Notes from Galatians study.

1:3 — “Grace to you and peace ….” The central issue in Galatians is the means of salvation. Any human activity, effort, attempt, actually deed, or intention to earn or qualify for the salvation of God, is utterly doomed and God hates it.

The gospel is not just saving news and a means of forgiveness. The gospel establishes a new and transformative relationship with God that changes a person completely and eternally.

Anything that people may attempt to do to earn salvation, fails. Anything people attempt will only condemn them more. But more dangerously, the insertion of human effort into salvation nullifies and removes the competent and utterly powerful work of Christ on behalf of sinners. Our good deeds make his perfect sacrifice ineffectual for salvation (see Galatians 5:2-4). We cannot depend on Christ a little. We can’t trust Christ’s sacrifice added to with a little bit of our goodness. It is all or nothing.

1:4 — “Christ gave himself.” The goal of Christ’s “gift” was that God the Father would be glorified. The purpose of our salvation is that God would receive glory and honor, praise and thanks. We receive “grace” that he might receive “glory.” Our salvation (as all things in the Universe) is for God’s glory.

What is created in the work of grace is peace. The peace of God is the reconciliation of sinners to the Holy God. It is to be no longer alienated and hostile to God, nor is God any longer anger or wrathful toward us. But peace is also a quality ruling the heart of the believer. Because we are reconciled to God, we are at peace with him through Jesus Christ. Because we are a peace with God, we have peace within.

Evangelism can be summarized as telling people about grace, so that they can experience peace with God and peace within.

The gospel is grace and peace.

Reminder of The Prodigal Son — Luke 15:8, “I will say to my father …” The son decided to return home to his father. At least there he would have food to eat. But he wanted to return as a slave. He said, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son …” Luke 15:21.

But (as J. R. de Witt writes in Amazing Love, Banner of Truth Trust — on the parable of the Prodigal Son) the father determined the terms under which the son would be received back into his home. The son would be given a new robe, new shoes, and a ring on his finger. There would be a feast because “this son of mine was dead, and now he is alive” (vs. 24). The father would never allow the son to be a slave.

In the same way that the gift of grace qualifies us completely as the sons and daughters of God. We attempt to do our part, to try hard, to serve faithfully, but none of that will determine our place at the Father’s Table. He and he alone determines the intimacy and love that he will bring into our life with him.

The offense of the Gospel. Romans 3:10-18 is a scathing rebuke of human sin and separation from God. The Law only condemns. As a system to bring us to God it utterly fails. We cannot keep the Law. Our sin works against the things that the Law demands. It creates within us the desire to do the exact thing that the Law forbids. If the Law says, “Do not lie,” we find that the very desire to lie wells up within us. In fact, the more we know about the requirements of the Law, the more our sinful nature wants to fight against them all. We do not become better people by trying to keep the Law. We become worse. What we thought would put us in better stead with God, works within us, to utterly condemn us. No one will be justified by obeying the Law or by doing the works that the Law demands. Our sin is inescapable.

Ephesians 2:12 — “you were at that time separated from Christ [remember the Romans 3 section just read], alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the promise — having no hope and without God in the world.” (ESV)

2:13, “But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace ….”

This section in Ephesians ends with a glorious benediction of praise to God. The grace not only glorifies God — it infiltrates into your life. The inner working of grace through salvation brings strength. It brings the in-dwelling of Christ by the Spirit of God within the life of the believer who trusts him. There is love abounding. There is the knowledge of the love of God in all its dimensions (breadth, length, height and depth), and you are filled with the fulness of God (Ephesians 3:14-20). A benediction of his glory follows these amazing proclamations (Ephesians 3:20-21).

The context of Galatians 2:20. Paul found that there came a change in the way that Gentile believers in Christ we being welcomed by the Jewish Christians, particularly in Jerusalem. Peter had learned the lesson from the Vision of the Sheet, that what God has made clean is clean to all (Jew and Gentile, Acts 10:9-16).

But the Jewish Christians, sometime later, began to insist that those who come to Christ from Gentile origins must be required to first become Jews. When they were complying with the Law of Moses, then they could be welcomed into the Christian church. Paul saw this as an error and a turning away from the principle of Acts 10 and an insult to Gentile believers. They has been welcomed for a while, but now with this new understanding of where Gentiles fit in, they were excluded. Peter was even refusing to have fellowship with them. Paul would have none of it.

Galatians 2:14 — Paul confronts these Judaising Christians and he tells them that they were not living according to the truth of the gospel. Are we forgiven by the Blood of Christ, or not? He was asking.

Application: The conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christians seems a million miles away from us today. But the absolute sovereigny and supremacy of grace and the failure of all attempts to earn God’s favor could not be more central to everyone’s struggle to know and serve God.

If we believe that our good deeds add our righteousness, we have lost Christ. If we turn our backs on people who come to Christ from other cultures or nationalities, we have lost the grace of God.

But even more to our personal struggles: If we think that our purity, our goodness, our hard work, our sacrifice mean anything with regard to our salvation, we have lost the message of the gospel of grace, and we are not at peace with God.

Saving faith is in Christ alone. Not Christ plus your efforts, your goodness, your prayers, your gifts, your service, your anything. Christ plus nothing.

Paul moves from the rebuke of Peter (Cephas) to display his faith and his heart with reference to grace and peace:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 ESV)

He isn’t thanking God for all he did, all he sacrificed, how much he lost or how many times he was beaten. Those things didn’t matter in the least in his life with God. They happened, but they earned him nothing.

He is praising God that Christ lives in him. To be crucified with Christ is to lose all desire for self-justification.