On his first missionary journey,
Paul traveled through the Roman province of Galatia in Asia Minor, modern-day
Turkey. Paul had founded churches in the more populated cities of the southern
region of Galatia: Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:14-14:23). In
Gal 1:2 we see that his letter to the Galatians was not addressed to any
specific church, but to “the churches of Galatia” in various cities. Paul was
primarily defending the gospel that righteousness was by faith and not by law. Paul
viewed legalism as aggressive and pervasive in nature (Gal 5:9), for it is a
default setting of the sinful nature to boast of accomplishment – “Look what I
have done!” “I” is sourced in the old man; “Through Christ” is obtained in the
new man.
Something happened after Paul
left Galatia; somebody came in after him (no name given, cf. Gal 5:10, “whoever
he is”) and attempted to pervert the gospel of Christ and promote a different
gospel than what Paul delivered, causing trouble in the churches there (Gal
5:10, “he who troubles [Gk, tarasso]
you”). There was more than one troubler; the same verb tarasso, is in the plural form (Gal 1:7).
By all reports it seems that
these false teachers were having some degree of success, for some were making
the spiritual error of “turning away so soon to a different gospel which is
not another….” (Gal 1:6-7), which explains the strained tone in Paul’s letter
to the Galatians (Gal 1:8-9). These Judaizers wanted to confuse, convert, and
put pressure on those staying the course by identifying and isolating them from
the herd, a trademark of Satan. Paul asked the Galatians,
“You were running well; who hindered you from
obeying the truth (Gal 5:7, NASB)?”
“Running” is in the imperfect
tense, a continuous action of the past but not presently, “were running.” They were running “well” (Gk, kalos, excellently, courageously, nobly), for they were being
persecuted for their faith, but Paul’s racing metaphor indicates there is
another runner who (“who” is singular here) had literally cut in front of them
or “hindered” their progress, “who hindered you from obeying the truth?” This
person who cut in on them was either a Judaizer or a professing believer among
the church ranks who had defected and promoted the doctrine of being justified
by law rather than by faith.
People who are antagonistic
toward eternal security jump on this historical situation as a proof-text that
a believer can lose his or her salvation – “you have fallen from grace” (Gal
5:4b). Whenever proof-texts are offered that conflict with fundamental
doctrines, there is a definitely something very evil tapped into it.
Righteousness by works is a direct attack on the gospel of grace.
Look at Paul’s reaction under
inspiration to all of this (Gal 1:8-9). And yet, there are true professing
believers who do not see it as a big deal fellowshipping even with likable,
ethical, and moral people who may disagree that a believer is eternally secure
in Christ which is linked in to a different kind of salvation. We should keep
in mind that light does not mix with darkness and read Gal 1:8-9 again and
again on the serious nature of anyone cutting against the grain of the non-negotiable, critical truths of Scripture. We should not be hanging around
agents of the devil.
Salvation without eternal
security is tantamount to the salvation of works. This attack on salvation is indicative of
believers caught up in the throes of unending spiritual warfare on this side of
eternity. The problem is people do not recognize Satan’s strategies because
they do know enough about Scripture (cf. 2 Cor 2:11)! The scheme behind salvation of works by Satan is to mislead and damn as many souls as possible. Satan
wants believers to see it as something surreal rather than real. Death has
a way of waking one up from a bad dream. Lucifer, a.k.a., Apollyon or the
destroyer, is malevolent and obsessed with nothing less than the total
destruction of all humanity while the spiritually gullible continue to waltz
with the enemy among us.
Solomon
nailed it; fear God and keep His commandments (Eccl 12:13-14). There is one
caveat; we can’t keep what we don’t know, and therein is the rub. Compare Eccl
12:14 with Gal 5:10. The leader and his groupies promoting righteousness by law
“shall bear his judgment” (Gal 5:10); you can take that as a promise under
inspiration! Again, the context of Gal 5:4 has nothing to do with authentic
believers but rather those who were attempting to “be justified by law.” Aren’t
you thankful you don’t have to make sure you get your works right to be in a
right standing before God!
