Ever since the Fall of man, humans have wanted to feel as though they had some control over their own destinies. Perhaps it's an instinctive effort to try to recapture the glory that was ours before the Fall...I don't really know.
God's ultimate desire for mankind was to be in relationship with us. Not like automatons but by choice, on both sides. The Fall ruined that. So God looked for those whose hearts would be toward Him, and when the time was right He instituted the Law. The law was designed to show people that there was no way they could be perfect enough to earn God's love, God's attention. It drove those who sought Him (like King David, for example) to look to Him as the source of power for their lives. The Law's rituals were foreshadowings of the greater plan that He had for us: a way for us to enter into intimate relationship with Him. That Way was Jesus. All the sacrifices at the Temple, all the religious feasts, all the fasts, the offerings, the cleansing rituals, all of these spoke in some way of the coming of Messiah, through which all men would have the opportunity to enter into relationship with God.
When Jesus finally came and walked the roads of Galilee, the disciples of John the Baptist asked Jesus why His disciples didn't fast or observe any of the religious disciplines they did. Jesus asked them why the bride would fast and be sad when the bridegroom was with her. Rather, she would celebrate because he had arrived. At another time, He said that He came to fulfill the Law. He was the answer that people were looking forward to, the solution to their problem of not being able to keep the whole Law. He Himself was the completion of the Law. The need for that system of dos and don'ts had been done away with. Jesus' kingdom was of the heart. When He said, "It is finished!" He meant "It is accomplished!" It was a business term. It was a "done deal."
But people still didn't get it. In the early church, Paul had to confront Peter because he was telling the Jewish Christians that they still had to obey Moses' law, that they had to be circumcised, that they had to observe the new moons and the feasts. Paul withstood him, and in no uncertain terms told him that he was wrong to ask them to continue to be in bondage to a religious system. Peter repented.
And then there were the Galatians. Oh, the foolish Galatians. These were Gentiles who were saved under Paul's ministry. Their error was that they subscribed to the theology of the Nicolaitans (which Jesus said He hated - see the letters to the churches in Revelation). This theology says that one must be saved, yes, and then one must observe the Jewish religious rituals God set out in the Law: circumcision, tithing, sacrifices, offerings, and feasts. Paul argued that the need for those things had passed and that in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. He said that these were fleshly efforts to earn God's favor when He already favored us to the ultimate degree in Jesus Christ. He even went so far as to call this "Jesus plus" doctrine "Falling from Grace."
OUCH.
I remember seeing a drawing one time of a bride hugging and kissing a portrait of her beloved - quite touching, actually! However, it also symbolized for me what the Galatians were doing. They already had Jesus as their bridegroom, He loved them and gave Himself as their dowry; they didn't need to do anything to merit it, He had done it all. He'd already come into their hearts and they were in a relationship with Him. What they were doing was like a bride taking her new husband's picture, the one she used to remind herself of him before he was with her, along with her on her honeymoon and spending time only with the picture, kissing it, stroking it as though it were him. Kind of pathetic, isn't it. So here they were observing the new moons, the rituals, the feasts, the dietary laws, the over six hundred laws that were written down - when all they needed was Jesus.
We're not all that different from them. Jesus can't possibly love us more or bless us more than He already has in HIM. It's HIS presence (His face) He wants us to crave. Not His blessings (His hands). They only come as an accompaniment to spending time with Him, focusing on Him. Not what everyone else is doing, not how they do things in mega-churches, not how successful this program or that methodology is, not even "trying" to be good and to live a righteous life (this automatically comes the more time we spend with Him!!) We are so incredibly bound up in the lie that satan has fed us for so long - that what God has provided for us isn't enough. That we have to add to it. That we can make our lives better, make God listen to us more, or get more blessing just by doing this thing or that thing. It's all a bunch of crock - straight from the pit of hell. Christianity isn't about us or our blessing. It's about Him, relationship and intimacy with Him, His power to transform, His sufficiency when we're weak.
His grace.
The poor Galatians were selling themselves - and God - short. They were robbing themselves of the super-abounding joy of knowing Him...which, when Paul talked about it, was worth more than all the credentials he held as a Pharisee - someone who had observed all the laws, feasts, moons, and offerings - religiously. He knew better than anyone the emptiness of that kind of life, the bondage it entailed. He didn't want that for them; he wanted them to know the joy of growing deeper and deeper in their intimacy with God through the only Way possible: Jesus.
