This is the Truth Network. I'm Stuart Emerson. Welcome to a special Wednesday in the Word. Leader podcast, where we prepare and equip our leaders of this special Bible study outreach breakfast every week to teach through the Scriptures. Thirteen Dario locations.
There's a men's group meeting, and several of the locations host the women on Thursday morning. Stay tuned. Be encouraged as we jump into this week's Wednesday in the Word. The year was 1863. The date was January 1st.
The president was Abraham Lincoln, and he issued the famous, most consequential issue, maybe ever in history, the Emancipation Proclamation, setting effectively all the slaves free. But some slaves didn't get the memo. And they were discovered months later, some even years later, still enslaved on plantations, and finally, most were set free, and it worked itself out. But how many believers are like that? Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death, and yet.
We go back into the bewitching, beguiling, seduction of legalism and the law, and this is what happened to these young Galatian believers. As we turn our attention to Galatians chapter five, verses one through twelve, Doctor Horn, these things were real then. These things were real in that civil war analogy, and they're real today, aren't they, sir? Yeah, I think that's a really good description of the Christian life. It is a war, and and at the first thing God wants us to know, and Paul says it right away, is that that this war is between two kingdoms, and we used to be enslaved in the one kingdom.
And God sent Jesus not just to save us from our sins, but to free us from the bondage of them. And and that didn't come by the law. We're going to find out later. In our text this morning, and certainly Paul is going to, you know, corroborate this in the book of Romans, that the function of the law, that this righteous law that God gave, was never to free us from sin; it was to restrain sin. And to make God's moral expectations and righteous demands known to us, but actually the law imprisons us to our sins, and it leads to the condemnation because of our sins, the condemnation of death.
And so Paul is saying on a number of eleven levels. God freed you. He freed you from sin. He freed you from the penalty of your sin. He freed you from the guilt of your sin.
He is right now freeing you from the bondage and the power that sin holds over you, and and he's freeing you from the jurisdiction of a good thing that he he placed over you to point you to Christ. But he's he's freeing you from its jurisdiction because the jurisdiction can only. Result in your condemnation. All of that has been taken care of.
So don't go back to slavery. I think that's the big message of chapter five: is don't go back to bondage. Don't go back to slavery. And he opens up with this just sentinel verse. Where he says, "Stand fast." Those two words alone are so critical.
Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, the freedom by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. And some call this the kind of the paramount central verse of the whole book, the summary of the whole book. The book. I heard a pastor say the other day, "If you could, if you could summarize Galatians in one word, it would be freedom." And so, Doctor Horn, where have we come? Where are we going?
We got twelve verses. We want to go quick. I want to make a quick leader note. Originally, in my emails to the leaders, I had our passage this week to be verses one through six, and you're still welcome. To stay there, we're going to do three messages in Galatians five.
This is going to be the first, but we're extending it through twelve because these. The more I studied seven through twelve, these are so connected. These sections are because we're dealing with the effective, the the effectively the topic of legalism, and which has been a theme throughout the book. When we pick up in verse thirteen, which will be next time, we're going to get into this. Here's a good four letter word.
For you, anti-nomianism, which is a which is a a mouthful, but license and the other extreme when the pendulum swings that way, and so are we just allowed to sin and freely just kind of go at it?
Now that I'm a believer, can I just you know cut loose and sin as I will?
So we're going to get into that side of it next time, but I wanted to. Capture all of this, and these—I really see these connected. And so we're condensing, or we're expanding this week's to one through twelve. Doctor Horn, we did a little review. I mean, this is a church that's been bewitched.
They were on fire for God. Paul came in, preached. He sacrificed much for them, and we read that in the last chapter. Man, they were and they loved him. They were sacrificing him.
They were willing to have their own eyes plucked out so he could see. And and they were really on fire. But then they got. Stuck, and they the Judaizers came in and poisoned the pot, and now Paul's coming out here. But but set it up, and then take us into this section, will you, sir?
And why it's so important in the narrative of Galatians. I think you you really hit on it. We started off at the very beginning saying this book has three three sort of focuses or emphases. One was Paul's personal credibility as an apostle, his authority and his integrity as an apostle, and really not just because he was trying to be someone, but because he had been commissioned by God to bring. A life-giving message to the Gentiles, and so he is defending the gospel, not just defending himself.
And so the first, the first emphases in the book, Paul has to start out by saying, somebody has persuaded you away from the message I was authorized to give you. And so chapters one and two, he establishes himself in his authority and his integrity. In chapters three and four, as we noted, Paul goes hard at at the theological reasons why we can't give up the gospel, and why the message the Judaizers are giving isn't just an add on to the gospel. It's actually a very different kind of gospel that isn't a gospel at all, and that's really really important because in today's world we don't have. Judaeizers running around trying to convince people to go back to the law of Moses and be circumcised, but we have their their theological descendants running around saying, "Hey, it's okay to love Jesus, it's okay to pray to Jesus, it's okay to be a Christian, but if you want to be saved, you need more than Jesus.
You got to be baptized, or you've got to do good works, or you've got to take the Eucharist." Every Sunday, or you've got to be a member of the Holy Mother Church, or you've got to be a member of of our religious denomination, whether it's Jehovah's Witness or Mormon. And so we have modern day Judaizers who who have perverted the gospel to the point that it isn't the gospel that Paul preached. It isn't the message that God authorized to the to the apostles to deliver. It may sound similar. It may use similar words.
They may use words like faith and grace. And mercy, and repentance, and forgiveness, but it's it's not the words they use; it's the stuff that gets added on, and that's exactly what Paul is going after here.
So three and four are really important to understand why we can't go back to that. And then we come now to the end of the book, the last two chapters, and we said this is about applying the truth of the gospel. And the defense of the gospel in a battle context, right?
