“Seeing” Galatians

Here’s a chart that I developed for the New Testament book of Galatians.  After a great deal of analysis (taking the pieces apart) it is always helpful to work hard at synthesis (putting the pieces back together).  That is the pathway we must walk in constructing such book charts.  This kind of work always helps me “see” a book, its content and its movements.

Click here to see my chart of Galatians: galatians.chart

Good News

Christ lived to provide the righteousness required of me by God.

• “I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” (John 8:29)
• “I have obeyed my Father’s commands.” (John 15:10)
• “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21)
• “… a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.” (Gal. 2:16)
• “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us … our righteousness.” (1 Cor. 1:30)

Christ died to pay the penalty for my unrighteousness before God.

• “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. ” (1 Pet. 3:18)
• “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:6-8)
• “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Pet. 2:24)

Christ lives again to produce in and through me the righteous life God requires of me.

• “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.” (Gal. 2:20)
• “Christ … is your life.” (Col. 3:4)
• “… through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:2-4)

Impact or Intimacy?

Which should we, as followers of Jesus Christ, aim for more: impact or intimacy?  Should we strive to be used of God?  Or should we strive to know God and to be known by Him?  It is not an entirely either/or proposition, I admit.  But too often it is an unexamined question.  Perhaps we’ve never thought about it.  Or maybe we’ve assumed an answer.  But may I drag it out into the open for a few minutes?

If we make impact our aim, what happens?  Who knows, maybe we’ll attain it!  But then how would we know that we have?  How should one measure impact for God?  Numbers?  Size?  Budget?  Name recognition?  Influence?  Position?

It is a dangerous path to trod, is it not?  It is filled with plenteous landmines planted by the world, the flesh and the devil.

But even if we miss the landmines, what does aiming for impact get you?  In proportion to the purposes laid upon him and within his own lifetime would Abraham have been considered successful?  Probably not.  How about Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel or most of the rest of the prophets?  Not likely.

What is it the writer to the Hebrews said regarding the greatest people of faith?  “… none of them received [in their lifetimes] what had been promised.” (Heb. 11:39b)

Here’s at least part of the struggle – Impact is a highly pragmatic thing, which is fraught with opportunities for compromise.  Intimacy, on the other hand, is a personal, relational matter in which all that matters is the relationship to the other person (in this case, God).

Pursue impact and you’ll never rise above a performance-based intimacy, even if outwardly successful.  If you produce you will matter – or at least you’ll think you do.  But this is anti-grace; it is pro-works.  It is self-righteous.  It is thus anti-gospel.  Pursue impact and chances are you’ll miss out on intimacy.  But pursue intimacy and you may just make an impact.  Any such impact may not be immediately detectable.  In fact you may not even be able to take an accurate impact-reading before you’ve left this life.  But if you do make an impact by pursuing intimacy, it will be God’s doing.  If you do, it will be by grace.  If you do, it will be to God’s honor and glory, not your own.

But there is a certain danger in both paths, isn’t there?  The danger of pursuing impact is in the pragmatics.  I will do whatever it takes to produce – perhaps even things that will diminish my intimacy with God (not to mention my intimacy with the others He has put in my life).  The danger in pursuing intimacy is in the subjectivity of it.  When am I authentically intimate with the Almighty?  When is He genuinely intimate with me?  Many along this path fall victim to false voices, ideas and promptings.

Characteristically, Jesus made the matter of intimacy simple and clear.  He declared that He is intimate with the one who is obedient to His Word!  “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” (John 14:21)

All of this reminds me of Paul’s great concern for the Christians of Corinth: “But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” (2 Cor. 11:3, nasb)  I think often of that last phrase – “the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”  That sounds like a life of intimacy.

I want desperately to be used of God.  I want—even more desperately—to walk closely with Him, even if there is no apparent outward impact from my doing so.  For I believe that any impact made while not walking intimately with Him is negative impact—no matter how spiritual it may appear on the surface.  And I am equally convinced that a life of true intimacy with Christ will never be without radical and lasting impact—regardless of what the temporal, time-laden readings may say.

Put On!

“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience …” (Colossians 3:12)

From this fount of grace (“as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved,” see the previous post) the believer is to “put on” five graces.  These five stand in contrast to the socially destructive vices of verse 8 and mark those qualities which make actual the unity in the midst of diversity that characterizes the body of Christ (v.11).

The first is “a heart of compassion.” The first word, when used literally, refers to one’s “bowels” or the inward parts located in the belly (Acts 1:18).  Metaphorically, however, it referred to the seat of one’s deepest emotions and for that reason is often rendered in English as “heart.”  Paul uses the word in eight of its eleven New Testament appearances.  Interestingly, four of those are in his correspondence with those in Colossae (Col. 3:12; Philemon 7, 12, 20). The second word (“of compassion”) is described as “a motivating emotion” such as pity, compassion, mercy, etc.[1] Moving out from this inward disposition the other graces are enumerated.

