Year C Trinity 2/Proper 7 - Galatians 3:23-29
PRAY
Tales of Aesop - The Lion and the Mouse. Lion catches mouse eating his cheese. Let's him go, mouse promises to help him one day. The lion ridicules this promise. One day the lion is trapped in a hunter's net. The mouse hears roars of lion, comes along, and nibbles through the net setting his friend free.
Galatians written to address problem of Judaisers - believed you had to have faith in Christ and adhere to the law. Law not just ten commandments but first five books of O.T. About whole revelation of God not just rules and regulations.
Paul says that the law traps people. Like the lion in the net. Like a prison verse 23. Confines them, denies them freedom.
If we try to keep God's law we can only realise that we fail, that we are sinful - define. Talking of condemnation, convicting us of sin. Judaisers used it to imprison or enslave people. Denying people the freedom that is theirs in Jesus. More of that later.
Also talks of the law being a custodian. Verse 24. Paul's time a child was put under the care of a custodian to take him to school and make sure that he behaved. Once a child reached the age of majority or maturity the job of the custodian had been fulfilled.
Paul is saying that the law imprisons, revealing our sinfulness and need for a Saviour And the law acts as a custodian. Leading us to Christ.
Spurgeon said : "The needle of the law must precede the thread of the gospel." He was saying that as the needle pierces the cloth so the law must pierce our soul to convict us of our sin. This prepares the soul to receive the thread of the good news of Jesus.
We are justified by faith in Jesus verse 14. Define justified. By faith - define. Not by faith and adhering to the law. The law has done it's job in leading us to Christ.
Verse 25. Faith, belief and trust in Jesus, supersedes the law. Doesn't supplement it. or add to it as the Judaisers believed.
Doesn't mean we are to disregard the law, cf last Sunday morning's service. The law still expresses God's perfect standard for his people. It cannot justify us. But it can give us rules on how to live as a people who have received God's grace through Jesus.
So there are now two groups of people. Those who are under the judgement that the law brings. And those who are freed from the judgement that the law brings through Jesus death for them on the cross.
Anyone who thinks that he is good enough for God is deceiving himself. They will be judged by God's law, which will expose their sinfulness. Those who know that they are not good enough and have relied upon Jesus are free. Free from the condemnation that the law brings. Free to love and serve God, and others.
Paul refers to three relationships that result from being united with Christ by faith.
a) A right relationship with God, verse 26. A relationship in eternity.
b) A relationship with all other Christians, verse 28. A relationship of unity.
c) A relationship with all the believers who have ever existed, verse 29. A relationship in history.
a) A right relationship with God, verse 26. A relationship in eternity.
Today is Father's Day. A day to remember and celebrate our relationships with our Father. For some people this will be painful. Their relationship with their father may be affected by the sin of that father. Spoiling the relationship.
God is perfect. The perfect Father. It is our sin which gets in the way of our relationship with him. Jesus has removed that barrier of sin by taking the punishment that we deserve for our sin on the cross. To make us sons of God.
Today we live in a society where a father may work long hours, seeking to provide for his family. But those long hours can result in a poor relationship, with a father and child only spending a few minutes together each week. We need to spend time with God to develop our relationship with him. In private devotions and public worship. To make it a priority in a world that makes us want to put up "Too busy" signs.
But God has reached out to us.
Read verse 4. God sent his son to redeem us. Redeem means to pay the price in exchange. We have the words "Paid in Full" written in Jesus' blood against our names in God's book of life.
The lion in Aesop's fable was saved in a way that he would not have expected or conceived. We have been saved in a way that is nonsense to those who are blinded to the simple truth and good news of the gospel. To those who are too proud to receive the help that Jesus' offers as he dies on the cross for them. God sent his son.
Read verse 6. God sent his Spirit. To convict us of our sin, aided by the law, and to live in us. To help us to live life God's way, obeying his law. To equip us to serve him. To assure us that we are his. To move us to cry out "Abba", the Hebrew word for father or dad.
b) A relationship with all other Christians, verse 28. A relationship of unity.
We live in a world that is divided. We have resistance to a single European Currency because it would spell the end of the pound, and it might result in a loss of control over the government of some aspects of our lives.
We have laws against sexism and racism. But you cannot stop someone from believing in something by outward legislation. You can only do this by convincing such a person that someone of a different colour or sex has equal value.
Read verse 28. This is not painting a picture of a clone like people, of no race, sex, class, or culture. What it is saying is that, if we are united with Christ then these things are secondary. They do not affect our standing before God. This is determined by our faith verse 24. Not our race, social standing, or sex. These should not be a barrier to anyone who calls themselves a Christian. We are accepted because of our faith in Jesus. This is an undeserved gift from God. It does not depend upon someone's intelligence, good looks, age, sex, class, or race.
If we start to think that it does depend on any of these things then we could be calling into doubt our own salvation. This is what the Judaisers were doing. Saying that faith and obeying the law were needed. Moving away from the gospel. Once we start adding to the gospel we are on treacherous ground.
This verse is talking about our status before God. Not what role we fulfil within God's people. I say this because when the ordination of women to the priesthood was being debated this verse was often quoted by those who were in favour. This is a mistake. This verse is not talking about church order, who does what in the church. It is talking about our standing before God. God doesn't see Jim Pye, white middle class Englishman. But Jim Pye, justified sinner through union with Christ.
We are united as the people of God. Whatever our external differences, what matters is what is inside. Our love of God and, also, our love for our fellow believers.
c) A relationship with all the believers who have ever existed, verse 29. A relationship in history.
Read verse 29. Christians belong to a long line of people who have trusted in God. Even though they may have lived before Christ came. We only have to read of the Old Testament people of faith in Hebrews 11 to see this.
Some of us may have been influenced in our Christian life by people who have now gone to glory. Paul says that we have a relationship with these people through Christ. One day we will be united, or reunited, with them. All of us together with God.
Salvation is social. It is not a lonely pilgrimage to a solitary exalted state. It unites us with other believers in the church. Whatever our external differences. It will unite us with all other believers when Jesus returns. The vision of heaven in Revelation is one of a holy city with God and his people in it, together.
Revelation 21:3f : "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying 'Now the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with the and be their God."
Read verse 7. We have received some of the benefits of sonship. Of a right relationship with God, with other Christians, and continuity with believers over 4,000 years. But there is more to come. That is why we are called heirs. There is an inheritance waiting for us. Not one that will spoil, or ever be spent or exhausted.
Let us thank God for all that he has done for us in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us be free to relate to him and to one another without any barriers of fears. Let us look forward to that day when we will be together with God, and all his people who have followed him over 4,000 years of history.
PRAY