Sunday, July 20, 2008

Galatians-Week 2-Does this make sense?

In the last part of Galatians 2, Paul really answers the problem of saying one thing and then requiring the Gentiles to do another. He has no patience for the lack of logic in the Judaizers' argument.

15"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

17"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. 19For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"


11. How does it make sense to expect them to do what we couldn't?
It just doesn't make any sense for privileged Jews who have believed that Christ died to save them and rejected the law as the way to salvation to now burden the Gentiles with the keeping of that law. The law doesn't work. The problem isn't what man does but who he is.

John 3:16-18 says this:
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

And not once is there a line drawn that says there are different requirements. Whoever believes shall have eternal life. Simple. To the point. Hard to miss. And, uh, fairly well known today. And really, if the Judaizers were right, then Jesus was wrong. And that's a problem. A big one. Legalism cancels out the cross. If the Judaizers were right, Christ died for no reason.

Here are the 2 pillars of Paul's gospel: the grace of God, and the death of Christ. Both are destroyed by legalism.

So then, why do we even have this law from Moses?
Check out Chapter 3.

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