Jesus+Nothing=Justified (Galatians 5:1-12)
It seems that one of the arguments of the Judaizers was that of righteous living. The argument was that if being declared righteous before God doesn’t depend upon us then we will live in sin.
About a year ago I heard something like this. The person was horrified about their child hearing the message of free grace because she felt it would lead to him not living righteously. There had to be some mixture of works, or they were nervous that their child would fall away. What the Scripture said did not matter, only what they thought would happen.
This is very similar to what we hear from Roman Catholics often as Protestants. And this argument goes back centuries at this point.
Regardless of the arguments people make about us. We will see quite plainly that
Jesus + Nothing = Justified
Jesus + Anything Else = Lost in your sins.
It doesn’t matter what you think happens.
It does not matter how you think this will affect behavior.
What matters is that this is the method for redemption that was given to us by the Father.
Jesus + Nothing = Justified
Jesus + Anything Else = Lost in your sins.
We are free in Christ. We are free from the Law, free from guilt and shame. But this freedom comes to us only as we trust in Christ as Savior. We do not receive this freedom when we try to do it ourselves. We receive this freedom through faith in Christ. And we are severed from this freedom if we attempt to do it ourselves. And this freedom in Christ forms us to walk in righteousness.
Stand Firm In Your Freedom (Galatians 5:1-6)
Stand firm in the gospel. That is what Paul is urging the churches here to stand firm in the gospel. And the same is urged of us today.
The gospel is the good news. It is what Christ has accomplished for us in His life, death, and resurrection. God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a perfect life and accomplished all righteousness on our behalf. He also died on the cross and paid the punishment for our sin. And He rose from the grave and accomplished our justification.
The good news is that Jesus accomplished our redemption for us, outside of us, and on our behalf. We must stand firm on that. Christ purchased our freedom from sin, from death, and from the requirements of the Law. We take hold of this freedom by faith in Jesus Christ. And to do something other than that is to walk out of the freedom that we have in Christ and walk back into slavery.
If we think on the Jewish system a bit, to “accept circumcision” was to put yourself under the entire Jewish legal system (Galatians 5:2). Think back to our time in the Book of Acts. There were people throughout that were not fully accepted into the Jewish fold. They were uncircumcised Gentiles and they were called “God-fearers”. These people had not yet fully brought their selves under the Law.
This makes Paul’s warning make a lot of sense. If they go this far then Christ will be of no benefit to them. They would be under the yoke of the Law and not under Christ. And because of this, they would be obligated to keep the entire Law to perfection.
Those united to Christ have forgiveness of sins apart from the Law. Those attempting to do it their selves are attempting to do it on their own. If you choose to trust in your own work, then you are severed from Christ.
And it is through the Holy Spirit, given to us by faith, that we have hope (Galatians 5:5). As has been discussed repeatedly in the Book of Galatians, we were given the Holy Spirit by faith and not works. And now we have “hope of righteousness”. This hope is of our own being clothed in righteousness, with God for eternity. This hope is our ultimate salvation.
Application:
Here is where I want to really hammer home the difference between what we believe and what other religions believe.
Every man-made religion sets its sights on our works somehow bringing about the hope of righteousness. But pure Christianity says that we have the hope of righteousness brought by the Holy Spirit given to us by faith.
Our response to the gospel is faith. It is knowing what Christ has done for us, believing it to be true, and entrusting ourselves to Him.
It’s not about what I’ve done. It’s not about what I do.
In Islam, a person is judged righteous by God because they have done good deeds. And part of this judgment is whether they have kept the 5 pillars of Islam.
Mormons speak of faith + works that I do.
And I also want to differentiate us from the Roman Catholic Church.
I am a Protestant in a very historic sense. As R.C. Sproul has said, oftentimes Protestants don’t know what they are protesting. But the main thing that we are protesting in the Roman Catholic Church is declared righteous before God.
In Latin, the term justification meant “make righteous”. And the Roman Catholic system is that a person is not declared righteous, but made righteous before God. The work of Christ in the believer works to make them righteous and based on their cooperation with this grace, they merit eternal life. Some people cooperate better than others, therefore some people get to go directly to Heaven. Some people cooperate less, therefore they go to purgatory and work off some of their bad and uncooperative behavior.
