BridgeWay Christian Church 2011
Galatians: Legalism vs. Liberty
By Pastor Ronald H. Gann
Sermon Title
Faith vs. Works: Blessed Or Cursed?
Bible Text:
Date Preached:
Galatians 3:10-14
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Series:
Message:
Transcription:
Galatians: Legalism vs. Liberty
#9 / MP3: BCC_04_09
Rhonda Fowler
Online Sermons:
Church Website:
www.sermonaudio.com/7597120
www.bridgewaychristianchurch.org
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Pastor Ronald H. Gann
BridgeWay Christian Church
182 Rockingham Road
Londonderry, NH 03053
(603) 759-7120
e live in a world in which we are taught that bigger is better. The bigger the
athlete, we are told, the bigger the payday is. The bigger our mansions, the
bigger our reputations. The bigger our church is, supposedly, the bigger God’s
blessing has been. We are enamored by super-sized French fries, super-stars, and big
screen TVs.
Everywhere we look, it seems we are told that bigger is better. But as the prophet
Zechariah reminds us in Zechariah 4:10, we should not “despise the day of small things”
because God does some His best work through small people, from small beginnings, and
impossible situations. It’s a humbling experience to read through the Old Testament
and see how imperfectly little, many of the spiritual giants actually were. They are
colossal in our minds, but in the day in which they lived, many of them were
insignificant, either in the eyes of others, or in the eyes of God, or both. Almost without
exception, these spiritual giants of the faith all suffered from spiritual smallness at one
time or another and where God did big things nevertheless.
For example, Abraham, the father of faith had an uncharacteristic moment of
smallness where he was faithless, not believing that God would protect him when King
Abimelech had eyes for his wife. Jacob was the lying cheat. He wrestled with virtually
everyone including, literally, God Himself. Joseph had bouts of smallness. Naive and
immature, who apparently didn’t even think twice about gloating to his older brothers
that they would one day bow before him. That is something that even his father
Abraham said, “Joe, you need to take a pill of humility.” Moses was a murderer who
preferred to tend sheep in the desert rather than confront the evils of his world. Gideon
was a cowardly worshiper of Baal, who repeatedly put God to the test. Samson was a
womanizing drunk. David was a power-abusing adulterer. His son Solomon was the
most foolish wise man if ever there was one. King Hezekiah had reformed the entire
nation of Israel but neglected to reform his own vanity, much less his own family. And,
finally, there’s the disbelieving carpenter Joseph, who sought to divorce his fiancée
Mary for fear that she had committed adultery behind his back. When in truth, Mary is
the most faithful woman in the history of humankind.
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But God used these small, meager, and imperfect people to do big things. This
season of advent is when we as Christians come together to celebrate one of the biggest
things that God has ever done. In the meekest of circumstances, within the tiniest of
nations among the smallest of villages, and with the lowest of people, God brought into
the world the biggest of men, Jesus Christ.
The first Christmas morning is about a big God who does big things through
undersized people. Advent, which we are once again celebrating this morning, is marked
by a spirit of expectation. A spirit of anticipation, of preparation and for longing. It is a
time when we remember the yearning for deliverance. First expressed by the Hebrew
slaves in Egypt, and later by the Jews under Roman oppression. It is a time of when we
remember the cry of those under the tyranny of injustice in a world marked by sin and
yet whose hope for a deliverer was steadfast. They believed in a God who heard their
cries from afar and would deliver them.
As we look back during advent and we reflect on the big things that God has
done, as Christians we also look forward to the big things that a big God has yet to do. It
is the hope, however faint it is at times, that God however distant he sometimes seems,
will once again invade this world. The advent is a season of anticipation where we
anticipate the return of a king who will rule in truth and justice and righteousness over
His people and over all creation. It is a hope that was realized in Bethlehem 2,000 years
ago, and it is a hope that awaits to be consummated in the days ahead.
We anticipate, we expect, we prepare, we long for the coming reign of the
anointed one, the Messiah, who will bring peace on earth and justice and righteousness
to the entire world. This is the great hope of the Christian Church. To use biblical
vernacular, Titus 2:13, “it is our blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God
and savior Jesus Christ.”
