Monthly Archives: September 2022

SAY IT LIKE IT IS!

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SAY IT LIKE IT IS!

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. ‘A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.’ I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty.

“Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” Galatians 5:7-12

In a few terse sentences, Paul uses words like a slashing sword.

“Who cut in on you?” First slash: have you considered the credentials of the people who are telling you this nonsense? Who are they and what authority do they have? What relationship do they have with the truth? 

The first responsibility these believers had was to check the credibility of the ones who were teaching them and what they were being taught, against the truth. At that stage they had only the Old Testament and the apostles’ teaching; no written record of the life and teachings of Jesus and the interpretation of His yoke from the apostles whom He had authorised to go and teach all nations.

Were these Juadiazers part of the Twelve? No! Were they disciples of the apostles? No! Were they authorised to go in Jesus’ name? No! In whose name were they going? In the name of the same religious leaders and their successors who crucified Jesus and persecuted the believers!  Were they proclaiming the truth? No! What was the truth? Jesus!

These men had no authority from Jesus and they did not preach Jesus. They were imposters.

Second slash: these false teachers were in danger of God’s judgment. A disciple of Jesus had no right to add to, subtract from or change the rabbi’s yoke. What was Jesus’ yoke? Himself. He was the model and the teacher of the truth about God, about Himself, about people and about God’s kingdom, all of which formed His yoke. Whatever was in line with Him was the truth because He declared that He and He alone is the way to the Father, the truth about the Father and the life outside of which everyone and everything is dead. He died and rose again to prove it.

These false teachers met none of these criteria. They were dead!

Third slash: it was the preaching of the cross that was offensive to the Jews and brought the wrath of the Jewish leaders down on the believers’ heads. They rejected the message of a crucified Messiah. They said He was a blasphemer and an imposter, so they crucified Him and persecuted those who followed Him. If Paul was preaching circumcision as the truth, why did the Jews hate him? Persecution was another of the evidences that he was on the right track because he identified himself with his Master who was hounded to the cross.

The false teachers were part of the persecutors. They were on the wrong side.

Fourth slash: this time Paul really hit below the belt! I wish the knife would slip and mutilate their bodies completely. If they want to draw blood, let it be their own and not that of their victims. Paul’s anger spilled over into words of deep frustration. For what purpose was the shedding of Gentiles’ blood? Jesus has already shed His blood for the sins of the whole world. What more do we need?

Implied in Paul’s outburst was the wish that these men would so disfigure themselves that they would no longer be able to reproduce the pernicious teaching that was sucking in ignorant and innocent victims just to get a following and boost their own egos.

Four mortal blows against the false teachers. Would the Galatians listen and heed Paul’s warning?

What about us? What have we added to the death of Jesus to “help” Him to make us acceptable to God just in case He is not satisfied with what Jesus did by His life and death?

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH

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THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH

“For through the Spirit we eagerly wait by faith for the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:5-6.

“The Christian life,” says Paul, “operates on a completely different principle from the old system of the law.” The law makes us look within and continually evaluate ourselves on our performance. We can never be sure whether we have been obedient enough, attained the standard, and satisfied the demands of the law. We focus on what we have achieved or failed to achieve rather than on the attitudes and motives of our hearts.

We develop an attitude of self-righteous pride, like the Pharisee in the temple whose prayer was nothing more than self-congratulation and contempt for the tax collector whom he despised because he was a sell-out to Rome. Circumcision is the doorway to this way of life. It enhances self-awareness and self-satisfaction which cancels out faith in Jesus and trust in His finished work.

“The Christian life,” said Paul, “is the way of faith in the righteousness of Jesus which He gives to us as a gift, not trust in ourselves to attain the perfection of God which He requires for us to be acceptable to Him.” It does not matter whether we are circumcised or uncircumcised, Jew or Gentile, a member of the covenant people of God or not. What matters is whether we have faith in the death of Jesus to forgive our sin, cleanse us from all unrighteousness and clothe us in His perfect righteousness which He gives freely to those who believe in Him.

Where does circumcision fit in? It doesn’t because new life in Jesus Christ is based on faith, not on performance. Keeping the law does not produce love. It produces pride in myself and contempt for other people who do not do what I do. Even the Law taught God’s people to treat each other with kindness and mercy and not cruelty like the Egyptians had treated them when they were in slavery to them.

Everything God has done for us through Jesus is intended to bring our old selfish sin nature into submission to Him and to nurture our new nature which has been recreated in the image of God.

“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.” Colossians 3:9-11.

