The Motives of Legalism and of Paul

Well, good morning. Well, we're a small group, but hopefully we're warm, right? And Luke made it. Good job. I just saw him walk in. So if you couldn't see, he walked in. So that's great. Right. OK, so Jim read. Actually, we're only going to cover a portion of what Jim read today.

I've actually decided there's actually 18 to 18 verses. Let's see, let's try 8 verses. 11 through 18 comprise the rest of the book of Galatians. And what's interesting, you know, a lot of times you get toward the end of a book like Romans, other ones, you'll see, well, there's not a whole lot of stuff going on in those remaining verses.

Well, this one is just the opposite. There's just a bunch of stuff going on. A bunch of significant verses. And actually today we're going to cover a really interesting thing about Paul's manner of kind of signing off on his his letters, which is kind of unique. So let's kind of get into it. So I've used Macaulay here most of the time when I've taught.

So anyway, his outline starts with responsibility toward a fellow believer, and Mike covered that. A couple things we learned there was about the bearing one another's burden, and about the spiritual man. Who's the spiritual man? And then in the last couple weeks when Mike's been teaching, we talked about The idea of sharing all good things with the one who teaches. And that's not monetary, that's more insights into God's word. And also part of that was basically the concept of sowing and reaping. We reap what we sow. Mike spent a lot of good time on that.

So now we get down to the section about the motivation. This last section, Paul kind of says, well, I told you about all the activity in the Galatian church, about the Judaizers and what they're up to. Well, now I'm going to focus on what were their motives, which is, you know, it's nice. You know, it can be instructive to know a person's motive because that kind of reveals the information they pass on. And so it's going to be very instructive to see the motivations here. So today we're only going to focus on the motivations of the legalist.

11 through 13, which comprise a couple of sections. Paul has this, verse 11 is kind of unique. And people have different opinions about what's going on here. I'll give you my take on it. And then we'll talk about the hypocrisy that was happening with the legalist. Then in the following weeks, we'll kind of close out the book Paul talks about boasting or glorying and then there's concluding verses Okay, so let's just get here's the verses that I'm going to focus on today So let's just start with the the first one We'll just go right there See what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. I So let's just consider that first phrase, C. I took out the modifiers you have with large letters and with my own hands. So the gist of it is, see what I'm writing.

Paul wants to give us information about, you know, why did he write this? What was the purpose of that? So C here is oida. And it's not merely the act of seeing. Like I say, I see Bob, I see Vonnie, I see you, whatever. It's actually a perception. You're looking at the object and you're perceiving what's going on. It's a more intense form of seeing.

An example of that is, maybe you're familiar with the story of the unclean spirits that the Lord Jesus cast into the swine and the swine ran over the hill to their death over the side. And actually what happened there, the herdsmen, the people who took care of those swine, they ran into the village and they said, all these animals have gone over the cliff. And so people ran out to see what was happening. And it uses this word, they wanted to, it says, and the people came to see or to perceive what had happened. So it's an intense, that kind of focus on the intenseness of, they want to see what this really happened.

So Paul wants us to really focus on what he's writing. And actually it's down to, it's like if I could hand you Paul's, if I could hand you the manuscript, say, here, this is, take a look at this. We're going to look at some representations of that today. Okay. And it's a command, imperative mood. And actually the tense is more, it's the aorist tense. So I wrote to you and it's a fact. Wrote to you. It's a it's a gist of it.

