(Amos 3:3), Understanding the Promises of God (2 Peter 1:4), Forget the past, press on toward the goal. Though the creed be true, it may not be true to you, if you just repeat it and put it away like a paper in a pigeon-hole. II. iii., p. 92; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 8th series, p. 37; J. Clifford, The Dawn of Manhood, p. 152. 3. (B. M. Palmer, D. D.). (2) If we look backward from character and deed to motive, this harmony with God results from love becoming the ruling power of our lives. It is of importance to represent love as before repentance and faith, in order to make it appear that sanctification is before justification and the only proper evidence of it. With respect to the present passage, Paul enters into no dispute whether love cooperates with faith in justification; but, in order to avoid the appearance of representing Christians as idle and as resembling blocks of wood, he points out what are the true exercises of believers. 5; Jos. If religion be the loving devotion of the soul to God, resting upon reasonable faith, then all besides is, at the most, a means which may further it. 2:25-29). Or think you not that, when God “opened the heart of Lydia, to attend unto the things spoken by Paul,” He poured into her heart which He had opened, love with faith? St. Paul and St. James do not really differ respecting this [Note: St. Paul (Romans 4:1-5.) 1. It is a spring strong enough for the machine, the great machine which it has to move; but all the while he works happily because he works under the smile of God, who has forgiven him, and who loves him with an everlasting love: sure, because it is free, and certain to continue on to the end, because it was all Christ at the beginning. As in Christ Jesus he commends faith accompanied by love, so before the coming of Christ ceremonies were required. When an indifferent thing is made into an essential, it ceases to be indifferent, and must be fought against. Then the faith which accepts the Lord Jesus Christ, accepts Him in all of His offices. is there no power in such an act? For He who is love hath left it, and it hath no power wherewith to desire to love, unless or until the voice of Christ raises it from the dead and awakens it and it hears His voice, and lives. Why is faith selected as the way of salvation? The only worth of the fuel is to feed the flame. Nor uncircumcision—The freedom from, or avoidance of, circumcision will not justify us, nor the performance of circumcision as a mere bodily act condemn us. The obedience of Jesus Christ is the measure of God’s holiness. The faith of a true believer is manifested through love. Greek. All the virtues and graces will dwell in our hearts, if Love, their mighty mother, be there. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working (or operative) through love. Let us then renounce all confidence in our own works, and rely wholly on the blood and righteousness of Christ. As two stringed instruments may be so tuned to one keynote that, if you strike the one, a faint ethereal echo is heard from the other, which blends undistinguishably with its parent sound; so, drawing near to God, and brought into unison with His mind and will, our responsive spirits vibrate in accord with His, and give forth tones, low and thin indeed, but still repeating the mighty music of heaven. 3. (See James 2:14-26.). Moreover, our passage is not at variance with justification solely by faith: “opera fieri dicit ex fide per caritatem, non justificari hominem per caritatem,” Luther. Secondly.--Faith works by love. Those who said “yes” were mostly Gentiles, headed and inspired by St. Paul, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. If the human reason starts from what it is obliged to accept; if, in all the after process, it is obliged to remand its conclusions to that elementary trust from which it in the first instance departed, in order to verify them--if you are obliged, for example, to believe in the principle of causality; if you are obliged to believe in the fact of your personal indentity; if you are obliged, by the necessity of your mental constitution, to believe in the reality of the external world, and to rely upon the evidence and the testimony of sense which underlies all the demonstrations of our proud physical science; if you are compelled, by the same necessity, to rely upon memory, which hangs together all the links of every chain of reasoning through which you are carried--I say, just in proportion as you reason with power to conclusions that are satisfactory, the verification of those conclusions is found in the elementary beliefs which you accept simply and alone with the trust of faith; and I interdict you, by this known fact, from undertaking to despise or contemn it. Nor is heaven far off to faith. Religion is the harmony of the soul with God, and the conformity of the life to His