Lessons From Galatians – Lesson 4
After going thru how we are saved by faith and not works and hitting it hard from several different angles.
Paul now reminds them of what they were delivered from.
Gal 4:8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
Gal 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Gal 4:10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
When Paul 1st went to Galatia on the 1st missionary journey they were serving false man made gods. And like all false god worship systems that have some kind of thought of a heaven, there is always some kind of works involved.
A list of rules and works to do and things you cannot do. And of course you never measure up. They never get assurance that they have done enough. One of the last Pope’s that died asked for prayer before he died because he had no assurance of heaven. He was only sure that he was going to purgatory.
Which of course does not exist. The Catholics add a whole bunch of manmade rituals from saying special words before they eat a cookie that they say turns wheat into the literal body of Christ. To confession and praying with beads, and penance, and on and on it goes.
They are working to do all that stuff and for nothing, because works cannot save, that is bondage. Works is bondage. It is all must do and forced.
While the Galatians religion before salvation did not have cookies and rosary, and confession, it would have had the same bondage. Just different objects and traditions and rituals.
Paul says they were now observing days and months and times and years. All of course from a works salvation perspective from the Pharisee Judaism teachings.
Paul asks a very good question. whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Why in the world would you want that? You had a different system of bondage before and it was terrible and you experienced the joy and freedom of being delivered from that.
So why would you go back to that type of bondage. Yes the rituals are different and the system is different than what you did before you got saved. It is now a system taught by Pharisees and instead of the false idol gods they worshipped before salvation the false teachers are using the name of the one true God. But it is still a works system of bondage they are teaching.
And that cannot do anything for you.
Moving your thinking away from grace and mercy and the faith that saves to accepting a system of bondage is something that makes you shake your head and go what!!! As Richard would say that is crazy towns.
Once you call upon the Lord to save you with a repentant heart you cannot lose your salvation. Jesus will not take away what was freely given.
Jhn_6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
So once saved you cannot lose it. However, you can listen to the wrong people, you can get confused and you can get swept away with a group that is going the wrong way.
Gal 4:11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
Some think Paul is talking about vain as in you are lost and did not really get saved. I don’t think that is the case because Paul uses language many times in this letter that is used for saved people. Like calling them brethren.
And in Gal 3:2 Paul talks about how they received the Spirit by faith. You only receive the Spirit at salvation.
I think Paul is talking about how you are supposed to walk with God in faith after salvation and how you are to serve Him and be involved in the great commission. The labor and training that Paul did in all of those areas right now are in vain because they are not doing any of that.
This is an example of how the context of the entire book you are in clears things up. If you take verse 11 out of the letter and have it stand alone you could easily think Paul is talking about salvation. But keep the verse in the book of Galatians and you see he is talking about their walk and worship and service.
Next Paul reminds them of how much they thought of Paul and how they loved him when he was with them.
Gal 4:12 Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all.
Gal 4:13 Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.
Gal 4:14 And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
Gal 4:15 Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.
Paul is referring here to his thorn in the flesh that he asked God to remove and God said no. My grace is sufficient for thee.
People will speculate on what the thorn was. Here in connection to the thorn in the flesh Paul mentions that they would have given Paul their eyes if it was possible. This makes many think, and I am among them, that the thorn in the flesh was Paul’s damaged eyes.
If you remember Paul saw the Lord and His glory on the Damascus road and the sight was so powerful that it blinded Paul and they had to lead him. Paul gained his sight back several days later.
But it seems that Paul’s eye sight was permanently affected. This also would explain why Paul dictated so much of his letters. I am among those who believe the thorn in the flesh for Paul was damaged eyesight.
And the Galatians were so thankful to Paul for giving them the gospel and saving them from the bondage of their false gods that if it was possible they would have given Paul their eyes to help Paul.
Paul is anticipating here that they might not be having a good initial reaction to this letter right away. So like we have seen so many times Paul will anticipate a question or a reaction to what he has said and then deal with that right in the same letter.
Do not let the question go for month and months before it can be asked and then answered. And don’t let the bad reaction fester for months and months. Deal with it right away in the same letter.
That is what Paul is doing here. Look at what Paul says next.
Gal 4:16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
Paul anticipates that they might be getting angry at him by this point. He has been hammering the truth home pretty hard. He reminds them that everything he has been telling them is the truth.
They loved Paul and trusted Paul why would they now start thinking Paul is their enemy?
This has to do with how no one likes to be told they are wrong. People do not like to be corrected. That goes for just about everyone to some degree. Some can even take correction ok if it is on a good day.
Some can take correction ok if it is on small stuff. But very few can take correction well on something so major as what Paul is having to correct them on.
Add to that the power of group thinking. They as a group have went this way. They have all accepted the false teacher and maybe he has what they call charisma and charm. False teachers will use that. And people can get caught up in the excitement of a movement.
A man that Dr. Orrino called Benny Chicken did that. He got multitudes to fall for his false teaching. He would take his coat off and start hitting people with it and they would fall down. I think he called it being slayed in the Spirit.
Totally unbiblical nonsense. Maybe even fallen angel empowered. I mean really nasty stuff. I had a coworker once who had a set of his DVD’S. I tried to talk to her about it and woo. Did she get mad!
And I thought of this verse when I saw her response.
Gal 4:16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
Generally people do not like to be corrected, but especially people who are caught up in a movement involving false teaching.