Paul is saying I actually did the writing which is you know, we believe that to start with but he's reinforcing that because apparently there were There are those out there and we see kind of bits and pieces in different places where Paul tries to correct Rumors that were going around about the coming of the Lord coming the day of the Lord There were forgeries just like in our day people forge things people try to misrepresent things and that was in true in his day so he had to have a way of validating that this letter was truly from him. So he normally, and I actually hadn't thought much about this, he normally had a secretary or a scribe, and looking through and studying it a little bit, Timothy was one of his scribes, Silvanus, Solzhenitsyn, they were a couple, and there's going to be a third gentleman here, a fourth gentleman, and this passage here is really interesting, in this passage it says, at the end of Romans, There's a lot of heists, you know, I'm with Paul here, we're going to roam, you know, Timothy is mentioned in this last verses of Romans, so is Gaius and others, but then it goes to the first person in verse 22 and it says, I, I'm not sure I can pronounce this, Tertius, thank you. I tried to, you know, it's tough, you look at the original anyway, Tertius. who write this letter greet you in the Lord so it's like the scribe actually said hi I'm here too I greet you in the Lord you know amen brother so what's my point here okay so the question is how did that happen so apparently the scribe is writing and at some point Paul takes over if you will right he says I'm going to write these remaining eight verses So let's look at that a little bit.

So Paul makes two statements, qualifying statements about his writing. He first says it's with large letters. And some have taken that to mean, well, maybe Paul had, he had to write in large letters because he couldn't see too well. He had an eye problem. I've heard that. And we don't know. Maybe he did.

But if you look at the definition, there's actually two words in the Greek, large and letters. And the one, according to Zodiates, it implies a stiff and unpracticed hand, which made the Greek letters large like the Hebrew. It also could mean a large document, but I don't think that really fits here. The letters, or characters, or the alphabet referring to the size of the character.

And then Macaulay had a comment which I thought was really good here. He does this by writing in a literary uncial. which is one high inch characters. I just happen to have, hot off the internet, some pictures of that. This is what, and apparently what's not that unusual, unsealed Greek or unsealed writing was not that unusual. And actually there are many historic documents apparently that have, so we have alpha, beta, gamma, and so on. Omega, this is the alphabet, and there's some other writing down below. If I knew Greek better, I probably could, Maybe that's a word, I don't know what the rest of it is to tell you the truth. But that's an example of unseal.

So that's what is believed to be what Paul most likely wrote, because it fits the large letter category. I have another video, not a video, another visual here to show you in a minute that's going to help too. So Paul, he says, with my own hand, so he was trying to validate that he was really the author of this letter to the Galatians but he says that in Colossians a very similar thing I Paul write this greeting with my own hand remember my imprisonment grace be to you Corinthians very similar greetings greetings is in my own hand and then Thessalonians He kind of gives his motivation here, if you will. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand again, and this is the distinguishing mark in every letter. This is the way I write. I was kind of thinking about that. With emails and text messages, we kind of don't have the personal touch as much anymore.

But really, I would bet that most husband and wife know their spouses. They would know who wrote something by the way they write it. It's significant enough and maybe friends. Oh, that's like Sue. I recognize her writing because I looked at stuff that she's written down by her own hand and other people. You know how they write. So Paul says, here, this is the way I write. And I assume those big high letters, Paul had a certain way he wrote those.

And so that's kind of the idea. So here's what someone, there's this gentleman So here's a mock-up, if you will, of what the end of Galatians might have looked like. And this is a gentleman in St. Olaf's College in Minnesota, Stephen Reese, and he mocked up what he thought was the remaining part of Galatians. First of all, we have the tight written Greek letters, a very tight hand, letters are close together. his interpretation of what it might be with the large, unsealed letters. So anyway, that's kind of a mock-up of what it might be. So you get a chance to, you know, this isn't the original, but this is a representation of it.

Okay, so Paul, so the question is, why go to all this trouble? So what was Paul's intent in writing the last verses in Galatians? Well, first off, I've already alluded to it, he wanted to authenticate that his letter was from him. Secondly, To emphasize his main points, the large letters show his strong conviction about what he has written.

And I'm trying to rethought that a little bit. If that was the style of the unpracticed hand, maybe that isn't as strong. But someone, Macaulay thought that, well that, you know, like, wasn't the Declaration of Independence, was it John Hancock? Isn't his, I haven't been to see it in person, but I've seen pictures of it. Isn't his writing, his signature the biggest of all?

It was like, hey, this is, you know, we're really going to do this. This is my, you know, that's John Hancock. So, in fact, that's where the expression comes from, John Hancock or whatever. OK, then thirdly, these last two are from our brother Hal. Most of the epistle is spent condemning and correcting the false teaching of the Judaizers.

