Are we free from moral obligations if the law is no longer our guardian and tutor? “For you are called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge in your flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law can be summed up in a
What should we do? “But what does the scripture say? ‘Throw out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share the inheritance with the son of the free woman.” (Galatians 4:30, NET). To free themselves from the power of sin, the yielded believers must renounce flesh and
A son of the enslaved person or a son of the free? “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not understand the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. But one, the son by the
Under the tutor – the law. “Now before faith came we were held in custody under the law, being held as prisoners until the coming faith would be revealed. Thus the law had become our guardian until Christ so that we could be declared righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are
God did not give the law to the righteous people! “Some have strayed from these and turned away to empty discussion. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not understand what they are saying or the things they insist on so confidently. But we know that the law is good if
The issue continued. Salvation by grace and obedience to the law must always be discussed as separate subjects! “I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:21, NET). Christians must never study and discuss the justification and salvation by the faithfulness of
The issue. The issue concerning the justification and salvation through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ arose from misunderstanding the act of justification of sinners. Jews maintained, and unfortunately, some Christians do so today, that sinners must first repent and abandon their evil ways before they can be justified by “faith.” Paul, however, argues that sinners
The troubling issue. The method of salvation was an all-consuming issue among Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah and the Jews who did not. For both groups of Jews, the entire Torah with its ten commandments was the only way to salvation. Paul forcefully refutes this premise. Some Christians think Paul addressed the ceremonial
The Good News, apart from human effort. The message Paul summarized in verses 3 and 4 in the previous blog was for him such good news that he abruptly ends his description of it with” Amen.” Paul stated, ‘it is so,’ ‘it will be so forever; therefore, he made it the core of his letter
As stated in the previous blog, the Judaizers maintained that belief in Jesus Christ is not enough for our salvation. They insisted that faith in Jesus could only be the first step a sinner must take in the process of justification and salvation. Also, presently, some Christians maintain that the death of Jesus Christ on
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are following a different gospel – not that there really is another gospel, but there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6, 7, NET). Judaizers were
The letter from the Apostle Paul to the churches in Galatia is a critical letter for the modern-day Christians also. The issues Paul addresses in his letter to Galatians exist in the Christian community today. Even the sincere believers are sometimes confused and misled by often a deliberate perversion of the gospel, the good news
The new covenant. The covenants before Mount Sinai were God’s grants. They did not require a contribution or participation by the covenant recipients. However, the covenant made at Mount Sinai was not a grant. The covenant at Mount Sinai was an agreement between the people and God. The agreement was made at the request of