Dedicated to Truth

Our Condition in Christ

Keeping Galatians 3:25 in mind, read Galatians 3:26. How does this text help us understand what our relationship to the law is, now that we have been redeemed by Jesus?

My comments:

Romans 6:3   Don’t  you know, that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 

  6:4   Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like  Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

 Reading this passage we realize that our dying to sin is the result of our union with Christ symbolized by baptism.  Because He took our sins upon His own body and died bearing those sins (See 1 Peter 2:24) we too die to sin through His death, and being dead to sins, live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. 

Romans 6:11-12   Likewise reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

We are to consider, or reckon ourselves dead to sin.   Now some people think this means that somehow sin’s ability to tempt us is removed.   But that is not the case as temptations may become fiercer as satan realizes he is losing his prey. 

What then does it mean to be dead to sin and alive unto God through Jesus? 



I think it means we died to the dominion of sin.  Prior to our acceptance of Christ and baptism we were in the kingdom of Satan and sin. 



Eph. 2:2   Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience:. 



So we were in satans kingdom, enslaved by sin.  –Slaves to sin.

But through our union with Christ we have died to this realm of sin and turned from the power of Satan to the redeeming power of God.  Now we are sons and daughters of God!! 

And God sends His Holy Spirit to lead us in the path of sanctification. 

When we realize these awesome provisions we can stand up to temptation and satan and say “NO” I’m no longer serving in that realm, I’m a child of God, living for Him!

1 John   3:1-3   Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not. 

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 

And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.



⁸ But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. ⁹ But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? ¹⁰ You observe days and months and seasons and years. ¹¹ I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.

Those who argue against God’s laws see Paul’s mention of “days and months and seasons and years” as pointing to the Sabbath, the new moons and annual feasts,  and the sabbatical and jubilee years given in the Old Testament (Leviticus 23,25.) They will label these God-given observances as the “weak and miserable elements”  to which the Galatians were being enslaved.  (verse 9).

But we need to ask, where the Galatains ever feast keeping, sabbatical practicing people prior to their conversion to Christianity?

No!

Paul tells us that prior to their conversion to Christ, they were serving other gods that weren't gods at all.

The Galatians could not be TURNING BACK to something they were not involved in previously.  So they must of been turning back to "serving other gods that weren't gods". 



The Expositor’s Bible Commentary explains:

“It would seem that in Paul’s time…stoicheia…referred to the sun, moon, stars, and planets—all of them associated with gods or goddesses and, because they regulated the progression of the calendar, also associated with the great pagan festivals honoring the gods. In Paul’s view these gods were demons. Hence, he would be thinking of a demonic bondage in which the Galatians had indeed been held prior to the proclamation of the gospel…

“In the verses that follow, Paul goes on to speak of these three crucial subjects in quick succession:

(1) ‘those who by nature are not gods,’ presumably false gods or demons;

(2) ‘those weak and miserable principles,’ again stoicheia; and

(3) ‘days and months and seasons and years’ (w.9, 10).

No doubt Paul would think of these demons in ways entirely different from the former thinking of the Galatians…Thus, this whole issue takes on a cosmic and spiritual significance. The ultimate contrast to freedom in Christ is bondage to Satan and the evil spirits” (p. 472).

So it's very likely that when the Judizers tried to impose all the rituals they wanted the Gentiles to preform, the Gentiles quickly recognized the points of similarity between these divinely instituted holy times to their own temples, sacrifices and rituals, and naturally plunged right back into some of their pagan practices.

In going back they were on a slippery slope right back into paganism and sin. 

Paul is saying, when you were still heathen, when you were still pagans, "you did service unto them which by nature are not really gods." You were doing your pagan exercises, your pagan rituals. "But now, after you have known God, or rather are known of God, how is it that you're turning back to this ritualistic non-relationship, to the weak and the beggarly elements, whereunto they desire again to be in bondage?"

  

After all -- it's sin that holds the world in bondage, with it's resulting guilt and death.  And it is sin  that Jesus came to free us from and to restore us into His image and give us the gift of life!