Back Into Bondage Series

Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray once informed a man who had appeared before him in a lower court and had escaped conviction on a technicality, "I know that you are guilty and you know it, and I wish you to remember that one day you will stand before a better and wiser Judge, and that there you will be dealt with according to justice and not according to law."

Some time later the same man was surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, the thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down the other side, and found himself in the city jail (Oops: The Book of Blunders, 1980).

Having escaped bondage, the thief found himself drawn back into crime and back into bondage.

In our passage from Galatians today we find the Apostle Paul dismayed that His Galatian friends having been set free from the bondage of sin, were so willing to head into bondage of another sort--the bondage of the law. Because of his deep concern about them he tries to help them understand the difference between the way of the Gospel and the way of the Law.

Transition: .The passage breaks down neatly into three paragraphs each contrasting a different aspect of Law vs. Gospel. The first is the...

1. Contrast of Freedom

vv. 8-11 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

Actually we have a comparison of three states here: The state of these gentile believers before their conversion, as pagans serving other gods; their state after conversion, trusting in Christ for salvation; and their state if they should choose to follow the teaching of the new teachers to follow the Law of Moses.

For those of you joining us for the first time in this series of sermons, it’s important that you understand that the occasion of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is that a group of Jewish teachers, that we know as the Judaizers, have been telling these non-Jewish Christians that if they really want to be acceptable before God they need to follow the Old Testament teaching of the Law and basically that they must first become Jews to be good Christians.

Paul on the other hand is arguing that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the price for their sins and that the only way to be acceptable to God is to accept His sacrifice, to trust in what Jesus did. That is, we are saved by faith alone, we don’t earn it by following any set of rules, it is a gift of God in response to our trust in Jesus Christ.

This is the message that Paul preached when he was in Galatia, the message that the Galatians had received and trusted in. Paul makes it clear that they had left a life of Idolatry. In verse 8 he says "when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods."

But then they accepted the Gospel message and "knew God" or rather were "known by Him" this emphasizes the fact that ultimately their salvation was not by their choice to know God, but by God’s choice to reveal His truth to them.

Now the Judaizers have come along with their new message: you need to follow these rules if you want God to accept you. Amazingly Paul equates this bondage with the first bondage. He doesn’t even say that it’s bondage of a different kind. How can this be? After all wasn’t it God who gave the law to Moses? Imagine the looks on the faces of the Judaizers when this letter was read aloud in the church! "how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?"

How can the law of God be equated with pagan worship? When it is used for a purpose it was never intended for. Over the last few weeks we have learned that the law was never intended to make men acceptable to God, Faith has always been what God really wanted from Man, the law was given as a stop gap measure until the promise was fulfilled in Christ, it was protective custody to spare God’s people from the harmful effects of sin. To use it to try to earn God’s favor is a misuse.