Well this morning we come to the end of a study of the book of Galatians and this makes me sad because I love this book. It's so vital and important and I never feel like we really get hold of its meaning and its message. As I thought about ending this epistle in our last message this morning, my desire is really to summarize and drive home the main intent of the letter. And as I studied the last verses, I found that this is precisely what Paul wanted to do as well. 

This is a letter about the new creation and the new covenant life set in contrast with life under the law of Moses. Its main intent is to make clear the gospel itself and more particularly the implications of the gospel on our understanding of the Christian life. The false gospel of the Judaizers of salvation by grace and faith in Jesus plus works and rites and rituals is a false message that still permeates and plagues Christendom today. 

The effects of this false gospel on the true church and influencing the believer's understanding of the Christian life is as salient a message today as it was when Paul penned these words. We have churches and theologians today who claim the name of Christ, who profess faith in his death, burial, and resurrection, and yet add all kinds of works and religious rites and ceremonies, even our own personal sufferings, as necessary to accomplish or complete our salvation. 

This false gospel has an influence on the true church's understanding of sanctification. There are many more in the church today who would hold the true gospel for justification and then believe and teach that we must bring the law back into the life of the believer for sanctification. And dead men from long ago still hold sway over much of the church's thinking in these realms with their intricate systems of theology that do not come from the pages of Scripture. 

The church tends to value and esteem such men, and this brings confusion reigning in much of the body of Christ. I think of Augustine, who I believe when you study what he preached, what he taught, is clearly a heretic. He taught a message very similar to the Judaizers, even mixed with mystic pagan doctrines of Babylon. He's the father of the Roman Catholic Church and clearly preached a gospel of faith plus works filled with all kinds of rites and ceremonies for salvation, and yet we hold him up. 

We quote him and follow much of what he taught, even in the true church. I saw this week that the Vatican decided after all these centuries that it was not Mary who saved us, but was Jesus all along, always changing so they never have to change. My brothers and sisters, nothing changed in the Catholic Church. Augustine taught Marian theology from the very beginning. That's why he called her the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of God, and that church still does today. Mary is neither. She was a Jewish girl faithful to her Lord, and she was blessed, but she is not the Mother of God, nor is she the Queen of Heaven. 

This theology of Augustine was from the mystery religions of Babylon and the mother-son cults. Paul's great desire, as we see the believers in Galatia esteeming the false teachers of his day and some listening to them and being influenced by them, Paul's great desire in this letter, a letter filled with passion and purpose, was to make clear to the believers that they needed to reject those who taught a false gospel, but also reject and avoid teachers who tried to place them back under the law, who saw the law as a means to salvation or as a means to living. 

It is the gospel of grace. It is the life of faith. It is the new creation, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ in us that can change us, that can produce holiness in us, and can bring glory to God. The heart of this letter is this. We are saved, justified by grace through faith in Jesus alone, and we are being saved. We now live our life by grace through faith in Jesus alone as well. The law is not a means to salvation in any aspect. 

It can only serve the intent for which God gave it, to show us our sin, to lead us to faith in Jesus Christ. But as Paul said in chapter 3, once faith has come, we are no longer under the tutor. God has made a new way, a much better way. Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant built on better promises, and He has dealt with the sin that dwells in us, released us from not only its penalty for our sins, but its power in our sin. 

We were made righteous through His one-time act on the cross, His obedience unto death, and our union with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection. This is the new creation, and the new creation is the only explanation to our new life. As we live by the grace of God, by His life and power in us through faith, the just shall live by faith. 

So we see Paul summarize these great truths in our text, in his final words to the Galatians as he writes this: “circumcision or uncircumcision, religious right and ritual is meaningless. It avails nothing. The only thing that matters is the new creation.” Let's read our text again, Galatians 6:11: "...that they may boast in your flesh. But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but a new creation. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen." 

We'll have four points this morning on our outline. First, Paul's passion. Second, avoiding persecution. Third, dead to the past. And fourth, a new creation. 

