Part XLII on Galatians Study

Galatians 2:15-16
"We who are Jews by nature, (by birth) and not sinners of the Gentiles, (we're not after those pagan Gentiles, who were looked down upon by the Hebrews of that day) 16. Knowing that a man is not justified  (innocent) by the works of the law (do you see it? the works of the law, notice the law here is in small letters, this means by way of command, requires does not justify), but by the faith of Jesus Christ (what does it do? makes one innocent or justifies one), even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified (the only work the law did was to condemn or to show man his utter sinfulness and the need of a death because of its guilt burden)."


We need to go back to Romans chapter 3 where it makes it a little plainer than this. One earlier Bible scholar that we've read in days gone by, puts it like this. The little letter to the Galatians is sort of like an artist who had the picture in his mind and he drew it first in pencil. And after he saw the whole picture in pencil he then put it on canvas with oil, and that's the Book of Romans. And you know we kind of like that. Galatians is just sort of an introduction, it covers all the bases, but we don't get the graphic detail until we get into Romans. 


But first we'll reveal a secret not known and its found in John chapter 20, this is quoted from William Law an is found in his “Letters to the Clergy” pages 7-11, address's 23-27:  “The truth and perfection of the gospel state could not show itself, till it became solely a ministration of the Spirit, or a kingdom in which the Holy Spirit of God had the doing of all that is done in it. The apostles, while Christ was with them in the flesh, were instructed in heavenly Truths from His mouth, and enabled to work miracles in His Name, yet not qualified to know and teach the mysteries of His kingdom. After His resurrection, He conversed with them forty days, speaking to them of things pertaining to the kingdom of God; nay though He breathed on them, and said, "receive the Holy Ghost," yet this also would not do, they were still unable to preach, or bear witness to the Truth, as it is only in Jesus. And the reason is, there was still a higher dispensation to come, which stood in such an opening of the divine Life in their hearts, as could not be effected from an outward instruction of Christ Himself. For though He had sufficiently told His disciples the necessity of being born again of the Spirit, yet He left them unborn of it, till He came again in the power of the Spirit. He breathed on them, and said, "Receive the Holy Ghost," yet that which was said and done was not the thing itself, but only a type or outward signification of what they should receive, when He, being glorified, should come again in the fullness and power of the Spirit, breaking open the deadness and darkness of their hearts with Light and Life from heaven, which Light did, and alone could, open and verify in their souls, all that He had said and promised to them while He was with them in the flesh. All this is expressly declared by Christ Himself, saying to them, "I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away"; therefore Christ taught them to believe the want, and joyfully to expect the coming of a higher and more blessed state, than that of His bodily presence with them. For He adds, "if I go not away, the comforter will not come"; therefore the comfort and blessing of Christ to His followers could not be had, till something more was done to them, and they were brought into a higher state than they could be by His verbal instruction of them. "But if I go away," says He, "I will send Him to you, and when the comforter, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all Truth; He shall glorify Me" (that is, shall set up my kingdom in its glory, in the power of the Spirit) "for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it to you: I said of mine, because all things that the Father has are mine," John 16.”


“Now when Christ had told them of the necessity of an higher state than that they were in, and the necessity of such a comforting illuminating guide, as they could not have till His outward teaching in human language was changed into the inspiration, and operation of His Spirit in their souls, He commands them, not to begin to bear witness of Him to the world, from what they did and could in any human way know of Him, His birth His life, doctrines, death, sufferings, resurrection, but to tarry at Jerusalem, till they were endued with power from on high; saying to them, "You shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And then shall you bear witness unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and unto the utmost part of the earth."

 
“Here are two most important and fundamental truths fully demonstrated, First, that the Truth and perfection of the Gospel state could not take place, till Christ was glorified, and His kingdom among men made wholly and solely a continual immediate ministration of the Spirit: everything before this was but subservient for a time, and preparatory to this last dispensation, Church Age or the Age of Grace as mans titled it, which could not have been the last, had it not carried man above types, figures and shadows, into the real possession and enjoyment of that which is the Spirit and Truth of a divine Life. For the end is not come till it has found the beginning; that is, the last dispensation of God to fallen man cannot be come, till putting an end to the "bondage of weak and beggarly elements," Galatians 4:9, it brings man to that dwelling in God, and God in him, which he had at the beginning Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7.”


“Secondly, that as the apostles could not, so no man, from their time to the end of the world, can have any true and real knowledge of the spiritual blessings of Christ's redemption, or have a divine call, capacity, or fitness to preach, and bear witness of them to the world, but solely by that same divine Spirit opening all the mysteries of a redeeming Christ in their inward parts, as it did in the apostles, evangelists, and first ministers of the Gospel.”


“For why could not the apostles, who had been eye witnesses to all the whole process of Christ, why could they not with their human apprehension declare and testify the Truth of such things, till they "were baptized with fire, and born again of the Spirit"? It is because the Truth of such things, or the mysteries of Christ's process, as knowable by man, are nothing else in themselves, but those very things which are done by this heavenly fire and Spirit of God in our souls. Therefore to know the mysteries of Christ's redemption, and to know the redeeming work of God in our own souls, is the same thing; the one cannot be before, or without the other. Therefore every man, be he who he will, however able in all kinds of human literature, must be an entire stranger to all the mysteries of Gospel redemption, and can only talk about them as of any other tale he has been told, till they are brought forth, verified, fulfilled, and witnessed to by that, which is found, felt and enjoyed of the whole process of Christ in his own soul. For as redemption is in its whole nature an inward spiritual work, that works only in the altering, changing, and regenerating the life of the soul, so it must be true, that nothing but the inward state of the soul can bear true witness to the redeeming power of Christ. For as it wholly consists in altering that which is the most radical in the soul, bringing forth a new spiritual death, and a new spiritual Life, it must be true, that no one can know or believe the mysteries of Christ's redeeming power, by historically knowing, or rationally consenting to that which is said of Him and them in written or spoken words, but only and solely by an inward experimental finding, and feeling the operation of them, in that new death, and new Life, both of which must be effected in the soul of man, or Christ is not, cannot be found, and known by the soul as its salvation. It must also be equally true, that the redeemed state of the soul, being in itself nothing else but the resurrection of a divine and holy Life in it, must as necessarily from first to last be the sole work of the breathing creating Spirit of God, as the first holy created state of the soul was. And all this, because the mysteries of Christ's redeeming power, which work and bring forth the renewed state of the soul, are not creaturely, finite, outward things, that may be found and enjoyed by verbal descriptions, or formed ideas of them, but are a birth and Life, and spiritual operation, which as solely belongs to God alone, as His creating power. For nothing can redeem, but that same power which created the soul. Nothing can bring forth a good thought in it, but that which brought forth the power of thinking. And of every tendency towards goodness, be it ever so small, that same may be truly affirmed of it, which Paul affirmed of his highest state, "yet not I, but Christ that lives in me." As we'll find shortly in verse 20 and he affirms elsewhere to this fact and once more we can also affirm to it as well. Or as Peter reveals in 2 Peter chapter 1:19 “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”