Life-study of Galatians

Book excerpt: The book of Galatians reveals that in God's economy, Christ replaces the law, and it is religion versus tradition. The churches in Galatia had begun well, receiving the Spirit through faith, but were now striving to be perfected by the flesh through the law (3:3). The Judaizers had bewitched the Galatians so that they considered the ordinances of the law above the Son of the living God. Paul responds by telling the distracted Galatians that Christ "gave Himself for our sins, that He might rescue us out of the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father" (1:4). In this book, the current evil age is not the secular world but the religious world in its present manifestation which distracts God's people from the living person of the Son of God. This book exposes the inability both of the law and of circumcision, showing that the law cannot impart life to regenerate us and that circumcision cannot energize us to live a new creation. But the Son of God who has been revealed in us can enliven us to make us a new creation, and the Christ who lives in us can afford us the riches of His life to live the new creation. The desire of God’s heart is not that we would keep the law but that His Son would be revealed in us, operate in us, live in us, and be formed in us that we may know Him, receive Him as our life, and become the sons of God individually and the household of the faith corporately. The book of Galatians unveils that the crucified Christ, not the law with its ordinances, is the center of God's economy.