Galatians Intro Part 2

So we're going to take a minute and we're going to review just a few things from our introduction to Galatians last week. So the book of Galatians was written to all the churches in Galatia and we know of four of them. Antioch, that's the Antioch of Pisidia, not the one in Syria, but Antioch up in Asia Minor, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Those are mentioned in the Book of Acts. I'm sure there were many other churches because We read in the book of Acts that not only did they go to these cities, but they went to all the surrounding areas around them. So Galatians wasn't written to just one church. It was written to all the believers in Galatia. Now, Galatia was in Southern Asia Minor, which is just north of the island of Cyprus. Today it's called Turkey.

So if you were paying attention last week, you know exactly what we're talking about. And it was written around the time of the council at Jerusalem, at the end of the first missionary journey. We read about that in Acts 15. There's some controversy as to whether that's when it happened or not, but that's what I feel that it happened. That's the logical time that it happened. Now, if it happened before the Council or after, we're not really sure. But it was written after that first missionary journey.

There were Jews called Judaizers who would follow Paul from city to city and destroy the gospel message that Paul had preached. And that gospel message was faith alone in Christ alone. And not only did they destroy Paul's message, but they tried to destroy him as well. And we'll point that out in our overview of the book of Galatians today. Paul writes this letter to combat the false gospel, which is actually no gospel at all. The gospel means good news. And when it comes to Judaizers, what they wanted to preach was not good news, it was bad news.

So today we're going to overview the entire book. It has six chapters. I think we have until like noon or one o'clock. We'll see. It shouldn't take very long. But why in the world would we do an overview? Why don't we just start with verse 1 and go to verse 2, verse 3, verse 4?

And the answer to that is context. Now, if you get to know me very well, I harp on context continually. Without context, you're wasting your time studying the Word of God. We can read the Word of God casually every day, which we should do, but if we want to study the Word of God, we need to know what the context is.

We're never starting a new book. It's important to do a flyover. Roger said we're going flying today. So it's important to do a flyover of the entire book. We need to see the context of the whole book before we look at the individual parts. If you don't look at the content, you're not going to understand the individual verses in God's Word. It's just going to mess you up. You've got to know why the verse is there, where it's going, where it came from, and if we do not pay attention to the context, we're really going to screw up that passage of Scripture that we're studying.

Here's a good way to illustrate it. I don't know if Roy's on Zoom or not, but I'm going to use him as an illustration. I even talked to him this week. He said, yeah, go ahead and use it. Roy is the only man I have met in several years that wears both a belt and a pair of suspenders. And that's important. Actually, I think he's doing it because he's born by what God's Word says. Let me illustrate that. It is more biblical to wear both a belt and suspenders than just one or the other.

Take a look at Ecclesiastes 4 verse 9. I don't know if any of you ever noticed this or not, but we read, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up this hill. But woe be to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up. So, that makes sense, right? So, next week I want to see all you men.

You can make the Bible say anything you want by ignoring the context. So it's very important that we look at an overview of all of Galatians before we start studying it verse by verse. The best way to start this flyover is with a simple outline. We have the introduction which is chapter 1 verses 1 through 10.

We have Part number one, Paul's defense of his apostleship, chapters one and two. Paul defends justification by faith alone, chapters three and four. Paul's call to liberty, chapters five and six. And then we have the conclusion. Now if we ignore the introduction and the conclusion and throw them in with the other three points, which I'm going to do, we only need to think of Galatians in three separate parts. Paul's defense, chapters 1 and 2, his defense of the apostleship, his defense of justification by faith, chapters 3 and 4, and Paul's call to liberty, chapters 5 and 6.

It just falls right down in place, chapter by chapter. We're going to start with the introduction. In the introduction, We have a couple of things going here that I want to point out. I want to mention that I'm not going to talk about every single thing in the book of Galatians or we will be here. Go past it. Bob, mute your sound. Oh, mute your sound. So where was I at?

So Paul introduces the epistle like many of his other epistles except for the phrase. That phrase is not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead." A lot of his other epistles, he just simply says, I am an apostle by the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he moves on from there. But we need to realize that I believe that this is the first epistle that Paul wrote. And he knew in his ministry and he's new to all the believers. So he needs to establish his apostleship.

That's why he goes on to say that it wasn't made from the agency of man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. The second thing I want to bring out is Paul was amazed that the Galatians had left Christ for a different gospel which is not a gospel at all. We're going to find out that Paul is actually a little bit upset and a little bit angry when he writes this book because of everything that he tried to do and how they were perverting his ministry and the gospel.

