The Children of God were started by a man named David Berg. Berg’s father was a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor, and for awhile Berg served as a pastor in that denomination. But in 1950 he had a falling‑out with church leaders and resigned. After that he became embittered and had a growing distaste for organized religion. Berg believed God had a special destiny and mission for him, and started calling himself a "prophet for this generation." In 1968 he moved to Huntington Beach, California, with his wife and four children and began a small community there. Early in 1969 he was convinced that an earthquake would soon destroy the California coastal cities, so he and about fifty followers left for Arizona. In Arizona they disrupted church services and condemned organized churches; they saw themselves as prophets. Members of the group began wandering through much of the United States and Canada staging demonstrations and urging others to join. By this time they were completely alienated from churches, and they took the name "Children of God." Berg called himself Moses David (The Handbook of Texas Online).
Berg believed that God had a special destiny for him, that he was a prophet for his generation. He was convinced that all the other churches were off track, and that God had given him a special message for the day. Early in the history of the Children of God, David Berg started cheating on his wife. The universal testimony of Scripture and the Church is that this is the sin of adultery, but Berg had rejected the Church and saw himself as a prophet, so rather than repenting of sin, he received a revelation telling him that he was to leave his wife and stay with his mistress. He even had a theological explanation for the significance of the change. From this point, Berg and the Children of God fell into deeper and deeper deception, and the later history of the movement is truly repulsive.
Paul tells the Galatians that they are being foolish, but he doesn’t mean that they are simply too stupid to see what they are doing. He’s accusing them of wrongdoing. The word he uses has a moral, as well as an intellectual, element. The word “indicates a folly which is the outgrowth of a moral defect” (Vincent, Vincent’s Word Studies of the New Testament, vol. 3, p. 110). Foolishness in Scripture generally has this moral overtone. A fool is someone who is trying to live in God’s world as if God didn’t exist (“the fool has said in his heart, there is no God,” Psalm 14:1). A fool is someone who is trying to rebel against the very fabric of his existence, who’s trying to live in ways that are fundamentally at-odds with the way we were created. A fool, in Scripture, is someone who’s bent on self-destruction, but it’s not because he’s stupid and doesn’t know any better. There’s something attractive about this foolishness, some short-term benefit to be gained. David Berg gets to go on living like he wants to and can still call himself a prophet. The Bible calls this sort of thing foolishness, but it’s not innocent.
Remember that the Galatians have been listening to false teachers, who are trying to persuade them of a different gospel. That’s the whole reason that Paul has written this letter. The Galatians haven’t given in completely to this new teaching, but they are in danger of doing so. The whole tone of this letter suggests that the situation is very serious. He wants to know, in verse 1, who has “bewitched” them. They’ve come under the delusive power of false doctrine.
Paul addresses the problem of false teachings in other places. Listen to these words from 2 Thessalonians: “The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned” (2:9-12). There are two steps in this process: 1) they reject the truth, and 2) they come under the power of delusion. David Berg rejected the authority of the Church and of Scripture, then he increasingly came under the power of lies. I suspect that if he could have seen, in the early days of his ministry, where he was going to end up, he’d have been horrified. False teachings gain power over us when we reject the truth, and the longer we persist in this direction the less we’re able to free ourselves from deception. Paul wants the Galatians to know that what they’re doing is foolish. It doesn’t make any sense. In turning back to the law, they’re trying to go against God Himself. And the longer they persist in this direction, the more they’ll come under the power of deception. The lies they’re listening to will lead them, by small steps, further and further from God.
The first thing to notice is that this false teaching is inconsistent with the way God began His work in their lives. That’s the point in verses 1-5. The idea comes across clearly in The Message: “Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message for you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t’ smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it?” Salvation is a work of God; it’s not something we accomplish by our determined efforts. The Galatians had recognized this and had experienced the saving power of God’s Spirit. But now they’re going in a different direction and are trying to carry on by their own efforts. Paul is saying that this is absolute insanity. If they didn’t have the ability to begin the process, what makes them think they can now carry it through to the end? Listen to verse 1 in The Message: “You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the Cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.” What they’re doing is insane; it makes no sense at all. God began a work in their lives, and now they’re trying to take things into their own hands. They think they’re capable of completing what God began.
