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In this chapter we will cover the crucial points of the truth in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians.
In 1:4 Paul says that Christ “gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us out of the present evil age.” The crucial point in this verse is the present evil age. Although this point has been covered in a clear way in the Life-study of Galatians and in the footnotes of the Recovery Version, I would like to briefly cover it again. At Paul’s time a kind of evil age was prevailing, which Paul called the present evil age. An age is a part, a section, or an aspect of the world as the system of Satan, which is used by him to usurp and occupy people and keep them away from God and His purpose. The present evil age here, according to the contents of this book, refers to the religious world, the religious course of the world, the Jewish religion. This is confirmed by 6:14-15, where circumcision is considered a part of the world — the religious world — which, to the apostle Paul, is crucified. Here the apostle emphasizes that the purpose of Christ giving Himself for our sins was to rescue us, to pluck us, out of the Jewish religion, the present evil age. This is to release God’s chosen people from the custody of the law (3:23), to bring them out of the sheepfold (John 10:1, 3), according to the will of God. Thus, in his opening word Paul indicates what he is going to deal with, that is, to rescue the churches that were distracted by Judaism with its law and to bring them back to the grace of the gospel.
While the Lord Jesus was on this earth, the Jewish religion was exposed to the uttermost that it was an evil age. If the Jewish religion had not been such an evil age, how could its leaders have put the Lord Jesus on the cross? To crucify Jesus was absolutely more than an evil thing. His crucifixion exposed the Jewish religion to be the present evil age. This matter was not merely individual but involved a generation. An age refers to one aspect of the world. The world is composed of many ages, while a generation refers to the people, to the Jews. Therefore, on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:40, Peter, at the conclusion of his message, does not say be saved from God’s condemnation or from eternal perdition but be saved from this crooked generation. This refers to the perverted Jews in this age, who rejected God’s Christ (v. 36) and whose religion was considered by God as the present evil age. The Jews themselves cannot be separated from the Jewish religion.
Another crucial point in chapter 1 of Galatians is the revelation of God’s Son in us (v. 16). This point implies that Christ is versus religion, tradition, and law. The Son of God as the embodiment and expression of God the Father (John 1:18; 14:9-11; Heb. 1:3) is life to us (John 10:10; 1 John 5:12; Col. 3:4). God’s heart’s desire is to reveal His Son in us that we may know Him, receive Him as our life (John 17:3; 3:16), and become the sons of God (1:12; Gal. 4:5-6). As the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16), He is far superior to Judaism and its tradition (Gal. 1:13-14). The Judaizers bewitched the Galatians so that they considered the ordinances of the law above the Son of the living God. Hence, the apostle, in the opening of this Epistle, testifies that he had been deeply involved and far advanced in that realm. God, however, had rescued him out of that course of the world, which was evil in God’s eyes, by revealing His Son in him. In his experience he realized that there was no comparison between the Son of the living God and Judaism with its dead traditions from his fathers.
Christ being versus religion, tradition, and law can be fully applied to our present situation. In a very positive sense, in the eyes of God today’s religion is an evil age, a crooked generation. Yet in such an evil age, Christ is being revealed in us. Therefore, this revealed Christ is versus religion, tradition, regulations, rules, and ordinances. God’s revealing of His Son to us is in us, not outwardly but inwardly: not by an outward vision but by an inward seeing. This is not an objective revelation but a subjective one.
In chapter 2 there is a crucial point in verse 5 — the truth of the gospel. Paul was strong against the Judaizers who made circumcision a condition for salvation. To such ones Paul “yielded with the subjection demanded not even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might remain with you” (2:5). We have to spend some time to pick up all the related points to be able to present this item of the gospel to others as basic knowledge. In 2:5 and 14 Paul speaks of the truth of the gospel. The word truth in these verses does not mean the doctrine or teaching of the gospel; it denotes the reality of the gospel. Although Galatians is a short book, it affords us a complete revelation of the reality of the gospel in certain basic principles.
