Epistle for December 31, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Galatians 4:4-7
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

These verses from the letter to the Galatians might be called Paul’s Nativity Story. Unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Paul doesn’t offer dramatic stories of stars and angels and Magi and shepherds.  However, like John’s prologue, Paul offers a profound theological interpretation of the birth of Jesus.

He begins with the intersection of time and eternity, and the intersection of the divine and human:

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman…

The phrase that catches our attention is the fullness of the time.  The Greek phrase is pleroma tou chronou.  Pleroma — meaning fullness — has a rich philosophical and thelogical meaning.  It denotes perfect fullness, or completion.  And the word chronos — time — may have been understood by Paul as a span of time or even an epoch, or an age. In other words, there is more here than the mere fairy tale meaning “Once upon a time.”  Time has reached a preordained goal.

Paul recognizes that the birth of Jesus is the culmination of God’s plan for history.  No doubt he implies a connection between the Messianic prophecies of his own people’s Scriptures and the coming of Jesus.  In his letter to the Ephesians, he elaborates on this plan, exploring similar concepts. He says that God has:

predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,  to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved, in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,  which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him  to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him (Ephesians 1:5-10).

Paul also hints at the unique nature of Jesus as fully human and fully divine.  He is God’s Son, who is born of a woman. Once again, this theology of the incarnation is made clear elsewhere, not only in the Gospels but also in Paul’s epistles.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus is the eternal Word who is God, through whom all things were made, who also became flesh (John 1:1-2, 14).  And Paul tells us that Jesus is equal with God, but takes upon himself the form of human flesh (Philippians 2:5-7).

Paul then makes clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Hebrew covenant.  Jesus is:

born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law…

Jesus is not only Son of God and Son of Mary, he is clearly the Jewish Messiah who has come to redeem not only the people of Israel but all who believe.

And his redeeming work creates a new relationship between God and those who are redeemed.  The legal covenant is replaced with a familial relationship:

that we might receive the adoption of children.

To be clear — only Jesus has a real, organic relationship with God the Father as God the Son.  He is, as the King James Version eloquently expresses it, the only begotten Son of the Father (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18).  Those who are adopted as children of God are adopted for the sake of Jesus the Son of God.

And Paul further explores the Trinitarian nature of God.  Believers in Jesus are adopted as children of God for his sake, and they can know that they are children of God through the witness of the Holy Spirit.  Note that the Spirit here is called the Spirit of his Son. 

The Spirit bears witness in the heart of the believer in a vivid manner:

crying, “Abba, Father!”

Because the believer has been adopted as a child of God, he/she knows in their spirit through the inner voice of the Spirit of God that they belong to God.  They are made heirs of God through Christ, and have the privilege of calling the Sovereign Lord of the Universe Father!

There have been various interpretations of the Aramaic word Abba in Biblical scholarship.  Some have said that it is the affectionate term that a child might have called a father in ancient Judaism — like an American child saying “Daddy!” Others say it simply means father and nothing more.  But the intimacy of Paul’s description here, where the Spirit speaks in the heart of the believer, leads me to believe that something more intimate is meant.

The fact is, the believer has been transferred in status from a detached relationship as a bondservant to the intimate relationship of a child and heir of God.

APPLY:  

Through these brief verses from Paul’s unique Nativity Story, we receive a glimpse of many dimensions of Biblical doctrine.  There is an allusion to God’s plan for history, revealed in the fullness of time through the birth of Jesus. There is the work that God does in the heart of the believer through his Son and through his Spirit.  And there is a hint about the character and interrelation of God as Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Paul clearly believes in God’s plan for history.  His references to the prophets throughout his letters make this faith clear.  History has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  History is not, as Shakespeare’s Macbeth might say “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  This is comforting when so much in our world seems to make no sense. God has a purpose for his creation, and for us.

An enormous part of that plan is worked out in our lives.  The Son of God has been sent at the right time, born of a woman, to redeem those who are condemned by the rigorous standards of the law — which means all of us. Jesus fulfills the law on our behalf so that his righteousness becomes our righteousness (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21).  And because of the redemption of Jesus, we may be adopted as children of God.  Even more, we can know that we are adopted as children of God, because like children excited to see their Father, we can cry out Abba, Father!  The Spirit of God’s Son bears witness in our very hearts that we are his children!  As Paul writes in a passage that closely parallels Galatians 4:4-7:

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16-17).

Perhaps the most astounding claim that we have is that we are co-heirs with Christ. This implies that whatever Christ inherits from the Father, we inherit — a glorified resurrection body, eternal life, and heaven itself!

And, finally, we gain an insight into the inner working of the Trinity.  God the Father sends his Son, who is God incarnate, to redeem us and provide the means of our adoption as his children. And God’s own Spirit testifies to us that God is our Abba, Father.  The work of salvation, redemption, and adoption, are the work of the Triune God from inception to consummation.

RESPOND: 

This passage seems appropriate for this season, as the calendar year comes to an end.  Paul’s poignant phrase — the fullness of the time — reminds us of the convergence of important dates in our season.  We have only very recently celebrated Christmas Day, the remembrance of the only begotten Son of the Father, born of a woman at Bethlehem.

