Galatians 2

Chapter 2. Free Grace in Our SanctificationSo I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. (Galatians 5:16)Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? (Galatians 3:3)I 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. (Galatians 2:20)Most of us have been taught that, while our salvation and justification are given us through the free grace of God and received by simple faith alone, yet our sanctification must be worked out by ourselves, and the struggle between evil and good in our own hearts and lives must be a long and painful one. This was the error into which the Galatians had been led by false teachers. Having begun in the Spirit, they were seeking to be made perfect in the flesh. Having taught them, as we have already seen, the doctrine of free grace in their salvation, the apostle now proceeds to show them that their sanctification is just as much a gift as their justification, and that the deeper work of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling Christ in their hearts is also a work of grace as free and as complete as the first chapter in their religious experience. In the course of this discussion he brings out a number of most important principles respecting the spiritual life which may be best stated as distinct propositions.

1. A Gift of Grace Our sanctification is part of Christ’s redemption and therefore must be a gift of grace. “Grace and peace to you,” he says, “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:3-4). Here we are taught that Christ died to deliver us not only from the future evil that threatens every sinner, but from this present evil age, that is, from evil of the present in all its forms, and, of course, from the evil of our own sinful hearts. Sanctification, therefore, is the purchase of Christ’s blood and part of our great redemption. “Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:14).
2. By Faith Sanctification is by faith and not by works. “But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:5-6). Things which come to us by faith must come without works, for faith is but the hand to receive what God bestows, and we cannot believe for a thing if we have yet to work it out. Faith recognizes the blessing as an accomplished fact and “we who have believed enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:3). Sanctification by faith, therefore, is the rest of faith.
3. A Positive Experience Sanctification is a positive and not a negative experience. That is, it comes not through the act of struggling against evil, but rather through the receiving of the good and letting this displace the evil. This is a very profound and practical principle. The old familiar illustration of letting in the light instead of sweeping out the darkness, tells the whole story. Dr. Chalmers found his great sermon on the expulsive power of a new affection in the simple incident of hearing the coachman tell that, when his shying horse came near a certain turn in the road where he usually became frightened, he gave him a sharp cut with his whip just beforehand, which so preoccupied him that he dashed by the critical point without noticing it. As the driver put it, he “gave him something to think about.” When God would save us from the consciousness and pressure of temptation and sin, He preoccupies our mind and fills our heart with something stronger and higher, and thus by the expulsive power of a stronger influence, the evil is banished, and the soul is purified and preserved in the abiding life of Christ. Playing with a dangerous pair of scissors, a little child could not be persuaded by his anxious mother to give them up. Fearing that violence might provoke him to hurt himself with his perilous weapon, the mother called her little daughter to her aid. Sending her to a closet for a beautiful orange, the game of strategy began. The little girl commenced by gentle approaches to attract Willie’s attention to the big yellow orange. As it came nearer, eyes, mouth and hands were all stretched out wide open for it, and before the little fellow realized it, the scissors were dropped and quickly snatched and put out of harm’s way by the watchful mother, and heart and hands were filled with the more attractive fruit. That is God’s way of saving and sanctifying men. He gives us something better. He overcomes evil with good, and the heart filled with Christ and satisfied with His love drops the baubles of sin as worthless things and scorns to call it even a sacrifice to “consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:8), and even as refuse in comparison with His attractions. This is the meaning of Galatians 5:16 : “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” The secret of holiness is to receive the Holy Spirit and to be ever filled with His presence, His love, His joy, and His power, and to let Him deal with sin.
