Law, or Training Wheels and Guide Ropes? - Part 2

In Part 1 we considered several passages in St. Paul's letter to the Galatians. The Law (not law in general, but the Law of Moses) does not supersede the Promise that all peoples on earth will be blessed through Abraham's seed, the Messiah. The Mosaic Law was given as a "tutor" or a "schoolmaster," like training wheels on a bicycle or guide ropes in swimming to train us, the human race, until the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, would come and give us His life. He would send us the Holy Spirit and begin to transform us into mature Christians who have internalized the essence of the Law - "love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself." So obeying the Law is not merely observing religious rituals by rote - going to church, being baptized, taking communion, singing hymns, praying, reading the Bible, etc. - but also allowing those rituals to teach us how to actually live a life of love the way Jesus Christ lived. It sounds so simple and straightforward: what could possibly go wrong? In Galatians 5:1-6, St. Paul drops a verbal bomb on these Christians:

"1 Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
2 Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.
3 Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
4 You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.
5 For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love."

Usually I quote Scripture texts in paragraph form, leaving out the verse numbers. But I want you to consider each verse today. In v. 1 Paul tells us what real liberty is: life in Christ. There are many forms of bondage or slavery beside legal ownership of human beings. A person can be in bondage to habits such as gluttony (sugar and carb addiction), drug addiction, tobacco or alcohol addiction, sexual addiction, etc.

Also, many people are enslaved by long-term debt that the Law of Moses forbade: no debts could be longer than six years due to the devastating effects of long-term debt on both the individual and on the economy - see Escaping Debt Slavery. Many millions of Americans will never get out of debt in their entire lifetime - that is a very real form of bondage! In Romans 13:8 St. Paul tells us - "Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." The verb "owe" is in the continuing tense, recalling long-term debt that the Law of Moses forbade. Instead, our "debt" is to love one another, just as Paul wrote in v. 6 above.

In verses 2-3 Paul tells us that circumcision, the initiation ceremony into Judaism like baptism is the initiation ceremony into Christianity, can nullify the power of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection if it meant that the Galatians had to be converted to Judaism and obey the Law of Moses in order to become Christians. Earlier he explained, "This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage" (Gal. 2:4). Some legalistic Jews had been insisting that Gentile converts to Christ must be circumcised and become Jews before they could believe in the Messiah, Christ. This was the controversy that brought about the Council of Jerusalem described in Acts 15, which St. Paul refers to in Gal. 2:6-9. The decision of that Council was that Gentile believers in Christ did not need to be circumcised and obey the whole Law of Moses, just a condensed set of rules including care for the poor. But Judaizers didn't stop their insisting on it, and attempted to recruit the new Gentile Christians in Galatia. Paul, however, wrote them (v. 3) that a Gentile Christian who accepts circumcision comes under bondage to the whole ritual Law.

Verse 4 is a virtual bombshell: if we fall into the trap of believing that justification and salvation come by merely observing the outward acts of the Law - religious rituals - we are "alienated" or "cut off" (referring to the cutting of circumcision) from Christ, and we have fallen away from grace. This is where many have gone off the rails spiritually: grace is the fulfillment of the Law, not the cancellation of the Law. Law and grace are complimentary, not opposed to each other. Some have mistakenly taught "antinomianism" meaning "against law," that Christians don't need to obey laws. Faith is required (v. 5) for righteousness, but faith doesn't cancel or contradict the Law. Just because we "believe in Jesus" doesn't mean that we can do whatever we want: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?" (Rom. 6:1-2). We still need the "schoolmaster" of religious habits such as a prayer rule, confession, Bible reading, regular giving of our wealth, etc. so that we learn to obey Christ's commandments out of love for Him.

As James, the leader at the Council of Jerusalem, concluded: Jewish Christians could continue observing their traditions and religious rituals, but Gentile Christians didn't have to (Acts 15:13-22). St. Paul condenses this down in v. 6 above by saying that circumcision or the lack of it amounts to nothing, rather, "faith that works through love" is the important thing. "Faith that works" is not "sola fide" ("faith alone") The only place in the New Testament that uses the phrase "faith alone" is James 2:24 - "You see then that by works a man is justified, and not by faith alone." Luther wanted to remove the book of James from the Bible because it disproved his doctrine of "sola fide." Luther was right in being opposed to the ideas of purgatory, indulgences and the accumulation of good works for salvation, but he swung too far to the opposite extreme by insisting on "faith alone." But as James wrote - "faith without works is dead" (James 2:26).

Well then, what is grace? Many modern Christians are taught it is a "gift" - the root meaning of the Greek word "kharis" (grace). But anyone who has studied foreign languages should understand that the etymological root of a word is not necessarily the full meaning of that word. In the New Testament context we can see that "kharis" is more than merely a "gift" - it is the Divine energy given to us in order to transform us into the image of Christ. So if a person who claims the "free gift of salvation" doesn't manifest in his life that he's being transformed, loving God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself, that person is suffering from a false teaching.

The modern doctrine of "free grace" is linked together with the doctrine of predestination: they say God is sovereign - in total control, man is totally depraved and can't do anything for his salvation: it's a gift. The modern mind struggles with the seeming contradiction of predestination versus free will. If some are predestined for salvation and others are predestined for damnation, there is nothing man can do to change God's will. In a podcast I came across recently, Does God Predestine People to Hell? the speaker struggles with this dilemma. He puzzles over how people can be responsible for their actions, but ends up quoting several Bible texts that come down on the side of God's sovereignty and predestination: Eph. 1:11; Prov. 16:4; 1 Pet. 2:7; Jude 1:4; 2 Pet. 2:3; Rom. 9:11 that quotes from Mal. 1:2-3; and Rom. 9:22.

But that speaker doesn't cite the many other Bible texts that emphasize man's free will: Rom. 8:29-30; Heb. 4:2-7; 6:4-10; 8:8-11; 10:14-39; 12:1-4 & 8 and many others. So we see a dynamic homeostasis or balance in Scripture between God's foreknowledge and sovereignty, and man's free will and responsiblity. Both are true, it's not "either... or" but rather "both... and" linked together in a way beyond human comprehension. Western Christian thought tries to figure everything out rationally, but eastern Christian thought lets mystery remain mysterious, it lets God be God. Also, it's not "either... or" but rather "both... and" in regards to Law and grace. Religious rules and habits play a vital role as a "schoolmaster" in bringing us to spiritual maturity in Christ.

In conclusion - "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do what is good toward all men, and especially toward those who are of the household of the faith" (Gal. 6:10). This is "faith that works through love!"

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 18 Oct. 2014.)