So the context of five and six is not somebody like you and me sitting with our phones in in a place talking. It's about people who were under attack.
So how do you apply? The truth of the gospel and the defense of the gospel in a battle, and that's what's going on in five and six. And by the way, if we think we're not in a battle, if we think we're not as believers, we're not headed into war. We're not in the middle of a war. We, if we think we had a little season of respite because we had somebody in the White House that was a little friendly to us, what happened on Tuesday ought to make us really aware that we are about to go into a.
Real season where where our where people are going to come after our faith and they're going to be emboldened to do that, and and five and six is going to be really important for us. Yes, yeah.
So so Dr. Horne, these twelve verses, it's it seems like there's not. It doesn't seem too complex, but you know, you you I want to I want you to walk us through how you would structure them. You know, we we he Paul brings back up, you know, circumcision. He uses language like, hey, you know, again, he said this before, like in two twenty one and other places, that you know, Christ' death is in vain if you are going back to this circumcision, which is not in and of itself bad, just like the law is not in and of itself bad, but You got to be careful not to put it before, as part of what saves you, and and then circumcision in a way was kind of a gateway drug.
I heard one pastor call it that, to get people into the path of legalism.
So how would you structure this? Because I'm looking at one through six is almost like a little, a little bit of a setup, or a little bit he's going deep in the implications. Of not standing fast, and then I am looking at seven through twelve, where he just goes after these guys. I mean, he excoriates these folks to the point of some pretty graphic language. You know, verse twelve.
It's so I want to, you know, I want to. I don't want to miss the context, but how would you break these down for for our teachers as they as they look at teaching these verses?
Well, I would set up the context first, and then I would make four observations.
So here's the context. I mean, let me give you a modern day analysis. Let me give you two modern day contexts that I think would help us. Think of a think of an athletic contest that is not going well. Think of think of a two teams that are playing, and and one team the the team that's favored.
That walked on the field that everybody thought, man, they've got all the advantages. They're ready to roll. Are are being trounced by halftime. I mean, they're they're they're just behind in every way. They're getting outplayed at every level, and they get into the locker room at halftime, and the coach realizes if I don't if I don't get these people to think differently.
About this game, we're going to lose, and we're not just going to lose the game. We're going to lose the season, because what's happening out there isn't just that they're out playing us; they're actually playing to maim us. And if we're not careful, and we don't address what's actually happening on the field, some of our our best players are going to be physically maimed, and they're going to be out for the season.
So, in that locker room, the coach isn't just trying to motivate. Right, he's not just going, "Hey guys, play harder, play better." You know, get on, get on your snap. You know, get, get whatever. He's actually sitting down and having a straight-up conversation because he realizes what's at stake. And so the tenor of that conversation is going to be very different than if he were addressing them at halftime and they were winning, or if he were addressing them at halftime and they were just being outplayed.
The idea that somebody is trying to maim you, and some of you have been very, very lucky because if that hit had actually happened, you would have been out for the season.
So that that's scenario number one. Scenario number two would be a general pulling his troops in in the middle of the battle and saying, "Listen, we are getting outfoxed. We are getting out out outgunned. We are getting out. There are casualties that are happening out there.
And if we don't get our strategy straight, we're going to lose not just this little skirmish. We're we're going to lose the battle." And so that's what's going on here in verses one through twelve. Paul is having that kind of a talk with with his people. And listen to how he says. He said this in verse seven: You were running well, things were going well with you people.
You were amazing. We were having a great season. The battle was going so well. Who hinders you from obeying the truth?
So, so the reason the battle isn't going well is that somebody, the enemy, has come in and persuaded them to stop submitting to the truth. The truth that Paul's talking about there is the gospel, right? He's been defending the gospel, so when he says you haven't been obeying the truth. The truth that he's talking about is actually the the gospel.
So, and then he's going to identify the enemy. He's saying the enemy is persuading you, outboxing you, outgetting you, outfighting you to go back to something, and the thing they want you to go back to is a way of pursuing righteousness. That they embraced under the law, and and the sort of the the signature mark of that is circumcision. They want you to be circumcised, not because circumcision is some kind of magical thing, but because it represents a whole way of living. Once you go back to that whole way of living, you've lost the skirmish, you lost the battle, and actually you lost the war.
So that's why he uses this war terminology.
So the first thing I would say is, in that context, Paul gives them a command. He gives them an urgent command by which the whole battle or the whole conflict rests. And it's in verse one. Paul says, "For freedom, Christ has set us free." Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again unto the yoke of slave of slavery. And that's in verse one.
So once you set up the context, the head of the army, the head, you know, the the leader, Paul, is looking at everybody in the room and saying, "Let me remind you, what's at stake? What's at stake is freedom, life." You were set free from something that was leading to your spiritual death, and and that's what's at stake. If you go back to that, if you put that yoke, that heavy burden of the law, back on your shoulders, and you Gentiles have no idea how heavy that law is that they're trying to put on your shoulders. As a Jew, as someone who bore that yoke for all of my entire life. Neither I nor my fathers could bear it.
We couldn't bear this yoke. We couldn't bear this law. That is Paul's testimony elsewhere in his writings, right? And he's looking at the Gentiles who have been bewitched by these Judaizers that Moses is even better than Jesus, and he's saying, don't don't let them put that heavy burden, that yoke of slavery. Over you because it will crush you, like it crushed the Jewish nation.
What was the outcome of that yoke? That yoke led them into the heavy bondage of sin. This nation kept sinning for 1500 years. God had to judge them. This yoke was so heavy that it blinded them, so that when God showed up in Jesus, we killed him.
My nation, my people, my my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who embraced this yoke and lived under this yoke, when God sent us our freedom fighter, we killed them, and now these people are coming to you saying, "Hey, let's go back under that." And and and God sent Jesus to free you from that.