Paul also spoke about righteousness as something we hope for. Does that mean that, in the end it is possible that we might not receive this gift which is the only thing that makes us acceptable to God? No, because hope in the Bible has a different meaning from the hope we express in our everyday lives.

When we say that we hope that something will happen, there is an element of uncertainty because we have no foundation upon which to base our hope. “I hope it will not rain today,” we say when we need good weather for an outing to the beach, but we cannot be sure because no one can control the weather. In the Bible, our hope is based on what God has promised. He has already declared that it will happen, and we put our confidence and expectation in what He has said. It is a hope until it becomes a reality. Faith in Him is the energy that makes our hope a fact.

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” Hebrews 11:1.

God has promised us the gift of righteousness through Christ’s death for us. We do not have to work for it. It is His gift to us now, but we will only experience the full effects of Jesus’ righteousness when He returns to restore everything to perfection. We live now in the hope of His righteousness, and on that basis, we have confidence that everything He has promised will be given to us on that day.

We will always be imperfect as long as we are in this body, but God sees us in Christ as already perfected. We live now in the faith that God accepts us because we are “covered” by the righteousness of Jesus, just as we are “covered” for the repair of our vehicle in the case of an accident, or for the loss of property when something of ours is stolen if we have an insurance policy.

We can love freely because we are not trying to impress God but living out of the confidence that we are who He says we are, His children who resemble Him because we have His Spirit in us.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ALL OR NOTHING

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ALL OR NOTHING

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again with a yoke of slavery.

“Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” Galatians 5:1-4.

Imagine how foolish it would be for a slave whose ransom has been paid and freedom bought by a benefactor, to insist on paying the ransom price again, even though he has been a slave all his life and has never earned a cent. How silly to think that way and yet this was what the Galatians had been deceived into thinking. Although Jesus had paid their debt, they thought they still owed God something. They had to be circumcised to make sure that they were okay with Him.

Paul reminded them that Jesus was passionate about setting them free. That’s the reason He came. Sin and Satan had enslaved them. This was never God’s purpose. He intended for people to be His sons and daughters in His family, created in His image to live in the joy and freedom of a loving relationship with Him.

The first human pair was ensnared by the devil’s deception which brought the whole world into slavery to sin. God gave the law to show His people just how enslaved they were. They were trapped into disobedience and rebellion by the requirements of the law. When God said, “Don’t!” their sin nature rose in defiance and said, “We will!” That’s what sin does. How can we ever live in harmony with God when our very nature is against Him?

The problem is that sin brings the penalty of death, not only physical death but far worse, spiritual death. We were all born dead to God. For most people God is a phantom figure whom they hate, fear and from whom they flee by ignoring Him and pretending He doesn’t exist. The problem is that God created us with an inner awareness that we were made for Him and that we are accountable to Him. However hard we try, we cannot escape that.

So, what did men do?  They made up their own gods to try to appease their conscience. Religion is man’s attempt to get to God their own way; like Frank Sinatra’s famous song, “I did it my way.” But it does not work because every religion is a lie, even religion that believes in the one true God but tries to get to Him by people’s own efforts is a lie.

Atheists insist that there is no God and yet they use the very word “God” in their vocabulary. If He does not exist, where does the idea of God come from? Who made it up? Agnostics say that if there is a God, we cannot know Him? Who told them that? Evolutionists have concocted an unbelievably ridiculous story, against all the evidence of a super-intelligent Designer, that the entire universe just happened by chance, and that it took millions of years to happen.  Only fools believe that rubbish.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” Psalm 14:1.

As soon as a person acknowledges that God exists, he also must acknowledge that he is answerable to God for the way he lives. People don’t like to be accountable because they know that they are guilty of going against their own conscience and the awareness of God which He put inside them as a witness to His existence.

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19, 20.

It is impossible for us to free ourselves from these false notions and the consequences of believing them. Jesus came to set us from our guilt, our sin, and our slavery to deceptions. He did it all by dying in our place on the cross. Why would we think we should and why would we want to add anything to what He did?

As soon as we do that, we cancel out His gift. Paul said when we do this, we have fallen away from grace.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

TIME TO READ THE WILL

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TIME TO READ THE WILL

“At that time, the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture say? ‘Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share the inheritance with the free woman’s son.’ Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.” Galatians 4:29-31.

When a family member dies, the surviving members can’t wait for the reading of the will, especially if the deceased was a wealthy father or grandfather. “Who gets what?” they want to know. God also made a will, and when the testator died, His heirs inherited His estate. Paul declared that, because we are God’s sons and daughters through faith in Jesus, we are His heirs and co-heirs with His Son.

