Galatia

And that story, it is so compelling.

Well, we're going to look at that today from the book of Galatians.

If you can, grab a Bible, join us in chapter one as we begin Authentic Messenger, Authentic Gospel.

Here is Jonathan.

Well, here in our verses this morning in Galatians 1 and 2, we zoom in and we look really quite closely at the life of another world-changing, world-transforming figure, the life of the Apostle Paul.

In some ways, these verses in the flow of Galatians look like a little bit of a kind of aside, even a distraction in the grand flow of the big argument.

One commentator says of them that these verses contain the least theological content of any section of the letter.

I read that on Monday and I thought, oh great, this is going to be a hard week.

Welcome again to our study of Paul's epistle to the Galatians.

We had just begun our study and we're happy that you've joined us here.

We're continuing today our introduction to this epistle.

In yesterday's program we pointed out that one of the problems Paul had to deal with was that there were some people who were insisting that the Galatians needed to live by the law of Moses and they did not understand.

that Christ's new commandment replaced the law of Moses.

They knew that God gave the law through Moses on Mount Sinai, and that the children of Israel were to live by that law, but they didn't understand that when Christ died, he ended the law.

The greatest of Judaism's legal minds, however, Saul of Tarsus, was enlightened by that truth.

and by Jesus Christ directly, and he wrote that the law was temporary.

No, this isn't God that's leading you in this direction they were actually being misled and so verse 9 a little leaven leavens the whole lump and so he refers to these the influence of these teachers as leaven now leaven pretty consistently in scripture leaven is a representative of corruption of of sin and And so Paul sees their influence as a corrupting influence.

And even though there was obviously just a small group of them, they were having a tremendous influence and it was affecting the entire church in Galatia.

So he says, though, in verse 10, I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will have no other mind.

So Paul, he still holds out a confidence and a hope that...

So he's always expressing his confidence in people Just kind of the idea, he that has begun a good work in you is going to complete it.

He would express the confidence that God was going to finish what he started there.

And he feels the same way about these Galatians, despite the unfortunate situation at this point.

And so verse 11 is interesting, though, because...

I can die knowing Jesus is Lord.

But he would write to the church in Galatia later.

And he would write to them as he's challenging, saying, guys, you're not listening to the leaders.

You're challenging.

You're making it.

So I have to venture to you.

And when he writes to the church in Galatia, correcting so many things, you know what he would say in Galatians 6.17 about what he's gone through? He would say, from now on, let no one trouble me.

For I bear in my body the marks of what? The Lord Jesus.

I preach the Augustinian, Paulinian, Abrahamic doctrine of salvation by grace through faith apart from any righteousness of man.

My position is halfway between Galatianism on the one hand and antinomianism on the other hand.

Now, to the mind that is not theologically trained, I will repeat the sentence in non-theological language.

I stated that my position was opposed to the doctrine that Paul had fought in Galatia, where there was the belief that there could be no saving faith without a continuance of rites and ceremonies, such as circumcision and the keeping of the ceremonial law.

The love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then we're all dead.

and that he died for all so that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.

But in setting forth my position to Dr. Kennedy over that luncheon table, I had used theological language to him, a theologian, stating simply that my position was halfway between Galatianism and antinomianism, between legalism and license.

I can see him yet, a smile breaking forth on his face as he said, what a pleasure to listen to someone who knows exactly what he is talking about and who will set it forth so plainly.

The man who had ridden proudly out from Jerusalem, the trusted messenger of the high priest, no longer saw the Pharisee, but Paul the apostle.

End of chapter 2

CHAPTER III JESUS IS THE CHRIST St. Paul himself, in his epistle to the Galatians, tells us what followed on that hurried flight from Damascus.

I went, he says, to Jerusalem to see Peter.

We can imagine how great was his longing to see and speak with those who had been the dearest friends and the closest companions of the Master during his life on earth.

I know it came from the mind of the apostle Paul, who wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

Because in Galatians chapter four, it says in verse 21, for it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid and the other by a free woman.

But he who is of the bond woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.

Now, because dispensationalists are obsessed with bloodlines and race because they are Americans and in America today, we are obsessed with those things.

I'll give it to them that the Jews of today descend from Isaac.

I'll give that to them.

But the question is, is that how God accounted for things? Because if we keep reading there in Galatians chapter 4, it says, which things are an allegory? These are the two covenants.

The one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

Because you are having Christ be formed in you.

This is the great word Paul gives in Galatians 4.19 when he says to the church at Galatia, I labor again until Christ be formed in you.

Which is morpho-o is that word.

It's included in the word metamorphosis.