Thursday, February 26 - Galatians 2
What about this passage struck you? There are some powerful words written in chapter 2 but today I was caught by his first few words:
"Then after fourteen years" These words brought me to a complete stop. I quite reading and thought about these words and the implications for several minutes. I always seem in a hurry, everything about life seems to demand immediate attention. It is hard to imagine all that God did in Paul's life those 14 years to prepare him to lead the early church. Paul waited 14 years. After 14 years he went to Jerusalem and his service of Christ becomes very public. At times I can hardly wait 14 minutes or hours. Maybe, everything that seems so demanding at the moment is not as important as it seems. Maybe, if I am willing to wait...
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When I read Chapter 1 yesterday, I was struck by Paul listing his credentails, so to speak. How many times have I ignored the message until I knew the persons credentials? And today in Chapter 2:6 "God does not judge by external appearnce" I am reminded not to judge others.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the entire second chapter is given for today’s reading, the greatest part of the chapter is concerned with the clash between Jewish Christians who believed Gentile converts had to submit to Jewish rules and those who did not believe in forcing Jewish mores on the converts. Again Paul seems rather bellicose in his treatment of his fellow Christians when they crossed him in these matters. To him, his revelation was the only true revelation, and anyone who opposed him was wrong. As it has turned out, the church has accepted his viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteStarting at verse 16 Paul starts sounding like he does in the book of Romans, which he wrote a few years later, and here is where lessons for Lent can be gleamed. The folk in Paul’s day, as those in our age, felt they surely had something to do with their salvation through the way they lived. Paul disagrees and attacks the law’s impotence. One great Methodist commentator expressed it: “The law came by Moses; it is a schoolmaster to prepare us for more enlarged disclosures of the divine will. * * * Regarding the ritual law as a shadow of good things to come, he left the shadow for the substance, the circumcision of the heart, the washing of regeneration, and the atoning altar of Calvary.”*
In these last six verses of Galatians 2 Paul starts dealing with the concept of justification. The battle cry of the reformation was justification through faith alone. In considering these verse it is appropriate to look to Martin Luther whose scriptural interpretation started the reformation. Paul says that since he had been crucified with Christ the life he lived in the flesh was being lived by faith in Christ. Luther says: “By the term ‘flesh’ Paul does not understand manifest vices. * * * “Flesh” here means the whole nature of man, inclusive of reason and instincts. This ‘flesh’ is not justified by the works of the law.”~
As we move ahead in our Lenten reflections we must note that the manifestation of God we call Christ is no law giver. He is the life giver. For salvation one must believe that Christ shed His blood abundantly in order that He might give abundant satisfaction for our sin. For this we eternally are thankful as we reflect on his sacrifice in this Lenten season.
*Joseph Sutcliffe, Commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, vol. 5, p. 56., London, 1836.
~Martin Luther, 1483-1546, A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, trans. Theodore Graebner, reprint, Zondervan, 1939
Burton Patterson