Well, first in our text, we see Paul's passion. See with what large letters I have written to you with my own hand. It was Paul's custom to have a friend copy down his words when he wrote a letter. The friend would act as a scribe as Paul would dictate the words, and this was customarily written in small letters in a sort of cursive style linked together. But Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians himself, and he wrote it in large block style letters about one inch in height, which was another common writing style. 

The reason Paul wrote in such large letters was because of his eye condition. He mentions it in the epistle that we studied before. It's thought that he had an eye disease marked by excessive oozing, and this was not only unattractive but it made it difficult for Paul to see clearly, so he wrote in large letters so that he could see what he was writing. I can sympathize with that just as we were singing the songs, I was having a hard time seeing those words. I don't see like I used to, so I like big letters. I like 14, 16 font, you know. 

He painstakingly recorded every word of this epistle with his own hand as he worked out his anger at the false teachers and his concern for the believers there. He starts off hot right out of the gate. If you look at Galatians 1:6-10, he says, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we are an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached you, let him be accursed. As we've said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than that which you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men or God, or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” 

He kind of begins the letter the same place he ends it, with this idea of those who are faithful to Christ are suffering persecution, being abused because of the cross of Christ, but those who want to avoid that persecution become men pleasers. Paul says if a man teaches any other gospel, let him be damned to hell. He's not mincing words. We see his passion throughout the epistle and his deep concern for the effect that the works law teaching was having on the believers understanding of the Christian life. 

He uses particularly graphic language in chapter 5 when he says, “Then I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution, again that theme, then the offense of the cross has ceased? I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off.” If salvation is by surgery, as the Judaizers taught, through circumcision, Paul says they may as well remove it entirely. He was passionate about the truth, and the truth was being undermined, and the church was suffering, and we see his heart and his great concern throughout the entire epistle right to the end, see with what large letters I have written with my own hand. 

Well next we see avoiding persecution. Verse 12 of our text: “As many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh, these would compel you to be circumcised only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For not even those who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.” 

This is perhaps the most peculiar thing in my mind about this doctrine of law-keeping for righteousness. Even those who teach it, even those who hold to it, that look to the law as a rule of life, a means of holiness, an intricate part of the Christian life, even they do not keep it. That's Paul's contention here. 

Now the problem scripturally with this is that the law demands only one thing, perfection. It's no good to anyone if it's not kept perfectly, so to use the law and come up with coy sayings like it's not the perfection but the direction is not to hear the law. Paul says, “Do you hear the law? Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?” Back in chapter 3 he wrote this, “For as many as are the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no one is justified by the law on the side of God is evident, the just shall live by faith. Yet the law is not a faith, but the man who does them shall live by them.” 

Jesus taught the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount. Sometimes we hear preachers apply the Sermon on the Mount to the Christian life in the sense that we should be striving to attain to the Beatitudes. But this sermon was a law sermon through and through, given to an audience of legalistic Jews in order to show them that their religious work system was going to lead them to judgment and that they needed a Savior. You have heard it said of old, you shall not commit murder. But I say to you, if you have been angry with your brother without cause, you have committed murder already. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus makes clear what he's saying, you must be perfect as God in heaven is perfect in order to enter the kingdom. 

These words are meant to elevate the piercing nature of the law, to show the law's intent, to show us how far short we fall. Jesus summarizes the message in chapter 7 at the very end when he writes there, he says this: “Therefore whoever hears these things of mine and does them I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat on that house and it did not fall for it was founded on the rock, but everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand and the rain descended, the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell, and great was its fall.” 

Who is it that does these sayings, keeps them perfectly as the law requires. The point here is that those he's talking to, the religious self-righteous Jews had built their house on the sand. They were trusting in their works, their rites and rituals, their religion, and they needed to see that they were in trouble. 

