The Book of Galatians #21
Galatians 5:7-12
Galatians Chapter 5:1-12. We began our study of this section last week by looking at the results of believing that you can earn your salvation. The first 6 verses deal with the works of false doctrine. We identified four of them. First, Christ profits you nothing. Second, you’re debtor to the whole law. Third, you’ve fallen from grace, and fourth, you’re excluded from righteousness.
T hen, not only does he deal with the works of false doctrine, beginning in verse 7 he deals with the works of false teachers.
Paul gives us in verses 7-12 a series of statements about false teachers. And if you want a good outline on how to characterize a false teacher, here it is in six statements. First of all,
1. False Teachers Hinder the Truth
Verse 7
Generally speaking, the Galatian church had started good. They had progressed. They had been fruitful. They were running well. But something happened. And notice Paul doesn’t ask, “What hindered you”, but rather “Who hindered you”.
And I think the implication is, “Why would you allow anyone to get involved in what God was doing in yor life? Who is so great and so beyond me and so beyond the Spirit that you would allow him to come in and destroy that which God Himself begun?
And the question is not so much to identify the particular name of the person or persons involved, but rather to draw to the attention of the Galatians the character of those who would do such a thing.
He's saying before you continue to follow the false teaching you're following you better find out who this person is that's teaching it. Who is he from the standpoint of what gives him the right to do that? You better check out what kind of a person he is. Paul is not after identity, he's after character. He's not saying who is he by name, but what kind of a person is he that you would allow to do this?
False teachers want to gain following. They are after converts. And so he says, who would you ever allow to do this to you?
Then notice the little phrase at the end of verse 7, “obeying the truth”.
What does it mean to obey the truth?
Well, first of all, it can refer to salvation. So he could be referring to the fact that the Galatians have actually begun to forsake the true doctrine of salvation.
But it's also an issue of the Christian life. I think he's talking in principles and saying, “You started out right in obedience to the truth of salvation and the truth of Christian living in the Spirit. Somebody is hindering you so that you no longer are committed to the truth of salvation and you're no longer to committed to living under truth.”
It’s sad when churches who preach salvation by grace actually wind up modeling and expecting more of legalism from their members. Sometimes we can find ourselves falling into the patterns of legalism. Obedience is critical to us. We must be obedient to grace truth and never all into legalism. If we aren’t careful, we wind up with a list of do’s and don’ts rather than obedience from a pure heart.
And when we get to that point, we have been hindered from running well.
So false teachers hinder the truth.
2. They're Not of God
verse 8
In other words, the Galatians were not led by the Spirit into legalism. Who is the one described by the term "Him Who calls you?" Who is it that calls us? God. This is not of God, he says.
Romans 8:30 makes that very clear. “Whom He did predestinate, them He also called and whom he called them He also justified and whom He justified them He also glorified."
It is God who calls. So when Paul says this persuasion comes not from Him who calls you, he is saying this kind of legalism is not of God. The God who called you to salvation does not propagate this truth.
And in so many words, Paul just flat out says these people have nothing to do with God. Whatever voice the Galatians were hearing, it was not God's voice. So they hinder the truth and their not of God.
Third thing,
3. They Contaminate the Church
verse 9
Think about this statement: "A little leaven, leavens the whole lump." That was a very familiar Proverb. In fact, it's used also in 1 Corinthians 5:6. That was just one of the Proverbs that was floating around. We don't know where it came from or where it finally ended up. In fact, it's still going on.
Leaven is yeast. And a little yeast is all you need and it causes a great result. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. False teachers contaminate.
Pretty clear picture. It only took one worm to destroy Jonah's gourd. Cancer metastasizes and spreads from one small cell. One match starts a forest fire. Some say it was Benjamin Franklin who said, "For the want of a nail a shoe is lost. For the want of a shoe, the man is lost. For the want of the man, the horse is lost. For the want of the horse, the army was lost." And so forth and so forth and the kingdom was lost. You give in a little and the whole thing is contaminated.
That's why I think perhaps my greatest responsibility as your pastor is to watch and warn you against false teaching and instruct you in right teaching.
Then, the fourth thing is
4. They will be Judged
verse 10
Now this is a kind of a little, little flashing star of hope glimmering in Paul's dark night. And he says, folks I have confidence in you through the Lord. In other words, he's saying, I know this that if you're genuine and if you're real and you're really and literally could be translated in the Lord, I have confidence in you in the Lord, is the best translation. I have confidence in you that if you're real, you're not going to foul up.
That’s very similar to John 8. "If you continue in my word, then you're my disciple for real. A true branch, an abiding branch."
Philippians 1:6, tells us that "He that has begun a work in you will," what, "perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."
And here Paul says I have confidence in you in the Lord. If you belong to Him, I'm not going to worry that you have some other mind. I have confidence that if you're real, you're going to stay with grace.
Why did he say that? Because he knew that if they were Christ, Satan couldn't get them. When you belong to Christ, you're hidden in His hand and no man's able to pluck you out of His hand. And the Father that gave you to Christ is greater than all. He holds you.
So he says you'll be all right, but the false teachers won't be all right.
Whoever it is that is responsible for misleading you and hindering you, they're going to be judged. The word “troubles” means to throw into confusion. Whoever has created this chaos and confusion is going to get it.
In fact, some of the strongest words in the new Testament that ever came from the lips of Jesus are aimed at false teachers.
Matthew 23, there is no way that those scribes and Pharisees, those hypocritical teachers would ever escape the punishment of hell.
Matthew 18, Jesus says better to drown yourself than to offend a little child who belongs to me. You see, you do not tamper with God's people without judgment.
