Have you ever wanted to be another ethnicity or nationality or even religion? When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nun when I grew up. My mother told me that that would be a stretch since I was being raised in a Baptist family ... But, I was enraptured by that t.v. show, "The Flying Nun", which starred Sally Fields, whose considerable talents were severely underutilized in that series. I just thought nuns were cool. As I got older I realized that the nunnery, indeed, did not align with my faith beliefs and so abandoned that "calling".
As a young Baptist chickie, though, I also wished that I could have some Jewish blood flowing through my veins. Understand that my immediate family is as "garden-variety" as you can get. (One of these days I want to jump into the ancestry study thing; but, that is probably for my next decade of life, God willing.)
In Galatians 3 Paul talks to the Galatians about the spiritual parentage of a Christian. Who can become a child of God, through Jesus Christ? Lineage was a big thing to Jews of that day. It's easy to understand why. For hundreds of years God had drilled into their culture the importance of keeping bloodlines pure. By this time, a whole lot of "pollution" had occurred. For example, the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom were characterized as "lost" because they had so intermarried with gentiles. Now, here the Christian church fathers were proclaiming that this sect of Judaism, this Christianity, was not only for the Jews, but for all people. Most of the Jews of that day weren't buying it, even some Jewish believers!
Well, they accepted it to a point. They realized that they could not change the gentile converts' lineage. But...they could do the next best thing! They could force them to look and act like Jews by requiring their men to be circumcised and demanding that they keep the dictates of the Law. I don't know that the gentile believers wanted to be "Jewish"; they were told by the false teachers they had to be... These well-meaning(?) Judaizers sold the Galatians a "bill of goods". They were obviously quite successful at it, because Paul had to oppose the destructive trend very strongly in this letter.
Paul's point was that all believers in Jesus Christ are already "children of Abraham" (in effect "Jewish"). No amount of circumcision or law-keeping was going to make the Galatians "more Jewish" or "more Christian". Christ Jesus had done all that needed to be done. He finished it on the cross. He did it.
7-8 Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ (not persons who put their trust in the law!) are like Abraham: children of faith? It was all laid out beforehand in Scripture that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. Scripture anticipated this in the promise to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed in you.”
9-10 So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: “Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law.”
11-12 The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that’s the real life.” Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”
Galatians 3:7-12 (The Message)
In one of the Star Wars movies it was observed, "The Force is strong with that one." Well, I'll tell you that one of the strongest forces in me is that I'm prone to keep the focus on MY ability to live for God. This is sin...sin that achieves the exact opposite of what my spirit desires. We have got to realize that spiritual victory comes from embracing what God wants to do in and through us! The shift in emphasis is world-changing! It is not about I. It is about He. (Mother will be proud; that's correct grammatical usage.) He has already made those who have accepted Jesus Christ by faith to be His spiritual offspring: "children of Abraham". When that instantaneous transaction and transformation occur, it is only the beginning of the life of faith, the walk of faith, the resplendent walk.
Get this: the resplendent walk is not resplendent because you or I are resplendent. The life of faith is resplendent because HE is resplendent, and that resplendence shines through us, (often in spite of us!) Growing in faith means growing in yieldedness to Him, in relationship with Him, nothing more. As we surrender to Him, He produces the fruit of His righteousness (not ours) IN us. He does it.
Father, I know that I am yours and that that eternal fact is not of my own doing. You did it. I still don't think that I fully understand either the miracle of my justification any more than I understand the process of sanctification. Oh, I understand it academically. It's the "letting you do your sanctifying work in me" part that I fail to comprehend in actual practice. I pray for greater faith, deeper relationship so that You can do what You want to do, in me. In Jesus' name, amen.
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