But now we're going to move into their, what's their motivation? What floats their boat, to use a vernacular, right? What drives them? And it's not a pretty picture of what drives them. It actually kind of shows us that what drives people in the body of Christ? It should be our Savior. Our relationship with our Savior. Many times it's not. It's other issues kind of in there. And certainly the Galatian church had their Judaizers with other motives than the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, so let's go on. So verse 12 and 13 are going to show us these motives. And there's kind of like five parts if you kind of go through and chop up those two verses. There's five points he makes. So we're going to take it that way. The subject are those, or as many as.

And once again, I think who's being addressed here. Merriman says, in view is anyone who is improperly motivated and promoting circumcision rights. And I think that certainly fits the Galatian account. But you can think about it, the person being addressed here is going to say he wants to do the following, make a good showing in the flesh, compel others to do certain things. So it could be actually anyone who has a motive other than the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has an ulterior motive.

So the word here is desire. Who desires is to will or to wish. Volition is involved here. The volition of the person is involved. And actually it can be a good wish or volition or it can be a bad one. The verse I have quoted here is a negative one. by the Lord Jesus you are of your father the devil and you want or wish or desire to do the desires of your father.

A good one might be really wonderful in Philippians you know that God who is at work in you both to will or to his desire his purposes okay so the first one of these five things is to make a good showing It would be unusual for us to want to be thought of as bad.

We want to put on a good face typically. We want to appear well in the body of believers conceivably. you know, religious zeal, which usually is associated with zealots and so on. But the Galatian church, and it's to make a good showing in the flesh, the outward appearance to look good in the flesh, you know, that's one of the motivations it seemed like that the church, the Galatian church with those Judaizers was involved in.

So Paul's speaking here about the Judaizers who deceived the Galatians Into believing how to live the Christian life They they try to teach or try to influence them that circumcision as opposed to faith was away Under the law as opposed to grace So as we go through these five, we're going to see just some really interesting things that and I was thinking about Make a good showing in the flesh, you know I'm old enough to remember the old Denver Airport for you guys who have really been around here for a while the Stapleton and if you remember back In the time period where you had these folks that would be dressed in these robes, their shaven heads, the Hare Krishnas, I think they were.

So they wanted to make a good showing in the flesh, right? They had on their things, they had their chance, they had their thing, they were allowed to be in the airport. That's back before security was, you know, they were in the airport and they were drumming up people to join them and I guess money, I've actually forgotten what they, but they were, they were around all the time. So that kind of, they wanted to make a good showing. They wanted to show you how zealous they were for their religion. So that's an example of a good showing in the flesh. And you could cite many others.

Okay, secondly, they want to compel you to be circumcised. You know, one thing I've learned as we've gone through this study, the connection between circumcision and the law is a lot tighter. They fit together. If you're going to go that route, and that's what the Judaism, if you're going to go the route of salvation, Scripture kind of points to the fact it's it's the it's circumcision and the law they have to go together They have to be in agreement. So so we're going to see that result of that in a second.

So then they compel you to put you constrain you force you persuade you and And we saw this verse early in our study in Acts 15 1 it says some men came down from Judea and and began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved."

So they were serious. They were, you know, quote, you know, deadly serious that they felt, they believed erroneously that circumcision was essential for salvation. And Paul has spent almost all of Galatians proving that to be wrong. Then Mary had a comment here. The Judaizers' interest in the area of this was an outward one. Therefore circumcision, a mark on the flesh, was very important to them. Okay, number three. Now this is interesting. So they desired to make a good showing in the flesh, to look good for the exterior. They wanted to have an exterior mark, right? A mark in the flesh.

They realized, this is interesting, they were, this makes me think that they maybe even were believers, some number of them, I guess they were possibly, but they didn't want to suffer persecution for Christ because that did not fit with being a Jew. And let's see if I can prove that to you. To persecute, to pursue, act of enmity, So several verses I have here, I have two pages of verses here, or thoughts.

