “Abraham believed God and it was credited it to him as righteousness.” And, James concluded his thoughts with this statement: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead” (Jms 2:26).
Ok, so many people struggle with this, because they see these two teachings of works vs. faith as contradictory to each other, yet on close examination, I believe, we will learn that they do not contradict, but rather complement each other. It is something like understanding the age old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” It has to do with source, order and response (outgrowth). The egg clearly comes from the chicken and yet the chicken comes from the egg, so the question is asking: 1) What is the source? 2) What is the order (sequence)? and 3) What is the outgrowth (response)?
The Source
God is clearly the source, and Jesus is God, and Jesus is the source of our salvation. From God came the law. So, what was the purpose of the law? Galatians 3:19-25 says:
What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. 20 A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.
21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22 But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
23 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
These last two verses (vv. 24-25) summarize the answer to that question simply: The law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. God is the source and this is the sequence with regard to law and faith. Law came first to lead us to faith and now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision (rule) of the law. That makes sense.
The Sequence
Ok, so now that we understand the sequence with respect to law and faith, what about the sequence with regard to faith and works? The scripture in Hebrews 11 said that Abraham, by faith, went, obeyed, offered, etc. In other words, he believed God and as a result of his belief, his actions followed. If we say we believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we could be free from sin, do we really believe that, if we deliberately keep on sinning? No! I John 3:6-9 makes that clear when it says, “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him… No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.” And, Hebrews 10:26 says, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left…”
This is not to say that we will never sin again, as I John 2:1-2 makes clear when it says: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” Yet, John continued in vv. 4-5a by saying this: “The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him…” So, we can only conclude by this that the “keeps on sinning” and the “deliberately keep on sinning” has to do with nothing changing about our lifestyles after we believe, i.e. there is no repentance evident.
The Outgrowth
Matthew 3:8-10 says this:
“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”And,
John 15:1-8 says this (Jesus speaking):
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Notice how this passage in John 15 gives us the source, the sequence and the outgrowth. God/Jesus is the source, i.e. he is the vine and the Father is the gardener. The sequence is that Jesus has already made us clean through faith in his saving grace. Then, we must remain in him, and if we do, we will bear fruit. So, this is not works-based salvation, as some would purport. We can only bear fruit if we are first of all in the vine through faith in Jesus Christ, and if we are remaining (continuing; persisting; keeping on) in that faith and in Jesus Christ. So, just as an apple tree bears apples and a pear tree bears pears, so it is that if we are in Christ Jesus and we have true and genuine faith in his saving grace, the fruit from our lives, including the “fruit in keeping with repentance” will be evidence that our faith is genuine. We know that an apple tree is an apple tree because it produces apples.
The lyrics to the song, “Much Too High a Price,” state that Jesus paid much too high a price for us by dying on the cross for our sins for us to have just occasional emotional experiences, but never truly change. “He deserves a fiery love that won’t ignore His sacrifice.” And, that is what this whole “fruit” thing is about. If we truly believe that Jesus died on the cross to set us free from sin, then that kind of faith should bear fruit in keeping with repentance, yet this is not something we drum up through human effort, but rather it is the outgrowth of being and remaining in the vine, Jesus Christ.
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