Friday, June 10, 2016
Galatians 5:4-6 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
CHAPTER BY CHAPTER: GALATIANS 5
The natural feeling about salvation by faith alone is that it gives the person freedom to do anything. Many who oppose it feel that it leaves nothing in place to keep people from sinning. By this line of reasoning, the gospel is no longer the "power of God unto salvation" but a cheap excuse to do whatever one desires. If this sounds foreign to you, then good, it should. The temptation to misuse the greatest gift that God gives does not discredit its effectiveness to actually change the sinful human heart.
The way in which Paul describes the folly of salvation by the law makes us think of an illustration Christ used of Himself. Remember how Jesus said, "I am the vine you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Thinking of Jesus as the vine to us as branches really helps us understand the power of the gospel. It is what gives us life and enables us to produce fruits of faith for God. But it also helps us see what happens when we reject or change the gospel. We are like a branch cut off from the vine. Life ceases to exist and fruits wither away.
Human reason will find any way it can to add some self-effort to the scenario of our salvation. Beware of this! Trying to keep people in line with God by preaching the law to them sounds noble, but is rotten under the surface. It denies the efficacy of Christ's atonement. It makes us the standard bearers of morality and truth while displacing God's authority. And it cuts us off from the true source of good works: Jesus Christ. With the gospel in full view, and the correct view, Paul went on at the end of chapter five to explain the many fruits of faith the Christian produces (vv. 22-23) -- not under threat of the law, but freely and naturally through Christ.