And as the New Year begins, we look forward to the “great unknown” — the future.  The future is like a frontier which we will not understand until we experience it — when the future becomes the present with each passing day.  We have no idea what the weather will really be like this coming winter; or who will be elected in the coming year; or what loved ones we might lose.

And yet, we receive a forecast of the future in this passage from Paul — through Christ, and confirmed through the Spirit, we can know now that we have been adopted as children of God, and that we will one day inherit all that Christ has inherited.

Our Lord, in the fullness of time you came for us; and through your Holy Spirit you continue to come into our lives so that we are able to cry out, like excited children “Abba, Father!”  Thank you for adopting us as your children and making us a part of your family.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Fullness of Time” uses the following photo:
“Hourglass” by Nick Olejniczak is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for June 19, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Galatians 3:23-29
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The Apostle Paul begins to make some applications of the doctrine of justification by faith to the church at Galatia.  He briefly addresses the tension of law and grace, and then makes a startling claim that has broad socio-economic and racial implications.

We are mistaken if we draw the conclusion that the Apostle Paul was anti-law. He tells the Roman church that the law is a kind of mirror that reveals our sinful nature because it reveals the holy standard of God’s nature:

What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin (Romans 7:7).

In today’s lectionary passage from Galatians, Paul elaborates on the purposes of the law.  The law was a guard and a disciplinarian prior to the coming of Christ.  It is faith in Christ that justifies, not the law.

This suggests that the purpose of the law was not only to convict but also to prepare the believer for faith.  The word that the NRSV translates as disciplinarian is the Greek word paidagogos.   This word is the root of our English word pedagogue — one who is a strict teacher or trainer.

This is not necessarily a negative connotation — the pedagogue raises the bar of expectations for a student or an athlete by demanding the best from them.  The dilemma is that the law raises the bar of expectations but cannot fulfill those expectations.

The advent of faith accomplishes what the law could not do:

But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

In the verses prior to our passage, Paul has explained that the righteousness of Christ has fulfilled the demands of the law through his death and resurrection:

 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…. (Galatians 3:13).

This echoes the famous declaration from 2 Corinthians 5:21:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The righteous, sinless one becomes a curse, and becomes sin by fulfilling the just requirements of the law on our behalf.  This is the work accomplished by Christ on the cross.  And this righteousness is accessed by us through faith.

In our baptism, then, we are represented as having been identified with Christ by faith:

 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

This is part of that new life that Christ now invites us to live with him as we are crucified with Christ and raised to life with Christ — and as a result Christ lives his righteous life in us when we live by faith (cf. Galatians 2:20).  Baptism is a sign of death to sin and resurrection with Christ.

And then, in an unexpected application of the effect of this new life that is the result of faith in Christ, Paul makes a few very radical statements about the effect of such new life in social and cultural terms:

 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

It is so easy for readers in the 21st century to miss just how radical this statement is.

• Jews in Paul’s time considered Greeks and Gentiles to be cursed, and ineligible for covenant with God; and many Greeks regarded non-Greeks as barbarians. And yet, these two groups are now one in Christ Jesus!
• Slaves were regarded as living tools who could be used as their owner pleased, and could even be killed by their masters without consequences. Yet slave and free are one in Christ Jesus!
• Women were subjugated to the authority of men, and regarded as useful for breeding purposes and pleasure, but with little status in the Jewish or the Roman world of the day. Yet male and female are one in Christ Jesus!

Clearly, this was a radically counter-cultural statement for Paul’s time, presaging the end of class distinctions in the church to be sure, but also looking ahead to the permanent end of slavery and to women’s equality in countries influenced by Christianity in the future.

And finally, Paul repeats a theme that appears also in Romans 4:13-17, that those who follow the example of the faith of Abraham are his true heirs, rather than those who share his DNA:

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

APPLY:  

The great doctrines of the Christian faith, derived from Scripture, are not simply dogmas that appear in our creeds — these great doctrines have very practical applications in our lives.

We can be grateful for the law that acted as a strict pedagogue and harsh disciplinarian in our lives — the law helped us realize that we can never be “good enough” by obeying the law.  While the law is holy and just and good (Romans 7:12), when we look into the mirror of the law we see just how unholy and unjust and evil we really are in comparison.

As John Wesley would say, the law ‘drives us to Christ.’  Christ fulfills the law on our behalf , and gives us grace in the form of his own righteousness.  This grace we receive by faith.

And here are some of the results of this faith:

• We become children of God through faith (verse 26).
• We are united as one in Christ — Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, male and female, black and white, first world and third world — our unity in Christ transcends socio-economic-racial-national differences.
• We become the true heirs of the promises to Abraham because our faith emulates his faith.

So, perhaps we should begin acting like the children of God, the one body in Christ, and the heirs of Abraham!

RESPOND: 

The story is told that when the evangelist Billy Graham preached an historic crusade in Montgomery, Alabama, he insisted that the mass choir be integrated.  The local newspaper editor was appalled, and wrote an editorial that declared “Billy Graham has set the church in Alabama back one hundred years.”

Billy Graham’s response was wonderful .  He said, “If that’s the case, I failed in my mission.  I intended to set it back two thousand years!”

If we truly believe, as I do, that the Scriptures are the revealed Word of God, then we need to go back before we can go forward.