Last week, we dedicated some time to talking about the first week of advent, the
week of expectation and hope. This morning we are turning our attention to Bethlehem
and love. And when it comes to that first Christmas morning, there is no better word to
describe it than love. It is the love of God that fuels us as believers. It is the love of God
that continues to sustain us.
Did you know that apart from the birth of Jesus Christ and His death and
resurrection, that the Bible gives us another picture of God’s love? Did you know that?
Beyond the picture of babies and mangers and farm animals and crosses and empty
tombs, the Bible gives us another picture of His love. Do you know what it is? It is the
metaphor of a tattoo to hammer home the love that God has for His own.
Human beings, we have marked our bodies with tattoos for thousands of years.
For the longest time, the earliest known examples of tattoos were thought to be on the
mummified remains of some women, dating as far back as 2,000 B.C., during the time
of Abraham. In fact, so commonplace was tattooing that God instructed the Israelites in
Leviticus 19 not to get tattoos. Not because there was something inherently sinful with
tattoos, but because mimicking the pagan world was.
Some tribal cultures actually encourage tattoos. Others consider it to be a work of
art. And, still others consider tattoos to be a desecration of the human body. Well, no
matter where you stand on the issue, you might be surprised to learn that God Himself
has a tattoo. Did you know that? Granted it’s a figurative one, but he’s got one. Care to
take a guess of what it is?
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Isaiah 49:15-16: Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no
compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not
forget you! See I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
This proverbial tattoo that God has etched on His proverbial hands is a signature
of his love. It signifies his care, his concern, his interest in the events in our life. Just like
we write a person’s phone number down on our palm, or we write a last minute grocery
item on our palm so we won’t forget it when we go shopping—so God has written your
name down on the palm of His hand, promising never to forget that you are His own.
Because God is sovereign over everything that enters our lives, we can trust that those
things that cause us pain and uncertainty have already been filtered through the ink
stained and blood stained palms of God’s hands, in which your name is inscribed.
Even when it seems that you are alone and forgotten, you are not. Even when it
seems you are going through insurmountable challenges by yourself, you are not. God
cannot forget you. He will not forget you. He has tattooed Himself with your name. And
as I said, this proverbial tattoo that is etched on the proverbial hands of God, is a
signature of His love.
But why does God love us? That is probably the most profound question that
human beings can ask. We are incapable as human beings of giving a sufficient answer.
But one thing is certain. God does not love us because we are lovable or we deserve it. In
fact, the Bible informs us that only the opposite is true.
Our innermost beings are so corrupted by sin that we don’t even realize the
degree to which sin has contaminated us or the extent of our rebellion against Him. In
our natural state, when left untouched by the Holy Spirit, no one, and I don’t care how
outwardly righteous they appear, the Bible says no one seeks God, no one loves Him,
and no one desires Him. Were it not for God first loving us, and loving us enough to
change our disposition toward Him, none of us would want anything to do with Him.
This just begs the question further—why does God love us? How is it possible that
a holy, righteous, and perfect God could love unholy, unrighteous, and imperfect
people? Well, to understand the answer to that question, we’ve got to understand the
nature of God.
1 John 8:16: God is love.
And never was there a more important declaration than this. And never was more
meaning crowded into three words than into this sentence, “God is love.” God doesn’t
just love, He is love. Love permeates his entire being and infuses all of His attributes,
including His anger and His wrath. In other words, His wrath is a loving wrath. His
anger is a loving anger. And because God’s very nature is love, He is compelled to
demonstrate His love. He is compelled to find those upon whom He can shower His love
and affection.
The problem is there is no human being worthy of Him. No human being worthy
of His love and affection. God being the benevolent God that He is, therefore is
compelled to love us with a sacrificial love. He demonstrates His love by lavishing it
upon those who are in rebellion against Him. God’s love is not a syrupy, sappy, gooey,
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romantic feeling—it is agape love. It is a love of self-sacrifice. And he demonstrates this
sacrificial love by sending Jesus Christ into the world to die on the cross as a penalty for
our sins. By drawing us to Him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, by forgiving us of our
sins, and indwelling us with His Holy Spirit, enabling us to love Him back. He did all of
this despite the fact we didn’t ask Him to and we didn’t desire that He should.
Romans 5:8: But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
And it is this agape love that distinguishes Christianity from all other world
religions. Why does God love us? It’s because of who He is. God is love. The true
meaning of Christmas is love.