The first principle of the truth of the gospel is that fallen man cannot be justified by works of law (v. 16; 3:11). On the contrary, we are justified by faith in Christ. Faith in Christ denotes an organic union through believing. There is only one term or condition of the gospel, that is, to believe in the Lord Jesus. Besides believing in Him, there should be no other condition, no other term. You need to spend some time to study and to make an outline of this portion of the Word related to the truth of the gospel.
The next crucial point is in verses 19 and 20 of chapter 2 where Paul says, “I through law have died to law that I might live to God. I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” The crucial point here is that we have died to law so that we might live to God. This point includes the fact that we are in Christ and, therefore, not held responsible to keep the law. We have died to the law. That means we are freed from the law. A dead person is freed from the law and has no duty, responsibility, to keep the law. We have been freed from all regulations, all law and bondage, by our having been crucified with Christ, so we are not responsible to keep the law; we are responsible only to God, and we live to Him. Now it is not we who live but Christ who lives in us through His resurrection. His living in us is entirely by His being the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b).
This point has been fully and adequately covered in the Life-study messages, so you need to go there for your study. These messages especially point out that the Christian life is not an exchanged life, the exchange of a lower life for a higher one, but a life in union with Christ, a grafted life, the grafting of the human life into the life of Christ. This point is worthy of much study. Also, it may take two or three meetings to adequately cover such a crucial point.
Chapter 3 of Galatians is a long and difficult chapter to understand. The crucial point that is so unique in this chapter is the matter of receiving the Spirit by the hearing of faith. In verse 2 Paul says, “This only I wish to learn from you, Did you receive the Spirit out of the works of law or out of the hearing of faith?” Today among Christians there are many arguments concerning the receiving of the Spirit. The Pentecostal saints would say that the receiving of the Spirit is by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They even say that the unique sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. However, we have received the Spirit by the hearing of faith.
What is the faith for us to hear? Faith implies our believing in Christ, taking His person and His redemptive work as the object of our faith. This replacing the law, by which God dealt with people in the Old Testament, becomes the principle of God’s dealing with people in the New Testament. This faith characterizes the believers in Christ and distinguishes them from the keepers of the law. This is the main emphasis of the book of Galatians.
Some other verses in Galatians 3 show us that faith is a wonderful thing. Verse 23 says, “Before faith came we were guarded under law, being shut up unto the faith which was about to be revealed.” Until faith came, the law was our child-conductor, guardian, escort, custodian, used by God to watch over His chosen people (v. 24). In verse 25 Paul says, “But since faith has come.” Since faith in Christ has come, we do not need to be under the guarding of the law any longer. It is by the hearing of this faith that Paul says we receive the Spirit. In verse 14 this Spirit becomes the very blessing of the gospel that was promised to Abraham.
Law is the basic term of the relationship between man and God in God’s Old Testament economy (v. 23); faith is the unique requirement for man to contact God in His New Testament economy (Heb. 11:6) that we may participate in God’s promised blessing and live Christ. Faith here stands for the entire picture of the New Testament. The law in the Old Testament is always accompanied by works, not by faith. The law is not a matter of faith but altogether a matter of works. When John the Baptist came, his preaching put the law aside. In other words, his preaching put the entire Old Testament aside. In his preaching he said, “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near” (Matt. 3:2). John also preached that “he who believes into the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). First, John preached repentance, and then the Lord Jesus followed John. After John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God (Mark 1:14). In Mark 1:15 the Lord Jesus said, “Repent and believe in the gospel.” From this verse onward the key word in the entire New Testament is faith, which means to believe. John 3:14-16 says, “So must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” In the Gospel of John alone a form of the word believe is used more than eighty times. Faith has two denotations: objective faith, referring to the things we believe in, and subjective faith, referring to our believing act.