So that's the first thing I would say. There is this command, and the command is stand firm in the freedom that Christ purchased for you. And then he just kind of builds on that, I guess, throughout here. I mean, he and he does. You know, it's it's important for you to understand.
This is not. A both and the enemy tries to create a both and scenario.
Well, you can have your you can have the faith, but you also have to have the works in order to be justified. And Paul further takes them to the mutually exclusive teaching that it's either or. You got to have one or the other, and that's what I see, Doctor. One. I know you're going to unpack it for us in these in these next few verses.
To the point where he climactically makes his his powerful statement in verse six.
So yeah, keep going with these. I like how you're breaking it down.
So number one, you know, after we got this. Context of a life and death struggle, a conflict, a battle, and and then you have the first command. The first thing I would say is there is an urgent command in in verse one, but then in verses two through four, that's how I would bring the next section in. This warning is accompanied by a a very urgent personal warning, and the warning. Is is don't go back to the law.
Don't fall away from grace.
So think about the coach in in the locker room realizing, hey, this game is dangerous. There are players that are trying to maim, and he knows that there are two players on the other team because he's been watching the entire first half, and those two players. Are fairly consistent. They always come at the quarterback. They always come in one of about four ways, and they have come very, very close to nailing him.
And the way that they are coming at him, if they get him, he's going to break something. He's going to break an arm. He's going to break a leg. He's going to dislocate something. And and so the coach says to the quarterback, "I want to give you my personal observation.
I've been watching this game now." For for two quarters, and and those two players that you aren't paying attention to, they've come really close. And so, from the rest of the game, you got to keep your eye on the game, but you got to pay special attention when those two players are on the field because they're not they're not. They're not looking to play fair with you. That's sort of the idea. Paul says, "I want to give you my personal warning." He says in verse two, "Look, pay attention." That that's the first word.
I would underline that. I would I would stress that all of our leaders need to bring that word forward. Look, and then Paul says, "I, Paul, say to you." Paul says, "I'm I'm jumping in. I'm giving the briefing." This is this is inspired. This is not like Paul saying, "Well, let me step away and give you some uninspired but really passionate language here." Paul saying, "I'm bringing this to the table because I have personal knowledge of how this works." So, question: How did Paul have that kind of personal knowledge?
Answer: Because he used to be one of those players. He used to be someone that would do anything to derail people like the Galatians, right? And if he couldn't derail them, he couldn't mock them. He would persecute them. If he couldn't persecute them, he would he would destroy them.
He hated the Jews who embraced the way of Christ, and he certainly was not happy with the Gentiles.
So he said, "I'm going to testify. I'm going to I'm going to bring a witness." And I'm saying to you that if you accept circumcision, if you if you embrace this, then then Messiah and all that God sent him to do will will be of no profit to you. That's the idea of advantage. It's it's not it's not like okay. We're safe, but let's let's hedge our bet.
Let's get a little advantage. Let let's bring something to the table that'll get us across the line for sure. That's not what he's saying. He's saying Messiah and every prophet that he brought to you will be nullified. You will have no profit from the work that Christ came to do.
And in verse three, he says, "I testify." Again, he said, "I'm going to say it again. Let me repeat this. This is how strong the warning is, and I want to say it to every single one of you. Everyone who accepts circumcision, you need to know something. You are obligating yourself to something you have no idea about as a Gentile.
If you accept this ritual, and you think this is how you're going to get in." You just took on something that that an entire nation has been bearing up under for 1500 years, and none of us were able to bear it. All of us got circumcised on the eighth day, and we spent the rest of our life trying to keep the law that circumcision represented it, and we failed miserably. And and so if you take on circumcision, understand you're not just snipping a little piece of flesh out of your body. You are embracing an entire way of going at righteousness, and it is a righteousness of performance. It is a righteousness of human effort, and and it isn't something that you can do ninety percent and be good.
It's not like in baseball, you know. If you just get, you know, you know, four out of every ten pitches, and you smack that ball, and your batting average is four hundred, people think you're a genius, man. If if you're hitting seven out of ten, man, you're you're you're you're in the baseball hall of fame, you know, ten times over, right? But in this game, in this conflict, in this war, you can't miss once. And you got to do it every single day, night and day, internally, externally.
You've got to go obey everything the law tells you. You you've got to avoid everything the law commands you. And it isn't enough to do it with your hands. You got to do it with your heart, and you can't miss once. Because the moment you miss once, the whole thing is destroyed.
You you have to be perfect. And perfection means that there is 100% compliance, 100% of the time.
So if you have been obeying for 49 years, on the first day of year 50, you have a bad thought. on On the first day of year 50, you say a bad word, you curse. On the first day of your fifty, you see a woman and you lust after her in your heart. The entire perfection is broken, and and you no longer are are innocent before the law. In fact, you are guilty, and the moment you are guilty, you come under condemnation.
You come under the condemnation of death. You say, "Wow, that that Pastor Sam, that is so harsh." Go read Romans three. That is precisely what the first twenty verses teach, and so that's what Paul has been saying here in Galatians, back in chapter three. Theologically, this is why he said, "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Why? Because nobody can keep that law like that.
Nobody. And here are these dutyizers, and they're coming to you saying, "Hey, listen, let's top off the tank here. Let's make sure you got enough juice to get to heaven. You got to get circumcision." And Paul is saying, "Don't buy that bait. Don't don't bite on that bait because the minute you swallow the bait, you're hooked, and what you're hooked to is an entire weight that crushes you because now you've embraced." A a way of righteousness that is entirely opposite, not just different.