Next is “kindness.” The word is used only by Paul in the New Testament.  It refers to goodness, kindness and generosity, either of man (2 Cor. 6:6; Gal. 5:22; Col. 3:12) or of God (Rom. 2:4; 11:22; Eph. 2:7).[2] Naturally man has no such “kindness” in himself (Rom. 3:12).  It can only describe him as God produces this “kindness” in him (Gal. 5:22).

After this comes “humility.” Paul uses the word five times, three of which appear here in Colossians (2:18, 23; 3:12).  The word is generally used in a positive sense, as it is here, to describe “a quality of voluntary submission and unselfishness humility, self-effacement.”  But, again interestingly, in both Colossians 2:18 and 23 it was clearly used in a pejorative sense, meaning “a misdirected submission in cultic behavior self-abasement, (false) humility, self-mortification.”[3] In those cases it described the misguided practices taught by the false teachers at work in Colossae.  But clearly in this case Paul has in view the possibility of a right, godly, Spirit-produced practice of humility.

The next grace to be “put on” is “gentleness.” It points to a humble and gentle attitude which bears up under offense with patient submissiveness and without a move toward revenge.[4] Such “gentleness” is a fruit of the Spirit’s work in an individual’s life (Gal. 5:23).  Paul uses it in regard to confrontation or discipline (2 Cor. 4:21; 10:1; Gal. 6:1) or in general instructions about avoiding difficulties in relationships (Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:12; Titus 3:2).  It is usually set as the opposite of harsh, divisive, defiant, brusque attitudes and actions.  It speaks of humility, courtesy, considerateness and meekness, in the sense not of weakness, but of power under control.[5]

Finally, there is “patience.” The word is used by Paul in ten of its fourteen New Testament appearances.  It is often used of human patience (2 Cor. 6:6; Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:12; 2 Tim. 3:10; 4:2), but also of God’s (Rom. 2:4; 9:22; 1 Tim. 1:16).  Such patience is produced in us only by the indwelling Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22).  The word generally refers to a longsuffering endurance in the face of indignities and injuries by others.

This grace for living is only possible because God’s grace first lives in us.  From “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8) made actual within us by His electing grace (“chosen by God”), His justifying grace (“holy”), and His benevolent grace (“dearly loved”) we are able then to extend outward toward others the grace of “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

In short: because God has put us “in Christ” we are able to “put on” His character!

[2] BAGD, 886.

[3] Friberg, 375.

[4] Rienecker, 485.

[5] BAGD, 699.

Foundations for Obedience

“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience …” (Colossians 3:12)

Paul now draws a logical inference (“So”) from what he has just explained.  He takes up the same verb (“put on”) he used in verse 10.  Previously he stated that believers “have put on” the “new self.”  Now, in keeping with that new reality and identification, we are exhorted to “put on” the graces that match our standing.  We are to become in experience what we have been declared to be in fact.  The aorist imperative indicates that the necessary action is urgently needed and demands that it be undertaken at once.  The middle voice pictures the subjects as responsible to take this action upon themselves.

In verses 5 and 8 the Apostle chose in each instance to name five vices to be “put aside.”  Now he identifies five graces which are to be “put on.”  But before he identifies what those are he uses a subordinate clause to explain how it is he is able to expect obedience to this imperative.  We are to undertake this action “as those who have been chosen by God.”  Such an imperative is not laid upon us in our humanness and finite strength, but “as” we are under the electing love of God.  The word is used to “introduces the characteristic quality of a pers[on] . . .”[1] Here we are considered as we are “in Christ.”  The adjective refers to “those whom God has chosen fr[om] the generality of mankind and drawn to himself.”[2] This selection was “by God.”  The eternal God, before time began, laid His electing, choosing love upon those He selected.  It is only in this way that His grace came to us and we believed unto eternal life.  It is precisely because of this that we are therefore deemed by Him to be “holy and beloved.”  God alone is “holy” by nature.  Yet, because of His grace made possible through the sacrificial death of Jesus, God Himself will present us before Himself as “holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (1:22).  Because of this He can rightly call us “saints” (1:2, 4, 12, 26).  To this adjective Paul adds (“and”) a participle: “beloved.”  The perfect tense indicates that they became so at a point in time in the past and continue to be in this abiding state at the present moment.  The passive voice reveals that this was accomplished by God’s electing love.  God simply chose to set His love upon the elect from the creation of the world.  The Apostle is not indiscriminately laying moral imperatives upon people and expecting them to fulfill them in their own strength.  Rather it is precisely because of this gracious favor of God that we are able to “put on” these various graces.  Gospel imperatives are possible precisely because of Gospel grace.

[2] BAGD, 242.