In 2 Timothy 3.12, Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So that's just kind of a flat-out statement that persecution is involved in the Christian life. You can't get away from it, you can't discount it. It comes with the territory, you could say.

Then in Corinthians it says, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jew, a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness. So the cross, the cross of Christ, and we actually in Sunday School were talking about a very similar idea about the cross of Christ is a great separator of men, it's a great divider, and people don't like to be associated with the cross of Christ because that shows that you need a Savior.

They wanted no part of persecution. They wished to remain in good standing with their Jewish community. Saying that they needed the cross, saying that they needed that, would not go well with the Jewish community. And then to continue on here, to admit that circumcision was non-essential was to invite the wrath of the Jewish religionist.

You know, and that was actually Paul's message kind of throughout his ministry. You go through Acts, and when Verne went through Acts, you'll see all these occasions where Paul would go into a town or a village, and he, at first, maybe he'd go into the synagogue, and he would have maybe some good reception.

He had people that would believe in the Lord Jesus. They would come to the Lord Jesus. But after a while, it didn't take long, the community kind of got aware of what's happening, and it wasn't too long before they were ready to run him out of town. Because they realized what he was preaching. He was preaching that circumcision and the law was not part of the Christian life.

And just an example of that in Acts. It's actually 1350. I'm going to quote here. 1350 says, but the Jews incited the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city. instigated a persecution against Paul in Barnabas and drove them out of their district.

So the reaction to the message of the cross, the message of the gospel, which the cross is totally central to, and you can't have the gospel without the cross, was to run them out of town. They don't want that. They don't want that kind of... They don't want a bloody religion.

The cross of Christ is where sin was dealt with. The cross of Christ is central to the gospel Paul was preaching. And then lastly, from Merriman here, it says, the cross of Christ is God's emphatic pronunciation to the world that all men are sinners, including those who try to keep God's law. Their approach was, just like I mentioned, they said, they were saying, keep the law and be circumcised. That's the method that will please God. And Paul said, no, that's not the way. Now we move to verse 13. 13 says, for those, this is the fourth point, for those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves.

Isn't this so typical? We just see this over and over and it's true in our society today. People will accuse someone of something and you find out down the road they're doing exactly what they accused the person of. That might even be a technique somebody's written. I don't keep up with all the different books on this, but that's one of the techniques. You accuse your opponent of what you're doing, and that deflects you and puts it on them. So they were doing that back in Paul's day.

So they couldn't keep the law. So basically, the subject here is those who are circumcised, the Judaizers, did not even keep the law. As present tense, they were continually not keeping the law. and here's a verse that really hit me or really is a forceful verse for indeed circumcision is a value so Paul is saying circumcision is a value if you practice the law so he's willing to admit take circumcision which is given by Moses circumcision was given by Abraham Abraham was a covenant from Abraham combined with the law But it says, but if you're a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

So that can't be the path to God. Those two together, they go hand in hand, but that's not the way of salvation. That's not the way. And so once you stop doing one or the other, you can't stop. Circumcision is a one-time thing. So anyway, if you don't keep the law, your circumcision is no value. Okay, so here's a couple of additional verses. Let me just, I can just kind of talk to these a little bit.

Okay, so in Romans 8.3 it says, and this kind of shows the shortcomings. I wanted to kind of point out that even though the Judaizers wanted the people to believe that the law was the way, God's word, especially in Romans, says that's not the way.

For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. So the law is holy and righteous and just. The problem is, you've got sinful man, fallen man from Adam, he can't keep it. So if he can't keep this holy law, don't do that. There must be something better, and there is something better, is faith in our Savior. And then this long account in Acts, it talks about, this is Stephen, right after this account, shortly, several verses later, he was stoned.

Because he basically came down to the bottom, and he said, he talked about your stiff neck, an uncircumcised heart, and so on, and he says, and the bottom line is, you received the law, verse 53, you received the law as ordained by angels, yet do not keep it. That was the problem. You're not keeping the law. Yes, the law is wonderful. But if you don't keep it, it can't be good to you. Don't do it. Okay. So the last point here is five. And here's the point.

