Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 1: “Paul the Apostle to the Galatians”
Read for this week’s study Acts 6:9–15, 9:1–9, 1 Sam. 13 16:7, Matt. 7:1, Acts 11:19–21, 15:1–5.
Memory Text “When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, ‘Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life’” {Acts 18 11:18, NKJV}.
Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide I. Introduction II. Persecutor of Christians III. Saul’s Conversion IV. Saul in Damascus V. The Gospel Goes to the Gentiles VI. Conflict within the Church VII. Further Study
Questions for Consideration From Moderator: Kendra Haloviak Paul – the Jew raised in a Diaspora synagogue would have been particularly influenced by: • special privileges in Roman society • syncretistic environment (Hellenistic), maintaining behavioral boundaries “Awareness of being something utterly different and unique, and strict maintenance of its own way of life while living among Gentiles, were, and continued to be, Judaism’s prime characteristics.” • mission activity of Pharisees – “a highly esteemed lay movement” {Günter Bornkamm, Paul, NY: Harper & Row, 1969, pages 9 & 11}
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Read the three accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts: Acts 9:1‐22, Acts 22:3‐21, Acts 26:12‐18 Why does the author of Acts include Paul’s conversion so many times? How does the conversion account change with each repetition? Which conversion account do you find most helpful? Why? Now read Paul’s own account of his conversion: Galatians 1:11‐24 Do you prefer Luke’s versions or Paul’s? Why? What parts of Paul’s thinking are challenged by his encounter with Christ? Did you have a conversion experience? Did it cause you to re‐think many of your previous assumptions? What if you never had a conversion experience? How do you relate to hearing the conversions of others? E. P. Sanders: “Much of Paul’s theology is autobiographical” {Paul, Oxford: University Press, 1991, page 101}. Do you agree with Sanders? How is your theology autobiographical?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell When Paul went out to do this, was this a religious commission? This was a sacred assignment? Yes, this was to win souls. This is the same spirit as the spirit of the inquisition. How do you win souls? Is it all right to use a little force? Well, he had a god who demanded obedience under penalty of death. That's the way he read the Old Testament. So what's wrong with using the same method in evangelism? When you have Saul's picture of God, which he thought he got right out of the 39 books and all the stories we've been reading, then you see nothing wrong with delivering as many souls bound hand and foot to the heavenly penitentiary as possible. At least get them there somehow! Well, had they not crucified Christ in God's name? They saw nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with the use of force. And Jesus came, and was so gentle that they were frustrated by His gentleness. And He said, "If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father." Their hopes sank. "If that's the way He is, we're never going to beat the Romans! Do You mean God is as soft as You are?" And they denied it. They said, "Our God is 2 the God of Sinai". Saul went out as an evangelist to defend his god, carrying the 39 books of the Old Testament and all the key texts therein. And he went out to use force. "Obey God and
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live. Disobey God and He will destroy you. Do I make myself clear?" And he went out to stamp out heresy. He saw nothing wrong with it. And how did God win him? Well, I like the thought that Stephen started it. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series The Picture of God in All 66 – Acts, Riverside, California, 1981‐1982} How had Paul changed? After the Damascus Road, did he have a different Bible? Had he changed the Decalogue? Had he switched his Sabbath? Had he changed his diet? Had he changed anything except his picture of God? He was very concerned about saving people before the Damascus Road, but the God that he worshipped before the Damascus Road required things that the God he worshipped after the Damascus Road experience would not. He worshipped a fearsome deity before that experience on the Damascus Road that we discussed last time. And so he saw nothing wrong with using force and persecution. That was the way to settle things. To be saved, then, would be understood in that light. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series The Picture of God in All 66 – Romans, Riverside, California, 1981‐1982} You know that the paragraph in Desire of Ages where Ellen White says that most of us cannot point to an occasion like the Damascus road and speak of a dramatic time of conversion. She says that does not mean we’re not converted. With most people there’s been a long and gentle wooing, there’s been long exposure to the truth, maybe from scripture, from the preaching of the word. She has quite a description in the paragraph. Then she says the day comes when the Spirit comes with special persuasion, and we cast our vote yes or no. And some say “I had a great dramatic conversion!” She says “on the contrary, it may have been years in the making.” And it was with Saul, as we read back. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians session 3, Loma Linda, California, 1978} But on the Damascus road Christ appeared to Saul. Think how this fits in with the Old Testament. Do you think the still small voice would have arrested Saul on his energetic program? He was going out under a full head of steam to his first evangelistic series. He was in no condition to listen to the still small voice. So the God who loved talking to Elijah softly at the mouth of the cave, knew that He’d have to take Saul to Sinai to get his attention. And He appeared dramatically to Saul, and he fell on the ground, brilliant light, his eyesight taken away. It took all that to get Saul’s attention. And I’m glad to think that God is willing to do that. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Romans – chapter 5, Loma Linda, California, 1977}
Further Study with Ellen White
To those who heard him, Paul demonstrated that his change of faith was not prompted by 3 impulse or fanaticism, but had been brought about by overwhelming evidence. In his presentation of gospel truth, he sought to make plain the prophecies relating to the first advent
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of Christ. He showed conclusively that these prophecies had been literally fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth. The foundation of his faith was based on the sure word of prophecy. In the solitude of the desert, Paul had ample opportunity for quiet study and meditation. There he calmly reviewed his past experiences, and made sure work of repentance. He sought God with all his heart, resting not until he knew for a certainty that his repentance was accepted, and his great sin pardoned. He longed for the assurance that Jesus would be with him in his coming ministry. During his sojourn in Arabia, he emptied his soul of the prejudices and traditions that had shaped his life, and received instruction from the Source of truth. Jesus communed with him, and established him in his faith, bestowing upon him a rich measure of divine wisdom and grace. When the mind of man is brought into communion with the mind of God, the finite with the Infinite, the effect on body and mind and soul is beyond estimate. In such communion is found the highest education. It is God's own method of development. "Acquaint now thyself with him," is his message to mankind. {Review and Herald, March 30, 1911} The light and power and glory that had arrested Paul at his conversion did not cease its operations upon him after he was converted to believe in Christ as the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. He became an effectual missionary worker. He proclaimed the truth as it is in Jesus. He was a clear, eloquent speaker, and could meet his adversaries on almost any ground on which they chose to approach him. He met every class of people, from men of renown to the heathen idolaters, setting before them the evidences of Christianity. His religion came from God, and no power on earth could extinguish the light of Heaven. Listen to the testimony of the persecutor, after his conversion. Addressing the church in Galatia he said: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel; which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But tho we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. . . . For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." {Signs of the Times, November 10, 1898} The apostle could never forget his conversion from a persecutor of all who believe on Christ, to a believer in Him. What a bearing this conversion had on all his afterlife! What an encouragement it was as he worked on the side of Him whom he once ridiculed and despised. 4 He could never forget the assurance conveyed to him in the first part of his ministry. He could speak intelligently because he had an experience, a personal knowledge, of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had a living, abiding faith, for he cultivated a sense of the presence of Christ in all his
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works. He received strength in prayer, and as a faithful soldier of Christ he ever looked to his Captain for orders. No amount of obstacles piled up before him, could cause him to regard the work as an impossibility, for he realized that "all things are possible to them that believe" {MS 114, 1897}. {Bible Commentary Vol. 6, 1065.9}
Even Your Sages Say Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. {Anais Nin} There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn't there. {Thomas Hardy} If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God. {Blaise Pascal} A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide. {Samuel Butler}
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 2: “Paul’s Authority and Gospel”
Read for this week’s study 2 Peter 3:15, 16; Gal. 1; Phil. 1:1; Gal. 5:12.
Memory Text “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ” {Galatians 1:10, NKJV}.
Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide I. Introduction II. Paul, the Letter Writer III. Paul’s Calling IV. Paul’s Gospel V. No Other Gospel VI. The Origin of Paul’s Gospel VII. Further Study Questions for Consideration From Moderator: Gil Valentine 1. Adventists use the term “deacon” but not the word “apostle”. Why? 2. Should we be apprehensive about an individual who places so much emphasis on his own individual insight into truth? What might make us nervous about such an individual? What would your reaction be to Paul’s assertiveness if you were a friend of Peter? 3. Surveys of Adventist believers who have dropped out of active involvement in congregational life suggest that the quality of relationships in the local community and attitudes towards others are what count more than specific difficulties over doctrines. Yet Paul seems to give a great deal of importance to ensuring that doctrine is straight (Gal. 1.9). Does he react this way to every doctrine or only to some? If there are some doctrines that seem to him more important than others, why? 4. Paul clearly is angry as he writes the letter to the Galatians. Is it OK to get angry about things we feel are important? What picture of God do we generally get from angry people? 5. Is there any significance in Paul’s qualifier about the Jerusalem leadership in his 1 comment in Gal. 2:9 (“those reputed to be pillars”?) What does the observation made in 2 Peter 3:16 suggest about the diversity of understanding the implications of the gospel for church life in the first century?
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6. It is clear from scripture that the gospel as expressed in the doctrine of justification by faith, has social and ethnic dimensions. Were these social and ethnic dimensions realized as a result of extended reflection on the implications of the gospel or were they part of the doctrine from its first formulation? Were they integral to the first recorded exposition and defense of the doctrine? What light does the book of Galatians cast on this issue? 7. If our understanding of NT chronology is even just broadly correct with the Jerusalem conference occurring about 48 AD, it would seem that the problem that occurred in Antioch between Peter and Paul occurred sixteen or seventeen years after Paul had begun his mission to the Gentiles. Why did it take so long for the problem discussed in Galatians to come to the fore and to be so disruptive? 8. The Sabbath School lesson suggests that the Judaizers troubling the Galatian believers were arguing that Paul was undermining “obedience” (Monday, Oct 3.). Was this the real problem or was it something else that “obedience” pointed to or symbolized? 9. Communities identify themselves by certain markers or boundary points. Often these are behavioral boundary markers. When Paul says that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile is he saying that boundary indicators are no longer important? 10. Are “works of the law” the same as “good works”? How does the answer to this question shape our understanding of Paul’s arguments concerning the Gospel in his letter to the Galatians?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell If anything should ever be said that implies that God cannot be trusted, can we take a position on that? Would it be arrogant for God’s children to say, “We believe that our Heavenly Father can be trusted. He is trustworthy.” Would that be presumptuous? The question is asked, trusted in what? Of course in scripture now we see Him demonstrating His trustworthiness in many ways. Has God been accused of not being trustworthy? Has He been accused of lying? How about Genesis, right in the beginning of the Bible? Lying about what? Was it not with respect to His warning about death is the consequence of sin? Did He answer this? Is He a truth‐telling God? Does He always tell the truth? When the father’s children agree “Our Father can be trusted,” would that be arrogant, proud? Would that be arrogating unto themselves something they shouldn’t? Who are they speaking well of, themselves? Or of their father? Actually, is it not the most humbling thing for us to say that we are absolutely convinced, immovably convinced about the truthfulness and the trustworthiness of God? Or are we not 2 capable of coming to that conclusion, and always suspend judgment on this and say “Well, for me ever to be that sure; I’m a sinner, my mind isn’t that clear. I can never really come to the conclusion that God is righteous, trustworthy, truth‐telling.” It all depends on what we think Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications the good news is all about. If the good news is about God, it would be perfectly safe, would it not? If we have all agreed that the essence of the good news is that God is indeed the gracious, kind, trustworthy person Jesus made Him out to be; is it dangerous to be convinced of that? In fact, if one is convinced of this picture of God, wouldn’t it actually tend to make one more gracious and polite and tolerant, even toward those who disagree? When Paul was convinced about this truth about God, he then could say, “I won’t persecute you anymore. Let every man be persuaded in his own mind.” The more convinced he was about the truth, the more respectful he was about other people’s freedom. See, it depends on what one is dogmatic about, if one must use the term. I like the thought that God is immovable on the subject of freedom. He simply will not budge. But the beauty of that is, if he absolutely will not move on the subject of freedom, that firm position is not depriving me of freedom. That’s guaranteeing my freedom. It just depends what one is certain about. So I think it’s very important to come to a conclusion about what the good news is all about. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians pt 1, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
What would you understand happened to Saul on the Damascus road? He was still the same person, with the same parentage, the same training. What did he actually change? Usually when we think of somebody changing to join our group, there’s something visible, like they change from worshiping on Sunday to Saturday, and dress is changed and diet is changed. Could you name anything like this that was changed with Saul? Did he change anything observable? What would be the most important thing, do you think, that happened to Saul? It’s interesting to think about because it would seem that the most important thing that could happen to a person might not result in any noticeable change according to the usual list of things. But something completely changed his outlook, his attitude toward God and toward his fellow men. And you notice how his evangelism changed from here on? At first he saw nothing wrong with using force and imprisonment, pressure of all kinds. Now Paul says in Romans, “One man esteems one day above another, another man esteems all days alike, and I’m going to arrest them and throw them into prison and kill them if they don’t keep the right day.” No. He says “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” That’s a tremendous shift. Who has written more about grace and freedom, that we’re not under law, we’re under grace, that Christ is the end of legalism as a way of being saved? No one has said more about this. In fact, for what reason was Paul called into headquarters? And for what reason did he get into so much trouble? Wasn’t the criticism that he was too liberal now, and he ought to prove he was a conservative by taking that vow, which led to his arrest and his execution? So at its heart, what would you say had changed the most? What would you think? {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series on Galatians ‐ Pt 2, Loma Linda, California, 1978} 3
Do you remember in Corinth how they minimized his authority, made light of him and felt he had no right to speak since he had not been one of the apostles who had seen the Lord? And
Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications the Galatians also tried to minimize his authority. I think he was exalting the authority of his message; “I really got this from the Lord.” And he also could quote hundreds of scriptures in support of it. In a way, don’t we need to be able to say this ourselves? I think it’s a great privilege to assist each other. And that’s one of the functions of the church. But I think when it’s all over, if we have to say; if we’re even tempted to think “I’m of Cephas, or I’m of Paul or I’m of Apollos”, this is very undesirable. I think ultimately we should be so settled into the truth, because we know it is the truth, brought to us on the authority of scripture with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that we could even watch the ones who have been the most instrumental in helping us see it apostatize, and not collapse ourselves. Will we not see some of our brightest lights go out? So can we be too dependent upon other people? I think it’s nice to be grateful. You know you meet somebody who was your teacher years ago and you say “Thank you, I never was the same.” I think of people in college that I still remember with great admiration, who had really helped the light dawn on some points; I think we should be eternally grateful, but not be unduly dependent. I can think of some great soul‐winners in the Adventist church who have brought in individuals who have been leaders in the church, but who themselves lost their way. Can’t you name some? I almost wish I couldn’t remember their names, except there’s quite a lesson in it, because any one of us could lose his way. Paul says “I could lose my way. That’s why I discipline myself so closely, lest having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.” So I think it’s nice to be grateful and recognize how we may have helped each other. That brings great joy to those who may have worked so hard to help others. I mean, they deserve to hear that. But to be unduly dependent upon them? That would be a great mistake. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series on Galatians ‐ Pt 2, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
Further Study with Ellen White It was not to exalt self, but to magnify the grace of God, that Paul thus presented to those who were denying his apostleship, proof that he was "not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." Those who sought to belittle his calling and his work were fighting against Christ, whose grace and power were manifested through Paul. Hence the apostle felt that he was forced, by the opposition of his enemies, and even by the course of his brethren, to take a decided stand to maintain his position and authority. {LP 193.2}
The spotless Son of God hung upon the cross, His flesh lacerated with stripes; those hands so often reached out in blessing, nailed to the wooden bars; those feet so tireless on ministries of 4 love, spiked to the tree; that royal head pierced by the crown of thorns; those quivering lips shaped to the cry of woe. And all that He endured—the blood drops that flowed from His head, His hands, His feet, the agony that racked His frame, and the unutterable anguish that filled His
Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications soul at the hiding of His Father’s face—speaks to each child of humanity, declaring, It is for thee that the Son of God consents to bear this burden of guilt; for thee He spoils the domain of death, and opens the gates of Paradise. . . . {CSA 39.6}
Christ came to save fallen man, and Satan with fiercest wrath met him on the field of conflict; for the enemy knew that when divine strength was added to human weakness, man was armed with power and intelligence, and could break away from the captivity in which he had bound him. Satan sought to intercept every ray of light from the throne of God. He sought to cast his shadow across the earth, that men might lose the true views of God's character, and that the knowledge of God might become extinct in the earth. He had caused truth of vital importance to be so mingled with error that it had lost its significance. The law of Jehovah was burdened with needless exactions and traditions, and God was represented as severe, exacting, revengeful, and arbitrary. He was pictured as one who could take pleasure in the sufferings of his creatures. The very attributes that belonged to the character of Satan, the evil one represented as belonging to the character of God. Jesus came to teach men of the Father, to correctly represent him before the fallen children of earth. Angels could not fully portray the character of God, but Christ, who was a living impersonation of God, could not fail to accomplish the work. The only way in which he could set and keep men right was to make himself visible and familiar to their eyes. That men might have salvation he came directly to man, and became a partaker of his nature. {ST, January 20, 1890}
The Father was revealed in Christ as altogether a different being from that which Satan had represented him to be. Said Christ, "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." The love of Jesus, expressed for the fallen race in his life of self‐denial and sufferings, is the manifestation of the Father's love for a sinful, fallen world. Christ endured shame and grief and death for those who despised his love and trampled upon his mercy. {ST, January 20, 1890}
Those who would behold this glory would be drawn to love Jesus and to love the Father whom he represented. Christ exalted the character of God, attributing to him the praise, and giving to him the credit, of the whole purpose of his own mission on earth,‐‐to set men right through the revelation of God. In Christ was arrayed before men the paternal grace and the matchless perfections of the Father. In his prayer just before his crucifixion, he declared, "I have manifested thy name." "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." When the object of his mission was attained,‐‐the revelation of God to the world,‐‐the Son of God announced that his work was accomplished, and that the character of 5 the Father was made manifest to men. {ST, January 20, 1890}
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Even Your Poets Say O Father of eternal life, and all Created glories under Thee! Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall Into true liberty.
Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill My perspective still as they pass: Or else remove me hence unto that hill Where I shall need no glass.
{Henry Vaughan, from “They are all gone into the world of light!”}
Even Your Sages Say The antidote to frustration is a calm faith, not in your own cleverness, or in hard toil, but in God's guidance. {Norman Vincent Peale}
Faith isn't the ability to believe long and far into the misty future. It's simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step. {Joni Erickson Tada}
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. {Helen Keller}
Where hope grows, miracles blossom. {Elna Rae}
God is even kinder than you think. {St. Theresa}
Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark. {Rabindranath Tagore}
Additional Readings “Can God Be Trusted?” by Graham Maxwell 29‐34, 73‐75, 80‐83, 1977, 2002
“God Made Manifest in Christ” by Ellen G. White http://www.pineknoll.org/all‐writings
Moderators’ Notes 6 From Moderator: Gil Valentine
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Galatians is a first‐century letter following an established format for such correspondence but with some distinctive characteristics. Read Galatians 1.
• It lacks a formal introductory note of “thanksgiving” – deliberate or accidental? • There is a very strong emotional “tone” in the letter. • The letter has a strong emphasis on establishing the authority of the writer.
Paul asserted himself to be an “apostle”. An “apostle” was a title indicating someone who had been formally “sent”, a commissioned “messenger” whose word should therefore be trusted and respected. In the strictest original sense it referred to the original twelve but also those others who:
• had known Jesus • encountered the risen Christ • been commissioned by Christ to be a witness.
Reading Materials to Ponder
Extracts from: James, D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008).
“It remains the case that Paul formulated his statements of Justification by faith and not works of the law with a view to his mission as apostle to the Gentiles, and as a result of his understanding of the gospel being challenged by fellow Jews (Gal. 2:2‐4; Acts 15:1, 5). The issue of whether and how Gentiles can be accepted by God is at the heart of Paul’s theology, the conviction that the gospel of God’s righteousness is for all who believe, Gentile as well as Jew (Rom. 1:16‐17). p 30
“It was central and essential for him [Paul] that the gospel enables and expects such diverse peoples to sit and eat at the same table: ‘the truth of the gospel’ was at stake (Gal. 2:11‐21). What was it that roused Paul’s anger at Antioch? What was it that he saw as such a threat to the fundamental truth of justification by faith? – precisely the refusal of one group of Christians fully to accept another group of Christians! The statement of justification which Paul formulated in the wake of the Antioch episode (2:16) at the very least includes the message that justification means fully accepting the other believer who is different from you, who disagrees with you. Evidently the two dimensions are inextricably interlocked – the vertical and the horizontal, acceptance by God with acceptance of others. It is not possible to be right with 7 God while refusing to respect and accept what Jonathan Sacks has described as ‘the dignity of difference’. p 32
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“Christ died to break down the wall, the law with its commandments and ordinances, the wall that divided Jew from Gentile (Eph. 2:14‐16). In him the two have become one, and the church is presented precisely as existing to be the place where the separated peoples come together as one (Eph. 2:17‐22). The surmounting of these ancient hostilities was not merely a by‐product of the gospel, far less a distraction from the true meaning of the gospel, but the climactic achievement of the gospel, the completion of God’s purposes from the beginning of time.