How here’s a twist in the tale. Jesus is God. Because He died we, God’s children, all receive our inheritance but, because He lives and He is God’s Son, He is also God’s heir and we are co-heirs with Him.

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom also He made the universe.”  Hebrews 1:1-2. 

God appointed Jesus to be heir of “all things”, that is, all things.

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.” Colossians 1:15-20.

Paul was talking about Jesus, the incarnate Son of God. In His humanity and because of His perfection as God’s Son who came to earth in the flesh and lived and died as a human being, He earned the right to the position and authority God gave Him – the highest name, the highest place and the highest authority in heaven and on earth (Philippians 2:6-11). He inherited “all things”.

Because of God’s mercy, He reconciled us to Himself through Jesus, restored us to our position as sons and daughters and placed us “in Christ”. Because of that, we share everything He has and owns because we are co-heirs with Him.

What do we share with Jesus?

  1. Just as we share our human father’s nature – the sin nature of Adam – so, in Christ, we share our heavenly Father’s nature.

“Through these (His own glory and goodness) He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” 2 Peter 1:4.

  • We share in the “all things” which are Jesus’ inheritance.

“He who did not spare His own son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also along with Him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32.

That means that, as God’s children, we have access to everything we need here in this earthly life, to live godly lives.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3.

How do we access these resources? Through faith in His promises.

“We do not want you to be lazy, but to imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit what has been promised.” Hebrews 6:12.

  • The outcome of appropriating God’s promises for power to live a godly life and the resources to do so, is eternal life.

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of righteousness, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” Romans 6:22.

The will has been read. The inheritance is ours. It’s time to possess what we already own.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

CHILDREN OF PROMISE

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CHILDREN OF PROMISE

“Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.

“For it is written: ‘Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child: shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labour; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.’

“Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise.” Galatians 4:25-28.

What is that all about? Paul was comparing the two mothers of Abraham’s sons with two covenants: the covenant with the Israelites at Mount Sinai, and the covenant with Abraham, and two cities, Jerusalem which is in Israel and the heavenly Jerusalem which is above.

What was he trying to explain? He was trying to show his Galatian converts, firstly, that Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, produced a son by natural means and that her son was a slave like herself. Hagar corresponds to the physical Jerusalem in Israel which represents the natural descendants of Abraham, the Jews, who are slaves because they try to gain acceptance with God by keeping the covenant of law which was given at Mount Sinai, and could only expose, not deal with sin.

Secondly, Isaac was born supernaturally through God’s promise. Sarah, the mother of Isaac, represents the Jerusalem, which is above, the heavenly city of God which stands for the people of God who are Abraham’s descendants by faith in Christ. They are the spiritual offspring of Abraham because they receive God’s gift of righteousness by faith just as Abraham did. They are the children of promise.

Children of promise are free. They do not have to earn God’s favour or labour for their place in the family. Unlike slaves who do not belong to the family, who live in the fear of punishment if they do not conform and who have no inheritance because their master is not their father, the children of promise are sons and daughters of God. They have the right to live in the family; they have the Father’s nature and access to His resources because they are born of God.

“…To all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” John 1:12, 13.

Paul was desperately earnest in his desire to show these ignorant Gentile believers that observing the law as a means of gaining acceptance with God was a backward step. He came at it from every possible angle and used every possible argument to convince them of the truth that Jesus is the completion of the law for them as well as for the Jew. They were sons of God, not slaves. Their obedience as sons came from another motivation, not fear but love and trust in God as a perfect heavenly Father.

The Jews were ensnared by their religious traditions.  They refused to recognise Jesus as their Messiah and to put their faith in Him instead of in their futile observance of the law. They refused to believe and accept the truth. “Do you really want to be like them?” Paul wanted to know.

We may not literally do what they were doing, but what about other religious taboos that we adopt as requirements for being Jesus’ disciples? These are all externals which have no place in our simple faith-walk with Jesus. Does it matter what we eat, what we wear, on what day we rest, whether we lie, sit, or stand when we pray, whether we do or do not use musical instruments in public worship, and so on. None of these things enhance or detract from our union with Jesus unless they are acts of deliberate disobedience.

Jesus said, “Follow me; learn from me,” and what do we learn? Jesus was free from the burden of all these irrelevancies to love and obey the Father and to show the world what the Father is really like. He wants us free as well. Religion does not set us free. Jesus does, as we follow Him.

We are only the true children of Abraham and children of promise when we put our faith in Jesus and not in our self-effort, for acceptance with God.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.