Justification is by faith
Galatians 3:1-14
Introduction
Our world's attitude toward religion, on a good day, is that it's okay whatever we believe because all roads lead to God and heaven in the end. And any religion that claims that truth is actually objective, is narrow minded and hateful. That’s the air we breathe today. That is what is “in”. And because of this climate of relativism that we all live in, many professing Christians and churches are also swept away by it; many professing Christians and churches areadopting and applying this relativistic mindsetwithin Christianityitself: This church preaches thismessage, that church preaches that messagebut hey, whatever message works, right?! Gospels-R-us! At least they are all more or less in somewhat the same God-ball-park. These churches read the Bible this way and these read it that way. Therefore they have this Gospel and they have that Gospel, but not to worrybecause in the end every Gospel variety from every church is fine. All Gospels will save us in the end. There’s this kind of relativism that’s crept into the Church and professing Christians are happily going about life as though everything is fine, jumping from church to church depending which church is the coolest and trendiest, maybe even staying away from church altogether for weeks at a time. It’s all good. Truth matters brothers and sisters. That’s the war that Paul is fighting in Galatians.
Let me tell you, I think that Paul would be flabbergasted with the church in Port Elizabeth today. I myself am appalled by just the sheer absence of the preaching of the truth of justification by faith in our city. Can I just say as well that if St. James is not preaching that men and women are reconciled to God through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ you have to as a matter urgency leave us and find a church that proclaims that justification is by faith. And we should promptly shut down.
Let me refresh your memory with some contexthere in Galatians:
Paul is writing this letter to a group of churches in a place called Galatia as we see in ch1v2. He had gone to Galatia to preach the Gospel, people believed it and he planted a number of churches there. He has since heard that there have been people in the area that were corrupting the Gospel that He preached. These people were saying to the Galatians… “yes believe Paul’s Gospel, but Paul is not on our level, you must also add Jewish circumcision to it to be truly right with God, to be truly saved... yes Jesus and all His done is great, that Gospel sounds good but you need to contribute this to it... then you will be the real McCoy. Right now you’re missing out on a truly spiritual experience that will guarantee your salvation...” There were people in Galatia who had infiltrated the church and were adding to the Gospel and they soundedappealing to the Galatians because they appeared to be the “it” group. They were the spiritual heavy weights. They had religious clout which they used to great effect everywhere because they looked like the people that were the most in touch with God. They were the group of kids on the playground that you always wanted to be a part of.
They also saw Peter as their leader. This is why Paul’s confrontation of Peter is such a powerful story to tell these Galatians as we saw last week. By sharing the story of how he confronted the leader of the popular group for putting the truth of the Gospel in jeopardy, Paul was clearly and powerfully showing therefore that this “it” group is really nothing to aspire to because they walk around with a completely corrupted the message of the Gospel.These people heard the good news about Jesus but insisted that there are things from their religious heritage that need to be added to it in order to be truly right with God. They commanded everyone’s attention of course because they were the great father Abraham’s biological descendants.
For hundreds of years, observance of the Mosaic Law was their way of life, their divine heritage, their distinguishing mark of superiority among all the peoples of the earth. Andso they then went around teaching that “Jesus plus-law-Gospel” in Galatia and the church in Galatia was starting to believe them.
Now Paul at this point in the letter is about to confront the Galatians on this issue. And he wants to make a simple and yet eternally profound point that the human heart is always resisting. Even when we’ve been Christians for years, human nature always pulls in the opposite direction of this point. Even after years of solid Biblical teaching and walking with the Lord, the flesh always wages war against this very point upon which everything in the Christian life hangs. And here’s the point that Paul wants to maketo the Galatians: Justification is by faith. Justification is by faith.
He has 3 arguments by which he wants to demonstrate this point and they are as follows:
1)Your Personal Experience shows that justification is by faith
2)The Patriarch’s Example shows that justification is by faith
3)The Penalty of Exile shows that justification is by faith
- Your Personal Experience
As Paul said when he opened his letter in chapter 1:6, he is absolutely astonished that these Galatians are so quickly turning to a different Gospel which is no Gospel at all. Look at how he expresses his astonishment at them again in v1 of our text:
“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?