Such ‘attitudes’, and ‘misunderstandings’, which maintain barriers between peoples and races, which demean others and treat them as of lesser importance before God, which refuse respect for others who see things differently, would not only have undermined the teaching of justification by faith, but would have crippled, indeed destroyed Christianity if they had not been thus challenged. And Christians today should not hesitate to draw the same lessons from Paul’s teaching in confronting the same challenges to the gospel: to see others as essentially a threat to my own or my people’s status (or rights/privileges), will always cripple and destroy mutual acceptance and community; to insist that others can be respected and accepted only if they share the same tribal loyalty, only if they formulate their faith in the words that we recognize, only if they act in ways that we approve, narrows the grace of God and the truth of the gospel in ways that would cause Paul the same anguish and anger as he experienced in Antioch. At one end of the scale we have the same refusal of some Christians to eat at the same table (the Lord’s table!) with other Christians, the same insistence by some Christians to refuse recognition and cooperation with other Christians because justification by faith in Christ alone is an insufficient statement of the Gospel! Ironically, even the very insistence on the doctrine of ‘justification by faith and not by works’ can become an added ‘work’ by which the gospel of justification by faith alone is compromised and corrupted! . . . Justification by faith speaks against all such fundamentalism which used biblical texts to justify unjust treatment of others, which narrows the grace of God to some sectarian formulation, which insists on the God‐giveness of any policy or practice which demeans the ‘Gentile’, or which demands as a condition of Christian acceptance more that the faith which works through love (Gal. 5:6). p 34‐ 35.
“. . . at Antioch Peter acted in a way that implied that it was still necessary for (Jewish) believers to observe (certain key) works of the law, even though he already agreed that justification was by faith in Christ. Peter’s action made it clear (to Paul) that there was a critical issue for the gospel at stake at this point, and he formulated Gal. 2:16 accordingly, and probably with an antithetical sharpness – not faith plus, not both faith and works, but only through faith. 8 In short then, the issue of faith versus works as such does not seem to have emerged for some time after the Gentile mission had begun. It was evidently the success of that mission which brought to the surface the question whether justification by faith in Christ Jesus was in any way
Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications or degree dependent on observance of the law, on doing the works of the law, on adopting a characteristic Jewish way of life. The development which I see attested in the text is that it was the insistence by traditionalist Jewish believers that at least some key laws were still binding which forced the issue to be faced. The circumcision question was resolved with a fair degree of amicableness. But it was the insistence on the laws of clean and unclean at Antioch which raised the issue whether faith needed to be complemented by works of the law. In other words, Paul’s formulation in Gal. 2:16 was, as the context suggests, formulated in response to the crisis at Antioch. The belief that justification was from faith in Christ Jesus was the common ground. The events at Antioch showed Paul that the teaching had to be sharpened – faith and not works." p 40‐41
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
1. There's a wideness in God's mercy, 8. If our love were but more simple, Like the wideness of the sea; We should take Him at His word; There's a kindness in His justice, And our lives would be all sunshine Which is more than liberty. In the sweetness of our Lord.
3. There is welcome for the sinner, 11. But we make His love too narrow And more graces for the good; By false limits of our own; There is mercy with the Savior; And we magnify His strictness There is healing in His blood. With a zeal He will not own.
5. For the love of God is broader 12. Was there ever kinder shepherd Than the measure of our mind; Half so gentle, half so sweet, And the heart of the Eternal As the Savior who would have us Is most wonderfully kind. Come and gather at His feet?
{Frederic W.Faber}
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What is a Paradigm Shift?
“An epistemological paradigm shift was called a scientific revolution by epistemologist and historian of science Thomas Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
A scientific revolution occurs, according to Kuhn, when scientists encounter anomalies which cannot be explained by the universally accepted paradigm within which scientific progress has thereto been made. The paradigm, in Kuhn's view, is not simply the current theory, but the entire worldview in which it exists, and all of the implications which come with it. It is based on features of landscape of knowledge that scientists can identify around them. There are anomalies for all paradigms, Kuhn maintained, that are brushed away as acceptable levels of error, or simply ignored and not dealt with (a principal argument Kuhn uses to reject Karl Popper's model of falsifiability as the key force involved in scientific change). Rather, according to Kuhn, anomalies have various levels of significance to the practitioners of science at the time. To put it in the context of early 20th century physics, some scientists found the problems with calculating Mercury's perihelion more troubling than the Michelson-Morley experiment results, and some the other way around. Kuhn's model of scientific change differs here, and in many places, from that of the logical positivists in that it puts an enhanced emphasis on the individual humans involved as scientists, rather than abstracting science into a purely logical or philosophical venture.
When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, the scientific discipline is thrown into a state of crisis, according to Kuhn. During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones previously discarded, are tried. Eventually a new paradigm is formed, which gains its own new followers, and an intellectual "battle" takes place between the followers of the new paradigm and the hold‐outs of the old paradigm. Again, for early 20th century physics, the transition between the Maxwellian electromagnetic worldview and the Einsteinian Relativistic worldview was neither instantaneous nor calm, and instead involved a protracted set of "attacks," both with empirical data as well as rhetorical or philosophical arguments, by both sides, with the Einsteinian theory winning out in the long‐run. Again, the weighing of evidence and importance of new data was fit through the human sieve: some scientists found the simplicity of Einstein's equations to be most compelling, while some found them more complicated than the notion of Maxwell's aether which they banished. Some found Eddington's photographs of light bending around the sun to be compelling, some questioned their accuracy and meaning. Sometimes the convincing force is just time itself and the human toll it takes, 10 Kuhn said, using a quote from Max Planck: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by
Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
After a given discipline has changed from one paradigm to another, this is called, in Kuhn's terminology, a scientific revolution or a paradigm shift. It is often this final conclusion, the result of the long process, that is meant when the term paradigm shift is used colloquially: simply the (often radical) change of worldview, without reference to the specificities of Kuhn's historical argument.
The term "paradigm shift" has found uses in other contexts, representing the notion of a major change in a certain thought‐pattern — a radical change in personal beliefs, complex systems or organizations, replacing the former way of thinking or organizing with a radically different way of thinking or organizing:
Handa, M. L., a professor of sociology in education at O.I.S.E. University of Toronto, Canada, developed the concept of a paradigm within the context of social sciences. He defines what he means by "paradigm" and introduces the idea of a "social paradigm". In addition, he identifies the basic component of any social paradigm. Like Kuhn, he addresses the issue of changing paradigms, the process popularly known as "paradigm shift." In this respect, he focuses on the social circumstances which precipitate such a shift. Relatedly, he addresses how that shift affects social institutions, including the institution of education.” {Source: Wikipedia}
When and to whom was Galatians Written?
The decision about the area to which Paul’s letter was addressed may indicate what particular kind of problem Paul was addressing. It also has an influence on one’s understanding of the kind of churches he might be addressing.
“If Paul is referring to the Roman Province, including the southern area (of current day Turkey), then one may date the letter early if one follows Acts, since Paul had evangelized the southern cities during his first missionary journey. On the other hand, if Paul is referring to ethnic Galatia, it is an area he did not visit until his second missionary journey according to Acts, and hence the letter must be dated somewhat later. Yet we have already seen that Acts is not a complete account of Paul’s missionary travels, and many scholars are reluctant to assume chronological exactness with respect to the material in Acts.”
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The South Galatian and North Galatian Theories South Galatia North Galatia 1. “Provincial” or “Roman” Galatia 1. “Ethnic” Galatia
2. These churches were founded during Paul’s first 2. These churches were founded during Paul’s second missionary journey, including Pisidian Antioch, missionary journey (Acts 16.6; 18.23) Iconimum, Lystra, and Derbe )Acts 13:14‐15; 14.1; 16.3)
3. Paul meets with church leaders in Jerusalem (Gal 3. 2.1‐10)
4. Allows for Galatians to be written as early as 48 AD, 4. Galatians were written in the mid‐50s, probably as the earliest extant Pauline epistle. after the Corinthian letters, before Romans.
5. Galatians reports events that precipitated the 5. Galatians was written after the Jerusalem Council Apostolic Council (Acts 15) to churches in the north.
{Source: Paul Achtemeier, Joel B. Green and Marianne Meye Thompson, Introducing the New Testament: its Literature and Theology.}
Is a Pauline Chronology Possible?
31 31‐34 33‐36 47/48 48 55
Death Stoning Journey to 3 years Private First Trouble Letter to Jerusalem Letter to of Jesus of Damascus in Visit to Missionary in Galatians ? Conferenc Galatians Stephen Arabia Jerusalem Journey Antioch e ? ?
Before or after the Jerualem Council ?
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 3: “The Unity of the Gospel”
Read for this week’s study
Gal. 2:1–14, 1 Cor. 1:10–13, Gen. 17:1–21, John 8:31–36, Col. 3:11.
Memory Text
“Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” {Philippians 2:2, ESV}.
Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide
I. Introduction II. The Importance of Unity III. Circumcision and the False Brothers IV. Unity in Diversity V. Confrontation in Antioch VI. Paul’s Concern VII. Further Study
Questions for Consideration
Moderator: Kendra Haloviak
Questions the Jesus Movement was forced to confront when Gentiles accepted the message of the apostles:
• Should Gentile Christians be required to submit to circumcision and practice the Jewish way of life, as Gentile proselytes to Judaism were required to do?
• To those Gentile Christians unwilling to become wholly Jewish, should the church grant a second‐class citizenship, as for Gentile “God‐fearers” in Judaism?
• What makes a person Christian: faith in Christ solely, or faith in Christ plus adherence to the principles and practices of Judaism?
Robert H. Gundry, Introduction to the New Testament, 4th ed. {Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1 2003}, 352
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Who did Paul convert?
“Paul’s pagan or gentile mission focused primarily not on full Jews or pure pagans, but on those in‐betweens known as God‐fearers, God‐worshipers, or, more simply, sympathizers…”
“In any given city, God‐worshipers converted to Christianity would be told correctly by both other God‐fearers and Jewish friends that it was theologically wiser and socially safer to convert fully, if such were their wish, but to Judaism rather than to Christianity. It was far better, God‐worshiping males would have been told, to be full Jews than full Christians. As Jews they would be recognized, accepted, and protected by Rome, but as Christians they were followers of a leader executed by those same Romans.” {John Dominic Crossan & Jonathan L. Reed, In Search of Paul, {San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004}, pages 38, 40}.
• Is this what was going on in the house churches of Galatia?
Mark Allan Powell distinguishes the opposing views this way:
Paul’s opponents: Good news! Gentiles can become part of the favored group! Paul: Good news! There is no favored group! Powell continues: “A primary function of the Torah had always been to mark Jews off as a separate and special people, so if Gentile Christians were to become circumcised and begin keeping the Jewish law, they would be perpetuating this notion of exclusion, failing to recognize the universal scope of God’s favor that brought the gospel to them in the first place.” {see Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009, page 314}
• How do you imagine the membership of house churches in the early Christian communities?
• Why is circumcision such a divisive issue among some first‐century Christians?
• Is there any such “circumcision” issue today that is similarly divisive?
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Thoughts from Graham Maxwell
Was Peter offended by being corrected by this more recent convert, about whom many of the leaders felt jealousy? He was such a successful soul‐winner! I mean, when you take one of the leading brethren, and you correct him to his face and in public, does it not say something significant that it was to his face? There’s quite a lesson in that. It was not done behind the scenes, where it so often occurs. It was done to his face, and in public. Is there any evidence that Peter was so offended that he never spoke to Paul again? Do you remember in Peter; we read it some time ago, where Peter says, “You know all about the reason for the delay. It’s because God is not willing that any of us should perish, as our dear brother Paul wrote in his letter.” Do you remember that, in 2 Peter 3? Maybe Peter was stirred to a little warmth at the time, it doesn’t tell. But later he spoke of Paul as his beloved friend, and authoritative writer of scripture. And I love what that says about Peter. Surely Paul ran quite a risk here, didn’t he? He was saying to the general brethren who came down to Antioch, “I’ve been giving them the good news about freedom and that all this taste not, touch not, handle not stuff is nonsense.” Colossians 2. “I’ve been trying to throw all this out as Jesus did when he declared all foods clean” in Mark 7. “ I haven’t been doing away with the law. Does faith abolish the law?” Romans 3:21. “No, faith establishes law by putting it in its right perspective.” But all these rules. Do you remember what Jesus said? “This people teach as my commandments actually the commandments of men, learned by rote. I never gave you those rules.” Paul had set them free, and God looked good to the Gentiles. And they admired the God that Paul had presented. And here came the folk from headquarters saying go back to all that rigmarole and all that ceremony. And Paul said “I have to take a stand on this. You are denying the truthfulness of the very message I’ve staked my life on. And I’ll have to tell you, dear brethren from headquarters, I’ve been telling everybody around here that if even an angel from Heaven comes to Antioch with a different version of the good news. . . And I used some very strong language! And you brethren from headquarters are coming with that other version. And I hesitate to say I want you to go where I said people should go to when they bring a different version of the good news.” But you know, his message condemned the kind of legal, meaningless, rote ceremonialism that some of the early Christian leaders were still wanting to practice, and which later cost him his life, isn’t that true? So he had to take a position here. But what a risk he ran. See, he really was willing to stake his life for the good news as he understood it. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians – pt 2, Loma Linda, California, 1978} 3 And that’s why I believe our last great message to the world is a message of trust in God. Right now there’s great emphasis on the details of justification and sanctification. We can’t know too
Study Collection prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications much about these things, but one could talk about those things to the exclusion of the heart of the message, which is the trustworthiness of God. Our message is about Him. If we could lead people to trust Him they’ll be justified, sanctified, and all these other good things, whether they know those words or understand how it works or not. Then it would seem that our great emphasis would be on trust in God, and you don’t trust someone you don’t know, so the good news is the truth about God, that people might be led to trust Him. And on that we could all unite. I’ve seen people argue almost to the point of passion over the meaning of justification. But how could we argue over the goodness of God? Surely we could have this unity inherent in our trust and our knowledge of the Son of God. I believe our church will have power and be unified if we concentrate on the picture of God and the good news about Him, and not get too exercised over some of these other matters, which sometimes are even divisive. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Romans – Ch 12, Loma Linda, California, 1977}
We’re all in trouble, we all need help. And some of us are now enjoying the unity of Ephesians 4, the unity that is inherent in our faith and our knowledge of the Son of God. Don’t you think that passage fits in here? It’s the same Paul who wrote Ephesians, you know, that wrote Romans. And there he says we should look forward to the day when we enjoy the unity that is inherent in our faith, when we all worship and admire and serve the same God. We all want to fulfill His purpose, and spread the good news about Him. And spread the unity that is inherent in our knowledge of the Son of God. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series on Romans – Ch 12, Loma Linda, California, 1977}
Then, which is more important, to have faith, or to be circumcised? Did that do away with circumcision in Abraham's day? No. The circumcision was a sign of the faith. But everything depends on the faith and the trust, you see. So he's making the same point here. We all want to be children of Abraham, the friend of God, and what marked him as God's friend? He really trusted God, and he showed it was genuine trust when God asked him to take his son and do something, or to leave Ur of the Chaldees. He did something. He was constantly listening and obeying God, because he loved and trusted God. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series The Picture of God in All 66 – Galatians, Riverside, California, 1981‐1982}
Further Study with Ellen White
That union and love might exist among His disciples was the burden of our Saviour's last prayer for them prior to His crucifixion. With the agony of the cross before Him, His solicitude was not 4 for Himself, but for those whom He should leave to carry forward His work in the earth. The severest trials awaited them, but Jesus saw that their greatest danger would be from a spirit of bitterness and division. . .
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That prayer of Christ embraces all His followers to the close of time. Our Saviour foresaw the trials and dangers of His people; He is not unmindful of the dissensions and divisions that distract and weaken His church. He is looking upon us with deeper interest and more tender compassion than moves an earthly parent's heart toward a wayward, afflicted child. He bids us learn of Him. He invites our confidence. He bids us open our hearts to receive His love. He has pledged Himself to be our helper. {5T 237}
In the work of redemption there is no compulsion. No external force is employed. Under the influence of the Spirit of God, man is left free to choose whom he will serve. In the change that takes place when the soul surrenders to Christ, there is the highest sense of freedom. The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself. True, we have no power to free ourselves from Satan's control; but when we desire to be set free from sin, and in our great need cry out for a power out of and above ourselves, the powers of the soul are imbued with the divine energy of the Holy Spirit, and they obey the dictates of the will in fulfilling the will of God.
The only condition upon which the freedom of man is possible is that of becoming one with Christ. "The truth shall make you free;" and Christ is the truth. Sin can triumph only by enfeebling the mind, and destroying the liberty of the soul. Subjection to God is restoration to one's self,‐‐to the true glory and dignity of man. The divine law, to which we are brought into subjection, is "the law of liberty." James 2:12. . {DA 466}
Even Your Sages Say
Only to the extent that men desire peace and brotherhood can the world be made better. No peace even though temporarily obtained, will be permanent, whether to individuals or nations, unless it is built upon the solid foundation of eternal principles. (David O. McKay)
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. (Albert Einstein)
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 4: “Justification by Faith Alone”
Read for this week’s study
Gal. 2:15–21; Eph. 2:12; Phil. 3:9; Rom. 3:10–20; Gen. 15:5, 6; Rom. 3:8.
Memory Text
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” {Galatians 2:20, ESV}.
Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide
I. Introduction II. The Question of “Justification III. The Basis of Our Justification IV. Works of the Law V. The Obedience of Faith VI. Does Faith Promote Sin? VII. Further Study
Questions for Consideration
From Moderator: Gil Valentine
1. Differences over the way the book of Galatians should be interpreted lay at the heart of the first threat of schism in the Adventist church in the period 1886‐1889. Two approaches to the interpretation of the meaning of “the law” in Galatians were fiercely contested and resulted in much bitterness. Why was the issue so significant? 2. Cosaert suggests that it is important to have “an accurate picture of God” and that “distorted ideas about the character of God actually can make it more difficult to have faith.” If God is ultimately unknowable, unsearchable, and past finding out how confident can we be of the “accuracy” of our picture of God? What can we say and what can we not say? 3. “It is worth noting” suggests Achtemeier et al, “that while Paul worked out the implications 1 of the Jew‐Gentile dichotomy in detail, he did not do so with the other two dichotomies, male‐female and slave‐free. Yet the thoroughness he displays in regard to the Jew‐Gentile dichotomy shows what he intended with the other two: any religious distinction between
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the members of the dichotomy is voided in Christ. This is a warrant for Paul’s followers to carry out Paul’s self announced program: to eliminate all barriers to full religious participation based on race, sex, or social status within the body of Christ.” Is this a legitimate interpretation of the message of Galatians? How should Adventists carry out the implications of Galatians? {Introducing the New Testament in Literature and Theology p 368} 4. In what way was Paul’s mission to the Gentiles a “paradigm shift” in theological understanding for the early Palestinian Christian communities? What does this paradigm shift tell us about Paul’s understanding of God? How should we understand Paul’s heated rhetoric over the issue and his issuing of anathemas against those who disagreed with him? Would this be an appropriate approach to theological discussion today?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell
Now Romans 3:25 and 26 goes on to say that if we have been won back by all that God has done at such infinite cost, if we've been won back to trust Him and to trust His Son, He justifies us. What does it mean to be justified? Paul, of course, has never heard the term. It's more Latin than English. Justify means literally in the Latin ‘to make just’, as solidify means to make solid, petrify means to make like a stone, justify, to make righteous. But the word has come to have some very special meanings. The Greek is dekiao. There’s a noun, dekiasone, (don’t they sound alike?) Dekiao is the verb, dekiasone is the noun. That’s translated righteousness. In the gospel, the dekiasone of God is revealed, the righteousness of God. The adjective for righteous is dekias ‐ the same root, isn’t it. Dekias is righteous, dekiasone is righteousness. Put an "a" in front to make adekias, and that's unrighteous. We consistently translate this root with the word righteous in there somewhere ‐ righteousness, righteous, unrighteous. But when we come to the verb dekiao, we don't say make righteous but say justify. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series on Romans – Ch 4, Loma Linda, California, 1977}
The word “obedience” in the Greek means literally “listening under, humble willingness to listen.” A doorkeeper is called by this word. Now what if you had a doorkeeper who said “I’m listening, but I don’t intend to carry through with what I hear!” This isn’t just an idle, rude willingness to listen; it’s a humble willingness to listen. So when the doorkeeper listens, he hears his master knock, and he proceeds to open the door. Hence the word came to mean “obedience”, but the essence of the word is “a willingness to listen.” 2 Now does God expect of us perfect performance? He knows better. Can He expect of us perfect willingness to listen? What if we have a 25‐percent reservation here? Then we’re not safe to save. I mean we’ve got a lot of listening to do in the hereafter! So God can demand
Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications obedience in this sense, a willingness to listen. And without it He can’t help us. And He says, “All the good things that have come to you have come by hearing; by a willingness to listen, in a mood of trust.” That’s all that is asked. So he then takes Abraham as an example, just as he did in Romans, “Thus Abraham trusted God”, he believed God, had faith in God, same word, “and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” So you see that it is men of trust and faith who are the sons of Abraham. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series on Galatians – pt 3, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
What is "the obedience of faith?" Is that obedience “to the faith" and "the faith" is "the creed?" That doesn't sound like Paul. If you read on through Romans and all the rest of Paul's letters, and you remember the kind of obedience he offered God before, you might agree with me that the contrast in Paul's writings is the contrast in his own life. He's always been for obedience. He's still all for obedience, of course. But the old obedience was the obedience that sprang from law, from a different kind of a god. Now he says, "If only you knew the good news about God, it might lead some of you to,” obedience, to be sure, but “the obedience that springs from faith."
