In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis, four children crawl into a wardrobe in their uncle’s house and find themselves in another world, called Narnia. They end up staying in this world for a long time and become kings and queens; but when they return to their uncle’s house in England they find that no time has elapsed. All their adventures in the land of Narnia have taken place in only a few moments of time in this world. In other books of the series the children return to Narnia and are known as Kings Peter and Edmund, and Queens Lucy and Susan.
In the final book of the series, The Last Battle, Peter, Edmund and Lucy return to Narnia for the last time. And while they’re there, someone asks Peter, “‘If I have read the chronicles aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?’ ‘My sister Susan,’ answered Peter shortly and gravely, ‘is no longer a friend of Narnia.’ ‘Yes,’ said Eustace, ‘and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children’” (pp. 134-35). Susan had really been with them in their adventures, but now she doesn’t want any part of it. She’s “no longer a friend of Narnia.”
I’ve known a lot of people who made a good start in the Christian life and who traveled some distance following Jesus Christ, but then have turned away. Some of them become disillusioned and turn away, some dry up over time and just drift away. But the end result is the same. Once they were followers of Jesus Christ, and now they’re not. They’re no longer friends of the kingdom of God.
This hasn’t happened yet to the churches of Galatia, but Paul is concerned that they’re headed in that direction. They’ve been listening to false teachers who are undermining the true message of the gospel, the gospel that Paul received directly from Jesus Christ. So Paul, very early in the letter, says this: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (1:6). They’re headed in a direction which will lead them away from Jesus Christ; if they keep going in this direction, they’ll no longer be friends of the kingdom of God.
We saw, in the first half of this chapter, that the Galatians probably thought they were aligning themselves with Peter, the apostle to the Jews. So Paul shows them that this is not true at all, that he and Peter both preached the same message. He wants the Galatians to know that if they were to visit a church in Judea they’d hear the same gospel that Paul preached. And now, in the second half of chapter two, he shows that Peter himself fell into an error very similar to the one the Galatians are struggling with. But when Paul confronted him about it, Peter accepted Paul’s rebuke. This leads into a discussion on the centrality of the cross in our lives as Christians. The problem with the Galatians, and the problem with Peter in the story Paul tells, is that they’ve gotten sidetracked from the cross of Jesus Christ. They’re focusing on what they can accomplish in obedience to the Law, rather than joyfully accepting what God gives freely through the cross of Jesus Christ.
The first thing to notice here is that great spiritual experiences don’t prevent us from getting off track in the future. Peter had been there at Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out on the Church; through his preaching that day over 3,000 believers were added to the Church. A few weeks before Pentecost, Peter had denied Christ three times, because he was afraid of the authorities. But at Pentecost he became a bold witness, and afterward we see him boldly testifying to the resurrection and refusing to be silenced. A little later, Peter had been arrested, and Herod’s intention was to have him put to death; but Peter was miraculously freed from the prison.
But all these experiences didn’t prevent him from getting off track. “But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him publicly, speaking strongly against what he was doing, for it was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile Christians, who don’t bother with circumcision. But afterward, when some Jewish friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore because he was afraid of what these legalists would say. Then the other Jewish Christians followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was influenced to join them in their hypocrisy” (New Living Translation). He fell into the same weakness he had shown at the trial of Jesus, denying the truth because he was afraid of other people. And because of his prominent position among the believers, others were led astray by his example. Great experiences are no guarantee that we won’t get off track in the future.
The second thing is this: humility and the willingness to accept correction will prevent our errors from becoming permanent. Listen to how Peter refers to Paul some years later, in his second letter: “Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him” (3:14-15). “Our beloved brother Paul.” Peter and Paul are engaged in the same work, and Peter wants those receiving his letter to pay attention to the things Paul has written. When they were together in Antioch, Peter was the chief of the apostles, and Paul, who didn’t even become a Christian until after the ascension of Christ, rebuked him publicly. It would have been easy for Peter to say, “who do you think you are, correcting me in public like this?” But he accepted Paul’s rebuke; it enabled him to get back on track. He wasn’t concerned about maintaining his image; he wanted to follow Jesus Christ till the end, and Paul’s correction helped him. So rather than being filled with resentment, Peter accepted the rebuke and came to love Paul as a “beloved brother.”
We all get off track at times and need correction. But there are two things which are especially deadly, and which can cause our errors to become permanent. The first thing is avoiding fellowship with those who are likely to confront us. Peter got off track, but he continued in the fellowship of the Church, and it was there that he was corrected. It’s in the Church that others in the body will notice that something is wrong, and it’s in the Church that we can find help to get ourselves back on track. One of the first signs that something is wrong is that a person starts avoiding fellowship. (That’s one reason sporadic attendance is so dangerous; you’re not getting the help you need in your spiritual life, and because you don’t attend regularly anyway it takes awhile before people notice that you’ve stopped altogether.)