Do we see churches today where sinners are transformed into saints, filled with holy love for God and neighbor? Where there are no distinctions between races and socio-economic classes? Where people are truly being equipped to become disciples and to make disciples?  Where there is real, substantive ministry to the poor and the homeless that offers dignity, and doesn’t depend upon the government?

I would love to be a member of that church!

Lord, I believe that you have given guidance to your church through your holy Word.  But I confess, our application of your Word has been selective at best, and corrupt at worst.  As we place our faith in you, break down the barriers of division and make us one in Christ. Amen. 

 PHOTOS:
"Galatians 3.28" by Baptist Union of Great Britain is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for December 27, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Galatians 4:4-7
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

These verses from the letter to the Galatians might be called Paul’s Nativity Story. Unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Paul doesn’t offer dramatic stories of stars and angels and Magi and shepherds.  However, like John’s prologue, Paul offers a profound theological interpretation of the birth of Jesus.

He begins with the intersection of time and eternity, and the intersection of the divine and human:

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman…

The phrase that catches our attention is the fullness of the time.  The Greek phrase is pleroma tou chronou.  Pleroma — meaning fullness — has a rich philosophical and thelogical meaning.  It denotes perfect fullness, or completion.  And the word chronos — time — may have been understood by Paul as a span of time or even an epoch, or an age. In other words, there is more here than the mere fairy tale meaning “Once upon a time.”  Time has reached a preordained goal.

Paul recognizes that the birth of Jesus is the culmination of God’s plan for history.  No doubt he implies a connection between the Messianic prophecies of his own people’s Scriptures and the coming of Jesus.  In his letter to the Ephesians, he elaborates on this plan, exploring similar concepts. He says that God has:

predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,  to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved, in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,  which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him  to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him (Ephesians 1:5-10).

Paul also hints at the unique nature of Jesus as fully human and fully divine.  He is God’s Son, who is  born of a woman. Once again, this theology of the incarnation is made clear elsewhere, not only in the Gospels but also in Paul’s epistles.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus is the eternal Word who is God, through whom all things were made, who also became flesh (John 1:1-2, 14).  And Paul tells us that Jesus is equal with God, but takes upon himself the form of human flesh (Philippians 2:5-7).

Paul then makes clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Hebrew covenant.  Jesus is:

born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law…

Jesus is not only Son of God and Son of Mary, he is clearly the Jewish Messiah who has come to redeem not only the people of Israel but all who believe.

And his redeeming work creates a new relationship between God and those who are redeemed.  The legal covenant is replaced with a familial relationship:

that we might receive the adoption of children.

To be clear — only Jesus has a real, organic relationship with God the Father as God the Son.  He is, as the King James Version eloquently expresses it, the only begotten Son of the Father (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18).  Those who are adopted as children of God are adopted for the sake of Jesus the Son of God.

And Paul further explores the Trinitarian nature of God.  Believers in Jesus are adopted as children of God for his sake, and they can know that they are children of God through the witness of the Holy Spirit.  Note that the Spirit here is called the Spirit of his Son. 

The Spirit bears witness in the heart of the believer in a vivid manner:

crying, “Abba,  Father!”

**Because the believer has been adopted as a child of God, he/she knows in their spirit through the inner voice of the Spirit of God that they belong to God.  They are made heirs of God through Christ, and have the privilege of calling the Sovereign Lord of the Universe Father!

There have been various interpretations of the Aramaic word Abba in Biblical scholarship.  Some have said that it is the affectionate term that a child might have called a father in ancient Judaism — like an American child saying “Daddy!”.  Others say it simply means father and nothing more.  But the intimacy of Paul’s description here, where the Spirit speaks in the heart of the believer, leads me to believe that something more intimate is meant.

The fact is, the believer has been transferred in status from a detached relationship as a bondservant to the intimate relationship of a child and heir of God.

APPLY:  

Through these brief verses from Paul’s unique Nativity Story, we receive a glimpse of many dimensions of Biblical doctrine.  There is an allusion to God’s plan for history, revealed in the fullness of time  through the birth of Jesus. There is the work that God does in the heart of the believer through his Son and through his Spirit.  And there is a hint about the character and interrelation of God as Trinity  — Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Paul clearly believes in God’s plan for history.  His references to the prophets throughout his letters makes this faith clear.  History has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  History is not, as Shakespeare’s Macbeth might say “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  This is comforting when so much in our world seems to make no sense. God has a purpose for his creation, and for us.

An enormous part of that plan is worked out in our lives.  The Son of God has been sent at the right time, born of a woman, to redeem those who are condemned by the rigorous standards of the law — which means all of us. Jesus fulfills the law on our behalf so that his righteousness becomes our righteousness (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21).  And because of the redemption of Jesus, we may be adopted as children of God.  Even more, we can know that we are adopted as children of God, because like children excited to see their Father, we can cry out Abba, Father!  The Spirit of God’s Son bears witness in our very hearts that we are his children!  As Paul writes in a passage that closely parallels Galatians 4:4-7:

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God;  and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16-17).

Perhaps the most astounding claim that we have is that we are co-heirs with Christ. This implies that whatever Christ inherits from the Father, we inherit — a glorified resurrection body, eternal life, and heaven itself!