Galatians 1.7 Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Let such a one be accursed. And Paul repeats that twice. Now, right away in his introduction, he's going to jump all over them. He's going to say, I don't like what's going on. He's a little bit angry. Let such a one be accursed.

Galatians 1.9. He is to be accursed. He doesn't Sugar-coated, he just says it like it is.

Moving on to the first point, Paul's defense of his apostleship. In the defense of his apostleship, which is chapters 1 and 2, we're going to see his personal testimony before he was saved, his early ministry, the council at Jerusalem, and his encounter with Peter. Paul spends the next 35 verses defending his apostleship. Now that hasn't happened in any of his other epistles.

It's important for Paul to defend his apostleship because of the way he was being treated by many of the Jews, not only in Galatia, but also in Jerusalem. He speaks of his life before Damascus, which was when he was converted, and how God set him apart from his mother's womb to take the gospel to the Gentiles. Before he was converted, he went out and he persecuted all the believers. He had some of them killed. He had them put in prison. He was very zealous to do everything he could to get rid of what he called this cult of Judaism.

It states here that God set him apart from his mother's womb to take the gospel to the Gentiles. This is an interesting phrase in that it sounds like God had picked him out long before he was born, and this is true, he did. He knew that Paul would become a man of God. He knew he would put his faith in Christ. And so long before Paul was ever born, God took his decision, Paul's decision, and set him apart for his work.

Paul received this information directly from Christ in the Arabian desert near Damascus. He wasn't one of the twelve apostles. He didn't walk with Christ before the crucifixion like the apostles in Jerusalem, but he did receive his apostleship from Christ on the Damascus road. In verse 15 we read, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia and then returned once more to Damascus.

During the three years he was in Damascus, he would go out into the desert and be taught by Christ. He would come back into Damascus and he would teach And he would evangelize. He would go back out again in Damascus. I don't really believe he spent three whole years in Damascus. He went back and forth in Arabia. He went back and forth between Damascus and Arabia. And it wasn't until three years after his conversion that he finally met up with two of the apostles, Peter and James in Jerusalem.

Because of Paul's past reputation, The believers in Jerusalem feared him, and for his safety, Barnabas sent him off to Tarsus. In Acts 9, 26, we read when it came to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. So Barnabas said, we're going to get you out of town, and we're going to send you back home. to Syria and Cilicia, which is exactly where Tarsus is. Now 14 years later, after the first missionary journey, Paul, Barnabas, and Titus go up to Jerusalem to solidify his apostleship to the Gentiles.

This may have coincided with the council at Jerusalem. Now there's some question here as to whether this is talking about the time he went to the council at Jerusalem or was this a time just before he did that? Because we read in Galatians 2 it was because of a revelation that I went up. Now When Paul went up to the council at Jerusalem, I don't think he went up for revelation from God. He went up because he was commissioned by the church to go up.

So there's some question as to when this happened, but it did happen right around the time of the council at Jerusalem. We read earlier that it was 14 years. And if you look at a timeline of of Paul's ministry, he was actually in Damascus around 35 A.D. and the Council of Jerusalem took place around 49 A.D. That's 14 years. Now, I can't be as certain that those dates are exactly correct. They might be a year or two off, but we're talking about the same time period after the first missionary journey and the council at Jerusalem.

In Galatians 2 it was because of a revelation that I went up and I submitted to them the gospel which I preached among the Gentiles. Sometime after this Paul met with Peter in Antioch and had to straighten him out on a few issues and once again I'm not sure whether this happened after the Council of Jerusalem or before.

In a month or so, Roger is going to straighten me out on that. He's going to be dealing with this passage in Galatia, which is all right with me because it's not the first time Roger straightened me out on a few things. There's things that I held to, and after listening to Roger, I have changed my mind about that. Praise the Lord.

But Paul said to Peter, if you being a Jew live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like the Jews? And then Paul spends the rest of that chapter explaining to Peter what justified by faith in Christ is all about. And this is just a preemption of what is going to happen in our second point, which will be the doctrinal section of the book of Galatians.

In Galatians 2.20, he tells Peter, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. In the life which I now live in flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So he is introducing to Peter what being crucified with Christ is all about.

Now, I'm not sure that the believers up until that time had had that doctrine taught to them. But here in the book of Galatians, we're going to find out that it is being taught. And then in almost every single one of Paul's epistles after that, he expounds on what being crucified with Christ is all about. And now we come to the doctrinal section of Galatians. Paul defends justification by faith alone.

We're going into chapters 3 and 4. And in chapters 3 and 4, we see that he's going to bring up his personal experience when he was on the missionary trip in Galatia He's going to relate how the Old Testament related to the law and grace. He'll talk about the purpose of the law. He will begin to discuss freedom versus bondage. And then he has a personal appeal to the Galatians.

