Meditations in Galatians #7, Sunday, June 7, 2009 Galatians 2:21
______________________________________
"I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly."
______________________________________
Lord Jesus, I don't want to be part of anything that treats Your suffering and death as if it were unnecessary. Wow, that pretty much eliminates everything. OK, maybe that's excessive. Would You help me to rethink this and understand what Paul really intended?Paul is still explaining that Moses' Law was not about making a person Righteous. Period. That is still a little hard to comprehend, since I was taught that with Jesus came a new dispensation of Grace, as if salvation by faith did not exist before Jesus' death. Now I see that is not what Paul believed. He doesn't want anyone thinking that they will ever be made righteous by anything except Jesus' death in our place. There never was any such thing as salvation apart from faith in Jesus, before or after His death. I guess the details of that will take a long time to work out.
What does this mean to those who love Jesus, and never considered keeping the Laws of Moses, the Sabbaths, the Kosher dietary restrictions, circumcision, and all the rest?
I know that it is still quite easy for me to invent my own laws, and think that my obedience to them will at least preserve my present level of righteousness. For example, I really can't stand movies in which God has no role at all, and I cring at those in which God is portrayed badly. But if I make that a Law, then I will to have to break it if You ask me to spend time with someone who is less aware of You. It would be like having to choose between Your will and my own Law. Does this mean that what You ask is for my pre-commitment to unconditional obedience to You, without any Law, Yours or mine, effecting me? Why? It would be a lot easier if there were some rules, especially if I were allowed to make them.
(There are two commandments? Love You and love others? Well, that is almost the same thing as having no rules and yet it is just as hard. I can see that without Your guidance and help I can't always keep those either.)
Paul didn't want to be a part of anything that would neutralize Your Grace, and make Jesus' suffering unnecessary. And I don't either. He thought that for a gentile believer to submit himself to Moses' Laws would do that. But for those of us who never were under Moses' Law's and are not likely ever be under it, we can still act as if commitment to our own standards is what makes us righteous. The result is just another form of self-righteousness, and Jesus' Cross is not a necessary part of our daily lives. So this is really at the core of our daily Cross-bearing, our Co-Crucifixion with Jesus.
Please help me to understand this so clearly that I won't be side-tracked by my own efforts at doing good. And please give to me the grace to embrace Your Son's cross and suffering and shame as my only means of becoming righteous in Your sight.
______________________________________
______________________________________
Thank You for giving me a few minutes of your time. Galatians is a unique letter. It will take some time to get into Paul's mind, and from there to understand what God has chosen to reveal through the disaster that the congregation at Galatia was experiencing.
The effect of these Meditations will be cumulative, and the real benefit may have nothing to do with what I have written. I believe that the discipline of having a brief daily conversation with God about the meaning of a variety of Bible passages over a period of a few weeks, even if you come to some very different conclusions, will still be a wonderful and enlightening experience for you. At DeadRight.net, under the Yellow Pages, is some background info about Galatians. If you missed an earlier Meditation, you can still read it at DeadRight.net by going to the homepage, clicking on Newsletter, and clicking on "browse previous newsletters."
_______________________________________