Paul takes his last swing at the pinata of the Judaizers' counterfeit gospel and the candy spills out. Using the truth of the Old Testament as his club, he's destroyed their message of works righteousness specifically addressed through circumcision.
These false teachers infiltrated the Galatian churches and have attempted to sabotage what God began among these people through His apostle (Gal 2:4; 4:17). This isn't the first time Paul's had to deal with this problem. He had to confront the Apostle Peter in Antioch over this very same issue (Gal 2:11-14). He's taken it down before and he'll do it again.
The apostle has made it abundantly clear that any sort of self-salvation we might attempt cuts us off from Christ and nullifies His grace (Gal 5:4). Now he paints a picture of what it means to place our faith in what Jesus has done or us. You've heard the bad news. Now here's the Good News.
"For through the Spirit, by faith..." (v5). Don't let these two little phrases pass you by. Let's examine them in reverse. When Paul writes "by faith," he's talking about placing our trust in Jesus.
Christ lived the perfect life that we couldn't live. He died the awful death we should've died. He rose to the new life we don't deserve.
He gives us the perfection and goodness of God in exchange for our imperfection and sinfulness (2Cor 5:21). When the Father sees us, He sees His Son. We're justified. Scholars call it imputed righteousness (yes, this will be on the Final!).
We can't do it. Jesus did. This isn't about our level of faith. This is NOT about the strength of our faith but in Whom we place our faith. As the man from Tarsus tells his buddy Tim, "If we are faithless, He remains faithful" (2Tim 2:13).
When we place our faith in Jesus, He places His Holy Spirit in us (Jn 14:16-17, 26). God gives you His Spirit when we believe the message of Jesus, not through obedient rule-keeping (Gal 3:5). It's only through our trust in the finished work of Jesus and the indwelling power of His Holy Spirit that we can have any hope at all.
Because of this, "we ourselves eagerly await for the hope of righteousness" (v5). Paul uses the Greek verb απεκδεχομαι/apekdechomai. It means to wait with confidence, to expect eagerly and diligently.
The term describes a confident waiting. There's no uncertainty here. He's NOT saying that he’s got his fingers crossed and hoping God will make us righteous and holy. No, the apostle could not be more certain. God's word is good as gold.
So what exactly are we waiting on Him to do? The big idea here is called glorification. Here's God's salvation process. First He justifies us when we place our faith in Jesus. This simply means that when He sees us, He sees Christ and His perfection.
But there's one big problem. We're still sinners. So God begins the process of sanctification. That just describes the lifelong process where He remakes us into the image of His sinless Son. The process ends on the other side of the grave with glorification.
That's when His work in us is complete. We'll be holy and sinless. Check out Paul's great description of the whole process in Romans 8:28-30. That "hope of righteousness" is that wonderful day when His work in us in a done deal. And we can be sure He'll git 'r done (Phil 1:6).
So what in the wide world of sports does all this have to do with circumcision? Thanks for asking. Paul would love to tell you. "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything..." (v6).
Once we place our trust in Jesus and we are "in Christ," then none of it matters. Circumcision? Uncircumcision? Church attendance? Bible reading? Good behavior?
None of that saves you. They count for nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. The Big Fat Zero. Once we place our trust in the finished work of Jesus, it just doesn't matter (Rom 2:25-29; 1Cor 7:19; Col 3:11; Gal 6:15). What matters is what He's done and who He is.
So in the meantime, what do we do? What happens while we "eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness" (v5)? Paul says the only thing that matters now is "faith working through love" (v6).
Once we place our trust in Jesus, we can stop worrying about what others think of us because we have God's approval. We can simply love others with no strings attached.
I am to love both vertically and horizontally (Mt 22:37-40). Love God. Love others. And get this, I actually love God BY loving others. What concept!
But love isn't just a warm fuzzy feeling found in a cheesy romance novel. It has hands. It has feet. It has action. We're to love like God loves. We're to love with no strings attached. That's exactly the kind of love Paul's talking about in 1 Corinthians 13.
In other words, while I'm waiting, love others. So what am we waiting on? Let’s get going!
©2012
Jay Jennings
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