Galatians 5:4, 10, 12
You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.
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Paul is really in attack mode here. You have been severed from Christ, fallen from grace! “I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.” All this just because they are trying to get folks to keep the law? Don’t do this, don’t touch that, don’t go there, be sure you do this and do that. What’s wrong with getting people to “clean up their act”?
Paul clearly condemns sin but never uses such harsh words to assault adulterers, homosexuals or murderers. What is the big deal? Folks who are into the law teach Jesus is the means for salvation, they just add a couple of provisos. Jesus PLUS. Certainly, if Jesus is good, then Jesus PLUS has to be better or, as advertisers say it, “new and improved”. The new and improved Jesus.
Oops, I think that may be the problem. Keeping the law as an element of salvation is me trying to improve upon God’s work. It is me saying “Thanks, Jesus, for that cross thing. It gave me a good start but I’ll take it from here. Your death and resurrection was nice but not enough. Now it is important that I do this, don’t do that, etc, so I can stay saved.” What an insult to God!
Jesus plus anything else, no matter how good the anything, is to fall from grace and crawl back under bondage to our old sin nature.
Are you mature enough to understand this or do you find such liberty frightening? The law is for lawbreakers not for those who love God and choose to live worthy of their calling as His children.
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Galatians 2:19,21
For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. … for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
This is an encore repost