“You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
When writing to the adulterous Corinthians Paul instructs them gently. To the Cretans in the book of Titus he is patient and explanatory. But here he is straight out rebuking the Galatians without much of a filter. In this passage he basically asks them if they’re stupid.
We find a similar approach when Jesus encountered thieves and prostitutes, He corrected them, but gently. But when faced with Pharisees who believed they could earned their way Christ was severe, calling them snakes, and whitewashed tombs for thinking they could earn redemption.
This seems to indicate that arrogance and believing you can earn deliverance is especially repulsive to the Holy Spirit. That makes sense, because for God to pay the price He paid for my salvation, and then I act as though I can earn it - is an amazing display of ignorance and ingratitude.
Jesus died to redeem my soul, and there is no amount of work I can do, or money I can pay to earn that … it is insulting to insinuate that there might be.
That is a frightening observation because “legalism”, “works-salvation”, and “judgementalism”, are sins we in the church dance pretty close to, and it appears these sins and the arrogance from which they originate are particularly offensive to God. Egotism may be the enemy’s most powerful tool.
Have I been saved by grace, but become better than you because of my works? Did the Holy Spirit provide salvation and then my flesh say, “I’ll take it from here”? Paul calls that whole line of thinking foolish.
While we must boldly speak truth, we also had better check our hearts regularly and make sure we are not being bewitched by some foolish, self-exalting approach to Christianity that allows us to feel anything but gratitude for our salvation.
“If there be ground for you to trust in your own righteousness, then all that Christ did to purchase salvation, and all that God did to prepare the way for it, is in vain.” — Jonathan Edwards
No comments:
Post a Comment