Galatians chapter 5 and verse
7. Ye did run well. Who did hinder
you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh
not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump. I have confidence in you through
the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded, but he that
troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offence
of the cross ceased. I would they were even cut off
which trouble you. For brethren, ye have been called
unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,
but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled
in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one
another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. Amen, may the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. The apostle has clearly spoken
about the true and singular source of a believer's righteousness. It comes from God. It comes as
a free gift. or as Paul describes it, it comes
by promise. It is experienced by faith. Faith isn't the cause of our
justifications, our justification, but it is the means or the vehicle,
the channel, if you like, by which our justification, our
righteousness in God's sight is discovered, to our awareness,
our consciousness, and enjoyed in our lives. Now, the enemies
of the gospel had been troubling the Galatians by spreading error
and teaching false doctrine concerning justification. That's not an
unusual thing. In fact, it is probably one of
the most significant attacks that there has been in the church
in all ages. is questioning the grounds of
a believer's justification, where our righteousness comes from.
But these enemies of the truth, they claimed that obedience to
the law must be added to the work of the Saviour, so that
between Christ's sacrifice and our good works, acceptance and
God's blessing would be secured. And it's this that the apostle
is vigorously denying in this little epistle. Our righteousness,
he tells the Galatians and he tells us, comes not from our
works but from Christ's sacrifice on the cross. It flows from God's
covenant love and grace and it is given by imputation and enjoyed
by faith. It's perfect and complete. It
can't be added to, it can't be augmented. It can't be traded,
it can't be lost. It's an acceptable righteousness
that is fit for purpose and suitable to a sinner's need. And once
given, it will never be withdrawn or taken away. And the Galatians
knew this. This was the gospel that Paul
had preached to them and it is what they had professed to believe
in his presence. They'd heard the truth. They'd
testified that they believed it. And Paul says, you ran well,
you started out well. but someone has hindered your
progress in the faith and someone has confused you. Now while the Galatians were
to be blamed for being foolish in this matter, a greater culpability
and more guilt rests with the troublemakers amongst them. And
this is the first point. I've got a couple of points I
want to leave with you again today, but this is the first
one. The greater responsibility lay upon the shoulders of the
man in the pulpit. It was, the Galatians were culpable,
they were blameable to that degree. They shouldn't have been listening
to these people. They should have known better. But the man
in the pulpit was the one who had misled them. And the Galatians
had allowed themselves to be persuaded contrary to what Paul
had taught them. They had been hindered in their
faith and they had been infected with error. And that error, says
Paul, is now spreading like leaven in the dough. So that what once
was a sweet testimony to God's grace and to Christ's preeminence
in salvation, had degenerated into works righteousness and
it had diminished the value of the Lord's work on the cross. That's how serious this was.
You know, people say, well it's only about godly living, it's
only about us endeavouring to live in a God-honouring way.
Paul understood that such was the confusion in the minds of
these people because there hadn't been that distinct separation
made that this doctrine was going to be a continual problem to
the Galatians. This doctrine had left a sour
taste in Paul's mouth, and the apostle calls out the troublers
of this little flock, these Galatian churches. And this is what he
says. He that troubleth you shall bear
his judgment, whosoever he be. And let us note that. There is
a heavy burden lies on the shoulders of anyone who presumes to teach
about the things of God and the gospel of Christ and teaches
it wrong. Paul speaks to the Romans and
says, how shall they hear without a preacher? But he goes on to
say, how shall they preach except they be sent? And there are those
who run unsent. There are those who enter pulpits,
who take that responsibility, who perhaps go through a denominational
course or a college or whatever and they become established and
they have never learned the gospel themselves. And how, well the
Lord spoke of such men, didn't he? He spoke critically of the
blind, leaders of the blind. But how can a person who does
not know the gospel endeavour to preach the gospel?