Now, what is faith? He discusses that elsewhere. But does it make any difference to obey God for legal reasons? Or to obey because you love, trust, and admire Him for His wise and gracious ways? Ellen White loves to comment on this.
"The man who obeys God from a sense of obligation merely, because he is required to do so, never enters into the joy of obedience. In fact, he does not obey. Only the man who does right because it is right really pleases God.” The man who does what’s right “because it is right” agrees and doesn't have to be told, ''Thou shalt not hate thy mother‐in‐law." He doesn't hate his mother‐in‐law, and all these other things. And that means that the law is now written in his heart. We've discussed this so many times before. Paul knew about Jeremiah, and all those other places.
There is a superficial kind of obedience that puts the Ten Commandments on the wall, and says “Obedience is obeying those rules, disobedience is breaking those rules.” But if that's done superficially, the people who crucified Christ obeyed the rules, because as soon as they nailed Him to the cross they hurried home to get ready for Sabbath. Right? And they all had their tithe paid and nobody had anything forbidden in his stomach. They obeyed the whole blueprint. They were doing what they were required to do. But when you obey from a sense of obligation, you don't have much love for the person who so obligates you. That can breed the character of a rebel. And you know how Ellen White enlarges on that. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio 3 series The Picture of God in All 66 – Romans, Riverside, California, 1981‐ 1982}
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Now, how you define faith and trust enters into this. And we need to read other places. To me, faith is just a word we use to describe a relationship with God as with a person well known; and we get to know Him through the gospel. The good news is about God, that He is infinitely worthy of our trust. It implies an attitude toward God of love and trust, and deepest admiration. It means having enough confidence in God, based upon the more than adequate evidence, all summed up in the good news, to be willing to believe what God says, as soon as we're sure He said it, and to accept what God offers, as soon as we're sure He's offering it, and to do whatever God wishes, without reservation. (Of course, as soon as we're sure He's asking us, and that it’s not somebody else), without reservation, for the rest of eternity. Now, anybody who has such a trusting relationship with God of love, trust, and admiration, and is willing to listen, is perfectly safe to save.
He could die just beginning that relationship, like the thief on the cross. He would arise loving, trusting, and admiring that kind One in the middle. He will be willing to listen, and accept all kinds of instruction and correction. He is therefore safe to save. But you can't regard God in that attitude without a new heart and a right spirit, so you are a new creature, which he's going to mention in a moment. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series The Picture of God in All 66 – Galatians, Riverside, California, 1981‐1982}
Further Study with Ellen White
It was taught by the Jews that before God's love is extended to the sinner, he must first repent. In their view, repentance is a work by which men earn the favor of Heaven. And it was this thought that led the Pharisees to exclaim in astonishment and anger. "This man receiveth sinners." According to their ideas He should permit none to approach Him but those who had repented. But in the parable of the lost sheep, Christ teaches that salvation does not come through our seeking after God but through God's seeking after us. "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way." Romans 3:11, 12. We do not repent in order that God may love us, but He reveals to us His love in order that we may repent.
The rabbis had a saying that there is rejoicing in heaven when one who has sinned against God is destroyed; but Jesus taught that to God the work of destruction is a strange work. That in which all heaven delights is the restoration of God's own image in the souls whom He has made. {COL 189‐190} 4
From the opening of the great controversy it has been Satan's purpose to misrepresent God's character and to excite rebellion against His law, and this work appears to be crowned with
Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications success. The multitudes give ear to Satan's deceptions and set themselves against God. But amid the working of evil, God's purposes move steadily forward to their accomplishment; to all created intelligences He is making manifest His justice and benevolence. . .
It was by deception that Satan seduced angels; thus he has in all ages carried forward his work among men, and he will continue this policy to the last. Should he openly profess to be warring against God and His law, men would beware; but he disguises himself, and mixes truth with error. The most dangerous falsehoods are those that are mingled with truth. It is thus that errors are received that captivate and ruin the soul. By this means Satan carries the world with him. But a day is coming when his triumph will be forever ended.
God's dealings with rebellion will result in fully unmasking the work that has so long been carried on under cover. The results of Satan's rule, the fruits of setting aside the divine statutes, will be laid open to the view of all created intelligences. The law of God will stand fully vindicated. It will be seen that all the dealings of God have been conducted with reference to the eternal good of His people, and the good of all the worlds that He has created. Satan himself, in the presence of the witnessing universe, will confess the justice of God's government and the righteousness of His law. {PP 338}
Is he now free to transgress God's law? Says Paul: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" And John declares: "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous." Romans 3:31; 6:2; 1 John 5:3. In the new birth the heart is brought into harmony with God, as it is brought into accord with His law. When this mighty change has taken place in the sinner, he has passed from death unto life, from sin unto holiness, from transgression and rebellion to obedience and loyalty. The old life of alienation from God has ended; the new life of reconciliation, of faith and love, has begun. Then "the righteousness of the law" will "be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:4. And the language of the soul will be: "O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day." Psalm 119:97. {GC 468}
When the sinner has a view of the matchless charms of Jesus, sin no longer looks attractive to him; for he beholds the Chiefest among ten thousand, the One altogether lovely. He realizes by a personal experience the power of the gospel, whose vastness of design is equaled only by its preciousness of purpose. {FW 107}
Even John, the beloved disciple, the one who most fully reflected the likeness of the Saviour, 5 did not naturally possess that loveliness of character. He was not only self‐assertive and ambitious for honor, but impetuous, and resentful under injuries. But as the character of the Divine One was manifested to him, he saw his own deficiency and was humbled by the
Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications knowledge. The strength and patience, the power and tenderness, the majesty and meekness, that he beheld in the daily life of the Son of God, filled his soul with admiration and love. Day by day his heart was drawn out toward Christ, until he lost sight of self in love for his Master. His resentful, ambitious temper was yielded to the molding power of Christ. The regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit renewed his heart. The power of the love of Christ wrought a transformation of character. This is the sure result of union with Jesus. When Christ abides in the heart, the whole nature is transformed. Christ's Spirit, His love, softens the heart, subdues the soul, and raises the thoughts and desires toward God and heaven. {SC 73}
Even Your Sages Say
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof. {Khalil Gibran}
If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm. {Mahandas Gandhi}
Additional Readings (Moderator Gil Valentine recommends)
Gilbert M Valentine, “A Slice of History: the difficulties of imposing orthodoxy.” Ministry, February 2003. pp 5 – 9.
Gilbert M Valentine, “Developing Truth and changing perspectives.” Ministry, April 2003, pp 24‐ 29.
Moderators’ Notes
Carl Cosaert on Gal. 2:15‐21
“This passage contains some of the most compressed wording in the New Testament, and is extremely significant because it introduces us for the first time to several words and phrases that are foundational both to understanding the gospel and to the rest of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. . . . Paul warns the Jewish Christians that their spiritual privileges do not make them any more acceptable to God, because no one is justified by ‘works of the law’.”
“Justification is a legal term, used in courts of law. It deals with the verdict a judge pronounces when a person is declared innocent of the charges brought against him or her. It is the opposite of condemnation. Additionally, because the words just and righteous come from the same Greek work, for a person ‘to be justified’ means that the person also is counted as 6 ‘righteous’. Thus, justification involves more than simply pardon or forgiveness; it is the positive declaration that a person is righteous.
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For some of the Jewish believers, however, justification also was relational. It revolved around their relationship with God and his covenant. To be ‘justified’ also meant that a person was counted as a faithful member of God’s covenantal community, the family of Abraham.” {SS Lesson Sunday, Oct. 16}.
“The phrase ‘the works of the law’ likely involves, therefore, all the requirements found in the commandments given by God through Moses, whether Moral or ceremonial. . . . Although the phrase ‘the works of the law’ does not occur in the Old Testament and is not found in the New Testament outside of Paul, stunning confirmation of its meaning emerged in 1947 with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of writings copied by a group of Jews, call Essenes, who lived at the time of Jesus. Although written in Hebrew, one of the scrolls contains this exact phrase. The scroll’s title is Miqsat Ma’as Ha‐Torh, which can be translated, ‘Important Works of the Law.’ The scroll describes a number of issues based on biblical law concerned with preventing holy things from being made impure including several that marked the Jews out as separate from the Gentiles. At the end the author writes that if these ‘works of the law’ are followed, ‘you will be reckoned righteous before God. Unlike Paul, the author does not offer his reader righteousness on the basis of faith but on the basis of behavior.” {SS Lesson Monday, Oct. 17}.
“A careful examination of Scripture reveals that faith involves not only knowledge about God but a mental consent or acceptance of that knowledge. This is one reason why having an accurate picture of God is so important. Distorted ideas about the character of God actually can make it more difficult to have faith.” {SS Lesson Wednesday, Oct. 19}.
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 5: “Old Testament Faith”
Moderator: Jon Paulien
Read for this week’s study Gal. 3:1–14, Rom. 1:2, 4:3, Gen. 15:6, 12:1–3, Lev. 17:11, 2 Cor. 5:21. Memory Text: Galatians 3:13 A Fresh Translation of Gal. 3:1‐14 from Jon Pauline Key: (Note the following explanations for the visual changes to the text) Italics: Not in Greek text, but required by the context (like italics in KJV) Bold: Quotation from the Old Testament Courier New Font: Explanatory note within text
1 O mindless Galatians: Who has bewitched you– You to whom Jesus Christ was displayed in a visual way as crucified? 2 This alone I wish to learn by inquiry from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of law or by hearing of faith? 3 Are you that mindless? Having begun with the Spirit are you now ending with the flesh? 4 Have you suffered so much to no purpose? [in vain] If indeed it was to no purpose. 5 Therefore, did He who provides you the Spirit and works miracles among you do so on the basis of works of law or on the basis of the hearing of faith? 6 Just as [the Scriptures say] “Abraham trusted God and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 7 So then, know [you already know] 1 that those who are of faith, these are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, having foreseen that God is now justifying the Gentiles by faith, Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations [Gentiles] will be blessed through you.” 9 So those who are of faith will be blessed along with faithful Abraham. 10 For as many as are of law [as a source, ground or basis of action] are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in everything that is written in the book of the law, in order to do them.” 11 Because one thing is clear, no one is justified before God by law, because “The righteous one will live by faith.” 12 But the law is not by faith, rather “The one who does them will live by them.” 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree:” 14 in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Jesus Christ, in order that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Questions for Consideration From Moderator: Jon Pauline What does Gal. 3:1‐14 tell us about God? What were the Galatians bewitched from? (Gal. 3:1) What does Paul mean by “to no purpose [in vain]?” (Gal. 3:4) How do we know something (anything) is true? Who is Abraham? What does Gal. 3:6 mean to us today? What was the object of Old Testament faith? What does the Bible mean by a curse? (Gal. 3:10) There are two main types of error, false teaching and truth out of balance. Which of the two is harder to correct?
2 Graham Maxwell’s Audio series link; Free listening and downloading http://pkp.cc/galatians
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Thoughts from Graham Maxwell Now does God expect of us perfect performance? He knows better. Can He expect of us perfect willingness to listen? What if we have a 25‐percent reservation here? Then we’re not safe to save. I mean we’ve got a lot of listening to do in the hereafter. So God can demand obedience in this sense, a willingness to listen. And without it He can’t help us. And He says, “All the good things that have come to you have come by hearing; by a willingness to listen, in a mood of trust.” That’s all that is asked.
Then he takes Abraham as an example, just as he did in Romans, “Thus Abraham trusted God”, (he believed God, had faith in God, same word), “and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” So you see that it is men of trust and faith who are the sons of Abraham. “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and trust, preached the good news to Abraham saying ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then you see, those who are men of faith and trust; they are blessed with Abraham, who trusted.” And Abraham was regarded not only as a trustworthy member of God’s family; remember Jesus said “I call you not only children but I call you friends”, both. And Abraham showed himself to be won back as a trustworthy member of God’s family; not only His child, but His friend.
But in saying that, which seems simple, we have technical terms. “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.” How do you understand that term “reckoned to him”? And incidentally, on the way to discussing that, you notice how Paul to the Galatians, just as to the Romans, wants to show how his message is not new, but is consistent with the Old Testament. But didn’t Jesus try to do the same? Jesus began explaining things in the Sermon on the Mount, and they said, “You’re not true to the Old Testament.” “Oh, yes I am,” he said. “Think not that I come to destroy the law and the prophets. I’ve come to fulfill, to explain, to tell you what it’s all about.” But they killed Him rather than accept His explanation. Now Paul, who loved to imitate Christ, explains the Old Testament. He said “Look at Abraham. You claim him for your father. He trusted God; he was no legalist. And it says in the Old Testament ‘Abraham trusted God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ I’m not bringing you a new message here. This is the same old good news.” All God has ever wanted of His wandering children is that they come back and trust Him. Abraham did it, and God spoke of him as a righteous, trustworthy friend. And what did they do to Paul, always the heretic in the eyes of these people? (Though we know that he was true to the Old Testament.) But the key word here is “reckoned”. And now we think back to justification, where man is accounted, or 3 reckoned righteous. What would be the simplest understanding of the term “Abraham had faith in God, he trusted God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Do you see entries being made in accounting books; accounts being balanced here? Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
When Abraham let God down, but then showed himself later to be so trustworthy, God loved to turn on that occasion and with pride say to the Heavenly counsel, “Look at my good friend Abraham.” And of Job he said “Job will not let me down.” God loves to speak well of His children when He can. But we read into this more legal accounting connotations. “It was reckoned to him as righteous.” If you look the word “reckon” up though, in the Greek, logizomai, it has some other rather ordinary meanings, such as “to evaluate, to estimate, to look upon as, to consider.” Like in Acts 19:27—look at this verse. It’s the same word. Acts 19:27. You remember, the heathen there in Ephesus were worried about their worship of Artemis, and they said “There is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may count for nothing.” That’s the same word. And that’s not a legal situation, is it? It’s just that she will come to be regarded as nothing; she will be considered as insignificant. Do you suppose that’s all we need to read into Galatians 3:6? Abraham trusted God, and sinner though he’d been, and sinner though he still was, still coming short of God’s glorious ideal, God considered him, looked upon him as His trustworthy child who had been reclaimed. How legal do we need to be? {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians – part 3, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
Just as Abraham knew the good news, and when God said, “I’m going down to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah”, Abraham could say, “God, you wouldn’t do it if there were 50 righteous there, I know you wouldn’t. Not even 40, 30, 20. Why, should not the judge of all the earth do what is right?” Abraham was reverent, but he wasn’t afraid. “There is no fear in love” First John says. Fear has to do with punishment, not worship. Perfect love casts out all fear. To know God as He really is, is to be deeply reverent but unafraid, even comfortable in His presence. Abraham and Moses knew the gospel, they knew the good news and they were not afraid. They could even talk to God so courageously, and God in turn designates those two men as His Friends, Friends to whom He could talk face to face.
Hebrews says they knew the gospel in the wilderness. Why, the whole sacrificial system was to teach symbolically the good news about God. The New Testament doesn’t invent the good news. In fact, according to the First Angel’s message, how old is the good news? The First Angel is seen with the everlasting, eternal good news. It’s always been the good news. The truth about God was true even before sin came in. He has always been that way. This good news will still be the truth throughout eternity. It will be the basis for our faith forever, that God is the kind of person Jesus showed Him to be. So, Paul could say, “I’ve been set apart to make known God’s good news, which He promised before‐hand to the writers of the Old Testament, the good news about His Son.” And the Son in turn said, “I’ve come to bring good 4 news about my Father.”
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And Philip one day said, “Tell us what that good news is, tell us about the Father.” And you remember Jesus said, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you don’t know me?” And Philip said, “No, we want to know about the Father, could He be like you?” And Jesus replied, and this is the ultimate good news, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Romans – chapter 1, Loma Linda, California, 1977}
The fact that Abraham’s faith was reckoned to him as righteousness does not mean that faith possesses in itself some merit that can earn justification. It was Abraham's faith in God that was accounted as righteousness. Such faith is a relation, an attitude, a disposition of man toward God. It implies a readiness to receive with joy whatever God may reveal and to do with joy whatever God may direct. Abraham loved and trusted and obeyed God because he knew Him and was His friend. His faith was a genuine relationship of love, confidence and submission. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Romans – chapter 4, Loma Linda, California, 1977}
Further Study with Ellen White Through the plan of salvation a larger purpose is to be wrought out even than the salvation of man and the redemption of the earth. Through the revelation of the character of God in Christ, the beneficence of the divine government would be manifested before the universe, the charge of Satan refuted, the nature and results of sin made plain, and the perpetuity of the law fully demonstrated. Satan had declared that the law of God was faulty, and that the good of the universe demanded a change in its requirement. In attacking the law, he thought to overthrow the authority of its Author, and gain for himself the supreme allegiance. But through the plan of salvation the precepts of the law were to be proved perfect and immutable, that at last one glory and love might rise to God throughout the universe, ascribing glory and honor and praise to him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever. {ST, February 13, 1893}
It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones. As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit. If we would be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross. {DA 83}
And now the Lord of glory was dying, a ransom for the race. In yielding up His precious life, 5 Christ was not upheld by triumphant joy. All was oppressive gloom. It was not the dread of death that weighed upon Him. It was not the pain and ignominy of the cross that caused His inexpressible agony. Christ was the prince of sufferers; but His suffering was from a sense of the Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
malignity of sin, a knowledge that through familiarity with evil, man had become blinded to its enormity. Christ saw how deep is the hold of sin upon the human heart, how few would be willing to break from its power. He knew that without help from God, humanity must perish, and He saw multitudes perishing within reach of abundant help. {DA 752}
All His life Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father’s mercy and pardoning love. Salvation for the chief of sinners was His theme. But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father’s reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt.
Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father’s wrath upon Him as man’s substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God. . . .
In that thick darkness God’s presence was hidden. He makes darkness His pavilion, and conceals His glory from human eyes. God and His holy angels were beside the cross. The Father was with His Son. Yet His presence was not revealed. Had His glory flashed forth from the cloud, every human beholder would have been destroyed. And in that dreadful hour Christ was not to be comforted with the Father’s presence. He trod the wine press alone, and of the people there was none with Him. {DA 753}
Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe. In those dreadful hours He had relied upon the evidence of His Father’s acceptance heretofore given Him. He was acquainted with the character of His Father; He understood His justice, His mercy, and His great love. By faith He rested in Him whom it had ever been His joy to obey. And as in submission He committed Himself to God, the sense of the loss of His Father’s favor was withdrawn. By faith, Christ was victor. {DA 756}
Even Your Sages Say 6 Eternal truth, eternal righteousness, eternal love; these only can triumph, for these only can endure. (Joseph Barber Lightfoot)
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 6: “The Priority of the Promise”
Moderator: Jon Paulien
Read for this week’s study Gal. 3:15–20, Gen. 9:11–17, Matt. 5:17–20, Exod. 16:22–26, Gen. 15:1–6. Memory Text: Galatians 3:18
A Fresh Translation of Gal. 3:15‐20 by Jon Paulien Key: (Note the following explanations for the visual changes to the text) Italics: Not in Greek text, but required by the context (like italics in KJV) Bold: Quotation from the Old Testament Courier New Font: Explanatory note within text
15 Brothers, let me speak from a human perspective: As is the case with a man‐made covenant, no one can set it aside or add to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now it was to Abraham and his seed that the promises were spoken. It does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but as referring to one, “And to your seed,” which is Christ. 17 This is what I am saying, law, which happened 430 years later, does not annul covenant, which had been ratified by God, in order to destroy the promise. 18 For if the inheritance arises out of law, it does not arise out of promise: but God graced it [the inheritance] to Abraham through promise. 19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, 1 until the seed to whom the promise [referred, was made?] should come.
