Galatians 1 Devotional
by Pastor Lawrence
The churches in the Galatian province of the Roman Empire were some of the earliest that Paul had planted on his first missionary tour between 46 and 48 AD. While planting elsewhere, in his absence, some Jewish teachers had entered the church and begun teaching salvation by works rather than salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. They also had questioned Paul’s authority as an apostle as well as the gospel that he preached. This epistle written to the Galatians is Paul’s response to these attacks on the gospel itself as well as a defense of his own ministry and calling.
In this first chapter, Paul opens his letter by assuring his readers that the gospel he preaches comes from Christ rather than men, that his call to apostleship is also through Christ and God the Father rather than from or through men. Consequently, Paul is not seeking the approval of men but of God, since he is a servant of God himself. And the gospel that Paul preaches is not only good news in terms of the world to come, but is also good news for the current world in which we live.
In v.4 Paul says that the Lord Jesus Christ “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.” In this statement there is a signpost pointing to a better world and a better age to come that we who believe in Christ will fully enjoy in the future in the very presence of the Lord. But there is also hope given to us even now as we find ourselves stuck in between two worlds.
Right now, in the present, evil age, there is much corruption and sin, foolishness and misery that prevails over everything, contaminating and corrupting everything that God has made good. The world system in which we live is in constant enmity with God. And the half-brother of Jesus warns us in James 4:4 “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” The Lord has not only delivered us from our sin and his holy wrath, he has also delivered us from this present evil age with its power of conformity to make everyone follow the same fashions, the same philosophies and the same path toward destruction.
The power of the Holy Spirit within us has freed us from that conformity to evil and has given us a new understanding of our citizenship in heaven, a new desire to serve in the Lord’s kingdom, and a new ability to walk according to God’s precepts, not in order to gain our salvation, since our calling is all of grace, but rather to obey the Lord simply because it is right and good and pleases the Lord. The Galatians with their new teachings had lost this power of grace that teaches them to say no to ungodliness and to worldly passions in order that they might live upright, and godly lives in this present age waiting for Christ’s return to usher in the consummation of the ages.
Merely seeking to keep the law to earn one’s salvation will never free an individual from slavery to this present evil age. It is only through the grace of our Lord Jesus, through the power of the gospel that people really change in life, that we experience true joy and rest in the Lord, and can walk in the freedom for which we were saved. So we must never lose sight of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, if we do, we will turn back toward the slavery that Christ has freed us from. Slavery to this present, evil age.