Chapter 1: What is the significance of the Day of Atonement in relation to Christ?
Paul is saying, the whole point of the Day of Atonement that was celebrated every year, century after century after century after century, pointed ahead to the ultimate sacrifice in the blood of the Messiah that would be offered once and for all, never again to be repeated. And after that finished work of Jesus was accomplished, you want to go back to the shadows?
You want to go back to those observations? You're not under that obligation now.
You know, it's easy for us in the 21st century to scoff at those early Jewish converts in the Galatian church. They were tempted to add to the gospel as they looked back to the Old Testament ceremonies. But this stands as a reminder to all of us to examine if we have begun to add things to the gospel. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and this is the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
If you live near Houston, Texas, I'd like to invite you to Renewing Your Mind Live on Tuesday, March 17. Whether you're a longtime listener or you've only recently discovered this daily program, I want to connect with you and thank you for listening.
You'll have an opportunity to meet me and our guest teachers during a night filled with biblical teaching, fellowship, and giveaways as we seek to have our minds renewed according to the Word of God. You can learn more and register at renewingyourmind.org slash Houston. Well, R.C. Sproul is making his way through Galatians chapter 4 on Sundays, and I'm glad you're with us today.
But if you'd like to study all of Galatians with Dr. Sproul, I do encourage you to request his single-volume commentary when you give a donation in support of the proclamation of the biblical gospel to the nations at renewingyourmind.org. If you have your Bible with you, here's Dr. Sproul in Galatians 4, beginning in verse 8.
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn your back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years, I'm afraid that I have labored over you in vain.
Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. You know 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 receive me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. What then has become of your blessedness?
For I testify to you that if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out. You may make much of them."
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Chapter 2: How do early Jewish converts in Galatia struggle with the gospel?
You served and worshiped things that were made by your own hands, things that are creatures, and all the while you did not know God.
Now that's sort of perplexing because the apostle Paul, this same apostle, when he wrote his letter to the Romans, begins his study of Romans and the unfolding of the gospel by saying in the first chapter that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and all ungodliness of men. And what was that combined unrighteousness and ungodliness?
Paul goes on to explain, because God has revealed Himself plainly and manifestly to every person in this world. And so through the things that are made, we know even His eternal power and deity, and Paul says, therefore they are without excuse. Paul goes on to say, for knowing God, They did not worship Him as God, neither were they grateful. But what happened?
They exchanged, they traded, they swapped the glory of God for the creature and served and worshiped the creature rather than the God and the Creator who is blessed forever. And they began to bow down. to four-legged things and creeping things and all sorts of man-made idols.
So Paul makes that abundantly clear that no man has an excuse because everybody already knows that God exists, and yet here he is, he's saying that they don't know God. Now, does Paul contradict himself? No, not at all. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he said that by human wisdom you knew not God.
Now, when he talks about the knowledge of God, he uses a word that's very important in the New Testament. It has the same nuances in the Old Testament. It's the word for knowledge. We get the word gnosis, diagnosis, prognosis. The word knowledge here is from the Greek word gnosis. The word agonosis, meaning without knowledge, and the Latin for that word is what, Vesta? Ignoramus.
This word knowledge has two different references. On the one hand, it refers to a cognitive awareness, and every creature in the universe has an intellectual or cognitive awareness of God. And yet at the same time, it has a much deeper meaning where it talks about a meaning of knowing by way of personal intimacy. when the Bible says that Adam knew his wife and she conceived.
We aren't to believe that the minute he was introduced to Eve that he now had a cognitive awareness of her identity, and therefore she got pregnant. No. or Abraham knew his wife and she conceived. The word to know there is used for the deepest knowledge of intimacy, and that's the word that is used for us in the New Testament in terms of a saving knowledge of God.
And so Paul says, you didn't know God in that sense, but now you know God. But then he corrects himself in midstream, not really a correction as if he made a mistake, but he wants to clarify what he was trying to say when he says, but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God. What's the difference? Isn't it the same thing to know God as it is to be known by God?
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Chapter 3: What contrasts does Paul draw between knowing God and being known by God?
And he says, that's all gone. And he said, brothers, I beg you, become as I am. What's he saying? I'm not subject to that old economy anymore. I don't observe those days and seasons and all that anymore. I'm a Jew. I'm a Jew of Jews, a Pharisee of Pharisees. You can't get more Jewish than I am, but those things have been fulfilled, and I'm not in bondage to that anymore. I'm free in Christ."
And he said, didn't me no wrong when I came to you. You knew it was because of a bodily ailment or a physical infirmity that I preached the gospel to you at first." Oh, this phrase, physical infirmity or bodily ailment, it's almost intoxicating to scholars. They want to dig and find out what was the bodily ailment he was talking about. He talked about having a thorn in the flesh in another case.
He talks about writing with big letters because his vision was impaired. I frankly don't know, but I happen to think that what Paul's talking about, because something that was obviously visible, anybody that could see him would immediately recognize that there was something wrong about the man. Well, in the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives a quick autobiography.
He said, I don't want to indulge in this kind of discussion. He says, I speak as a fool. Some of you bragging about Jews, so am I, and all of that. He says, you want to boast? I'll tell you what. Let me tell you what I've gone through to be an apostle. Five times I was lashed 40 lashes minus one. That's 195 lashes with bits of stone and metal in that whip that tears the flesh to the bone.
Can you imagine anybody walking around still alive who's been lashed five times? Three times I've been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, and they dragged what they thought was my corpse to the outside gates of the city, and they left me there for dead. Three times I was shipwrecked, a day and a night I spent in the sea." I think Paul's body was one mass of scar tissue.
I don't think he walked boldly into the Galatians. He limped. It barely moved. Massive scars all over his body. Most people would look at this figure and look at how grotesque he appeared and would shy away from him in embarrassment. And Paul said, you didn't do that. You didn't do me any wrong when I preached the gospel to you at first.
And though my condition was a trial to you, you didn't scorn me or despise me. But you received Me as if you were receiving an angel of God, as if you were receiving Christ Himself. What now has become of your blessedness? For I testified to you that if possible you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to Me. Now have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth."
No quicker way to make enemies than to tell your friends the truth. They make so much of you, but for no good purpose. He's talking about the false teachers. They want to shut you out that you might make much of them. Now it's always good to be made much of for a good purpose. Now, not only with you, when I'm present with you, He says, my little children.
He doesn't call them foolish Galatians now. He doesn't call them the bewitched ones. Now the pastoral heart of the apostle Paul is beginning to come out, and he says possessively, not little children, not that you're acting like kids. You say, my, my little children, you're my babies. And he says, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you."
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