It's entirely opposite from the one Christ gave you, and and so that's what we see in verse four. You are severed from Christ. You you have cut yourself off from Christ. Those of you who would be justified—that's a big word, right? Those of you who would be made righteous by Moses—you have severed yourself from Christ.
And so here's here's the thing I want our leaders to catch in verse four: Paul is establishing two ways of righteousness with two heads. One way is a way of earning your own righteousness by works, and the head of that system is Moses. And the other way is a is being declared righteousness, righteousness by God through faith by grace, and the head of that approach to righteousness is Christ. Let me switch all of our analogies we've been using war. We've been using athletic conflict.
Let's go to let's go to aviation. There are two planes on the tarmac. One plane is piloted by a man named Moses, and the other plane is piloted by a man named Jesus. The first plane on the side of the plane is a a big big in big letters righteousness by human effort. On the other plane is righteousness by grace, and you have to get on one of those planes.
It is impossible for you to be on both planes at the same time. And Paul has said to them, "You're not on the tarmac deciding which plane to get on. You actually are on the plane that is being piloted by Jesus, and it hasn't taken off yet." And there are people who are telling you you're on the wrong plane. You need to get off this plane. Bring all your carry-on.
Bring all the Jesus material that you got when you got on the plane. But you actually got to go on the Moses plane.
So it isn't like we just we were on the Jesus plane and we got Moses paraphernalia. Basically, Paul is saying if you go this route, you are severing yourself from Christ. You're getting off the plane. That Jesus pilots that is marked salvation by grace, righteousness by faith, and you're going over to Moses's plane, and you're getting on that plane. And the minute you get on that plane, all of the weight of the law comes crushing down on your shoulders, and because you've embraced a way of righteousness that depends on your human works in perfection.
And that's why he says at the end of verse four, "You have fallen away from grace. You got off the plane." Those are the shift in analogy, but those sort of illustrations can help us. Very helpful, but that doesn't mean you lose your salvation.
Some folks are going to jump in and say, "Well, it says you're estranged from Christ." When it says that you're fallen from grace, they want to jump in and say, "Well, isn't this Doctor Horn more like the Hebrews six, Hebrews ten?" Person that had some sense of enlightenment, but they left the faith. Like First John two nineteen, where it says they were with us, but they were not of us. Because if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
So this is like apostatizing or deserting something that never really took, isn't it? More than like losing your salvation, I think is what. Yeah, right. You're going to have that's an ongoing debate with many people, but it's it's important to understand that you know you're. If you're truly saved, you will stay in the faith.
And Paul's calling those—I guess he's appealing to those who are truly saved—to say, "Hey, test yourself." Like, like he said in two Corinthians, chapter thirteen, I believe, verse five or six. There, where he says, "Test yourself, examine yourself, to see if you're in the faith." Because these folks are flirting with poison—a little bit eleven—that's going to eleven the whole mess, the whole loaf. Like we get into later here, you know, in verse eleven and twelve. But want to make sure that distinction. I know we have a lot.
We have a lot more verses. Ages ago, we have a little bit of time, but I wanted to to throw it in there. Yeah, no, I think that's good. It'll be something that comes up. It it'll come up in this discussion, and you don't.
No, I you know completely. And so I would say this: on the first plane, on the Moses plane, there are people on that plane who have realized I can't keep this law. There's no possible way, and they started to hear about Jesus. And somehow they've been hearing about this Messiah, this Jesus of Nazareth, and they've heard people like Paul preach and teach, and Peter. I mean, it's been all through Jerusalem.
They've been hearing about this incredible message, and some of them have actually become saved, but they're still on the Moses plane. They haven't got on off. They haven't got off the plane yet. But they've come to realize this plane is not sustainable for me. And so that's what you have in Jerusalem, right?
You have a lot of Christians, genuine believers in Jerusalem, who are still living under the law. And so, some of them are saying, "If I get off the plane, before I get off the plane, I want to make sure I've told everybody on the plane, and I don't want to offend people needlessly." So, when Paul would come to Jerusalem, he would sometimes go to the temple and and not eat certain foods that that he was able to eat elsewhere.
So, I want to make sure we we make that distinction.
So, on that first plane, there are people who have come to realize this isn't going where I want to go, but they're still struggling. Struggling to get off the plane, right? On the other side, there are people on the Jesus plane, but they never really embrace Jesus. They just like the people on the plane, and they like. Hey, this is a great looking plane, and they got on the plane, but they really have not completely come to Christ.
and And I think that's who Paul is talking about here. I think that there's there's a grave danger that that there are people who have been listening in to the gospel, they've been showing up, but they haven't really come come to faith yet. And I think you said it really well. If if if you got off the plane, you are this. You are you are revealing something about yourself.
You are revealing that the gospel really never took. It really never settled in your heart. Remember how Jesus used this the the analogy of the soils, and there was a soil that was hard, and and nothing ever took. And and outward rejection, but then there was the soil that was filled with thorns and and and rocky, and the seed took in that soil, but and it and it sort of grew a little bit, and then as soon as the hard stuff hit, they were gone, and I think that's who's at risk. Galatia, right there are genuine Gentiles who've started to hey, I like this message.
You know, I'm I'm in, and now they're about to go to Moses and Paul, saying, "Look, when you do that, you've abandoned the thing that gave you life." Yeah, and the roots, where the roots were properly grounded. You know, you know the the only only one of the four soils took in Matthew 13 in that parable. You know, you have the one that fell on good ground, and and it rose up, and it produced abundant fruit. But then, the other ones were, were you know, just choked away by the cares of this world, or on the rocky ground and such. But but there's a lot of folks that get on the Jesus bandwagon, or in your case, in your analogy, the Jesus plane.