They are affected by the zeal of the false teacher and the zeal of his movement.
Gal 4:17 They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.
Gal 4:18 But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.
Zeal is not necessarly a bad thing. It depends upon what you have zeal for.
It is good to be zealous and to be that way continually but in a good thing. And Paul says you should be zealous for the truth if I am there and if I am not there.
Gal 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
Gal 4:20 I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.
Paul is in doubt of their growth in Christ. He is in doubt of their walk with God.
My little children is a term that is used for people you have led to the Lord. And Paul says until Christ be formed in you. Not until Christ saves you. Formed is talking about being built up in Christ. This is talking about growing in Christ and being more and more conformed into His image.
This is about having the knowledge and strength and convictions.
And so Paul now hits them again on the same basic issue. We are free from the law. This time Paul brings up Hagar and Sarah and we learn here that God arranged it so that their lives were an allegory.
God was teaching a difference between the law and faith over 400 years before the law was given.
Gal 4:21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
Gal 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Gal 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
So the handmaid who was in bondage represented the law and Mount Sinai, which the Bible says is in Arabia and not in the Sinai Peninsula.
And the Jerusalem in Paul’s day has mostly chosen bondage to the law which is Sinai and represented by Agar.
God wanted them to choose Promise in Jerusalem and thousands did but most of them had to scatter due to persecution. So overwhelmingly the majority in Jerusalem chose bondage over freedom.
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Sarah only had one child. That is because there is only one promise. Only one promised one to come. Only one way of faith. The woman of bondage had many. And this is true, the ways of bondage are many. There are thousands and thousands of different systems of bondage.
But only one promise and only one way of freedom. So Sarah had only one child, Isaac.
Gal 4:28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
Gal 4:29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
The son of the bondwoman was Ishmael and he persecuted Isaac. That is the way it is. It has been that way since Cain killed Abel, and Ishmael persecuted Isaac and Paul says it is still that way now.
And that has not changed since Paul wrote Galatians.
Gal 4:30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
Gal 4:31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
The children of the bondwoman so those that are in bondage to the law do not inherit. Instead they are cast out.
We are the children of the free. We are like Isaac. We are children of the promise.
Christ Has Set Us Free so do not get entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Gal 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Stand with Sarah and Isaac and promise and freedom. Do not stand with Hagar and Ishmael and bondage.
Ok, but some might say, I think I get that, I am saved by faith but can’t obeying some things do some good for me? Paul answers that next.
Gal 5:2 Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
Gal 5:3 For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
If you go the law route, then you must do all the law. Which cannot be done. The answer is obeying any kind of works for works sake for the law’s sake does nothing for you.
Gal 5:4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
Gal 5:5 For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
Gal 5:6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.
The works that we do after we are saved are not motivated by law. They are to be motivated by love for our Lord and a desire to please Him.
Paul now reminds them that they started out doing this correctly.
Gal 5:7 Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
They got saved and were doing well. They were running the race. They were obeying the truth that comes from God.
What they are doing now is not coming from God.
Gal 5:8 This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
And letting even a little bit of some error into your church that does not come from God ruins it all. Letting that in is sin and sin spreads and it infects and it destroys.
Gal 5:9 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
In the Bible leaven is a type, a picture of sin. And like yeast put into dough spreads and changes the entire lump, sin that you let into the church is like that.
In the Bible there is zero room given to allow false teachers in the church. Zero.
Gal 5:9 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
A lot of people quote that verse, but most of them could not tell you that the context of it in the Bible is allowing the sin of false teaching in the church.
Do not get me wrong. That is a principal of what sin does and that principal can apply to many situations where sin is allowed in but its primary use in the Bible is talking about sin in the church.
Sin in the church and specifically what we are talking about in Galatians is the sin of false teaching is a huge issue to God.
Sadly in our day overwhelmingly the vast majority of groups that have the name church over the door do not take this seriously. There is some Episcopalian preacher I think in Texas is running for congress and he preaches that god is binary and that he is for transitioning kids and he is for abortion and the horror list goes on and on.
And his people all go Amen. That is the far end of the false teaching scale and is straight from the pits of hell. False teaching can get so bad that there is no truth left at all.
People that do the false teaching either do it on purpose to destroy God’s work or they do it thinking they are right and doing God’s work. Either way they are doing wrong and God is watching and He will deal with them in His time.
The place of the church is to not allow it and to kick it out. Judgment as far as punishment is God’s place.
And Paul says he has confidence in them through the Lord that they will wake up and agree with the truth.
Gal 5:10 I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.
The false teacher will absolutely bear his judgment. It does not matter who he is and it does not matter how popular he is or what degrees he has. In due time he will bear the judgment of God for it.
Gal 5:11 And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.
Gal 5:12 I would they were even cut off which trouble you.
With that Paul is now going to transition into dealing with what they should be focusing on.
We often see this principal in the Bible. It is the take off and put on principal. The quit doing that and replace it with doing this. Don’t think about this list and instead think about this other list of things.
So here in Galatians it is quit listening to and quit being involved in and quit supporting false teaching. And replace that with the things Paul is going to mention in the end of this letter.
The first two things are you are called unto liberty so do not use liberty to feed the flesh. And number 2 is love and serve one another.
Gal 5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Gal 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Gal 5:15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
And that is where we will pick up next week.
See more lessons from Galatians