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Okay we left off with Paul writing to the Galatians (at verse 6):
Galatians 5.7-18
Milk
June 23rd 2019
6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.
And we talked all about “FAITH WHICH WORKETH BY LOVE.”
Paul mentions this to the Galatians because they were bent on adopting the Mosaic Law including circumcision and sabbath days as a means to justify themselves before God and Paul is making it clear that nothing of the sort would avail them anything and that the only thing that would would be “FAITH which worketh by love.”
The central commands of genuine Christians everywhere. Paul continues now and says:
7 Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth
8 This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
9 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump
10 I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.
11 And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.
12 I would they were even cut off which trouble you.
13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Alright, let’s go back to verse 7 where Paul says to the Galatians:
7 Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
Because of Paul’s work in an among Greece and the popularity of their Olympic games established hundreds of years before Paul arrived on the scene he was known to liken the Christian life to running a race.
He does this in 1sst Corinthians 9 when he says:
1st Corinthians 9:24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:
27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
He admits to these Galatians that they had (in the past) run the Christian race well, pacing themselves, speeding up as necessary, and heading strong toward the finish line.
But then he asks:
“Who did hinder you?”
The Word translated hinder here best means who did “drive them backward.”
Which, of course is a problem in any sort of race, right? The whole point is forward progress.
Who hindered the pace that you were on,
Who did a body check on your progress toward the goal?
Interestingly, this is an ancient Olympic expression which meant to cross a course that a person is running and throwing him out of the way.
Paul asks, “Who interrupted your walk of faith that worketh by love” and he adds:
“That ye should not obey the truth?”
The word translated to “obey” here in the King James is most frequently translated, “trust, “be persuaded by” or “have confidence in” and I prefer these terms to obey.
I say this because the other term translated obey (HOOP-Ah- KOO-OO-OO) better means obey as when the wind and sea obeyed Jesus.
And the number of times this Greek word is translated obey is few compared to trust or persuaded by or have confidence in.
So, Paul is asking them “who interrupted their race of faith that worketh by love that they should “not trust, have confidence in, or be persuaded by the truth?’
And we have to ask that question of ourselves and others today who move off and away from “faith that works by love,” and go backward to basal elements of law and religion that appeal to the flesh.
Who tied your Christianity to performances, to obligations, to rites and rituals and obediences that would cause you to go backward?
And he adds:
8 This persuasion (or this confidence or trust that you have) cometh not of him that calleth you.
In other words God, who called them to the Kingdom of His Son is not the one who called them to this path.
Some may believe that Paul is speaking of himself here but in my estimation Paul is speaking of God.
And having made clear that the shift backward was not from God, and that it came from some other source Paul adds almost a proverb, saying at verse 9:
9 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
Obviously, the meaning is clear – it does not take much of a putrefying agent to inflect the whole batch.
So just as one ounce of botulism into the water supply can kill a ton of people so can one false doctrine destroy the Church or bride of Christ.
And in the face of this little proverb -this one line from Paul to the church at Gaul – we are confronted with a real problem that must be addressed today – and in my opinion blows open the entrance to subjective Christianity and to the view that I maintain as the only viable view relative to all we have seen in history and scripture.
Outside of my own views the very presence of this little proverb by itself in a verse by verse study demands attention.
Here we have Paul an apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ telling the believers at Corinth that a little leaven permeates the whole lump.
He has stated this in the face of the fact that the believers at Galatia have gone backward in their Christian race and we know that this is in their reembracing the Law.
He has rhetorically asked:
Who did this to you and has added that it was not from the one who first gave them the truth in the first place.
After this he adds a cautionary bromide, a proverb it seems, that bears with it the apostolic warning that
Even the smallest amount of corruption will invade and corrupt and permeate the rest of the batch (of believers) as it were.
The question is not so much is this true? It certainly is. All it takes is one drug dealer to invade the community of teens and we will often see widespread drug use.
One negative Nancy on a ship and the whole crew can go south attitudinally.
One false doctrine allowed to thrive among believers like that at Galatia and before you know it the whole group is trying to circumcise each other.
So, the principle remains true today as it was then. The question that weighs heavy on Christians and bible readers today is does it matter when it comes to the faith?
Here’s why I ask this.
If this phrase remains applicable to churches today, then something is really wrong in Evangelicalism writ large and faith expressions like Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Roman Catholicism are doing it right.
See, under Apostolic rule, like there was in the early church, the believers and the Elders and the Apostles were certain to ferret out apostates and Judaisers as a means to keep the loaf pure of corruption and unleavened.