And if you were a Jewish man in that day sitting on the side of that Mount and listening to Jesus, if you were an honest person, then you would have to listen to that and you would have to be walking home and say to yourself, “I'm in trouble. I don't do those sayings. I don't keep it.” Because it wasn't like the rich young ruler Saul of Tarsus who said righteousness through the law I was, you know, I had it all. I did it all outwardly. I've kept all these things since my youth. Jesus says no, it's not just that you haven't murdered someone. It's that you've been angry at someone. 

The law is impossible to keep and it provides no power to keep it. It demands perfection. Paul says even the Judaizers, even the Pharisees, even those who teach the law as a rule of life, who say you must keep it, even they do not keep it. It does not produce righteousness in their lives, nor can it, nor was it ever intended to. 

Rather, they only seek to bring you under the law in order to avoid persecution. Galatians 6:12, “As many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh.” These words here mean to put on a good face, put on a show. “Compel you to be circumcised so that they might not suffer persecution for the cross.” 

The Jews who had rejected Jesus altogether, who saw him as a heretic and a blasphemer, a common criminal nailed to a cross, those who were still in the temple practicing Judaism, they were not happy with this new sect called Christians. We saw this clearly in the person of Saul of Tarsus. These Jews were persecuting the church and now Paul. 

And what Paul says here is that these Judaizers, the Jews who had professed faith in Christ, had associated themselves with the church to one degree or another. They were anxious to put the Gentiles under the law and require law-keeping and circumcision only, Paul says, only for the reason that it would allow them to get the heat turned down a little bit, to avoid the persecution from the Jews. They could say to them, see, we value the law, we believe in circumcision, we're doing all those things, no different today. 

You can go along to get along, compromise, not say the hard truths, and you don't suffer so much. They wanted to put on a good face, make a little show that they were not against the law of Moses so they wouldn't be in so much trouble. Paul says they boast in the flesh, in works, in law-keeping. I will boast in nothing but the cross of Christ. 

Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” That old world for Paul, that old world of law-keeping, of religion, of ceremony, that old world of Saul of Tarsus was crucified, and he was crucified to it, it says. Let's look at Philippians chapter 3. 

Paul says, “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation.” Who's he talking about there? Talking about the Jews, the mutilation. “Beware, for we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, who rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so. Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law, a Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” 

When the scales fell from Saul's eyes, he was not the same man he was when he departed for Damascus. He was a new creation. The old had gone, the new had come, and that old man was crucified with Christ, buried and raised to newness of life. He wanted nothing to do with that old religion, that law-keeping life for righteousness. He said it is as dung to me. He is dead to the past. Now his life is Jesus. Now his life is faith, is abiding, is walking in the Spirit, forgetting that which is behind, which is dead, which was crucified. 

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by looking to the Ten Commandments.” Is that what it says? “The life that I now live, I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” 

You see, my brother, my sister, in Christ, if we are to understand this new covenant life in Christ, we must understand our death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus. Romans 4 tells us that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and He was raised for our justification, for our righteousness. We are made righteous. Romans 5:18-19 says, imparted spiritual life. We are given spiritual life through His one-time act of obedience on the cross. 

Just as we were made sinners by the one-time act of Adam in the garden, in that we inherit indwelling sin, so we are made righteous, justified unto life by the one righteous act of Christ on the cross, His death, burial, and resurrection. He was raised because of our justification, so the cross is the key. Our death is the crucial point. Our death to sin, to the law, to the fear of death, this is the point of transformation. 

The old world, who I was in Adam, all I thought and believed and trusted in, was crucified at the cross of Christ, and I was buried with Him and rose up with Him to a new life, a new creation, and now that world is dead to me, and I to it, as I am a new man with a new spirit and the Holy Spirit living in me. I have no desire for religious pomp and circumstances and big hats and robes and incense and beads and all that vain tradition handed down from my fathers, Peter says. I was saved with incorruptible things, the blood of Jesus Christ, and I am kept by Him, and His Holy Spirit is the down payment guaranteeing my inheritance. 

