Galatians 6 (Wednesday Evening Bible Study)

Galatians 6

• Galatians 6:1-5
• Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won’t be tempted. 2 Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Let each person examine his own work, and then he can take pride in himself alone, and not compare himself with someone else. 5 For each person will have to carry his own load.
  • Paul knew the problems that arise in any Christian society. The best people can slip up. The word Paul uses does not mean a deliberate sin; but a slip that might come to someone on an icy road or a dangerous path
  • Now the danger of those who are really trying to live the Christian life is that they are apt to judge the sins of others harshly. There is an element of hardness in many good people
  • There are many good people to whom you could not go and sob out a story of failure and defeat; they would be bleakly unsympathetic. But Paul says that, if people to slip, the real Christian duty is to get them on their feet again
    • The word he uses for restore is used for making a repair and also for the work of a surgeon in removing some growth or in setting a broken limb. The whole atmosphere of the word lays the stress not on punishment but on cure; the correction is thought of not as a penalty but as putting something right
    • And Paul goes on to say that when we see someone make a mistake we do well to say: “There but for the grace of God I go”
• Galatians 6:6-10
• 6 Let the one who is taught the word share all his good things with the teacher. 7 Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap, 8 because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
  • Paul now becomes intensely practical
    • The Christian Church had its teachers. In those days, the Church was in a very real way a sharing institution. No Christian could bear to have too much while others had too little. So Paul says; “If someone is teaching you the eternal truths, the least you can do is share with that person such material things as you possess.”
    • He goes on to state a grim truth. He insists that life holds the scales with an even balance. If we allow the lower side of our nature to dominate us, in the end we can expect nothing but a harvest of trouble. But, if we keep on walking the high way and doing the fine thing, in the end God will repay
    • Christian never took the threat out of life
      • The Greeks believed in the goddess of retribution, Nemesis; they believed that, when people did wrong, immediately Nemesis was on their trail and sooner or later caught up. All Greek tragedy is a sermon on the text; “The doe shall suffer.” What we do not always remember is this: it is blessedly true that God can and does forgive us for our sins, we still have to bear the consequences of those sins
        • If people sin against their bodies, sooner or later they will pay in ruined health—even if they are forgiven. John B. Gough, who had lived a reckless early life, used to declare in warning: “The scars remain.” And Origen, the third-century Christian scholar and a universalist, believed that, although all would be saved, even then the marks of sin would remain
        • We cannot trade not the forgiveness of God. There is a moral law in the universe. If we break it, we may be forgiven; but, nonetheless, we break it at our peril
        • Paul finishes by reminding his friends that sometimes the duty of generosity may be very trying, but—as Ecclesiastes 11:1 states “Send your bread on the surface of the water, for after many days you may find it.”
• Galatians 6:11-18
• 11 Look at what large letters I use as I write to you in my own handwriting. 12 Those who want to make a good impression in the flesh are the ones who would compel you to be circumcised—but only to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even the circumcised don’t keep the law themselves, and yet they want you to be circumcised in order to boast about your flesh. 14 But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross, and I to the world. 15 For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters instead is a new creation. 16 May peace come to all those who follow this standard, and mercy even to the Israel of God! 17 From now on, let no one cause me trouble, because I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. 18 Brothers and sisters, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
  • Usually, Paul added only his signature to the letter which the scribe wrote to his dictation; but in this case his heart is running over with such love and anxiety for the Galatians that he writes this whole last paragraph. The large letters he refers to may be due to three things
    • This paragraph may be written large because of its importance, as if it were printed in bold type
    • It may be written large because Paul was not used to writing with a pen, and it was the best that he could do
    • It may be that Paul’s eyes were weak, or that he was suffering from a blinding headache, and all he could produce was the large, sprawling handwriting of someone who could hardly see
  • He comes back to the central point. Those who wanted the Galatians to get themselves circumcised did so for three reasons
    • It would save them from persecution
      • The Romans recognized the Jewish religion and officially allowed Jews to practice it. Circumcision was the indisputable mark of a Jew; and so these people saw in it a passport to safety should persecution arise. Circumcision would keep them safe from both the hatred of the Jews and the law of Rome
    • In the last analysis, by circumcision and by keeping the rules and regulations of the law, they were trying to put on a show that would win the approval of God
      • Paul, however, was quite certain that nothing that individuals could achieve for themselves could win salvation; so, once again, pointing them to the cross, he summons them to stop trying to earn salvation and to trust to the grace which loved them like that
    • Those who wanted the Galatians to be circumcised did not keep all the law themselves
      • No one could. But they wanted to boast about the Galatians as their latest conquests. They wanted to glory in their power over people whose they had reduced to their own legalistic slavery. So, Paul once again lays it down with all the intensity of which he is capable that circumcision and uncircumcision do not matter; what does matter is that act of faith in Christ which opens up a new life
    • “Because I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” Two possible meanings
      • The stigmata has always fascinated people
        • It is told of Francis of Assisi that once, as he fasted on a lonely mountain top, he seemed to see the love of God crucified on a cross that stretched across the whole horizon, and as he saw it a sword of grief and pity pierced his heart. Slowly the vision faded, and Francis relaxed; and then, they say, he looked down and there were the marks of the nails in his hands, marks that he bore for the rest of his life. Whether it is truth or legend, we don’t know, for there are more things in this world than our matter-of-fact philosophy dreams of; and some think that Paul had passed through an experience of crucifixion with his Lord so real that he, too, bore the prints of the nails in his hands
      • Often a master branded his slaves with a mark that showed them to be his
        • Most probably, what Paul means is that the scars of the things he had suffered fro Christ are the brands which sho him to be Christ’s slave. In the end, it is not his apostolic authority that he uses as a basis of appeal; it is the wounds he sustained for Christ’s sake. Paul said: “My marks and scars I carry with me to be my witness to him who will now be my rewarder.”
  • After the storm, stress, and intensity of the letter comes the peace of the benediction. Paul has argued, rebuked, and persuaded; but his last word is grace, for him the only word that really mattered