Anything added to that perfection only ruins it.
God's ultimate desire for mankind was to be in relationship with us. Not like automatons but by choice, on both sides. The Fall ruined that. So God looked for those whose hearts would be toward Him, and when the time was right He instituted the Law. The law was designed to show people that there was no way they could be perfect enough to earn God's love, God's attention. It drove those who sought Him (like King David, for example) to look to Him as the source of power for their lives. The Law's rituals were foreshadowings of the greater plan that He had for us: a way for us to enter into intimate relationship with Him. That Way was Jesus. All the sacrifices at the Temple, all the religious feasts, all the fasts, the offerings, the cleansing rituals, all of these spoke in some way of the coming of Messiah, through which all men would have the opportunity to enter into relationship with God.
When Jesus finally came and walked the roads of Galilee, the disciples of John the Baptist asked Jesus why His disciples didn't fast or observe any of the religious disciplines they did. Jesus asked them why the bride would fast and be sad when the bridegroom was with her. Rather, she would celebrate because he had arrived. At another time, He said that He came to fulfill the Law. He was the answer that people were looking forward to, the solution to their problem of not being able to keep the whole Law. He Himself was the completion of the Law. The need for that system of dos and don'ts had been done away with. Jesus' kingdom was of the heart. When He said, "It is finished!" He meant "It is accomplished!" It was a business term. It was a "done deal."
But people still didn't get it. In the early church, Paul had to confront Peter because he was telling the Jewish Christians that they still had to obey Moses' law, that they had to be circumcised, that they had to observe the new moons and the feasts. Paul withstood him, and in no uncertain terms told him that he was wrong to ask them to continue to be in bondage to a religious system. Peter repented.
And then there were the Galatians. Oh, the foolish Galatians. These were Gentiles who were saved under Paul's ministry. Their error was that they subscribed to the theology of the Nicolaitans (which Jesus said He hated - see the letters to the churches in Revelation). This theology says that one must be saved, yes, and then one must observe the Jewish religious rituals God set out in the Law: circumcision, tithing, sacrifices, offerings, and feasts. Paul argued that the need for those things had passed and that in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. He said that these were fleshly efforts to earn God's favor when He already favored us to the ultimate degree in Jesus Christ. He even went so far as to call this "Jesus plus" doctrine "Falling from Grace."
OUCH.
I remember seeing a drawing one time of a bride hugging and kissing a portrait of her beloved - quite touching, actually! However, it also symbolized for me what the Galatians were doing. They already had Jesus as their bridegroom, He loved them and gave Himself as their dowry; they didn't need to do anything to merit it, He had done it all. He'd already come into their hearts and they were in a relationship with Him. What they were doing was like a bride taking her new husband's picture, the one she used to remind herself of him before he was with her, along with her on her honeymoon and spending time only with the picture, kissing it, stroking it as though it were him. Kind of pathetic, isn't it. So here they were observing the new moons, the rituals, the feasts, the dietary laws, the over six hundred laws that were written down - when all they needed was Jesus.
We're not all that different from them. Jesus can't possibly love us more or bless us more than He already has in HIM. It's HIS presence (His face) He wants us to crave. Not His blessings (His hands). They only come as an accompaniment to spending time with Him, focusing on Him. Not what everyone else is doing, not how they do things in mega-churches, not how successful this program or that methodology is, not even "trying" to be good and to live a righteous life (this automatically comes the more time we spend with Him!!) We are so incredibly bound up in the lie that satan has fed us for so long - that what God has provided for us isn't enough. That we have to add to it. That we can make our lives better, make God listen to us more, or get more blessing just by doing this thing or that thing. It's all a bunch of crock - straight from the pit of hell. Christianity isn't about us or our blessing. It's about Him, relationship and intimacy with Him, His power to transform, His sufficiency when we're weak.
His grace.
The poor Galatians were selling themselves - and God - short. They were robbing themselves of the super-abounding joy of knowing Him...which, when Paul talked about it, was worth more than all the credentials he held as a Pharisee - someone who had observed all the laws, feasts, moons, and offerings - religiously. He knew better than anyone the emptiness of that kind of life, the bondage it entailed. He didn't want that for them; he wanted them to know the joy of growing deeper and deeper in their intimacy with God through the only Way possible: Jesus.
Anything added to that perfection only ruins it.
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