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It [the law] was put into effect through angels by the hand of a mediator. 20 Now a mediator in not [just] one, but God is one.
Questions for Consideration From Moderator: Jon Paulien What does Gal. 3:15‐20 tell us about God? Does a one‐sided covenant mean God is capricious, arbitrary? What do you think of Paul’s logic in Gal. 3:16? Which law is Paul referring to in Gal. 3:17‐19? Why the need to “add” or “elaborate” in Gal. 3:19? If the law has nothing to do with salvation, what good is it? Who is the mediator of the law at Sinai? (Gal. 3:19) Does Gal. 3:20 diminish the divine nature of Christ? If not, why not?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell In imagination, looking back in the days in Genesis, can you see Abraham and God talking together about the future? And Ellen White fills this in beautifully in Patriarchs and Prophets. She describes God talking with Abraham as with a friend about all the things to come. And he had the gospel preached to him there by the Lord Himself. And he saw all down through the years, and he looked for the city that was built by God, just as God did with Moses, the other person described in the Bible as God’s special friend. And on Mount Nebo, God gave Moses visions, pictures, of the whole plan unfolding, right down to the end. Moses was even shown the privilege that he would have, in opening the gates of the city when Christ came back on resurrection Sunday to ask the Heavenly Counsel if what He had done was enough. And no angel opened the gates; Moses did. These two men, who were such trusting friends of God, enjoyed the privileges of friendship.
Prayer is conversation with God as with a friend, and conversation works both ways. God talks to His friends, as well as His friends talking to Him. And because Moses and Abraham showed themselves such trustworthy friends, (though it’s true, they let God down, didn’t they, from time to time), God was able to tell them things He hasn’t been able to tell the rest of us. And maybe if we were better friends, at least we could read the Bible with better understanding, and God could tell us more clearly of the things to come. 2 He loves to tell His friends what He’s going to do. Remember the word about His prophets; God will tell His prophets in advance? He said to Abraham, “I ought to tell you, Abraham, what I’m going to do to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Think about what that says about how God wants to
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relate Himself to us. And so He talked to Abraham about what He really wanted, and about the great controversy, and how it would be necessary for His Son to come; the Messiah, and how He would be rejected. And He recounted this to Abraham, and He said, “I want you to be the Father of the nations through whom I will use to speak to the world. And of you will be born this Messiah”. The message must have been unbelievable to Abraham. Well, Abraham trusted God about the birth of Isaac, and he trusted Him about the birth of a divine human son someday in the future in his lineage. And as God talked with Abraham about these promises, (and the SDA Bible Commentary lists the texts involved; it’s a long collection. The treatment of this chapter in the Commentary is very good, making use of so many verses; there isn’t time to mention now).
But God seems to be saying to Abraham how wonderful He can talk like this. “If you can trust me, and be my friend, and spread the good news.” And remember the good news was spread in Old Testament times. “We can work all this out together,” as if God needed us at all. He just likes to do it with the members of the family, just as He likes to use angels, ministering spirits. “If we can just trust each other and stay together, we shall triumph together in the end.” And Abraham looked forward to this triumph, God initiating it all. And God wasn’t talking about law, and behavior, and so forth. He was talking about all the good things He could do, and would like to do through Abraham, if only Abraham could trust Him. If only he could trust Him, everything else would work out in its way. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians – part 4, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
Not to minimize the importance of law; we needed it. But that was just a measure along the way. What God has always wanted is trust. Even before sin came, all He wanted was trust. And He talked to Abraham about the ideal. But then, because of transgression and misbehavior, He resorted to law. It was added because of transgressions. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians – part 4, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
But that, then, leads Paul to ask the question, “Why then the law at all?” If all God has ever wanted is that we be won back to trust Him, if the struggle for righteousness and salvation by works of law has always been fruitless for us sinners then why then the law? And in Galatians, you remember, he says, “It was added because of transgressions, to be our custodian, our schoolmaster” the King James says, our guardian to bring us to Christ. And once we’ve come to Christ if we stay with Him, we’re no longer under this custodian. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series ‐ Romans chapter 10, Loma Linda, California, 1977} 3 Then why did He give us all the pictures of intercession? Who asked for intercession, at the foot of Sinai? Did Jesus offer it, or did they beg for it? God came to reveal Himself to His children. And He'd already explained how He loves to speak to people face to face, as He speaks to Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
friends. He did it to Moses. And He came to speak to the people, but they were terrified, and they said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die." Remember? "You speak to God. Let Him speak to you. You be the mediator, and the go‐ between, and the intercessor, and then you speak to us; but don't let God speak to us lest we die." Because they were so scared, God spoke through Moses to the people. And a whole system was set up. Why? Because God is not loving? Or because we don't trust Him, because we're scared? {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series – The Picture of God in All 66 – John, Riverside, California, 1981‐1982}
Graham Maxwell’s Galatians series (audio) is available for free listening and downloading at
http://pkp.cc/galatians
Further Study with Ellen White The field of the controversy between Christ and Satan‐‐the field on which the plan of redemption is wrought out‐‐is the lesson book of the universe. {PP 154}
The promises of God, which are given on condition of obedience, are for those who walk in the light of his holy word. Those who do his will may claim all the benefits the Lord has promised. The obedient do not simply cry, "Believe, all you have to do is believe in Christ;" but their faith is like Noah's and Abraham's, which led them to keep the commandments. They follow the example of Christ, they listen and wait to catch every word of direction from the Captain of their salvation. They respond to the voice that says, "This is the way, to walk ye in it." Every step that Noah and Abraham took in obedience to God's word was a step of victory. A "Thus saith the Lord" fortified Noah in doing his work of warning the world. The testimony in regard to Noah is, "And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him." The path of obedience is the path in which our safety lies; for it is the willing and obedient that shall eat the good of the land. If we keep the commandments of God, we may claim his recorded promises in all their fullness. Many feel so unworthy that like the poor publican they dare not lift up so much as their eyes to heaven. They should encourage faith. We may have an intelligent faith; we may not only say we believe, but we may in meekness and confidence be able to define what we believe, and why we believe as we do. We should exercise living faith, not a blind credulity. All heaven is at the command of those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. {ST, March 31, 1890}
God desired to make His people Israel a praise and a glory. In obedience to His law they would 4 find their wisdom and understanding. He told them that the keeping of His commandments would bring to them an elevation of life and character that even the heathen world would recognize and commend. But Israel did not fulfill God's purpose. They forgot God, and lost sight Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
of their high privilege as His representatives. Through disobedience, they developed a character exactly the opposite of the character He designed they should develop by obedience to His law. While the people were firm in their allegiance to God, His commandments were not grievous; but when they separated from Him and gave their powers to the service of the prince of evil, they became aware of their inability to execute the holy enactments of heaven. The law that had once been their delight, became an unendurable weight. {ST, May 7, 1902}
Why is it that we are so disposed to distrust God? Why do we as a church doubt his love? Let faith increase by exercise. Let it be sustained by works of righteousness. It is sin that darkens the reason of man, and clouds the understanding. Let the affections be given to God in order that his law may be written in the heart, and the whole man will become a new creature, born again of the Spirit. Then it will be made manifest that the law of God "is perfect, converting the soul." {ST, May 28, 1896}
Selected Messages, volume 1, 21‐26
The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God’s mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God’s penmen, not His pen. Look at the different writers.
It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired. Inspiration acts not on the man’s words or his expressions but on the man himself, who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts. But the words receive the impress of the individual mind. The divine mind is diffused. The divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and will; thus the utterances of the man are the word of God.‐‐ Manuscript 24, 1886 (written in Europe in 1886). {1SM 21}
The Lord speaks to human beings in imperfect speech, in order that the degenerate senses, the dull, earthly perception, of earthly beings may comprehend His words. Thus is shown God’s condescension. He meets fallen human beings where they are. The Bible, perfect as it is in its simplicity, does not answer to the great ideas of God; for infinite ideas cannot be perfectly embodied in finite vehicles of thought. Instead of the expressions of the Bible being exaggerated, as many people suppose, the strong expressions break down before the magnificence of the thought, though the penman selected the most expressive language through which to convey the truths of higher education. Sinful beings can only bear to look 5 upon a shadow of the brightness of heaven’s glory.‐‐Letter 121, 1901. {1SM 22}
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"Written in different ages, by men who differed widely in rank and occupation, and in mental and spiritual endowments, the books of the Bible present a wide contrast in style, as well as a diversity in the nature of the subjects unfolded. Different forms of expression are employed by different writers; often the same truth is more strikingly presented by one than by another. And as several writers present a subject under varied aspects and relations, there may appear, to the superficial, careless, or prejudiced reader, to be discrepancy or contradiction, where the thoughtful, reverent student, with clearer insight, discerns the underlying harmony.
"As presented through different individuals, the truth is brought out in its varied aspects. One writer is more strongly impressed with one phase of the subject; he grasps those points that harmonize with his experience or with his power of perception and appreciation; another seizes upon a different phase; and each, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, presents what is most forcibly impressed upon his own mind‐‐a different aspect of the truth in each, but a perfect harmony through all. And the truths thus revealed unite to form a perfect whole, adapted to meet the wants of men in all the circumstances and experiences of life. {1SM 25}
"God has been pleased to communicate His truth to the world by human agencies, and He Himself, by His Holy Spirit, qualified men and enabled them to do His work. He guided the mind in the selection of what to speak and what to write. The treasure was entrusted to earthen vessels, yet it is, none the less, from Heaven. The testimony is conveyed through the imperfect expression of human language, yet it is the testimony of God; and the obedient, believing child of God beholds in it the glory of a divine power, full of grace and truth." {1SM 26}
Selected Messages, volume 1, 233‐235
I am asked concerning the law in Galatians. What law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ? I answer: Both the ceremonial and the moral code of Ten Commandments.
Christ was the foundation of the whole Jewish economy. The death of Abel was in consequence of Cain’s refusing to accept God’s plan in the school of obedience to be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ typified by the sacrificial offerings pointing to Christ. Cain refused the shedding of blood which symbolized the blood of Christ to be shed for the world. This whole ceremony was prepared by God, and Christ became the foundation of the whole system. This is the beginning of its work as the schoolmaster to bring sinful human agents to a consideration of Christ the Foundation of the whole Jewish economy.
All who did service in connection with the sanctuary were being educated constantly in regard 6 to the intervention of Christ in behalf of the human race. This service was designed to create in every heart a love for the law of God, which is the law of His kingdom. The sacrificial offering
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was to be an object lesson of the love of God revealed in Christ‐‐in the suffering, dying victim, who took upon Himself the sin of which man was guilty, the innocent being made sin for us. {1SM 233}
In the contemplation of this great theme of salvation we see Christ’s work. Not only the promised gift of the Spirit, but also the nature and character of this sacrifice and intervention are subjects which should create in our hearts elevated, sacred, high ideas of the law of God, which holds its claims upon every human agency. The violation of that law in the small act of eating of the forbidden fruit, brought upon man and upon the earth the consequence of disobedience to the holy law of God. The nature of the intervention should ever make man afraid to do the smallest action in disobedience to God’s requirement.
There should be a clear understanding of that which constitutes sin, and we should avoid the least approach to step over the boundaries from obedience to disobedience.
God would have every member of His creation understand the great work of the infinite Son of God in giving His life for the salvation of the world. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not" (1 John 3:1).
When he sees in Christ the embodiment of infinite and disinterested love and benevolence, there is awakened in the heart of the sinner a thankful disposition to follow where Christ is drawing.‐‐Manuscript 87, 1900.
"The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Gal. 3:24). In this scripture, the Holy Spirit through the apostle is speaking especially of the moral law. The law reveals sin to us, and causes us to feel our need of Christ and to flee unto Him for pardon and peace by exercising repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord’s message through Brethren {E.J.} Waggoner and {A.T.} Jones. By exciting that opposition Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away 7 from the world. * * * * * {1SM 234}
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The law of Ten Commandments is not to be looked upon as much from the prohibitory side, as from the mercy side. Its prohibitions are the sure guarantee of happiness in obedience. As received in Christ, it works in us the purity of character that will bring joy to us through eternal ages. To the obedient it is a wall of protection. We behold in it the goodness of God, who by revealing to men the immutable principles of righteousness, seeks to shield them from the evils that result from transgression.
We are not to regard God as waiting to punish the sinner for his sin. The sinner brings the punishment upon himself. His own actions start a train of circumstances that bring the sure result. Every act of transgression reacts upon the sinner, works in him a change of character, and makes it more easy for him to transgress again. By choosing to sin, men separate themselves from God, cut themselves off from the channel of blessing, and the sure result is ruin and death.
The law is an expression of God’s idea. When we receive it in Christ, it becomes our idea. It lifts us above the power of natural desires and tendencies, above temptations that lead to sin. "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them" (Ps. 119: 165)‐‐ cause them to stumble.
There is no peace in unrighteousness; the wicked are at war with God. But he who receives the righteousness of the law in Christ is in harmony with heaven. "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Ps. 85: 10).‐‐Letter 96, 1896.{1SM 235}
Even Your Sages Say A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won't come true. (Roy Evans)
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, And looks to God alone; Laughs at impossibilities, And cries it shall be done. (Charles Wesley)
A guy will promise you the world and give you nothin', and that's the blues. (Otis Rush)
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 7: “The Road to Faith”
Moderator: Jon Paulien
Read for this week’s study Gal. 3:21–25; Lev. 18:5; Rom. 3:9–19; 1 Cor. 9:20; Rom. 3:1, 2; 8:1–4. Memory Text: Galatians 3:22
A Fresh Translation of Gal 3:21‐25 by Jon Paulien Key: (Note the following explanations for the visual changes to the text) Italics: Not in Greek text, but required by the context (like italics in KJV) Bold: Quotation from the Old Testament Courier New Font: Explanatory note within text
21 Therefore, is the law against the promises (of God)? No way! For if a law had been given that could make alive, righteousness would certainly be from law. 22 But the Scripture has locked up everything together under sin, in order that the promise, by the faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
23 Now before the [this] faith came, we were continually held captive under law, being locked up together, until the approaching faith would be revealed, 24 for this reason, the law is our guardian [“boy-leader”], having led us to Christ, in order that we might be justified from faith. 25 Now that the faith has come, 1 we are no longer under a guardian.
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Questions for Consideration From Moderator: Jon Pauline What does Gal. 3:21‐25 tell us about God? How does one get legalism out of the Old Testament? What does Paul mean by “everything”? (Gal. 3:22) What is “the faith of Jesus Christ?” (Gal. 3:22) What is “the faith” in Gal. 3:23? Who is Paul referring to when he says “we” in Gal. 3:23‐25? What does Paul mean by “under law” in Gal. 3:23? What is this schoolmaster/guardian all about in Gal. 3:24‐25? What is “the faith” in Gal. 3:25? What does Paul mean by “no longer under a guardian? What are the benefits in law? Does a Gentile have to become a Jew in order to become a Christian? Does a Muslim have to become a Christian in order to become an Adventist? Why must salvation be based on what Christ has done for us and nothing else?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell But Paul’s main point now is to answer the question, “Why then the law?” “It was added because of transgressions, till the offspring should come. Is this law,” verse 21, “Is this against the promises of God?” Does it cancel those out? All that talk about trust, and the Messiah to come? “Certainly not! For if a law could be given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” Earlier he said what “makes alive”, didn’t he. He said, “The man who is righteous by faith; he’s the one who will live.” It’s only by trusting God that we can be healed, and have life. There’s no law that can do this. In fact, he’s already said very clearly in Romans that the law had just the opposite effect on him. Even though he agreed the law was right, the law tended to provoke him to rebelliousness. The law doesn’t heal. The law is exact in its description of the ideal. But it doesn’t tell us how to do it; it doesn’t heal us when we fail. So there’s no life by means of law.
“But the scripture consigned all things to sin.” Remember Romans 3? The same words that “What was promised to faith in Jesus Christ might be given to all who have faith, and all who trust Him.” 2
“Now before faith came we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed.” When was that? “So that the law was our,” schoolmaster, custodian, guardian;
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let’s compare notes on that in a moment, “until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we’re no longer under a custodian, for in Christ Jesus, you’re all sons of God through faith. For as many of you who were baptized in Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there’s neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” And he goes right into chapter 4 on this same subject on the freedom this should bring. But now let’s go back and consider what this might mean.
Perhaps the first question we should ask ourselves is what law it was that was added, because that would influence all the rest of our discussion, wouldn’t it? What law was added because of transgressions? Would it be agreeable that this is the same law that was our custodian? He’s not changing to another law, is he? The law that was added was our custodian. So let’s ask the question of both. What law was added, because of the emergency, to be our custodian? The Greek for custodian, I’m sure you’ve heard discussed so many times, “paidagogos”, made up of two parts, paid, as a child, as in pediatrician, pedodontics, and so forth. And the second part, agogos, appears in synagogue; “syn” means together, as in synthetic. “Ago” means to lead, to bring, to go. Synagogue is where people are brought together; the Latin would be “congregation”, gathered together. So a “paidagog”, pedagogue is one who leads, brings children. And this was the name for a trusted servant or slave whose duty it was to guard the children, particularly to take them to school. He was not their teacher; he was their protector, because they needed it. Now, if the parents could trust the children to go straight to school and not head off to the woods to climb trees and steal green apples, if the parents could trust the children to go to school, arrive on time, behave all the way through, come home afterwards without wandering around and splashing through puddles, and so on, there’d be no need for this pedagogue, no need at all. But you know how it is with children. Can’t you remember doing this? So, because of the emergency, there needed to be this pedagogue. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians – part 4, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
Do you remember in Romans, at the beginning, he says, "I have been commissioned to make known God's good news, which might lead some to a new kind of obedience? Not the obedience that springs from law, but the obedience that springs from faith and trust." {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series – The Picture of God in All 66 – Galatians, Riverside, California, 1981‐1982}
3 Further Study with Ellen White Christ was the leader of the children of Israel in their wilderness wanderings. Enshrouded in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, He led and guided them. He preserved them Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
from the perils of the wilderness; He brought them into the land of promise, and in the sight of all the nations that acknowledged not God He established Israel as His own chosen possession, the Lord's vineyard.
To this people were committed the oracles of God. They were hedged about by the precepts of His law, the everlasting principles of truth, justice, and purity. Obedience to these principles was to be their protection, for it would save them from destroying themselves by sinful practices. And as the tower in the vineyard, God placed in the midst of the land His holy temple.
Christ was their instructor. As He had been with them in the wilderness, so He was still to be their teacher and guide. In the tabernacle and the temple His glory dwelt in the holy shekinah above the mercy seat. In their behalf He constantly manifested the riches of His love and patience.
God desired to make of His people Israel a praise and a glory. Every spiritual advantage was given them. God withheld from them nothing favorable to the formation of character that would make them representatives of Himself.