This cooperation is what Protestants have been protesting since around the time of the Guttenberg Press.
The Greek word for “justification” means to be declared righteous, not to be made righteous. And that distinction is important. And the Scriptures were not written in Latin. They were later translated into Latin. The new
God doesn’t judge us righteous because we have cooperated enough. We are declared righteous based on the finished work of Christ. We are declared righteous because of what God did outside of us.
In the same way that Paul looks at the churches of Galatia and says, if you believe that your getting circumcised will save you then you have abandoned Christ, we look at people and say, “If you believe that doing penance will save you, you have abandoned Christ.” “If you believe that you cooperate and accomplish part of your salvation then you are lost.”
A few weeks ago I showed the bridge illustration. If any part of that bridge that your trusting in is your own work, then it will fail.
Christ has accomplished our redemption completely. It was all done apart from us. Jesus lived or us. Jesus died for us. And Jesus rose from the grave for our justification.
This was all accomplished outside of us and apart from us. It was all accomplished by Him.
You Are Freed To Walk In Righteousness (Galatians 5:6)
People think of Christian freedom as the freedom to do whatever they want. It is oftentimes the case that the phrase “Christian freedom” is uttered to discuss alcohol or nicotine use.
This is not how Christian freedom is discussed in Scripture. When our freedom is discussed it is about our freedom from sin, freedom from the Law. This freedom leads us to a freeness to do good works.
In his book “The Freedom of a Christian” Martin Luther wrote about our freedom. We are freed from the Law. We are freed from the obligations of the Law. And we find that we are transformed
“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” (Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian”
The argument is often made to Protestants that, because personal righteousness is not part of our salvation. The accusation is that it will cause us to live licentiously.
To this Paul says, as is repeatedly stated in Scripture, “true faith works”. While we are saved by grace alone through faith alone, saving faith is never alone. Saving faith works.
Application:
We believe that we are justified apart from works. We are declared righteous on the basis of what Christ has done. But we are not left in a state of unrighteous behavior. Christ forms us throughout our lives.
God gives to us the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so we work. True faith works. And we are going to see that over the course of the next few weeks.
“Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that performs good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith.” (Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians)
The first sermon series that I preached at this church, to a much different group of people, was through 1 John. And repeatedly John states that a person’s life will be affected by their salvation. A person cannot claim to be a Christian and live a life in complete rebellion against Him.
And that is the point of this. A person is not free before they are born again. We are all born enslaved to sin and unrighteousness. We are born enslaved to sin and death. Under the Law, we are unable to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). That is part of the symbolism found in baptism.
Throughout the Book of Galatians Paul has argued that we are declared righteous based upon faith in Christ and not something that we do.
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” (Galatians 2:15-16 ESV)
Where do works then fit in this whole discussion?
Good works are the fruit of true Christian faith. They are not the reason for our salvation. They are the fruit of that salvation. And the only way to read this text otherwise is to block out the rest of the Book of Galatians.
As Protestants, we do not protest good works. We look to the Scriptures and put them in their proper place. We do good works because God has saved our souls. And that’s what we believe because it’s what we see in the Scriptures.
As we see in our own statement of faith,
“…Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life.” BFM 2000 Article IV.
Christ Plus A Little Something Else Leads To Death (Galatians 5:7-12)
Paul knew that the people of Galatia had begun well. They started on the right track (Galatians 5:7). And it was not God that moved them away from the right path. It was the Judaizers (Galatians 5:8).
Paul’s illustration of yeast is important here. A little bit of bad teaching can destroy the whole batch of dough. In the same way that yeast added to a batch of bread dough eventually makes it through the whole loaf, and transforms the whole loaf, bad teaching can infiltrate the whole body. It can destroy individuals and the entire church.
Interestingly, Paul was confident that they would not turn away from the faith. He was confident that this warning and the grace of God would move them to faithfulness in the Lord.
And then Paul used the example of his own life. Persecutions would have made it easy for Paul to turn away. But he did not. And he would not. He could ally himself with the Jews and then life would be easy. But he won’t. And, in the end, he was confident that they would not turn away either.