Those are some pretty harsh words that Paul uses here because that’s how seriously Paul takes any kind of addition to the Gospel. He doesn’t think, “oh well, as long as you are in a church somewhere, as long as you are hearing something Jesus related, as long as you’re trying to be a good Christian, as long you are sincere… it’s okay if you add a few good things here and there to the Gospel.” No, Paul says you are sincerely being bewitched if you are not presently convinced of and delighting in justification before God by faith alone. In ch1:8 he said “if anyone is preaching to you a different Gospel other than the one true Apostolic Gospel you heard, even if it’s Peter or me who changes it, may he be eternally condemned. God damn him.”You foolish Galatians. Who has bewitched you? Look at the rest of v1: “Before your very eyes Jesus was clearly portrayed as crucified.
Remember that Paul is not talking to unbelievers here, nor is he talking to infants in the faith. He’s talking to a church that has existed almost as long as St. James has; a church that heard the Gospel from an Apostle no less. Jesus was clearly, accurately, truthfully and carefully painted before their very eyes through the preaching of the Apostle Paul. He preached Christ crucified for sinners to them. He would said, “Christ died for the ungodly”. “Very rarely will someone take a bullet even for a great guy yet it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us”.
What that death of Christ means for us is that God justifies the wicked. God declares the guilty innocent. God remembers the offences of the offenders no more. God casts the sins of sinners as far as the east is from the west... That is why the crucifixion of Jesus is the very thing that showcases the crazy beauty of God above everything else He has ever done: By it God washes away the sins of the guiltythrough faith. God welcomes and accepts into His family all rebels who trust Christ crucified. “Before your very eyesJesus was portrayed as crucified.” These guys knew this Gospel. Paul preached the Gospel in all its glory to them and they had been believers of it for years. And that’s the great tragedy here: These are believers who are losing their grip on the fact that because of Christ’s crucifixion, God justifies the ungodly by faith. That is why Paul is so furious.
So V2, “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard?”
Now receiving the Spirit is what happens when you become a believer. Romans 8:9 puts it like this: “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ.” Positively put, everyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins is justified by God and God gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is the experience of every believer upon trusting in Christ. In other words, the corresponding personal experience of being justified in heaven’s courts, the corresponding personal experienceof being accepted by God is that He puts his Spirit in you by which He says personally to you, “mine”! Christ dies to pay the penalty for your sins. You put your faith in Him. God’s treats you just as if you had never sinned and puts His Spirit in you by which He says to you, “mine”. Ladies and gentlemen behold the glory of God’s grace in the face of Jesus Christ! Stand amazed why don’t you?
God’s Spirit in you says to your spirit, “Your penalty has been paid. Your guilt is gone. Your sins are washed away. You. Are. Mine!” In the words of Galatians 4:6, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father!” You see, justification by faith is not just a doctrine that is intellectually assented to, in order to check the box of orthodoxy;in believing it we experience the claim of God of us through His Spirit. You experience being declared by God righteous and blameless in His sightthrough faith in the cross of Christ. You experience God’s acceptance of you. You experience it by the testimony of the Spirit to your spirit, that you are a child of God. I love the way 2 Corinthians 1:22 puts it. It says, “It is God whomakes us stand firm in Christ and He set His seal of ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts…” Receiving the Spirit of ownershipis the experience of being justified. The question that Paul now asks is, “how did that happen? Did you receive the Spirit who says, you are children of Godbecause you obeyed the law or because you believed the Gospel that I preached to you? This question is so sarcastic because when they first heard the Gospel, they hadn’t even heard of this cool group that says you must also be circumcised to be the genuine article like us.The answer is, of course they received the Spirit simply by believing the gospel.
That’s why v3 begins by again saying, “are you so foolish?” After believing the Gospel and being marked with God’s seal of ownership from the moment you trusted Jesus how on earth could you now try to be justified in God’s eyes by things you do? That is to completely rubbish the whole message of the Gospel. God justifies the wicked who trust that Christ died for their wickedness… not the wicked who think they can somehow impress God and make themselves innocentin His sight by their efforts.
“Have you experienced so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing?” v4 The word translated suffered in some of your Bibles there also means experienced and that I think is probably the better translation in this context. What’s their experience?