But it gets a little tough. It gets a little rough, or the old system comes in, or the Judaizers come in, and the seduction of the world and false prophecy and this cat, this this doctrine of circumcision. These Judaizers were trying to put in here, and they were trying to literally pull people away. And we don't want the devil to steal that seed. And this is what what what was potentially happening with this bewitching.
So I'm. Yeah, I just want to make that clear. It's great. To discuss, it's also great to encourage people. You know, we're trying to give people assurance of their salvation, but the greatest assurance of your salvation is your faith working through love, which is the the heart, the motivation, which is not for You are not performing for God's favor, but it's God's favor that we perform from.
You know, so the so the works of the law come out of a life that's been transformed by Jesus because we want to serve Him, and that's the faith working through love. I don't want to steal your thunder, but that's coming up in verse. I know it's coming up verse six, and then take us through the rest of it, Doctor Horn, real quick, and we can. I want to come back to one thing on this, but I want to I want to get out of your way as you are making good progress. All right.
First thing we said: context, battle. You know, athletic contest. Second thing we said was there's a command in verse one. Third thing we said was that after that command, there is personal urgent warning in verses two through four. And now in verses five through six, Paul says there's an identifying mark.
Right there's an identifying mark, and the identifying mark of a true Christian is he perseveres in the gospel. There's an identifying mark. Listen to him how he talks. Verse verse five. For through the Spirit by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
Okay, so let's let's just really quick. There's some important concepts in verse five. One of them is the word hope. Hope there is not just.
Well, I sure hope it stops raining today. Or you know, Stu, I I sure hope you have a safe trip home tomorrow. The idea here behind the word hope is confidence. We have a confident expectation, and and the confident expectation leads us to anticipate with joy something we are eagerly waiting. Right, so we have a confident expectation that produces this joyful anticipation, and what we are confident about is righteousness.
All right, there is a righteousness, and we are confident, and we are joyfully expectant that we have that righteousness because it comes through the Spirit by faith. This righteousness doesn't come Moses by works. It comes through the Spirit by faith. The Spirit of God is the one who's going to energize this. Faith is the way we access this, and it produces in us an unshakable confidence, a joyful anticipation.
That we will be righteous.
So how how do we become righteous? Verse six. For in Christ Jesus, that's how. This isn't just talking about Jesus on the cross or Jesus in the church. This is talking about us being in Christ.
When a person is in Christ, verse six. Circumcision or uncircumcision counts for nothing, right?
So when you are in Christ, whether you're circumcised as a Jew or you're uncircumcised as a Gentile matters not. Circumcision is irrelevant to people who are in Christ. What is incredibly relevant to those people is faith. That is being energized by love, and we're going to talk about love later. Like, who are we supposed to love?
Is it God? Is it Christ? Is it Moses? Is it the law? Who do we love?
And obviously, the answer is we love God. And there's no possible way you're going to love God if you don't love His Son. And if you are going to love His Son, you need to know His Son. And knowing His Son means you've got to abandon Moses, and you've got to turn away from a works-based approach, because that's what He came to end. That's what He came to put to death.
So there's a lot woven in here, right? There is this. Identifying mark, and the and the identifying mark is if you really are who you say you are as a Christian, then then you are someone who is confident and joyfully anticipating a righteousness that comes through the Spirit by faith. Because you are in Christ, you have formally identified yourself with Christ.
Now, here's what's happening: you've got some people that are coming into your midst, and they are formally identified with Moses. You've identified with Christ. They're trying to get you to switch. They're trying to get you to come and identify with Moses. You need to be.
Unified to Moses, you were baptized into Christ, right? Your baptism didn't save you, but it was the outward announcement, "Hey, I'm I'm with Christ." And these Judaizers are saying, "Well, actually, you need to do the same thing, but but the person you need to be formally identified with is Moses, and the way you do that isn't by baptism; it's through circumcision.
So all of you Gentiles have to be circumcised." And these Gentiles are going, "Oh." Okay, that's great. And Paul says, absolutely not. The minute you do that, you're embracing a whole different approach. You're getting on the wrong plane, right? The ticket that you have to have to get on the Jesus plane is faith, and the ticket that you have to have to get on the Moses plane is works.
And the evidence of both of those is baptism or circumcision. You're going to publicly identify. Which plane you're on, or which team you're playing for, or which side you're on, right? And so that's sort of the idea there. And the way you're going to actually recognize this is what faith works in you.
Faith works in you, not a bitterness, not not an arrogance, not trying to use someone, but but what faith works in you is is agape. It's love. It is living out your life in love for God and in love for your brothers in Christ, and actually in love for the with love for the lost. And chapter five is going to get into love more, as well as the chief fruit of the spirit, kind of the embodiment of all those things, the motivation. First Corinthians thirteen is the greatest of all these things, and also the Holy Spirit is becoming a central figure in all of Galatians.
And we're going to get to the Holy Spirit more. We see him here, and we're going to see him in this later as we get into the fruit of the Spirit and all this, Doctor Horn. We we got seven through twelve, and it seems as though Paul's kind of almost recapping this this question of you know who bewitched you, who hindered you, and all this. Just break those down for us real quick as we get out of here. Yeah, and so the final thing is the fourth thing here is this recognition, this public censure.
There's a public censure here that Paul gives, and and and and he's going to really call it out. And and at some point, you know, you and I are going to have to do the same thing. He's he's literally going to say in verses seven through twelve, the people that are trying to get you to be identified with Moses by embracing circumcision are hindering you from obeying the the truth. They're actually making you stumble. This persuasion is not from him who called you.
That's God. That this, what they're telling you, is not coming from God, right? No matter how much they talk about Christ or how much they talk about God, what they're telling you is not coming from the one who called you, the one who elected you. And then he says in verse nine, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. If you if you bring even a little bit of this into the church, it's going to be throughout.
You know it's it's it's it's that bad, but in verse ten he says, "I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and that the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty." What's the what's the penalty?