law. Faith is mistress, love is the handmaid. insisted on the passive sense as favouring the dogma of fides formata, for which it is cited by the Council of Trent, sess. By acquainting the soul with the great love of God to us. No to both of these questions. There is a faith which justifies and a faith which condemns. Love dwelling in the Christian’s heart. in Jesus Christ — Greek, “in Christ Jesus.” In union with Christ (the ANOINTED Savior), that is, Jesus of Nazareth. This Epistle is the memorial of that feud. How then may we know if we have this faith? The Spirit of God in renewing, sanctifying, or converting a sinner, does not give him any new natural power, faculty, or principle of action; but only gives him new affections or exercises of heart. You were saved before the “love” began. Learn, 2. u. Krit. See on 2 Thessalonians 1:9. Neither circumcision … - It makes no difference whether a man is circumcised or not. What does Galatians 6:5 mean? But it has been thought, “if faith, on which God holds us righteous, or justifying faith, have love in it, are we not accounted righteous for something m ourselves?” We are justified, or accounted righteous before God, neither for faith nor love, but for the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. Now we are all kind in proportion as we are happy. Faith is Divine knowledge. Faith which worketh, [ energoumenee (G1754); energetically working; exhibiting its energy] by, [ dia (G1223): through] love. It creates agreement with the Divine will. p. 18. Ибо во Христе Иисусе. The reason why believers now wait for the hope of righteousness through the Spirit is, that in Christ, that is, in the kingdom of Christ, or in the Christian church, circumcision with its appendages is abolished; for, by a figure of speech in which a part is taken for the whole, the word Circumcision is put for ceremonies. ", Galatians 5:6 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”. That man walks this earth, and with every step he feels and realizes that he is in another world of unseen things, greater and far more real to him than what he can see about him. The road of good works is blocked up by our past sins, and it is sure to be further blocked up by future sins: we ought, therefore, to rejoice that God has commended to us the open road of faith. If indeed it proceed from faith and love, it will be rewarded; but if it be made the ground of our hope, it will prevent, rather than procure, our acceptance with God [Note: Galatians 5:2.]. “Faith” is the only basis of “love.” You cannot really “love” God until you believe that He has forgiven you. Love is perhaps increased more by doing than by receiving good, at least by doing good out of the love of God. Nay, "all the law is fulfilled in ... love," the principle on which "faith worketh" (Galatians 5:14). However little you may know, you know that you have sinned; know, then, that Jesus has come to put away sin, and that there is life in a look at the crucified One. It is from the supplies of the Spirit of God; the Spirit of God works in every act of believing (Colossians 1:29). It was an attempt to put new wine into old bottles. 7. But this has nothing to do with obtaining righteousness, as the Papists themselves allow; and neither must it be supposed that love possesses any such influence. That salvation is conditional does not affect its gratuitousness, A nobleman might declare his intention of giving a purse of money to all who would walk to his castle, knock at his door, and ask for the treasure. There would be no difficulty in this passage, were it not for the dishonest manner in which it has been tortured by the Papists to uphold the righteousness of works. Some indeed had, through surgery, attempted to become "uncircumcised." As parallels to our passage, see Romans 14:17; 1 Corinthians 7:19. Galatians 5:1 completes the crescendo of the first four chapters with a roaring call to freedom. Galatians 5 is the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.It is authored by Paul the Apostle for the churches in Galatia, written between AD 49–58. Paul clearly says to the believer that circumcision or uncircumcision is irrelevant to the believer, that living by faith is what is needed. While faith is child-like and hope is saint-like, love is God-like. It is an indispensable ingredient and representation of all charity. Man is prone to trust in outward rites and[ ceremonies. And faith and love alike, although in us, are not of us; both are alike the gift of God. No use if it does not influence your heart and affect your life. If we are not expressing our faith in God through our love for others, nothing else we do really matter. 