Galatians 3 To Bring Us to Christ

There are 39 books in the Old Testament.

A person could be beaten with not more than 40 lashes, and it came to be 40 stripes minus 1 (=39).

Deu 25:2  And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number. Deu 25:3  Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee. 

2Co 11:24  Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. 

The law (OT) is our tutor to bring us to Christ.

Gal 3:24  Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 

One way we learn is by chastisement

Chastisement=stripes

Heb 12:5  And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? Heb 12:10  For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

So, it seems that the 39 books of the Old Testament are the "stripes" which chastise us and bring us to Christ...

Galatians 4:4-5 Made Under the Law

Gal 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5  To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.


Christians glibly state that Jesus came to save people from their sins, and that is true. But what does it mean? In verse 4, we are told that He was born under the law, and verse 5 says He came "to redeem them that were under the law."
--To what law is Paul referring? In the context of the Galatian letter, it seems to be Torah, the law which was given by God through Moses. Jesus was born under this law, that is what is referred to in verse 4. He was born a Jew. But there is another law more basic than Torah, which applies to everyone.

Jesus, when asked what the most important commandment was, summed up all of the Old Testament this way:

"Mat 22:37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38  This is the first and great commandment. 39  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

 So if one does not love God and one's neighbor in this way all the time one has sinned, and is under the law spoken of in Galatians 4:5. Since no one can do this all the time, everyone has sinned, and "... the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 6:23) This is the other law--the law of sin and death.

The point is, we cannot do enough to make up for even one sin. But Jesus came to release us from doing work to try to be good enough for God.  Keeping the law is a burden we cannot bear; it is too heavy. But Jesus kept the law, and paid the penalty we owe for not keeping it, for us. As soon as we realize that we can't, but Jesus did, we can relax and accept God's gift of life through Him. That was the purpose of His coming; to give us life.

No Magic Words

Galatians 2:20   I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.


Do you have Jesus? There are no magic words. In your heart, do you want Jesus?

Does He fill you? Do you want more of Him? Do you want His power in your life? Do you want to know Him, and the power of His resurrection? Are you willing to die? Are you ready to die? There are no magic words, no special days, no rituals, nothing. There is Jesus, and you. Do you want Him? Or do you want you: your things, your home, your friends, your family, your job?

Do you want Jesus? Are you ready to stand in rags before Him? No new dress, no hair dye, no make-up. Are you ready for Him to clothe you? Do you want Jesus?

Do you want what He wants? Can you accept His gifts? Can you see His signs? Can you see His death, His burial, His resurrection? Can you see relationships healed, bodies healed, souls healed? Not gold dust, not feathers, not holy laughter. He does not do those things. He does not need to. He is God. There are no magic words.

He will use any willing vessel: you, your neighbor, your mother, your father, your spouse, your child. Name any person you can think of, someone you admire, someone famous, who is not Jesus. That person cannot save you, heal you, heal your relationships, or give you what you need. That person can only, maybe, lead you to Jesus. Do you want Jesus? Be still. Don’t run. He is right beside you. You are in His presence right now. 

I want Jesus. Do you?

Galatians 5:16-18 Under the Law

Galatians 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18  But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

There is a lot of talk about whether Christians are under the law, and what place the law has in a Christian's life. Well, I want to share something from this passage which God just showed me.

In his letters, Paul talks a lot about the law. I won't try to go through all that here, it is a huge study. But in these verses, he concludes by saying if we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law. This does not mean that Christians are never, ever accountable to God's law. It does mean that IF I, as a Christian, am being led by the Holy Spirit, THEN I am not under the law.
Conversely, if I, as a Christian, am being led by my sinful, fleshly desires, then I AM under the law, and the Holy Spirit uses it to convict me of my sin.