Galatians

Galatians

By Leslie M. Grant

“But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” —Galatians 6:14 NKJV

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Galatians was written to the assemblies in the region of Galatia – a name possibly meaning “milky.” The letter is an earnest rebuke against the evil doctrine that works of the law form the standard for a believer’s walk and conduct. While being saved by grace through faith, the believers there had added law as the principle of maintaining their salvation. This mixture is abominable, or detestable, to God, the God of all grace.

The apostle Paul showed that the blessed person of Christ, not law, is the standard of a believer’s walk, and the Spirit of God is the power for a walk with God. The cross of Christ is presented powerfully as cutting off all expectation of good coming from man under law. By that cross, the believer is crucified to the world, cut off therefore from the very realm in which legality is the ruling principle. He is seen now connected with a “new creation” (v.15), walking no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.

The death of Christ is seen in chapter 4 as our redemption from the bondage of law, that we should be brought into the dignity and liberty of sonship before God. This is a position that could never have been known in the Old Testament, but it is true of all saints in this dispensation of grace. As verses 3-7 show, we are sons of God by adoption – by being divinely placed in that position.

How needful Galatians is to preserve us from selfishness, from confidence in the flesh and from the innumerable evils that are brought about by a legal attitude.

By Leslie M. Grant