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GALATIANS - I Have Been Crucified With Christ
Studies in the Letter of Paul to the Galatians
PART 3: THE LAW OF MOSES AND THE GOSPEL, THEIR INTENTION AND THEIR RESULTS (Galatians 3:1 – 4:31)
6. Paul is zealous for his children in the Spirit, and he suffers much for them (Galatians 4:8-20)
GALATIANS 4:8-11
8 But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. 9 But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.
The Galatians were previously Gentiles, who did not know God, in spite of their worships to different idols. We find many such people who serve gods, idols, and deceiving spirits, considering the devilish insinuation as an inspiration to them. However, they do not know God, but they long for him, seeking to please him by offerings and supplications, though he is still the unknown God to them.
Thank God, a spiritual change happened in the life of the Galatians, who in the past worshiped idols, but after Paul’s visit, they knew the living God, and enjoyed his merciful fatherhood, becoming certain that he made them his children by the authority given to them by Christ, having accepted him as their Savior. By this faith, they were delivered from the complaints of the law, and the pricking of the conscience, and lived in the peace of the Spirit, with God and men. The essence of their faith was not only longing for God, but also their experience that he cared for them, sought them, knew them, and adopted them. Their faith became built on the grace of the work of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit, and not on their own false efforts.
After some time, the Galatians fell once again to the hands of the law. They began to observe Sabbaths and rules of food to please the Lord, as if this were the act of righteousness, which satisfied him. They imagined that circumcision might sanctify them rather than the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, their original active faith disappeared, and they returned to the humanistic view, leaving their privilege by grace, and fell once again to the bondage of the law and the despair of the flesh, treading under foot the sacrifice of Christ.
Paul did not appoint any day of the week to be a feast, for he did not consider any day holier than the other, since after Christ we have kept no holy days or feasts, but we look at the believing man as a sanctified saint. All days are holy to the holiness of the believer. Even his life, his works, his sleep, and his death are a part of the Christian worship, for we serve the Lord with every throb of our hearts, and with every drawing in of our breath. As such, we read, “Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men" (Col 3: 23). Did all your life become praise, service, and thankfulness to your heavenly Father?
However, the Gentile Christians observed Sunday, not to please God, or to gain righteousness in addition to that given to them, but they wanted to appoint a day in which they met, and they found no better day than Sunday, for in it the Lord rose from the dead. They chose this day not as an obligation, but as a symbol of the new covenant, which does not ask us, in the first place, to observe the orders, but gives us the divine life freely. Therefore, our conduct is not connected with times or rites, since we have moved to a spiritual life. Our conduct is hidden in heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ who made us eternal and not mortal.
PRAYER: We glorify you O heavenly Father because you made us your children, and carried us from time to eternity, from mortality to immortality. Help us not to observe any rites, orders, or feasts, as if such legalistic ways sanctify us or please you; for your pleasure in us is in Christ, and our faith in his blood has justified us and freed us from self-sanctification. Sanctify our life that it may become, at every moment of the time given to us on this earth, praise and thankfulness to you.
QUESTION:
- Why did Paul not care for keeping special days for worshiping the Lord?