By:
Thomas Clayton Booher (The Elder)
Galatians 1:3-6
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who
gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to
the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
I am astonished that you
are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are
turning to a different gospel---
J.
Gresham Machen (1881-1937), was Professor of New Testament at Princeton
Theological Seminary from 1906-1929. In 1929, he led a conservative movement
out of the Northern Presbyterian Church to form the Orthodox Presbyterian
Church and the new school Westminster Theological Seminary. Machen taught at Westminster in the same chair he held at Princeton
until his death.
Machen
was unusually erudite in the original language of the New Testament. He wrote a
beginner’s Grammar, which was used in my first year of Greek. I still have it –
it brings back the fascination I felt when I first opened its pages and began
to study the words and grammar Paul wrote in.
Machen
remarks[1]
that Paul added something in his greeting to the Galatians that he did not include
in his other letters, and that was a forthright clarification of who Jesus
Christ is. He is the One who gave himself
for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.
There
was good reason Paul made that point at the forefront without delay, for the
whole letter is a defense of the true gospel against Judaizers who were
preaching a different gospel. They were teaching that salvation was obtained
not through Christ alone but by additionally observing certain Old Testament
rites (circumcision) and holy days (Gal 4:10; 5:2, 3). To state it another way,
Christ did not completely do away with Old Testament ritual. Salvation was not
by grace alone through faith alone. In addition to faith, salvation required
the keeping of certain practices of Old Testament religion.
Giving
the Judaizers their due, they seemed to have no requirement to continue animal
sacrifices, presumably because they conceded that Christ’s sacrifice was the
end of any further need for sacrifice. But this did not appease Paul who
recognized that if the keeping of any part of the Old Testament cultic practice
was necessary to be saved, then salvation comes not by grace, but at least in
part by works. It is to make Christ and his sacrifice without effect, Gal 5:4; Cf
1 Cor 1:17.
Paul
then expresses his surprise and wonder of how so many in the churches of Galatia
We
are called by God, and the calling does not come to us in wrath and
condemnation; how awful if that were the character of God’s calling – a calling
in which God would take his people through the very sufferings of the One who
gave himself for our sins and bore God’s wrath for us. That is the grace! He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered Him up for us
all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Rom 8:32; For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him, 2 Cor 5:21.
Our
calling is in grace, and Paul specifically identifies it as the grace of
Christ. The prepositional phrase, of
Christ, could be interpreted in two ways. It could mean that the grace is
the possession of Christ who exercises it toward us. Or, it could mean that the
grace is Christ himself. Given Paul’s pointed statement in verse 4 that Christ
gave himself for our sins, it is more likely that the grace Paul has in mind is
the grace that is summed up in Christ – Christ is the essence and epitome of
grace because he bore the wrath that we might bear the blessing.
This
grace in which we are called, that is, this sphere of unearned favor and blessing,
which God purposed to bestow on us through the suffering of Christ, has a
purpose behind it. It is for deliverance ....that He
might deliver us.... Consider
the thing from which we are delivered, how it is such a monstrosity that
anything we may encounter in the transience of life – sickness, pain, poverty,
violence, betrayal – is mild and gentle by comparison. We are delivered from
the present evil age. Paul does not speak of a nondescript, innocent age. Rather,
it is an age that is inherently, intrinsically, through and through, evil. It
is a world in which men drink iniquity like water (Job 15:16), where every
intent of the thoughts of the heart are evil continually (Gen 6:5), and the
heart is so deceitful it is unpredictable in its expression of sin (Jer 17:9), in
which the Devil himself is the prince and power of the air (Eph 2:2), and the
sons of men are sons of disobedience fulfilling the base desires of the flesh
and mind (Eph 2:3). It is an age in which everything is in some manner the lust
of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:15), an age which is passing away (1 John 2:17) and
will some day be consumed by fire and be no more (Rev 21:1; 2 Pet 3:7-10). It
is a world in which each one born into the human race is a slave of evil (John
8:34; Rom 6:6, 16-18, 20; 2 Peter 2:19).
Our
calling is in grace, which implies a calling to utter humility. We can do
nothing and have done nothing to get ourselves into this grace and we can do
nothing to keep ourselves in it. It is all of God, from beginning to end. We
have nothing to offer, we can only receive. If there is any worth, it is an
alien worth, not our own and we should never forget it. We should live in the
light of it, looking unto God for continual help as he alone is our strength
and shield (Ps 28:7), who works in us both to will and to do his good pleasure
(Phil 2:13).
Are
you a sinner still under God’s condemnation? Do not be proud. Do not think
there is something you must do. While in Bible college I worked in the kitchen
of the Lourdsmont nunnery and a school for troubled young ladies. It was
located across the road from the college. Our site was once a monastery and the
companion to Lourdsmont. Every day I ran into and had wonderful conversations
with Sister Helen. We talked about everything: history, teaching, reading,
cooking... life in general. She even gave me her class notes she used to teach
her students English. We also talked about the gospel. When I finally pared it
down to the essentials, that it is by grace alone, through faith alone, she
looked at me in wonder and said, “But we have to do something.” That was a
typical Roman Catholic response. It is akin to the Judaizing theology in which
something was added to faith.
But
it is by faith alone because it is all of grace. Again, are you a sinner under
God’s condemnation? There is no time in which you can prepare yourself for God
to accept you. You have nothing to offer which is not tainted by unlawful
desires, greed, self-aggrandizement, or falsehood. The best you have to offer,
the cream, is as a filthy rag before God, Is 64:6. But that is the beauty of
grace. It requires no preparation on our part. It requires only a humble and
contrite heart (Ps 51:17), and when your eyes are opened to the holiness of God
and the sinfulness of your heart, humility and contrition follow – you flee to
Christ who alone can forgive, cleanse, and transform you.
Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law's commands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.
[1]
Skilton, John H., Machen’s Notes On
Galatians, Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, Philadelphia , 1973, p 27.
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