Galatians | Philip Graham Ryken

Philip Graham Ryken. Galatians. P&R, 2005. 290 pp.

Galatians is a letter for recovering Pharisees. The Pharisees who lived during and after the time of Christ were very religious. They were regular in their worship, orthodox in their theology, and moral in their conduct. Yet something was missing. Although God was in their minds and in their actions, he was not in their hearts. Therefore, their religion was little more than hypocrisy.

The Pharisees were hypocrites because they thought that what God would do for them depended on what they did for God. So they read their Bibles, prayed, tithed, and kept the Sabbath as if their salvation depended on it. What they failed to understand is that God’s grace cannot be earned; it only comes free.

There is a way out of Pharisaism. The way out is called the gospel. It is the good news that Jesus Christ has already done everything necessary for our salvation. If we trust in him, he will make us right with God by giving us the free gift of his grace. When we reject our own righteousness to receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we become former Pharisees.

Most former Pharisees have a problem, however. It is hard for them to leave their legalism behind. Although initially they received God’s grace for free, they keep trying to put a surcharge on it. They believe that God loves them, but secretly they suspect that his love is conditional, that is depends on how they are doing in the Christian life. They end up with a performance-based Christianity that denies the grace of God. To put this in theological terms, they want to base their justification on their sanctification.

This means that most former Pharisees–indeed, most Christians–are still in recovery. There is still something of the old legalist in us. Although we have been saved by grace, we do not always know how to live by grace. The gospel is something we received some time in the past, but not something we live and breathe. Galatians was written for people like us.

To God Be the Glory

The crucifixion and the resurrection, the cross and the empty tomb–these are the simple facts of the gospel. The good news is that Jesus Christ, whom God raised from the dead, gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of God our Father.

These facts do not contain a single word about anything we do. They simply document what God has done in human history through Jesus Christ. The gospel is not about what we do for God; it is about what God has done for us. God the Father is the one who came up with the gospel plan. God the Son is the one who made the willing sacrifice, in keeping with the Father’s will. God the Father is the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Together the Father and the Son accomplished our salvation through the cross; together they announce it to the world through the teaching of the apostles; and together they apply it to our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, all the glory goes to God, which is precisely how Paul ends the beginning of his letter: “To whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (Gal. 1:5). If salvation is God’s work from beginning to end, then all the honor and majesty belong to him forever. Literally, his glory “is into the ages of the ages,” which, unlike this present evil age, will never pass away.

If all the glory goes to God, what comes to us is only grace, which is what Paul’s letter to the Galatians is all about. It holds out “grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:3). These are not pious clichés; they are God’s free gifts for sinners. Grace is the favor God has shown to undeserving sinners through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And grace is exactly what recovering Pharisees need. We are tempted to forget, sometimes, that Jesus is all we need, and when we forget, we need to rediscover the gospel of God’s free grace.

Reprinted from Galatians (Reformed Expository Commentary) by Philip Graham Ryken, copyright 2005 P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg, NJ.

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