V5 Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law or because you believed what you heard? Now when a teacher wants to emphasise something, he repeats it. When a teacher wants to emphasise something, he repeats it. That was for those who weren’t here last week. And here’s Paul repeating Himself again, 3 times he says the same thing: v2, v3 and v5. “Did you receive the Spirit by the law or by faith, by law or by faith, by law or by faith?” Some people have taken the miracles spoken of in v5 to be drawing attention to perhaps healings and exorcisms that might have been performed among the Galatians through the Spirit. But I don’t think that that understanding is compatible with the argument that’s going on here. First of all, since he is busy repeating himself in these verses, making parallel statements, it would be weird if all of a sudden he goes on a tangent about healings and the like. Secondly, remember the argument: Paul is trying to show the Galatians through their personal experience that justification is by faith and not observance of law. Witnessing someone being healed of a disease or being healed yourself of a disease has virtually nothing to do with one being declared innocent of sin before God through faith in Christ alone.
So I think that the miraculous work of the Spirit that Paul has in view at this point has more to do with the miracle of rebirth and new life in Christ than the miracles we often refer to as miracles.The miracles that the Spirit performs amongst a community of people who were dead in sin and now trust in Jesus is that He breathes new life into them. He transforms those people into new creations. And I think 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 captures this best:
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” Your identities were supernaturally changed by the Spirit. Those are the miracles that the Spirit performs in a community that He Himself justifies. Again, can you see that justification is not just a doctrine that’s believed for orthodoxy’s sake? When we are justified by faith we experience God’s claim of us through His Spirit and the Spirit also breathes new life in Christ into us. He transforms us from the core of our being into brand spanking new creations of God and we will see in a few weeks also the fruit He produces in us.
This is why Paul can appeal to the Galatians Personal Experience of the Spirit to show them that justification is indeed by faith. It’s because the reality of being justified by faith is experienced through the Spirit. As it is true for the Galatians, it is also true for us at St. James: The Spirit did not come to live in us as God’s mark of ownership of us and perform the miraculous work of regenerationin us because of anything we’ve done. He did so simply because we believed what we heard. Justification is by faith.
The second way Paul shows the Galatians that justification is by faith is by the example of father Abraham.
- The Patriarch’s Example
Now the cool Jewish group that said the Galatians had to be circumcised toreally be right with God had their persuasive power from their relationto father Abraham, from whom they naturally descend. Abraham is the Patriarch or the father of Israel. Salvation of the world into God’s family is a promise that God made to Abraham. The cool group are Abraham’s children so they know what they are talking about. They are the authority on all things salvation.
So if Paul can show that Father Abraham Himself was justified by faith then the whole house of legalistic cards that they had built would come crashing down. And that’s exactly what Paul does with 2 verses from Genesis. Consider Abraham, V6, “Hebelieved God and it was credited to Him as righteousness.” That’s Genesis 15:6. Boom. Case closed. Unfortunately from the English you can’t see this but the words righteousness and justification and just and justice are all variations of the same word in Greek. The phrase “credited as righteousness” is another way of simply saying “justified”. That is, Abraham believed God and was credited with justification. Abraham believed God and was counted not guilty of sin. The law came 430 years later. It had nothing to do with being made right with God. And look who the real children of Abraham are in v7: it’s those who believe. And by implication, those who think they are Abraham’s children by ancestry are strangers to Abraham and strangers to the promise of God. So let me ask you St. James: who’s your daddy?
The call that God is making through the Gospel is not,“try and impress me and perhaps if you’re good enough I’ll accept you”. That’s what every religion in a nutshell tells you but that’s not the message of the God who lives. The call that God is making through the Gospel is trust me. I want you. You are more wicked than you could ever realise and are completely unworthy of my presence but I’ve done everything necessary to do away with your sins and to bring you into an everlasting relationship with me, I promise. Trust me…That’s precisely what Abraham did: “He believed God and it was credited to Him as righteousness.” Perhaps this morning the penny is dropping in your heart for the very first time and you want to be justified before by believing what you are hearing right now. Talk to someone after the service. Don’t just go. Being declared innocent before God really is by faith. And faith is simply accepting what God has done for you. Or maybe you still want to wrestle with this ridiculously amazing truth before you give in to God’s love for you. Talk to someone. Today.