Galatians 3 (7)

Opening Prayer: Psalm 116.7-9
Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
I will walk before the LORD
In the land of the living.

Sing Psalm 116.7-9
(Mit Freuden Zart: All Praise To God Who Reigns Above)
Full well the LORD has dealt with me; my soul from death He delivered.
My weeping eyes, my stumbling feet, He has redeemed forever.
Forever I before His face shall walk with those who know His grace,
and dwell with them forever.

Read Galatians 3.1-29; meditate on verses 10-14.

Preparation
1. By what means are we justified before the Lord?

2. Why can we not be justified by our own works?

Meditation
To be “justified” before God is to be acknowledged by Him as just, that is, as blameless before His holy and righteous and good Law. It is not possible for anyone to be justified by keeping the Law for all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3.23). It doesn’t matter if you have only sinned one time in your life—which is impossible, of course. Break God’s Law in one point and you break it all.

If keeping the works of the Law is our preferred route to being justified before God, then we are on the path to being cursed (v. 10). Only Jesus has kept God’s Law perfectly; thus, He is able to redeem from the curse all who look to Him (vv. 13, 14). Nothing we might do will contribute to our being justified, because everything we do, because we are sinners, is tainted with lawlessness and sin. We deserve to be cursed and condemned; yet Jesus has taken that curse upon Himself. As Paul put it elsewhere, God made Jesus, Who never sinned, to become sin and cursed for us, that we might be justified and declared righteous before God through faith in Him (2 Cor. 5.21).

And we believe this. We believe Jesus fulfilled the Law on our behalf. We believe that He died to bear God’s wrath against our sin. We believe that, because He was righteous, death—the wages of sin—had no hold on Him, and He simply took back His life. We believe that, in Jesus, in His life, death, and resurrection, we who believe are justified before God. Now Christ lives in us to empower us unto obedience and the pleasure of the Lord.

This is what the Galatians were beginning to lose sight of, and they were “foolish” (vv. 1, 3) for so doing. Only a fool thinks he can save himself. The blessing of Abraham and the promise of God come to those who believe and who, believing, live all their life by and for Jesus and His glory (2.20, 21). Justification is by faith alone, through the grace of God alone, and unto the glory of the Lord alone.

Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
The people on the Titanic were a mix of folk from many different walks of life. Some were good, some bad, some rich, others not as well off; there was the captain of the vessel and all his assistants, there were those who cooked the meals and cleaned the cabins, those who swabbed the decks; but when that ship hit the iceberg everyone was in the same boat, as it were. They all, regardless of race, creed, or financial standing, needed a lifeboat.

The ship’s captain had received six unheeded warnings of sea ice. And of the 2,224 souls on board, 1,500 perished because the danger was real, and sadly, the lifeboats were few.

The wilderness wandering children of Israel sinned against the LORD. In fact, they “spoke against God and Moses… So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died…the people came to Moses, and said, ‘We have sinned…pray that the LORD [will] take away the serpents from us’…so Moses prayed for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived” (Num. 21.1-9).

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3.14- 16).

All the people on earth are like those on the Titanic, or those wandering the wilderness being killed by snakes.
We come from all walks of life, in a beautiful array of colors and socio-economic status, who all desperately need a lifeboat or a bronze serpent, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3.23).
A warning, hopefully better heeded, than by the captain of the Titanic.

God, in His vast, immeasurable, amazing grace and love gave us Jesus, in His perfection, to be our saving Bronze LifeBoat. All we need to do is jump in by faith alone and believe He will save us. And He will.

I know not why God’s wondrous grace to me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love redeemed me for His own.
But “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.”
(Daniel W. Whittle, 1883)

Reflection
1. What was the situation in your life when you came to faith in Jesus? Were you in need of a LifeBoat?

2. Why is Jesus the Lifeboat everybody needs?

3. What is our role in making Jesus known to others?

The law justifies him who fulfills all its precepts, while faith justifies those who are destitute of the merit of works, and who rely on Christ alone. To be justified by our own merit, and to be justified by the grace of another, are two schemes which cannot be reconciled: one of them must be overturned by the other. John Calvin (1509-1564), Commentary on Galatians 3.11

Pray Psalm 116.1-3, 10-19.
Thank God for the mercy He has shown in saving you by grace through faith. Thank Him for hearing your prayers. Devote yourself to the Lord and His Word, and commit the day ahead to Him in all your ways.

Sing Psalm 116.1-3, 10-19
(Mit Freuden Zart: All Praise to God Who Reigns Above)
I love the LORD because He hears my cries and pleas for mercy.
Because He bends to me His ear, my prayers shall ever thus be.
The snares of death encompassed me; hell’s grip could not unloosened be;
distress and anguish pressed me.

Afflicted, I believe His Word, though lying men would undo me.
What shall I render to the LORD for all His blessings to me?
Salvation’s cup I lift above and call upon the God of love
and pay my vows most truly.

How sweet to Him when saints depart—make me Your servant, Savior!
From sin You loosed my wand’ring heart; I praise Your Name forever!
On You I call, my vows to pay; here in Your Presence I would stay
Your praise to offer ever.

T. M. and Susie Moore

If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.