John 3:16-17: For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only
son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but to
save the world through Him.
The true meaning of Christmas is the celebration of this incredible act of
sacrificial love that God has for his people, both individually and corporately. The real
Christmas story is the story of a God who became a man in the person of Jesus Christ.
And why did God do such a thing? Because He loves us. Why is Christmas even
necessary? Because we need a savior. Because he loves us. But why does God love us to
that extent? Because that’s who He is. He is love. Why do we celebrate Christmas every
year? In gratitude for that love. And in gratitude for that love, we show our love to
others by giving them presents, worshiping God, and remembering those who are less
fortunate.
The true meaning of Christmas is love. God loved His own and He provided a
way—the only way that we could spend eternity with Him. And He gave His only son to
take our punishment for our sins. And He paid the price in full. With that picture of God
in view, perhaps you can begin to see the enormity of our study in Galatians and what
hangs in the balance. Perhaps you can begin to see how horrible the situation was
among the Galatians, the body of believers to whom Paul wrote this epistle, that we have
been studying now for two months.
How unbelievable it was to think the Galatians would forfeit God’s gracious love
in exchange for trying to earn it through works of Law-keeping and merit. It’s only when
we begin to understand the magnanimity of God’s love; that is His generosity of spirit,
that we can understand the pains that Paul must have felt when writing to those who
had turned aside from the purity of grace to works righteousness, who exchanged God’s
agape love for human achievement and substituted child-like faith for damnable for
legalism. It is an enormous issue and we dare not repeat it.
Galatians 3:10-14: For all who rely on observing the law are under a
curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do
everything written in the book of the Law.” Clearly no one is justified
before God by the Law because the “righteous will live by faith.” The Law
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is not based on faith; on the contrary, “the man who does these things will
live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a
curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come
to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the
promise of the spirit.
It’s uncommon, but virtually all scholars agree that this is the most important
paragraph in book of Galatians. But just because there is a consensus over its
importance, doesn’t mean they all agree on its meaning. In fact, this paragraph has been
the subject of heated debate throughout Church history for many reasons. Not the least
of which is that Paul seemingly calls the holy and righteous Law of God a curse. That is
no small accusation.
We are not going to waste words going over this debate this morning. Instead we
are going to let the text stand for itself. We are going to approach it from a historical,
traditional, and evangelical purview.
In Galatians 3:1-9, which we looked at last week, Paul had just wrapped up his
argument in which he contended that the family of Abraham is marked by the faith of
Abraham. That is, those who believe like Abraham, inherit Abraham’s blessing. More
than just a blessing of land or descendants, Paul argues that one crucial aspect of the
blessings of Abraham is none other than the promised Holy Spirit. Then Paul goes on to
contend that the promise that all nations will be blessed in Abraham. That promise has
reached its fulfillment, Paul says, in the fact that the Gentiles are now justified by faith.
In the same way Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. So
a Gentile who puts their trust in God, and what He did through the cross, and the
resurrection of Christ, they likewise are justified by faith. When we draw upon Romans
4 in light of Galatians 3, we quickly realize that what Paul is essentially saying is this:
that only Christians are the true children of Abraham.
For you dispensationalists in the room, who have a soft spot in your heart for
modern day Israel and the Jews world over, and you fear my words might be antiSemitic. Let me assure you of one thing. I believe God is not done with ethnic children of
Abraham. In fact, the Bible tells us that the Jewish people and the Jewish nation are
going to play a big role in the end times. That being said, as of right now, December 4,
2011, the nation of Israel and Jews world over are under the judgment of God, not his
blessing, for their collective rejection of Jesus Christ. And so, Paul tells us the Christian
Church has been grafted in and inherited the blessings of Abraham.
Nevertheless, in Galatians 3:10-14 that we are looking at this morning, Paul
moves this argument forward, addressing it from a different angle. He says that not only
is faith the pathway to blessing, but that adherence to the Law leads to a curse.
Did you catch that? He’s saying that not only is faith the pathway to blessing, but
adherence to the Law is a curse. How can he say such a thing? Folks, I might add that
Paul calling obedience to the Law a curse is something that would haunt him for the rest
of his ministry, eventually leading to his pummeling by Ephesian Jews at the temple in
Jerusalem some twenty years later. Which in turn would lead to his arrest, and then it
would lead to his imprisonment, and ultimately his death.
