In the last blog, I began looking at
three fundamental issues from the letter of Galatians. The first one was that
Paul had the divine right to preach the message of freedom, which is the
message of faith, hope and revelation in Jesus Christ. Paul went on to state
the second issue in two questions. The first, in which he used two metaphors,
both in Gal 3:1,
“Oh,
foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of
Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a
picture of his death on the cross (Gal 3:1 NLT).”
Here are my musings on the matter. The
first metaphor he used was when asking who had “cast an evil spell,” or ‘bewitched’ them. That is, ‘to speak ill of
one,’ or ‘to slander. While the second metaphor, is how Jesus
Christ’s death “was made clear to you”
in other words, was publically portrayed. Paul chose to use to illustrate, the OT
layout on this matter, i.e. the OT design or chosen previously so all can read
it.’ Consequently, he asks, “What is your problem church, because
you have already seen this illustrated in the OT.”
Paul’s
second question was dealt with throughout his letter, “Is there still any place
of the Mosaic Law in the plan of salvation for Christ followers?” (cf. Gal 3:3-4;
4:10; 5:2,3,4). Paul reviewed
the relevance of the Law extensively in the letter.[1] He
used the example of Abraham to demonstrate that he was justified by faith and not by works, (see Gen
15:6; Gal 3:6-9; cf. also Rom 4:3, 5, 9, 22). As a result, justification was
then and is today by faith in Christ, not by the Law of Moses (2:14-16; cf. Gal
3:10-4:11).
“Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus
Christ, not by obeying the Law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we
might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we
have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the
Law (Gal 2:16 NLT).”
Pause in His presence for a moment and think this
over. To be continued…
[1] See Gal
2:16,19, 21; 3:2, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24; 4:4, 5, 21; 5:3,
4,14, 18, 23; 6:2,13.
No comments:
Post a Comment