Imperishable Inheritance

Paul com­pletes his mon­u­men­tal let­ter to the Gala­tians with a pas­sion­ate plea to remem­ber the very thing’and only thing’that jus­ti­fied them and that is the cross of Christ. I have preached this pas­sage a cou­ple times now to fel­low believ­ers at the end of an evan­ge­lis­tic effort to remem­ber that every­thing that was accom­plished was by the work of Jesus on the cross and not by our effort alone.

“See with what large let­ters I am writ­ing to you with my own hand.” (6:11)

Paul would often dic­tate his let­ters to oth­ers (cf. Rom 16:23), but this time Paul writes the fol­low­ing him­self. He wants to empha­size the fol­low­ing point even more than any of his pre­vi­ous com­ments. What fol­lows is going to be the very the­sis of Paul’s plea to the Galatians.

“Those who desire to make a good show­ing in the flesh try to com­pel you to be cir­cum­cised, sim­ply so that they will not be per­se­cuted for the cross of Christ.” (6:12)

The Judaiz­ers that had come to the Gala­tians had ulte­rior motives. They not only wanted to impress oth­ers, but they also wanted to avoid per­se­cu­tion on behalf of Christ. These Judaiz­ers were likely pres­sured from the San­hedrin and other Jew­ish reli­gious author­i­ties to “get the Gen­tiles in order” by cir­cum­cis­ing them and sub­scrib­ing them to Judaism. In a vain attempt to escape stand­ing up for the Gospel of free grace and receiv­ing per­se­cu­tion they instead chose to demean what Christ accom­plished on the cross by adding to Paul’s Gospel. Remem­ber when Paul attested to his per­se­cu­tion while stand­ing up for the true Gospel: “But I, brethren, if I still preach cir­cum­ci­sion, why am I still per­se­cuted?” (5:11).

“For those who are cir­cum­cised do not even keep the Law them­selves, but they desire to have you cir­cum­cised so that they may boast in your flesh.” (6:13)

Paul points out to the Gala­t­ian Chris­tians that the Judaiz­ers do not even fol­low the very law they were com­mand­ing the Gala­t­ian Chris­tians to suc­cumb to. They didn’t care about the glory of Christ or even sav­ing sin­ners; they just wanted to have the Gala­tians cir­cum­cised so they can boast in what they accom­plished. The boast­ing that takes place must also be in Christ and His cross.

Think how often we see today in churches signs that read: “100 Con­verted At Easter Rally!” We see this all the time in the mod­ern church. Now replace “con­verted” with “cir­cum­cised,” and you’ll see how un-Godly that can be! We must never boast in our ways or means to get sin­ners to hear the Gospel’but only in Christ.

“But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been cru­ci­fied to me, and I to the world.” (6:14)

Paul ver­bally says what he has been allud­ing up to this point. We must never boast in our build­ings, our mis­sion pro­grams, the kid’s pro­grams, but we must only boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is infi­nitely wor­thy of our praise and ado­ra­tion, and all the redeemed will do just that for eter­nity (Rev 5:9, 7:9).

Paul says that he has been cru­ci­fied in three dif­fer­ent senses from this pas­sage. Tim­o­thy George says: “In real­ity there is a triple cru­ci­fix­ion to be con­sid­ered in this text: the cru­ci­fied Christ, the cru­ci­fied world, and the cru­ci­fied Chris­tians.“¹ Christ Him­self was cru­ci­fied which is the object of the Christian’s boast; the world with its sec­u­lar stan­dards, hope­less­ness, futil­ity, and sin has been cru­ci­fied; and finally the Chris­t­ian is cru­ci­fied to him­self. Being cru­ci­fied to your­self depicts what Paul described back in 5:24: “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have cru­ci­fied the flesh with its pas­sions and desires.”

Phillip Gra­ham Ryken points out that this appears to be a strange thing to boast about:

“The cross should have been an embar­rass­ment to the early church. What would peo­ple think when they dis­cov­ered that the found of Chris­tian­ity had been exe­cuted like a low-life crim­i­nal? But instead of deny­ing this, or cov­er­ing it up, Chris­tians adver­tised it. The very thing that most peo­ple con­sid­ered too obscene to whis­per in polite com­pany, Chris­tians were broad­cast­ing in the streets.“²

“For nei­ther is cir­cum­ci­sion any­thing, nor uncir­cum­ci­sion, but a new cre­ation.” (6:15)

If the Gala­t­ian Chris­tians haven’t yet under­stood Paul’s mes­sage then he will reit­er­ate it one last time. It doesn’t mat­ter whether they were cir­cum­cised, uncir­cum­cised, lead­ing Sun­day school, be a leader in the church, or any­thing else that with our pride could take away from Christ’s glory’the only thing that mat­ters is that we are a new cre­ation. Paul teaches this also to the Corinthi­ans in his sec­ond epistle.