The second danger in this area is pride. It’s a hard thing to accept correction from someone else. We always want to defend ourselves. We may cry out to God and confess that we are miserable sinners, but when another person confronts us about a specific area of sin in our lives we don’t seem so ready to confess. It hurts our pride, and it’s difficult to swallow. But this pride is dangerous, and if we allow it to continue growing it will destroy us. I don’t doubt that Peter was tempted by pride when Paul confronted him; surely he was tempted to put that upstart in his place. But Peter humbled himself and accepted the correction. Humility and the willingness to accept correction will prevent our errors from becoming permanent.
This leads to the last point: the crucifixion is central to our ongoing relationship with God. The cross is absolutely central to our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ. Paul says, about himself, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” It’s important for us to remember this. When Paul came to Corinth, he said this about his ministry: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Not “Jesus Christ risen from the dead,” although he did preach the resurrection. The central focus of his message was “Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
When we look at our Christian lives only in terms of the Resurrection and Pentecost, we tend to have unrealistic expectations. We forget that self-denial and suffering are central to our redemption. We expect our lives to be filled with success and easy victory. I’ve heard people boast about living in “resurrection power.” Surely things will go well for us; after all, God is our Father and we are King’s Kids. The One Who has given us the Spirit possesses all power in heaven and on earth. Then, when things start going wrong in our lives we wonder what’s happening. Is it because of a lack of faith or because there’s unconfessed sin in our lives? Or maybe God just isn’t taking care of us.
I often think about Mary in this context. The angel Gabriel said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, said to her “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.... And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Luke 1:42, 45). Mary had extraordinary faith, and when Gabriel told her what God was going to do, she responded, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (v. 38). She had great faith; she submitted to God’s will; an angel told her the Lord was with her and that she was highly favored; and then Elizabeth, speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit, told her she was blessed among women. Her response is a model of how we, in the Church, are called to respond to God: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
And where did all this get her in the short term? She was suspected of cheating on Joseph, to whom she was betrothed. When Jesus was about to be born, with all the physical and emotional turmoil that goes with the end of a pregnancy, she and Joseph looked all over Bethlehem in vain for a place to stay, then finally had to settle for a stable. The offering she and Joseph brought when they presented Jesus in the temple showed that they were poor, that they couldn’t afford the usual offering. Shortly after Jesus was born, they had to flee for their lives to Egypt. And then, when her Son was grown, this Son who had been miraculously born, she had to watch Him being flogged, crowned with thorns and mocked, and then crucified. Is this what it means to be highly favored with God? Yes, in the short term. Of course, that’s not the whole story, but when we’re in the middle of things it’s easy to lose our perspective and forget about the great things that are coming in the future. Next time you’re tempted to think that God has abandoned you, that He’s not taking care of you, think about Mary. She was highly favored by God, but suffering and grief had a prominent place in her life.
The Galatians have forgotten the centrality of the crucifixion. They’ve gotten sidetracked from the cross of Jesus Christ. They’re focusing on what they can accomplish in obedience to the Law, rather than joyfully accepting what God gives freely through the cross. They’ve become self-confident, trusting in their ability. Paul wants them to know that the Law does nothing but point out their sin; it brings them into condemnation. Their only escape from the condemning power of the Law is in the cross of Jesus Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ.”
A.W. Tozer described very well what it means to be crucified: “The...cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more. The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape.... God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.... God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross” (Man, The Dwelling Place of God, pp. 43-44).
The cross cuts across every area of our lives. It brings to an end all our self-effort to save ourselves: “because no one will be justified by the works of the law.” Our relationship with the Law has been ended by death; we’ve been “crucified with Christ.” But the cross also brings to an end our right to do whatever we want with our lives. One of the criticisms the false teachers leveled at Paul’s gospel was that it leads to loose living, that if people are accepted by the grace of God, apart from the works of the Law, they’ll just continue living disobedient lives and expect God to accept them by grace. But Paul everywhere says this is false. “For through the law I died to the law” not so that I can do whatever I feel like doing, but “so that I might live to God.” He’s been set free to live in obedience to God. His old life is finished. He’s now living on the far side of the cross. The Galatians have forgotten all that and are trying to get back to the old arrangement, forgetting that in Christ they have died and are risen to a completely new way of life. They are beginning to live as if “Christ died for nothing.”
On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out upon people who were finished with their old lives. They were crucified with Christ, they had died to the law so that they might live for God. Their lives were no longer their own, because they had been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. The Spirit doesn’t empower us to carry on with our selfish lives, just doing what we want and asking Him to bless and empower us. The Spirit empowers us to continue living in the light of the cross, to humble ourselves when we receive correction from others, to do what God is calling us to do, whether we feel like it or not, to be willing to endure hardship and loss and difficulty in the name of Jesus Christ, who went to the cross in our place. As we do this, we’re able to say, with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
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