And, finally, we gain an insight into the inner working of the Trinity.  God the Father sends his Son, who is God incarnate, to redeem us and provide the means of our adoption as his children. And God’s own Spirit testifies to us that God is our Abba, Father.  The work of salvation, redemption, and adoption, are the work of the Triune God from inception to consummation.

RESPOND: 

This passage seems appropriate for this season, as the calendar year comes to an end.  Paul’s poignant phrase — the fullness of the time — reminds us of the convergence of important dates in our season.  We have only very recently celebrated Christmas Day, the remembrance of the only begotten Son of the Father, born of a woman at Bethlehem.

And as the New Year begins, we look forward to the “great unknown” — the future.  The future is like a frontier which we will not understand until we experience it — when the future becomes the present with each passing day.  We have no idea what the weather will really be like this coming winter; or who will be elected in the coming year; or what loved ones we might lose.

And yet, we receive a forecast of the future in this passage from Paul — through Christ, and confirmed through the Spirit, we can know now that we have been adopted as children of God, and that we will one day inherit all that Christ has inherited.

Our Lord, in the fullness of time you came for us; and through your Holy Spirit you continue to come into our lives so that we are able to cry out, like excited children “Abba, Father!”  Thank you for adopting us as your children and making us a part of your family.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
“Fullness of Time” uses the following photo:
“Hourglass” by Nick Olejniczak is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for June 23, 2019

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Galatians 3:23-29
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The Apostle Paul begins to make some applications of the doctrine of justification by faith to the church at Galatia.  He briefly addresses the tension of law and grace, and then makes a startling claim that has broad socio-economic and racial implications.

We are mistaken if we draw the conclusion that the Apostle Paul was anti-law. He tells the Roman church that the law is a kind of mirror that reveals our sinful nature because it reveals the holy standard of God’s nature:

What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin (Romans 7:7).

In today’s lectionary passage from Galatians, Paul elaborates on the purposes of the law.  The law was a guard and a disciplinarian prior to the coming of Christ.  It is faith in Christ that justifies, not the law.

This suggests that the purpose of the law was not only to convict but also to prepare the believer for faith.  The word that the NRSV translates as disciplinarian is the Greek word paidagogos.   This word is the root of our English word pedagogue — one who is a strict teacher or trainer.

This is not necessarily a negative connotation — the  pedagogue raises the bar of expectations for a student or an athlete by demanding the best from them.  The dilemma is that the law raises the bar of expectations but cannot fulfill those expectations.

The advent of faith accomplishes what the law could not do:

But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,  for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

In the verses prior to our passage, Paul has explained that the righteousness of Christ has fulfilled the demands of the law through his death and resurrection:

 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…. (Galatians 3:13).

This echoes the famous declaration from 2 Corinthians 5:21:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The righteous, sinless one becomes a curse, and becomes sin by fulfilling the just requirements of the law on our behalf.  This is the work accomplished by Christ on the cross.  And this righteousness is accessed by us through faith.

In our baptism, then, we are represented as having been identified with Christ by faith:

 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

This is part of that new life that Christ now invites us to live with him as we are crucified with Christ and raised to life with Christ — and as a result Christ lives his righteous life in us when we live by faith (cf. Galatians 2:20).  Baptism is a sign of death to sin and resurrection with Christ.

And then, in an unexpected application of the effect of this new life that is the result of faith in Christ, Paul makes a few very radical statements about the effect of such new life in social and cultural terms:

 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

It is so easy for readers in the 21st century to miss just how radical this statement is.

• Jews in Paul’s time considered Greeks and Gentiles to be cursed, and ineligible for covenant with God; and many Greeks regarded non-Greeks as barbarians. And yet, these two groups are now one in Christ Jesus!
• Slaves were regarded as living tools who could be used as their owner pleased, and could even be killed by their masters without consequences. Yet slave and free are one in Christ Jesus!
• Women were subjugated to the authority of men, and regarded as useful for breeding purposes and pleasure, but with little status in the Jewish or the Roman world of the day. Yet male and female are one in Christ Jesus!

Clearly, this was a radically counter-cultural statement for Paul’s time, presaging the end of class distinctions in the church to be sure, but also looking ahead to the permanent end of slavery and to women’s equality in countries influenced by Christianity in the future.

And finally, Paul repeats a theme that appears also in Romans 4:13-17, that those who follow the example of the faith of Abraham are his true heirs, rather than those who share his DNA:

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

APPLY:  

The great doctrines of the Christian faith, derived from Scripture, are not simply dogmas that appear in our creeds — these great doctrines have very practical applications in our lives.

We can be grateful for the law that acted as a strict pedagogue and harsh disciplinarian in our lives — the law helped us realize that we can never be “good enough” by obeying the law.  While the law is holy and just and good (Romans 7:12), when we look into the mirror of the law we see just how unholy and unjust and evil we really are in comparison.

As John Wesley would say, the law ‘drives us to Christ.’  Christ fulfills the law on our behalf , and gives us grace in the form of his own righteousness.  This grace we receive by faith.

And here are some of the results of this faith:

• We become children of God through faith (verse 26).
• We are united as one in Christ — Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, male and female, black and white, first world and third world — our unity in Christ transcends socio-economic-racial-national differences.
• We become the true heirs of the promises to Abraham because our faith emulates his faith.