4. Through the Spirit Sanctification is through the supernatural power of the Spirit and not through our struggles and our strength. “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do [or better, may not do] what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law” (Galatians 5:17-18). Many of us have been taught that the normal Christian life is a ceaseless struggle between two natures in the human soul, the evil and the good within us, and that a Christian is a sort of menagerie of wild beasts, with the keeper and the savage brutes continually at war. We find such a struggle in the seventh chapter of Romans. This is not the normal condition of the Christian, but the preparatory stage to a true experience of peace, rest and victory described in the following chapter, the life of the Spirit. This misunderstanding is partly due to the verse quoted above, which in our old Bibles used to be printed with a small “s” in the word Spirit, giving the impression that the conflict was between the man’s flesh and the man’s spirit, and that the issue was interminable war and a hopeless struggle in which it became true that “you do not do [cannot do] what you want” (Galatians 5:17). This would be very sad indeed and would quench all the springs of hope in the Christian heart. Thank God our Bibles are now better printed, and the capital “S” leaves no doubt who the second Party in the conflict is—the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that lusts against the flesh, and not our human spirit, and the word “cannot” should be “may not.” Because the Holy Spirit is fighting the battle with the flesh, we must take sides with Him by refusing to do the bidding of the flesh and walking in obedience to the Spirit. If we do this, He will fight the battle of the flesh, and it will be true as of old, “The battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15). The writer will be pardoned for recalling a moment in his own experience which tells the whole story, at least of his Christian life. It was the moment after he had yielded himself to Christ and received Him as the all-sufficiency of his future life, handing over in one supreme transaction all his sin, self-life, strength and weakness, all his conflicts, cares, temptations, needs, to the keeping of the indwelling Christ who henceforth became the Sponsor for all his future. He rose from that prayer with a quiet sense of rest. There was no special emotional feeling, no marvelous experience, but a deep sense of a great transaction done and a question settled. Then came the first test. It was a deep, subtle suggestion of the adversary, almost as if he had said, “You fool. You think you have been sanctified. But you are just the same as you were 10 minutes ago. You have simply humbugged yourself and imagined that something has come to you, but you feel nothing, you have nothing. You have just fooled yourself.” For an instant the effect was utterly bewildering, and the first impulse was to fly into the old battle and begin to fight the tempter with my own reasonings against his suggestion. But instantly there came, as though from a heavenly suggestion, the quiet thought, “This is not your battle, but Christ’s. Don’t answer him. Hand it over to your great Deliverer. Roll the burden on the Lord. Tell the devil that you have nothing to do with him now, that you have just taken Christ to manage all your temptations, answer all your questions, and meet all your enemies.” It was such a strange and new conception, so easy and yet so effectual. In a moment the silent prayer had been offered, the question referred to Christ, the burden dropped, and lo, the cloud had gone, I knew not where! But this I knew, something real was there. Something actual had come to pass. A victory was won and with it the secret of victory for all time to come. This, beloved, is the secret of the new life. It is the power of the Holy Spirit, not of your wrestlings and strivings. Through the skill of Mr. Edison, a method was devised enabling manufacturers to utilize the cheap iron ore which formerly was not worth the labor of working. It is now taken and crushed by simple machinery; then a magnet is passed through the dust, and instantly all the metal crystallizes around the magnet and leaves the sand and rock to be washed away. By a perfectly simple and self-acting principle, the precious is separated from the vile and fused into one mass of unalloyed metal. So the Holy Spirit has a magic touchstone by which He drops out of our life the evil, gathers about His own Person the good, the true, the pure, breathes into it His own Spirit, and keeps it by His own living power. Happy are they who learn to let the Spirit lust against the flesh and leave the burdens even of their sanctification and their temptations restfully and victoriously with Him.
5. Through the Indwelling Christ Sanctification is through the personal indwelling of the Lord Jesus. This is the end to which the Spirit is always working, not to develop in us a character, a set of human virtues and high qualities that we can call our own, but to form Christ in us and teach us to live in constant dependence upon Him. It is not a state, but a relation, a union with a Person, a living Presence who carries in Himself all the forces and resources of our new life. In the city of Naples there stood for many months a splendid marble figure gradually assuming finer proportions and more perfect finish as the sculptors chiseled and polished from day to day. But there was no name upon the marble block and no sign to indicate for whom the monument was being reared. At last, when all was done, six letters were cut in the base in bold capitals, “CRISPI,” and every Italian knew that it was the monument of the greatest statesman of their country, who had lately passed away. So we have been taught character grows slowly through the years as education, association, example, patient effort, constant self-culture, and all the ethical influences which are supposed to make character, are brought to bear upon a life, until at last the ideal is complete, and the man stands before an admiring universe a finished character. This may be human ethics, but it is not divine holiness. True, there is a figure, perfect and complete, and over it you can read the name, not “CRISPI,” but “CHRIST.” But it is not cut in stone; it is not a splendid example for us to imitate. It is a Living Presence. It is a Man like ourselves who has traversed every phase of human experience, and yet, so glorified, so spiritualized, and so divine, that he can now come back and enter into living union with us, and relive His life once more in every Christ-filled man. This is the apostle’s ideal of sanctification in Galatians. He expresses it in that incomparable passage which is the very essence of the gospel of the deeper Christian life. “I 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 faith of] the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Here the substitution is so complete that not only is the old “I” of the natural self left out and crucified with Christ, but even the new “I” that has risen with Him is suppressed, and Christ, as a personal Presence, takes its place. Even the very faith by which this life is maintained in union with Jesus is not our faith, but the faith of the Son of God actively manifested in us by virtue of that substitution through which He gave Himself to be instead of us. This is a wonderful, though mystical, truth. It is indeed “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints” (Colossians 1:26), and it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Remember, beloved, it is not a figure, but a fact. It is not a feeling, but a Person. It is not an improved self, but it is the Lord Himself. Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord. Do you know this blessed life hid with Christ in God? Have you learned to take His yoke on you and find it easy just because He bears the load Himself? A farmer’s boy, once listening to an exposition of this beautiful promise, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30), said that his father always fixed the ring in their yoke close to one end, and he put the short end of the yoke on the big ox, and the long end on the weak one. The result was that the big one drew nearly all the load, and the little one just walked along and sort of felt as if he were helping. That is the sort of yoke Jesus puts on us. He takes the heavy end and lets us have just enough to feel that we are in the partnership. But the burden rests on Him. Blessed partnership! Blessed Yokefellow! Blessed rest to sing: Not I, but Christ, my every need supplying, Not I, but Christ, my Strength and Health to be Christ, only Christ, for body, soul and spirit, Christ, only Christ, live Thou Thy life in me.
