The Jews were looking for the Messiah to come with great expectations. It was on all their lips. They were encouraging each other with the hope and surety of His coming.
However, they misunderstood His coming to mean political and national conquest. They wanted to be delivered from their enemies, not from their church or their sins. The coming of the Messiah was bound up only in their church. Basically, as far as they were concerned, it was their church that was “producing” the Messiah. They had become very selfish in their outlook of the coming of the Messiah.
The churches of today are doing the very same thing. Those churches that believe in the “coming of Jesus” believe it is in conjunction with their church. They run around claiming you have to belong to their church, denomination or organization in order to be included in the “coming of Jesus”. If you don’t belong to their particular church, denomination or religion, you won’t belong to the group Jesus will be taking back to Heaven.
Paul was preaching a “freedom” not from the law of God, the Ten Commandments, but from the church and its organizational structure, rites, rituals, traditions, ceremonies and sacrifices. The freedom we have in Jesus is to believe in Jesus personally, not collectively. A freedom to obey Jesus without worrying what a church, denomination or an organization thinks.
I was reading Hosea and began to put some pieces of the puzzle together. The coming of Jesus imitated the birth of Israel as a nation. Jacob’s family went to Egypt in order to be born a nation. Jesus came to this planet to be born and deliver the nations. Then, we are told that God called Jesus out of Egypt just as Israel was called out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15). Jesus was baptized just as the Bible says the nation of Israel was baptized by going through the Red Sea (1 Corinthians 10:1, 2. As the Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness preparing for their mission, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness preparing for His mission.
Galatians 5:1 to Galatians 5:26
The Messiah has set us free so that we may enjoy the benefits of freedom. So keep on standing firm in it, and stop putting yourselves under the yoke of slavery again.
The “benefits of freedom” is to be free in Jesus from the burdens of church, denominations and religions. We are to live as Jesus commands knowing that “His Commandments are not grievous”. 1 John 5:3. It was, and is, church and other religious organizations that make following Jesus “grievous”. They put upon their members grievous burdens that Jesus has not laid upon us. All He wants us to do is keep the Ten Commandments for our eternal life. Not difficult at all.
Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you allow yourselves to be circumcised, the Messiah will be of no benefit to you.
And that was the problem. Keep in mind, Paul didn’t have time to lay out all the church rules, therefore, “circumcision” was a code word that meant everything related to church rules, regulations, rituals, traditions, rites, feast days, holy days and services. You had to be circumcised before you could participate in temple rituals, traditions, services, feast days, holy days and rites. They are “of no benefit to you”.
Churches don’t like that. They need membership to keep money rolling into their coffers. They have huge salaries to pay. Mansions to pay for. Expensive cars to buy. To have membership, you have to be different from others. How do you accomplish that? By picking texts out of context to make people believe that belonging to their church, denomination or organization, will give you a free ticket to Heaven. None of that will be of any “benefit to you”.
Again, I insist that everyone who allows himself to be circumcised is obligated to obey the entire Law.
Paul is reiterating in even stronger language that circumcision had to do with belonging to a church and being “obligated to obey the entire law” of the church rituals, traditions, ceremonies, rites, feast days, holy days and services. But none of that had to do with keeping the Ten Commandments which Paul tells us to keep. Paul understood this. He belonged to that church organization that posted the Ten Commandments on their clothes, door frames and hung in their churches. Yet, they violated every commandment by hating anyone who refused to accept and teach their church doctrine. It is important to keep in mind that salvation is all about character building. That is all we are taking to Heaven: our character. That is only accomplished by keeping the Ten Commandments. Keeping all the church rites, rituals, traditions, customs, holy days, feast days and services have nothing to do with character building for Heaven.
Those of you who are trying to be justified by the Law have been cut off from the Messiah. You have fallen away from grace.
Justification is the crux of Paul’s letters with regards to the “law”. The Jews believed that you were “justified” by belonging to the church. Then you began the process of Sanctification through all the church works. At no time can any of our “works” justify us. We have all sinned and the wages of sin is death. You can’t work off your death-debt. You must die.
