An Easy Way to Remember the Believer’s Relationship to the Law of God

My apologies for the week-long hiatus from blogging.  My family just moved out to California for the summer so I could attend Grace Advance Academy, which is essentially a two-month crash-course in church leadership and church-planting.

On a another subject entirely, as I was meeting with God in the book of Galatians this morning, he brought my attention to a subject I am trying to clarify more and more – the relationship between the law of God and the Christian.  In Galatians 4:21, Paul addresses the Galatians by calling them “you who desire to be under the law”.  What does this designation mean?  Does it have a negative or positive connotation?  Well, given the context, the connotation is a negative one that speaks to the desire of the Galatians to rely on the law (specifically, their obeying the law) to gain a right standing before God.  Paul demonstrates in chapter 3 that the law was not given so that we would be saved by keeping it (that’s impossible), but rather so that we would see our sin and believe in Christ to save us (the only One who has kept the law perfectly).

So, Galatians makes it clear that the law has no place in the life of a Christian as a system for salvation, but that does not mean that the law has no place in the life of a Christian.  Tim Keller, in his book, Galatians for You, gives an easy way for us to remember what place the law should have in our lives now that we’ve trusted Christ alone for salvation: we are called to law-obeying, not law-relying.  He explains:

Law-obeying, not law-relying – These are Christians who understand the gospel and are living out the freedom of it.  They obey the law of God out of the grateful joy that comes from the knowledge of their sonship, and out of freedom from the fear and selfishness that false idols had generated.

When Christ’s Death Means Everything to Us

This morning I am continuing to be blessed by an illustration that Tim Keller uses in his book, Galatians for You.  The illustration is used to depict the reality of Paul’s words in Galatians 2:21, which read, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Keller comments, Christ will do everything for you, or nothing.  You cannot combine merit and grace.  If justification is by the law in any way, Christ’s death is meaningless in history and meaningless to you personally.

His illustration helps:

Imagine that your house were burning down but your whole family had escaped, and I said to you, “Let me show you how much I love you!” and ran into the house and died.  “What a tragic and pointless waste of a life”, you would probably think.  But now imagine that your house was on fire and one of your children was still in there, and I said to you: “Let me show you how much I love you!”, ran into the flames, and saved your child but perished myself.  You would think: “Look at how much that man loved us.”

Keller wraps it up by stating, If we could save ourselves, Christ’s death is pointless, and means nothing.  If we realize we cannot save ourselves, Christ’s death will mean everything to us.

The Gospel is Not a Second Chance

This week I started studying Galatians in the mornings and I’ve been using Timothy Keller’s book Galatians for You as a tool to help shed some light on the text.  In the book, Keller says something about Galatians 1:4 that gave my heart fodder for praise.  Let me quote the text, then Keller:

“…the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver (or rescue) us from the present evil age…”

Commenting on what it means that Christ gave himself to “deliver” us, Keller says,

“[Jesus] did not merely buy us a ‘second chance’, giving us another opportunity to get life right and stay right with God.  He did all we needed to do, but cannot do.”

Do I have to say how profound this is?  What would have become of us if the gospel was simply a second chance to “get life right”?  We would fail miserably again, running from God in rebellion as we claim our own independence and worth!  The truth is that we lack the capacity for obedience altogether.  Even if God gave us a million second chances, we would never reach God’s standard.  It is true that time along with trial and error is what Thomas Edison needed to invent the electric light bulb, but time for us, left to ourselves, will only result in more sin.

This is why we needed Jesus to rescue us.  We are spiritually unable to get life right so we could save ourselves, so Jesus had to get life right for us so he could save us.  It is common for Christians to say that we serve “a God of second chances”.  To that we should ask, “Second chances to do what?”  Is it second chances to get life right or second chances to prove ourselves?  If so, we need to be reminded of the gospel which says, “We would use second chances the same way we used the first chance, therefore, we need Jesus to rescue us – the one who does not need second chances; the one who got life right the first time… for us.”