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But Paul didn’t call the Law itself a curse. He called adherence to the Law a curse.
Why would he say such a thing? It is to that issue we now turn.
Using Abraham as an example, Paul spent the early part of Galatians 3 showing
what faith can do. Now he goes to great lengths to show what works cannot do. And his
argument, once again, and as always, is based on the Old Testament. Paul knew his
Bible—that’s for sure.
Did you know that in these four short verses we read this morning, Paul quotes
the Old Testament four times? Charles Spurgeon once said of Paul Bunyan, the writer of
The Pilgrim’s Progress and who was very talented with scripture, “Prick Bunyan
anywhere and he bleeds Bible.” The same thing could be said of the apostle Paul. He ate
and drank holy scripture. So his first citation is Deuteronomy 27:26, “cursed is everyone
who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the Law.”
As you very well know, a curse is divine judgment that carries with it the sentence
of condemnation. Paul’s point in quoting Deuteronomy 27:26 is simple. He’s reminding
the Judaizers and the Galatians that those who trust in the Law; that is circumcision or
ceremonial rituals or what have you—those who trust in the Law to earn their standing
before God are obligated to keep the entire Law without exception. Without exception.
God does not even allow a sliver of wiggle room on this point. If you think I am painting
God out to be a perfectionist who demands perfection from His imperfect creatures. I
am guilty as charged. That is exactly what I am trying to convey to you.
We would all do well to remember that Adam and Eve were banished from the
Garden of Eden. They were expunged from the presence of God. They were cursed to toil
the ground in sweat and pain. They were punished with the mother of all pains,
childbirth, because they committed one sin against a sinless God. Divine perfection
allows for no exceptions. No room for mistakes. No failures of the smallest sorts. To
break the Law in one place is to break all of it.
James 2:10: For whoever keeps the whole Law and yet stumbles at just
one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
A boat that is at port and is tied to a dock by a chain is only as secure as the
weakest link in that chain. If a severe storm comes and that weak link in the chain
breaks, the entire boat floats away. That’s why we say, a chain is only as strong as its
weakest link. And so it is with the sinner who tries to come to God by their own
perfection. If they break one link in the chain that God requires, they will float away.
They will be shipwrecked for all eternity.
This is why our legalism, including the legalism of the Judaizers and the
Galatians, is so preposterous and why Paul decried it vociferously. It focuses on doing,
or not doing, rather than believing. Legalism is rooted in the idea that you can be more
spiritual by your own personal disciplines. It’s silly and it’s shallow and it’s pointless to
be legalistic because you cannot and you will not ever be disciplined enough to impress
God.
There is nobody in this room, myself included, who can stand shoulder to
shoulder with the righteousness of Saint Paul, humanly speaking. In terms of his Lawkeeping, Paul was more righteous than every single one of us in this room before he was
a Christian. And after his conversion, he was more righteous than every single one of us
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in this room. Yet even the great apostle Paul surrendered to the fact that he didn’t have
it in him to impress God by his Law-keeping. He didn’t have it in him. Let’s let the
apostle Paul speak for himself.
Romans 7:10-24: I found that every commandment that was intended to
bring life actually brought death…I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I
do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do…It is sin
living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me. That is in my sinful
nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it
out…So then I myself, in my mind am a slave to God’s Law. But in the
sinful nature, I am a slave to the Law of sin.
This is coming from one of the most disciplined men of God that the Church has
ever known, who wrote First Corinthians 9:27, “I beat my body into submission.” But in
the end, even Paul knew he didn’t have it in him to meet God’s standards of the Law.
Those who choose to live by a legalistic code of conduct and Law-keeping—they
unwittingly place themselves under God’s wrath, not his blessing, because they can’t live
up to it. And God makes no exceptions. Because God allows no room for error, not even
a sliver, this places a person who trusts in their own obedience under a curse—God’s
inevitable curse—because you will inevitably violate His Law.
So what’s the remedy for this malady we face? If our legalistic works and our selfefforts of outward obedience bring God’s curse and not his blessing, what hope do we
have? It seems to me we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. We’re damned if
we try to keep God’s Law. We’re damned if we don’t keep it. What’s the remedy?
