READINGS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, CHAPTER 1
[p. 14] READINGS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, CHAPTER 1
Was this epistle written to bring out the gospel of God more fully, and in order to recover the Galatians? They were in danger of turning back to the law.
They had nearly fallen from grace; chapter 5:4.
It is evident enough that they had known grace. They had the Spirit.
Do you think the saints in Galatia had known the truth of Romans?
It could not have had much force with them. They were like the children of Israel who had heard the word, but there was a danger of their falling in the wilderness, that is, coming short of the purpose of God.
You think they knew what is in Romans up to the middle of chapter 5?
They had the light of it but not the enjoyment.
They had had a good start, the apostle could say, “Ye did run well”.
I do not think they had ever known deliverance, and you cannot have enjoyment without deliverance. I see three parts in deliverance: we need delivering from sin (Romans 6), legality (chapter 7), and flesh (chapter 8). Apart from deliverance you cannot get the enjoyment of that which is made known to you in the gospel, that is, the light of God.
Had they not refused the truth of Romans 6?
They had not the good of it, but I doubt if you could go so far as to say they had refused it; they were hampered and hindered by judaising influences.
Is not verse 4 the key to the epistle?
Yes, one side of it.
It is the present evil course of things, it is not quite [p. 15] the same idea as in the gospel of John: “Not of the world”. The legal system was a part of the age.
Why do you say ‘a part’ of it?
I think Judaism is one part of ‘the present evil course of things’, and idolatry another.
Does not the apostle put them together in chapter 4:8,9?
Yes, he does.
Does not the apostle bring in the light of the world to come?
You will find that almost every epistle anticipates in some way what is to come. If you take Romans you have the reign of grace; in 1 Corinthians the temple of God and victory over death; in Galatians you have Jerusalem above; in Ephesians, everything put under Christ; in Hebrews, the world to come whereof we speak. The thought of this helps me very much; each epistle brings us into the light of what is to be displayed; the point in Galatians is Jerusalem above.
Can you have the Spirit without deliverance?
Yes, you cannot really get deliverance apart from the Spirit.
What do you connect with Jerusalem above?
It is the revelation of God’s purpose, it is the heavenly part of His purpose; you have the light of it brought in, in contrast with the legal principles of Jerusalem below.
Then would you say that the object of every epistle is to connect us with the purpose of God?
Exactly, they are all to bring you into the light of what is to come. You anticipate it, it is all good for faith now, Jerusalem above is our mother Galatians 4:26; the world to come is not yet displayed but we speak of it; Hebrews 2:5.
The gospel sets forth the ground on which God will accomplish His counsels. The gospel is very often looked at only from the side of man’s relief, and not from the side of God’s purpose. Oftentimes the blood [p. 16] in Egypt is only spoken of as man’s shelter from the judgment of God; it was really the first step in the carrying out of God’s purpose for His people.
The first thing declared in the gospel is God’s righteousness, on that depends the possibility of God being truly known. This lays a foundation in man’s soul; it is very well to talk of love, but a sinful being like man needs to know about God’s righteousness. It being a question in the gospel of approaching man, I can very well understand that the first presentation is righteousness, but behind all that, God has His own purpose of love. The difference between Romans and Galatians is, that in Romans it is God approaching man according to what man is, while in Galatians He is speaking from the height of His purpose. He begins at the top. Paul’s apostleship dates from God the Father and Jesus Christ.
In speaking of purpose do you mean what is eternal?
It runs on to what is eternal, but all is immediately connected in the epistles with the world to come. The world to come is the scene and sphere of God’s administration in grace.
Would you confine ‘world to come’ to the lower part?
I think it also takes in the heavenly part; the holiest must be connected with the world to come. The tabernacle was a pattern of the world to come, not exactly a pattern of this present time, and the tabernacle took in the holiest, that is, the heavenly side.
Is it the same as the “day of God” in 2 Peter 3:12?
The day of God is eternity.
Can it be said that the world to come links time with eternity?
I think it does.
Does not the world to come run on into the eternal state?
Not exactly; because in the world to come there is the complete solution of every moral question: every [p. 17] such question is solved in view of the eternal state, and the eternal state is not brought in until every moral question is completely settled in the reign of righteousness. The world to come speaks of administration, not of the new heavens and new earth. The world to come is put under the Son of man, the eternal state brings in God’s supremacy. The world to come is a necessity for the glory of God; every moral question must be settled there; man took of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that brought in a most serious element with regard to man, and involved that every moral question must be solved by man.
But for that, Satan would have had a victory?