Well, way back in in chapter one he said, "If somebody comes with another gospel, I don't care if it's an angel from heaven, let him be accursed." He's saying, "I'm confident." That that that you will not buy into their message, and I'm also confident that God is going to curse them for trying to destroy you. That's really strong. I'm confident that you will remain faithful, and I'm also confident that they are under condemnation. But if Ibro, and here's the evidence, if Ibrothers still preach circumcision. Why am I still being persecuted?
In other words, they're coming to you and saying, "Hey, we're just like Paul, you know, Paul. We agree with Paul, and we're just saying." That if you follow what Paul told you, we're just coming along. Going, you just need to add Moses, and Paul said, "Look, if that's really all that was going on here, why are they still persecuting me? Why are these people talking the way they talk about me? Why are they stirring up people against me?
Why, why are, why am I still being persecuted?" Um, in that case, the Offense of the cross has been removed. In other words, if I were really preaching what they are saying I'm preaching, and they're just adding Moses, then number one, the thing they are offended at, the cross, wouldn't be an issue anymore, and number two, they wouldn't still be persecuting me.
So these people aren't just innocent, passionate, misguided Christians; they're liars. They're actually intentionally deceiving you, and they're appearing to you a certain way. But let me tell you what my experience with them is: they persecute me, they resist me, they are deeply offended at the cross by grace alone, through faith alone, in the finished work of Christ alone, and and so. You you need to know this, right? And there is this incredible statement.
I wish, I wish. This is a sort of an imprecatory prayer. You know, we have psalms that are imprecatory prayers. I I wish that those who are unsettling you from the gospel. Would emasculate themselves.
He's like saying they are wanting to circumcise you. I wish they would completely emasculate themselves. You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's that. Paul, you are over the line.
Okay, can I just put maybe an idea of what Paul was saying? Paul considers. These Galatians, his sons and daughters in the faith, they are his sons and daughters in the faith. They were born out of his witness, right? They're sons and daughters of God, but but they're also his.
Paul he talks about Timothy being his son in the faith, right?
So I birthed you. I was the birthing agent, and and now we have other birthing agents coming, and they want to birth people into Moses. I wish they would emasculate themselves spiritually, so that there was no possible way that anybody would be born into Moses through them. I think that's what he's saying here. I don't think this is Paul being crude.
I don't think this is Paul just losing his temper and and sort of speaking in an inappropriate way. I think he's really saying this is about being birthed into the family of God. I was a birthing agent, and these. People are birthing agents, but they want to birth you into a whole different way of life, and it's Moses. And I wish they would lose their ability to birth people.
I think that's what he's saying. I like that approach. Very strong. A very strong warning. Yeah, I think.
I think, and he says something similar, you know, in Philippians three. But you know, Doctor Horan, R.C. Sproul, and I sent his sermon to all of our leaders. I'll be sending that in their email. R.C.
Sproul really goes deeper on circumcision.
Now we went deeper on circumcision a couple chapters ago. You know when we were getting into the whole thing and you know Paul going to you know in two, three of chapter of Galatians, Paul says, hey, they did not require Titus to be circumcised. That's a big deal. You know they're they're basically saying, hey, this is not what saves you. But Doctor Sproul talks about the the the the beauty of circumcision and the the actual you know.
Procedure, which I won't go graphic on here, was to say, "Hey, this people, Abraham's descendants, are set apart for me. They're different." And it's it's an an anatomy. It's a it's a it's a surgical. It's a it's you know a painful. But it is a it's you know there's yeah there there hygienic benefits to it.
Sure, right. But that's not the main point. The emphasis was these are my people set apart.
So it was a good thing to say this is a distinct people. This is a sign of the covenant with God. But it can be turned into a bad thing. What's interesting is, is the cut off language, scroll, brilliantly takes us to Calvary, where Jesus, who was circumcised, Jesus, who was Jewish, Jesus, who was born under the law, Galatians four four, Jesus was cut off from the Father. He was spiritually cut off and forsaken.
So we, and so we could be accepted, and so Gentiles like me could be grafted in by grace, not by works.
So these Judaizers were trying to go in and and perniciously unravel and rework the whole plan. With this, with this doctor surgery, anyway, that's a little sidebar. You, you're landing the plane, but and I want to interject one more thing before before we're done. But go ahead.
Well, so just yeah, just to kind of wrap it up in an application, and then you come back and you know make make your point. But I want to go off what you said.
So, and and I just want to be really clear. Paul was not angry at individual Jews. Who who were just trying to figure it out. That's not who he's going after here. He's going after the Judaizers, the leaders, the teachers, who were trying to birth people into a whole different approach.
And they talked about a lot of the same things. Paul talked about the Messiah. And they were willing to talk about the Messiah, right? He talked about righteousness. They were willing to talk about righteousness.
He talked about grace. They were willing to talk about grace. He talked about the scriptures. He quoted the scriptures. They quoted the same scriptures.
So they, they. I mean, if you just looked at them, you might be as as a Galatian, you might be going, well, actually, there's a lot of common ground here. I don't know what the big deal is. And Paul says, "Let me tell you the big deal. The big deal is that when you buy into them, you are buying into a way to righteousness that God actually condemns, and and you and they are leading you into a path that is going to lead you down to hell.
And and so here's one of the applications." If I am listening to those kinds of teachers today, who might they be? who Who would be the modern day Judaizers who talk about Jesus? They talk about holiness. They talk about faith. They talk about God's love.
They talk about God's grace. Who would some of those people be? It's really okay as long as we keep it in Galacia two thousand years ago. But the minute we bring it forward two thousand plus years into our day, and we start asking that question, that's when everybody goes quiet, including the leaders, me and people like me. We don't want to name people.