And I fear that much of what passes today as sermons in Christian
churches is little more than that works religion that Paul
was contending against here amongst the Galatians. And nor should
anyone imagine that preaching a nearly gospel is preaching
the gospel. Paul's emphasised this in the
opening. He called the opening few verses
of the book, he speaks about it's not a gospel, it's another
gospel, which isn't a gospel at all. A nearly gospel is no
gospel. And this is why the Apostle is
so emphatic about this matter. He sees where this is heading
for the Galatians. He sees that the leaving of error
will spread and that free grace preaching and imputed righteousness
can't be modified without altering the whole nature of the Gospel. And once that invasion of error
has occurred, It will spread throughout the ministry, it will
spread throughout the church, it will spread throughout the
doctrine until it has infected everything. Every other doctrine
will be modified and changed as a result of error upon this
matter. And Paul says about these people
of whom he says, he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment whosoever
he be. He goes on to say, I would, I
would they were even cut off which trouble you. Now this is
the seriousness with which he views this matter. Now he could
mean that he wishes that they would be cut off from fellowship
by the Galatian believers, that they should be put out. Or he
could mean that they should be cut off from speaking. They shouldn't
be allowed to bring their false doctrine. They should not be
listened to, either inside or outside of the church. He could
mean that they should be cut off from influencing the churches
at all. He could even mean that they
should be cut off from life itself. Either way, by one means or another,
he wants these people silenced because he knows the harm that
they're doing to the souls of impressionable hearers. And anyone
who messes with the Lord's little flock ought to be aware that
they tread on dangerous ground. Here's another thing that I want
to just mention from this passage. Another strand of what these
Judaizers were doing, they were infecting the church with their
works righteousness errors, but they were also endeavouring to
malign the Apostle Paul's character. And another strand was the false
allegations that they were making against Paul. And it seems as
if they were telling the Galatians that, well, Paul practices and
Paul preaches circumcision. They were telling the Galatians
that Paul, as a Jew, acted like a Jew and they should as well. And it's possible that they found
ammunition for their argument in the fact that Paul had circumcised
Timothy. And that was true. We read about
it in Acts chapter 16. But it wasn't for the reasons
implied by the Judaizers. Paul had circumcised Timothy
because it wasn't a matter of principle with the apostle. It
was a matter of expediency. He did it for practical reasons. Paul knew that Timothy had been
called to preach. And he also knew that the Jews
would not permit an uncircumcised person, an uncircumcised man
to speak in their synagogues. So that circumcising Timothy
was not in any sense to obtain righteousness or gain God's approval
or in some way give a nod to the continuing role of the law
in the life of a believer for righteousness and justification,
which is what the Judaizers were suggesting, but it was a means
in order to get this young man accepted as a preacher in the
towns and cities to which the apostle travelled on his missionary
journeys. And here we see just how perfectly
valid actions can be twisted and misrepresented when it suits
and serves somebody's purpose. So in order to counter that argument,
the Apostle Paul points out that if he were pro-circumcision,
as these Judaizers were suggesting, if he was pro the law, as they
were telling the Galatians, then why did the Jews all through
the regions in which Paul preached continue to persecute him? Rather, he says, I'm persecuted
because I am preaching salvation by the death of Christ. It's
because I am wholly preaching salvation by the death of Christ
that these Jews are offended because they know that salvation
by Christ excludes the works and gives all the glory to the
Saviour. It was Jesus whom their leaders,
whom they and their leaders had crucified. And this was the offence
of the cross that the apostle refers to here. The offence of
the cross, the Jews hated the cross, well hated the cross,
the Jews despised the cross as a way of execution. That's why
there's significance in the fact that the Romans were the occupiers
of Israel at the time when the Lord Jesus Christ came. Otherwise,
as indeed the Jews endeavoured to do on several occasions, they
would have stoned him to death. Judicially, they would have stoned
him. but Christ had to be hung on the cross because cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree and that was the significance
of the curse that fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ. So it all
came together. I nearly said it all hangs together. But it all came together. But that's not what the offence
of the cross was. It wasn't that they were offended
by someone hanging. Rather, What offended them was
that the gospel taught salvation to be obtained only by the death
of Christ on the cross and they could not stomach that. It's
what Peter had preached in Acts chapter 4 when that lame man
had been healed. Peter stood up before the Sanhedrin
and he said, be it known unto you all and to all the people
of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom
ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even By him doth
this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which
was set at nought of you builders, which has become the head of
the corner. And then he goes on to say, and
this is the line really I suppose I've been setting the scene,
neither is there salvation in any other. for there is none
other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be
saved. Neither is there salvation in
any other. That is the offence of the cross. It was true in Peter's day, it
was true in Paul's day and it is true today. It is the offence
of the cross that there is salvation in no other way than in the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the substitutional death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the apostle goes on to remind
these brethren that they had been called to liberty. That's
how he had started this whole section in chapter five, verse
one. And he calls them brethren because
he retained a hope for their recovery in this situation. A hope, it seems, that the Lord
himself had laid upon the apostle's mind. They had been called by
God's spirit From death to life, they had been called by the gospel
of free grace that the apostle had preached amongst them. And
they had been called to enjoy liberty from the law, from works
righteousness, and from all forms of slavish obedience in order
to gain God's approval. They were free in Christ. They
were free to follow the Lord. They were free to emulate his
life and copy his example. And the apostle says, don't use
your freedom wrongly. Don't use your freedom to indulge
your flesh. Love the brethren, love your
fellow believers. This is a better law. Believers,
Christians are not lawless. but we are conformed to Christ
and desirous of serving him and serving his church. We are the
servants of the Lord and we are under authority to our King. We love one another because of
God's gracious calling and Christ's love to us. These have been ministered
to us and we're free to minister them to one another. This is
gospel service. This is the practice to which
we've been called so that loving our neighbour, especially our
fellow believers, though not to the exclusion of others, is
our high privilege as Christ's people in this world. The alternative
is hurting the gospel ministry and distressing one another by
tolerating false doctrine, by tolerating false teachers and
by failing to care for one another within the body of Christ. If
such things as these prevail, We should not be surprised if
the Lord comes and brings a rod to chasten his own people, to
turn us around and enforce conformity to his way and pattern. May God
grant us daily grace to stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free. Amen.