Taylor Balckford on Galatians
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| taylor blackford, current esbs student |
Subscribe in a readerI thought it would be fun to hear from one of our current students (Taylor Blackford) as he studied this weeks book: Galatians
Galatians was challenging for me. Not in a sense of completing it, but in the content of it. This is a great quote that was used in lecture, from Martin Luther’s commentary on Galatians:
“…Yet I am compelled to forget my shame and be quite shameless in view of the horrible profanation and abomination which have always raged in the church of God, and still rage today, against this one solid rock which we call the doctrine of justification. I mean the doctrine that we are redeemed from sin, death and the devil, and made partakers of eternal life, not by ourselves (and certainly not by our works, which are less than ourselves), but by the help of another, the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ.” – Martin Luther
I think Martin Luther got it exactly right, and I think what he said still applies to the church today. Often times we don’t truly understand this idea of justification Paul hammers into the churches of Galatia in his letter. They had been deceived into thinking that they had to add things onto the gospel in order to really be accepted by God; that the law still applied to them, and salvation depended on Jesus+works, not just Jesus. Isn’t that the same mindset we so often fall into? Paul basically calls it slavery. We have been set free, but we always tend toward legalism, which just takes away our freedom. The significance of this idea cannot be overemphasized in our lives; justification is by faith in Jesus Christ alone, not Jesus+_______.
“…Yet I am compelled to forget my shame and be quite shameless in view of the horrible profanation and abomination which have always raged in the church of God, and still rage today, against this one solid rock which we call the doctrine of justification. I mean the doctrine that we are redeemed from sin, death and the devil, and made partakers of eternal life, not by ourselves (and certainly not by our works, which are less than ourselves), but by the help of another, the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ.” – Martin Luther
I think Martin Luther got it exactly right, and I think what he said still applies to the church today. Often times we don’t truly understand this idea of justification Paul hammers into the churches of Galatia in his letter. They had been deceived into thinking that they had to add things onto the gospel in order to really be accepted by God; that the law still applied to them, and salvation depended on Jesus+works, not just Jesus. Isn’t that the same mindset we so often fall into? Paul basically calls it slavery. We have been set free, but we always tend toward legalism, which just takes away our freedom. The significance of this idea cannot be overemphasized in our lives; justification is by faith in Jesus Christ alone, not Jesus+_______.
T.B.
Galatians 5:1 “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”