It's like, well, I, you know, let's just keep it. Let's just keep it to Galatia. Pastor Sam, you made a good point. Love what you're saying, Amen. But let's not.
Let's just be careful. And and so, what are you going to say about a Roman Catholic system? I'm not talking about individual people in the Roman Catholic Church who may have come to Christ, who love God, and are just trying to do their best, and they haven't seen fully. Why it's a problem? I'm talking about the system itself.
I'm talking about the doctors of the law who who articulate the doctrine of the church and teach it to all of the people in that system. I I think Paul would look at them and say, "You're Judaizers." What about what about Mormons? Who who have a lot of the same values we have? Hey, we shouldn't be killing the unborn. Hey, you know what?
We should vote a certain way at the poll. Hey, you know what? Righteousness exalts a nation. Hey, you know what? We should have good family values.
We should be faithful to our wives. But when you go into the system and you see how a person who's made righteous, I think Paul would look at all of that and say you're Judaizers. What about Jehovah's Witnesses? I mean, just let's just get honest. What about people who would say, "Look, I pray to the same God you pray to." I mean, I was watching the election results, and in Michigan, you have this senator now who who stood up in front on national television and said, "Let's pray this way.
Let's pray in salah. Let let's pray to Allah." And and and no Christian should pray to Allah. No Christian should pray to Allah. Allah is not the God. Bible, he's just not.
If you listen to to who Allah really is according to the Muslims, he does not have a son. He is not a Trinity. In fact, when you go into the great dome that stands up on the Mount on the Temple Mount today, and you go inside and you look up in that dome, in Arabic on the on that dome are the words "Do not say God has a son." Yeah.
So that is not the God of the Bible. That is not the God of Abraham. That is not the God of Isaac. That is not the God of Jacob. But if somebody like me actually says that in public, We get excoriated.
How could you say that they're not praying to the same God you pray? And the answer is, go look at their theology. That's what Paul is actually. You got to dig deeper. Yeah, a lot of these, a lot of these politicians are going into pastors are going into churches and running for office that deny the gospel that are completely gone rogue.
And I have, I have Christian friends I go to church with. On their Facebook, saying, "Oh, what a beautiful, beautiful message! This pastor from Kansas, who just won the Senate office, Senator Hamilton, he came out talking about we should help the helpless. That's the golden rule. We got to get back to the Bible in Washington, but he is for." Executing unborn babies, murder, abortion.
He's for he's for marrying. He's for he's for all these anti biblical things. It's like don't don't. We got to have a little radar here. And Paul's trying to get the Galatian Christians to put a little radar on.
I need any doc.
So people like me and you, this is this is who Paul's talking to in Galatian. He's saying, first of all, you got to be bold enough. That's why I love this passage because he says, "I Paul." I'm, I'm going on record. I, Paul, I'm saying to you, and so at some point, I, Sam, and I, Stu, and I, whoever your name is, we're going to have to go on record, and we're going to have to identify in our culture who these duty eyesers are. We're going to have to look at God's people and say, "Do not pray to Allah." Do not go to Roman Catholicism.
Do not go to Greek Orthodoxy. Do not go to Mormonism. Do not go to Jehovah's Witnesses. Why?
Well, they talk about Jesus. They talk about grace. They are actually trying to get you to identify with a system that is damning people. That's right, and they are under that condemnation. That that's what Paul is actually saying about the.
And we'll see more of that next week with the the folks that push on the antinomy and the license side too.
So we got to say that to our people. We got to be bold, and that's the first thing. And then here's the second one: I'll be quiet. We also have to look at those systems and be bold to rebuke them. In other words, we've got a we've got willing to identify ourselves the way Paul did.
And the minute we're going to do that, immediately we're going to be marginalized. Immediately we're going to come under persecution. Immediately we're going to get rejected. The way Paul was, Paul says, "Look, if we're all if we're really saying the same thing, and it's just a difference of opinion, why am I being persecuted? Why are you guys coming after me?" The reason I'm coming after you is because I actually believe there's a difference.
I'm coming after you with integrity because I think there's a difference. But if you're saying there really isn't a difference and it's the same God, then why are you coming after me? Right, it doesn't. It doesn't line up. Your conduct doesn't line up with your claim.
You're coming after me because you know there's a difference, right? And you're on the wrong side of that difference. Yeah. And so that's really sort of a stunning thing, Stu. And and I'll I'll leave it there.
But I think out of a passage like this, and if I'm listening to Paul, I'm like, I sure want to make sure I'm remaining true to the gospel.
Well, verse twelve is it? Yes, sir. Yeah, verse twelve is a rebuke and it's a conviction. And I hope every pastor will memorize that verse. I hope every pastor.
I'm thinking of a nice flowery pastor who says some wonderful things. On everyone picks on him on TV. Millions and billions of dollars go into his ministry. I just want to say to him, sir, just talk about the cross one time. Talk about the cross.
Talk about the wrath of God that came down on the Son of God. Talk about sin and the payment He played. Please, Paul says, I'll boast only in the cross. Paul says the offense of the cross is is is not even relevant with the false gospels. And if there's no offense to my, if I'm not preaching a Christ crucified, and there's no offense, not I'm not talking about being offensive in how I preach and yelling at people and throwing things at people.
No, I'm not smacking someone with my King James Bible saying repent. No, but if I'm not presenting the whole counsel of God, what Jesus Christ did on that cross, I am deceiving and misleading. And there is no offense to the cross, and I'm not, you know, I'm not persecuted. How many pastors are persecuted today for really standing up for Christ? I know a bunch of pastors in the Middle East.
Probably one will be executed today for preaching Christ and Him crucified, Doctor Horn. You know, so verse twelve, I think, is absolutely perennial. Yeah, to your point, Stu, and I use the ESP, so I'm not banging anybody with a king jave.