I trust you know the answer by now. In case you don’t, Paul once again quotes the
Old Testament to give us the answer. In fact, he quotes Habakkuk 2:4, “The righteous
shall live by faith.” Then he quotes, Deuteronomy 21:23, “Cursed is everyone who hangs
on a tree.”
How did those two texts that he cites square with one another? Paul’s use of
scripture was masterful and simple. The earlier passage that he cited from Deuteronomy
about abiding by everything in the Law if you are going to live by the Law—that was
Paul’s way of saying that justification does not come through Law-keeping. It can’t
because you can’t meet its demands—no one can.
Now, citing Habakkuk, he proves that justification must come through faith. We
know that by now. The ways of the Law and the ways of faith are mutually exclusive. You
can’t have both. To live by Law is to live by self-effort and it leads inevitably to legalism,
which inevitably leads to failure, which itself will lead to condemnation and death. To
live by faith, however, is to respond to God’s grace without conditions, which leads to
justification and eternal life.
That’s all fine and dandy and we all thank God for it. If we are now in a right
standing before God on account of our faith in Jesus Christ and not by our works, what
about this curse? Is it still hanging over us as Law-breakers? Does God just forget about
it all and say, “Well you know what, the curse no longer applies. You’re Law-breakers
but I’ve forgiven you, so I’m over it.” No. God does not forget about it. The obscenity of
sin still needs to be reconciled. A holy God makes no exceptions ever, neither before
your conversion nor after it. And He will not wink at fallen man’s Law-breaking no
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matter how redeemed you are. He didn’t lower the bar in the Old Testament and he
doesn’t lower the bar in the New Testament. What’s the answer?
Paul tells us that God brought the full weight of that curse down on His son Jesus
Christ in your place and in mine in what the reformers call penal substitution. That’s a
nifty way of saying the penalty of sin, the curse, was brought to bear on another. A
sinless substitute, rather than on those who are truly guilty. And His name was Jesus
Christ.
What’s the main point that Paul is making here? He is teaching that Christ took
upon Himself the curse that sinners deserved. And that he stood in their place and He
absorbed their punishment willingly.
Earnest Gordon was a British Army officer who was captured in WWII by the
Japanese. He was 24 years old. And as a POW, Gordon was sent to work on what they
called the Burma-Siam railway line that the Japanese were constructing in the Thai
jungle to use for an invasion into India.
For labor, the Japanese conscripted British POWs they had captured in occupied
Asia and of course the British Army itself. Against international law, the Japanese even
forced POW officers to do manual labor. Each day Earnest Gordon would join the work
detail of thousands of prisoners who hacked their way through the jungle to build up the
track bed through the swamp line.
Does that story sound familiar to some of you? It might because you probably saw
the 1957 movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai, staring William Holden and Alec
Guinness, Obi-Wan Kenobi himself. Or you read the 1973 book, The Miracle on the
River Kwai, by Earnest Gordon himself.
Naked, except for some loincloths, as though they were cavemen again, these
British POWs worked in 120 degree heat. Their bodies stung by insects. Their bare feet
cut and bruised by sharp rocks. Apparently, death was commonplace.
If a prisoner appeared to be lagging, a Japanese guard would beat him to death,
or he would bayonette him, or he would decapitate him in full view of the other
prisoners. Many of these men simply died from exhaustion, malnutrition, and disease.
So under these severe conditions, thousands of POWs died building that railway
through the Thai jungle, with an average of 393 fatalities with every mile of track.
For most of the war, the law of the jungle ruled in the prison camp. As starvation,
exhaustion, and disease took an increasing toll on these POWs, the atmosphere in which
they lived became poisonous and venomous. It was filled with selfishness. It was filled
with hate and fear. These men who once fought side by side, fighting a common
enemy—they had reverted back to their primitive attitude of survival of the fittest.
Earnest Gordon remembers it as follows, “We were slipping rapidly down the
slope of degradation. Before, the patterns of Army life had sustained us. We had still
shown some consideration for each other. Now that was all swept away. Existence had
become so miserable, the odds so heavy against survival, that to most of the prisoners
nothing mattered except to survive. We lived by the law of the jungle. It was a case of I
look out for myself and the hell with everyone else.”