But they desire to have you circumcised so they can boast in your flesh. So they can't keep the law. They're circumcised, but they want you to be circumcised because they want to brag about you. They want to say, look what I got those Gentiles to do. Those who are circumcised desire, the same word will, motive, to be circumcised so that, and the rest of the verse tells you that they want to boast. They want to boast about your flesh, or in your flesh.

And here, actually the word boast, we're going to spend more time next week Next week we're going to kind of contrast, you know, it's wonderful Paul's going to come along and say, what is Paul boasting? You know, he boasts in the Lord Jesus Christ. These men are boasting on this physical mark in their body. Boasting in the Lord Jesus Christ is worth, we're going to contrast those two more. We're also going to contrast the cross as a divider of men.

So since legalism in all its forms is a fleshly religion, one can expect fleshly manifestations. Here the boast was in a mark in the flesh. In their act of forcing, if possible, the circumcision upon Gentiles, they would cover themselves with glory in the eyes of their Jewish brethren and demonstrate to them how zealous they were for the law after all. So once again, we see that their motives were not Righteous motives they were ulterior motives. They wanted to be able to brag about how many people had the mark in the flesh I got so many Gentiles to be circumcised.

Look at me. I'm a good Jew Okay, the close out here have a couple of charts and Who else were there from who do you think a brother? How I guess I sorry I know Roy and I and others we just so many good things and he has quite a few good things to say about this passage or about the section so first off It's always good to kind of relate.

Okay, that was fine for that time period. Circumcision was a big deal. And keeping the law was a big deal. Well, law is still kind of there today. Maybe it's a little bit different flavor. But today it kind of has a different flavor. So here's what legalism today could be looked at like.

Many Christian denominations still teach the following rules to live the Christian life. So here are some typical things you might hear of from a body of believers. You must pray more, brother or sister. You've got to pray more. You've got to study more. You've got to give more.

Remember how I was saying nickels and noses, right? You've got to witness more. And these are all good things. There's nothing wrong with these things. But what's the motive, right? Surrender more. Boy, that's a... I remember my daughter going off to camp. Actually, fortunately it was Camp Elim. She was asked to surrender more. It didn't help her in her Christian life, unfortunately. I think I confused her, if anything.

If you do all these things then, and only then, you'll be more acceptable to God. You'll be more pleasing to God. You'll be more righteous before God. You'll be blessed more by God. So what it's saying is, you're taking these works, praying, studying, giving, witnessing, and that's going to get you closer to God.

But that's not the way the life of Christ is supposed to work in your life. It's a different picture. If you think that picture works, many groups of believers do You're not going to get closer to your Savior You're going to get you're going to get this big guilt trip because we can't we can't pray enough study enough give more and all we can't do all that list we'll just we'll give up we'll get tired and But here's here's what I believe It should look like It starts with faith starts and ends with faith to walk by faith with Christ as our object to abide in him be at home with him someone asked me after I taught a couple weeks ago and What does that word abide mean?

I just love it. To be at home with, hang out with, you know, spend time. How do you spend time? It's in His Word. Behold Him through the Word. And then you behold His glory, who He is, His grace, His truth, His love, His mercy, His compassion, His faithfulness and so on. All the above is what pleases God.

So our focus is not on performing some list, right? Refrigerator list how like I used to say we're focused on the Savior our focus is on him and once it's on him Then and only then are we ready? To live the Christian life and to do things quote for God once we are walking with him by faith Beholding him abiding with him then we're ready to do And he and he says he's going to conform us to his image and it's going to be Christ living through us Then he will give us the desire to pray more, to study more, to witness more, to minister more. So it's totally flipped around.

As you focus on the Savior, as you focus on who He is and what He's done, then you can do those wonderful things. You can pray more to this wonderful Savior. You can study more of His Word and witness more and minister more. I hope that was good for you guys. We're going to continue on next week. We're going to contrast Paul's His boasting versus the Judaizers. Dear Father, we thank you so much for the blessings that we have in our Savior. Thank you for this time. In Christ's name, Amen.