DAY 268

JUST ONE MORE THING…

Song of Solomon 4 & 5 and Galatians 3

Anyone who every watched the TV show Columbo knows that the line, “just one more thing” never-ever meant ONE.

Consider for a moment the following scenario. Let’s say you have figured something out, for example, how to finally get a good night’s sleep. You have struggled for years and someone has come along and given you just the right piece of information, you receive it, and sleep well. After a little while someone else comes along, hears your story, notes that it is terrific you’ve learned how to sleep, but they tell you that it is not enough. They say you have to do more. Not only do you have to sleep, but you have to work at sleeping nine hours a night. They pull out studies and more to show you. The next night you sleep, but wake after 7 hours and 52 minutes. You think, “oh no, I need to sleep longer, I must work at sleeping longer.” For the next 1 hour and 8 minutes you try and try. Finally at the 9^th hour you jump out of bed, exhausted, so that you can end this mandatory “slumber.” Sound silly? Of course, it does. But let’s say you work at it and manage to do it. You meet those “nine hours of sleep advice givers” and tell them the good news. They say, “Great, nine hours of sleeping on your back is perfect.” You say, “On my back…no I sleep on my side.” To which they reply, “No, no this is terrible you must sleep on your back.” That night you try, and things go from bad to worse. Silly…stupid even…of course…and this is what Paul is taking about as he begins chapter 3.

Paul begins you “stupid” Galatians. Some Bibles translate it “foolish” but “stupid” is equally accurate. Here is what is going on. As I have said, the Galatians have received the Good News that Jesus, God the Son, came to earth, took all our sins on the Cross, put them to death, and then He defeated death. That those who believe in the Son of God can have their sins, their mistakes, dealt with by the Cross—in fact God offers this gift freely. And this is not a “transaction” but rather an invitation to a lifelong relationship with God.

The Galatians have received this gift. But then some other Jewish Christians come into the city and say, “Yes it is wonderful you have received Jesus, now you just need to become Jewish, so get circumcised (ouch!). Let’s say some men do. The next word they would receive is, “Great, but just one more thing.” There is not one more, there are 630+ more. What happened to the good night’s sleep…I mean that free gift of Grace from God? It just got removed.

Paul is more than a bit annoyed. He has to deal with a few things—what about how the Jewish people are chosen and from Abraham, and what about the Law, are not these good things? Paul points out that Abraham “believed and it was counted to him as righteousness”—you have read this in Genesis. Abraham believed…not Abraham did something. And what about being Jewish? It is a good thing because it is through the Jewish line, through Abraham, that Messiah has come for the world. BUT HERE IS THE POINT…for there is no longer Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female…for we are all one in Christ Jesus. You have read this before in Romans, but in Galatians Paul makes the point a bit differently which is good for us to study again.

So what of the Law? Again, we spoke about this when we read Romans. The Law kept us on track until Jesus Christ came. The Law reveals how God hopes we would live. The Law also reveals how we cannot live this way and so we need God. And God in his mercy has given himself to us through the Cross. And once we “get it” we have not completed a transaction, there is not “just one more thing,” rather we have entered a new life…one that never ends.