For most of the men, Gordon recounts that little acts of meanness, suspicion, and
favoritism permeated their lives. In the food line, the prisoners fought over the scraps of
food, of vegetables, and of rice that was floating in the broth. And the POW officers
refused to share their rations with their enlisted subordinates. Theft was common in the
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barracks. Men looked like animals. Hate was the main motivation to stay alive. Gordon
goes on to explain, “We had no church, no Chaplin, no services. We were forsaken
men—forsaken by our friends, our families, by our government. Now even God seemed
to have left us.”
One day, a horrific event happened that changed the way the POWs were acting.
At the end of every work day, the Japanese guards carefully counted all of the tools to
make sure that none of the tools were stolen by the prisoners as contraband for escape.
On one particular 120 degree day, one of the Japanese guards shouted from the top of
his lungs that a shovel was missing. In a POW camp, that is a big deal.
All of the British POWs were commanded to stand in formation as the Japanese
Commanding Officer walked up and down the ranks, demanding to know who stole the
shovel. When no one confessed, he screamed, “All die. All die.” and he raised his rifle to
fire at the first man in the line. Well at that very instant, a man stepped forward. A man,
who Gordon doesn’t recount in the book by name if I recall, this man came forward,
stood at attention and said, “I did it.” No surprisingly, the guards fell on him like a fury,
kicking and beating him until he was a bloody pulp.
Gordon recounts that despite all of the heavy blows, that man remained standing
at attention. That was until the enraged Commanding Officer took his rifle, lifted it in
the air, and brought the butt of it down on the soldier’s skull, cracking it into two. The
man sank into a heap onto the ground but the guards still continued to beat his
motionless body. When the assault finally stopped, the other prisoners picked up their
comrade’s corpse and marched back to camp.
That evening, when the tools were counted again, the work crew discovered that a
mistake had been made. No shovel had been missing at all. Word spread like wildfire
throughout the camp. An innocent man had been willing to die to save others. Gordon
maintains that tragic incident had profound effects on the other POWs. The men began
to treat each other like brothers. The attitude of survival of the fittest was no more.
The sacrifice of that one man had changed the hearts of those around him. He
knew he was innocent. Yet he chose to take the blame just the same. He faced the
punishment to save the others. One of the prisoners remembered the Bible verse,
“greater love has no man than this. That he lay down his life for a friend.” I don’t think I
need to connect the dots for you.
What Ernest Gordon experienced in that prison camp, particularly on that 120
degree day, laid the building blocks for a profound spiritual journey that would see a
POW skeptic—a skeptic of God’s love—eventually become a brother in Christ. It’s a true
story that mimics the greatest story ever told. What happened on the River Kwai in
WWII was simply a reenactment of what happened 2,000 years ago, beginning on that
first Christmas morning.
It’s a story of triumph over despair. But even more than that, it’s a story of selfsacrifice—a story of sacrificial love. When we were all condemned to die like POWs,
when holiness, not a shovel, but when holiness was found missing in us, there was an
eternal price of wrath to be paid. We all stood before the firing line of an offended God
who would not wink at our disobedience. We stood before an accusing devil, whose rifle
butt was lifted in the air to come crashing down on our skulls.
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Galatians 4:4-5: But when the time had fully come, God sent His son,
born of a woman, born under Law, to redeem those under Law, that we
might receive the full rights of sons.
Romans 5:8: But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The Galatians had lost sight of this. They had become bewitched. They had lost
sight of the proverbial tattoo on the proverbial hands of God that bore each of their
names. A tattoo that was a signature of God’s love for the—which signified that God had
predetermined to remember them, to never forget them, and to save them. The
Galatians had been duped into thinking that it was their responsibility to remind God
just how deserving they were to have their names inscribed on His hands. They had
been duped into believing that by virtue of their obedience and Law-keeping, they could
earn a top spot on the palms of God’s hands apart from grace. May it never be so for us.
It is for this very reason I can say to you this morning with a straight face, unlike
Paul’s other letters in the New Testament, the book of Galatians is not a love letter. It is
a cautionary tale. Let us all learn from it, lest we become bewitched also.
10 | F a i t h v s . W o r k s : B l e s s e d O r C u r s e d ?