This was VITAL I keeping the bride pure and undefiled and ready for the Groom to come and take her as His own before the Great and Dreadful day.
Even Jesus, as we have pointed out in Revelation was emphatic that the churches were to have nothing to do with corruptions like the Nicolataines and the Whore of Babylon. Nothing.
Here Paul makes it clear that some have crept in unawares and polluted the whole loaf.
As a result the church was to self-govern, police itself, and use the overseers provided to maintain a holy bride. We cannot get away from this New Testament reality.
And I would strongly suggest that when Jesus called his twelve apostles he did this as a means to keep the gates of hell from prevailing against the church (his Bride) in that day, until he came to save and take her – as promised.
Two things –
IF he has not come and taken his bride, then we are still in this age when Jesus is coming back to do it and if this is the case His bride ought to be extremely exclusive in terms of membership, participation and it should still have apostolic authority over itself as a means to correct and police the church-bride.
We ought to be having excommunications (as they did in 1st Corinthians) ensuring that no leaven leavens the lump. We ought to be excluding the riff raff from our gatherings, and start seeing ourselves as the Only True Church on the Face of the Earth as the LDS and Catholics and Orthoxers tend to do suggest.
Does that make sense? Again, Paul is providing us the biblical proof here that this ought to be the case when he says:
“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” to these Galatians who have been influenced by an outside source.
Second thing – If Paul and the other apostles did their job and kept the church- bride “pure” and undefiled”, and prepared her to be received by her groom at his coming as promised, and if the gates of hell did NOT prevail against her (as Jesus said it would not), then this rule of thumb could not matter any longer as the Body of Christ ever since has been (according to scripture) made of individuals who are moved, led and protected by the Holy Spirit because God has written His laws upon their hearts and minds.
This would mean that there is no human authority on earth to police and govern “a material” church, no apostles who give special witness of the resurrected Christ, and no need to play church anymore – like they DID church in the Apostolic age.
No longer is “an institution” or gathering “of exclusivity” requisite on earth because she has already been taken and because this is so, the faith is not a material collective of souls gathered in one location needing to be pure and fearful of infiltration but it is instead a spiritual body of individuals who seek God in Spirit and truth and cannot and will not be mislead by outside sources that are supposedly infiltrating collective systems and polluting them!
Brothers and sisters, every heretical and diabolical cause on earth can and is sitting among most of the churches around the world and there is no power in them than can hijack the hearts and minds of true believers in whom God has written his laws.
The mindset today, established by reading passages like this and trying to incorporate them into gatherings because “it’s in the Bible” is so far off the mark as EVIDENCED by the multiplicity of doctrinal and practical differences among the sects that choose to exclude each other from each other!
And since it is not possible to police rightly all the churches the only way to attempt it is for groups attempting it to establish a law-based religion like Mormonism or Orthodoxy, incorporating rites and rituals and demands that must be received and obeyed as a means to vet and exclude the outsiders who may pollute it.
God is way, way smarter than to impose such chaos on the world of man since the finished work of His Son. And again, scripture proves it.
Men and women are the authors of this stuff and have created chaos on earth in the name of “obeying the Bible.”
So what we are reading here is exactly what I described – It’s Paul keeping that bride together until the wrapping up of that age, when the last apostle would pass from this world, the bride would be taken by the groom, the gates of hell would not prevail against his church, and Jesus would reign with God over a spiritual kingdom forevermore with members of that Kingdom having God’s laws written on their hearts and minds and the Kingdom of God truly being in them.
This is the ONLY way to see this UNLESS we admit that there is a material, apostolically lead (cardinals, elders, popes and prophets) church that is his, and is pure, and is exclusionary – and if that it the case, I wanna test it by the fruit of its history, its collective heart, its works of love, its practices and its legalisms.
Paul continues and says to them/then some words of confidence:
10 I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.
Even though they had been led astray, and had embraced many false opinions, on the whole, Paul had confidence in them “through the Lord” that they would return to the race set before them and run toward the goal.
The way Paul describes this is saying that he has confidence in them THROUGH THE LORD that they would not be not otherwise minded (than what they had originally embraced).
The confidence expressed is really poignant as Paul plainly states that “in the Lord” he had confidence in them.
Isn’t that always the case – so long as a person will acquiesce and turn to the Lord in their lives, and hear His leading and direction they will be okay.