Imagine a person with a very sick heart. You've probably known someone in that condition. The doctors have told him that he cannot live with the heart that he has any longer. He needs a transplant. He's very sick, and as that goes, you never know if you're going to get a donor, right? But this man, in the nick of time, a heart becomes available, the transplant is successful, and after a long recovery, he can go on with his life. 

Now imagine if that man with a new healthy heart, recovered, living life to his fullness, would go back to the doctors and ask for that old diseased heart to be put back into his chest. He would be declared insane. It would be irrational, unhinged, to want to take out the heart of flesh and put back in the diseased heart that would bring only death. 

And yet a greater transformation has taken place in every man who believes in Jesus. He is regenerated. He is born again, and that old heart of stone is taken out, and God puts in a heart of flesh. He's a new man, a new creation with a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit living in him. He no longer lives under law, sin, and death, but under grace, righteousness, and eternal life. A new creation is all that matters to his Christian life. 

Not religion, not circumcision, not baptism, not any rite or ritual, but a new creation. That old heart sought righteousness by the flesh through the law, but it yields nothing but death. In Romans 7:14-25, Paul describes his old man seeking to live under the law by the flesh, and what is the result? 

Let's look at that text, Romans 7:14, and I'd ask you to notice that from 14 to 25, Paul uses the present tense in the Greek in order to describe an action, a verb that is continual, that is a continual, ongoing, perpetual action. So listen, think of that as you see these verbs. He says, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, a slave to sin. For what I am doing, what I always continually, perpetually do, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice, but what I hate, that I always continually, perpetually do. If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now it's no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells, for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do, but the evil I will not to do, that I continually, always practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, a principle, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” 

This is what it's like to live under the law in the flesh. Paul describes this former life back in verse 5 of chapter 7, he says, “For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.” 

What we learned in Galatians 5 is that a believer can choose to go back to the law as his rule of life, he can choose to follow after the false gospel of the Judaizers and attempt to live the Christian life by the law, walking by the flesh. It is spiritual insanity, it is irrational, but some were doing this very thing in Galatia and so many are doing it today in the church. 

In Galatians 5:17, Paul says, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” 

Now the works of the flesh are evident, he lists those out, he contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit in this passage. The point is that if we go back to the law, listen now, if we go back to the law, we give place to the sin that still dwells in us. For the power of sin is the law, Paul says, and we end up overtaken by all kinds of sins. We saw this in chapter 6, that those believers who were leaving the grace of God and the spirit-faith life were trying to live by the law and surprised to find various sins overtaking them in their life. 

This is the case for the religious man and Adam under the law without hope separated from God, but it can also be true for the believer who is bewitched by false teaching and seeks to go back to the law like that insane man who would attempt to put back his old heart, to go back to that old world of trying to justify yourself by the law, by the works of your flesh. 

We are new men, we are new creations, the old's gone, the new has come, we no longer are under law, we're no longer dominated and controlled by indwelling sin, we do not live by the letter, but we live by the Holy Spirit. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision or uncircumcision avails anything but a new creation. 

Turn over to 1st Peter with me, 1st Peter chapter 1. We often go to Romans 6 or 2nd Corinthians 5, but I just want to show you that this truth is everywhere in the Scriptures. When I think of 1st Peter 1, “be holy for I am holy,” right? Be holy for I am holy, Peter quotes. What does that make you think of? Be holy for I am holy. Well here's what Peter bases this admonition to holiness on, 1st Peter 1:15: “But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct because it is written, be holy for I am holy. And if you call on the Father who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who through him believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and your hope are in God.” 

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the spirit and sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the Word of God which lives and abides forever. What do we see in this text? We see that our faith and our hope are in God, like Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, we have no confidence in ourselves as if our sufficiency is from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God in the new covenant, he says. 