So, perhaps we should begin acting like the children of God, the one body in Christ, and the heirs of Abraham!

RESPOND: 

The story is told that when the evangelist Billy Graham preached an historic crusade in Montgomery, Alabama, he insisted that the mass choir be integrated.  The local newspaper editor was appalled, and wrote an editorial that declared “Billy Graham has set the church in Alabama back one hundred years.”

Billy Graham’s response was wonderful .  He said, “If that’s the case, I failed in my mission.  I intended to set it back two thousand years!”

If we truly believe, as I do, that the Scriptures are the revealed Word of God, then we need to go back before we can go forward.

Do we see churches today where sinners are transformed into saints, filled with holy love for God and neighbor? Where there are no distinctions between races and socio-economic classes? Where people are truly being equipped to become disciples and to make disciples?  Where there is real, substantive ministry to the poor and the homeless that offers dignity, and doesn’t depend upon the government?

I would love to be a member of that church!

Lord, I believe that you have given guidance to your church through your holy Word.  But I confess, our application of your Word has been selective at best, and corrupt at worst.  As we place our faith in you, break down the barriers of division and make us one in Christ. Amen. 

 PHOTOS:
"Galatians 3.28" by Baptist Union of Great Britain is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for December 31, 2017

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Galatians 4:4-7
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

These verses from the letter to the Galatians might be called Paul’s Nativity Story. Unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Paul doesn’t offer dramatic stories of stars and angels and Magi and shepherds.  However, like John’s prologue, Paul offers a profound theological interpretation of the birth of Jesus.

He begins with the intersection of time and eternity, and the intersection of the divine and human:

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman….

The phrase that catches our attention is the fullness of the time.  The Greek phrase is pleroma tou chronou.  Pleroma — meaning fullness — has a rich philosophical and thelogical meaning.  It denotes perfect fullness, or completion.  And the word chronos — time — may have been understood by Paul as a span of time or even an epoch, or an age. In other words, there is more here than the mere fairy tale meaning “Once upon a time.”  Time has reached a preordained goal.

Paul recognizes that the birth of Jesus is the culmination of God’s plan for history.  No doubt he implies a connection between the Messianic prophecies of his own people’s Scriptures and the coming of Jesus.  In his letter to the Ephesians, he elaborates on this plan, exploring similar concepts. He says that God has:

predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,  to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved, in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,  which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him  to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him (Ephesians 1:5-10).

Paul also hints at the unique nature of Jesus as fully human and fully divine.  He is God’s Son, who is  born of a woman. Once again, this theology of the incarnation is made clear elsewhere, not only in the Gospels but also in Paul’s epistles.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus is the eternal Word who is God, through whom all things were made, who also became flesh (John 1:1-2, 14).  And Paul tells us that Jesus is equal with God, but takes upon himself the form of human flesh (Philippians 2:5-7).

Paul then makes clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Hebrew covenant.  Jesus is:

born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law…

Jesus is not only Son of God and Son of Mary, he is clearly the Jewish Messiah who has come to redeem not only the people of Israel but all who believe.

And his redeeming work creates a new relationship between God and those who are redeemed.  The legal covenant is replaced with a familial relationship:

that we might receive the adoption of children.

To be clear — only Jesus has a real, organic relationship with God the Father as God the Son.  He is, as the King James Version eloquently expresses it, the only begotten Son of the Father (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18).  Those who are adopted as children of God are adopted for the sake of Jesus the Son of God.

And Paul further explores the Trinitarian nature of God.  Believers in Jesus are adopted as children of God for his sake, and they can know that they children of God through the witness of the Holy Spirit.  Note that the Spirit here is called the Spirit of his Son. 

The Spirit bears witness in the heart of the believer in a vivid manner:

crying, “Abba,  Father!”

Because the believer has been adopted as a child of God, he/she knows in their spirit through the inner voice of the Spirit of God that they belong to God.  They are made heirs of God through Christ, and have the privilege of calling the Sovereign Lord of the Universe Father!

There have been various interpretations of the Aramaic word Abba in Biblical scholarship.  Some have said that it is the affectionate term that a child might have called a father in ancient Judaism — like an American child saying “Daddy!”.  Others say it simply means father and nothing more.  But the intimacy of Paul’s description here, where the Spirit speaks in the heart of the believer, leads me to believe that something more intimate is meant.

The fact is, the believer has been transferred in status from a detached relationship as a bondservant to the intimate relationship of a child and heir of God.

APPLY:  

Through these brief verses from Paul’s unique Nativity Story, we receive a glimpse of many dimensions of Biblical doctrine.  There is an allusion to God’s plan for history, revealed in the fullness of time  through the birth of Jesus. There is the work that God does in the heart of the believer through his Son and through his Spirit.  And there is a hint about the character and interrelation of God as Trinity  — Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Paul clearly believes in God’s plan for history.  His references to the prophets throughout his letters makes this faith clear.  History has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  History is not, as Shakespeare’s Macbeth might say “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  This is comforting when so much in our world seems to make no sense. God has a purpose for his creation, and for us.