And he ends that section with Sarah and Hagar, an allegory. It's interesting that there's many allegories in the Bible which teaches doctrinal truth. But I think this is the only time that God actually said this is going to be an allegory. So Paul defends his justification by faith alone. Paul starts by using a personal argument in defending justification. He's talking about the time that he was with Galatia during his missionary journey. He said, did you receive the gospel by the works of the law or by faith? In Galatians 3 verse 2, this is the only thing I want to find out from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. Are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh?

You notice in brackets there I have the Spirit as the gospel. And the reason I've done this is Paul is switching from faith versus law to the Holy Spirit versus the law. Because from here on out, is going to be talking about walking with the Spirit and how the Spirit leads us in our lives. Now that you are saved, are you growing and maturing by the law or by faith? Galatians 3, 5, So then, does he who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do you do it by works of the law or by the hearing of faith? And this is all done If we're doing it by the hearing of faith, this is all done through the Holy Spirit, which is important. Paul now moves on to compare Abraham and the Mosaic law. It was faith that justified Abraham and not the law.

Genesis 15.6 reads, Then Abraham believed in the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Even the Old Testament foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. Not only the Gentiles, but also the Jews.

Genesis 12, 3. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. This is important. Righteousness by faith and not the law has been God's plan throughout all of history. You weren't saved in the Old Testament by the law, you were saved by faith, by believing in God and what God said. This started with Adam, it went through all the Old Testament, went through all the New Testament, and it's also going to continue into the millennium. The law is actually a curse.

Galatians 3 verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law Having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Now see, we're starting to talk about the Holy Spirit here and how he works in our lives. God promises to Abraham and his seed, who is Christ, The law which came 430 years later did not nullify that promise. We read that in Galatians 3 17. So these promises were given to Abraham and it wasn't until 433 years later that the most safe law was given. Why then do we have the law? We read about that in Galatians 3 verses 19 through 25. Verse 19, it was added because of transgressions until the seed Christ to whom the promise had been made. The law was not contrary to God's promise, but it was a tutor to bring us to Christ. Verse 21, is the law then contrary to the promises of God?

May it never be. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. Paul now moving on to who we are in Christ. Through faith we are all sons of God and baptized into Christ. Verse 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So now Paul is introducing the doctrine of being crucified with Christ and we are in Christ. That's a very important phrase in the New Testament, the phrase in Christ. Verse 29, and if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descended heirs according to his promise.

With the coming of Christ, we are no longer under that tutor, a slave to the law, but adult sons. He's going to spend the last half of chapter 3 and the first half of chapter 4 telling us about how the Jewish family is set up. You have young children and then you have slaves. Find out that the slaves and the young children are almost synonymous. Neither one has an heir yet.

And it isn't until that young man gets older that he becomes an adult son and He's given the heirship of the family and So this this is what is talked about as far as what I would call the doctrine of the tutor in Galatians in verse 4 and 5 in Galatians 4 and But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. So why do you turn back to the law and enslave yourself again? But now that you have come to know God, or rather be known by God, How is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? Why in the world, after becoming a believer in Christ through faith and being free, do you want to enslave yourself again to the law?

Paul now gets very personal. He says, when I was with you, had I labored over you in vain? But in verse 20, but I could wish to be present with you now and change my tone for I'm perplexed about you. You know, up till now, Paul's been pretty angry. He doesn't like what's been going on. But now he's going to show his love for the Galatians. He's saying, I would like to change my tone. I don't want to be angry with you, but I'm pretty perplexed about what's going on. In verses 12 through 20, he relates how great a relationship he had with them when he was with them. So he's going to talk a little bit about when he was a missionary in Galatia.

Now that Paul is no longer with them, they have gone back to the enslavement of the law. And Paul uses Sarah and Hagar Hagar and their sons as an allegory to describe the relationship between slavery to the law and the freedom that we have in Christ. Remember Abraham and Sarah thought they were too old to have a son. So they got their maidservant Hagar and decided to do it that way.

Well, you know, as long as we keep trying to do things our own way, in our own works, trying hard to please God, we're not going to get anywhere. So he uses this allegory to describe that. Verse 30, but what does the scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, which is the law, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman, which is grace. Now we're going to go on to apply these truths in chapters 5 and 6.

Paul's call to liberty. All this time he has been introducing the Holy Spirit to our lives. And this is going to become very important in our application to our daily living. Paul's call to liberty. We're going to see the freedom we have in Christ. the law of love, walking by the Holy Spirit, and our responsibility for one another. We moved from salvation, apart from the law, to our Christian walk, apart from the law. So now we're not talking about how we're being saved, we're talking about how we should live after salvation. It was for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore keep standing firm and do not be judged again to a yoke of slavery.

