"Tell them that it's human nature"--A Study of Galatians (Day 6 question 5)

 

"So then, does God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law?  Or is it by believing what you heard--just like Abraham who believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness?"  Galatians 3:5-6

Let me give you a sneak peek into my process for writing these studies.  I listen to the passages several times and make notes as they come to mind. Before the study makes it online, it's written out over several pages in a notebook.  Arrows are drawn between different verses and thoughts.  I've even started drawing out what I'm reading, a fairly new skill learned in our latest in-person study on Revelation.  Out of the chaos comes order and the study is born!!  Let me tell you, tonight as I prepared this post, my mind was completely blown.  I asked myself the questions--"What miracles had the Galatians experienced?" and "What would a mostly gentile, new testament church know of Abraham?" I went to one of my favorite, most reliable sites "got questions dot org" and asked this second question.  The answer was ABRAHAM WAS A GENTILE!!!!!! Israel as a nation wasn't born until God changed Jacob's, Abraham's grandson, name to Israel.  The term Jew is actually a shortened form of Judah, the tribe of one of Jacob's sons and the tribe of King David and Jesus.  The word "gentile" just means nation.  Abraham was called out of the nation of Ur to go to a land that he did not know.  God promised to make him into a new nation.  According to gotquestions, "The Jews of Jesus's day looked to Abraham (not Jacob/Israel: as the head of their race.  So, it would not be wrong to think of Abraham as the "first Jew", although that's technically not correct."  😮Abraham

So what miracles did the Galatians experience?  The greatest of all miracles--salvation.  We miss that sometimes don't we, when we are listing the miracles of Jesus? According to Acts 14:1-3 and 8-11, Paul and his companions are in Iconium and Lystra, both provinces of Galatia.  In Iconium, Jews and Greeks believed the gospel.  But unbelieving Jews stirred up and poisoned the minds of the new believers.  Paul and his fellow missionaries "stayed in Iconium a long time and spoke boldly for the Lord, who testified to the message of His grace by enabling them to do signs and wonders."  The miracles came from the power of Jesus, not as a trophy because they followed the law.  In Lystra, a crippled man was healed through the power of Jesus, not as a reward for believers following the law.  The Spirit gave power to work these miracles, not by any manipulation from humans, but for the salvation of many. 

In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with Abram, soon to be Abraham.  God tells him "do not  be afraid, I am your shield; your reward will be very great."  Abram says how can it be great, I have no children?  God famously tells Abram his heir won't be a slave in his household, but a child from his own body.  He takes him outside (God TOOK Abraham outside 💖) and said "Look at the stars in the sky, so will be your offspring." Abram believed and the LORD credited it to him as righteousness.  But, but, but....the very next chapter, Abram goes into a slave girl at his wife's insistence and gets her pregnant.  So was the miracle a reward for following the law? NO, because Abram didn't.  He didn't follow God's law, he chose his own way.  The miracle came from believing what he heard, even though he took wrong turns along the way.  According to Romans 4, if Abraham was credited for the "work" he had done, his wages would be death, because he sinned.  But Abraham believed in the One who justifies (saves) the ungodly, and it was credited as righteousness.  

 Why did Abraham take matters into his own hands?  Why do the Galatians take matters into their own hands?   Abraham believed what he heard.  He KNEW it, he BREATHED it in, he took it to HEART, and he was DOING the good work of the Spirit.   The same could be said of the Galatians.  The same can be said of us.  Then human nature gets in the way.  We imagine God could use our assistance in getting to the miracle.  Our behavior is changed when we think there is a trophy to win; we look for social, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual races to run to earn a win, to earn a miracle.  That's not how it works.  Jesus calls us--that's the miracle. We hear it--that's the miracle.  We receive His Spirit, the seal of Jesus stamped on to our lives--that's the miracle.  

With Abraham's testimony we see the full-circle story that we learned in the Like Sands Through an Hourglass study.  Abraham, essentially a gentile called from one nation to be a nation of God's making.  The Galatians--part of the early church, called from human nature to be conformed to the nature of Christ.  Us--2,000 years later, gentiles, still part of the church, local and universal.  All of us a screen on which is displayed the steadfast, loyal, unwavering, stubborn love and faithfulness of God.  Not because of anything we have done (Praise God!!!!), but because we have heard and believe " Jesus, who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age."  The greatest of all miracles.

To Him be the glory.  Forever and ever.  Amen.