You have purified your souls in believing the gospel. Love flows out of your new pure heart, Peter says. You have been born again, regenerated. You see, the new creation is what matters for holiness. The Holy Spirit living in you by the Spirit, Peter says, love one another fervently. The Holy Spirit living in you and empowering you is the means for holiness in this new covenant, but based on the truth of your new birth, your regeneration. 

It means nothing to go to a church. It means nothing to participate in elaborate ceremonies, to engage in rituals. What matters is a new creation. This is the beginning of life in Christ, our death with Him, a new birth, a new creation. 

In verse 16 of our text, Paul says, “And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God.” From now on, let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, amen. 

Verse 16 is very interesting because Paul says as many as walk according to this rule. What rule? The word walk is from “stoicheo,” which means to direct one's life, to order one's conduct, and rule is from “canon,” which here means a principle. Those who order and direct their lives by the principle of the life of faith, by the Holy Spirit of God, peace and mercy be upon them, even the Israel of God. 

The word translated “and” here is “chi,” which can also be translated “even” in this context. There's a little bit of a disagreement here whether he's separating two groups, those who walk by this rule and Israel of God, or if he's saying those who walk by this rule even, that is, the Israel of God, which is what I favor. But I want to comment on this statement by Paul because the very word Israel brings all kinds of confusion and controversy in our present day, all of a sudden, in the world and in the church. 

Paul's simply using this language, as he quite often does, to chide the legalistic Jews here in this context. In Romans 2:28, he says, “‘For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that from the heart and the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God.’” 

In Philippians 3:3 that we read earlier, he says, “For we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Is Paul calling the church Jews? Is he advocating the church practice circumcision, or that the mark of a true believer is circumcision? Listen to Philippians 3 again, “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation, for we are the circumcision.” 

Paul's not saying in our text that the church is Israel, what he's doing is what he so often does when discussing or refuting the legalistic Jews, he's saying they are false teachers, they're dogs, they're the mutilation who think you get to heaven by cutting off your foreskin, and they preach a false way of salvation, religion, circumcision, etc. And in fact, it is the believers that are the true circumcision that are the real Jews that are the Israel of God. 

He's chiding the Judaizers, showing that they are false, and the Galatian believers who trust in God's grace alone through faith in Jesus alone are the real deal. And Paul closes with this somewhat, I think, exasperated statement, “From now on, let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. I've had enough of contending with you Judaizers. I'm weary of brethren who don't see that I am preaching the truth and suffering the persecution that goes with it.” 

He bore the marks in his body, he bore the marks from the stones, from the whips, from the rods, from the chains, because he stood for the true, pure gospel of grace by faith. And just as today, this made him pretty unpopular with all religion and much of Christendom. 

My brother, my sister in Christ, please let us take the message of the book of Galatians and hold fast to it, hold it near and dear to our hearts, and reject law as a means of holiness, reject religion, reject those who are not straightforward about the gospel truth, and stay close to those who preach grace and faith, who speak the truth about salvation in the Christian life. 

The key to the Christian life is Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” 

Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we thank you for the truth of the gospel, the pure gospel of grace in which you get all the glory. It is you who are sufficient, it is you who are able, is able to do all that we could ask or think and even more, to produce fruit through us, to bring glory to yourself and the church, to accomplish the salvation of men. We are privileged as your children, as your ambassadors who have been given the words of reconciliation, to be able to participate in your work, to share in that privilege, that joy, to tell people about Jesus. 

Help us in our own minds as believers to keep straight the gospel, to keep straight what your word says about who we are in Christ and how you would have us to live. Help us to go by your word and to have the courage that Paul had as an example to us to stand firm on what you say, regardless of the consequences. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. 

Okay, time for Stump the Pastor, right? If you have questions, or if you have thoughts on this epistle, we're ending this now, we're going to start the book of Daniel next week. So Bobby said, didn't you just preach on that? I said, well, 11 years ago, 11 years ago, so I'd like, I know a lot of people, who was here 11 years ago? Boy, not very many, eh? So it'll be new to most of you. So what are your thoughts on the book of Galatians, or do you have any questions?