The Glorious Gospel of Grace
An Overview of Galatians
For two years, I had a job at the top floor of Clark Tower in Memphis. Someone told me that Clark Tower, with 34 stories, is the tallest building in the tri-state area. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m inclined to believe it. From that view, I could look out the western window and see the Pyramid and the state of Arkansas beyond the Mississippi River. The entire city of Memphis was laid out before me like a giant map with trees. On a clear day, I could see for miles.
One of the great things about that aerial view of the city is that it showed me what I could never see by driving around in my car. Street driving gave me the details, but tower gazing gave me the big picture. I began to make connections between one landmark and another; between one major intersection and another. The whole city could be seen as a whole.
This morning as I prepare to take up an exposition of Galatians, I’d like to begin with an aerial view of the book. Before we look at the details up close, I think it’s important to see how the whole book fits together. So this message will be like a field trip to the top of a tower overlook- ing the Book of Galatians.
The first thing you’ll notice from this overview is that the letter has three major sections:
First, chapters 1 and 2 give a biographical explanation in which the Gospel of grace is defended.
Second, chapters 3 and 4 give a doctrinal exposition in which the Gospel of grace is explained.
Third, chapters 5 and 6 give a practical exhortation in which the Gospel of grace is applied.
Let’s take a moment to consider each of these major sections and see how Galatians all fits together to teach the majesty of God’s sovereign grace to save sinners apart from works.
I. First, consider the biographical explanation of chapters 1 and 2.
We need to begin by asking, Why did Paul write this letter to the Galatians? This was perhaps the earliest epistle Paul ever wrote. The reason he wrote was to correct a horrible misunderstand-ing of the way that God saves sinners. Shortly after Paul planted the churches in Galatia, a group of Jews began to attack his message. What they were attacking was nothing less than the gospel itself. These Jews, called Judaizers, were in the church but not of it. They had incorporated Christ into their religious system but rejected the idea that He alone saves by grace apart from works of the law. The message of Galatians remains a powerful defense of the true gospel against the religious syncretism of our present day. The false gospels in our culture today are legion.
Not only is Galatians good theology, but it’s also good biography too. If it weren’t for the book of Galatians, we wouldn’t know some very interesting parts of Paul’s testimony. The first section is very auto-biographical. Beginning with 1:13 through 2:10, Paul tells how God called him and commissioned him to be an apostle as attested by the original apostles in Jerusalem. The reason he gives the details of his calling is not merely to talk about himself, but because it concerns his authority as an apostle of Jesus Christ. Verse 1 makes this authority abundantly clear:
Paul, an apostle (not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead). [Gal 1:1]
From verse one, Paul sets the record straight about his authority. He was an apostle—that is, one who is sent by God, which implies an earlier divine calling—apart from the calling or help of any human being. In other words, man had nothing to do with his authority! Paul is not writing to play games, so he begins by laying his trump card right on the table. His “trump card” was the sovereign calling of God who gave him the gospel message in the first place.
In a broader sense, this is still the inherent authority of any true preacher of God’s word today. The genuine preacher’s authority has nothing to do with his ancestry, nothing to do with his education, and nothing to do with his native abilities; it has everything to do with God, who inspired the Word that he preaches. God’s Word is the authority. As Paul received God’s word directly through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, even so, we receive that same inspired word directly from the written Word of God. Separate the exposition of God’s word from a preacher’s ministry and you will automatically remove his authority. Whatever so-called ‘authority’ remains (after you have removed God’s Word) is from men or through the agency of man, but not from God.
In seminary, Professor Howard Hendricks told a group of us students that expository preaching is the rarest and most demanding form of preaching there is. He said, “If you teach God’s word by exposition, you will likely be the only game in town.” With few exceptions, he’s been right. God calls us to preach because we truly have something to say; not just because we have to say something. And it’s from the Author of the Word that we get our AUTHORity. Paul makes this point again in 1:11-12—
11For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I recei-ved it through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Likewise, even as Paul made it clear that his authority was from God and not from men, even so preachers today have authority from God only to the extent that they preach the infallible Word of God and don’t succumb to preaching the ever-changing opinions of men.
Once Paul has established his authority as coming from God, he demonstrates his authority with an illustration of the time he had to correct the apostle Peter. Peter was one of Jesus’ closest dis-ciples of the twelve. It just goes to show that no Christian is above the gospel of grace. Peter lived out the grace of God when he was with Gentiles, but then he acted as if he was still bound to the law when he was with his Jewish peers. Paul said, “That’s hypocrisy!” The same grace applies to both Jews and Gentiles. We all come by grace and we’re all saved by grace.
And then in 2:20 he gives that key verse that puts it all together: “I have been crucified with Christ; and 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 faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Dr. Stephen Olford, who has been such an encouragement to me over the years even before I moved to Dallas, has made Galatians 2:20 his life verse. This verse is just the epitome of the Christian life.
Furthermore, it’s the essence of Paul’s biographical explanation in chapters 1and 2.
II. Second, consider the doctrinal exposition of chapters 3 and 4.
I don’t know how you all feel about diplomacy, but it’s true that even diplomacy has its limits! Paul begins chapter three (rather undiplomatically) by calling the Galatians “bewitched fools”!