Their obedience to the law of God would make them marvels of prosperity before the nations of the world. He who could give them wisdom and skill in all cunning work would continue to be their teacher, and would ennoble and elevate them through obedience to His laws. If obedient, they would be preserved from the diseases that afflicted other nations, and would be blessed with vigor of intellect. The glory of God, His majesty and power, were to be revealed in all their prosperity. They were to be a kingdom of priests and princes. God furnished them with every facility for becoming the greatest nation on the earth. {COL 287‐288}
So far from making arbitrary requirements, God's law is given to men as a hedge, a shield. Whoever accepts its principles is preserved from evil. Fidelity to God involves fidelity to man. Thus the law guards the rights, the individuality, of every human being. It restrains the superior from oppression, and the subordinate from disobedience. It ensures man's well‐being, both for this world and for the world to come. To the obedient it is the pledge of eternal life, for it expresses the principles that endure forever. {Ed 76}
Christ declares, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." 4 The Saviour continues: "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how
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much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" In order to strengthen our confidence in God, Christ teaches us to address Him by a new name, a name entwined with the dearest associations of the human heart. He gives us the privilege of calling the infinite God our Father. This name, spoken to Him and of Him, is a sign of our love and trust toward Him, and a pledge of His regard and relationship to us. Spoken when asking His favor or blessing, it is as music in His ears. That we might not think it presumption to call Him by this name, He has repeated it again and again. He desires us to become familiar with the appellation. God regards us as His children. He has redeemed us out of the careless world and has chosen us to become members of the royal family, sons and daughters of the heavenly King. He invites us to trust in Him with a trust deeper and stronger than that of a child in his earthly father. Parents love their children, but the love of God is larger, broader, deeper, than human love can possibly be. It is immeasurable. Then if earthly parents know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more shall our Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? {COL 141‐ 142} A profession of faith and the possession of truth in the soul are two different things. The mere knowledge of truth is not enough. We may possess this, but the tenor of our thoughts may not be changed. The heart must be converted and sanctified. The man who attempts to keep the commandments of God from a sense of obligation merely‐‐ because he is required to do so‐‐will never enter into the joy of obedience. He does not obey. When the requirements of God are accounted a burden because they cut across human inclination, we may know that the life is not a Christian life. True obedience is the outworking of a principle within. It springs from the love of righteousness, the love of the law of God. The essence of all righteousness is loyalty to our Redeemer. This will lead us to do right because it is right‐‐because right doing is pleasing to God. The leaven hidden in the flour works invisibly to bring the whole mass under its leavening process; so the leaven of truth works secretly, silently, steadily, to transform the soul. The natural inclinations are softened and subdued. New thoughts, new feelings, new motives, are implanted. A new standard of character is set up‐‐the life of Christ. The mind is changed; the faculties are roused to action in new lines. Man is not endowed with new faculties, but the faculties he has are sanctified. The conscience is awakened. We are endowed with traits of character that enable us to do service for God. Often the question arises, Why, then, are there so many, claiming to believe God’s word, in 5 whom there is not seen a reformation in words, in spirit, and in character? Why are there so many who cannot bear opposition to their purposes and plans, who manifest an unholy temper, and whose words are harsh, overbearing, and passionate? There is seen in their lives Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
the same love of self, the same selfish indulgence, the same temper and hasty speech, that is seen in the life of the worldling. There is the same sensitive pride, the same yielding to natural inclination, the same perversity of character, as if the truth were wholly unknown to them. The reason is that they are not converted. They have not hidden the leaven of truth in the heart. It has not had opportunity to do its work. Their natural and cultivated tendencies to evil have not been submitted to its transforming power. Their lives reveal the absence of the grace of Christ, an unbelief in His power to transform the character. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Rom. 10:17. The Scriptures are the great agency in the transformation of character. Christ prayed, "Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth." John 17:17. If studied and obeyed, the word of God works in the heart, subduing every unholy attribute. The Holy Spirit comes to convict of sin, and the faith that springs up in the heart works by love to Christ, conforming us in body, soul, and spirit to His own image. Then God can use us to do His will. The power given us works from within outwardly, leading us to communicate to others the truth that has been communicated to us. The truths of the word of God meet man’s great practical necessity‐‐the conversion of the soul through faith. These grand principles are not to be thought too pure and holy to be brought into the daily life. They are truths which reach to heaven and compass eternity, yet their vital influence is to be woven into human experience. They are to permeate all the great things and all the little things of life. Received into the heart, the leaven of truth will regulate the desires, purify the thoughts, and sweeten the disposition. It quickens the faculties of the mind and the energies of the soul. It enlarges the capacity for feeling, for loving. The world regards as a mystery the man who is imbued with this principle. The selfish, money‐ loving man lives only to secure for himself the riches, honors, and pleasures of this world. He loses the eternal world from his reckoning. But with the follower of Christ these things will not be all‐absorbing. For Christ’s sake he will labor and deny self, that he may aid in the great work of saving souls who are without Christ and without hope in the world. Such a man the world cannot understand; for he is keeping in view eternal realities. The love of Christ with its redeeming power has come into the heart. This love masters every other motive, and raises its possessor above the corrupting influence of the world. {COL 97‐101}
Even Your Sages Say Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair. (William 6 Shakespeare)
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The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not. (C. S. Lewis)
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 8: “From Slaves to Heirs”
Moderator: Jon Paulien
Read for this week’s study Gal. 3:26–4:20; Rom. 6:1–11; Heb. 2:14–18; 4:14, 15; Rom. 9:4, 5. Memory Text: Galatians 4:7
A Fresh Translation of Gal. 3:26 ‐ 4:20 by Jon Paulien Key: (Note the following explanations for the visual changes to the text) Italics: Not in Greek text, but required by the context (like italics in KJV) Bold: Quotation from the Old Testament Courier New Font: Explanatory note within text
Galatians 3 26 For you [plural] are all sons of God through [definite article] faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you are of Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed [singular], heirs according to promise.
Galatians 4 1 Now I say, as long a time as the heir is a child, he is no different than a slave though he is owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the time set by the father. 3 So also when we were children, 1 we were enslaved by the elements of the world. 4 But when the fullness of the time [chronological] had come,
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God sent out His Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 in order to redeem those under law, in order that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying out, “Abba, Father.” 7 For this reason, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son even an heir through God. 8 But at that time, not knowing God, you were enslaved to those who by nature are not gods. 9 But now, knowing God, or rather being known by God, how can you return again and again to the weak and worthless elements? Do you want to be enslaved to them again? 10 You observe [celebrate] days and months and seasons and years. 11 I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain. 12 Become like me, because I have become like you, brothers, I beg of you. You did me no wrong. 13 You know that through illness of the flesh I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and your temptation [my temptation which was] in my flesh 2 you did not reject nor despise, but you received me like an angel of God,
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like Jesus Christ Himself. 15 Where has your joy [blessing] gone? For I can testify that, if you had been able, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. 16 So then, have I become your enemy, being truthful with you? 17 They are concerned about you, but it is not a good thing, instead they want to exclude you in order that you might desire them. 18 It is always good to have zeal in good things and not only when I am present with you. 19 My children, for whom I am again in pains of childbirth until Christ should be formed in you. 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my voice, because I am disturbed about you.
Questions for Consideration From Moderator: Jon Paulien What does Gal. 3:26 ‐ 4:20 tell us about God? In what sense is Gal. 3:28 true? (Neither Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female) What are the “elements of the world?” (Gal. 4:3) What does Paul mean by “fullness of the time” in Gal. 4:4? How is Jesus “born under law?” When Gal. 4:5 says “Redeem those under law,” to whom was the ransom paid? What are some benefits of adoption? What is wrong with observing days and months and seasons and years? (Gal. 4:10‐11) Can the Sabbath become a “weak and worthless element?” How? Might there be any practices in Seventh‐day Adventism that take away from the freedom that we have in Christ? Or is it more about the attitude we have toward a practice? Why are human beings so afraid of grace? So afraid of a gracious God? How do we reconcile freedom in Christ with an emphasis on modesty or health reform?
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Thoughts from Graham Maxwell But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring; heirs according to the promise.”
And without hesitating, for there were no chapter divisions in those days, we should go right on. “I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave though he is owner of all the estate. But he is under guardian;” see the immediate connection with the preceding verses. We really shouldn’t pause between. “But he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children,” here we’re going to have a variety in the versions. Now I’m reading the Revised Standard of ’52; you may have something quite different. “When we were children we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law”, or “under law, to redeem those who were under the law”, or again, “under law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba, Father’, so through God you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir.”
Now do those words seem clear in that paragraph? It seems that some words and phrases we’d need to compare with other passages to discover the meaning. For example, what does it mean to be a child in a setting like this? Surely it isn’t a matter of physical age only; the meaning that he’s emphasizing. Is it the equivalent of being a slave a little further down, as opposed to being an heir and being free? And then, what does it mean to be in bondage to elemental spirits? We ought to read down to 11, I think, to make the comparison a little further.
“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage,” as opposed to the freedom of being an heir, being a son. “You were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods.” Is that equivalent to the elemental spirits, you see? “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits?” See, three times. “Whose slaves do you want to be once again? You observe days and months and seasons and years.” Are those equivalent to the elemental spirits? “I am afraid I have labored over you in vain.” 4 Now in Colossians, where Paul is talking about Gnosticism, the ‘elemental spirits’ translation seems to fit, because the Gnostics did have such beliefs. But in the context here, how much should we include do you think? Let’s back up a little, first, though. He talks about being a child Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
or a slave or in bondage to this phrase; these powers or these principles that we’re talking about. Have there been other references in the Bible, in the New Testament, in Paul particularly, to being like a child, to be in bondage to elementary things, elemental influences? Can you think of any? Now 1 Corinthians 13 would be very appropriate, wouldn’t it? In 1 Corinthians 13:11—maybe we should look at these. I jotted down just a few. I know there are others. But especially where Paul has talked about the behavior of a child; that would be of first importance to us here for comparison, wouldn’t it? He’s been talking about love, and the person who loves perfectly is a grown up person. He’s not impatient, he’s not rude, he’s not arrogant, he doesn’t boast, he’s not even irritable. That’s the behavior of a mature, grown up person. But one has not always lived this way. In verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 13, he says “When I was a child, I spoke like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.” Have you ever seen the children lined up to go down the slide on the playground? Have you ever seen them say to each other, “Now, please, you go first? It would just delight me to have you go ahead.” You know how it is there. Or when it’s time for recess, and they go out of the door three at a time, do you ever see them giving way? Oh, some little saints sometimes do, and it’s very stunning; most unusual. “But we forgive them” we say, “They’re just little children.” But of course when 60 year olds act the same way, with a little sophistication thrown in, what does that say about us? Are we not still acting like children and reasoning like children? Paul says “When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” And the context for childish ways is the list up above. See, when one is mature and grown up, one is patient, kind, not rude, one doesn’t boast. One isn’t arrogant, one isn’t even irritable. Now when one behaves like a child, one needs the protection and the guardianship of law, doesn’t one, to say “Now just a minute, line up and behave decently, and one at a time on the slide. And don’t push out the door now, let’s be civil, one, two, three,” and so on. We have to have a law telling us to behave like Christians should.
Well, other places—like in Ephesians 4, Paul speaks about childish behavior and the goal of growing up. In fact he speaks of this as the whole purpose for organizing the church. In Ephesians 4, where he begins in verse 11, “His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipment of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up the body of Christ, until,” the goal now! “Until we all attain to the unity”, and here I like the New English Bible best, “The unity that is inherent in our faith and our knowledge in the Son of God, and reach mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children.”
Now he describes the behavior of children. “Tossed to and fro, and carried about with every 5 wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their crafty and deceitful wiles.” This is why children need protection. They need a custodian, a guardian, a paidagogos to protect them.
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They have to be sent off to havens of refuge. Our schools, you know, at least used to be out in the country; the cities are swallowing them up now. But in the beginning we put them out there to protect them. And many of us grew up in those places, and are grateful for the protection that we had. But it’s one of the conditions of childhood and childishness that one needs protection. “Why then the law?” Paul says, because we needed it. We needed a guardian to make sure we went to school, that we stayed in school and that we went straight home from school. Ideally one shouldn’t need a law to tell us to be good, don’t push, don’t be rude, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t hate. It’s really embarrassing that we have to be told those things, maybe even more embarrassing for our Heavenly Father to have to say it to His children. But He was willing to add the law because we needed it; we were behaving like children.
The next verse describes grownups; 15. “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head; into Christ,” and so on.
There’s another place very much like it in Hebrews 5, where Paul talks about the behavior of children and what they need. And because they need such protection, they don’t appear to be very free, they are almost slaves to the law, but they need it. He’s been talking about Melchizedek, the king of righteousness, and he pauses, disappointed that he can’t complete his explanation, and in 5:11 he says, “About this subject we have much to say, which is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of God’s work.” You know that’s the same word, the elemental spirits. It’s the same word, the elements, the ABC’s. Don’t some versions have ‘the ABC’s ‘? Does Phillip’s have it? I know there’s one. The New English has “ABCs”. This means the elementary things, as in the version you read from on Galatians. “You still need someone to teach you the first principles of God’s work. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness” for he’s a child, and being unskilled, he needs lots of protection. “ But solid food,” like the explanation of who the king of righteousness was, (and we still don’t know, do we?) “But solid food is for the mature.” King James says ‘perfect’—the same word in the Greek. The word for perfect means mature, grown up. Solid food is for the grownups, for the mature. Now here is a description of mature, grown up people. “For those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.” See, they have spiritual discernment. They’ve had practice distinguishing the false from the true, and they can be like Job. And God can say to Satan, you can do anything you’d like to those people. Their faculties are trained to distinguish good from evil. They will discern your deception, and they will not be deceived; they will not let me down. It’s children who need the protection, don’t they? He goes on to say, “So therefore let us leave the 6 elementary doctrines of Christ,” that’s a different word there, “and go on to maturity, not laying over and over again,” and here are the ABC’s, that follow. “And this we will do if God
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permits.” It’s because of our need that we’ve had such a multiplication of law to protect us. Not to deprive us of our freedom, but to protect us during the days of our ignorance and immaturity, lest we, by our lack of self‐discipline and orderly behavior, lose our freedom prematurely. God has not given us His law to deprive us of freedom, but to protect us, lest we lose it before we have grown up enough to use it responsibly.
So now going back to these elements mentioned in Hebrews 5:11. The elementary things; the elementary teachings. How much should be included, do you think, in Galatians, where he says “Once, when we were children, we were slaves to the elementary things”? The word ‘spirits’ is an interpretation. And as I mentioned, it fits quite well in Colossians, but here it’s just ‘the elementary things’, “We’re slaves to the elementary things.” Now the other things he mentions that a child is enslaved to, having mentioned the weak and beggarly elementary things in 9. He then says “You observe days and months and seasons and years, and you worship things that by nature are no gods.” All of those things are mentioned. What do you think he’s driving at? When they were children they didn’t realize their freedom. They were in bondage to these elementary things.
Now one question that needs to be raised; do you think he’s talking to former Jews or former Gentiles, or maybe both? You see, to a Jew, the elementary things might be one thing, to the Gentiles it might even include these elementary spirits that had come in from Gnosticism. And the hearers wouldn’t have long to think about this. And Paul was trying to make himself very clear to them. Do you think they would understand immediately what he was driving at? The contrast here between realizing that we’re sons of God, to be filled with the Spirit of Truth and Love that sets us free and helps us to grow up and offer to guard the intelligent obedience that frees sons, and so on, contrasted with what they had been doing before. What do you think is the contrast here? {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians part 4, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
Remember when we discussed this a long time ago, if one has no understanding of the great controversy over the character of God, if one does not realize that God’s enemy has accused Him of being unrighteous, unloving, untrustworthy before the hearing of the whole onlooking universe, then one is not inclined to read Romans 1 that way. And so many versions limit it to “The gospel is the plan to save us.” Now it does include that. But the plan to save us means nothing if God is the kind of person Satan has made Him out to be. I wouldn’t want to be saved by Him; I’d be happier living where we are. It’s only if God is the God that the good news and the truth, the message of Jesus, the life of Jesus, prove Him to be, it’s only then that it’s 7 desirable to be saved. So the good news is at its heart, the truth about God; the righteousness of God. So Christ exalted the character of God. The whole purpose of His mission on earth was to set men right through the revelation of God.” And as we discussed before, there’s the Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
simplest language to explain the plan of salvation. There are some much more complicated Latin terms. But at its heart, the plan of salvation is to set men right, and this is done through the revelation of God “So in Christ was arrayed before men the paternal grace,” there’s Paul’s great term, “and the matchless perfection of the Father. In His prayer, just before His crucifixion, Christ declared ‘I have manifested Thy name, I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work that Thou hast given me to do.’ ” What work? “When the object of His mission was obtained, that is the revelation of God to the world,” That’s the gospel, that’s the good news, that’s the truth, isn’t it? “The Son of God announced that His work had been accomplished, and that the character of the Father was made manifest to men.” Now no writer has emphasized that like Ellen White. That’s what’s so unique and distinctive, I believe, about the Adventist way of looking at the plan of salvation. We put it in the setting of the whole great controversy over the character of God. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from audio series Galatians part 4, Loma Linda, California, 1978}
Further Study with Ellen White Christ came to represent the Father. We behold in him the image of the invisible God. He clothed his divinity with humanity, and came to the world that the erroneous ideas Satan had been the means of creating in the minds of men, in regard to the character of God, might be removed. We could not behold the glory of God unveiled in Christ and live; but as he came in the garb of humanity, we may draw nigh to our Redeemer. We are called upon to behold the Lord our Father in the person of his Son. Christ came in the robe of the flesh, with his glory subdued in humanity, that lost man might communicate with him and live. Through Christ we may comprehend something of him who is glorious in holiness. Jesus is the mystic ladder by which we may mount to behold the glory of the infinite God. By faith we behold Christ standing between humanity and divinity, connecting God and man, and earth and heaven. {ST, January 20, 1890}
Christ was the greatest teacher the world has ever known. He came to this earth to shed abroad the bright beams of truth, that men might gain a fitness for heaven. "For this cause came I into the world," He declared, "that I should bear witness unto the truth." John 18:37. He came to reveal the character of the Father, that men might be led to worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Man's need for a divine teacher was known in heaven. The pity and sympathy of God were aroused in behalf of human beings, fallen and bound to Satan's chariot car; and when the fullness of time was come, He sent forth His Son. The One appointed in the councils of heaven 8 came to this earth as man's instructor. The rich benevolence of God gave Him to our world, and to meet the necessities of human nature He took humanity upon Himself. To the astonishment
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of the heavenly host the eternal Word came to this world as a helpless babe. Fully prepared, He left the royal courts and mysteriously allied Himself with fallen human beings. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." John 1:14.
When Christ left His high command, He might have taken upon Him any condition in life that He chose. But greatness and rank were nothing to Him, and He chose the most humble walk of life. No luxury, ease, or self‐gratification came into His experience. The truth of heavenly origin was to be His theme; He was to sow the world with truth, and He lived in such a way as to be accessible to all. {CT 259}
By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal God both to men and to angels. He was the Word of God,‐‐God's thought made audible. In His prayer for His disciples He says, "I have declared unto them Thy name,"‐‐"merciful and gracious, long‐suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,"‐‐"that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them." But not alone for His earthborn children was this revelation given. Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God's wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which "angels desire to look," and it will be their study throughout endless ages. Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self‐ sacrificing love. In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self‐renouncing love is the law of life for earth and heaven; that the love which "seeketh not her own" has its source in the heart of God; and that in the meek and lowly One is manifested the character of Him who dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto. {DA 19}
"Judge not, that ye be not judged." Matthew 7:1. The effort to earn salvation by one’s own works inevitably leads men to pile up human exactions as a barrier against sin. For, seeing that they fail to keep the law, they will devise rules and regulations of their own to force themselves to obey. All this turns the mind away from God to self. His love dies out of the heart, and with it perishes love for his fellow men. A system of human invention, with its multitudinous exactions, will lead its advocates to judge all who come short of the prescribed human standard. The atmosphere of selfish and narrow criticism stifles the noble and generous emotions, and causes men to become self‐centered judges and petty spies. The Pharisees were of this class. They came forth from their religious services, not humbled with a sense of their own weakness, not grateful for the great privileges that God had given them. They came forth filled with spiritual pride, and their theme was, "Myself, my feelings, my 9 knowledge, my ways." Their own attainments became the standard by which they judged others. Putting on the robes of self‐dignity, they mounted the judgment seat to criticize and
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condemn. The people partook largely of the same spirit, intruding upon the province of conscience and judging one another in matters that lay between the soul and God. It was in reference to this spirit and practice that Jesus said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." That is, do not set yourself up as a standard. Do not make your opinions, your views of duty, your interpretations of Scripture, a criterion for others and in your heart condemn them if they do not come up to your ideal. Do not criticize others, conjecturing as to their motives and passing judgment upon them. . . . Christ is the only true standard of character, and he who sets himself up as a standard for others is putting himself in the place of Christ. And since the Father "hath committed all judgment unto the Son" (John 5:22), whoever presumes to judge the motives of others is again usurping the prerogative of the Son of God. These would‐be judges and critics are placing themselves on the side of antichrist, "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." 2 Thessalonians 2:4. The sin that leads to the most unhappy results is the cold, critical, unforgiving spirit that characterizes Pharisaism. When the religious experience is devoid of love, Jesus is not there; the sunshine of His presence is not there. No busy activity or Christless zeal can supply the lack. There may be a wonderful keenness of perception to discover the defects of others; but to everyone who indulges this spirit, Jesus says, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye." He who is guilty of wrong is the first to suspect wrong. By condemning another he is trying to conceal or excuse the evil of his own heart. It was through sin that men gained the knowledge of evil; no sooner had the first pair sinned than they began to accuse each other; and this is what human nature will inevitably do when uncontrolled by the grace of Christ. When men indulge this accusing spirit, they are not satisfied with pointing out what they suppose to be a defect in their brother. If milder means fail of making him do what they think ought to be done, they will resort to compulsion. Just as far as lies in their power they will force men to comply with their ideas of what is right. This is what the Jews did in the days of Christ and what the church has done ever since whenever she has lost the grace of Christ. Finding herself destitute of the power of love, she has reached out for the strong arm of the state to enforce her dogmas and execute her decrees. Here is the secret of all religious laws that have ever been enacted, and the secret of all persecution from the days of Abel to our own time. Christ does not drive but draws men unto Him. The only compulsion which He employs is the 10 constraint of love. When the church begins to seek for the support of secular power, it is evident that she is devoid of the power of Christ‐‐the constraint of divine love. . . .