As sheep we do get off track at times. We get our hackles up, get angry, get rebellious, and get off course with this wild thought or that stammering belief, but the Good Shepherd is always there for His flock, calling, correcting by His spirit, re-directing our actions and ideas and putting us back on course.
Paul trusted this about the believers at Gaul. Those who were His would here Him and turn back to the race at hand.
It is interesting that Paul describes this as
“that ye will be none otherwise minded”
Years ago, a mentor of mine, Carl Westerlund, used to always say to our class –
“Everything is in the mind.”
I believe that this is true. And so Christians gather to renew their minds by the washing of the Word, which takes out our false notions garnered through the influences of people in our lives over the years, and washes them away, replacing them with a mind that sets us straight and keeps us from the philosophies and traditions of men.
People don’t readily accept this from me but if you want to arm yourself against this world and its mind, stay in the word, read and re-read it, and allow the Spirit to wash away the riff and raff of human ideologies, and when you are confronted with such, you will be far more resistant to them influencing you than in any other way.
Paul adds:
“But he that troubleth you” (he or those who are leading you into error) “shall bear his judgment.”
Will be responsible for doing so (and he adds) “whosoever he be.”
Paul appears to not know the culprit or culprits – and if he has some suspicion that he does not name them trusting that they would be dealt with by God at the end of the reckoning. Then he adds:
11 And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.
From this it seems that Paul has somewhere along the line been accused of promoting circumcision. And so he proceeds to vindicate himself by saying:
If I preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution?
It is thought that some of the Galatians had been told Paul was all for Christians being circumcised and that this was perhaps because he had Timothy receive the rite or had not opposed it in other places and at other times.
Of course, this was assigned to him outside of context and this is Paul’s point – I have never promoted circumcision to anyone as a means for salvation or justification and the way you can see that this is true is by the fact that I am still persecuted.
Why so?
The Jews included circumcision as part of the justifying practices before God, and then of course, compliance to the Law, both of which Paul ardently opposed.
In other words, if I was really preaching circumcision is requisite for salvation why do the Jew continue to oppose me?
It’s a great question and premise as it proves the idea wholly illogical. After all, anyone who supported the Jews customs and laws would never be persecuted by them, would they? Proof that Paul was greatly persecuted by the Jews is found in Acts 14:1,2 and in Acts 17:4,5,13.
And then he adds a great line, which read in full context says:
11 And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.
Another way to read this is
Brethren if I still preach circumcision why do I still suffer persecution and in so doing I would have made the offence of the cross null and void, or, and by doing so the offense of the cross would have been removed.
Such a powerful reasoning. See, the offence of the cross, as Paul uses it here, includes the fact that the merits of the cross and all it represents wipe out the need for the Law and its demands.
To those who lived their life around the law would find the cross (and all that it represents) a real issue or offense. In fact the Greek term translated to offense is “skandalon,” where we get the word scandal, or perhaps moreso in that day “a stumblingblock.”
The scandal or stumblingblock of the cross. Paul wanted to be sure that the scandal or stumblingblock of the cross to the Jews was not in anyway mitigated.
He sought to emphasize the full force of its import and merit to those who believed that either the Law and elements of it remained in play or that some of it remained applicable.
Not so.
And Paul was the perfect one to drive the point home.
Conversely, by adopting circumcision or elements of the Law, the cross would lose its ability to stumble those who believed complicity to such was still mandated, and the merits of a crucified Savior, God’s only begotten, would be done away with.
He adds at verse 12
“I would they were even cut off which trouble you.”
Now, we have to decide how literally to take this expression of Paul’s because he uses a term that could mean excommunicate in the most gentle of applications, or could mean castrated or could mean cut off like at the neck – amputated, mutilated.
It depends on what you want to believe but I will tell you this – some of the early scholars suggest that it means that as a means for them to stop upsetting the believers he hoped that they would die.
I don’t agree with this take – even though the word is used to describe violence in other parts of scripture.
To me, I suggest that Paul is wishing that they were cut off from the communion of the church – meaning the communication or kononia of the church, and in such an act they would not have access to the believers any longer which would alleviate the uprisings.
And this takes us back to a little level leavening the whole lump.
Verse 13
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
The line you have been called unto liberty appears to refer to the law that binds. We might simultaneously see it as Paul saying that they have been called unto liberty from sin (which can be one and the same) but I tend to think his comment refers to the liberty that exists apart from the Mosaic Law.
We recall that back in chapter 4 Paul wrote to them:
Galatians 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Remember, the cross has set all people free – free from any demand that seeks to impose itself on the faith requisite to be emancipated.
