Saying (and living) it

"I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision (justification by the law) that he is obligated to the whole law. You who are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by such law, you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly await for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus there is neither circumcised not uncircumcised, but only faith working through love".

Galatians 5:3-6.

Don't you hear that, it's often asked - Paul is telling us that 'externals' really truly don't matter now - all that is gone. It's what we do 'inwardly' by loving that really counts - so, if we're loving people, however we behave (live) outwardly, that's fine. Christianity, then, boils down to 'all you need is love'.

Is that what Paul is saying?

What about when our 'external' behavior causes us to align ourselves with one group at the expense of being discriminatory against another? Wouldn't Paul be the first to say that has to stop? Certainly - that's one of the reasons he wrote this particular letter. A band of people had arisen teaching that if you weren't Jewish, you had to ceremonially become Jewish and then live by Jewish customs to really be a Christian.

Paul says that's bad theology, but his reason for doing so is because of the nature of Christianity itself.

Because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and not out of our own deeds, we have been made truly free to live in a manner that is as different to trying to keep the law as night is to day. 

For Paul, genuinely loving someone means directing them to the true parameters and ramifications of the saving work of God in His Son, and that entails boldly affirming the faith which justifies us by grace, without the seeking to live by the burden of self-imposing the law.

By such grace, Paul himself had come to understand that though previously obsessed with the Jewish law, it was only by trusting in Christ and His giving of Himself for us that he could become justified before God (Galatians 2).  He therefore admonishes us to trust and live purely on that basis (Galatians 3), that we might truly be those adopted into God's saving work (Galatians 4).

So, if we are a community living by that faith, then that is what we will convey in our life together. Formerly, we were enslaved to 'externals' of our own devising or by those imposed by others (religion), but that has ended, and we need to be people who see further than what was. The problem for us is when teachings encroach which seek to re-direct us from the validity of the Gospel to give credence to practices via notions which effectively sever us from truth working by love. The Galatians were duped by a message that sounded right, making them 'more' than they assumed they had been, but that was the lie, leading them into error. Thankfully, Paul was there to say refrain from such folly.

So, what about us?

How do we weigh up and determine what is being advocated regarding what we need to say and do today?

We certainly should seek to engage with all with honesty and love with respect to the truth in the good news, but we always need to do so in the clarity of what that message is and why certain 'externals' (teachings and practices) are contrary to that, making clear that life in God is weening us away from the merely living to or by the things of the flesh (Galatians 5). It is that which allows us to walk with our burdens and share these with each other (Galatians 6) and know the true uncoupling from what's bad by God making us anew.

So, there are things which should distinguish us as the community of God's children.

First is our understanding of the nature of the gospel (the indicatives) - the life given to us by God in Christ.

We come to see that because of who and what we are, both in ourselves and in the race we belong to, we are sinners because, by nature, we are sinful (Paul's getting us to face up to this in Romans 5-7, after spelling out what's true of us all in Romans 1-3, is crucial).  Salvation comes to us by what God has done in the life, death and resurrection of Christ being made ours (Romans 6), changing us into becoming Gods people (Romans 8). This is because God's wrath against our unrighteousness and ungodliness (Romans 1:18) has been replaced by the righteousness evidenced in the propitiation of the blood of Jesus Christ, which allows Him to justify those who were under such wrath (3:21-26). Christ's death and resurrection brought a complete victory over sin and the death it brought upon us (2 Corinthians 5:21). This allows us to share in God's astonishing mercy and the sure and certain hope of eternal life in a redeemed and renewed creation (Romans 8).

Second is our recognizing the ramifications of this gospel (the imperatives) - that we seek to live in accordance with the freedom (righteousness) that is ours.

This is where Paul seeks to point the Galatians once he has clarified the Gospel itself.

He urges them to avoid the manner of life they had lived prior to being freed - the various impurities that we naturally are inclined to follow - in favor of being those things which God is seeking to encourage amongst us (Galatians 5:13-24). This clearly isn't easy (6:1-5), but life together makes it possible if the 'law' (truth) of Christ (see verse 14) is what reigns over us.

As for the Galatians, there are 'externals' aplenty which buffer us today to 'love' without the manner of understanding (and therefore, freedom) Paul lays out, but we need, if we're going to live and serve well, to listen carefully to what's said here. 

The cost if we don't could be everything of eternal value.