An enormous part of that plan is worked out in our lives.  The Son of God has been sent at the right time, born of a woman, to redeem those who are condemned by the rigorous standards of the law — which means all of us. Jesus fulfills the law on our behalf so that his righteousness becomes our righteousness (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21).  And because of the redemption of Jesus, we may be adopted as children of God.  Even more, we can know that we are adopted as children of God, because like children excited to see their Father, we can cry out Abba, Father!  The Spirit of God’s Son bears witness in our very hearts that we are his children!  As Paul writes in a passage that closely parallels Galatians 4:4-7:

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God;  and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16-17).

Perhaps the most astounding claim that we have is that we are co-heirs with Christ. This implies that whatever Christ inherits from the Father, we inherit — a glorified resurrection body, eternal life, and heaven itself!

And, finally, we gain an insight into the inner working of the Trinity.  God the Father sends his Son, who is God incarnate, to redeem us and provide the means of our adoption as his children. And God’s own Spirit testifies to us that God is our Abba, Father.  The work of salvation, redemption, and adoption, are the work of the Triune God from inception to consummation.

RESPOND: 

This passage seems appropriate for this season, as the calendar year comes to an end.  Paul’s poignant phrase — the fullness of the time — reminds us of the convergence of important dates in our season.  We have only very recently celebrated Christmas Day, the remembrance of the only begotten Son of the Father, born of a woman at Bethlehem.

And as the New Year begins, we look forward to the “great unknown” — the future.  The future is like a frontier which we will not understand until we experience it — when the future becomes the present with each passing day.  We have no idea what the weather will really be like this coming winter; or who will be elected in the coming year; or what loved ones we might lose.

And yet, we receive a forecast of the future in this passage from Paul — through Christ, and confirmed through the Spirit, we can know now that we have been adopted as children of God, and that we will one day inherit all that Christ has inherited.

Our Lord, in the fullness of time you came for us; and through your Holy Spirit you continue to come into our lives so that we are able to cry out, like excited children “Abba, Father!”  Thank you for adopting us as your children and making us a part of your family.  Amen.

PHOTOS:
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Epistle for June 19, 2016

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Galatians 3:23-29

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OBSERVE:

The Apostle Paul begins to make some applications of the doctrine of justification by faith to the church at Galatia.  He briefly addresses the tension of law and grace, and then makes a startling claim that has broad socio-economic and racial implications.

We are mistaken if we draw the conclusion that the Apostle Paul was anti-law. He tells the Roman church that the law is a kind of mirror that reveals our sinful nature because it reveals the holy standard of God’s nature:

What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin (Romans 7:7).

In today’s lectionary passage from Galatians, Paul elaborates on the purposes of the law.  The law was a guard and a disciplinarian prior to the coming of Christ.  It is faith in Christ that justifies, not the law.

This suggests that the purpose of the law was not only to convict but also to prepare the believer for faith.  The word that the NRSV translates as disciplinarian is the Greek word paidagogos.   This word is the root of our English word pedagogue — one who is a strict teacher or trainer.

This is not necessarily a negative connotation — the  pedagogue raises the bar of expectations for a student or an athlete by demanding the best from them.  The dilemma is that the law raises the bar of expectations but cannot fulfill those expectations.

The advent of faith accomplishes what the law could not do:

But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,  for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

In the verses prior to our passage, Paul has explained that the righteousness of Christ has fulfilled the demands of the law through his death and resurrection:

 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…. (Galatians 3:13).

This echoes the famous declaration from 2 Corinthians 5:21:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The righteous, sinless one becomes a curse, and becomes sin by fulfilling the just requirements of the law on our behalf.  This is the work accomplished by Christ on the cross.  And this righteousness is accessed by us through faith.

In our baptism, then, we are represented as having been identified with Christ by faith:

 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

This is part of that new life that Christ now invites us to live with him as we are crucified with Christ and raised to life with Christ — and as a result Christ lives his righteous life in us when we live by faith (cf. Galatians 2:20).  Baptism is a sign of death to sin and resurrection with Christ.

And then, in an unexpected application of the effect of this new life that is the result of faith in Christ, Paul makes a few very radical statements about the effect of such new life in social and cultural terms:

 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

It is so easy for readers in the 21st century to miss just how radical this statement is.

• Jews in Paul’s time considered Greeks and Gentiles to be cursed, and ineligible for covenant with God; and many Greeks regarded non-Greeks as barbarians. And yet, these two groups are now one in Christ Jesus!
• Slaves were regarded as living tools who could be used as their owner pleased, and could even be killed by their masters without consequences. Yet slave and free are one in Christ Jesus!
• Women were subjugated to the authority of men, and regarded as useful for breeding purposes and pleasure, but with little status in the Jewish or the Roman world of the day. Yet male and female are one in Christ Jesus!

Clearly, this was a radically counter-cultural statement for Paul’s time, presaging the end of class distinctions in the church to be sure, but also looking ahead to the permanent end of slavery and to women’s equality in countries influenced by Christianity in the future.

And finally, Paul repeats a theme that appears also in Romans 4:13-17, that those who follow the example of the faith of Abraham are his true heirs, rather than those who share his DNA:

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

APPLY:  

The great doctrines of the Christian faith, derived from Scripture, are not simply dogmas that appear in our creeds — these great doctrines have very practical applications in our lives.

