Devotionary

Can we have too little faith? Is faith something we have to manufacture or muster up in order to be saved? All of these questions will be answered by what Paul has to say in these verses. And the bottom line will be that faith does not come from us, but from God. In fact, faith is a gift given to us from God in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ. Faith isn’t something we manufacture. It’s someone we receive.

For generations, the Jews had understood the law of Moses to be the means by which they gained approval by God. Obedience brought blessing. Disobedience brought God’s curses. But they had failed to recognize that what God really wanted was a relationship with men. It was their sin that made that difficult. And no amount of law-keeping and rule-following seemed to help, because they always failed. But God’s solution for their problem came in the form of a promise: His own Son.

Paul is going to dig deeper into the contrast between faith and works. He is going to hammer home his strong, unwavering assertion that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, with nothing else whatsoever required. In fact, even after salvation, works do not suddenly become the barometer by which God measures our degree of faith. His love for us doesn’t waver based on the quality or quantity of our works.

The problem Paul had was that Peter’s actions had given credence to the false teaching of the Judaizers. His reluctance to eat with uncircumcised Gentiles was sending not only a bad message, but a wrong one. And Paul would have nothing to do with it. He could care less that Peter was one of the original disciples and a member of Jesus’ inner circle. What he had done was wrong and had contradicted the message of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone that Paul had so faithfully preached.

For Paul, the good news of Jesus Christ was not just one more way for men to be made right with God, it was the ONLY way. The truth regarding man’s sin and God solution for it are to be found only in Christ. Any other offer of salvation is false. Any other means of achieving a right standing with God is a lie. Jesus is not one of many options. He is the way, the truth and the life. And nobody comes to the Father except through Him.

One of the things Paul was facing was the growing threat of false gospel messages confusing the believers in Galatia and leaving them wondering about the reality of their faith. Paul had a vested interest in the people who made up the churches in Galatia and was not going to stand by and watch them led astray by those who were preaching another gospel. God had chosen him to take the message of Good News to the Gentiles and he was not about to allow anyone or anything stand in his way.

Paul is going to express his shock at the news that the Galatians believers have been deserting the gospel for a different one. And he makes it quite clear that this “other” gospel is really no gospel at all. Because there is only one. Paul is not going to negotiate, cooperate or tolerate anyone who preaches a gospel other than grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. For Paul, there was no such thing as pseudo good news

This is episode one hundred and fifteen and with it, we are starting a new series on Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It’s called No Other Gospel and for the next 12 episodes, we will be digging into this theologically rich and highly practical piece of correspondence from the apostle to the Gentiles.

Paul's greatest fear was the influence that false teachers might have on the believers in Rome, especially during the time it took him to get there. He knew from experience that there would be those who attempted to sway the church away from the truth with offers of a variant form of the gospel.

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” This does not mean we lose our ethnicity or gender, give up our social standing or cease to be who we are. It simply indicates that our diversity takes a back seat to our unity in Christ. We all share one thing in common: Our faith in Christ and union with Him in His death, burial and resurrection.

Paul was an equal-opportunity evangelist. There was no one too lost, too sinful, too uneducated or too far gone that didn’t hear the message of salvation and feel the compassion of Paul. But Paul required support, especially the prayers of the saints. He knew his time was limited and the opposition to what he was doing was great. So he begged his readers to pray for him. He was doing spiritual work and it required spiritual backing.

Paul would have us understand that our faith is not to be measured by our accomplishments as much as by our dependence upon the Holy Spirit. It is He who produces righteousness within us. It is He who gives us the capacity to live holy lives. Our growth in Christ-likeness is not to be accomplished in our own strength, any more than our salvation was accomplished by our own merit. We have what it takes to live holy lives, and He’s called the Holy Spirit.

Paul put a high priority on the body of Christ. The whole metaphor of the body, of which Paul was quite fond, conjures up images of codependency and mutual cooperation. The body is a single unit in which all the parts work together for the common good. The same thing is true of the body of Christ. We are not in this alone.

Disunity and dissension are dangerous things when it comes to the local body of Christ. And they can show up as a result of some of the silliest and pettiest of issues. In chapter 14 of Romans. Paul will address a seemingly ridiculous situation regarding food that was threatening the unity of that local fellowship.

Paul would have us stop judging one another. He is not saying that we should lack conviction or the courage to speak out against sin. As he tells us in verse 1 of Romans chapter 14, we are “not to quarrel over opinions.” We are not to force our personal views on one another. We are not to divide the body of Christ over petty, personal opinions that inflate our egos and feed our pride.