The argument of verses 17 & 18 is: Man is guilty and needs a spotless righteousness. This righteousness can be obtained, not through law keeping, but through Christ believing. Those who profess faith in Christ, but preach works as the conditional factor for salvation, re-erects the legal structure he supposedly has cast down and so proves himself to be a transgressor in having thrown it down. But he claims Christ told him to do this, which would make Christ the minister of sin! “God forbid,” exclaims the scripture. The law sets forth that which is perfect; man is hopelessly imperfect, hence it is useless for man to seek righteousness by the Law. Christ, who is the righteousness envisaged by the Law, becomes such unto and upon all who believe on Him; and thus He glorifies the righteousness required by the Law and redeems the sinner.
Man delights to return to those things which gratify the flesh. He eagerly accepts whatever appeals to him. Hence the popularity of “sacraments.” But to rest upon them is to rest upon the flesh. But since Christ is everything for the fulfillment of the believer’s righteousness, there is neither room nor necessity for “sacraments” to aid in one being reckoned righteous before God. To be relying upon “sacraments” is to be looking elsewhere but unto the Person and the perfections of the Great High Priest to mediate one’s acceptance with God.
But man likes to have some credit and some position. He likes that which he can see and handle. He refuses to be treated as depraved and incapable of being good in God’s sight, and is angered that he and his religious efforts should all be rejected as filthy rags. To accept the absolute judgment of death upon his nature, his religious energies, and his moral virtues, and to be commanded to be silent, and, as a spiritually dead sinner, to trust the life-giving Saviour and to find in Him all that is needful for righteousness and worship, is distasteful and repelling.
But this is the doctrine of the only salvation capable of saving fallen man. In Christ, Saul died to sin, and a new man, Paul, was born; and the life that quickened him was vitalized and sustained “by the faith of the Son of God,” in contra-distinction with the supposed religious life energized by the principle of salvation by works. If righteousness came upon the principle of one’s works, then Christ’s death was needless and impotent in the work of salvation. Thus it is easy to see how the grace of God is being frustrated and made of non-effect in the thinking of those who are taught to embrace a salvation conditional on works.
Thus, not all who claim to be preaching the gospel of Christ, really are; many are preaching another gospel, “Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.” Galatians 1:7
SHARING
