Paul’s uncharacteristically terse greeting at the beginning of this letter is matched by his laconic farewell at the end: “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (v.17).
In finishing our reading of Galatians, what can we say in summary of Paul’s corrective letter?
Paul’s overall message, both here in Galatians and elsewhere in his New Testament writings, is that while the Law fulfilled the purposes and will of God under the Mosaic Covenant, and while it pointed to the absolute need of a Savior who is Jesus Christ, those who are heirs of the promises of God under the New Covenant live in the Spirit of Christ and not under the Law. This transformation comes by grace, whereby God grants the gift of faith in Christ to those who are being saved. In other words, the one who is converted from death (the Law, sin, flesh) to life (grace, justification, Spirit of Christ) is made entirely new – he or she is re-born, from death to life.
A 100% brand new creation!
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2nd Corinthians 5:17-21).
Paul teaches that inasmuch as God has reconciled us to Himself in Christ, not counting our sins against us, we are to “BE” reconciled – that is, we are to live in the outward reality of “what is,” not as though we have not been reconciled in Christ. Paul might just as well have said, “Don’t be something you aren’t, and you aren’t any longer people who are subject to the Law, the flesh, and condemnation.”
We can easily identify a profound tension which exists between our “being” and “doing,” that is, between grace and works. Yes, we are saved and sanctified by grace, but we are then also to work and obey Christ – at least, that is how the tension presents itself. One person emphasizes what we are in Christ, free from the Law and freed from condemnation under the Law, while another emphasizes all that we must do in order to live out the reality of who we are in Christ. Why does this tension exist, and why does it continuously present itself?
A new creation in Christ lives in the Spirit, but also continues living in a body of flesh. Paul acknowledged this in Galatians chapter 2, where he wrote, “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” (Gal. 2:20). Paul explained that continuing to live in a body of flesh does not mean he has to nullify God’s grace by living according to (under) the Law, in condemnation as a slave to the Law and to the flesh. In living in the body of flesh and in the Spirit of Christ, through faith, Paul commits all of his life to Christ and to the grace of God who pardons sin and overcomes flesh.
If we are justified (if we have been reconciled to God in Christ, and if we are righteous before God by grace and by the completed work of Christ alone), then we are saved by grace through faith in Christ. If so, then we are also being sanctified, as we live in the power of the Spirit. We are not, however, “walking” in the Spirit all the time, especially if we are trying to be something we are not, that is, if we are trying to live under the Law and under the tyranny of the flesh. We have to carry this body of flesh, with its weaknesses and its history of fallen-ness, but we do not have to go so far as to pretend we are still under the Law and under the tyranny of our flesh. We have been freed from all of that.
Yet, as we live in the Spirit and are reconciled to God, we know that we are also living in the flesh (the physical body of flesh), as Paul stated in Galatians 2. The battle, then, between the body and mind we live with and the Spirit we live in, marks out the tension in which we are being renewed and sanctified. God is actually using this tension to grow us in Christ and to advance the Kingdom, and in this way that which our enemy designed for evil, God means for good. He not only saves us from sin and death, but He turns it around by giving us progressive victory over it. He is, after all, the Great Redeemer.
If we think about it, these facts are foundational to all New Testament instructions to the Church, including the command to “be” (live as if) we are no longer under Law but in the Spirit, and also the command to restore a brother or sister in Christ who is caught up in a sin. We are not to go around looking for the sins of others, pointing them out, gossiping about them, condemning someone whom God does not condemn, or any such things, because all of these are hypocritical, besides being 100% contrary to the Gospel of Christ and the reality of salvation by grace.
For those who are saved by God’s amazing grace, our only proper response is to love God by loving one another and by constantly restoring one another to the reality of our completed reconciliation. In other words, two major parts of “being” reconciled are (1) living in the reality of our reconciliation (“being” reconciled), and (2) passing on to others who have also been reconciled the grace by which we have have been reconciled in Christ.
What else would 100% new creatures in Christ do?
Comments