(Excerpt)
Heathen
Bondage
The
apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said, "Ye know that ye were
Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led."
1Cor.12:2. Even so it was with the Galatians. To them he wrote, "Not
knowing God, ye were in bondage to them which by nature are no gods." Gal. 4:8 If this fact is borne in mind, it
will save the reader from falling into some very common errors in opinion
concerning this Epistle. The Galatians had been heathen, worshiping idols, and
in bondage to the most degrading superstitions. Bear in mind that this bondage
is the same as that which is spoken of in the preceding chapter,--they were
"shut up" under the law. It was the very same bondage in which all
unconverted persons are, for in the second and third chapters of Romans we are
told that "there is no difference; for all have sinned."
Rom
2:1 Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that
judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou
that judgest doest the same things.
Rom
2:2 But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth
against them which commit such things.
Rom
2:3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such
things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
Rom
2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance?
Rom
2:5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto
thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment
of God;
Rom
2:6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:
Rom
2:7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and
honour and immortality, eternal life:
Rom
2:8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but
obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
Rom
2:9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of
the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;
Rom
2:10 But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the
Jew first, and also to the Gentile:
Rom
2:11 For there is no respect of persons with God.
Rom
2:12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without
law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
Rom
2:13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers
of the law shall be justified.
Rom
2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the
things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto
themselves:
Rom
2:15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or
else excusing one another;)
Rom
2:16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ
according to my gospel.
Rom
2:17 Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest
thy boast of God,
Rom
2:18 And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more
excellent, being instructed out of the law;
Rom
2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a
light of them which are in darkness,
Rom
2:20 An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the
form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.
Rom
2:21 Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?
thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
Rom
2:22 Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit
adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
Rom
2:23 Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law
dishonourest thou God?
Rom
2:24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as
it is written.
Rom
2:25 For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou
be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.
Rom
2:26 Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law,
shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?
Rom
2:27 And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the
law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the
law?
Rom
2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that
circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom
2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of
the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men,
but of God.
Rom
3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of
circumcision?
Rom
3:2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the
oracles of God.
Rom
3:3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith
of God without effect?
Rom
3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is
written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome
when thou art judged.
Rom
3:5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what
shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)
Rom
3:6 God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?
Rom
3:7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his
glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
Rom
3:8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm
that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is
just.
Rom
3:9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have
before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
Rom
3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Rom
3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after
God.
Rom
3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become
unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Rom
3:13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used
deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
Rom
3:14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
Rom
3:15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
Rom
3:16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
Rom
3:17 And the way of peace have they not known:
Rom
3:18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Rom
3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty before God.
Rom
3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified
in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Rom
3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Rom
3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto
all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
Rom
3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom
3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus:
Rom
3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his
blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,
through the forbearance of God;
Rom
3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be
just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Rom
3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay:
but by the law of faith.
Rom
3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the
deeds of the law.
Rom
3:29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes,
of the Gentiles also:
Rom
3:30 Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith,
and uncircumcision through faith.
Rom
3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we
establish the law.
The Jews
themselves, who did not know the Lord by personal experience, were in the same
bondage,--the bondage of sin. "Every one that committeth sin is the
bond-servant of sin." John 8:34, R.V. And "he that committeth sin is
of the devil." 1Joh. 3:8. "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice,
they sacrifice to devils, and not to God." 1Cor.10:20. If a man is not a
Christian, he is a heathen; there is no middle ground. If the Christian
apostatizes, he immediately becomes a heathen. We ourselves once walked
"according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience" (Eph.2:2), and we "were aforetime foolish, disobedient,
deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy,
hateful, hating one another" (Titus 3:3, R.V.). So we also were "in
bondage to them which by nature are no gods." The meaner the master, the
worse the bondage. What language can depict the horror of being in bondage to
corruption itself?
In Love
with Bondage
"Now
that ye have come to know God, or rather to be known of God, how turn ye back
again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage
over again?" Is it not strange that men should be in love with chains?
Christ has proclaimed "liberty to the captives, and the opening of the
prison to them that are bound" (Is.61:1), saying to the prisoners,
"Go forth," and to them that are in darkness, "Show
yourselves" (Is.49:9); yet men who have heard these words, and have come
forth, and have seen the light of "the Sun of Righteousness," and
have tasted the sweets of liberty, actually turn round and go back into their
prison, submit to be bound with their old chains, even fondling them, and labor
away at the hard treadmill of sin. Who has not had something of that
experience? It is no fancy picture. It is a fact that men can come to love the
most revolting things, even death itself; for Wisdom says, "All they that
hate Me love death." Prov.8:36. In the Epistle to the Galatians we have a
vivid picture of human experience.
Observing
Heathen Customs
"Ye
observe days, and months, and times, and years." This was an evidence of
their bondage. "Ah," says some one, "they had gone back to the
old Jewish Sabbath; that was the bondage against which Paul would warn
us!" How strange it is that men have such an insane hatred of the Sabbath,
which the Lord Himself gave to the Jews, in common with all other people on the
earth, that they will seize upon every word that they think they can turn
against it, although in order to do so they must shut their eyes to all the
words that are around it! Anybody who reads the Epistle to the Galatians, and
thinks as he reads, must know that the Galatians were not Jews. They had been
converted from heathenism. Therefore, previous to their conversion they had
never had anything to do with any religious custom that was practiced by the
Jews. They had nothing whatever in common with the Jews. Consequently, when
they turned again to the "weak and beggarly elements" to which they
were willing again to be in bondage, it is evident that they were not going
back to any Jewish practice. They were going back to their old heathen customs.
