Sermon Tone Analysis

It’s All For Show!

Paul has just about finished his letter.

Now he summarizes in five steps.

illustration for show for others

First, Paul emphasizes the truth of Galatians positively: “Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand,” he said (v. 11).

The apostle now takes the pen into his own hand.

To this point, he seems to have followed his customary practice of using the services of a secretary to write down what he dictated.

But for the closing verses, he wants to give positive, personal emphasis to his closing remarks.

He draws particular attention to the large letters with which he writes.

Possibly an eye ailment made such writing necessary.

“Look at these large letters I am writing,” he says.

This could mean: “Note how heavily I have pressed upon the pen in writing this.”

Or the words may point to Paul’s heavy[1]

The truth of Galatians is of supreme importance to the church.

This epistle is our Magna Charta, our Declaration of Independence from the shackles of the Law.

Paul had thought through the great truth of the Christian believer’s total emancipation from the Law.

He had championed the truth in every forum available to him.

On this very issue, he had withstood to the face the greatly loved, highly honored, and widely respected Peter.

He had fought for the truth in Jerusalem.

He had suffered unremitting persecution at the hands of the Jews for his stand.

Now he seizes the pen to add, in his own handwriting, his final endorsement[1]

I Heed the Warning (11-13)

Verse 11 begins with Paul’s appeal and command for readers to see (idete-aorist active imperative-“look”) with what large (pelikois) letters he has written (egrapsa-aorist passive indicative) to them in his own hand.

This was from me and it very personal.

I take this very seriously

(1) to authenticate the letter, as he seems also to have done on other occasions (cf. 1 Cor 16:21; Col 4:18; 2 Thess 3:17), and

(2) to emphasize his main points.

[1]

It about a show and to prove they are not like them

WE want to make a good outward impression

This appeal is followed by a final warning related to the Judaizers.

vs 12 - They are described as those who wish (thelousin) fair shew to have a good showing (euprosopesai-aorist active infinitive) in the flesh.

vs 12 - These false teachers would compel (anagkazousin-present active indicative-“force”) the Galatians to be circumcised.

12 For the last time Paul speaks of the legalizers, this time warning the Galatians about what they were attempting to do and why they were doing it.

The object of this legalistic activity, Paul says, is “to make a good impression outwardly.”

The Greek for this phrase is richer than any single English translation can make it.

For one thing, the verb translated “to make a good impression” (euprosōpēsai) carries overtones of insincerity.

They were not what they seemed.

For another, the impression they desired to make was both before men and in external matters.

The word that suggests this is the crucial term “flesh” (sarx), which has appeared throughout the letter.

Flesh refers to men, whom the legalizers wanted to impress, and to circumcision, which had become the touchstone of their religion.

In contrast to this, Christianity consists in a desire to please God on the part of those who, as a result of his grace, have become new creatures (vv.

14, 15).

But why did the legalizers persevere so strongly in their error if, indeed, as Paul claims, it is an error?

There are two reasons.

First, they desired to escape the persecution that attached to Christ’s cross.

To have the cross is to have three disquieting and humiliating doctrines:

(1) man is a sinner;

(2) his sin brings him under the curse of God, which curse Christ bore;

(3) nothing man can do can earn salvation, for if this were possible, the cross would have been unnecessary.

These doctrines humble men.

Consequently, men hate the cross and actively persecute those who proclaim it.

13 Second, the legalizers persevered in their error because of their desire to boast that they had been able to win over the Galatians for Judaism.

There were two things wrong with this.

(1) It was an attempt to win others to that which was itself bankrupt; for not even those who were circumcised (that is, Jews) were able to keep the law.

(2) It was based on pride.

The legalizers wanted to boast in the flesh of the Galatians.

This means that they wanted to boast in the number of circumcisions, much as David had boasted in the two hundred foreskins of the Philistines.

They were trophy hunters and wanted to be able to report on mass “conversions” in Galatia.

The humbling parallel would be in the tendency to take pride in counting the number of “decisions for Christ” or “baptisms” today[1]

II Consider the Contrast (14-15)

boasting only in the cross

a new creation

vs 14 - Magnifying the contrast between himself and the false teachers, Paul writes: “But for me, may it never be (me genoito) to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world (kosmos) to me has been crucified (estaurotai-perfect middle indicative) and I to the world” (verse 14).

Over against all such improper and sinful boasting, Paul sets an entirely different boasting of his own.

It is a boasting “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So important is this cause of boasting that, says Paul, it is inconceivable that he could boast in anything else.

It is striking how much of the gospel is involved in this statement.

The cross speaks of the atonement necessitated by man’s sin (see above on v. 12).

The full name of the Savior speaks of the significance of his person and the role he played, meaning literally “God who saves, the Messiah.”

Finally, the pronoun “our” speaks of the personal aspects of Christ’s redemption, for it becomes “ours” through the response of faith.

The legalizers had a motive for their actions.

Well, so did Paul.

Only his motive was not that of a fear of persecution or of a desire to boast in statistics.

He was boasting in the cross of Christ because of what the cross had accomplished in his life.

As Paul looks back on his life he realizes that before his conversion he was exactly like the legalizers.

Once he, too, was ruled by externals.

He, too, gloried in human attainment

Verse 15 echoes Paul’s earlier assertion in 5:6:

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything.

What matters is the appropriation of the work of the cross- a new creation (ktisis).

III Receive the benediction (16-18)

Has anyone yet missed the point?

If so, Paul will state it once again in even starker language—“Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God” (cf. the blessings of Pss 125:5; 128:6).

This statement makes three points:

(1) the peace and mercy of God are given only to those who adhere to this gospel;

(2) all who believe the gospel, so it is implied, have an obligation to continue walking in it; and

The truth is that the gospel is the real promoter of peace and is the channel of God’s mercy.

There can be no peace or mercy for the church when those responsible for following this “rule” depart from it.

The appeal is to the churches themselves and is that they might no longer trouble him by giving way to the legalistic heresies.

The reason, Paul says, is that he has suffered enough already.

It would be far better if the churches he founded at such cost would assume their own share of suffering, above all by resisting the kind of teaching that the legalizers upheld and therefore, if necessary, by enduring whatever persecution might follow.

The “marks of Jesus” refer to the scars Paul bore on his body as the result of the persecutions he had endured for the sake of his Lord.

These marks revealed his relationship to Christ, just as the “marks” (stigmata) of a slave revealed his ownership.

A list of the experiences that might have caused such scars occurs in 2 Corinthians 6:4–6 and 11:23–30.

These genuine and honorable marks in the body contrast strikingly with the ritualistic and now meaningless mark (circumcision) the legalizers wished to impose on the Galatians.

18 Paul ends the letter as he had begun it, upon the single and glorious note of God’s grace, expressing the wish that this grace might abide with the spirits of the Galatians.

Paul’s legacy is, therefore, a wish that the grace of God would be increasingly realized and that whatever external marks there might be, would be received, not as an effort to impress God ritualistically, but as a natural result of true Christian service.

The church will always know great days when these are the two distinguishing marks of God’s people.[1]

What Am I asking you to know?

How much of your Christianity is for show?