Today's reading: Exodus 27; Galatians 5
There are two things I want to comment on out of Galatians 5 this morning, both in terms of how our choices/sin play into our salvation.
The first thing to focus on is at the beginning of Galatians 5. Paul has already declared multiple times in this letter that our salvation is found in Christ by faith alone, and that our works do not play into it. Our good works do not commend us to God and our bad works do not remove the salvation we have by faith. But then, here in chapter 5, Paul tells them that if they are circumcised they are “severed from Christ” and “Christ will be of no advantage to [them].” So which is it? If our works don’t impact our salvation, how can accepting circumcision cost them their salvation.
The key thing to understand is that Paul is not talking about circumcision as an act, but as a means of salvation. The Galatians were being convinced to turn to the Jewish laws as the means of earning their standing before the Lord. This is why he says to them, “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.” So it is not that they have found a sinful act bad enough to cost them their salvation, but that they are turning away from faith in Christ as the basis of their salvation and are seeking to be justified by their own righteousness. It puts me in mind of what Paul says in Colossians 1:21-23
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Paul does not say, in Colossians 1, that Jesus will present us holy and blameless before God on that day if we remain sinless and righteous, but if we continue in the faith, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.
This is why Paul is so deeply concerned about the Galatians that he said, in Galatians 4, “I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.” He is using such strong language, not because they are doing something too sinful, but because they are moving away from their hope in the gospel; they are moving away from faith and seeking to be justified by the law, and there is no salvation to be found in the law, only in Christ.
This then brings us to the second thing I wanted to talk about out of this chapter, and that is that Paul DOES address our works. After warning them about not counting on their works in keeping the law for salvation, he turns around and tells them to walk in the Spirit and not the works of the flesh. But if our good works don’t earn us salvation and our sin doesn’t cost us salvation, then why does Paul care?
There is way more that could be said on this than I’m going to say in what’s supposed to be a short post to accompany a daily devotional reading, so this is not at all a full answer to that question, but I do want to leave you with some thoughts on this because it was something that confused me when I first started studying the Bible.
The first thing I want to point out here is that while sin does not cost us our salvation, it is not without danger. Living willfully outside of God’s design for our lives has it’s own, practical, harmful ramifications, but it also has implications for faith. When we willfully continue in sin, we choose against God’s will and harden ourselves to the voice of His Spirit directing us in a better way. Any individual sin, any individual turning from God, might not seem like too big of a deal, but the cumulative effect over time can be absolutely devastating. As we make these choices, as we actively shut out the voice of conviction in our hearts from His Spirit, as we establish a habit of justifying our works despite the clear words of Scripture and our own conscience against what we are doing, we put ourselves in a place of danger of loosing our moorings to Christ by faith.
I want to be abundantly clear on this though. You should never have to wonder if you are in the faith or not. There does not need to be a concern that maybe you have gone too far or sinned too much. If the hope of your salvation is in Christ, you are assured of your salvation. It is not “sinning so much” that we are cast away from Christ that we are warned about by Scripture, but it is the consequence of sin in our own hearts that can lead us to no longer hold to Christ as the means of our salvation, and, like the Galatians, we can begin to look to our own works, our own righteousness, or, at times, a different religion that fits a little better with our desired lifestyle, as our means of entrance into heaven.
So it is in that context that Paul says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” If I have spiritual life by faith in Christ, then the sensible thing to do is to walk by the same Spirit that has given me life in Christ. So yes, I should seek to walk by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the flesh, but not as a means of earning or maintaining my salvation, but because I have been set free from those things in Christ, and it does not make sense to make myself a slave to the sinful passions of the flesh that I have been rescued from.
“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
God, give us hearts that yearn more and more every day for the true freedom that is found in walking by your Spirit, living out your design for our lives, and not in using that freedom to yoke ourselves to slavery to sin
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