On the other hand, the Judge who has sentenced you to death for breaking the Law, has taken the penalty of that broken law if you accept His sacrifice in lieu of your sentence of death. But if you refuse and want to make church and all of its rules your “justification”, you have been cut off from the Judge and His work for your justification and will die.
The Jews believed they kept the Ten Commandments, but because they refused to accept the One who could justify them, they were lost. Only the Messiah, the one who is equal to the Law, can pardon us and provide us justification for our past sins. By rejecting the work of the Messiah we fall away from the grace of justification offered so freely to us.
Through the Spirit by faith we confidently await the fulfillment of our righteous hope, . . .
Jesus said that His Word was Spirit. Through His Word we have faith that Jesus is the promised Messiah. As such, we do “confidently await the fulfillment of our righteous hope”. We hope, believe, that Jesus has paid our penalty for past sins and that we will not have to face eternal destruction. Salvation isn’t about a church, denomination or what you know, it is about who you know and obey.
. . . for in union with the Messiah Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters. What matters is faith expressed through love.
All those church rules, regulations, services, traditions, rites and rituals have nothing to do with justification. They do not matter. What matters is our faith, believing in the Messiah as our justification, expressed through obedience to the Messiah by keeping the Ten Commandments: Love.
You were running the race beautifully. Who cut in on you and stopped you from obeying the truth?
There have been times while jogging around the property when one of my dogs would cut in front of me, tripping me and landing me face down in the sand. We are never to allow others to trip us up and try to present other works for our justification. Don’t let anyone tell you that you must belong to a church, denomination or organization for your eternal life. That is not from God.
Before going any further, I must back up a bit and take you back to the time of Paul. Christians today read the New Testament as if it was written for us. It wasn’t. It was written for the new converts to help them develop faith in Jesus as the Messiah who was to come and fulfil, be our Lamb of God. Faith in the lamb sacrificed at the temple would not justify you. Only faith in Jesus as the Lamb of God would justify you. Keep in mind, we are talking justification, not sanctification.
Such influence does not come from the one who calls you.
No! It comes from the one who loves to trip us up.
A little yeast spreads through the whole batch of dough.
How true that is. Amazing how the influence of one confused and deceived church member can spread through a group of people. Church members are out to see who can bring in more members. They stand with pride when one they have converted is baptized. But to stand with Jesus in obedience to His commands to stop sinning, be perfect and keep the Ten Commandments to get our eternal life, no thanks!
I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view of this. However, the one who is troubling you will suffer God’s judgment, whoever he is.
Yes he will. Those who substitute church, traditions, rites, rituals, ceremonies and anything else for the work of Jesus in justifying you will be judged by God. When one reads the Bible from cover to cover, one will find that at no time or place in the Bible was belonging to a church, denomination or organization required for eternal life.
As for me, brothers, if I am still preaching the necessity of circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed.
For about the first 15 years since Paul’s Bar Mitzvah he preached the necessity of circumcision and belonging to “his” church. Then he found Jesus. Even today there are those who still preach the necessity of feast days, holy days, rituals, rites, traditions and church membership for eternal life. If it were that easy we wouldn’t need the cross. However, Jesus paid it all. “It is finished”. All we have to do is accept His sacrifice for justification and live in obedience to His commands for sanctification. And nowhere in the Bible is there a command to build a church, go to church or set up a denomination or organization for our eternal life.
I wish that those who are upsetting you would castrate themselves!
Paul was angry. He grew up in the church. He was being promoted before others of his own age. He was zealous for his church. He was “saved” in his church. But when he found Jesus his life changed. He was angry at the church for lying to him. He was angry at the church for putting the church in place of Jesus.
For you, brothers, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity to gratify your flesh, but through love make it your habit to serve one another.
You see, Paul understood that the church didn’t serve anyone but itself. It was all about the church. There was no freedom in the church. It was all about control. If you belonged, you were controlled by the leadership. You were not allowed to think for yourself. You could not search the Scriptures for yourself. You had to believe what the church told you to believe. Paul wanted Christians to understand that their freedom from church did not permit them to break the moral Law, the Ten Commandments. Walk away from the church, but live in obedience to Jesus and His Ten Commandments. We are to imitate the life of Jesus. You don’t need a church for that.