So, but you know, I think I know you're talking about this this pastor that is so popular with with literally one of many. He's one of many. One of many, and and and and I'm just going to say, when when you buy into that, you know, whether it's in Houston or or wherever, if you buy into that. You are you are buying into a gospel that will not save. Yeah, it is a gospel that plays really well in today's world.
It's like you know what God is for you. You haven't had your God moment yet. You haven't had your faith moment yet. Boy, you add enough Jesus into any situation, and he makes it better. And that isn't a gospel that saves, right?
That that that's in essence just a gospel that makes you feel good. Right? There's no offense, and there's no there's no life change because that there it took it took a real savior to die on a real cross to shed real blood. To to save a real sinner like me, and if we don't if we don't go to that, that is the gospel. And the Galatian church was being beguiled by another gospel, and we'll see even more of that next time.
That's the essence. Just to put just to put it honestly, I mean the the gospel that Paul preached and the gospel that Jesus announced actually makes your life really hard for about seventy years. Right, it makes your life really, really hard for seventy years, and then you get an eternity of amazing blessing. Right, but for seventy years, that little journey from where you are to where God is is hard. You're going to have to sanctify.
You're going to have to put a lot of things to death in your life. You are going to suffer immensely. This is going to and and and Jesus is not at all shy about telling you this. He says, if you lay down your life, you know, if you if you want to live, you have to die, and and so uses that terminology where where people are like, oh, you don't you want to get out all of that? Add a little Jesus in, and Paul saying that is not the gospel that Jesus announced.
It's not the gospel I'm preaching. You just met a Judaizer. And so, stay away from that. Stay away from that, and and don't go there. Embrace a life of hardship.
Paul says, "You want to know the image of of the Christian life? It's being a good soldier, right? Enduring hardness. You know what?" These these Judaizers are saying you don't have to endure hardness. Hey, you could be great.
All you got to do is be circumcised. Hey, you don't have to suffer in this world. You could have a lot of money. You you you just bring Jesus in, give him a little seat at the table. You don't have to let him drive.
Just let him let him in. Get three dollars worth of God, and man, your whole life's gonna be better, right? And it's a complete. Opposite gospel, and people are sucking that in because man, they just get hooked with this guy who stands up and he's nice and he's got a million dollar smile and he starts with a joke and he makes you laugh and he's done in twenty minutes. Yeah.
So, so Dr. Horn, I want to, you know, analogous to circumcision in the Old Testament is baptism in the New Testament. Again, both have, you know, one was a sign of the covenant for the Jewish people. One is a sign of the a powerful demonstration of the covenant of salvation that Christ, the new covenant, Christ and the cross. But it's the order that you put it in.
If you if you say baptism saves you, Roman Catholic catechism says unless you go through the waters of baptism, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
So if a if a if a Catholic baby is stillborn, they got to rush holy water to put on that baby so the baby goes to heaven. I mean, it's it's it's just it's just not scriptural. And Paul is, you know, he's he's. Taking us to grace, he's taking us to gospel, and it's important that that we nail this down. This is one of those things.
It's important that we stand fast in the freedom that Christ has made us free, and we don't get entangled again.
Well, I think that's why it's so important to make sure we understand Paul, and what Paul's saying is this. Circumcision and baptism are being are being used as symbols for an entire approach to righteousness.
So it wasn't like the Jew thought circumcision saved you. The Jew thought keeping the law saved you. But what symbolized all of that, you know, how you identified with that whole approach to being made righteous—that I'm going to earn it by keeping the law—sort of the the way you publicly identified as somebody who believed that was by being circumcised. Christianity, the gospel of Jesus, says no. The only way that you're going to be made right is for God to declare you righteous, not by works but by faith.
And the way you publicly identified that you actually had believed that, and you actually had repented of your sins and turned away from your own self-effort, was through your baptism. Paul didn't believe Jesus didn't teach that baptism saved you. Baptism was the way you identified with an approach to salvation that Jesus announced. It's how you identified. Hey, I am pursuing righteousness by faith, not by works.
If you were a Gentile and you were like, I want to pursue righteousness by works, I'm going to go into that system. The way that you announced that was by your circumcision.
So, these two things were actually symbolic of two different approaches.
So, when the when the Catholic Church says, "Hey, if you want to get to heaven, you've got to participate. You've got to do works to get there. The first work you've got to do is baptism. That's why you baptize infants." Because it's the work that gets you in, whereas in in an evangelical church that believes the gospel, you don't baptize infants. You baptize genuine believers who have already done that, and so that that's an essence what I think is at stake here when we talk about baptism.
Yeah, very good. Doc, pray us out of here, and just, just, I just am so encouraged that these are, these are, this is important. It's tough stuff, but it's important in these last days to stand firm in the gospel and what Jesus Christ has done, and and get you know not. To push this, this blended or this assimilated or this worldly version of it, either on the prosperity side, the legalism side, and there's more to come as we get into next time, as we get into anti-nomianism. But yes, sir.
Thank you. Very good. Lord, bless us and bless our leaders. Lord, this has been very, very encouraging in in one sense, but very directed another. And all we've tried to do is reflect what Paul actually said, not not what we wish he had said, or or how we might have said it.
Lord, you inspired him to say it this way, and we just tried to be faithful to that. And I pray you'd help our leaders to sense our hearts. Lord, I I know that perhaps in their Bible studies would be people, and this would would be really really difficult for them, and so Lord, I pray that you would give help and strength and and grace. And we'll ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you, Dr.
Horn, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at WedInTheWord dot com. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and all social media, including Instagram. And be encouraged. Stay in the Word.
Read it. Share it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on God's word. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Proverbs thirty verse five.
