Paul begins Galatians by burning down the barn. “What in the world is wrong with you? You’re deserting God, who called you to be His people! You turned away from the Gospel, allowing others to confuse you and lead you away from the truth!” Words of fire explode off the page. A righteous anger burns within Paul!
Here’s some background. Gentiles made up most of the congregations in Galatia. Paul helped start those churches and visited them at least twice before He wrote to them. He had a close kinship with them and wanted what was best for them.
After his second or third visit, some “Christian missionaries,” Jewish ones, came to visit. They claimed to be Christians—but they also demanded people to follow God’s Old-Covenant, to be a genuine Christian. Even worse, if you didn’t follow the Old Covenant, you disqualified yourself from salvation.
Here’s what those teachers demanded. If you want salvation, you must get yourself circumcised. Paul fired back in Galatians 5: “If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you!” (Galatians 5:2).
Here, we get a good picture of the Jewish mind back in the first century. In His Old Covenant, God commanded circumcision for His people. Through that ritual, God brought someone into His Covenant. To help show that circumcision was God’s doing, and not the person’s, God even commanded infant circumcision, which took place when the baby was eight days old.
So far, so good—but of course, we have a works-righteousness bug lurking within us all, still telling us we do must something to have God smile on us. So, the Jews began to consider circumcision as their work for God, not God’s work for them. They lost the meaning behind circumcision and what God did through it.
Now, Jews make their way into Galatia, still thinking circumcision is their work for God. Heaping one error on top of the other, they even demand circumcision in God’s New Covenant. Circumcision had served its purpose; it was now obsolete.
God fulfilled circumcision with something else. Paul wrote in Colossians 2: “In Christ, you were circumcised with a circumcision, not done by human hands, but by stripping off the corrupt nature through the circumcision done by Christ” [Colossians 2:11]. Paul then explains how God carries out this spiritual circumcision for the Christian:
Having been buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ, having forgiven all your sins. [Colossians 2:12-13]
So, those false teachers taught two errors: First, circumcision is your work for God, not God’s work for you. Second, you must do that work by getting circumcised! One error laid on top of the other. No, circumcision was God’s doing, which Jesus superseded with baptism. No wonder Paul was furious!
So, Paul brought out his big guns against those false teachers. For they told people: What Jesus did isn’t enough to take you the entire way. You still must do something to be saved. How so? They turned circumcision into their work for God—and if they didn’t do it, they couldn’t be saved. Where’s the grace?
Paul let nothing contaminate the message of God reuniting sinners to Himself by forgiving them because of His crucified and risen Son. Don’t turn what Jesus does for you into your work for Him. That’s not freedom, but slavery.
So, how does this Jewish, Pharisee-like thinking take place in the Church today? Here’s how: Baptism is no longer God’s work for you but something you now do for God. The Lord’s Supper is no longer God’s work for you, but something you now do for God. Paul minces no words: If a preacher preaches something other than Jesus Christ as the ground of our salvation, he is a liar and deceiver.
If our righteousness depends on what we do, then Christ died for nothing. You and I can’t do anything to deserve God’s grace and favor; if we could, it wouldn’t be grace. For the term “grace” means “God’s undeserved kindness.” Salvation is a gift by God’s grace, which He gives to you in the ways He chooses to do so! Anything else is false.
Even so, a works-righteousness still lingers and lurks within each of us, even if but a little. For we think what we do contributes to our standing before God, at least in some small way. If it doesn’t, why do we even bother? (Ah, our sinful nature: so good at taking the Gospel and coming to a sin-filled conclusion!) We fail to understand just how radical the Gospel of Jesus Christ is!
Listen again to our Epistle reading. “Jesus Christ gave Himself to set us free from our sins.” Nothing else is in the sentence. You find no conditions, buts, or exceptions. Paul doesn’t even hint that what we do is part of being set free? No, Jesus even sets you free from having to do something to be set free! Circumcision isn’t your work—and neither is baptism. It’s Jesus work for you, which sets you free.
How liberating! Faith is God’s doing—a gift He gives us (Ephesians 2:8-9). Baptism is God’s doing, where He brings us into His New Covenant. The Lord’s Supper is God’s doing, where Jesus gives us His New Covenant. “Drink of it, all of you; this cup is the New Covenant in My blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount: “A rotten tree cannot bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:18). We are all corrupted, afflicted, and infected with sin, from conception. So, without the righteousness Jesus gives us, we can only produce bad fruit. For our failures and flaws even infect and taint the best we can offer.
Is the Gospel now grabbing you? You can’t do anything to make God give you His grace. Being required to do some work to make God smile on you is not good news? No, such news is bad news, no matter how it disguises itself!
No wonder Paul warned the Galatians to accept no other Gospel than the one he preached. Don’t take what God does for you and turn it into what you do for Him. Paul said if anyone—even an angel from heaven—came to the Galatians with a different “gospel,” let him be under God’s curse. Send him to hell!
Yeah, pastor, but I sincerely believe in Jesus, and that sincerity has to count for something! Yes, a heartfelt sincerity may live within you. Praise God—but wasn’t Adam and Eve sincere when they followed the serpent and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree? Didn’t Judas sincerely believe He was right when he betrayed Jesus?
The false teachers in Galatia were sincere, but also mistaken, because they anchored their salvation in what they did, not in Jesus Christ. Sincerity doesn’t save us—Jesus does. He saves us, forgives us, and makes us acceptable to God.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ and finds in Him God’s mercy, righteousness, grace, and salvation, given to us by God, in the ways He wants to give it to us. Salvation is not Jesus Christ, plus taking God’s work for me and turning it into my work for Him.
We begin to understand God’s grace when we discover everything we do is still not enough to please God! What a dark place to be in—if not for the liberating light of the truth: Jesus Christ gave, and gives, Himself to set us free from our sins! Once more: Jesus Christ gave, and gives, Himself to set us free from our sins!
Such a far-reaching liberation! He died on the executioner’s cross for us, for you. You committed death-penalty crimes, but Jesus comes into the death chamber, unstraps you from the chair, sets you free, and takes your place!
Our immediate reaction to this Gospel is: “I did nothing deserving of death!” Not true! When we don’t realize the mountain of our sin, we don’t understand how extreme this Gospel is! But there is more yet. For even after we fathom the all-consuming nature of our sinfulness, even after regretting and confessing it, we still must come to grips with this: we can do nothing about our failings, at least when it comes to our salvation!
Salvation isn’t about “being better,” although our Lord saving us does make us want to be better. Salvation isn’t about working to “improve ourselves,” although we do try to improve ourselves, reflecting God’s love for us to others.
The Gospel is recognizing we are powerless when it comes to our salvation. So, what happens after that? We stand, stunned in awe because what God did, and does, to save us. We begin to understand just how radical the Gospel is, which sets us free!
After suffocating from not being good enough, Paul’s words breathe our Lord’s new life into us, once more. “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself to set us free from our sins.”
Jesus grants us salvation in the gift of Himself. Through the Spirit, Jesus attaches Himself to the preached Word, which proclaims Him for our salvation. He brings us into His New Covenant through baptism. He gives us His New Covenant in His body and blood in His Supper. All this is Jesus’ work for you. Anything else is the yoke of slavery. Jesus gave, and gives, Himself to set you free.
Don’t settle for poison masquerading as the Truth. You need the medicine of immortality, which only Jesus can give you. Don’t settle for anything else than the pure, life-giving Gospel of Jesus Christ. For no other “gospel” saves. Amen.