“There­fore if any­one is in Christ, he is a new crea­ture; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Cor 5:17)

Through­out redemp­tive his­tory, God is in the busi­ness of mak­ing all things new (Rev 21:5). The fall cursed mankind, but Jesus has come to save His peo­ple that He foreknew from the foun­da­tion of the world (Rom 5:12–17; Eph 1:3–11). When we are joined to Christ every­thing before’and in the future’has been made clean and new. This once-for-all per­fect act of obe­di­ence on the cross is given to the repen­tant sin­ner through no work of his own (Eph 2:8–10).

Since Chris­tians are a new cre­ation, we shouldn’t live as though we are still the old cre­ation. We must remem­ber that even though we will con­tinue to strug­gle with sin we must con­tinue to bear fruit as Paul taught in chap­ter 5 and dis­play a con­trite heart over sin and an increase in holi­ness through sanctification.

And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” (6:16)

For those that have become a new cre­ation, Paul wishes a bene­dic­tion upon them. He hopes that peace and mercy will be upon them. With a new cre­ation we are released from the futil­ity of our pre­vi­ous life.

Paul also pro­claims that those that are a new cre­ation are also a part of the “Israel of God.” Israel was the name con­ferred upon Jacob after wrestling with the man in the river (Gen 32:28). The word means “God strives.” Jacob strived with the man, and God strives for His peo­ple. The great news of Gala­tians (and the New Tes­ta­ment) is that now any­one can enjoy fel­low­ship with God through His Son and His enabling Spirit, because “There is nei­ther Jew nor Greek, there is nei­ther slave nor free man, there is nei­ther male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (3:28). In Christ, we are Abraham’s descen­dants by promise and part of the true Israel of God.³

“From now on let no one cause trou­ble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.” (6:17)

Paul had “bat­tle scars” from his con­tin­ual work in the Gospel mis­sion, and he wants oth­ers to know to not cause him any more trou­ble. Paul wasn’t refer­ring to him actu­ally hav­ing the same brand-marks of Jesus⁴ but that he had proof of affliction.

We should all be so lucky to say that we as well bear the brand-marks of Jesus. I heard a mis­sion­ary speak, and he said to the women in the audi­ence that they should be look­ing for a man that, instead of how good look­ing he is or other fleshly things, that they be miss­ing teeth and have scars from the Gospel! He pro­claimed that that is a man worth marrying!

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen.” (6:18)

Paul ends his let­ter in a soft-spoken, lov­ing tone. He wants to encour­age them in their faith and remind them that the grace of Christ is suf­fi­cient. He hopes that grace would fall upon them. Those that he called “fool­ish” and “bewitched” he now calls “brethren.”

May Christ be exalted in all that we say and do, and may we boast in noth­ing but His cross. Amen.

1. Tim­o­thy George, Gala­tians, New Amer­i­can Com­men­tary 30 (Nashville: Broad­man & Hol­man, 1994), 437. Quoted in Phillip Gra­ham Ryken. Gala­tians (New Jer­sey: Pres­by­ter­ian & Reformed Pub­lish­ing, 2005) 276. [Back]
2. Ibid. pg. 274–5. [Back]
3. It’s wor­thy to note that not all Chris­t­ian the­olo­gians accept this inter­pre­ta­tion. For instance, F.F. Bruce takes the stance that Paul is refer­ring the escha­to­log­i­cal full­ness that Paul also wor­ried about in Rom 11:26 (pg. 275). Other the­olo­gians take the inter­pre­ta­tion that those ‘who walk upon this rule’ and ‘the Israel of God’ are two dis­tinct groups with the lat­ter being the Jew­ish remnant/Christians. Both of these inter­pre­ta­tions fail on mul­ti­ple accounts. Are Jew­ish Chris­tians or those at the end of the age not to be new cre­ations and have peace and mercy given to them? Also, Paul has defended fero­ciously through­out this whole let­ter that, in Christ, there is no sep­a­ra­tion between Jews and Gen­tiles. Why would he insert a sep­a­ra­tion right at the end that is aber­rant to the the­sis of the whole let­ter? [Back]
4. The word “brand-marks” is the Greek word Ï?Ï?ίγμα or stig­mata. Unlike a pop­u­lar con­cep­tion that we take on the suf­fer­ings of Christ on the cross in a lit­eral sense (nails through hands, whip­pings, etc.), it is more appro­pri­ate to inter­pret that Chris­tians par­tic­i­pate in their own per­se­cu­tion for God. [Back]