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The Law Enhances, Does Not Conflict, With Grace
Relationship Between the Law and Grace or Faith
In Galatians, the Apostle Paul argues for salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. He opposes the alternative, adding even one work to grace. Paul provides several arguments in Galatians 3 for the churches of Galatia to combat corruption of a true gospel.
To understand the right relationship of the law to grace and faith, Paul gives a great clue with a question in Galatians 3:21.
Is the law then against the promises of God?
This is a rhetorical question as seen in his answer in verse 21: “God forbid.” The law is not against the promises of God. It does not conflict with the promises of God. In saying the law does not conflict with the promises of God, he says that the law does not conflict with grace and faith.
Just as a reminder, “God forbid” is the strongest negative in the Greek language. “God forbid” in a technical sense is idiomatic. An idiom is “a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase.” The translators decided a literal translation could not convey the original Greek, so they used the idiomatic expression, “God forbid.” In the context of Galatians 3:21, Paul says no way the law conflicts with the promises of God.
The Law Must Not Conflict with Grace and Faith
For someone to take the correct position on the law, it must not conflict with grace and faith. What position will create a conflict? In the second half of verse 21, Paul says that it is the one that makes the law necessary for life or righteousness. The law does not give life. Neither does it make someone righteous. Only grace or faith does that.
Number one, if the law gives life and righteousness, then grace does not. Number two, if grace gives life and righteousness, then the law does not. If the law and grace or faith do not conflict, then one must take choice number two.
Paul gives several other related arguments for grace alone and faith alone. (1) The salvation of Abraham came by grace alone through faith alone 430 years before the Mosaic law came. (2) When the Mosaic law came, it did not replace (“disannul,” verse 17) grace alone through faith alone, but enhanced it. (3) When the seed (Jesus) arrived 1500 years after the Mosaic law in fulfillment of the promises, He superseded the law. Jesus wouldn’t supersede the law if it was necessary for life and righteousness. It wasn’t.
How Does Jesus Supersede the Law?
Superseding is not abolishing or destroying. I like the word as a description. One might use fulfilled or transcended. The law continues enhancing the promises even with the arrival of the seed. How?
Galatians 3:22 says. The law concludes all under sin, so that they will believe in Jesus Christ for life and righteousness. Galatians 3:23 says that faith does not come to someone until the law locks him up. The law still concludes a person under sin. It still locks up a sinner, so that he looks to Jesus Christ as His only possible deliverance, and believes in Him. Christ comes into the prison of sin and redeems the prisoner who believes in Him.
Unconditional and Unilateral Promises
As you’re reading, you might be asking, what are these “promises” of which I write? They are the promises of the seed made by God that would bring blessing to Abraham’s descendants and all the nations of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3, cf. Genesis 3:15). Also, God will impute righteousness to those who believe the promises (Genesis 15:6).
The promises of God of which Paul speaks are unconditional and unilateral. Abraham was asleep (unconscious) when God made that contract, agreement, or covenant with Abraham. Abraham did nothing, no works. This is the point of Galatians that the promises were superior to the law in that they required no mediator. Angels and Moses were mediators of the law. The promises involved only one — God.
When denominations say, “No, you’re involved, people,” they conflict with grace and faith. Now their adherents are required to continue “in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10, cf. Deuteronomy 27-28). They add a mediator to the promises, when there are no mediators for the promises. This brings conflict between the law and grace, to which Paul writes, “God forbid.”
A Right Understanding of the Law
What you hear from me is not a rejection of the law, but a right understanding of it. The law continues. Christ superseded it, but it still enhances the promises of God. The rest of Galatians 3 and into chapter four lays that out. Everyone still needs and should want the moral law of God and the spirit of the ceremonial and judicial laws.
Galatians 3:19 says the law “was added because of transgressions.” John Gill wrote that the law
was over and above added unto [the promises], for the sake of restraining transgressions; which had there been no law, men would not have been accountable for them; and they would have gone into them without fear, and with impunity; but the law was given, to lay a restraint on men, by forbidding such and such things, on pain of death; and also for the detecting, discovering, and making known transgressions, what they are, their nature and consequences; these the law charges men with, sets them before them, in their true light and proper colours; and convicts them of them, stops their mouths, and pronounces them guilty before God.
Saved men, those who received the promises of God, are not under the law. That means they are not under the condemnation of the law. It does not mean they are free to disobey the law. Grace frees us from the condemnation of the law, not the law. Unsaved men still abide under the condemnation of the law. Since the law does not give life and righteousness, they must receive the promises. In other words, they must by grace alone believe alone in Christ alone.
