Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church
All One In Christ Jesus
The Curse That Blesses
Faith That Works
How To Be Okay
The Gospel Defended
An Unlikely Advocate
The One and Only Gospel
It Is What It Isn’t Yet
The Lions’ King
por Walter Henegar
We all want the freedom to be uniquely ourselves and yet fully accepted and valued by others. Paul captures this vision in verses 26-29, arguing that it is only possible through faith in Jesus – not by performing works of the law. He first defends this claim by showing how God’s promise to Abraham precedes, and therefore supersedes, the law that came 430 years later. Next he shows why God gave the law to begin with: as a necessary guardian until the arrival of the Messiah. Jesus is both the One offspring to whom Abraham’s promise points, and also the only true Israelite who perfectly kept the law. As such, he is entitled to share his rightful inheritance with people of every race, class and sex who put their faith in him. And because believers now share this same free inheritance, we must fight vigorously against every temptation to exclude or marginalize others based on our differences. Instead, motivated by the grace and love of Jesus, we should celebrate our differences as gifts that reflect the glory of the Gospel.
Paul resumes his defense of the true Gospel with a simple contrast: To live by works of the law is to be cursed, whereas to live by faith in Christ is to be blessed. Easy choice, right? Yet every human heart still naturally gravitates toward living by law. To convince (or re-convince) us, Paul first reaches back to four Old Testament scriptures that expose the futility of living by law. Then he throws a spotlight on the cross, where Jesus suffered the ultimate cursedness in order to bestow the ultimate blessedness on everyone who believes in him. This blessedness is characterized by receiving “the promised Spirit,” who connects us to God and his whole multiethnic family forever.
If Peter and the Galatian Christians could be foolishly "bewitched" by a false, legalistic gospel, then we can, too. In fact, most Christians default to living as if we are saved by grace and then sanctified by works. Paul dismantles this disastrous error, reminding us that the same grace that saves us also sanctifies us. It's why the Holy Spirit enters us at conversion and continues working in us throughout our whole lives. It's also why Abraham's faith was "counted" as righteousness, so that everyone who believes can be included in the family of God.
Paul rebuked Peter for a seemingly minor inconsistency: refusing to eat meals with Gentile Christians. However, the heart of the Gospel was at stake. As Paul goes on to explain, no law, whether the Jewish Torah or any man-made standard of behavior, can "justify" sinful people – only faith in Jesus Christ can. Faith unites us to Jesus so thoroughly that we are both crucified and raised with him: Crucified, in that we "die" to trying to keep the law for salvation, and raised, in that we live by his power working in us. And everyone who receives this gospel belongs at the same table in the family of God.
Paul was not defending his apostleship for his own name's sake, but for the truth of the Gospel that he was called to preach to the Gentiles. It mattered because Paul was aware of the Gospel's benefits: its nature, freedom, and unity. The nature of the Gospel was to reach the nations. The freedom of the Gospel was in Christ purchasing our freedom from the curse of the law. The unity of the Gospel was to enable us all unify under the Gospel even with our diversity.
Christianity is not just a rescue religion, but a revealed religion that depends on the authority of Scripture. Here Paul insists on what no one else can claim today: that the Gospel he preached was revealed to him directly by Jesus. To defend this bold claim, he simply tells his own story, which shows that he’s not telling us what we want to hear, nor what he wanted to hear, nor what anyone else pressured him to say – and yet it completely rewrote the story of his life. Like Paul, we who trust the integrity of this Gospel today find that it continues to challenge us in ways none of us would invent, rewriting our stories in surprising ways.
Nothing is more serious than getting the Gospel wrong, and we are all in danger of it. Before revealing how the Galatians were distorting it, Paul subtly outlines the true Gospel: the good news that because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s old plan has now inaugurated a new era of history, making a new family of people with a new record and a new relationship and a new future that is breaking into the present now.
The trippy visions of Daniel 7 are meant to comfort and encourage believers that God is actively ruling the world, no matter which terrifying or wicked forces may be at work in it. The vision also introduces the enigmatic figure of the Son of Man who receives dominion from God (the Ancient of Days), and then shares that dominion with the “saints” who trust him. Centuries later, Jesus claimed this title, using it almost exclusively when referring to himself. Because of his death and resurrection, those who trust him today are the saints who share his dominion partially now, and will fully share it in the future. Instead of cynically accepting that “it is what it is,” Christians rightly know that it is what it isn’t yet.
Daniel’s rescue from the lion’s den is one of the most well-known stories in the Bible – and also one of the most misunderstood. To read it correctly we must expose two common lies about lions: That God always rescues us from them, and that the reason he rescues us is our own goodness. Daniel actually shows that God often does rescue us in this life, but he always rescues us in the life to come – and that this ultimate rescue is only due to the goodness of Jesus credited to us by grace through faith. Second, Daniel models three "pro tips" about prayer: Routine is your friend; Your body prays; and Thanking re-narrates your life. All who trust Jesus by faith can now rely on his strength to learn these habits of grace, growing in us an "excellent spirit" like Daniel's that blesses the people around us.
The sad story of Belshazzar both comforts those who have been wronged by the sins of others, and also warns us not to follow in the folly of his footsteps. Though he wanted many good things, he pursued them apart from God, effectively opposing God. The Gospel of grace redirects our own "wantings" through God himself, transforming the malediction on the wall into a banner of benediction over us.