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When a crisis comes in the life of any soul, and you attempt to give counsel or admonition, your words will have only the weight of influence for good that your own example and spirit have gained for you. You must be good before you can do good. You cannot exert an influence that will transform others until your own heart has been humbled and refined and made tender by the grace of Christ. When this change has been wrought in you, it will be as natural for you to live to bless others as it is for the rosebush to yield its fragrant bloom or the vine its purple clusters. If Christ is in you "the hope of glory," you will have no disposition to watch others, to expose their errors. Instead of seeking to accuse and condemn, it will be your object to help, to bless, and to save. In dealing with those who are in error, you will heed the injunction, Consider "thyself, lest thou also be tempted." Galatians 6:1. You will call to mind the many times you have erred and how hard it was to find the right way when you had once left it. You will not push your brother into greater darkness, but with a heart full of pity will tell him of his danger. He who looks often upon the cross of Calvary, remembering that his sins placed the Saviour there, will never try to estimate the degree of his guilt in comparison with that of others. He will not climb upon the judgment seat to bring accusation against another. There can be no spirit of criticism or self‐exaltation on the part of those who walk in the shadow of Calvary’s cross. Not until you feel that you could sacrifice your own self‐dignity, and even lay down your life in order to save an erring brother, have you cast the beam out of your own eye so that you are prepared to help your brother. Then you can approach him and touch his heart. No one has ever been reclaimed from a wrong position by censure and reproach; but many have thus been driven from Christ and led to seal their hearts against conviction. A tender spirit, a gentle, winning deportment, may save the erring and hide a multitude of sins. The revelation of Christ in your own character will have a transforming power upon all with whom you come in contact. Let Christ be daily made manifest in you, and He will reveal through you the creative energy of His word‐‐a gentle, persuasive, yet mighty influence to re‐create other souls in the beauty of the Lord our God. {MB 123‐128} "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." How can the truth be laid out before our people that they will every one arouse from the lethargy which has been upon them, and come to a realization of the times in which we are living? How shall we present the need of greater zeal and more determined earnestness in searching the Scriptures, so that they may dig in the mines of truth and bring forth the treasures of God’s word? It is not safe for us as reformers to repeat the history of the Reformers in every particular; for after those to whom God gave light 11 advanced to a certain knowledge, many of them ceased to be reformers. We must not for a moment think that there is no more light and truth to be given us, and become careless, and let
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the sanctifying power of the truth leak out of our hearts by our attitude of satisfaction in what we have already attained. We are not to fold our hands in complacency, and say, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." It is a fact that we have the truth, and we must hold with tenacity to the positions that cannot be shaken; but we must not look with suspicion upon any new light which God may send, and say, Really, we cannot see that we need any more light than the old truth which we have hitherto received, and in which we are settled. While we hold to this position, the testimony of the True Witness applies to our cases its rebuke, "And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Those who feel rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing, are in a condition of blindness as to their true condition before God, and they know it not. But the True Witness declares, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye‐salve, that thou mayest see. . . ." The people of God have educated themselves in such a way that they have come to look to those in positions of trust as guardians of truth, and have placed men where God should be. When perplexities have come upon them, instead of seeking God, they have gone to human sources for help, and have received only such help as man can give. If as brave soldiers of Jesus Christ, they had borne their burden, doing their work with courage, with fidelity, and in faith, they would have received great blessings. Christ has sounded the invitation, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" but instead of carrying their perplexities and difficulties to Jesus, as he has told them to do, they have laid their burdens upon human souls, and have looked to human beings and human counsels, and they have received accordingly; for God removes his wisdom from men who are looked up to as God. Those who occupy positions of trust are greatly injured when they are tempted by their brethren to think that they must always be consulted by the workers, and that the people should bring to them their difficulties and trials. It is a mistake to make men believe that the workers for Christ should make no move save that which has first been brought before some responsible man. Men must not be educated to look to men as to God. While it is necessary that there be a counseling together and a unity of action among the laborers, one man’s mind and one man’s judgment must not be the controlling power. When Jesus went away, he intrusted to men his work in all its varied branches, and every true follower of Christ has some work to do for him, for which he is responsible to his own Master, and that work he is expected to do with fidelity, waiting for command and direction from his 12 Leader. We are the responsible agents of God, and have been invested with the goods of heaven, and we should have an eye single to the glory of Him who has called us. On our part there should be a faithful execution of duty, doing our appointed task to the full measure of our Study Collection Prepared June 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications
entrusted capability. No living being can do our work for us. We must do our work through a diligent use of the intellect which God has given, gaining in knowledge and efficiency as we make progress in our work. God never designed that another should do our thinking, while we leave our mental powers to rust through inaction. God has never designed that one man should be crushed under the burden, should be loaded down with various kinds of work as a cart pressed beneath the sheaves, while another should go free of all burden and responsibility. The president of the Conference is not to do the thinking for all the people. He has not an immortal brain, but has capabilities and powers like any other man. And to every man God has given his work. When men place the president of the Conference in the place of God, and make him the depositary of all their difficulties, the bearer of all their burdens and troubles, and the adviser in all their plans and in all their perplexities, they are doing that which is exactly opposite to what Christ has told them to do. {RH, August 7, 1894}
Jon Paulien Recommends Reading: “God Made Manifest in Christ” by Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times, January 20, 1890 http://www.pineknoll.org/all‐writings
Graham Maxwell’s Galatians series (audio) is available for free listening and downloading at
http://pkp.cc/galatians
Even Your Sages Say Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is. (Oswald Chambers)
In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs, nor a code of action ‐ you are attached primarily to a Person, and secondarily to these other things. (E. Stanley Jones)
All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable. (Fran Lebowitz)
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 9 “Paul’s Pastoral Appeal”
Read for this week’s study Gal. 4:12–20; 1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 1 Cor. 9:19–23; 2 Cor. 4:7–12. Memory Text “Friends, I beg you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are” (Galatians 4:12, NRSV). Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide I. Introduction II. The Heart of Paul III. The Challenge to Become IV. I Have Become as You Are V. Then and Now VI. Speaking the Truth VII. Further Study
Questions for Consideration Moderator: Jerry Winslow 1) Looking back at the first three chapters of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, what do you consider to be the “take home” message thus far? 2) In the verse just prior to the passage for our lesson, Paul says to the Galatian believers: “I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.” (Gal. 4:11) These are sad words, followed by the strong words, “I am begging you…!” (Gal. 4:12) Why does Paul express such deep feelings? 3) Paul even admits that he wished he could “change his tone” but he is deeply “perplexed” by the Galatians (4:20). If you were to receive this letter personally, what effect do you think it would have on your own feelings? 4) In this passage, Paul writes about a “physical infirmity” (4:13) that caused him to spend initial time with the Galatians. Is there any clue in the text as to what the otherwise vague infirmity was? Are there times when an upset in our plans is an opening for the work of God? 5) One way Paul expresses his hope for the Galatians is that Christ be “formed in” them (4:19). In the context of this letter, what do you think it means to have “Christ formed in you”? Are there likely to be observable differences in the lives of those who have been in‐formed by Christ?
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6) In our study passage (4:12) and several other times in Paul’s writing and preaching, Paul says, in essence, “become like me.” Most of us would probably shrink from saying such a thing. Does Paul do this because he is specially called to be an apostle, or should all sincere Christians be able to say “become as I am”? Is there a difference between saying “act like me” and “be as I am”? 7) Why do you think Paul tells the erring Galatians that he had “become as you are”? (4:12) In what way had Paul become like them? Do you think this is similar to Paul saying that he had “become all things to all people” (I Cor. 9:22). Do you see any practical implications for Christians today? 8) It is evident that Paul has been willing to accept pain for the sake of the truth. He even wonders if he has become the Galatians “enemy” because of his affirmation of truth. (4:16). Does it matter much if people have true convictions? In our current era, when the so‐called “post‐modernist” seems to disdain “doctrine” in favor of warm interpersonal relationships, how much emphasis should we place on holding true beliefs? 9) There are currently courses offered on how to conduct “crucial conversations” in which one can learn skills for broaching difficult topics with another person or group. What skills for such conversations do you think you can learn from the way Paul communicated with the Galatians?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell Now Paul goes on. “Brethren, I beseech you, become as I am. For I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong.” And I think our commentator is right in saying that this is in anticipation of the next few lines. “You did me no wrong. You know that it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first. And though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God,” messenger of God, “as Christ Jesus, even.” The Galatians had received Paul very well when he first came. They had been very respectful. In fact, he goes on to say, “What has become of the satisfaction you once felt? For I bear you witness that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?” Doesn’t this sound like Jesus’ words to the Pharisees back there in John 8? What do you think of his statement that ‘you would have plucked out your eyes’? Is that just a dramatic way of saying that they would have been willing to do anything for him, or does that refer to his problem of eyesight? One theory is, as you know, that ever since the Damascus road, Paul’s eyesight was not normal. You remember when he said some words about the high priest that seemed disrespectful, and somebody said to him, “Do you revile the high priest like that? “Oh,” he said “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he was the high priest.” How could you miss that, in his vestments? And maybe again that’s evidence that it’s Paul’s eyesight that wasn’t as it should be. Was this
Study Collection Prepared July 2011 ©Pine Knoll Publications Page 2 his ‘thorn in the flesh’, perhaps? {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation— Galatians, part 5, 1978, Loma Linda, California}
Further Study with Ellen White He who called the fisherman of Galilee is still calling men to His service. And He is just as willing to manifest His power through us as through the first disciples. However imperfect and sinful we may be, the Lord holds out to us the offer of partnership with Himself, of apprenticeship to Christ. He invites us to come under the divine instruction, that, uniting with Christ, we may work the works of God. {DA 297.1} There are souls perplexed with doubt, burdened with infirmities, weak in faith, and unable to grasp the Unseen; but a friend whom they can see, coming to them in Christ’s stead, can be a connecting link to fasten their trembling faith upon Christ. {DA 297.2} We are to be laborers together with the heavenly angels in presenting Jesus to the world. With almost impatient eagerness the angels wait for our co‐operation; for man must be the channel to communicate with man. And when we give ourselves to Christ in wholehearted devotion, angels rejoice that they may speak through our voices to reveal God’s love. {DA 297.3} God has manifested His love to men by making them partakers with Himself in the work of salvation. All to whom the heavenly inspiration has come are put in trust with the gospel. “We are labourers together with God,” called to represent Him as ambassadors of love. We are to cooperate with the work of the delegates of heaven. . . . {ML 304.5}
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 10 “The Two Covenants”
Read for this week’s study Gal. 4:21–31; Gen. 1:28; 2:2, 3; 3:15; 15:1–6; Exod. 6:2–8; 19:3–6. Memory Text “But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother” (Galatians 4:26, NIV). Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide I. Introduction II. Covenant Basics III. The Abrahamic Covenant IV. Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar V. Hagar and Mount Sinai VI. Ishmael and Isaac Today VII. Further Study
Questions for Consideration Moderator: Jerry Winslow 1) In the main passage for this lesson, Paul uses an allegory to provide a vividly memorable contrast between “two covenants.” We may represent this contrast with two columns: “Old” Covenant “New” Covenant Hagar (Sarah) Slave woman Free woman Son: (Ishmael) Son: Isaac Mt. Sinai and Jerusalem of Paul’s time “Jerusalem above” Sad ending Joyous ending Yoke of slavery to the law Freedom in Christ
2) For those Christians who are “dispensationalists,” the Old Covenant refers to a period of history when God’s people were under the requirements of the law, and the New Covenant refers to the Christian era when the faithful are under grace. Do you think Paul has such
Study Collection Prepared July 2011 ©Pine Knoll Publications Page 1 differing historical time periods, with different modes of salvation, in mind when he gives this analogy? 3) In which column were the Galatians to whom Paul was writing? What put them in that experience? 4) Why does Paul include the Jerusalem of his time in the column of the slaves? 5) Scripture is full of the language of covenant. What examples of covenants come to mind when you think about the stories of Scripture? When is the first covenant between God and His people? Are there other covenants? 6) How do people think of covenants today? Are our contemporary uses of this concept helpful or harmful when understanding covenants described in Scripture? Do you see a difference, for example, between contract and covenant? 7) In our passage for this lesson, Paul takes his readers back to the time of Abraham. In God’s covenant with Abraham (called Abram, Gen. 12:1‐5), what was he required to do and what did God promise? Did Abraham obey? Was the promise fulfilled? Is that promise still being fulfilled today? 8) Abraham is praised as a great person of faith (Heb. 11:8‐12). Was he also a person of great doubt? What place is there for expression of doubt in the life of faithful followers of God? Can you think of examples of how God dealt with the doubts of his people? 9) Both in the Genesis account and in Paul’s reference to the story, Hagar and her son seem to get shabby treatment. How can this be understood in the light of God’s love and grace? 10) As a people who still take the Law given on Mt. Sinai as having normative value for our lives, how do we understand Paul’s identification of Mt. Sinai with slavery? 11) Are there still avowed Christians who choose to live in the left column of our two‐column description (above) of contrasting experiences? 12) What is the source of joy for those who live the life of the New Covenant?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell So he goes on, referring to the Judaizers now; “They make much of you, these people who insist on making you go back under all these old rules, but for no good purpose.” Does that mean they were flattering them, and buttering them up so as to win them over? “They want to shut you out, that you in turn might make much of them,” and accept their leadership, I assume. “For a good purpose it is always good to be made much of, and not only when I am present with you. My little children with whom I am again in travail until Christ be
Study Collection Prepared July 2011 ©Pine Knoll Publications Page 2 formed in you, I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.” That seems clear enough, doesn’t it? “Tell me, you who desire to be under law, do you not hear the law?” Now those two words are the same in the original, but they mean something different here, don’t they? “Do you not hear the law,” is going to be listening to the story about Abraham and his two sons. So there ‘the law’ would mean the first five books, the Pentateuch. “Do you not hear the story in the Old Testament?” Whereas the first part is the familiar ‘being under law’ that we’ve often discussed; being under a legal system. “For it is written in the law”, in Genesis, that “Abraham had two sons; one by a slave, and one by a freewoman, but the son of the slave was born according to the flesh; the son of the freewoman through promise.” Now this is an allegory, he says. “These women are two covenants. One is from Mt. Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mt Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written ‘Rejoice oh barren one that does not bare. Break forth and shout thou who art not in travail, for the desolate hath more children than she who have a husband.’ Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? Cast out the slave and her son. For the son of the slave shall not inherit, but the son of the freewoman. So brethren,” is his conclusion, “we are not children of the slave, but of the freewoman.” Once again, don’t you think his contrast is clear? But one could stop and wonder how much to be read into each one of these phrases. These were familiar pictures to them. Isn’t it a contrast between trying to do things in your own way by human devising? See, Abraham knew a lot about God’s intentions and plans, even His promise, and then sought to fulfill them in his own way. And with his wife’s advice, he took Hagar, and they had a son, and they said, “God, I hope this is what you had in mind.” And God said, “No it isn’t. I wish you’d waited and let me work this out.” So wouldn’t the contrast be very clear? Again, between trusting God enough to let Him do it in His way, and between stepping in and doing it our own way, which is what the legalist is inclined to do. Now he contrasts the two covenants. Wouldn’t that bring things to their mind that would help them understand this section? One covenant is described as Sinai, compared with the present Jerusalem and its children. And he said, “They’re not free; they’re in bondage, they’re under law, when they ought to be under grace, if only they could accept the truth about our gracious God.” So isn’t this again faith versus works; the promise of God, against man’s efforts? Having the law in one’s heart, where one does his thinking; and that’s intelligent obedience—and having
Study Collection Prepared July 2011 ©Pine Knoll Publications Page 3 the law on tables of stone, and not really in the heart. If they’d read Jeremiah, they’d know about this, wouldn’t they, and many other places in the Old Testament? I kept thinking, especially as I read through for this time; in fact more with Galatians almost than with Romans, try to think of the audience listening, and wondering what they could read into this. Now if they were just steeped in the Old Testament, this wouldn’t be so difficult, would it? It’s like reading the book of Revelation. If one has read the preceding 65, the 66th is not so complicated. Imagine reading 66 without the others, heads and horns and horses and trumpets, and all sorts of strange symbols. But if you’ve read all the other books, you’re familiar with these symbols; there’s hardly a new one there, in the last book. So I think we would do right here to assume that some members of this audience, especially those with a Jewish background—they knew their Old Testament. And Paul was building on this, like in the choice of this allegory here. And I would assume that for many of them, the message came through clearly. In fact, if you stop between 21 and 31, it’s difficult. If you read it all the way through, the contrast is repeated, isn’t it? {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation—Galatians, part 5, 1978, Loma Linda, California}
Further Study with Ellen White God might have created man without the power to transgress His law; He might have withheld the hand of Adam from touching the forbidden fruit; but in that case man would have been, not a free moral agent, but a mere automaton. Without freedom of choice, his obedience would not have been voluntary, but forced. There could have been no development of character. Such a course would have been contrary to God’s plan in dealing with the inhabitants of other worlds. It would have been unworthy of man as an intelligent being, and would have sustained Satan’s charge of God’s arbitrary rule. {PP 49.1} Through the Jewish nation it was God’s purpose to impart rich blessings to all peoples. Through Israel the way was to be prepared for the diffusion of His light to the whole world. The nations of the world, through following corrupt practices, had lost the knowledge of God. Yet in His mercy God did not blot them out of existence. He purposed to give them opportunity for becoming acquainted with Him through His church. He designed that the principles revealed through His people should be the means of restoring the moral image of God in man. {COL 286.1} In the renewal of the covenant shortly before the birth of Isaac, God’s purpose for mankind was again made plain. “All the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him,” was the assurance of the Lord concerning the child of promise. Genesis 18:18. And later the heavenly visitant once more declared, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 22:18. {PK 368.1}
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The all‐embracing terms of this covenant were familiar to Abraham’s children and to his children’s children. It was in order that the Israelites might be a blessing to the nations, and that God’s name might be made known “throughout all the earth” (Exodus 9:16), that they were delivered from Egyptian bondage. If obedient to His requirements, they were to be placed far in advance of other peoples in wisdom and understanding; but this supremacy was to be reached and maintained only in order that through them the purpose of God for “all nations of the earth” might be fulfilled. {PK 368.2} The opinion is held by many that God placed a separating wall between the Hebrews and the outside world; that His care and love, withdrawn to a great extent from the rest of mankind, were centered upon Israel. But God did not design that His people should build up a wall of partition between themselves and their fellow men. The heart of Infinite Love was reaching out toward all the inhabitants of the earth. Though they had rejected Him, He was constantly seeking to reveal Himself to them and make them partakers of His love and grace. His blessing was granted to the chosen people, that they might bless others. {PP 368.1} God called Abraham, and prospered and honored him; and the patriarch’s fidelity was a light to the people in all the countries of his sojourn. Abraham did not shut himself away from the people around him. He maintained friendly relations with the kings of the surrounding nations, by some of whom he was treated with great respect; and his integrity and unselfishness, his valor and benevolence, were representing the character of God. In Mesopotamia, in Canaan, in Egypt, and even to the inhabitants of Sodom, the God of heaven was revealed through His representative. {PP 368.2}
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 11 “Freedom in Christ”
Read for this week’s study Gal. 5:1–15; 1 Cor. 6:20; Rom. 8:1; Heb. 2:14, 15; Rom. 8:4; 13:8. Memory Text “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13, ESV). Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide I. Introduction II. Christ Has Set Us Free III. The Nature of Christian Freedom IV. The Dangerous Consequences of Legalism V. Liberty Not Licentiousness VI. Fulfilling the Whole Law VII. Further Study
Questions for Consideration Moderator: Jerry Winslow 1) Our passage for this lesson begins and ends with the fact that Christians are called to be free. In what sense are Christians especially free? One sense of freedom we may call “freedom from…” – we are liberated from some constraints or hindrances. Another sense of freedom we may call “freedom to…” – we have opened to us new possibilities for exploration and action. What are Christians freed from? And what are Christians freed to do? 2) What warning label does Paul add to the gift of Christian freedom? 3) In exceedingly strong language, Paul tells the Galatians that if they insist on circumcision, then “Christ will be of no benefit to you.” (5:2) Millions of Christians still have their male children circumcised. Does this mean they are ignoring Paul’s plain counsel to quit doing this? Nearly two millennia after the first Church council decided not to require circumcision (Acts 15), why is this practice still so wide‐spread among Christians? 4) At least three times in our study passage, Paul links Christian freedom to love. (5:6, 13 and 14) Why is this linkage so important? How do you see freedom connected to the concept and the practice of Christian love?