Paul Stands Against Peter and the Subject of Authority (Part Three)
Authority of Scripture
To obey God and His Word, one must first believe in His authority and the authority of His Word. I believe in God’s authority and the authority of His Word. True New Testament churches submit to the Bible as their final authority. God and His Word also function through a hierarchy of authority. He uses men. In the first century, God spoke and ruled through apostolic authority. Peter and Paul were uniquely God’s instruments.
The Pharisees and Sadducees opposed the authority of Jesus. Jesus also attacked their faux authority. The Pharisaical view of circumcision and eating with Gentiles arose from their traditions, not from God’s Word. Jesus said, They “teach for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:7). Their teaching was devoid of God’s authority.
In spite of their insubordination to scripture, Jesus did not debunk the office of the Pharisees, just the opposite in Matthew 23:2: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.” According to Jesus, the Pharisees still sat in Moses’ seat. They held the office. They lost authority, however, by not obeying the Word of God, including that written by Moses.
In Galatians, the gang of false teachers, who traveled to Antioch from Jerusalem and said they associated with James, borrowed from the Pharisee’s tradition. These men mixed certain rituals and traditions with a true gospel to concoct their false one. The Apostle Paul writes against them in Galatians 2. They had no authority, either scriptural or ecclesiological, to overturn the doctrine and practice of the Jerusalem and Antioch churches. They looked out for themselves, not for God’s will or pleasure.
Pastoral Authority
God gives pastoral authority. Pastors need it for fulfilling the important God-ordained task of overseeing a church. God instructs members to obey pastors, assuming in scriptural and even non-scriptural matters. Pastors shouldn’t expect obedience to something unscriptural. Someone in a church may view a practice of the church to be unscriptural.
Our church did fundraising for our school. A church member challenged a method we used. He thought it was unscriptural. Our principal didn’t think so. I wasn’t sure. We dropped the method and lost money. It was the right thing to do.
When a pastor says, “I want everyone there at 9am,” that is a non-scriptural matter, but he has authority in it. 9am then means 9am. A member should take that seriously. If he wants everyone there at 9am, everyone should put their selves under that authority, the idea of “submit.” This unifies a body, all the body parts working together. Defying the authority as a pattern fits the definition of factious, even for not showing up on time.
Some of what I’m addressing relates to a pastor dealing with a pattern of disobedience. He wants to help someone. To do so, he comforts, exhorts, instructs, intreats, warns, and admonishes, the approach depending on the person and his response.
To deal with a matter well, a pastor must listen. He must hear a matter before he answers it (Proverbs 18:13). And even then, he wants to edify, correct, strengthen, and restore. Jesus said, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth,” praying to God the Father. The goal is to rely on God’s Word.
Forum for Challenge
Proving Everything
Depending on the Word of God does not mean depending on an opinion about the Word of God. “A pastor thinks this, so it is true.” It might be. I hope it is. However, scripture also says (1 Thess 5:21-22):
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:31-32:
31 For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted. 32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
The spirits of the prophets were subject to the prophets. A forum for challenge exists in a church. The Bible is the final authority.
Helping People Change
Room to Grow
Certain times I led toward a change of position in our church. Just because I took a new position, I knew that didn’t mean that everyone would believe it. It might take time for everyone to come along. Unity also matters in those occasions. Our church had taken a different position for awhile. I wanted everyone to change, but I didn’t require everyone to change. The bottom line during those times was not causing “divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine” (Romans 16:17).
Opinions and what Paul calls doubtful disputations (Rom 14:1) necessitate sorting. Not everyone applies scripture exactly the same. Sanctification occurs and tweaks viewpoints. Every disagreement is not a threat to or defiance of authority. It’s not rebellion. When it takes even pastors years to change on something, they can’t turn around and expect someone else to change in days or hours.
Harmful Approaches
Through many years, I have listened to numbers of various positions of pastors. We almost never agree on everything. Nevertheless, pastors will talk with great confidence and authority when they state their positions. Pastors might treat an issue like they’re Teddy Roosevelt after just climbing San Juan Hill. They’re raising the flag at the top of Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima. Bluster and bravado or a stern countenance don’t equate with authority.
I may hear a man mock my position in his preaching, sometimes setting up straw man arguments. I might smile at the audaciousness of it, but mockery is not especially convincing. Calling people a liar definitely doesn’t persuade. Neither does characterizing the difference in an extreme or insulting manner.
Sometimes someone says God gave him peace. He may add, “I prayed about it.” Or, “I fasted over it.” If you disagree, somehow you oppose answers to prayer and the practice of fasting. A man expresses a feeling of peace. Scripture nowhere uses a feeling as a harbinger of truth.