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? [Gal 3:1]
In these words, we can really begin to sense the apostle’s righteous anger. Why was he so angry? He was angry because God’s grace had been slandered by the lifestyle and beliefs of some people within the church. Do you ever get angry for God’s truth? You can tell what a person values by observing what makes them angry. Most of the time we get angry because we feel our dignity assaulted, or someone slights us in some way… this is because we think highly of ourselves.
Paul got fired up for God’s truth! Do you ever become compassionately moved to indignation when you think about the way His gospel message is so misrepresented and misunderstood in our culture? Or when you consider how many educated people do not read to prepare themselves for God’s service, or for power and wisdom to witness to the lost around them? I think if we really understood what Paul was saying about the glory of the gospel message, we would feel more passionately about it… not just an emotional passion, but passion with resolve!
J.C. Ryle said, “The man who does not glory in the gospel can surely know little of the plague of sin that’s within him.” It was Paul’s awareness of his own sin that made him glory in God’s grace.
Whenever we teach or preach in the name of God, souls are at stake. This is eternal business. How we attend to God’s word, both publicly and privately is of eternal consequence. We ought to be passionate about getting it right! As believers in Christ, we need to make the Word of God easy to understand; hard to forget; and impossible to ignore. That’s what Paul does in Galatians.
Richard Longenecker writes in his WBC introduction to Galatians:
Galatians is… like a lion turned loose in the arena of Christians. It challenges, intimi-dates, encourages, and focuses our attention on what is really essential as little else can. How we deal with the issues it raises and the teachings it presents will in large measure determine how we think as Christians and how we live as Christ’s own.
In this doctrinal section, Paul turns the lion loose and goes to the example of Abraham to prove justification by faith apart from works. Look at chapter 3, verse 6,
“Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Now somebody thinking like the Judaizers hears this and says, “Aha! That’s works! You said Abraham had to believe before it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Wrong! Belief is the fruit of faith. Is faith something that we bring to God or is faith something that God gives to us?
Opinions may vary, but what does the Bible say? Listen to Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
The faith that saves begins and ends with God. He has left nothing to chance to bring His people to heaven. Abraham believed God because God called Abraham to Himself; if God never called, Abraham never could have come. As Romans 10:14-15a declares, “How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” These questions form a divine chain of evangelism. But God did call, and Abraham did come and the reason it all depended on God’s grace is so that when all was said and done, God alone could receive all of the glory. Soli Deo Gloria. “To God alone be the glory!”
So what purpose does the law serve? This is what Paul asks and answers in 3:19ff. He says the law was “added because of transgressions.” Some people wrongly believe that there were no transgressions prior to the law. Paul corrects this error by telling us that the law was added because of transgressions. One of my favorite preachers, C.H. Spurgeon said, “The law stirs the mud at the bottom of the pool and proves how foul the waters are.” Once we understand our sin and depravity by looking at the law, it should drive us to the Savior, because no one has ever kept the law, except the One who said: “I came, not to destroy, but to fulfill the Law of God.” [Mt 5:17] Those are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul further develops this argument in Ch. 4 with the differences between Sarah and Hagar—a bond-woman; the differences between Isaac and Ishmael. So first we considered the biographical explanation, second we considered the doctrinal exposition, now…
III. Third, consider the practical exhortation of chapters 5 and 6.
This is where Paul gets into the application of the doctrine of grace. He talks about what it means to “walk in the Spirit.” He tells us that the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit lusts (or wars) against the flesh. He then names the putrid deeds of the flesh and then presents the glorious fruits of the Spirit.
Later in chapter 6 he talks about restoring those who have fallen into sin; he says they should be restored by “you who are spiritual” because he knows that pointing out the faults of others is dangerously attractive to those who are carnally minded. The carnally minded are eager to offend and confront; but you who are spiritual are gentle and want to bring restoration. We don’t want the carnally minded to be involved in the restoring work of the church, that is, until they have been restored themselves. Restoration is spiritual work to be done by spiritual men and women.
Then he talks about the law of the harvest: “You will reap what you sow.” Those words stand as a warning to all that how we think and live has eternal implications. Bear one another’s burdens and don’t grow weary while doing good. There’s more in Galatians than one message can preview.
Galatians is powerful because it’s foundational. The bedrock of the Christian faith is the central message of Galatians, namely, you are saved by grace alone through faith alone.
With this I close. It was a Monday afternoon about three years ago. I had been at a church conference in Collierville all day. I was driving back home down Poplar when my car began to drive rough. I heard a churning noise under the hood. Then I saw the check engine light flash on. And the light prompted me to look at the gauges. That’s when I really knew something was wrong. The needle on the temperature gauge was all the way over to hot—as far as it could go. Then I saw smoke oozing out from under the hood. I pulled into the nearest service station I could find—a small BP station. The mechanic checked it out and after a few minutes of analysis confirmed my original suspicion: something was wrong.
We still didn’t know what the problem was, so I drove another mile or so into a dealership. I had to leave it there while they checked it out. In the end, it turned out to be a broken fan-clutch.
I think there’s a sense in which the spiritual life operates in the same way. When there’s a problem “under the hood” of our spiritual lives, we need to check the gauges. Even a small problem can result in major damage if not dealt with immediately.
What are those gauges we can look at? Your prayer life; your system of belief; your theology; your attitude; your daily schedule; your spiritual appetite for the things of God; your relationship with friends and family. That’s what Galatians gives us. It shows us the gauges for the Christian life and it forces us to test our faith against the standard of God’s word.
Christ Community Church
(c) Charles Kevin Grant
May 2, 2003