For the whole Law is summarized in a single statement: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”
Here, Paul goes back to the Old Testament. Remember, there was no “church” in the Old Testament. “Church” came about because of the Babylonian Captivity. To keep the Jewish identity, they copied the pagan system of “church”. None of it was ordained by God. So Paul takes his readers back to the Old Testament to remind them that the Ten Commandments taught us to “love your neighbor as yourself”. Leviticus 19:18. And why did he take his readers back to the Old Testament? Because there was no “New Testament” as we have it today until 300 years after Christ. Paul was writing to people who studied the Old Testament for their eternal life. Paul told them to study the Old Testament for their eternal life.
But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you are not destroyed by each other.
It was church that taught people to “bite and devour one another”. Once you belong to a church, organization or denomination, it is so easy to point fingers and look upon others with a superior attitude. But when we belong to Jesus we accept His life as our own and live as He commands: perfect, sinless and Commandment keeping. There is no room for biting and devouring one another in that life. The life of Christ is a humble, self-sacrificing life.
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will never fulfill the desires of the flesh.
Remember, Jesus equated “Spirit” with the words of Scripture. Why? Because it was through the Spirit that Scripture was written. Therefore, if we follow after the words the Spirit wrote in Scripture you will “never fulfill the desires of the flesh”. Contention happens when we follow after man and man’s rules, laws, ceremonies, traditions and memberships. Man’s organizations are built on pride and ego. When Jesus declared that the temple was left unto them desolate, then, at that point, the church laws, ceremonies, traditions, feast days and holy days became “man’s”. They were no longer God’s.
For what the flesh wants is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit wants is opposed to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, and so you do not do what you want to do.
The flesh loves to be honored, put on a show and belong. Belonging to a church is ego stroking. We take pride in our church memberships. But that is not what the Spirit of God wants. The Spirit of God wants you to belong to Jesus. Church and Jesus are opposed to each other. One puts you under the yoke of slaver, the other sets you free in Jesus.
But if you are being led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
The phrase, “under the law” confuses people. When you belong to an organization, such as a church, you are under the laws of that organization. You have placed yourself under their yoke. But the Law of God, the Ten Commandments, gives freedom. It works on a completely different set of principles than man-made laws. Therefore, if you belong to the Spirit of God you are not under church laws or under the Ten Commandments. Look at it this way. If you are obedient to the speed limit, you are free. You have no fear of the “law”. But if you break the speed limit, there is a good chance you will become “under the law” and be given a ticket or hauled off to jail.
Now the actions of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, rivalry, jealously, outbursts of anger, quarrels, conflicts, factions, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild partying, and things like that. I am telling you now, as I have told you in the past, that people who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
When Paul belonged to the church, it didn’t stop him from the actions of the flesh. He was still controlled by his fleshly desires. However, when he became a Christian, he went to Jesus and by living the Ten Commandments he found himself free from the penalty of the Law and free from sin. All the “actions” mentioned above have to do with breaking the Ten Commandments, not the rites, rituals, traditions, feast days, holy days or services of the temple.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
“Against” is the key here. When we are obedient to the Ten Commandments we are living the righteous, Spirit-filled life. There is no “law” against that. The Law of condemnation only kicks in when we break the Ten Commandments. Going to church won’t give you the power to live in obedience to God’s Law, only by faith in Jesus as our Justifier will you have the power to live the Law perfectly.
Now those who belong to the Messiah Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.
That is correct. You cannot belong to anything earthly in order to crucify your fleshly desires and passions. Only by belonging to Jesus as our Saviour, living in obedience to Him, will you be able to crucify your fleshly “passions and desires”. God gives you that power!
Since we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also be guided.
Once you give your life to Jesus and live by the Spirit, don’t let man-made organizations, churches or denominations control you. Don’t let them step between you and Jesus. Let the Word of God be your guide. That is where we get our power to live the perfect, sinless and Commandment keeping life.
Let’s stop being arrogant, provoking one another and envying one another.
That is what church, rituals, rites, traditions and everything else that is invented by man produces.