Pastors can find many various means to provoke change. Someone might notice a modulation in the tone of voice. Cheeriness is missing. It isn’t friendly now. The eyelids are half mast. A pastor can send a message in the spirit of mean girl syndrome. Someone in is now out. If a person was a fish, he can’t swim in the small pond anymore. He’s relegated to the smaller adjacent puddle until he apprehends the message sent.
Longsuffering and Patience
“God is longsuffering toward usward” (2 Peter 3:9). “Charity suffereth long” (1 Corinthians 13:4). I think of the fellowservant in Jesus’ story in Matthew 18:29, who cried, “Have patience with me!” I don’t see a biblical pattern of cutting off people with a different position, cancelling them with little to no due process.
A kind of political cancellation and making phone calls, applying social and economic pressure, is not the method of pastoral authority. People will have difficulty seeing Jesus in an environment of possible expectation of punishment. Scriptural conviction can motivate loving service that will please the Lord.
God gives and uses authority. Romans 13:1 says, “For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” At the same time, “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1). Especially church leaders should know that the final judgment of Jesus Christ, that’s what matters. “Ye masters,” forbear “threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven” (Eph 6:9).
Everyone of us will give an account to God (Romans 14:10). And God says, “destroy not him for whom Christ died” (Romans 14:15). Christ didn’t give authority to take His place as Lord or destroy the people He died for.
More to Come
Roman Catholicism Versus Protestantism: Candace Owens Show (part three)
Worship, Roman Catholic or Protestant
Differences
Roman Catholic George Farmer debated Protestant Allie Beth Stuckey on the Candace Owens Show. Picking up midway of part two, Owens challenged Stuckey about the silliness in evangelical worship. I see this as a legitimate criticism of evangelicalism, not however a legitimate promotion of Roman Catholicism.
Everything about Protestantism does not not translate to modern evangelicalism. Worship and church growth philosophy are two of these. These relate more to the decaying culture of Western civilization and its effect on the church.
I imagine far less change in the formal tradition of Roman Catholic liturgy than what occurred to Western evangelicalism as an offshoot of Protestantism. Built into the formal liturgy of Roman Catholicism is a dogma of a transcendent imagination of God. Cavernous cathedrals, stained glass windows, robes, huge wood carved lecterns, sacraments, and pipe organs, even removed from sincerity and true spiritual reality, communicate reverence and seriousness more than evangelical practices today. Both are false, just like Judaistic and Samaritan worship had become in Jesus’ time.
Perversions in True Worship
Stuckey could not give a coherent answer to Owen’s criticism of evangelical worship. She doesn’t show understanding of the problem from a biblical or theological perspective. Stuckey made some good points about seeker-sensitive church growth philosophy and its effects on worship. It’s true that when churches become man-centered through strategies of church growth, it corrupts worship. She didn’t seem concerned about the issue, which is normal for evangelicals. Very few care that God isn’t worshiped by their worldly, irreverent, intemperate, lustful music and atmosphere. This shapes a false view of God that undermines true evangelism and biblical sanctification.
God calls on us to worship Him in the beauty of His holiness (Psalm 96:9). Beauty is objective. It is defined by God and His nature and the perfections of His attributes. Modernism, which includes modern evangelicalism, ejects from objective beauty and, thus, true worship of God. This changes the true God in the imagination of the worshipers to a false God. This corrupts worship in a significant way akin to the corruption authored by Roman Catholicism.
The Gospel
John 3:5
Allie Beth Stuckey then asks George Farmer what the gospel is. He starts by talking about baptism and the eucharist, first quoting John 3:5. Farmer says that this verse is explicit for baptism as a necessity for salvation. It reads:
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Farmer points to baptismal regeneration as sola scriptura, using John 3:5 and saying he depends on scripture for his doctrine of salvation. He argues this is salvation by grace, because the child can do nothing. At the moment of baptism, we do nothing, so that must be grace. He says the early church agreed with that argument, and I’m assuming he refers to the patristic testimony for it. Farmer follows the infant sprinkling as a means of salvation by speaking of the avoidance of mortal sin to stay saved. He doesn’t explain that, but that clarifies his view.
Ephesians 2:8-9 and James 2
Stuckey quotes Ephesians 2:8-9 from the ESV. She says his description of salvation is grace plus works, bringing merit or works to it. Stuckey explains the Catholic view of grace as an ability to earn the salvation. She continues with a mention of 2 Corinthians 5:21, that we become the righteousness of God in Christ.