Faith can be illustrated in the following way. In photography there is always some scenery. Within the camera there is the film. Light is needed to expose the scenery to the film. There is also the need for the camera to “click.” When the camera clicks, it means that the camera is open to the light, and the light is able to expose the scenery onto the film and produce a picture. This picture will be exactly the same as the scenery. The exposure causes a reaction, and that reaction fully illustrates our faith. Our faith is a reaction to the scenery of the entire New Testament. The New Testament tells us how Christ was God from the beginning, how as the Word He was incarnated to be a man, how He lived on this earth, how He died an all-inclusive death to solve all the problems and to release God’s divine life, and how He resurrected to become a life-giving Spirit to enter into us. The New Testament also tells us how Christ ascended to the heavens, how He was glorified, enthroned, and made both Lord and Christ, and how He poured out Himself as the consummated Spirit upon all of us. It shows us that the Triune God’s full salvation has been fully completed by seven major steps, or processes, that He has passed through: incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, the breathing of the Spirit, ascension, and the outpouring of the Spirit. The New Testament also goes on to tell us that we are sinners and that we have to repent. Whosoever would repent and believe in Christ would be forgiven, reconciled, justified, and regenerated to have eternal life. This is the scenery of the New Testament.
When we preach the gospel, we are showing people this New Testament scenery. The more you show the audience this scenery in detail the better it is. When you are showing the scenery by the Word, the Holy Spirit works with the Word not only as the power but also as the light. As the audience listens to and hears the Word, the scenery is there, and the Holy Spirit as the power and the light is also there. Suddenly there is an inward “click” in the ones we are speaking to. This click means repentance. This means that they have opened themselves up a little bit, and there is an exposure. That exposure issues in a reaction, and this reaction is their faith. Now the scenery of the New Testament has been brought into their spirit, “the film.”
The faith in Galatians and in the other books of the New Testament equals the economy, the household administration, the dispensation of God. The truth is the contents, the reality, of the faith according to God’s economy. Faith (subjective) is the response to the truth of the faith (objective), receiving and participating in the divine realities. Faith is produced by the showing of the New Testament scenery plus the power and the light of the Holy Spirit. Once faith is produced in you, it cannot be taken away. Even if you were to regret believing and were to decide not to believe anymore, this faith would still be in you. The proper way to receive the Spirit is by the hearing of faith.
Ephesians 1:13 says, “In whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise.” After hearing and believing, you are immediately sealed with the Holy Spirit. In other words, this verse also tells us the receiving of the Spirit is by believing. Faith is a reaction to the entire scenery of the New Testament. By this reaction we received the Spirit.
In Galatians 3:14 Paul says, “In order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” This verse tells us that the Spirit is the blessing of the New Testament gospel. This is the blessing promised by God to Abraham for all the nations of the earth (Gen. 12:3).
The context of Galatians 3:14 indicates that the Spirit is the blessing which God promised to Abraham for all the Gentiles and which has been received by the believers through faith in Christ. “The Spirit” is the compound Spirit and actually is God Himself processed in His Trinity through incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descension for us to receive as our life and our everything. This is the focus of the gospel of God.
The physical aspect of the blessing God promised to Abraham was the good land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 17:8; 26:3-4), which was a type of the all-inclusive Christ (Col. 1:12). Since Christ is eventually realized as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17), the blessing of the promised Spirit corresponds to the blessing of the promised land. Actually, the Spirit as the realization of Christ in our experience is the good land as the source of God’s bountiful supply for us to enjoy.
The Spirit in Galatians 3:14 is the consummation of the Triune God reaching us. This consummating and reaching Spirit is now the very reality of the Triune God as our blessing in the gospel. This is why after the Lord Jesus resurrected, He told His disciples to disciple the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), immersing them into all that the Triune God is as their portion. This is a major point in the New Testament.