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5) As he does in other writings (e.g. I Cor. 13; Rom. 13:8‐10), Paul gives priority to faithful love: “The only thing that counts is faith working through love.” (5:6) Jesus sums up all of God’s revealed will in terms of supreme love to the Creator and generous love to the neighbor. (Matt. 22:34‐40) Ellen White concurs when she writes: “No value is attached to a mere profession of faith in Christ; only the love which is shown by works is counted genuine. Yet it is love alone which in the sight of Heaven makes any act of value. Whatever is done from love, however small it may appear in the estimation of men, is accepted and rewarded of God.” (Great Controversy, p. 487, emphasis supplied) Why is love the supreme guiding value in the lives of Christians? What is the source of such love? 6) After appearing to write negatively about obeying the “entire law” (5:3), why does Paul then make positive reference to observing the “whole law” (5:14)? What’s the difference? Which is actually easier to do? 7) After studying Paul’s letter to the Galatians so far, do you see ways in which you are being liberated personally?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell Now in chapter 5, he reviews what he said. “You see brethren, for freedom Christ has set us free.” How about John again; “If only you knew the truth, the truth would set you free. Stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” That would mean rejecting the truth and the good news, and accepting Satan’s lies about God. “Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he’s bound to keep the whole law,” if you want to go back to that old system. “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace, and all that brings to us. For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, faith, trust, working through love. You were running well.” Evidently, when he first came with the good news, they loved it, and they rejoiced in the new freedom of knowing the truth about God. “But who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who called you.” Wasn’t from me, wasn’t from God, wasn’t from the Holy Spirit. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord, that you will take no other view than mine.” Now once again –is that arrogant? It’s only with respect to the truth about God that Paul is willing to say such daring words. “If anyone disagrees with my picture of God, He’s wrong.” Is it alright to be that sure? Is it alright to say, “I have confidence that you will take no other view than mine”? Ellen White says that “In the day that we’re all called singly and alone to give a reason for the hope that is in us, we must not only know the truth, but know that we know it. “
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Isn’t that what Paul is demonstrating here, that I’m confident that you’ll take no other view than mine. I’d stake my life on the position I’ve taken about God. “And he who is troubling you will bear His judgment, whoever he is. But if I, brethren, still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? In that case, the stumbling block of the cross has been removed.” You see, to abandon circumcision and accept the good news that the cross represented was dangerous. Paul risked his life because of what he taught on this subject. “I wish those who unsettle you would mutilate themselves.” We’ve discussed that before, and maybe the version in front of you has that very dramatically stated. “For you were called to freedom, brethren.” He keeps coming back to this, doesn’t he? “If only you knew the good news, the truth, you would feel free. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.” He always does this. After he’s emphasized freedom, in due course he has to caution them, “Now don’t misunderstand what I mean.” You remember when he kept emphasizing in Romans, “We’re not under law, we’re under grace”, and so on? Eventually he had to say “Now, does faith abolish law? God forbid, on the contrary, faith establishes law.” And you remember in Romans 12, he says we’re not under law but under grace, “Shall I therefore sin, because I’m not under law but under grace? God forbid, on the contrary, those who have accepted the truth about our gracious God will be the least likely to act in a rebellious, unloving way. For the spirit of love and truth has brought them the good news about the graciousness of God.” And that is the opposite of sin and rebellion. “But through love,” he says, “be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word.” Now, are we reading Romans or Galatians here? Do you remember Romans 13:8, 10? Doesn’t he cover much of the same ground as in Romans? “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another.” That’s really clear, isn’t it? {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation—Galatians, part 5, 1978, Loma Linda, California} “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another.” One could be reading Romans here. Remember Romans 13:8, 10, he says love is the fulfilling of the law. The man who loves his neighbor has fulfilled all law. He says the same thing here in Galatians. Well, supposing then we all obeyed the law, and we all loved each other, which would mean we’d never be rude, never arrogant, never insist on having our own way, and so on. Would that be a threat to our freedom? We’d be really free, you see. So if we really understand what the law requires, it’s a guarantee of freedom. If God says, “I’ll only save people who are committed to the spirit of My law, it means I’ll only save people who love one another, and therefore can be trusted, and there will be peace and freedom.” {Graham
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Maxwell, excerpt from the audio series – The Picture of God in All 66 – Galatians, Riverside, California, 1981‐1982}
Further Study with Ellen White The life of Christ was filled with words and acts of benevolence, sympathy, and love. He was ever attentive to listen to and relieve the woes of those who came to Him. Multitudes carried in their own persons the evidence of His divine power. Yet after the work had been accomplished, many were ashamed of the humble yet mighty teacher. Because the rulers did not believe on Him, the people were not willing to accept Jesus. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. They could not endure to be governed by His sober, self‐denying life. They wished to enjoy the honor which the world bestows. Yet many followed the Son of God and listened to His instructions, feasting upon the words which fell so graciously from His lips. His words were full of meaning, yet so plain that the weakest could understand them. {EW 160.1} Satan and his angels blinded the eyes and darkened the understanding of the Jews, and stirred up the chief of the people and the rulers to take the Saviour’s life. Others were sent to bring Jesus unto them; but as they came near where He was they were greatly amazed. They saw Him filled with sympathy and compassion, as He witnessed human woe. They heard Him in love and tenderness speak encouragingly to the weak and afflicted. They also heard Him, in a voice of authority, rebuke the power of Satan and bid his captives go free. They listened to the words of wisdom that fell from His lips, and they were captivated; they could not lay hands on Him. They returned to the priests and elders without Jesus. When asked, “Why have ye not brought Him?” they related what they had witnessed of His miracles, and the holy words of wisdom, love, and knowledge which they had heard, and ended with saying, “Never man spake like this man.” The chief priests accused them of being also deceived, and some of the officers were ashamed that they had not taken Him. The priests inquired in a scornful manner if any of the rulers had believed on Him. I saw that many of the magistrates and elders did believe on Jesus; but Satan kept them from acknowledging it; they feared the reproach of the people more than they feared God. {EW 160.2} Thus far the cunning and hatred of Satan had not broken up the plan of salvation. The time for the accomplishment of the object for which Jesus came into the world was drawing near. Satan and his angels consulted together and decided to inspire Christ’s own nation to cry eagerly for His blood and heap upon Him cruelty and scorn. They hoped that Jesus would resent such treatment and fail to maintain His humility and meekness. {EW 161.1} The scribes and Pharisees had accused not only Christ but His disciples as sinners because of their disregard of the rabbinical rites and observances. Often the disciples had been perplexed and troubled by censure and accusation from those whom they had been accustomed to revere
Study Collection Prepared July 2011 ©Pine Knoll Publications Page 4 as religious teachers. Jesus unveiled the deception. He declared that the righteousness upon which the Pharisees set so great value was worthless. The Jewish nation had claimed to be the special, loyal people who were favored of God; but Christ represented their religion as devoid of saving faith. All their pretensions of piety, their human inventions and ceremonies, and even their boasted performance of the outward requirements of the law, could not avail to make them holy. They were not pure in heart or noble and Christlike in character. {MB 53.1} A legal religion is insufficient to bring the soul into harmony with God. The hard, rigid orthodoxy of the Pharisees, destitute of contrition, tenderness, or love, was only a stumbling block to sinners. They were like the salt that had lost its savor; for their influence had no power to preserve the world from corruption. The only true faith is that which “worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6) to purify the soul. It is as leaven that transforms the character. {MB 53.2}
Thoughts from Jack Provonsha The way to resist brainwashing is to know what’s happening. {Jack Provonsha, excerpts from the audio presentation—The Church, Home at Last # 6, Sabbath School discussion for 2nd quarter, 1981.} Given a chance, most men in the world will seek being fed rather than freedom. And so you have a situation particularly down at the end of time when there is so much uncertainty—that’s a scary kind of world! And in that scary kind of world, one of the immediate and almost necessary reactions on the part of many will be the seeking of authority and power that can protect one as a child can be protected by a strong father, against the uncertainties of the world. And on that basis then, certain conditions of unrest become the prerequisite of the development of the power of “the beast, the dragon and the image”, but they also become the prerequisites when used effectively, for providing not only control but willingly accepted control in which “the world wonders after the beast” and worships at its feet, out of its own uncertainties. The essence of “the “beast” is not it’s “beast” but it’s a quality; that quality can show up in a variety of ways—there are all kinds of ways in which the “beast” can manifest itself. Well, it’s on that basis that I think we should draw the contrast between that authoritarian control at the end of the world one day, and “The Remnant”. Finding the certainty that comes from the experience of the divine grace enables Christians to rise above that anxiety, that that ‘look down the road’ can present. Those are mostly material anxieties, but a Christian is one who having experienced the grace of Christ can, with Paul, find himself in whatever circumstances prevail, “and therewith to be content.” “To have as though one had not, and to have not as though one had”, and not let it make any difference. And thus we can be able to share in times when everybody has needs except for the few, and those few
Study Collection Prepared July 2011 ©Pine Knoll Publications Page 5 if they are Christians, are able and “willing to be able” to share—even to share a little hunger with people if it may be the Christian’s lot, but by the grace of Christ, one may be able to willingly share that. As a choice! We said it also had to do with the worship of the Creator, which is a kind of certainty, a kind of security that recognizes that behind the storm there is a hand on the helm, but a hand on the helm which does not deprive us of freedom. {Jack Provonsha, excerpts from the audio presentation—The Church, Home at Last # 6, Sabbath School discussion for 2nd quarter, 1981.} It’s often the case with truth and error, that they are not necessarily distinguishable at the surface level. It’s a kind of an interesting, almost symbolic fact, that in the Garden of Eden it is stated that both trees were in the midst of the garden—which meant they were pretty close to each other, you see. So I guess that’s a fact of life. That which can become the basis for profound truth, can also with just a little subtle shift become something quite demonic. And so no human being can make that kind of judgment, but we all ought to be aware of the possibilities in ourselves. {Jack Provonsha, excerpts from the audio presentation This We Believe (Part 1 of 2 quarters) # 8, Sabbath School discussion for 3rd quarter, 1981}
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 12 “Living by the Spirit”
Read for this week’s study Gal. 5:16–25; Deut. 13:4, 5; Rom. 7:14–24; Jer. 7:9; Hos. 4:2; Matt. 22:35–40. Memory Text “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16, ESV). Lesson Outline from Adult Sabbath School Study Guide I. Introduction II. Walking in the Spirit III. The Christian’s Conflict IV. The Works of the Flesh V. The Fruit of the Spirit VI. The Way to Victory VII. Further Study
Questions for Consideration Moderator: Jerry Winslow 1) Throughout history, the reality of being one person has often been described in terms of two or more conflicting parts. For Plato (in the Republic), the person has three parts: appetitive, rational, and spirited. Freud’s well‐known divisions of ego, superego, and id also come to mind. In our lesson’s primary passage, Paul writes to the Galatians about the “flesh” and the “Spirit.” The two appear to be opposed, and Paul urges believers to live by the Spirit and not by the “desires of the flesh.” Since we all have “flesh,” how is it conceivable to live “opposed to the flesh”? Aren’t many of the desires of the flesh completely normal, healthy, and worthy of satisfaction? 2) What is the “Spirit” to which Paul refers? If we are controlled by the Spirit, does that mean that we are not really in charge of ourselves, and thus not free? 3) Our passage opens with a line sometimes translated as “Walk in the Spirit.” (5:16 KJV) And the Greek does use the word for walking (peripateo). How might describing about Christian experience as a walk enhance our understanding of the life of faith? 4) Having just emphasized the joy of Christian freedom, Paul now tells the believers that the opposition of flesh and Spirit prevents them from doing what they want. (5:17) How can Christians be truly free if this conflict is continually raging?
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5) Could conflict between flesh and the Spirit be significantly reduced by withdrawing from sinful society and living, to the extent possible, in isolation? 6) More than once, Paul gives contrasting lists of vices with a list of virtues. (Compare, for example, Colossians 3:5‐17). In the Letter to the Galatians, the two lists have different headings: “the works of the flesh” and “the fruit of the Spirit.” Do you see any significance in naming the first list “works” and the second list “fruit”? 7) Paul writes plainly: “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.” (5:18) All law? Some law? Is life in the Spirit truly lawless? 8) In what way does Paul’s selection of the first virtue match with what he has already written about Christian freedom? 9) If, as Paul writes, the passions of the flesh have been “crucified” for those who belong to Jesus (5:24), why does it seem that the struggle to subdue such passions is lifelong even for Christians? 10) The Christian walk in the Spirit moves continually in the direction of joyous generosity. Is that movement clearly evident in our community of faith? Can you think of stellar examples of such fruit of the Spirit in the lives of people know, or have known in the past?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell He’s already said that the demands of the Spirit are truthfulness and love; and love doesn’t envy, it’s not arrogant, not rude, and so forth. So he says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, and it’s joy.” How would you like to live in a place where everybody was trustworthy, and so respectful? Wouldn’t that bring joy? Peace? Well how about living in a society where nobody even hates anybody else? Where nobody would even think about hurting anybody else? That’s “peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.” I mean, really trustworthy people. “Gentleness and self‐control, against such there is no law.” That’s for sure! Self‐control; in the King James, temperance, isn’t it? And temperance can mean self‐control, but we’ve rather limited this, because of our emphasis on temperance to mean abstinence from liquor, tobacco and narcotics, and moderation in good things. The Greek word, I’m sure you all know this from before; it’s pronounced “enkratia.” The first part, the prefix, en, means inside, within. The second part, krat, kratia, krat, is the root for ‘democrat’, that’s when the people exercise authority. Autocrat, aristocrat; krat means to exercise power and authority. Enkratia means exercising authority within. And the modern equivalent is self‐discipline, self‐ mastery, self‐control. Now, think what this says about freedom, in the light of the contrast running all through. When a person is led by the Holy Spirit of truth and love, is this some kind of a change of tyranny? “I
Study Collection Prepared July 2011 ©Pine Knoll Publications Page 2 once was under the control of Satan and now I’m under the control of God. I still don’t have self‐control.” How significant it is that when we really have been open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to His instruction, His correction, His healing, we recover our self‐control, the dignity of self‐control. Ellen White talks about over‐controlling our children so they don’t grow up with feelings of self‐respect and the realization that they can make decisions for themselves. To be really led by God is to recover self‐control. The image of God within us is restored; our power to think and to do. Of course the ultimate test, I like to think of for myself—the presence of the Holy Spirit would always be shown in love, to be sure. And love is patient and kind; it’s not arrogant and rude and so forth. But also the Holy Spirit is very concerned with truth. When you’re with a group of people and there’s lots of love, everybody’s talking about love, but there’s not much time spent searching for truth; When there is great concern for love, but no concern for truth, I don’t think the Holy Spirit is present. When people are together debating the truth, very closely, very earnestly, but there’s more heat than light, and people are becoming very irritated with each other, and very impatient, almost come to blows, debating the meaning of justification, for example, I don’t think the Spirit has much freedom to work. But when you have a group of individuals together who are really dedicated to finding the truth, there may be disagreement, but they’re very respectful, very polite, very tolerant of disagreement, they’re only concerned to find the truth, and their regard for each other is not hurt at all, then you really have the presence of the Holy Spirit. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation—Galatians, part 5, 1978, Loma Linda, California} Incidentally on this struggle, I think that it’s this experience that comes up most frequently during weeks of prayer. I venture next week a number of individuals will raise this again. I don’t think I’ve ever gone through a week of prayer but what someone has said; maybe they’ve been believers for a long, long time, “I get so discouraged because the good I would do I don’t do.” That seems to be the common lot of believers. And the more eager they are to do what’s right, the more sensitive they are to frequent failure. And this chapter, I feel, is the best basis for a discussion of that problem. And the most encouraging, though, one should never stop at the end of seven, but always add the first verse of eight. You see, there is no condemnation to the struggling saint. He’s not condemned, for we don’t deal with a legalistic God, but a gracious God, and He knows all about this struggle. He knows we have this old man of sin, He knows he can’t be eliminated with a snap of the fingers, that any moment of carelessness will let him bestir himself and get out of his coffin and trouble us again. Now there’s no excuse, we’re told, for sin, it’s true. But John says, “If we do sin, inexcusably, we still have an advocate with the Father.” There we’re back to that verse at the beginning.
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See, God is for us. Satan is the one who keeps bringing these things up to discourage us. Now God is disappointed when we keep sinning, it makes our dilemma all the more serious; it increases the scar tissue, so hard to deal with. See, even though we’re forgiven, we’re never quite the same whenever we sin, for sin happens in people not in books. This is what’s so dangerous about sinning. And God would like us to stop sinning completely. But when we do sin we still deal with an infinitely gracious God who wants to heal us. So I’ve found that this seventh chapter is probably the most understanding group of verses in the Bible about this struggle. And I’ve met very few people who don’t admit that they have been engaged in this struggle rather recently. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio series Romans, Chapter 7, Loma Linda, California, 1977‐1978}
Further Study with Ellen White The union of the divine with the human nature is one of the most precious and most mysterious truths of the plan of redemption. It is this of which Paul speaks when he says: “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.” {5T 746.2} This truth has been to many a cause of doubt and unbelief. When Christ came into the world,‐‐ the Son of God and the Son of man,‐‐He was not understood by the people of His time. Christ stooped to take upon Himself human nature, that He might reach the fallen race and lift them up. But the minds of men had become darkened by sin, their faculties were benumbed and their perceptions dulled, so that they could not discern His divine character beneath the garb of humanity. This lack of appreciation on their part was an obstacle to the work which He desired to accomplish for them; and in order to give force to His teaching he was often under the necessity of defining and defending His position. By referring to His mysterious and divine character, He sought to lead their minds into a train of thought which would be favorable to the transforming power of truth. Again, He used the things of nature with which they were familiar, to illustrate divine truth. The soil of the heart was thus prepared to receive the good seed. He made His hearers feel that His interests were identified with theirs, that His heart beat in sympathy with them in their joys and griefs. At the same time they saw in Him the manifestation of power and excellence far above that possessed by their most‐honored rabbis. The teachings of Christ were marked with a simplicity, dignity, and power heretofore unknown to them, and their involuntary exclamation was: “Never man spake like this Man.” The people listened to Him gladly; but the priests and rulers‐‐themselves false to their trust as guardians of the truth‐‐hated Christ for the very grace revealed, which had drawn the multitudes away from them to follow the Light of life. Through their influence the Jewish nation, failing to discern His divine character, rejected the Redeemer. {5T 746.3}
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Paul writes to the Galatians: “I would they were even cut off which trouble you. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” {5T 243.1} False teachers had brought to the Galatians doctrines that were opposed to the gospel of Christ. Paul sought to expose and correct these errors. He greatly desired that the false teachers might be separated from the church, but their influence had affected so many of the believers that it seemed hazardous to take action against them. There was danger of causing strife and division which would be ruinous to the spiritual interests of the church. He therefore sought to impress upon his brethren the importance of trying to help one another in love. He declared that all the requirements of the law setting forth our duty to our fellow men are fulfilled in love to one another. He warned them that if they indulged hatred and strife, dividing into parties, and like the brutes biting and devouring one another, they would bring upon themselves present unhappiness and future ruin. There was but one way to prevent these terrible evils and that was, as the apostle enjoined upon them, to “walk in the Spirit.” They must by constant prayer seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which would lead them to love and unity. {5T 243.2} Our religion must be intelligent. The wisdom from above must strengthen, establish, and settle us. We must go on and on, forward and upward, from light to still greater light, and God will still reveal His glory to us as He doth not unto the world. {Battle Creek, Michigan, Jan. 6, 1889. 5T 650.3} “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long‐suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” When we are enlightened by the Spirit of God, we shall behold only the glory of Jesus. Seeing nothing but deformity in ourselves, we shall fix our eyes in faith upon Jesus. And as we contemplate the beauty of Christ’s character, we become transformed into the divine likeness. “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” {ST, December 13, 1899 par. 9} “But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). In the life of Christ this love found perfect expression. He loved us in our sin and degradation. He reached to the very depths of woe to uplift the erring sons and daughters of earth. There was no wearying of His patience, no lessening of His zeal. The waves of mercy, beaten back by proud, impenitent, unthankful hearts, ever returned in a stronger tide of love. {HP 234.2}
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 13 “The Gospel and the Church” (for December 24, 2011)
Read for this week’s study Gal. 6: 1‐10, Matt. 18: 15‐17, 1 Cor. 10: 12, Rom 15: 1, John 13: 34, Luke 22: 3
Questions for Consideration from Moderator Daniel Duda Our Scripture section for this week is naturally divided into two parts: 6:1-5 – Bearing One Another’s Burdens 6:6-10 – Practical Support in the Church 6:1-5 – Bearing One Another’s Burdens 1) What is the connection between Gal 5:22-26 and 6:1-10?
2) Why is it so tempting and easy for us to look down on other Christians? What are the lines of division today?
