Sharing the cross
Galatians 2:15-21
Have you ever wondered what consumer
complaint led to the warnings being put on many products? For example, the
Rowenta iron that warned ‘do not iron clothes on body’ or the warning on a
Canadian Superman outfit ‘wearing this garment does not enable you to fly.’ How about a
What product warning would we put on the Christian faith? The Galatians are being told by rivals of Paul that they’ve been sold a pup; that their faith can’t do what Paul promised it would because they haven’t got all the parts. The part they are missing is ‘the Works of the Law’ – circumcision, the Sabbath and the dietary laws that separated Jewish people from the rest of the world in the first century.
Paul begs to differ – and he takes his readers back to first base to show them that his gospel has everything they need to lead a Christian life.
1) Christ Crucified for me (2:15f; 3:1)
First base in the Christian life is the cross – and we never leave it:
i) starting out: no one believed you worked your way into a covenant: ‘we’ of 2:15-16 means everyone involved in the fight that Paul talks about in 11-14, all of whom were Jewish. They all agreed that starting the Christian life was about faith (we’ll ask whose in a minute…)
Of course, the trouble is that some think we can work our way into the people of God or that we have to because:
ü we’re not good enough to be just accepted – quite right, we’re not; but read Romans 5:8.
ü there’s no such thing as a free lunch – there is! 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us about the most gloriously outrageous swap in human history.
ii) staying in: while everyone agreed on how you start the Christian life, opinions differed on what you did next:
ü the rivals emphasized religion & rules – so, the Christian life becomes a matter of volunteering for committees, witnessing to 10 people a week: working to pay back what God gave me for nothing…
ü Paul stressed faithful living in the footsteps of the faithful Saviour – ‘in Christ’ means that we are in God’s family not by race, work or religion but trust.
2) Me crucified with Christ (2:20)
Just as starting out in the Christian life is about the cross, so is moving on and it’s all about faith:
i) whose faith? How often when you explain the good news about Jesus to them, people say ‘I wish I had your faith.’
But it’s not about me, the quality of my faith – it depends on Jesus: we see this clearly in the structure of verse 16 where twice Paul speaks about the faith of Jesus and once about our simple yes to what he’s done, our saying ‘count me in’: what release this is from all that religious nonsense, all that striving to be acceptable!
2:16 is technically called a chiasm. It’s a way of writing – common in the Jewish world of Paul’s day – that enables an author to ensure his readers will understand what he says not just through his words but also through the way his sentence is put together. So, if you strip out the basic points Paul makes in 2:16 and turn it into a diagram, it looks like this:
A: not by works of law
B: but through the faith of Jesus
C:
we believe in Christ Jesus
B1:
justified by the faith of Christ
A1: not by works of law
A and A1 – tell us that Christian living has nothing to do with being religious; B and B1 – tell us that our salvation depends on Jesus’ faith, his faithful living and dying in obedience to his Father’s will which opens the possibility of us being forgiven and becoming members of God’s family. C – tells us that this happens when we trust what Jesus has done.
ii) what power? The Holy Spirit is unleashed through the cross (3:1-3; see Romans 1:16): I can’t live the Christian life, it’s impossible (this is the burden of Paul’s whole argument about Law in Galatians 3), but Jesus can live it through me – after all he’s already done it once; he can do it again & again through anyone who’s willing: are we willing?
We show our willingness by putting our trust in Jesus. When we do that, our lives and Jesus’ life become enmeshed and so we share Christ’s cross and resurrection. We are called to live lives of self-giving love – the love Jesus showered on me (20):
ü How will I live Micah 6:8? It’s too hard; I can’t. But Jesus will live it through me: 20 – if I let him.
ü How will I do Leviticus 19:18? I can’t but Jesus has and he will live it again through me (5:13-15 – where the love in view at end of v13 is Jesus’): 20.
We start out in the Christian life by trusting in the faithfulness of Jesus shown in his life and cross and we stay in the Christian life in exactly the same way – through our trust in Jesus. This means we share his cross and he lives through us: so what’s true of Paul (Gal 2:20) is true of us: yes? Do we want it to be?