Galatians 1

Chapter 1. Free Grace, or Christ in GalatiansI am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. (Galatians 1:6)It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)The Galatians were the Celts of western Asia. Like the French, the Irish and the Scottish Highlanders of our day, they were a high-spirited, impulsive people, as quick to be perverted as they had been to be converted at the preaching of Paul. They had received him on his first visit with intense enthusiasm, “as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself” (Galatians 4:14), and “if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me” (Galatians 4:15). But now they have turned back at the bidding of false teachers and just as promptly gone after “those weak and miserable principles. Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!… You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?” (Galatians 4:9-10; Galatians 5:7). They had already fallen into the hands of the high church or ritualistic party of that day. It is the old and favorite counterfeit of the enemy which again today is sweeping so many by a resistless current on to the inevitable shores of Romanism—a desire for ceremony and outward form instead of spirituality and holiness. This was the delusion which had drawn away the once fervid and evangelical churches of Galatia. These false teachers were trying to draw them back to Judaism, the ceremonial law, the rite of circumcision, and the bondage of the past. And in order to fortify their position, they had persuaded the Galatians that Paul had no authority to preach the gospel to them; that he was inferior to the other apostles, and that James and Peter were the true leaders of the Church, and the supreme authorities on matters of Church law and practice. Paul therefore is compelled to vindicate his apostleship, and so he rehearses the story of his call and ministry. He reminds them that his authority is not of man, nor by man, but directly from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He reminds them of his independent stand with the other apostles, and of his direct commission to the Gentiles, which even the apostles themselves freely admitted. He tells them also of his firm attitude when the Judaizing party demanded that Titus the Gentile should be circumcised, to whom he “did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you” (Galatians 2:5). Nay, further, when Peter became inconsistent, and, after having received the Gentiles through the deeper teaching of the Spirit, went back through fear of the Jews and resumed his old conservative and exclusive attitude, drawing away even Barnabas with him, he reminds them: “When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14), “I opposed [Peter] to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong” (Galatians 2:11). Having thus vindicated his own apostleship and proved his consistent attitude in relation to the gospel, he proceeds to unfold his great argument for free grace, and against the false teachers and Judaizing elements of the day. The result is one of the most precious of the New Testament epistles of which the keynote throughout is the term “free grace,” especially as we trace it in our salvation, our sanctification, and our spirit toward others. The Meaning of Free Grace

1. Divine Goodness Grace is the divine goodness with special reference to the unworthy and the helpless. It is not love to the good, but to the bad. There is something in God which can love the unlovely, and can take hold of wrong, and by the power of His grace lift it to the right and even turn the curse into a blessing. “How wonderful!” said one, after speaking of the grace of God to poor sinners. “No,” said a poor slave, who had lately been saved; “It is not wonderful at all; it is just like Him.” And yet it is so unlike us that the natural heart cannot understand it. On the Cornish coast there were once two fishermen who were on unfriendly terms. One was a rude and most ungodly man who took every opportunity to injure and insult the other who was a Christian, even destroying his fishing nets on the pretext that he had trespassed on his grounds. One stormy day the fishing boat of the former was drifting out to sea and would certainly have been lost had not the other leaped into the surf and by desperate exertions rescued it. As he slowly drew it to its moorings and came ashore, the owner had come out of an ale house and was standing with sulky mien on the shore. Too rude to thank him, he looked up with a sullen glance and said, “Why did you do that?” “Because,” said the other, “I couldn’t help it.” “But how could you do it after the way I have treated you?” “Why,” said the other, “I couldn’t help it.” “What are you?” said the first. “I am a Christian,” he answered. “Well,” said the other, “you are the first I have met.” That is grace, the sort of love that cannot help blessing those who curse us, and doing good to the unthankful and undeserving. The apostle has defined it in another of his epistles thus: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions” (Ephesians 2:4-5). “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
2. Salvation Salvation is the gift of God’s free grace. It is not deserved or earned by works, but it is the bestowment of God’s sovereign grace. “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). The only terms on which we can have salvation at all is by taking the place of the sinner and accepting the mercy of God, for Christ’s sake.
3. Ransom This grace is purchased through the ransom of Christ’s blood. While free to us, it was most costly to Him, and the price paid was His own life. “Who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:4). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).
4. Justification The grace of God for Christ’s sake justifies us and puts us in the same position as if we had never sinned. It is not mere scant deliverance from condemnation, but it is complete and honorable justification. It is not our discharge because the jury has failed to agree upon a conviction, or the executive has determined upon a pardon; but it is a decree of the supreme court of the universe, proclaiming us faultless and blameless and putting us in as good a position as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, our Surety and Substitute.
