276 Jesus - God's Gift to Us

As we begin a series in the book of Galatians we discover nine ways that Jesus gave himself to us. Check them out. As parents we give our daughters to a man in marriage - She is the most precious thing we have. So with Jesus God gave us His most precious gift. Already in the first few verses of this book we are reminded of how awesome this gift really is. Although given with no strings attached it will change your life once you understand the magnitude of this gift.

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SHOW NOTES

THE GOOD NEWS IN GALATIANS

Ian Hartley

Red Deer 2007 Revised 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2026

Introduction

Paul writes Galatians certain of three things. God’s love does far more than law

ever could to change sinners into saints. The New Covenant is infinitely superior

to the Old, because the New rests on God’s promises and the Old rested on our

own fickle ones. And obedience, however sincere, never justifies us before God.

Our new status of innocence, or justification, is God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ.

As we grasp these certainties they make music in our minds, create hope in our

hearts, set our feet dancing for joy and free our tongues to sing the wonder of God.

Scholars generally agree that 1 Thessalonians is likely the earliest, written

around 50–51 AD, followed closely by Galatians (c. 49–55 AD), 1 Corinthians

(c. 53–54 AD), and 2 Corinthians (c. 55–56 AD) ( historyinthebible.com+2).

Contents

The Greeting (1:1-5) ............................................................................................. 1

The Authentic Gospel (1:6-10) .............................................................................. 7

Paul’s Authenticity Accepted (1:11-24) ................................................................. 9

The Apostles Accept Paul (2:1-10) ..................................................................... 12

Paul Corrects the Apostle Peter (2:11-21) .......................................................... 15

Faith versus Legalism—The Power of the Spirit (3:1-14) ................................... 29

The Covenant is Superior to Law (3:15-25) ........................................................ 43

Implication of Adoption into God’s Family (3:26-4:7) .......................................... 57

Paul Perplexed over the Misled Galatians (4:8-20) ............................................. 67

Hagar and Sarah Represent Two Covenants (4:21-31) ...................................... 73

Freedom in Christ (5:1-15) .................................................................................. 82

Freedom in the Spirit (5:16-26) ........................................................................... 96

The Freedom to do Good to All (6:1-10) ........................................................... 102

A New Creation, not Circumcision (6:11-18) ..................................................... 110

Appendix: The Law in Galatians ....................................................................... 114

Cover picture: The Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, the former Galatia.

The New International Version is quoted unless otherwise indicated.

The Good News in GalatiansThe Greeting 1:1—1:5

The Greeting (1:1-5)

The Galatians were Celtic (or Gallic) tribes who migrated from Europe through the

Balkans during the third century BCE and settled on the high plateau of central

Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Paul had established Christian churches in this

region, and he wrote one general letter to all of them.

We are not sure exactly which churches he had in mind. He may have been writing

to the ethnic Galatians in the north of the region (the North Galatian theory) or to

the churches throughout the Roman province of Galatia, further south (the South

Galatian theory).

1:1 Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father,

An apostle is one of Jesus’ twelve disciples or, more broadly, anyone sent on a

mission. Some are sent, or commissioned, by the church, and we call this

ordination. Paul, like some other men and women, received his vision and his

mission directly from God through Jesus Christ, beginning on the Damascus road.

His mission was to take the gospel, the good news, to the Gentiles.

1:1 who raised him from the dead— Paul’s Ministry Rests on God’s Intervention

Paul reasons that a God who could accomplish the mighty miracle of raising Jesus

Christ from the dead can do anything. His ministry therefore depends largely, if

not entirely, on a firm belief that God intervenes supernaturally in human history.

For Paul, miracles and wonders are a real part of God’s ministry through the Spirit.

Paul is no mere moral teacher or humanist, and he is clearly no deist. He believes

in the immanent power of God, demonstrated in the physical resurrection of Jesus

Christ from the dead and in the spiritual resurrection of men and women from the

deadness of their bankrupt lives. As evidence of that second miracle he points to

born-again men and women who speak in tongues and work miracles. Here is the

evidence of their resurrection life now!

1:2 and all the brothers with me, to the churches in Galatia: 3 Grace and

peace to you

Why Grace and Peace?

Why does Paul greet his readers with both words? Perhaps the greeting is

primarily grace, with peace added to defuse the hostility many feel when they hear

about God’s grace (Acts 14:2). Perhaps the two words simply join the Greek

The Good News in Galatians 1The Greeting 1:1—1:5

greeting, grace, to the Hebrew greeting, peace. In any event we need both. We

need grace because we are failing sinners (Rom 3:23). We need peace because

we are rebels and angry with God (Rom 8:7). Many of us are unaware of our anger

with God. Yet all his children are special to him, so when we are angry with one of

his children, we are angry with him.

It is curious that the Spirit is seldom mentioned in the greetings of Paul’s letters,

when Paul is so enthusiastic about the Spirit’s crucial role in the Christian life (5:22-

23; 1 Corinthians 12-14).

1:4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age,

How Did Jesus Give Himself to Us?

Let me count the ways.

1. Jesus became a human being forever.

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

In John 20, after the resurrection, Thomas can still touch Jesus’ body, with its nail

scars and wounded side. We can conclude that Jesus has taken our flesh forever.

God did not loan Jesus to us for 30 years.

We did not loan our daughters to their husbands for a few decades. They are theirs

forever! In the same way, God did not loan his Son to us. He gave his Son,

knowing that some would reject the gift outright, some would squander it and some

would swap it for a “mess of pottage.”

Giving, in the best sense of the word, does not depend on the response of the

recipient. There are no strings attached. A gift originates in the heart of the giver,

for reasons known to the giver. It is not a reward, a payment, a bribe or an offer,

and the giver expects nothing in return. This is how God gave his Son to us.

