I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Galatians 3:3-9, New International Version
As a human, I am a man of many insecurities. I am short, I have an attention span just as tall as my stature, I am weak in terms of temper, temptation, submission to authority, and self-discipline. We have histories, our ancestors have histories, with tendencies and earthly desires embedded deep within our genetic codes and into our subconscious. Our past is filled with oops moments, and it is not very likely that we will be void of all error in the future that awaits us until the day that our bodies are made perfect in Christ.
Yet, when we became Christians, it was by faith that we accepted Christ as our Savior. We believed that by His death on the cross, we were freed from the guilt of sin, we were made righteous with God, and we are assured that we will have a place with Him in heaven. It was by his resurrection that we were assured that the power of the grave has nothing on us, because we are powerful over death through our new identity in Christ.
Does it make sense, therefore, to trust once again our old tendencies, our old logic, our old selves, after receiving a new identity in Christ? Does it make sense to, after received a 360-degree makeover, to go back to the things were before?
– John Piper
Paul, in this passage is reprimanding the Galatians for trusting the teachings of Judaizers who are trying to convince them that salvation only marked that point that we are saved, and that the rest of our life as believers is in our own hands. According to them, salvation is by grace, but life after salvation is by the law. An early version of the fallacious adage: “God helps those who helps themselves.”
Paul was calling them foolish for diminishing the power of the cross, as our salvation is for this life just as much as it is for the next life. He calls us to be like Abraham, who did not just rely on God at the moment he was told that he would be a great nation, but for well into the rest of his life. He had weaknesses, but ultimately, he did not rely on his own sterility, his own dishonesty, his own short-sightedness, nor his own fears, but He relied on God whom he believed had the power to raise life from the dead. Abraham had not the privilege of living in the time after Jesus, and yet his faith was strong enough to believe in the truth that had not yet taken place.
Paul challenges us to aim higher than the Judaizers. It should be understood that our goal should not just be to join him in heaven after we die, but for us to see the Kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven.” Therefore it only makes sense that we should not just trust the power of Christ for salvation in the life that is to come, but to rely on his strength for us to succeed in this life as well.
Not that the law is of no value. On the contrary, Paul says time and time again that Christ was the fulfillment of the law, and that even now that we are saved, it is not a reason for us to disregard the law lest our lives contradict the proddings of the very Spirit who lives within us. But rather, in living out this new life that we have been given, it is pointless for us to hold on to the logic and the workings of the flesh. The flesh that believes that it must follow the law to the letter in order to please God. But the new flesh believes that it is incapable of following the law to perfection, and it can only rely on the Holy Spirit and on the gift of Christ in order to please the Father.
Our lives are not without weakness. In another verse, in Philippians 2, we are called to work out our salvation with fear and with trembling. Out of context, the verse seems like it is telling us that after confessing Christ, the rest is up to us. But quite the contrary, the same chapter calls us to let go of vanity and ambition, but to adapt the humble mind of Christ; the mind that lets go of our own strengths, our own power, our own ability, and focuses on the power of God made perfect in our weaknesses. We are called to adapt the mindset which we are given when we receive the Holy Spirit.
As a human, I have a history, I have tendencies, and I have insecurities. But all this is made null because of the new identity I have received through Christ. And now the strength by which I should continually strive to fulfill his purpose in my life is not my own. But it is His strength and His alone.
🎨 Application
How the understanding and the study can be applied in your life.
From John Piper:
How does a tree bear fruit?
- Acknowledge you cannot do it
- Pray to God that He will do it
- Trust Him to do it
- Do it
- Thank Him
This blog post was inspired in part by John Piper’s article, Can You Begin By The Spirit And Be Completed By The Flesh.
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