Whether you understand the “elements of the world” to mean the Law of Moses, or the religions of the heathen nations, it makes no difference. Those who lapse from the Gospel to the Law are no better off than those who lapse from grace into idolatry. Without Christ all religion is idolatry.
Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter 4 Verse 8
July 17, 2008 at 2:45 am |
I’m currently going through Galatians in a Bible study here in Taiwan (I know the girls in DC are also going through it), and Paul just hammers away at gospel vs. law and how foolish it is to return to putting ourselves under the law when Christ has come with the gospel. Luther’s comment here struck me…”Those who lapse from the Gospel to the Law are no better off than those who lapse from grace into idolatry.”
We end up worshipping something else other than Christ when we lose focus of the Gospel! We worship the efficacy of good works. We worship our own ability. We may even think we’re worshipping God, but without a proper view of God in light of the Gospel, are we really worshipping the God who revealed Himself through Bible?
July 30, 2008 at 4:43 pm |
As we’ve been going through Galatians, I’ve been struck by similar things Kendrick. And really, Paul’s question to the Galatians: “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says?” really struck me as I consider how often I fall into the “after beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” trap. Even his whole discussion of zealousness and how it’s only good to be zealous if it’s for the right purposes (i.e. the Gospel) really drove home the point that we make idols of what we’re zealous of if it’s not the God of the Gospel.
Finally, Maggie and I really had an interesting discussion last night about how Paul interprets the Old Testament. First, he seems to interpret it too literally (making a big deal of seed being singular and therefore referring to Christ), then he shifts and interprets Hagar and Sarah incredibly figuratively. Claiming that Hagar represents those under the law and Sarah represents those in the “Jerusalum above.”
It reminded my of a convo I once had with Prof. Dewey Wallace. We were talking about Bible interpretation, and he (being fairly theologically liberal and not believing in Divine inspiration really) said that we could make the Bible unified by our particular interpretion scheme that we use. That seemed plausible to me, and rather troubling. I realized that the interpretaion scheme that I was taught was to interpret scripture as the great redemptive story (basically through the lens of the Gospel). What is amazing, however, is that it is clear from Galatians (and I think elsewhere in scripture) that the Scripture tells us to interpret it that way. That’s how we see Paul interpreting the OT here. The reason he is both literal and figurative is b/c he is noting where Christ is in the text and how it points to Christ and the Gospel. It’s not just some idea that some person came up that helped fit the Bible together, but it’s over and over in scripture itself. Whether it’s Jesus’ interpreting the OT that way at the end of Luke’s Gospel or when He says that all the scriptures point to Him or it’s Paul in Galatians or Hebrews amazing interpretation of the OT…it’s clear that we interpret scripture through the Gospel. I just thought that was helpful for me as I consider theologically liberal ideas of the subjectivity of interpretations, and our supposed inability to interpret it truly.