By Faith or By the Law

 

By Faith or By the Law

 

In Galatians 3:1-6 Paul asks a series of questions that should cause us to think about how we are saved & how we are made into the people God created us to be.

 

Galatians 3:1

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

 

Paul is asking who deceived the Galatian Christians into denying that Jesus was crucified for our sins. The beginning of depending on anything other than Jesus for our salvation is when we deny that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. We deny that Jesus’ death in the only source of salvation.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about depending on Jesus’ death to pay the cost of our sin.

 

Galatians 3:2

Let me ask you only this; did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

 

Paul is asking the Galatian Christians if they are filled with the Spirit by working to keep all the law or by faith in Jesus as Savior & Lord. The law can tell us when we have sinned, but it cannot empower us to not sin. Only the Spirit can give us power over sin & we receive the Spirit by placing our faith in Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about putting our faith In Jesus as Savior & Lord & receiving the filling of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin.

 

Galatians 3:3

Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

 

Paul now turns to sharing about our sanctification. We are saved through faith in Jesus & we are conformed to be like Jesus by the Holy Spirit working in our lives. We are not conformed to the image of Christ by our own human efforts, but only by the work of the Holy Spirit.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about being conformed to the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

 

Galatians 3:4

Did you suffer so many things in vain – if indeed it was in vain?

 

The Galatian Christians along with Paul had been persecuted because of their faith in Jesus. Was that all in vain now? Paul is saying to these believers, have you had such wonderful spiritual experiences, all to no purpose? The Galatian Christians had seen God do awesome works through the Spirit & now they were turning away from faith in Jesus to the law. Does that mean that all the work of the Spirit was for nothing?

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about trusting the work of God the Spirit in our lives as proof that it is about faith in Jesus, not the law that saves & sanctifies us.

 

Galatians 3:5-6

Does He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by heating with faith – just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

 

How did the Spirit come to indwelling the Galatian Christians & how were miracles done among them: by the law our by faith? It was by faith. Paul uses the example of Abraham. Abraham believed God & he was declared righteous. This occurred many years before the law was even given to Israel. So, just as Abraham was declared righteous through his faith, so we are declared righteous because of our faith.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about being declared righteous because of our faith in Jesus.

 

We are saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, made into the image of Christ, & declared righteous all through placing our faith in Jesus as Savior & Lord.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls,

                         Joe