Of course, they might object that Paul was all wrong to begin with, that, yes, it’s true they are going in a different direction, because the things Paul taught them were wrong. They might argue that Paul has gone off track, that he’s part of a sect, that he is the one who’s undermining the work of God. So Paul’s next point is that the direction the Galatians are going is inconsistent with God’s work in Abraham. This is a serious charge; the false teachers at Galatia are Judaizers, people who are telling Christians that they need to become Jewish proselytes and live under the Old Testament law. If they’re at odds with Abraham, they’re in serious trouble, because the whole nation of Israel looked to Abraham as their spiritual father. Paul shows that Abraham wasn’t made right with God by obeying the law; he quotes from the Old Testament to prove it: “Just as Abraham ‘believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,’ so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.”
The Galatians are being deceived and manipulated, so one of the things Paul calls them to do is to think. The false teachers are seducing them, appealing to their feelings; the way to resist this is to think seriously about Scripture. So Paul quotes this passage from Genesis 15:6: “And [Abraham] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Paul is saying to them, “listen to what this verse is saying. It’s saying that Abraham was counted righteous because he believed God. Even Abraham himself didn’t earn his salvation by obedience to the law.” When we hear something that strongly appeals to our emotions, when we feel ourselves powerfully drawn by any particular teaching, it’s always wise to stop ourselves and think about whether this teaching is consistent with God’s Word. The Galatians weren’t using their minds, and they were leaving themselves open to deception. I often think of these words by A.W. Tozer in this context: “we would do well to cultivate a reverent skepticism. It will keep us out of a thousand bogs and quagmires where others who lack it sometimes find themselves. It is no sin to doubt some things, but it may be fatal to believe everything” (“In Praise of Disbelief,” in The Root of the Righteous, p. 119). The direction the Galatians are going is inconsistent with God’s work in Abraham; if they’d pay careful attention to what Genesis says about him they’d see this.
But there’s one more step in Paul’s argument. The Galatians are trying to turn Christianity into a legalistic religion. They still want to be called Christians, but they also want to make themselves acceptable to God by obeying the law. So Paul tells them that the direction they’re going is inconsistent with the work of Jesus Christ. Living under the law leads to nothing but bondage: “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.’ 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 Message). Living under the burden of the law, trying to make ourselves acceptable to God by our obedience, leads to nothing but failure and bondage. The law shows us that we are guilty of sin, but it doesn’t do anything to remove our guilt.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of freedom. Listen to these words from the Song of Zechariah, this prophesy that John the Baptist’s father gave when his son was born: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of his servant David.” They’ve been living in bondage, and now God has come to set them free. Then, the song ends this way: “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Jesus Christ came to deliver us from bondage, and the Galatians are twisting the gospel into a message which will once again bring them into bondage. It’s just the opposite of what Jesus came to do.
Here it is in The Message: “Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the Cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing – just the way Abraham received it.” Jesus has taken our curse upon Himself and has set us free from living under the burden of legalism. We’re acceptable in God’s sight, not because we’ve kept His law, but because Jesus kept the law perfectly and then endured the punishment for our disobedience: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.”
Legalism is foolish, because it’s contrary to everything God has done for us. Why are we so often attracted to it? Why do we so easily gravitate towards legalism? At least part of the answer is that legalism enables us to take some credit for ourselves. The gospel says our situation is so bad that our only hope is God’s offer of free grace. The gospel treats us as spiritual beggars: we come to God with empty hands and receive His offer of grace and mercy. Legalism enables us to make a contribution; maybe it’s not much, but at least we’re able to do something for ourselves. It appeals to our pride.
The problem is that it puts us in a position that can’t possibly be pleasing to God. God has made us new creatures by giving us His Spirit, but when we turn to legalism we’re saying “thanks for getting me started; I’ll take it from here.” We’re also cutting ourselves off from God’s people. Abraham himself “believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and everyone since that time has been accepted in the same way, by receiving God’s free gift of mercy and grace. And we’re cutting ourselves off from Jesus Christ, who became a curse for us, because when we turn to legalism we’re saying that He died for nothing. We start out thinking we’re going to please God in our own way, and we find ourselves completely cut off from Him. We set out on our own, thinking we’ll be free, but we end up in bondage to sin, and in bondage to the question of whether we’ve been obedient enough.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of freedom. “Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself.” Here it is in the hymn "My Hope is in the Lord": “My hope is in the Lord who gave Himself for me, and paid the price for all my sin at Calvary. Not merit of my own His anger to suppress. My only hope is found in Jesus’ righteousness. For me He died, for me He lives, and everlasting life and light He freely gives.”
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