5. Calling But grace has yet another direction in the sinner’s salvation. “God… called me by his grace” (Galatians 1:15). It was the grace of God that brought Paul even to know and receive God’s grace. Vainly for him had the gift been offered and the ransom paid, unless grace had also stooped so low as to reach him in his unbelief and win him in his alienation and sin. For Paul had been a bitter enemy of the grace of God; he had rejected the Savior and was doing all in his power to oppose the gospel and destroy its followers, and at the very moment of his conversion was in the high tide of his rebellion and unbelief. But the grace of God struck him down in the blossom of his sin, and compelled him to accept its proffered love. And so Paul became a captive of grace and never tired of celebrating the love that when he was still an enemy, reconciled him to God. We may think that we have had a very different history and that we were quite as earnest in seeking God as He was in seeking us; but when the whole story is told, it will be found at last that there is not much difference between the best of us and the blunt Scotchman, who, when asked how his conversion came about, said that it took two to do it, one was God and the other was himself. When his good Calvinistic pastor asked him how he could claim any part in it, he answered him, “God drew me, and I resisted all I could.” That is about the most we can say for our part. “By the grace of God I am what I am,” was the testimony of Paul, and the epitaph on the monument of William Carey may well take us all in: A worthless, weak, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall, Be Thou my perfect righteousness, My Saviour and my All. His Argument for Free Grace
6. The Covenant with Abraham He proves it from the covenant with Abraham. “Consider Abraham: ‘He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’… The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:6, Galatians 3:8-9). The authority of Abraham, their father, was supreme with every Jew, and therefore Paul appeals to it and reminds them that the covenant of salvation made with Abraham for himself and his seed was purely one of faith and grace. For even in Genesis we are told that Abraham’s faith was counted to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6). Then later in the chapter Paul reminds them that the covenant with Abraham was made 430 years before the law on Sinai, and, therefore, that later law could not disannul or make the promise of none effect (Galatians 3:17). The covenant with Abraham was an everlasting covenant, and its very principle was free grace and not works, faith and not personal merit. And so all believers still are recognized as the children of Abraham and coinheritors with him of the grace of God.
7. The Law of Moses His next argument for free grace is founded on the law of Moses. For even the law, he tells us, had in it the principle of grace. The very object of the law was to convict men of sin and so throw them upon the mercy of God. “Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not!… But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe” (Galatians 3:21-22). “So,” he adds, introducing a fine figure, “the law was put in charge [was our schoolmaster] to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). The Greek word translated “schoolmaster” is pedagogue. Now the pedagogue was not a schoolmaster exactly, but the manservant who took the children to school and delivered them over to the schoolmaster who took charge of their studies. Christ is the real Teacher, and the law was just the servant to conduct us to Christ; and when Christ comes, the work of the law is accomplished: “Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:25-26). The law never was intended to save men, but to convince them of their need of a Savior and point forward to Him who was to be the Redeemer of men. In the next paragraph the apostle uses still another figure to explain the place of the law. It is the figure of the minor, the child under age, who is under tutors and governors until he reaches his maturity. “So also,” he says, “when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:3-7). And so the law leads on to the gospel, and the gospel is liberty, the freedom of the Father’s house, the filial spirit, the privileges of a happy child; and if we return to the law, we must set back the hands of the clock of time more than 3,000 years, and go back to Sinai and the infancy and minority of the children of God.
8. Ishmael and Isaac His next argument is the allegory of Ishmael and Isaac (Galatians 4:22-31). Hagar, the bondwoman, represents the law, and Ishmael, her son, the flesh. For the law can only produce the flesh. Our best efforts even in the direction of righteousness end only in self-righteousness, and we must die to our goodness, quite as much as to our badness, before we can enter the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, Sarah represents the gospel and the covenant of grace, while Isaac, her son, is the type of the life of the Spirit which is the offspring of grace. Just as Ishmael persecuted Isaac, so the flesh lusts against the Spirit. Ishmael cannot be improved; he must be cast out with his mother. But you cannot get rid of Ishmael alone—you must cast out both the bondwoman and her son. The spirit of legality must go with the flesh. Free grace alone can bring forth the new life, and under its nourishing influence alone can the spiritual life be educated and matured. The law in every form, whether it be the ceremonial law, the moral law, or the penances, tortures and struggles of conscience and self-effort of the natural man, can only end in failure and in some other form of fleshly life. “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). The Reasons Why the Apostle Contends so Earnestly for Free Grace Are the doctrines of evangelical religion so supremely important? Are we justified in contending so earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints? Have the spiritual leaders of our time cause to fear the downgrade movement which is carrying so large a part of the Church of today into ethical culture, rationalism and Christian socialism, through the preaching of Christ without a cross? Have we reason to dread the subtle influence of such teaching, beautiful in its theories of an ideal Christ-life, but like cut flowers that have no root? Certainly Paul had no sentimental weakness about the matter. The language he uses is uncompromising and unmistakable. “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you,” he says, “let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:8). It is not merely a matter of difference of opinion. It is a matter of life and death to preach the pure gospel of Jesus Christ and nothing else and nothing less.