We can be grateful for the law that acted as a strict pedagogue and harsh disciplinarian in our lives — the law helped us realize that we can never be “good enough” by obeying the law.  While the law is holy and just and good (Romans 7:12), when we look into the mirror of the law we see just how unholy and unjust and evil we really are in comparison.

As John Wesley would say, the law ‘drives us to Christ.’  Christ fulfils the law on our behalf , and gives us grace in the form of his own righteousness.  This grace we receive by faith.

And here are some of the results of this faith:

• We become children of God through faith (verse 26).
• We are united as one in Christ — Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, male and female, black and white, first world and third world — our unity in Christ transcends socio-economic-racial-national differences.
• We become the true heirs of the promises to Abraham because our faith emulates his faith.

So, perhaps we should begin acting like the children of God, the one body in Christ, and the heirs of Abraham!

RESPOND: 

The story is told that when the evangelist Billy Graham preached an historic crusade in Montgomery, Alabama, he insisted that the mass choir be integrated.  The local newspaper editor was appalled, and wrote an editorial that declared “Billy Graham has set the church in Alabama back one hundred years.”

Billy Graham’s response was wonderful .  He said, “If that’s the case, I failed in my mission.  I intended to set it back two thousand years!”

If we truly believe, as I do, that the Scriptures are the revealed Word of God, then we need to go back before we can go forward.

Do we see churches today where sinners are transformed into saints, filled with holy love for God and neighbor? Where there are no distinctions between races and socio-economic classes? Where people are truly being equipped to become disciples and to make disciples?  Where there is real, substantive ministry to the poor and the homeless that offers dignity, and doesn’t depend upon the government?

I would love to be a member of that church!

Lord, I believe that you have given guidance to your church through your holy Word.  But I confess, our application of your Word has been selective at best, and corrupt at worst.  As we place our faith in you, break down the barriers of division and make us one in Christ. Amen. 

 PHOTOS:
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Epistle for June 12, 2016

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Galatians 2:15-21

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

Paul consistently declares the doctrine of justification by faith and salvation by grace.  In the letter to the Galatians he is intensely concerned about their drift toward legalism under the teaching of so-called “Judaizers.”  The Judaizers were attempting to persuade the Galatians that Christianity required a “both/and” approach to salvation — they were told that they were indeed saved by Christ, but they were also required to fulfill all the laws dictated by Moses, including circumcision.

Paul counters this by presenting a contrast between Jews by birth and Gentile sinners.  He returns to this contrast again and again in his epistles, but here he only briefly alludes to the difference between Jews and Gentiles — Jews are already members of the covenant with God by virtue of their special status as the “chosen people.”  Therefore, Gentiles are de facto sinners because they were once excluded from the covenant.

But here’s the catch: — although Paul was a Jew, and as he tells us elsewhere, prior to his conversion was very zealous for the law, he has come to understand that:

a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.

Just in case the Galatians missed his point, he stresses again that:

 no one will be justified by the works of the law (emphasis mine).

As he will later demonstrate in Galatians, and also teaches in Romans, the law is insufficient to justify us (make us right with God). This isn’t because the law is bad — not at all!  He tells us in Romans that:

 the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good (Romans 7:12).

The only problem with the law is that neither Jew nor Gentile can keep it perfectly:

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.” (Galatians 3:10. Emphasis mine).

That’s why Paul admits that:

if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor.

In other words, if he as a Jewish Christian returns to insisting on the strict adherence to the rules and regulations of ceremonial, ritual and dietary law as the means of justification, then he himself is dead wrong!

Then he comes to the heart of his message:

 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.

Because Paul’s obedience to the law — as zealous and strict as he was — was insufficient, the law led him to the realization that he could not be saved by his own efforts.  Therefore the law brought him to spiritual death so that he could be raised to life through grace.

So, when he comes to faith in Christ, he identifies with Christ, and Christ begins to live his life in and through him.  Justification is not about what we do, but what God in Christ does in us and through us:

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This death and resurrection motif  becomes the pattern of the Christian life. The Christian life begins in baptism and continues daily as the Christian lives the Christian life. The Christian is one who has died to sin and is raised to new life in Christ:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. . . We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin (Romans 6:3-4, 6).

After these lofty and soaring thoughts that point to a life lived with Christ, in Christ, and through Christ, he returns to his argument against seeking justification by the law:

I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification  comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Paul has thrown down the gauntlet to the argument of the Judaizers — if fulfilling the law is a necessary addition to justification, then why was it necessary for Jesus to die? The answer is that Jesus, not we, has fulfilled the law perfectly in his life, death and resurrection.

As Colossians says:

And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God  made you  alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses,  erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).

APPLY:  

Anyone who has ever attempted to live the “sinless” life can appreciate the blessing offered by the doctrine of  justification by grace.

I can remember at one time in my Christian life deciding that I was going to live a “perfect” life one day — in my personal habits and diet, in my relationships with family and church members, in thought, word and deed.

You can imagine how that worked out.  Not only did I fail because I became obsessed with the myriad rules and regulations that might characterize the “perfect” life, I also became intensely self-absorbed.  I was profoundly concerned with my righteousness, and my obedience to the law.

