God’s Word for You

Galatians 5:4-6 Faith working through love

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, August 1, 2024

4 You are completely cut off from Christ if you are trying to be justified by the law. You have fallen from grace.

“Completely cut off.” This is the Greek word katargeo (καταργέω), which has three related meanings. First, it can be to waste something (like a dead tree “using up” the soil, Luke 13:7). Second, it can be to end something’s power or life, as in Christ “breaking the power of death” (2 Timothy 1:10 ), or the fading of Moses’ radiant face (2 Corinthians 3:7) or the ending of a war. Here it means to be cut off, to have the connection wrecked and destroyed. There is no going back when someone wants to be declared innocent and holy through their own efforts. They have made Christ something less by adding themselves. It’s like a man being saved from drowning by a strong swimmer, but then the one who was drowning says, “I know a better way to shore,” and then pulls them both under the waves to die.

“You have fallen from grace” is the same as saying, “You have shipwrecked your faith.” This is like a tree branch saying to the tree, “I’m better off without you,” and cutting itself free. How long does a branch live without any connection to the tree’s roots and sap? It’s already nothing but lumber as soon as the connection ends, even though the tree continues to live.

Often, our own doubt and our own sinful human nature is what gets in the way. Remember, one’s own personal tendency to want to add to what Jesus did is the biggest Gospel-twister of all. Thank Jesus today that he has wiped away our sins. Anything else doesn’t cut it. Anything else does not equal forgiveness. Any works-righteousness equals the total loss of God’s gift in Christ. Anything but Jesus just isn’t Jesus.

5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we are eagerly waiting for the sure hope of righteousness.

“Through the Spirit, by faith” is Paul saying that Christians (“we”) are led by the Holy Spirit, but you Galatians (who are in danger of falling away) are being led away by the Judaizers. The “by faith” part of the verse shows the means of how this righteousness comes. We apprehend it, grasp it, hold on to it, by faith.

“Sure hope” is my translation here of elpida (ἐλπίδα), “hope.” Since in English we have begun to think of hope as an uncertain thing, a maybe but maybe not thing, we need to say “sure hope” or “hope with certainty” here, since Paul means something that is coming in the future, certainly coming and without a doubt, but simply not here yet. For “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). Last night my city had a pretty good storm. The lightning flashed across the sky, there was a quick heartbeat, and then the thunder rolled over us. The thunder was on its way, but for that instant after the flash of lightning, the thunder just wasn’t here yet. It was “surely coming, certainly on its way.” This is how we wait for the actual and final righteousness that will be ours in heaven. Christ has erupted out of the tomb like a wild, bright flash of lightning. We benefit from him; we have the certainty of his righteousness coming for us, but like the roar of the thunder, it has not arrived yet. That will be when we, too, erupt out of our tombs, raised by the voice of Christ himself. “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out” (John 5:28-29). And Paul says: “The Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command… and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. Instead, it is faith working through love that counts.

Circumcision, or uncircumcision? Is one good, and the other evil? Neither has any value, either way. Circumcision is not in the discussion of eternal life. My mother always grew snapdragons in her flowerbed. What if someone came along and said, “You have to have snapdragons to get into heaven”? I know that that’s nonsense, and my mother would have said it even more quickly than I could. But there might be a little blister of smugness that would say, “Aha—I know you don’t need a snapdragon to get into heaven, but I have one, so maybe that’s something in my favor, anyway, like having extra food on the stove in case guests come. There isn’t any benefit at all, and it would be better to dig up all the snapdragons and burn them than be tempted to think that they have any value. So it is with circumcision. The Jews who were circumcised as week-old babies should not be led to think that this had any spiritual value anymore. And more than that, they should not compel anyone to be circumcised as a path to being a Christian. To be baptized is to have your sins washed away; to be circumcised no longer has any meaning or spiritual value at all, since Christ fulfilled the law (Luke 24:44).

Now, does “faith working through love” mean that works really, or secretly, contribute anything? No, not at all. But James says (and James, too, is an inspired author of God’s holy word): “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says that he has faith but has no works? Is that faith able to save him? Suppose that a brother or sister has no clothes and no food day after day, yet one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but does not give them what their body needs, what good is it? Such a faith by itself that has no works is dead” (James 2:14-17). When we read the whole passage in James, we see that he is not making a case for letting our works get us into heaven. Rather, he is acting like a coach, encouraging us to put our faith into practice. It is not the practice of faith that saves; it is the faith that saves. But faith that does not act is dead, like a tree limb that has fallen away from the tree. This is the nature and characteristic of faith: that it reveals itself through love.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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