6. Through Love Sanctification is not through the necessity of law, but through the power of love. “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14). And “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23). It is a principle of human nature that the things which we would not do under necessity we would often gladly do from love. The story is told of two young people who had been predestined to marry because their fathers’ estates adjoined. They had never met as they were absent at distant schools. But on their way home to be presented to society and each other; they accidentally met incognito on the train and became attracted to each other; and the young man before he realized it found himself telling his impromptu friend of the distasteful plan that had been made for him, and his determination not to be forced into a marriage of convenience for the sake of uniting two estates. Soon afterwards they met, and to their mutual astonishment found out that they were already in love. That which law and necessity never could have brought about, but only made the more distasteful, took care of itself when left to the influence of love. So God has seized upon that principle which is the key to every human heart and life, and made it the motive power of holiness and obedience. He gives us liberty to sin if we want to, but He adds, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). What a mighty teacher love is! What a perfect disciplinarian love is! The poet Chatterton, when he first went to school, was pronounced a dunce by his stern old despot of a teacher because he was so frightened of the old pedagogue that his senses forsook him and he could remember nothing. But when he went home to his mother that night and she gently taught him his lessons, he became the brightest boy in the school because love was his teacher now, and he grew to be one of the illustrious literary men of England. It is thus that the Holy Spirit teaches us in the school of love. In a New England parish the people determined by a great majority to abolish the old method of corporeal punishment, and a new teacher was employed who was to control the school by the principle of love instead of rawhides. It was not long till the leader of the war party found occasion for a breach of discipline and a state of war became all the more welcome because the hands of the teacher were now tied. The gentle and tactful teacher called him into her room and said to him, “If I cannot rule this school by love, I will resign. I am not going to punish you in any way, but I want you boys to understand that if my authority is not strictly supported by the school, I will immediately leave.” The boys really liked her, and this was an alternative that they were quite unprepared for and a responsibility that they were not willing to assume. Then throwing herself upon the honor of the lad who had already shown signs of weakening, she asked him to help her in ruling by love. From that day she had no stauncher friend, and the school became a model at once of discipline and kindness. But the love which the Holy Spirit brings is no earthly passion or emotion, for in the life of Christ we are called evermore to face things that no natural love can meet. And it is here that the love of the Spirit comes to our aid, nothing less, in short, than the life of Christ Himself, which He lived once on earth and now relives in us. It is the love that could stand in the judgment hour amid the spitting and the smiting, an untiring love on to the end that could only seek to bless and save the men who wronged Him. We, too, must stand with Him in such places here, and then it is we find a strength which human virtue cannot reach, a love which earthly affection cannot approach. It is beautiful to notice that all the graces mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23, are so many forms of love: joy is love exulting; peace is love reposing; patience is love in action; faith is love confiding; gentleness is love with bowed head; self-control is true self-love. These are not so many fruits, but like the lobes of an orange they form together one fruit which is only love.
7. Fruit Not Work Sanctification is fruit, not work. It is a spontaneous development of life, not the result of effort and labor. It is just as natural and easy as the growth of the cluster on the vine, or the bursting of the bud into fragrance and beauty on the branch. The works of the flesh cost many a strain, for the way of transgressors is hard, but the fruit of the Spirit is a living joy. Of the life of the sanctified it is true indeed, “Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17). Finally, the sanctified life is a habit and not an event. “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). Step by step, moment by moment, little by little we dwell in Him and walk in Him. The grace that can keep us for a moment can keep us for a lifetime. The strength that is sufficient for today is pledged for all the days. So let us live in the Spirit; so let us walk in the Spirit; so let us abide in Him who has said, “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).