9. Free Grace Is Sovereign Nothing else is worthy of God. The glory of Christianity is the sovereign grace from which it sprang, and no loyal Christian heart will hold back any of the glory due to the Father’s love and the Savior’s cross.
10. Free Grace Meets Our Need It is the only salvation that is adapted to fallen man. Nothing but mercy can meet the needs of the worthless and the helpless. Because God expects nothing of us, therefore the worst and weakest of us may hope and trust. “It took me half a lifetime,” says a distinguished writer, “to find out three things: namely, first, that I could not do anything to save myself, second, that God did not expect me to do anything; and third, that Christ has done all for me, and I have only to accept Him and thank Him for the free gift of eternal life.”
11. Free Grace Makes Us Holy Free grace is the only thing that can make men holy. Instead of encouraging men to sin, it inspires them to love and serve God. In the Peninsular War a deserter was brought before the Duke of Wellington and condemned by the court-martial over which he presided, to be shot. Before passing sentence, the Duke remarked, “We have tried everything with this man. We have punished him again and again, but he seems hopeless. I am afraid we shall have to sentence him to the extreme penalty.” At that moment a comrade touched his cap and asked permission to speak. “Your Grace,” he said, “may I venture to suggest that there is one thing you have not tried?” “What is that?” asked the Duke. “I think,” said the man, “you have never tried forgiving him.” “Well,” said the Duke, “we’ll try that.” The effect upon the man was extraordinary. He seemed quite overcome with gratitude, and he went from that court-martial to prove himself the bravest and truest of the soldiers of the Peninsula, rising to rank and distinction by brave service and fully proving the wisdom of his comrade’s suggestion. To a true nature love is always a higher inspiration than slavish fear. God trusts us, thinks His best thoughts of us, refuses to think evil of us, and encourages us to think of ourselves accordingly. It is His love that constrains us to goodness and lifts us to love and grateful obedience. Even when we abuse God’s liberty by falling into sin, His grace overrules it to teach us, by the discipline, the bitterness of sin and the better way of loving obedience. John Ruskin tells us that his earliest recollection of youthful liberty is of sitting on his mother’s knee as she was preparing tea in the glowing urn which stood on the table steaming with boiling water, while the nurse stood by. Little John gazed a while at the burnished brass and the pretty clouds of steam, and insisted on reaching out his little hand and touching the urn. His mother tried to keep him back, but he grew rebellious. “Let him touch it,” said the nurse, “it will do him good.” And so the mother gave him the coveted liberty. There was a sudden cry, and speaking of it afterwards, John says, “That was the last time for many years that I remember asking to have my own way.” So God can sanctify to us even our own abuse of free grace. He will let you disobey Him if you will. He will let you sin if you want to. But as you think of His love and find by experience the bitterness of sin and the sweetness of obedience, you do not want to sin; you do not want to abuse so kind a Friend. His gentleness makes you good and gentle, too. John Wesley and John Bradford had a severe quarrel which separated them for some days. Meeting shortly afterwards, John Wesley asked John Bradford, “Don’t you want to ask my forgiveness, John?” “No,” said Bradford. “Well,” said Wesley, “I want to ask yours.” And the two friends fell into each other’s arms. Humility and grace had conquered as they ever will. It is thus that God treats the rebel and the sinner. Shall we be worthy of His grace? Shall we accept His generous love and let it lift us to higher things? Shall we stop thinking hard of ourselves lest we end by thinking hard of Him? Shall we take the place the Father gives the prodigal—not the kitchen and the servant’s place, but the best robe, the ring, the feast, the Father’s heart—and go forth to live as we often sing: Oh, the love that sought me! Oh, the blood that bought me! Oh, the grace that brought me to the fold! Wondrous grace that brought me to the fold!