Galatians 3:27 says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Here is another crucial point; that is, we have been baptized into Christ, and as many as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Now the Spirit as the blessing of the gospel is within us, and the very Christ is upon us. Within us essentially He is our inner life, and upon us economically He is our clothing. He is our life and life supply that satisfies us within, and He is our clothing that beautifies us without. Essentially He is our life and life supply, and economically He is our beauty.
In Galatians 4:4-7 is the crucial point of the sonship. These verses say, “When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under law, that He might redeem those under law that we might receive the sonship. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father! So then you are no longer a slave but a son; and if a son, an heir also through God.”
Christ’s redemption is to bring us into the sonship of God that we might enjoy the divine life. God’s economy is not to make us keepers of law, obeying the commandments and ordinances of the law, which was given only for a temporary purpose, but to make us sons of God, inheriting the blessing of God’s promise, which was given for His eternal purpose. His eternal purpose is to have many sons for His corporate expression (Heb. 2:10; Rom. 8:19). Hence, He predestinated us unto sonship (Eph. 1:5) and regenerated us to be His sons (John 1:13). We should remain in the reality of His sonship that we may become His heirs to inherit all He has planned for His eternal expression and should not be distracted to Judaism by the appreciation of law. The Triune God is producing many sons for the fulfilling of His eternal purpose. God the Father sent forth God the Son to redeem us from the law that we might receive the sonship. He also sent forth God the Spirit to impart His life into us that we might become His sons in reality.
In Galatians 1 Christ is revealed in us (v. 16), in chapter 2 Christ is living in us (v. 20), and in chapter 4 Christ is being formed in us (v. 19). Christ was born into the Galatian believers, but not formed in them, when they were regenerated through Paul’s preaching of the gospel to them the first time. Now the apostle travails again that Christ may be formed in them. To have Christ formed in us is to have Christ grown in us in full. Christ was first born into us, revealed in us, at our conversion, then lives in us in our Christian life, and will be formed in us at our maturity. This is needed that we may be sons of full age, heirs to inherit God’s promised blessing, and mature in the divine sonship.
The last crucial point in chapter 4 is the two women symbolizing the two covenants (vv. 21-31). Hagar, the concubine of Abraham, symbolizes the old covenant, and Sarah, the wife of Abraham, symbolizes the new covenant. Hagar, the concubine of Abraham, symbolizes the law. Hence, the position of the law is that of a concubine. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, symbolizes the grace of God (John 1:17), which has the right position in God’s economy. The law, like Hagar, brought forth children unto slavery, like the Judaizers. Grace, like Sarah, brings forth children unto sonship; these are the New Testament believers. They are no longer under law but under grace (Rom. 6:14). They should stand in this grace (5:2) and not fall from it (Gal. 5:4).
The Jerusalem above is free, who is our mother (4:26). This is a strong proof that the coming New Jerusalem will not be a physical city because it is our mother and it is free. I believe that the notes in the Recovery Version and the Life-study messages are adequate to help you to take care of this crucial point. This point, in particular, is more than crucial for us to study.
Galatians 5:4-6 is the particular text for this crucial point. Verse 4 says, “You have been brought to nought, separated from Christ, you who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace.” This verse says, first, that you have been brought to nought, to nothing, separated from Christ, because you are justified by law, and second, you have fallen from grace. Verse 5 says, “We by the Spirit out of faith eagerly await the hope of righteousness.” In this verse the Spirit and faith are in apposition. The Spirit is the faith, and the faith is the Spirit. Verse 6 says, “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision, but faith avails, operating through love.” In the book of Galatians Paul stresses continually the Spirit and faith.
The crucial point in these three verses is that we may be brought to nothing from Christ and that we may also fall from grace. To be brought to nought from Christ is to be reduced to nothing from Christ, deprived of all profit from Christ and so separated from Him (Darby’s New Translation), making Him void of effect. To go back to the law is to become severed from Christ, to be brought to nought from Christ, which is to fall from grace.