I was no longer looking at God, or even neighbor.  I had become intensely narcissistic!

When we turn to Christ in faith, and are justified (made right with God) through grace, the emphasis is no longer on ourselves.  The source of our life and character is Christ!

Then those soaring words of Paul become a source of hope and life for us as Christians:

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

RESPOND: 

What a relief that salvation, living the Christian life, and overcoming sin is not my accomplishment, it is the work of Christ.  As I come to him daily in faith, I identify with his crucifixion and resurrection.  This means that through him I can die to sin, be raised to new life, and live the adventure that he has for me to live.  It’s not my accomplishment, but his.

How often we get that wrong, and miss the true source of God’s grace and abundant blessing!  I recently heard someone say — with very good intentions — that we must “forgive ourselves.”  I know that he meant that to be a word of comfort, but I didn’t find it comforting at all.  My response to that is that if I could forgive myself I wouldn’t need a Savior!  If I could forgive myself, then my salvation would be based, like that of the Judaizers, on what I do, rather than on what Jesus does.

If I know anything from Scripture and my own personal experience, I cannot save myself and I cannot forgive myself.  I can receive salvation and forgiveness as a gift from God by trusting in him.

Lord, I am so grateful that my salvation doesn’t depend on me; it depends on you.  If my salvation required that I follow the law, then that would mean I must obey it perfectly, and consistently — and you already know that I can’t do that.  I need your grace and mercy, and I am profoundly grateful that you have done for me what I cannot do for myself. Please live your life in and through me.  Amen.

 PHOTOS:
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Epistle for June 5, 2016

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Galatians 1:11-24

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OBSERVE:

This is one of the passages in Paul’s epistles — like 2 Corinthians 11-12, and Philippians 3 — in which he is extremely autobiographical.  In all three of these passages, Paul is illustrating the drastic transformation that has happened in his life, and his journey from a legalistic Pharisee who was zealous for the law to a Christian renewed by the grace of Jesus Christ.

In Galatians, his purpose is both defensive and polemical.  The Galatians have been visited by teachers who are proclaiming a different gospel (Galatians 1:6).  Their false teachings, says Paul, are a perversion of the gospel, and they should be accursed.

Here is the issue — Judaizers who have come to Galatia are saying that they believe in Jesus as the Messiah, but they insist that Gentiles must also subscribe to the Mosaic law, including the ritual law of circumcision.  [I have gone into more detail with commentary in last week’s post on Galatians 1:1-12.]

According to Paul’s interpretation of the gospel, the ceremonial and ritual law has been abolished, and salvation is a gift of God received by faith.  Salvation is by grace, not by works of the law.

So, Paul finds it necessary to prove his credentials to the Galatians. Part of his motivation for doing so is to illustrate that he had once been one of those who was a strict adherent of the law.

Here is his case:

• He reminds them that in his earlier life he was not only a Jew, he was dedicated to the destruction of the Christian church because he believed the church was a heretical sect. Moreover, he was among the religious elite in his adherence to the tenets of Judaism and the traditions of my ancestors. Therefore, he is suggesting, these Judaizers who have come among the Galatians do not bring a superior interpretation of the gospel. They merely bring a variation of the same message that Paul used to believe — that the law was the means of salvation.
• He also insists that his understanding of the gospel has come by direct revelation from Christ himself (verses 11-12).  He supports this argument by pointing out that even after God revealed his Son to him he did not seek instruction from any human being or go to Jerusalem in order to be taught by the apostles.  His description of his travels to Arabia, the three year sojourn in Damascus, his trip to Jerusalem and subsequent travels in Syria and Cilicia establish the fact that he was not beholden to the apostles for his understanding of the gospel.  Even when he was in Jerusalem visiting Cephas, and meeting James who was then regarded as the head of the church, he points out he was only there fifteen days.  In other words, he insists that he has received unique authority and revelation from Jesus himself!
• Paul’s transformation from persecutor of the church to apostle of the church is so dramatic that it soon became proverbial among the churches of Judea that:

The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.

APPLY:  

If we put aside the polemical aspect of this passage, what we see is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to transform a life.

Paul is reminding us that he was once hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to all who believed it, and to the church which had coalesced around that gospel.  And because of God’s call and singular revelation to him, his hostility was transformed into love and faith.

If that can happen in the life of a man like Paul who was once zealous for the law and then became devoted to the gospel of grace, what can God’s grace do in our lives?

RESPOND: 

I knew a very wise man once who said that our theology tends to be autobiography.  I think what he meant by that is this: our faith and our understanding of the gospel is shaped by our own experience of God.

This doesn’t mean that our experience trumps the Scriptures or the traditions of the church.  What it does mean is that there is an intersection between the truths of the Christian faith and our own faith.

I can personally attest to the life-changing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Therefore I can identify with the testimony of Paul.  No, I wasn’t a Jew, or a Pharisee, or a persecutor of the church.  Nevertheless, the general application of the gospel to my personal story is transformative.  And I would be willing to bet that the gospel is transforming for anyone who seriously allows God to enter into their lives.

Our Lord, I thank you that I’m not what I once was because of your grace, that your grace has restored me to relationship with you, and that you are in the process of transforming me. Please finish what you have started in me.  Amen.

 PHOTOS:
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