There are four kinds of people
represented here in this letter to the Galatians: (1) the heretic/s
(Judaizers), (2) those who sided with the Judaizers (professed faith but never
possessed the Holy Spirit, the fallen from grace people), (3) those who were
confused, and (4) those who stayed the course. It is no different today when churches are fighting the infiltration of heresy. All local
churches of the true faith have three sub-groups: (1) tares (lost people), (2) hi-ho’s
(half in half out, one foot in church and one foot in the world, carnal
believers, disingenuous), and (3) genuine believers sincerely seeking to be
authentic and do the right thing in the congregation. When Christ comes for His
bride, the Church, there will not be any subsets of spirituality in the midst
of the heavenly congregation!
Biblical justification is a
beautiful word! For it is something that only the sovereign God can do! Eternal
security is only derived from being justified by grace through faith alone, in
other words, it must be absolutely, unquestionably free from self-effort (cf.
Rom 11:6). Being judicially declared righteous by God is the only way we can
experience God’s unquestionable love; His peace that passes all understanding;
and His indescribable joy that comes only from salvation by grace through
faith in what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, not to mention heaven and
all the spiritual benefits that comes with being a child of God, including
being secure in Christ now and forever.
When we accept God’s offer of
salvation through faith, God’s agape love penetrates and floods our heart at
salvation with the Holy Spirit’s entrance into the heart (Rom 5:5), and we
begin to discover a love unlike any other that will never let go of us for any
reason (Rom 8:35-39; Heb 13:5). We are forever secure in the omnipotent grip of
God (Jn 10:28). We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Rom
8:37).
Think about what we believe
concerning salvation in contrast to the religions of the world. We are a very
small island of people who believe that salvation is by grace through faith
alone while being surrounded by a vast ocean of those believing in salvation
based on human merit. Now ponder on Jn 14:6…. Is there any surprise the world
denounces us as dogmatic, bigoted, and unloving?
Works take various forms when
salvation is dependent on things like circumcision, observing the law, baptism,
keeping the Ten Commandments, being good, doing good works, church membership,
repentance, confession, doing this or that, and so forth. This is nothing more
than a graceless “salvation” through human effort. Grace is not the grease for
sin as some may think, for agape love is the constraining theme of authentic
Christianity, and we shall see later in this series that it profoundly answers
the question of how should we then live in light of eternal security.
Work-related systems for
salvation require doing more good deeds than bad. Come to think of it, love has
nothing to do with it, for it is a numbers game, good outweighing the bad in
our lives, and though one may succeed in accomplishing more positive than
negative in life, there are still no winners against the lethality of
sin whenever salvation by grace through faith is jettisoned for working your way
to glory. There is no taking your chances; loss is the only outcome.
Good works cannot propitiate
the penalty for sin. Only Jesus satisfied the just demands of the holiness of
God the Father for man’s sin once and for all (1 Jn 2:2; 4:10). The greatest
demonstration of that from a human vantage point is the physical resurrection
of Jesus from the tomb on the third day. God the Father was obviously satisfied
with the sacrifice of His Son for man’s atonement for the grave did not contain
Jesus. The remedy for the penalty of sin is available; it just has to be
received by faith without works attached to it for salvation.
A “different” (or “any other”)
gospel than expressed by the Apostle Paul is always characterized by some kind
of human merit (contrast Eph 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). Grace versus works in salvation
is analogous to light versus darkness. It is an either/or. Man is taking it
upon himself to define what things are needful things to get to the other side
(contrast Paul’s declaration in that matter: Gal 1:11-12; 2:16). This worldly
gospel (humanly sourced) is not good news (“which is not another [gospel]” Gal
1:7) at all. For those who buy into a works-salvation, it is really
terrible-terrible news delivered by misguided men or women, leading people away
from God rather than to Him. <><
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| To Part 5 |