Farmer rebuts Stuckey by saying that the Roman Catholic Church does not believe salvation by works. He compares infant sprinkling to irresistible grace. The child can’t resist. He says that as long as someone doesn’t commit a mortal sin from that point, he will go to heaven. Then Farmer brings in James 2, that God inscribes a person with grace and through works he receives more grace. He interprets James 2 as, you are not saved through faith alone.
Stuckey makes two arguments. She references election, that we’re chosen before the foundation of the world. Then she reinforces Ephesians 2:8-9 again. When Owens pushes back, she explains James 2. It is works that accompany faith, as seen in the context of the New Testament, all the clear passages for faith alone and grace alone.
Baptism and the Lord’s Table
The conversation comes back to baptism for Farmer. He says the person receives grace through baptism, so it is grace by which someone is saved. He quotes Chesterton to say that it is more than a symbol. This was the issue for Farmer for turning Catholic from Protestant. He sees baptism and the eucharist as more than symbols.
Stuckey had good things to say to Farmer, but it did not seem that she participated much in evangelism or apologetics with Roman Catholics. She needed refutations for the proof texts Farmer gave her. She also needed more verses on the contrast between grace and faith and works. Actually, Roman Catholics will almost never argue like Farmer. I can count with one hand out of thousands of Catholics, those who try to defend their beliefs. However, Church of Christ, Christian Church, and others will argue like Farmer or harder. They keep you sharp on the issues of the debate.
Farmer continued later with an explanation of the real presence of Christ in the elements. He said this is the earliest Christian teaching, found again and again in Christian writing. He taught baptism and the Lord’s Table as crucial to his becoming Roman Catholic. It is important to show that Roman Catholic history is not the history of true Christianity. False doctrine and practice already corrupted the church by earlier than the third century.
Final Comments
John 3:5
I don’t know what Stuckey thought about John 3:5. Farmer used it first and she said nothing about it. Many Protestants think “water” in John 3:5 is baptism. Martin Luther and John Calvin thought so, so maybe that’s why Stuckey wouldn’t touch it. Thomas Ross and I both believe it is natural birth, the water being amniotic fluid. In answering Nicodemus, Jesus described the second birth, born first of water and then second of the Spirit. He explains the new birth or being born again. A second birth is necessary, a spiritual one after a physical one. This reads clear to me and a quick exposition of this text would have been better.
James 2 and Romans 4
Stuckey should have dealt with justification, which is a good place to answer James 2. Abraham was justified by faith before God, as seen in Genesis 15:6 and Romans 4:1-6, the latter a good place to explain, also including Romans 3:20. Paul doesn’t mention baptism in Romans 3 through 5. In James 2, works justified Abraham before men, which means they “vindicated” him, another meaning of “justified.” A man shows his faith by his works. James explains this.
Galatians and Hebrews
I also think someone must go to Galatians and Hebrews to talk to a Roman Catholic, especially Galatians 2, 3, and 5, and then Hebrews 9 and 10. A good question to ask a Roman Catholic is if he believes he has full forgiveness of sins throughout all eternity. He should explicate four verses in Hebrews 9-10: 9:27-28, 10:10, 14. Through the one offering of Christ someone is forever perfected and sanctified. These are perfect tense verbs, completed action with ongoing results.
I like Galatians 5 to show that even adding one work to grace nullifies grace. Stuckey could have quoted Romans 11:6, which says if it’s grace it is no more works and if it is works, it is no more grace. Grace and works are mutually exclusive.
Preparation
This encounter between the three participants shows a need for regular evangelism. Stuckey seemed uncomfortable with boldness. She might not be able to be friends with the other two. And then maybe she doesn’t get the kind of show or podcast that she has. I don’t know.
Someone who does not in a regular way confront the lost over their false gospel or false religion may stay unprepared for a difficult occasion. It is hard to keep good arguments in your head if you don’t use them a lot through constant practice. Hopefully, as you listened to this conversation with these three, you were ready to give an answer for the glory of God.
Addenda
I wanted to add one more thing, which I thought about driving somewhere this afternoon. Farmer brought in infant sprinkling as salvation by grace. He said this was scriptural. Stuckey also should have pushed back against infant sprinkling. It’s not in the Bible anywhere. She could have gone to a number of places on this.
Obviously, Farmer could just bring the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, and tradition. When you can make it up as you go along, you can believe anything. Not only is infant sprinkling not in the Bible anywhere, but it is refuted by several places. I think of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8, what doth hinder me from being baptized? Philip said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Infants can’t believe in Jesus, so they are still hindered from being baptized. Every example of baptism is believer’s baptism.
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