Part XLIX on Galatians Study

Galatians 2:21a
"I do not frustrate the grace of God:..."   Many people have the idea that God is something up there that is just waiting for them to goof up so He can zap them. No, that's not God's attitude. God attitude is one of total Love, goodness, Truth, Light and mercy and Grace. Allow us take us back to a verse, come back to I Corinthians and always remember the setting of these various letters of Paul. The Corinthian Church, as we showed was a carnal, earthy and practical Church. They had a lot of problems, so they were not the epitome of strong trusting believers, they were carnal, they were fleshly, but in spite of all that, look what Paul writes to them in chapter 1. 

 
1 Corinthians 1:6-8
"Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you; (their testimony was confirmed, sealed, and settled) 7. So that ye come behind in no gift (they had received the Holy Spirit) ; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: (in other words they were potentially able to accomplish great things as anybody could be. Now verse 8) Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."  Now that's mind boggling isn't it? People like these Corinthians with all of their failures and their weaknesses, that if the Lord would have come within a day or two after having received this letter, would they have stood before God shaking in their boots because of all their failures? No. Paul says, "If the Lord should come they would stand before Him blameless." We know from this record they weren't blameless. So on what basis could God do that? His goodness and Grace. 


So remember we stand before God blameless because of the goodness and Grace of God found in Christ Jesus (John1:14, 17). That benefit of the benefactor, Grace, the one who gave Himself unto death in our place. Now we say that's not license. That doesn't say that the believer should go out and do as he pleases. No way. But when the believer is under the power of the Holy Spirit and is doing his best in the Light of Scripture to walk pleasing in God's sight, first through God's Will, then death of self and to the spirit of the world and he fails does God kick him out? No. Anyone who has been a parent can relate to this. The little one has just began to take those first faltering steps, and we're all proud of them. In fact we've got a little grandson that just started to walk this past week, and we're all just tickled to see that little fellow walk clear across the room, but when he falls does everybody get upset and give him a boot in his little seat? No, we pick them up and get them on their little wobbly feet and get them going. Well that's what God does. God doesn't expect us never to fall, when we do He's right there ready to pick us up and put us on our way. But that's not the concept that most people have of the Grace of God, but that's what it is. Now looking at verse 21 again.


Galatians 2:21a
"I do not frustrate..."  Paul says, "I'm not going to fly in the face of the Grace of God and say, "But I have to do this because this is what the Law says." We today are not under the Law, but where are we? We are under Grace. Oh, what a difference that makes. Grace is that attribute of God that's capable of giving out the benefit of His working and mercy on and in sinners like us, as sons of Adam. All because of the Love that was nailed to the Cross. That was Love epitomized. That was as great an act of Love as has ever been done, and all because He Loves us as sinners, completely undeserving. In fact it was this Love which was lost and is the turn around of that action in reverse.


Galatians 2:21
"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, (legalism, religion and all the things tied to it) then Christ is dead in vain."  If we could be righteous by legalism then Christ was the biggest fool that ever walked to have gone to that kind of a death if indeed it didn't accomplish that for which He went. But He did accomplish it, it's finished, its done and He did not die in vain. This little Book of Galatians is constantly showing the difference between Law ( external, mans working) and Grace (internal God's working) - and how Paul is confronting these little congregations up there in Galatia who were being submarined by the Judaizers who were saying that you can't be saved by Grace alone -  but rather you have to keep the Law, and especially its ordinances and statutes, and you have to keep circumcision. Not only to these people but also those to whom the Epistle of Hebrews is addressed as the language is similar in both of them. 


We might think that this is something in the past that took place, and we're not up against anything like this today. Well we're up against circumcision, we've got a couple dozen other things that we add that are just as insidious. They creep into the life of believers and they begin to doubt, and begin to wonder, have I really believed enough? And just as soon as we begin to doubt what does old Satan pop into our mind? Well maybe I do have to do this or do that. Now that's the way old Satan works, so we have to constantly stay in prayer and the Word, believe that it's True, and it is by Grace and Faith + NOTHING! Now to chapter 3. We're to over come by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, we're to remain clothed in the Lord Christ Jesus and dressed in the full armor of God.


Galatians 3:1
"O foolish Galatians, (now why does Paul use the word foolish? Because they were being hoodwinked into thinking they had to add to his Gospel.) who hath bewitched you, (who has been fooling with your thinking?) that ye should not obey the truth, (and what was this truth? Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and risen from the dead, that we're counted as having been IN Him + nothing) before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?   Here these Judaizers were saying it had to be + something else. And that's the way it had always been with the exception of Abraham. It was always + something. Many people would say the Old Testament saints were saved by faith. Yes, they were saved by faith, but not faith alone. It was faith + and even in Christ's earthly ministry they weren't saved by just believing that He was the Messiah. They had to repent and be baptized, they still had to keep the Law, they were still under Temple worship so it was faith + something. Paul reveals that to be in this condition is to make the work of the cross and the Blood of Christ null and void of its power and true purpose. Its like telling God that His work was not enough that we've got to add more to it because it was not complete, it was not finished to our liking or satisfaction.