1. And as these high achievements of science and of philosophy are held up before us, we are filled with astonishment and pride. We may to some extent be right about the importance of such things to us, but we are wrong if we make them determining factors about somebody’s Christian status. But this gift, whether of faith or love, is so given, that it is with us to receive it. The Judaizers had been busily working among the Gentile Galatian churches. Faith makes hope, hope makes happiness, and happiness makes love. And the modern Romanist Commentators, though abandoning the passive sense, still claim the passage on their side (e.g. If God, in the beginning, by the constitution which He gave to man, made him a creature of law, if it can be shown that man fell from his original holiness in the free exercise of all the powers by which he was characterized a responsible being, then it follows that the gospel, as a remedy, must, in all its provisions, recognize this fundamental fact. All idea of our own merit is thus shut out. Причина в том, что здесь он ведет речь об обрезании не как о таинстве, не исследует, что именно значило оно в то время, когда еще имело силу. It happens that Paul used the expression "circumcision nor uncircumcision, etc." Scholars rarely appeal to Gal 5.5–6 in the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate. The declaration in the text being explained, we shall, Every part of Scripture, rightly understood, is profitable for the directing both of our faith and practice [Note: 2 Timothy 3:16. “In our union with Christ, such things as circumcision have no meaning at all!!! 1. It owes its existence to the fact of your being saved. xxii., No. And what is dead, hath ceased to be. Faith which worketh by love.— There is some degree of ambiguity in the original:— Δι αγαπης ενεργουμενη . B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), Vol. Thus I meet the shallow criticism which men sometimes make against the gospel, when they say, “We turn to one Scripture which declares, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved;’ and we turn to another Scripture which proclaims, ‘Repent and be converted for the remission of sins.’” They ask of what value is that system which, in the very terms of salvation, is found so contradictory? If faith be weak, it will not work in the dark. No man loves a Saviour in whom he reposes no confidence. 1. Ecclesiastes 12:13 "…Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For love fulfils all God’s requirements (Galatians 5:13-14). If faith lacks love it is not true faith. Compare faith to an artificer in metals. The first grand principle contained in these words is that faith working by love makes a Christian. (T. That is legalism, and Paul in Galatians condemns it out of hand. For where its Lord is, there is heaven. Nothing can be more decisive than the declaration in the text. Love to God produces obedience to his will: love to man worketh no ill; but, on the contrary, every act of kindness. 2 Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. If faith be living it works. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. What is important is faith expressing itself in love." By means of this faith man is καινὴ κτίσις, Galatians 6:15. (T. MacNeece, D. D.), You cannot love by mere trying. It is a blessed thing to have a religion which I ‘am now endeavouring to shew in its whole nature is a “faith which worketh by love.” (J. Vaughan, M. Faith may subdue kingdoms, may overcome worlds, but first of all it must be inspired by love. 1. If the first exercises of renewed sinners always take place in the same order, then all real saints have always had precisely the same kind of religious experience. 6.For—We as Christians wait this faith-justification for the following reason. Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. He joined hope with faith; now he joins with it love. But where they become wrong, and indeed unchristian, is when they are used as a means of becoming acceptable to God, as a means of putting men ‘in the right’ with God. What avails a person is faith working through love. It is that simple. The middle voice is here employed to describe the inner working of the spirit of man, the active is used for recording God’s work for man in Galatians 2:8. availeth. I. 2. “In our union with Christ, such things as circumcision have no meaning at all!!! 2. I. ), I have read that a bishop of the Episcopal Church said, “When I was about entering the ministry, I was one day in conversation with an old Christian friend, who said, ‘You are to be ordained: when you are ordained, preach to sinners as you find them; tell them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they shall be as safe as if they were in heaven; and then tell them to work like horses.’”. So that the rule is good in the heavenly code, every good action, done for Christ’s sake, increases spiritual affection, and enhances the desire to love--just as the dropping of the fruit strengthens the roots for the next autumn’s harvest. 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