As believers today, we may not be concerned with circumcision or the Mosaic Law, but what about all those other things that put us under the yoke of slavery? When I was young, growing up in a Baptist church, I didn't realize it, but I was enslaved. I was under a yoke of slavery.

I was telling what I could do to be a good Christian, What I shouldn't do, I remember even as a college student, I was at a Baptist church, and a movie called The Exorcist had just kind of come out. And a preacher said, if you go to that movie, you're going to have to get yourself right with God. Don't be going to that movie. So after he said that to me, the very next day I went out and I watched that movie. So I was slowly learning, hey, I'm not going to live by a whole bunch of rules. That's ridiculous.

Let's just live by faith in Christ. Galatians 5.5, for we through the Holy Spirit, see now we're talking about the Holy Spirit. by faith are waiting for that hope of righteousness. This is the way we should live, by faith through means of the Holy Spirit.

Or in Galatians 5.6, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love. In liberty, the liberty that we have through faith is manifested in two different ways. this section of the book of Galatians. If we want to talk about living by a law, the law of love is the way we should live, which replaces the mosaic law. In Galatians 5, 13, for you were called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another, for the whole love Hope for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in that statement, you should love your neighbor as yourself. And the second way that walking by faith is manifested is by walking by means of the Holy Spirit as opposed to walking in the flesh.

Galatians 5.16, but I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

Galatians 5.18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Paul goes on to list the deeds of the flesh, which is the law, and the fruits of the Spirit. Against such things there is no law.

In chapter 6, We see our responsibility to one another considering what the Judaizers have been doing to them. The Judaizers in Galatia, they were kind of like the Pharisees. You'll never find in the Gospels where the Pharisees were helping people out. All the Pharisees wanted to do was divide people. They never brought people together. They only came and criticized.

In Galatians 6.2, we read, bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. So there are principles that we need to go by. We're not living by a bunch of rules, but there are principles that is pointed out in practically all of Paul's epistles that we should live by.

Galatians 6.10. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who are the household of faith. And this can only be accomplished through the Holy Spirit and not the flesh. Now, we come to the conclusion of the book. In the conclusion, we see the Authentication of the Epistle, the final warnings to the Galatians, and Paul's confidence in the cross.

In Galatians 6.11, Paul says, See what large letters that I am writing to you with my own hand.

Paul either had poor eyesight or he was emphasizing his message with large bold letters. I kind of think that it was because of his poor eyesight. You remember on his first missionary trip, he was in Pamphylia, which is the coast just north of Cyprus. During that time, there was a lot of disease going on. It's possible that Paul may have contracted malaria, and when he went up into Glacier, they didn't turn him away. They encouraged him even though his eyesight, and one of the things about malaria is it affects your eyes.

And so this is what happened. That's my own personal opinion. That might not be exactly what happened. But when he was up there, the people loved him so much they were willing to pluck out their eyes and give them to him. So Paul is saying, look at how such a large letter I wrote to you. He's saying this book is authenticated by me.

We've already been through that in Galatians 4.13, but you know that was because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time. If possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. And then once again, he warns the readers of putting themselves under that yoke of bondage, the law. And we end this book with these few verses in Galatians 6, 12-16.

Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. But may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision, anything, nor uncircumcision, for neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

So he's beginning to teach us that we are a new creation in Christ. And we see that in all of his other epistles. And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen.

That's the last verse of Galatians chapter 18. So as we finish off, This study today, as we begin the study next week, Miles is going to start in with verse one. Just keep in mind that we have the three different sections that we have to keep in context. Number one, Paul's authority as an apostle, chapters one and two. the doctrinal section in chapters 3 and 4 and the application to the believer in chapters 5 and 6.

That's it. Any questions? Comments? You want to go back and re-read it? Let's sit through it again. I'll tell you what. I want to encourage you to read the whole book of Galatians over and over and over again as we study this. Don't just read the passages that we're working on each Sunday, but go through the whole book. Get a comprehension of what the whole book is all about. It's going to help us understand the individual verses, the individual sentences, the individual paragraphs, the individual book, and also how that book relates to all of God's Scripture. And like I said before, this is what context is all about.

So, we'll close in prayer. Thank you, Father, for this time where we can study your Word. I pray that as we go home that we go through this whole book over and over again so that we can comprehend each of its individual parts. Thank you for this time we have together. I pray your spirit might guide and direct each one of us now as we go into the morning service. In Christ's name, amen.