2. Jesus became the least of all human beings.

He was conceived by an unmarried woman. He was born away from his home and

his town, vulnerable in a stable with tetanus spores in the air. He had no status or

reputation, no real estate, one set of clothes and no arresting physical beauty. In

human terms Jesus was insignificant, and we know almost nothing about his first

30 years.

Isaiah 53:1-3 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of

the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us

to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was

despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with

The Good News in Galatians 2The Greeting 1:1—1:5

pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and

we held him in low esteem.

In the end he will be the only wounded being in heaven, with his nail-scarred hands

and spear-wounded side. Those wounds show how far Jesus Christ stooped: to

the very lowest status possible for a human being (Philippians 2:5-8).

Zechariah 13:6 If someone asks him, ‘What are these wounds on your

body?’ he will answer, ‘The wounds I was given at the house of my friends.’

He submitted himself to us in every way, including the possibility that we would

murder him. He literally gave his life to us. The humility of Jesus is awe-inspiring,

especially because it is eternal: he has taken a glorified human body. He is the

first and the last example of love “not seeking its own way” or “demanding its own

way” NLT (1 Corinthians 13:5).

3. Jesus took the risk of failure and separation from God.

If Jesus had failed at one point, that is, if selfishness had shown itself at any

moment of his life, the perfection of the Trinity would have been destroyed. The

minimum legal qualification for heaven is 100% unselfishness from the moment of

birth to the instant of death. The standard of the Trinity is this high because God

is love, and love is at the very least unselfish. In fact love requires far more than

legal correctness. It requires grace, care, compassion and vulnerability. There can

be no lowering of love’s standard.

Satan knew about this godly standard, and so he tempted Jesus to selfishness,

which is sin. Satan also knew it was possible for Jesus to fail; otherwise he would

not have bothered to tempt him. I do not tempt the mailbox or the garbage can.

4. Jesus ran the risk of giving up on the plan of salvation.

Every human being has a limit to the pain and rejection they can cope with, and

God provides a way of escape even when we fail (1 Corinthians 10:13). Satan

would not respect this limit for Jesus. After the encounter with Satan in the desert

Jesus was exhausted, and angels had to come and minister to him (Matthew 4:11;

Mark 1:13). At the end of his short life, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the

emotional and spiritual stress was so great that he sweated blood (Luke 22:44),

and again an angel came to revive him (Luke 22:43). Matthew confirms how this

desperate hour threatened his life:

Matthew 26:37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him,

and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My

soul is overwhelmed with sorrow (not fear) to the point of death. Stay here

and keep watch with me.”

5. Jesus lost all hope of resurrection while he was on the cross.

The Good News in Galatians 3The Greeting 1:1—1:5

Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour

could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him

His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s

acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that

their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner

will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the

sense of sin, bringing the Father’s wrath upon Him as man’s substitute that

made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God.

(DA 753)

This is why he cried out,

Matthew 27:46 My God, My God why have you forsaken me?

6. Jesus reduced the intimacy of the Trinity by taking on humanity.

When Jesus took a material body, the intimacy of the Spirit family was reduced.

Once, everyone in our house was a Hartley. Now some of the Hartleys have

different last names, and they have become different people from those who used

to live with us. Yes, we are still a family, but there are “intruders” now, with whom

the girls share their secrets. We stand at some distance compared with how it

used to be.

7. God gave Jesus to be married to us.

Our daughters now have other names, other houses and other friends. It is not the

same anymore. Their most intimate relationship is no longer with us. This is what

it means to be married, and we do not resent it. At their weddings we “gave them

away.” They may come home from time to time to care for us and to share their

children with us, but they are gone. They have their own homes and families, and

we, their parents, while still important to them, come second.

Because God gave his Son to us, we are to become the bride of Christ. We are

Jesus’ primary concern now. Far from being lost in the vast universe, we are

closely connected to him.

8. God gave up Jesus to be tortured and executed by us.

We gave our daughters to be married to fine young men. We did not give them

away to be yelled at, made to cry, tortured, mocked, rejected, crucified, killed and

placed in a borrowed grave.

9. God gave his only Son.

There was no contingency plan. God had only one Son. I might give you one of

my kidneys, one of my lungs or one of my eyes, but never my heart. I have only

one heart, and when I give you my heart I give you all of myself. Because we are

The Good News in Galatians 4The Greeting 1:1—1:5

in God’s heart it was, in a sense, natural for him to give us his Son, but the

implications are breathtaking.

Jerry du Toit married Jacqueline Smith, and after the honeymoon they spent a few

days with her parents. On the day they were to leave, Mr. Smith asked Jerry

whether he had a trailer hitch on his car. Jerry did not, so Mr. Smith sent him to

have one put on.

When Jerry arrived back, Mr. Smith hitched his own trailer to the car. “Do you have

a double bed?” he asked. “No,” said Jerry, but they had saved some money and

would buy one in the city where he had employment. Mr. Smith said that he and

his wife were planning to get a new bed; would Jerry like the one they would no

longer be using? They loaded the bed. The washer and dryer came next, then a

fridge, a table and chairs and finally an 8 x 10 rug. The trailer was full, and Jerry

could stand it no longer. “You cannot do this for us,” he exclaimed to his new

father. “It is too generous!”

Mr. Smith replied, “Jerry, when we gave you our only daughter, we gave you the

best we had. All the rest is peanuts compared to her! Take it, Jerry. Actually, you

are valuable to us because of her! Take good care of her, Jerry! Good care, Jerry,

there is more to come!” (Thank you, Smuts van Rooyen.)

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us

all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

I give my heart to you, Lord God. You have given all for me!

and ever. Amen.