Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here’s the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That’s how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that’s been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.
But when I saw that they were not maintaining a steady, straight course according to the Message, I spoke up to Peter in front of them all: “if you, a jew, live like a non-Jew when you’re not being observed by the watchdogs from Jerusalem, what right do you have to require non-Jews to conform to Jewish customs just to make a favorable impression on your old Jerusalem Buddies?”
We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over “non-Jewish sinners.” We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—-and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! COnvinces that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.
Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was “trying to be good.” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a pretender.
What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit benign a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.
Galatians 2:11-21
Leaving the Hospital
My dearest sisters, this world is brutal. At every turn, this world tries to infiltrate my mind. Oh, the diligence!
I once read a story about a man going to a psych hospital where no one seemed crazy. The patients spoke with such precision and concern. He then talked to the doctor, feeling that they must be sane. “They’re mad,” the doctor said. “They talk very sensibly, I admit, but it is all about themselves. They are, in fact, most intelligently obsessed with ‘self.’ It’s ‘self’—-morning, noon, and night. We can’t get away from ‘self’ here. We lug it along with us, even through our dreams. O, yes, young sir, we talk sensibly, but we’re mad right enough.”
Our world is the “self” possessed hospital we perceive as sane. God has no mention. All those who become emersed in and let the world dominate the conversation become frightened, anxious, inhibited, and demoralized. Those who accept the world’s definition of values and respond in knee-jerk fashion to everything the world calls an emergency become frightened, anxious, inhibited, and demoralized. In the world, it is not possible to live freely.
We chose to turn around on our journey, to head back up the hill. Putting it mildly, It’s a fight. We deliberately decided to escape the world’s hospital. Changing our thought patterns (our old-self way of thinking) is the hardest part. It’s so much easier to go with the flow of society. It’s tempting to return. The doctors and administrators of the world’s hospitals want us back. But we aren’t going. We are going to live freely. Who are we to believe in an invisible God instead of all this cleverly crafted propaganda? We are Christians, Christ’s followers. Along our journey, we encourage one another to live free and stay free.
no amount of anything we DO can set us right with God.
Paul tried living according to the world’s hospital and broke free. He found new life; he found clean air to breathe. He wrote to the believers in Galatia, “…(we) well know that a person is not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—-and had the best system of rules the world has ever seen. Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus Christ so that we might be set right before God by faith in Christ, not by trying to be good.”
You see, sisters, no amount of anything we DO can set us right with God. All our efforts to please, to not let down, to make God happy, or try not to make him sad or mad at us are just wearing us out, breaking us down. All that effort makes our journey to freedom so much more challenging.
Our reset, being put back to God’s original design, only comes as a result of allowing God to work through us.
We have been “justified by faith in Christ.” Justification simply means being put together the way we are supposed to be. Made right—-not improved, not decorated, not patched up, but a factory reset.
Justified by Christ in faith means returning to how He created us to be, not all that the world has told us we should be. Justification is a very personal act by a very personal God. In and of ourselves, we can never reset. Our reset, being put back to God’s original design, only comes as a result of allowing God to work through us. Factory reset is only possible in communion through Him, by faith, a free person’s involvement, not by a system or program in the church. No amount of self-determination can achieve this.
Our belief in Jesus Christ restores us to the conditions of our creation so that our wills can respond to God’s love. There are programs offered to us, heroes to emulate, systems of right and wrong to follow, and improvements that do happen. But justification involves one thing and one thing alone, a relationship with God and God alone. If we are to live freely, it is only by Him and through Him.