It is quite possible for a believer to be brought to nothing concerning the enjoyment of Christ. These verses are on the enjoyment of Christ. To be brought to nought from Christ does not mean you will perish. It means that your enjoyment of Christ has been confiscated. If you go to other things such as the law or character improvement and do not cleave to Christ that you may enjoy Him all the time, you will be brought to nought from the enjoyment of Christ. That means you have fallen from grace. The Arminians may interpret this as a kind of perdition. They may say that since you have fallen from grace, you have lost grace, meaning that you have lost your salvation. But we know by the context that verse 4 does not mean that. To fall from grace means you lose the enjoyment of grace. Again, this crucial point has been fully and adequately covered in the footnotes of the Recovery Version and the Galatians Life-study messages. It will help you to get into this material.
In Galatians 5 the last crucial point is the two kinds of walk by the Spirit. In 5:16 Paul says, “Walk by the Spirit and you shall by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Galatians 5:25 says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” In these two verses Paul uses two different Greek words for walk. You must pay your full attention to the footnotes in the Recovery Version and the Life-study messages on these verses.
The Greek word for walk in verse 16, peripateo, denotes the daily, ordinary, regular walk. The Greek word for walk in verse 25, stoicheo, denotes an official walk, a walk to carry out a certain commission. As we compare these two kinds of walks, we see that the second is more regulated than the first. In the second walk we need to walk like an army and keep in step, whereas in the first kind of walk we are free to walk about. However, both kinds of walk, the common, ordinary walk and the walking in line or in rank, are by the Spirit.
According to the Bible, every believer in Christ should have two kinds of walk by the Spirit. The first walk is our daily walk; the second is the walk in the divine rules and steps. As Christians, we are not those walking on earth without a purpose. We have been created by God and recreated and regenerated by Him with a definite purpose. Therefore, we must have the second kind of walk, a walk to fulfill God’s purpose and reach the goal of our life on earth.
In Galatians 6 the first crucial point is the sowing unto the Spirit in verse 8. Sowing unto the Spirit is sowing for the Spirit. Unto means “with a view to” or “for.” To sow unto the flesh is to sow for the flesh, with the purpose of the flesh in view, fulfilling what the flesh covets. To sow unto the Spirit is to sow for the Spirit, with the aim of the Spirit, accomplishing what the Spirit desires. Your life, your work, and your behavior should be considered as a sowing of seed. Whatever you do, whatever you are, and however you behave, you are sowing something. Since you are sowing something, you will eventually reap something. Do not think that to be angry with someone for a while is a small thing. Actually, that is sowing. From that sowing, you will have a harvest. You have to sow, which means you have to behave, act, do things, and work all the time with the Spirit as a view, as a goal to reach. This implies that you have to sow always by the Spirit with a view that you can reap the Spirit. If in all things you sow by the Spirit, along with the Spirit, and unto the Spirit, you will reap the Spirit as your harvest.
Galatians 6:14 and 15, say, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation is what matters.” These verses indicate that you must keep yourself on the cross toward the religious world. For in verse 15 shows that this verse is an explanation of the foregoing verse, and circumcision being a religious matter indicates that the world in verse 14 must be mainly the religious world.
The entire book of Galatians ends with 6:18 — “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.” Because of the background of today’s situation, we have stressed again and again that the grace of our Lord Jesus is in our spirit. If we are going to experience the grace, to enjoy the grace, we must be in our spirit. We must exercise our spirit. We have covered all the points concerning the exercise of our spirit in the past, but when we cover the book of Galatians, we must stress this point and make this point a major, crucial point. All the Christians, including ourselves, have to learn all our days that by exercising our spirit we may really enjoy and realize the grace of Christ. Actually, the grace of Christ is Christ Himself.
The book of Galatians, no doubt, has more points than what we have given in this chapter. In this chapter I have set up a pattern to show you how to pick up the crucial points. When we are helping the saints to know the truth, we can never cover all the points. We just take those that are considered the most crucial to uplift the standard of the knowledge of the truth in the churches and with all the Lord’s children.