If he would only remove the offense of the cross and preach good works, then everyone would be happy. He wouldn’t be run out of town and persecuted everywhere he went if he preached a salvation by works. And it is the same for us today. Christians are maligned repeatedly and it’s because we preach a message that is offensive. We tell people that they are lost and dying in their sin. We tell people that they cannot do anything about it their selves. And we tell people that they must stop ruling their own lives and cast their selves upon the Savior, Jesus Christ.
He will not stop preaching the offense and they shouldn’t either. In fact, he is confident they won’t.
And this leads to Paul’s fury over the circumcision crowd reaching a fever pitch. He wishes those pushing circumcision would do more than circumcise themselves and cut everything off.
We read this and our eyes pop open in shock. But it does tell us something about God and His attitude toward people adding to the finished work of Christ. Galatians is God’s Word. Like the rest of the Bible it was written by men, guided by God. God so oversaw the process that the words written there are the words God wanted there.
So what do we learn about God through Paul’s anger at those adding to faith alone as the response to salvation?
We learn that God is angry at it as well.
Application:
Paul is assured that the people of Galatia won’t be finally and fully lost forever. But if they were to place their selves under the yoke of works they would be.
What is the response to the good news?
It is faith.
If I say anything that you remember, I want it to be this. That Christ accomplished our salvation fully through His life, death, and resurrection. And we respond to that message by faith alone.
I’ve spoken a lot of the divide between Roman Catholic and Protestant today. And I’ll do it again here.
Early on, Protestants weren’t bothered when people went to confession. We look at that and snarl our noses. But they didn’t see anything wrong with going to a priest for confession. In fact, most of the early Protestant churches had a time of confession built into their church service. A passage of the Law was read. Then a time for repentance was given. Then the pastor would read from a passage of Scripture that declared absolution, or forgiveness of sins. They weren’t angered by the priest giving the absolution. Do you know why they protested? They protested people being given something to do to receive that absolution from the priest. It’s called “penance”. It’s doing something because of our sin to receive this forgiveness.
They objected to purgatory, where a person pays for their own sinful deeds until they have earned the right to be in Heaven.
They objected to everything within the system that taught people earn God’s forgiveness through doing something.
“…Salvation is of the Lord.” (Jonah 2:9 ESV)
I can’t do good deeds and earn God’s favor. It is God who saves. And if you think that you’re going to do it on your own, then you are sorely mistaken.
We receive this grace of God through faith, bare faith. That has been the argument of the Book of Galatians thus far. And it is the truth found elsewhere, especially in the Book of Romans.
“Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justified the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” (Romans 4:4-5 ESV)
“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” (Rom 3:28 ESV)
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 5:1 ESV)
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2:8-9 ESV)
And Paul, as well as God, are angered by the suggestion that we can be brought into God’s family in any other fashion.
And this makes complete sense.
Our salvation is earned. But it wasn’t earned by you. It was earned by Jesus Christ.
God made a way to save us and it was through the gift of His Son. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to accomplish our redemption. God sent His Son to live, die, and rise from the grave for us. God’s Son was brutally beaten and hung from a cross for our redemption and we think we can do something else instead. No wonder this angers God. And no wonder there is no other way.
Conclusion:
There is a great hymn that is not in the Celebration Hymnal. It’s called “Not What My Hands Have Done”. It beautifully sums up what it is that we believe and how we respond to the grace of God found only in Jesus Christ.
1 Not what my hands have done
can save my guilty soul;
not what this toiling flesh has borne
can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do
can give me peace with God;
not all my prayers and sighs and tears
can bear my awful load.
2 Thy work alone, O Christ,
can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God,
can give me peace within.
Thy love to me, O God, not mine,
O Lord, to Thee,
can rid me of the dark unrest,
and set my spirit free.
3 Thy grace alone, O God,
to me can pardon speak;
Thy pow’r alone, O Son of God,
can this sore bondage break.
I bless the Christ of God;
I rest on love divine;
and with unfalt’ring lip and heart,
I call this Savior mine.
(Not What My Hands Have Done, Horatius Bonar)
R. Dwain Minor