There is much in the book of Galatians but the paramount issue is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is and isn’t. Paul is furious in the letter and a big part of his wide-eyed name calling is that some scum bags were trying to be extra spiritual and say you weren’t a Christian if you didn’t follow their lead. Pious Christians can easily read this now and be appalled at those who demanded circumcision as part of salvation... yet we do the same thing all the time. There is always the, ‘If I had Jesus plus ____’ then I’d know I’m REALLY saved; or the, ‘She does [or doesn’t do] _______ so she MUST not be saved.’ We like outward indicators. All of us do, no exception.
But Paul says in Galatians 5 that the Gospel has something to do with a far more interior issue: faith working through love: the issue of the heart. (I hear you mumbling your counter arguments of citing James and Micah 6.8 and so on, hold your britches and listen). The Message puts a section of Galatians 6 very clearly: ‘[Those who would try and add to the Gospel] want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ's suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don't keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible’
No need to cut things off. Jesus is enough. There is not some secret spiritual key that if you do God has to love you more (remember that whole Jesus dying for you and raising from the dead thing?). No more hoops to jump through. Jesus did it for you. You want to memorize Romans? Okay. You can’t use it to leverage against God though (and this should free you that if you sputter and forget about it for a week or year you can start up again, no condemnation [chapter 8]).
I think it is easier for us to control our outward actions and appearance and so we make those things the standard for salvation or justification or sanctification or our standing with God (or someone else’s); outward actions are easy to compare and I like comparing myself–wrongly–to other people so I can make sure I’m okay with God. A lot of the Pharisees and these bozos in the Galatia region and our own hearts are living in fear when we attempt to lower God’s standard of perfection into a few simple rules. We are terrified that Jesus isn’t enough. But he is.
What seems most wild and elusive, like trying to ride and untamed stallion, is our own heart. Yet this is where the magic happens, this is where God brings the change. We are told that God exchanges the old heart and gives a new one that actually wants to follow his way.
People were always asking Jesus if he was the One and as proof they always wanted signs. Jesus was usually pretty ticked at the interrogation. Salvation is here. It comes through what Jesus did. See it. Bask in it. Don’t you dare water it down with your rules either, for if you steal a Christian’s joy by confusing the Gospel with your rules God will crush you.
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