"But were not the men who were perverting them Jews?"--Yes, they
were. But remember this one thing, when you seek to turn a man away from Christ
to some substitute for Christ, you can not tell where he will end. You can not
make him stop just where you want him to. If a converted drunkard loses faith
in Christ, he will take up his drinking habits as surely as he lives, even
though the Lord may have taken the appetite away from him. So when these
"false brethren"--Jewish opposers of "the truth of the
Gospel" as it is in Christ--succeeded in seducing the Galatians from
Christ, they could not get them to stop with Jewish ceremonies. No; they
inevitably drifted back to their old heathen superstitions.
Forbidden
Practices
Read the
tenth verse again, Gal 4:10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and
years. and then read Deut.18:10: "There shall not be found among you
any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that
useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch."
Now read what the Lord says to the heathen who would shield themselves from
just judgment that is about to come upon them: "Thou art wearied in the
multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the
monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall
come upon thee." Is.47:13. Here we see that the very things to which the
Galatians were returning, were forbidden by the Lord when He brought Israel out
of Egypt. Now we might as well say that when God forbade these things He was
warning the Israelites against keeping the Sabbath, as to say that Paul was
upbraiding the Galatians for keeping it, or that he had any reference to it whatever.
God forbade these things at the very time when He gave the commandment
concerning Sabbath-keeping. So far back into their old ways had the Galatians
gone that Paul was afraid lest all his labor on them had been in vain. They
were forsaking God and returning to "the weak and beggarly elements of the
world," which no reverent person can think of as ever having had any
connection with God. They were changing their glory for "that which doth
not profit" (Jer.2:11); for "the customs of the heathen are
vain." There is just as much danger
for us in this respect as there ever was for any people. Whoever trusts in
himself, having any confidence whatever in the flesh, is worshiping the works of
his own hands instead of God, just as truly as does any one who makes and bows
down to a graven image. It is so easy for a man to trust to his own supposed
shrewdness, to his ability to "take care of himself," and to forget
that the thoughts even of the wise are vain, and that there is no power but of
God. "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man
glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that
glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the
Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth;
for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Jer.9:23,24.
The
Messenger Not Personally Affronted
"He
whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God." John 3:34. The apostle Paul
was sent by God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and did not speak his own words. He
was a messenger, bearing a message from God, and not from any man. The work was
not his, nor any other man's, but God's, and he was but the humble instrument,
the earthen vessel, which God had chosen as the means of carrying His glorious
Gospel of grace. Therefore, Paul did not feel affronted when his message was
unheeded or even rejected. "Ye have not injured me at all," he says.
He did not regret the labor that he had bestowed upon the Galatians, on his own
account, as though it were so much of his time wasted; but he was fearful for
them, lest his labor had been in vain as far as they were concerned. The man
who from the heart can say, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto
Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake" (Ps.115:1),
can not feel personally injured if his message is not received. Whoever becomes
irritated or angry when his teaching is slighted or ignored or scornfully
rejected, shows either that he has forgotten that it was God's words that he
was speaking, or else that he had mingled with them or substituted for them
words of his own. This is what has led to all the persecution that has
disgraced the professed Christian church. Men have arisen speaking perverse
things to draw away disciples after themselves, and when their sayings and
customs were not heeded, they have been offended, and have visited their
vengeance on the so-called heretics. No one in all the ages has ever suffered
persecution for failure to obey the commandments of God, but only for neglect
of human customs and traditions. It is a grand thing always to be zealous in a
good thing, but let the zeal be according to sanctified knowledge. The zealous
person should frequently ask himself, Whose
servant am I? If he is God's servant, then he will be content with
delivering the message that God has given him, leaving vengeance to God, to
whom it belongs.
Power in
Weakness
"Ye
know that because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the Gospel unto you the
first time." From the incidental statements in this Epistle we can easily
gather the history of the experience of the Galatian brethren, and of Paul's
relation to it. Having been detained in Galatia by physical weakness, he
preached the Gospel "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power," so
that the people saw Christ crucified among them, and, accepting Him, were filled
with the power and joy of the Holy Ghost. Their joy and blessedness in the Lord
was testified to publicly, and they suffered much persecution in consequence;
but this they counted as nothing. Paul, in spite of his unsightly appearance
(compare 1Cor.2:1-5; 2Cor. 10:10),
1Co
2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of
speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
1Co
2:2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ,
and him crucified.
1Co
2:3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much
trembling.
1Co
2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co
2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God.
2Co
10:10 For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily
presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.
was
received as God's own messenger, because of the joyful news that he brought. So
highly did they appreciate the riches of grace which he had opened up to them,
that they would gladly have given their own eyes to supply his deficiency. All
this is referred to in order that the Galatians may see from what they have
fallen, as they consider their present barrenness, and that they may know that
the apostle was disinterested in his solicitude for them. He told them the
truth once, and they rejoiced in it; it is not possible that he is become their
enemy because he continues to tell them the same truth. But there is still more in these personal
references. We must not imagine that Paul was pleading for personal sympathy
when he referred to his afflictions, and to the great inconvenience under which
he had labored. Far from it. Not for a moment did he lose sight of the purpose
for which he was writing, namely, to show that "the flesh profiteth nothing," but that everything of good
is from the Holy Spirit of God. The Galatians had "begun in the
Spirit." Paul was naturally small of stature, and weak in body, and was
suffering special affliction when he first met them; yet, in spite of his almost
absolute helplessness, he preached the Gospel with such mighty power that none
could fail to see that there was a real, although unseen, presence with him. The Gospel is not of man, but of God.
It was not made known to them by the flesh, and they were not indebted to the
flesh for any of the blessings that they had received. What blindness, what infatuation, then, for them to think to perfect
by their own efforts that which nothing but the power of God could begin! Have
we learned this lesson?
The Glad
Tidings
By E. J.
WAGGONER
(Excerpt- To be continued)
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