So, in this verse Paul hits on the full implication of the free gift given to all who receive him by faith – liberty (first) but . . .
“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; (created for them by faith on the cross and nothing more) (then the other side of the coin – love, saying) only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”
Remember, the Gaul’s were once pagans – and there was a strong tendency to return to those fleshly ways in the presence of such liberty granted them by Christ.
It seems that at this point, because of what he will say in our passages next week, that Paul is trying to rebalance his statements on freedom and liberty with the facts that liberty does not mean licentiousness – and sometimes it is hard to find a balance.
Because they came from a place of wild abandonment and because they were surrounded by it on every side, Paul found the need to address the situation and explain that while they are free from the demands and bondage of the Law, called unto LIBERTY – that liberty is in CHRIST – and in Christ there is not licentiousness but love.
Now, there is an issue or discussion that abounds on this topic.
It goes something like this:
If a person has been saved by grace through faith, is there a need to warn them about the flesh.
The support for this position is found in admonitions like this one from Paul. And we have to admit that this pragmatism is valid because Paul wouldn’t be giving it unless it was needed.
On the other hand, there is fine line when it comes to warnings like these and the imposition of more Laws which will serve to hinder the Liberty all have in Christ. Add in the fact that in a Christian, failures in the flesh, when confronted by the Indwelling of the Spirit, often serves to humble the Christian involved and teach them by the Spirit of their need to both feed and rely on the Spirit instead of the flesh, and so I wonder about taking the admonition to heart and too literally today.
Remember, Paul had a specific call on his life to the church in that day. But I personally am not so sure about the need to harp on individual believers about failures in the flesh.
And again, I say this for the following reasons:
The letter killeth
The Spirit gives life
We all have fails in the flesh
The fails serve to humble those who are his.
In my experience to focus on the flesh is a form of feeding the flesh. And to focus on the Spirit is to learn to live by the Spirit.
And so while the admonition is sound – we are called to liberty but to use that liberty to love and not in the flesh – it is a teaching and loving reminder and not a mantra or law.
Think of it this way:
Jesus paid for the sin of the world, which grants us all liberty from the law and from sin! Take the faith we have in this, flip the coin over and love each other as a result.
When someone fails or falls we do not focus on the failure of their flesh but on the gift and fruit of the Spirit! We do not focus on their failures but on the success of Christ on their behalf. We teach and emphasize the value of our liberty setting us free and NOT the corruption of the flesh that temporarily trapped us.
Paul here says to them/then to not serve their fleshly passions but
“by love serve one another.”
Fleshly passions are of the self. They feed the self and are NOT concerned with others. Boy do I understand this.
But when the liberty through Christ enters the scene Paul is reminding us here that we turn from the focus on the flesh (which is on the self) and
“BY LOVE SERVE ONE ANOTHER.”
Could not be a more true statement on the face of the earth. And it brings us full circle to the line above:
But faith which worketh by Love.
What is really paradoxical about this is we cannot mandate genuine Christian love – a love that serves the other over the self.
It must come from above and be received or chosen by the recipient or not.
And the only response we have to those who reject it IS . . . to by love serve them.
To strive for their welfare by and through the fruit of the Spirit.
I have people ask me:
“Well, what is love really? Is it just rolling over or is it calling people out on their crap as a means to help them and those around them?
Whatever it is, it is done
With the others interest in mind
With gentleness, kindness, patience, and longsuffering, remembering that the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
In and through these appeals the liberty through Christ is not imposed upon – it increases!
So, Paul is not, in his rejection of the Mosaic Law, promoting fleshly licentiousness. Quite the opposite – he is promoting that all who have been freed by Christ to become prisoners to the Law and restraints of Agape love – which is aimed at others, at peace, and serving, and not on the self. And he adds our last verse for today:
14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
If you are a biblical literalist then you must take this passage as it stands – and that would be incorrect because we all know that there are two great commandments and the first is to love God with all our heart and soul.
Obviously, Paul is expressing the substance of the whole law; it embraces and comprises all and there is the assumption that those who are willing and able to love neighbor as self would seek to do so because they love God.
In other words, the audience allows Paul to leave off mentioning the first great commandment.
But what is worthy of notice here is the skill with which Paul slips from focusing on a doctrinal argument to one of practical application, and he sizes the whole thing up with:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Let’s stop there.
Questions/Comments
Prayer
Dave and Nancy Bontempo
