False teachers have infiltrated the Galatian church network and accused Paul of going rogue and failing to preach a complete Gospel (Gal 2:4). They have perverted the true Good News with a counterfeit message of “do better through obedience to the rules” (Gal 1:6-7).
The apostle insists that any self-salvation efforts by through good behavior by either Jew or non-Jew is actually no salvation at all. It’s only when we place our faith in what Jesus has done for us what we could never do that we are made right in the eyes of God (Gal 2:15-16).
Paul has dedicated the past few years of his life preaching the Gospel Jesus personally gave Him (Gal 1:12). Christ told Paul that His death on the cross demolished the barriers between Jew and Gentile. The Good News puts the wrecking ball to ethnic walls.
The big story: Gentiles can now come to faith in Messiah Jesus AS GENTILES! No conversion to Judaism need. No rituals necessary. No circumcision required. And the big wigs of the church gave Paul’s radical message their seal of approval (Gal 2:6).
The apostle has spent all of his energy tearing down these walls as he travels. He has just returned from his trip to Galatia with Barnabas where he was the Demolition Man (Acts 13:13-14:23). They made two stops in the churches of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe knocking down walls.
He’s the Demolition Man.
That’s the scene when Paul writes, “For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor” (v18). The construction of the original Greek is more than a little awkward in English. It could be something like, “For if the things I tore down I build again, I prove myself to be a violator.”
The apostle describes his days as the Demolition Man. He uses the verb καταλυω/kataluo. It means to take something apart, tear down, abolish, demolish or destroy. Paul has torn down and completely dismantled centuries old racial walls. He’s dedicated himself to the destruction of ethnic barriers between Jews and Gentiles as they come to faith in Jesus.
He’s the Demolition Man.
Paul tells us that it would be ridiculous for him to rebuild what he worked so diligently to demolish. And if he did, “I would prove myself to be a transgressor” (v18). The Greek word for transgressor is παραβατης/parabates.
It describes someone who illegally crosses a boundary or knowingly oversteps a line. A trespasser. An illegal alien. The apostle says that if he went around trying to put back together all of the walls he’s worked hard to tear down, he would knowingly be violating what Jesus specifically commanded him to do.
He’s the Demolition Man.
Jesus has called me to be a Demolition Man too. Walls still exist. Barriers between races. Barriers between economic groups. Barriers between neighborhoods. Barriers between genders. It’s time to get out the Gospel wrecking ball and get to work.
The night before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed to His heavenly Dad “that they may be one even as We are one. I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me” (Jn 17:22-23). That only happens when we work hard to destroy the walls we’ve erected between us.
Let’s be Demolition Men.
©2012
Jay Jennings
©2012
Jay Jennings
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