3) What is Paul’s solution to this attitude? How can collaboration, helping one another, create the community that God longs for us to have today? What kind of “law” is Paul talking about here?
4) Why is it important to “set right” the people who “trespass”? How can we help others without arrogance?
5) What are the burdens that we need to help each other with and those that each one must carry on their own? (see v.2. vs. v.5) What happens if we confuse them?
6) In what sense is the church like a sport’s team and in what sense it is different?
6:6-10 – Practical Support in the Church 1) Do you find it easy or difficult to ask people for money for some cause? Paul manages to write about money without ever mentioning the word. Clearly the subject must have been as delicate in his world as it is in ours. 1 2) To what extent does the quality of ministry today (teaching and preaching that builds up the church) still depend on the level of payment ministers receive?
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3) The “sowing” and “harvesting” in its original context is speaking about financial support of ministry. How is something so mundane as money connected with the “spirit” and/or the “flesh”?
4) Why do we find it so difficult as a church to invest in people? In what sense is money, and/or material things to be “sown”?
5) What is the wider meaning of “sowing to the flesh” and “sowing to the spirit” in the context of the rest of letter to Galatians?
6) What does it mean that “God is not mocked” (v. 7). Does God execute vengeance on those who turn their noses up at him? In what sense does human behavior function like farming?
Thoughts from Graham Maxwell Look what Paul says right in here. “It is the work of the Christian to mend, to restore, to heal. This healing process saves many a soul, and hides a multitude of sins.” Remember, love covers a multitude of sins, Paul says. “God is love. God is, in Himself, in His essence, love. He makes the very best of what appears an injury, and gives Satan no occasion for triumph by making the worst appear, and exposing our weakness to our enemies.” {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation titled Galatians pt 5, 1978, Loma Linda, California} “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he that sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption.” That’s the way it works. “But he that sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary in well‐doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men.” As we’ll reap good consequences from all that. “And especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Now even a statement like that, which just seems like a logical explanation of reasoning from cause to effect, reflects on the truth about God. We do not worship an arbitrary God. We reap what we sow; He does not punish us arbitrarily. The man who smokes five packs a day is not punished with lung cancer, but he’ll have a high tendency to come down with that dread disease. If I choose to ignore my opportunity to commune with God through the study of the scriptures, God won’t punish me, but I’ll reap the consequences. I won’t know Him very well. I’m susceptible to the deceptions of the adversary. These are consequences, they’re not punishments. { Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation titled Galatians pt 5, 1978, Loma Linda, California} 2
God does not condemn His struggling children. He is not only our Father, but our Divine Physician, and He knows that the habits of a lifetime are not cured overnight. And so, as we
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struggle, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all on our side to help us and to heal us. In fact, if we need discipline to overcome bad habits and learn new ones, God will give it to us. But when the discipline comes, we’ll understand He’s not angry with us. He is disciplining us because He loves us. We will not allow the discipline to disturb our peace with God. Look at Hebrews 12:11. Just a line out of that whole section on “God disciplines whom He loves as a father disciplines his son.” No discipline seems pleasant at the time. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace. In fact, if we’ve been set right with our God and we’ve been won back to love and trust, God can even turn our trials and troubles to our advantage. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation Conversations About God # 20, 1984, Loma Linda, California}
But what about His treatment of those pious, heartless accusers? He evidently knew the facts of their lives by what He wrote in the dust. Why didn't He instead gather the crowd a little closer and say, "Let Me tell you something about these pretentiously pious frauds? Do you know what this one has done, and that one?" Didn't they deserve to be exposed? What does it say about God that He didn't expose those self‐righteous accusers? Is it that God finds no pleasure in embarrassing His children? Were those accusers also members of His family? You remember, in one of our first conversations, we considered the fact that all children, good and bad, are members of God's family. God did not publicly humiliate those men; much as we would agree that they deserved it. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation Conversations About God # 13, 1984, Loma Linda, California}
Solomon fell dismally and came back. Did God say, “I will let you in but under very limited circumstances. You may sit on the back row but don’t expect to have much to say.”
When did Solomon write Ecclesiastes, before or after his dreadful fall? Then Solomon was listed among the holy men of God who was inspired to write another book in the Bible after he had wasted so much and made such a dismal failure of his life. Think of the value of his testimony, “Oh” he said, “I wish that I had remembered my creator in the days of my youth. Don’t do what I’ve done.”
That’s a very influential testimony, isn’t it, Ecclesiastes. What fools we would be to do what he did. But who looks good in Ecclesiastes? Solomon doesn’t look very good. It’s wonderful that he came back, but what do you think of the fact that God would take him back and not on 3 diminished terms.
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Now we do understand that he had lost his influence with his family. How about Jeroboam and Rehoboam? Did he ever recover his influence over them? His influence over the kingdom; it was divided thereafter. Did he get back his physical energy, get back all his wisdom? No, there were consequences to pay. You see, even though we be forgiven we’re scarred. But Solomon was not so scarred but that he still retained the capacity to respond. And he still doesn’t look good, but the God who took him back and honored him like that looks unbelievably good. And the Bible is about Him. The good news is not about Solomon, the good news is about God. And God looks wonderful in the life of Solomon. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation Romans Ch 15 & 16, 1977, Loma Linda, California}
Further Study with Ellen White Love's agencies have wonderful power, for they are divine. The soft answer that "turneth away wrath," the love that "suffereth long, and is kind," the charity that "covereth a multitude of sins" (Proverbs 15:1; 1 Corinthians 13:4, R.V.; 1 Peter 4:8, R.V.)‐‐would we learn the lesson, with what power for healing would our lives be gifted! How life would be transformed, and the earth become a very likeness and foretaste of heaven! {Ed 113‐114.}
A Practical, Working Love.‐‐To love as Christ loved means to manifest unselfishness at all times and in all places, by kind words and pleasant looks. These cost those who give them nothing, but they leave behind a fragrance that surrounds the soul. Their effect can never be estimated. Not only are they a blessing to the receiver, but to the giver; for they react upon him. Genuine love is a precious attribute of heavenly origin, which increases in fragrance in proportion as it is dispensed to others. . .
Christ's love is deep and earnest, flowing like an irrepressible stream to all who will accept it. There is no selfishness in His love. If this heaven‐born love is an abiding principle in the heart, it will make itself known, not only to those we hold most dear in sacred relationship, but to all with whom we come in contact. It will lead us to bestow little acts of attention, to make concessions, to perform deeds of kindness, to speak tender, true, encouraging words. It will lead us to sympathize with those whose hearts hunger for sympathy (MS 17, 1899). {5BC 1140.5}
The whole work of grace is one continual service of love, of self‐denying, self‐sacrificing effort. During every hour of Christ's sojourn upon the earth, the love of God was flowing from Him in irrepressible streams. All who are imbued with His Spirit will love as He loved. The very principle 4 that actuated Christ will actuate them in all their dealing one with another. {DA 677.2} This love is the evidence of their discipleship. "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples," said Jesus, "if ye have love one to another." When men are bound together, not by
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force or self‐interest, but by love, they show the working of an influence that is above every human influence. Where this oneness exists, it is evidence that the image of God is being restored in humanity, that a new principle of life has been implanted. It shows that there is power in the divine nature to withstand the supernatural agencies of evil, and that the grace of God subdues the selfishness inherent in the natural heart. {DA 677‐678}
The most powerful evidence a man can give that he has been born again and is a new man in Christ Jesus, is the manifestation of love for his brethren, the doing of Christlike deeds. This is the most wonderful witness that can be borne in favor of Christianity, and will win souls to the truth. . . . {SD 293}
All should be intelligent in regard to the agency by which the soul is destroyed. It is not because of any decree that God has sent out against man. He does not make man spiritually blind. God gives sufficient light and evidence to enable man to distinguish truth from error. But He does not force man to receive truth. He leaves him free to choose the good or to choose the evil. If man resists evidence that is sufficient to guide his judgment in the right direction, and chooses evil once, he will do this more readily the second time. The third time he will still more eagerly withdraw himself from God and choose to stand on the side of Satan. And in this course he will continue until he is confirmed in evil, and believes the lie he has cherished as truth. His resistance has produced its harvest (MS 126, 1901). {6BC 1112}
In the harvest the seed is multiplied. A single grain of wheat, increased by repeated sowings, would cover a whole land with golden sheaves. So widespread may be the influence of a single life, of even a single act.
God does not annul His laws. He does not work contrary to them. The work of sin He does not undo. But He transforms. Through His grace the curse works out blessing. {Ed 148.}
God destroys no man. Everyone who is destroyed will have destroyed himself. Everyone who stifles the admonitions of conscience is sowing the seeds of unbelief, and these will produce a sure harvest. By rejecting the first warning from God, Pharaoh of old sowed the seeds of obstinacy, and he reaped obstinacy. God did not compel him to disbelieve. The seed of unbelief which he sowed produced a harvest of its kind. Thus his resistance continued, until he looked upon his devastated land, upon the cold, dead form of his first‐born, and the first‐born of all in his house and of all the families in his kingdom, until the waters of the sea closed over his 5 horses and his chariots and his men of war. His history is a fearful illustration of the truth of the words that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Galatians 6:7. Did men but realize this, they would be careful what seed they sow. {COL 84}
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Pine Knoll Sabbath School Study Notes Fourth Quarter 2011: The Gospel in Galatians Lesson 14 “Boasting in the Cross” (for December 31, 2011)
Read for this week’s study Gal. 6:11‐18, Rom. 6:1‐6, 12:1‐8, 2 Cor. 4:10, 5:17, 11:23‐29
Questions for Consideration From Moderator Daniel Duda 1) What percentage of the mail that you receive is “junk mail”? Why is a personal touch so important in correspondence?
2) The cross is the cause of a great division not only between the world and the church but also between those in the church who are willing to face persecution and those who are not. Paul shows that the only marks on his body that matter are the wounds that he has suffered because of his allegiance to Jesus (v. 17) not the circumciser’s knife. – What is the application of this for those living in a) the Western world? b) the two‐thirds world?
3) Paul argues that circumcision makes sense only if one is willing to keep the whole law. But the “agitators” are only interested in one thing – circumcision. They make a decision which is shallow and trivial by choosing only one part of the law. NT theologian James Dunn says that the first century Judaism used three things as “boundary markers”: Sabbath, circumcision, unclean food laws. What are the “boundary markers” that people (you) use today to define who belongs to God’s people – concentrating on only one part and mostly ignoring the rest?
4) In conclusion of his letter, Paul connects the problems in Galatia with the wider issues of the whole Bible story. He wants to lift the minds and hearts of his readers beyond the details of campaigns and plots in the early church to what God is trying to accomplish with the wider cosmos. How is the death and resurrection of Jesus connected with what God is trying to achieve in his cosmos?
5) Through Jesus God has unleashed upon the world his new creation and through the gospel of Jesus invites all to share equally in its blessings, its present reality, and its future promises. Those who respond in faith belong to the “God of Israel” (v. 16). Thus they are after all: Abraham’s family (ch. 3), Isaac’s family rather than Ishmael’s family (ch. 4), fulfilling the whole law by loving one another (ch. 5). What does it mean to be part of God’s chosen people today?
6) Paul ends his letter to Galatians the way he started – with the grace. Like Paul’s apostleship (ch. 1), the gospel does not come from human sources, or inventions. Being part of God’s people is 1 not defined by human categories. Grace reaches out and embraces the whole world, bringing the presence and joy of the Spirit. What does the Seventh‐day Adventist Church need to do in order to become known as the “grace people”?
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Thoughts from Graham Maxwell
To do the right thing for the wrong reason because you have the wrong perception of God can turn you into God’s worst enemies. And the angels got the message. “So that’s why the only way you can set us right and keep us right is to tell us the truth about Yourself. You never said love Me or I’ll kill you.” The people who killed Christ had no problem with “Love Me or I’ll kill you. Obey Me or I’ll kill you.” No problem with that. The sovereign had the right to do it. And God said, “If you obey me from fear,” now I’m quoting from Ellen White, “the obedience that springs from fear produces the character of a rebel.” And He wanted the universe to see it. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio presentation titled Atonement and Your Picture of God, 1983, San Diego, California } The description of God’s Sabbath‐keeping people in those days, a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, schooled in the law, a corrector of the foolish, don’t we claim to be such? But just as the legalism of Paul’s day led those who really wanted to do what was right, but hadn’t found the right way, to a condition of wretchedness, the word means, one of its literal meanings is: worn out from hard work, trying so hard but it doesn’t work. In a way the legalist who’s really trying hard deserves respect and sympathy. He’s working his head off to do what’s right but in the wrong way, doing the right thing for the wrong reason; volunteering, you know, to an extra night of ingathering. I mean, often they’re the backbone of church, these folk who are doing the right thing for the wrong reason. That’s why one should be very kind toward such because it isn’t going to work, hard as they try. { Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio series on the book of Romans, Ch 7, 1977, Loma Linda, California} This is the greatest revelation of the truth about God, and the answer to Satan’s charges and the questions of the loyal universe. Nothing speaks so eloquently of the truth about God in the great controversy than the unique and awful death of Christ. To us it’s the power of God unto salvation; it’s the primary basis of our faith. { Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio series on the book of Romans, Ch 9, 1977, Loma Linda, California }
Paul said to start his speech, “Oh, people of Athens, I see that in all things you are deisidaimonesteros”, that’s one word. “You’re very religious. Why,” he said, “you’re so religious, you even have an altar to the unknown god. I’d like to tell you about Him.” That’s a very fine way to start the speech. And then he went on quoting philosophers and learned scholars. And some were impressed, and some were won. And Ellen White doesn’t agree with some of us who make light of that speech. She says “Hear him match logic with logic, and philosophy with philosophy.” She was proud of him. But it still wasn’t the best way, and Paul said on reflection, “I don’t think I did it the best way. From now on I will preach nothing but Christ, and Him crucified.” Would that be a narrowing of his message, or a refocusing of his message on the broadest possible base? Now he would speak to the truth about God in the great 2 controversy. It was a larger, not a smaller message; a broader rather than a narrower one. It’s just that he was reoriented now. He would always be talking about the truth, revealed by Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. “By which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision
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counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” The plan of salvation does not just offer forgiveness, but it offers a new creation. And now this is a very important verse for us to understand, that Heaven is not going to be peopled by pardoned criminals, but with newly created saints. There has got to be a change there, a new heart and a right spirit. I think that’s a most important statement. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio series on the book of Galatians, session 5, 1978, Loma Linda, California }
Now, does the death of Christ accomplish all that needs to be done? By His simply being given up, and dying in such agony that the pain of crucifixion was hardly felt. In fact, He died long before you normally die from crucifixion, terrible as that is. But He seemed to be much more concerned about His relation with His Father. "My God! My God! Why have You forsaken Me?" And He died so quickly from that experience. And you remember, when the spear was thrust in His side, they couldn't believe He was already dead and the evidence there that this was unique, totally different.
But He rose on Sunday. And we discussed this before. If He died to "pay the price of sin", what is the price of sin? To die for a day, or to die in exquisite agony and rise on Sunday? Or is it to die and stay dead forever? Or if you believe in hell, the wages of sin is to go to hell and suffer for eternity. If Jesus died to pay the price of sin, He should either be, depending on your understanding of things at the end, He should be writhing in the flames for eternity? Or He should be staying dead forever? And He rose on Sunday. And you remember He ascended to heaven, His triumphal return. Did they say, "Look, hurry back. You're supposed to be paying the price of sin?" Or had He answered the questions in the great controversy about the righteousness and the justice and the love of God. Who said God had lied about death being the result of sin? And who loves to picture God as the executioner and the torturer of His wayward children? Was this all answered by the way Jesus died? And once He'd answered the questions, why stay dead any longer? In fact, Romans 4:25 says, "He was raised for our justification." He was raised on Sunday to continue with the work He'd been doing before. Not He died for our justification. He was raised for our justification. {Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio series Picture of God in All 66 – Romans, Riverside, California}
Now is this blessing pronounced only upon the circumcised or also upon the uncircumcised? We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he was circumcised? See what a telling argument this would be with circumcised Jews, you see. It was not after; it was before he was circumcised. Abraham’s faith was mentioned and reckoned to him as righteousness before he was even circumcised. Now he received circumcision. God instructed him to do that, as a sign or a seal of the righteousness which he had by faith, while he was still uncircumcised. How about that? You see, our works are just evidence of the quality of our relationship with God. What He wants is that relationship. The works will follow. If I go around cheating, lying, stealing, and killing, and misbehaving, and acting like an utterly untrustworthy person, how can I say: Oh, I do love God and I want to be His child, and I have faith? 3 James says that’s nonsense. Faith is shown by works, appropriate works. Paul had said that earlier in Romans, you remember. “It isn't merely the hearers of the word who are justified, but the doers.”
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Faith is a willingness to listen to God and to accept His counsel and to do the things He asks us to do; and, God said to Abraham, I want you to practice circumcision. That is, what God chose in the culture of that time as a sign of the relationship we've already established, a relationship of trust. Now the purpose was to make him the father of all who have faith without being circumcised, and thus, have righteousness reckoned to them. But then he hastens to say, “And likewise the father of the circumcised, who are not merely are circumcised, but also follow the example of the faith, which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” {{ Graham Maxwell, excerpt from the audio series on the book of Romans, Ch 4, 1977, Loma Linda, California }
Further Study with Ellen White
Through the cross we learn that our heavenly Father loves us with an infinite and everlasting love, and draws us to Him with more than a mother's yearning sympathy for a wayward child. Can we wonder that Paul exclaimed, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"? It is our privilege also to glory in the cross of Calvary, our privilege to give ourselves wholly to Him who gave Himself for us. Then with the light of love that shines from His face on ours, we shall go forth to reflect it to those in darkness {RH April 29, 1902}. None of the apostles and prophets ever claimed to be without sin. Men who have lived the nearest to God, men who would sacrifice life itself rather than knowingly commit a wrong act, men whom God has honored with divine light and power, have confessed the sinfulness of their nature. They have put no confidence in the flesh, have claimed no righteousness of their own, but have trusted wholly in the righteousness of Christ.
So will it be with all who behold Christ. The nearer we come to Jesus, and the more clearly we discern the purity of His character, the more clearly shall we see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the less shall we feel like exalting ourselves. There will be a continual reaching out of the soul after God, a continual, earnest, heartbreaking confession of sin and humbling of the heart before Him. At every advance step in our Christian experience our repentance will deepen. We shall know that our sufficiency is in Christ alone and shall make the apostle's confession our own: "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing." "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Romans 7:18; Galatians 6:14. {AA 561.}
We should not wish to invent something to make a cross; but if God presents to us a cross, we should cheerfully bear it. . .Christ was hated by the world because He was not of the world. Can 4 His followers expect to fare better than their Master? {1T 525.2}
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Christ came to the world that we might become new creatures, created after the similitude of his own character; that we might have purity like the purity of God, have perfection like his perfection. In the work of regeneration, the original loveliness begins to be restored. The attributes of the character of Christ are imparted to the soul, and the image of the divine begins to shine forth. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." It is plainly declared that a change takes place in the character of the human agent. In the Christian life we are not assured that we shall be freed from trials, but that grace will be given us to bear them. We are individually called to go through temptations and trials, but the object for which they are permitted to come upon us is that we may be perfected in grace and love, that the image of selfishness may disappear, and the image of Christ appear in our characters, as we advance from glory to glory, from character to character, following on to know the Lord. The soul polluted by sin, through divine power is recreated after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness. Ushered into the Christian life we no longer complain of darkness; for we have the light of life and joy which Christ said would be in all who abide in him. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name; ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." In place of having less love as we advance in the Christian life, we are to have love that will increase more and more until our love is perfected; and where there is perfect love, there is full joy. We can be happy when we see God in everything. When we can see him in affliction, we have comfort and solace in our sorrow. When the sunshine of prosperity smiles, we recognize that the blessing flows from the fountain of life, and when trial and affliction are ours, we realize that the hand of the Lord is in all our perplexities, and thus we come to understand that sunshine and shadow are needful to perfect the character of the believer, and give him the true joy of perfect trust in God; for through faith he looks beyond the things that are seen to the things that are unseen. He says, "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth 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." {ST, August 21, 1893} As the sinner, drawn by the love of Christ, approaches the cross, and prostrates himself before it, there is a new creation. A new heart is given him. He becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. Holiness finds that it has nothing more to require. God Himself is "the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." And "whom He justified, them He also glorified." Great as is the shame and degradation through sin, even greater will be the honor and exaltation through redeeming love. To human beings striving for conformity to the divine image, there is imparted 5 an outlay of heavenly treasures, an excellency of power, that will place them higher than even the angels who have never sinned. {ST, June 4, 1902}
Study Collection Prepared May 2011 |© Pine Knoll Publications