So false teachers then hinder the truth, they are not of God, they contaminate the church, they end in judgment and
5. They Always Persecute True Teachers
Verse 11
Now that's a difficult verse to interpret at first glance. But it becomes very simple if you understand that Paul has been accused of something. That’s what he’s talking about at the first of the verse.
Apparently, what had happened was the Judaizers arrived in town, they knew everybody loved Paul and their teaching disagreed with Paul. So they said, “We’re not so different. In fact, Paul teaches circumcision is necessary also.
Did you know that Paul also preaches circumcision?”
And they probably talked about what Acts 16 records for us.
Verses 1-3
Why did he do that? Well, I'll tell you one thing, he certainly didn't do it to save Timothy. Do you know why he did it? He did it because Timothy was half Jewish and half Gentile. And everybody around knew that he was a Greek in terms of half of him. His father was a Greek. And Paul knew that if Timothy would follow the rite of circumcision that everybody who knew him would know that he purposely, personally, and willfully and willingly identified with Judaism.
You say so what? That made him all the more able to reach into the Jewish community and be accepted. This is Paul’s statement about becoming all things to all men that by all means he might see some saved.
Paul did it for expedience of ministry, not for justification. Not for salvation. He wanted him to be a more effective missionary to Jews and where was it that Paul went every time he came to a new town? What's the first building he went into? Synagogue. The synagogue, the second one was the jail.
But apparently the Judaizers had learned of this situation involving Timothy and twisted it to make it appear Paul taught the necessity of circumcision for salvation.
So how does Paul respond to that?
Verse 11
“If I still preach circumcision why do they keep persecuting me?" Pretty good argument. If I'm on their team, why are they hitting me? It doesn't make sense. They were after Paul. And if the Judaizers claimed he was one of them what were they doing persecuting him?
If he agreed with them, they wouldn't be persecuting him. But they were and they were doing it everywhere. Why wouldn't they persecute him anymore?
Because if he preached circumcision, (next phrase) the offense of the cross would have ceased.
You know what the offense of the cross was to the Jew? The offense of the cross was not just a crucified Messiah. That was part of it. They couldn't handle a dead Messiah on the cross.
But the real offense of the cross to the Jew was this that the cross absolutely obliterated their entire religious system. And to the Jew the cross was an impossibility because the cross obliterated Moses and Judaism.
It obliterated the mosaic law and that's what offended them. They had to spend all their lives with ever little jot and tittle of the law. All of sudden Christ dies on the cross, Paul comes and says you can forget the law. Just believe in Christ and His work on the cross and they all grabbed their ears and started screaming. That can't be.
They weren't nearly so offended by the crucifixion as they were by the obliteration of the mosaic law.
So Paul is saying this, look if I was preaching circumcision, if I was still allowing for the mosaic economy, the cross wouldn't be such an offense and I wouldn't be getting persecuted, but I'm still getting persecuted and the cross is still an offense.
That’s still true today. Do you know why? The cross offends for the same reason. It obliterates any and all other approaches to God, and leaves us as nothing but sinners in need of a Savior.
There is no human achievement or works that can ever take the place of the cross.
Peter stood before the little inner circle of the Sanhedrin and said I just have one thing to say gentlemen. "Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." And they didn't like that. And there aren't too many people who do like that, because it just destroys all human achievement.
And if you think the temperature was rising when the Judaizers heard what Paul has been saying, then just listen to what he says next.
verse 12
What he literally says in the term cut off is castrated. You know those people who are teaching circumcision? I wish they were castrated.
A little background helps us here.
Galatia was near Phrygia and in Phrygia there was great worship of the goddess Cybele and there were all kinds of Cybellian priests. And it was the practice of all of the priests of Cybele and all of the devout worshippers to be castrated. All of the Cybellian priests were Eunuchs.
And so Paul says look if you're going to go the route of human achievement and get yourself circumcised, then don’t stop cutting there! You might as well go the whole route and castrate yourselves and become a full fledged pagan.
What’s the point? Paul says if you're going to mix it a little bit, you might as well become an absolute total pagan Eunuch. People come along and say well it's nice to believe in Jesus Christ to be saved, but you've got to be able to add to that baptism.
No. If you're going to add baptism, you might as well become a pagan. That's what Paul's saying.
If you add one thing to Jesus Christ, then you've got nothing but paganism. There's only two choices. The religion of divine grace and the religion of human achievement.
Let me close with an illustration from the mouth of Jesus Himself. It is found in Luke 18:9-
"Two men went up into the temple to pray. The one was a Pharisee, the other tax collector. The most holy man was a Pharisee, the most unholy character was the tax collector because he worked for a pagan government and he exacted taxation from Israel and they hated the people who were bought off my Rome to be tax collectors." They hated them.
"The Pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself. God I thank thee that I am not as other men are extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice in the week." Oh you know that hits close to home. "I give tithes of all that I possess." You know we love to talk about things like that and we border on Phariseeism.
You know it's like when you finally get your devotions down and you've managed to say today I'm going to pray for a half an hour. And you get down on your knees and you try hard and you think of everything you can think of 14 times. You've got this little list and you prayed for half an hour and you come out of there and the first guy you meet says, Hi how are you?” “Fine. Did you know I prayed a half an hour today?”
"I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess." That's the religion of human achievement isn't it? I don't know what he was talking to God for. He didn't need anything from God. He was just reporting in.
Verse 13, "On the other hand, and the tax collector standing afar off would not lift so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his chest saying God be merciful to me a sinner." That's not the religion of human achievement. That's the religion of what? Divine grace. And what happened in verse 14? "I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for every one that exalts himself should be abased, but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
The message of Galatians is very simple. The message of Galatians is the message of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and apart from Him there is no other. No man ever comes to God on his own merit. God's arms are open. Salvation's available by faith through grace, no other way.
Let's bow in prayer.