Yes, I think so, the Son of God was manifested to undo the works of the devil; good and evil were inextricably mixed up but are completely disentangled. Some think the lake of fire arbitrary, but I can see it is a moral necessity. Everything must find its own place.
I thought the question of good and evil had been solved by the cross?
Yes, but it has to be worked out in detail as regards man.
Is there not another world also in the epistles in which we have access to God according to His nature, revealed in the relationship which He has established, and which takes us higher than the administration of the world to come?
Yes, I think you get heavenly privilege, and association with Christ above, where Christ comes in as priest above all question of administration, but you get the other thing as well, you do not lack any element of blessing. What marks the world to come, is everything put under the Son of man; but we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, all is put under Him for us.
Is the dispensation of the fulness of times Ephesians 1:10 the same thing?
[p. 18] Yes.
Would you say the question of good and evil was completely settled for God at the cross, morally settled there, actually in the world to come?
The question of good and evil does not bring in the cross only, it takes in the whole pathway of Christ. He met the whole force of evil in the perfection of good, we really know but little about good and evil except as we see it in this. Perfect good was there in Him, not exactly in the sense of that absoluteness and supremacy which belongs to God (Mark 10:18), but perfect good in man in the place of obedience; and as to evil, man never knew the full power of evil till Christ came. Man never knew the terrors of death and Satan’s power till Christ — perfect good in man — exposed all the force and power of evil. He goes through it all and meets every element, and then having gone through all, He Himself is made sin and bears its judgment under the hand of God.
In 1 Corinthians 15 all enemies are put under His feet and then He is Himself subject; in Hebrews 2 the world to come is put under the Son of man; but in 1 Corinthians 15 it is the Son who is subject, after having given up the kingdom, because He is Man. The Son of man is a designation of the Son, Hebrews 2 is an allusion to Psalm 8. In Philippians 2 it says He “emptied himself”, and the fact remains true to eternity.
Everything is set right according to God by Christ who is the head of every man.
Still, things never return in eternity to what they were; they remain on the platform on which God has been pleased to place them; the Son of man never ceases to be the Son of man. The Son takes the place of subjection that God may be all in all 1 Corinthians 15:28.
Is not the object of our epistle to put the sons in liberty?
[p. 19] I should say that the apostle brings them into the light of God’s purpose that they may enjoy the liberty. It is after he has brought in Jerusalem above, that he says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty” Galatians 5:1. In the history of Israel they were brought into the light of God’s purpose, but it was long years after that before they got into the liberty, that is typically speaking. They had a sense of His purpose in Exodus 15 when they were through the Red Sea. We get the purpose announced in Exodus 3 and the song takes that up. The epistle to the Galatians is not what we may call a simple exposition like Romans or Ephesians, but for recovery. In an epistle the object of which is recovery, you do not get the simple elements of the gospel, but the revelation of God’s purpose, and if people are not recovered by that they are past recovery. It is the same in Hebrews, the purpose is seen to bring many sons to glory; there again it is for recovery.
Where is the purpose of God brought out in Galatians?
In chapter 3:26, “Ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus” Galatians 3:26, that is how I read it and my reason is what follows: “For ye are all one in Christ Jesus” Galatians 3:28. God has nothing beyond His purpose; men may drop away in measure from grace but there is something else to bring in, the divine purpose, but if that does not recover a man there is nothing that will. “We are unto God a sweet savour”, Paul could say; it is either salvation or men are lost. “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost”. He brings the topmost truth before them in order to recover them, refers, too, to what they had started with to show that their fall was inconsistent with that. You received the Spirit by the hearing of faith and are going on with works of law. The two are inconsistent.
You would not talk to one who had backslidden about purpose, would you? Does not he bring in the cross, and the cross leads to self-judgment?
[p. 20] The apostle does speak about purpose to the backsliding Galatians.
I do not quite look at the cross in that way, the cross is brought in to make way for the Spirit. Galatians and 1 Corinthians are both corrective epistles and the Spirit brings in purpose. The Spirit is the Spirit of another Man, it does not connect itself with man after the flesh, the cross makes way for another Man. God has got clear of the flesh in the cross. Christ has been crucified, and you cannot revive the thing that is gone and crucified, with a divine purpose, that God might give the Spirit. There are three types of Christ’s death: the blood in Egypt, which declares the righteousness of God; the Red Sea, in which the enemy is overthrown; and the brazen serpent in which is seen the condemnation of the state of man. All that was effected in the death of Christ, and on the ground of it the Spirit is communicated. That is why the cross is brought in, in 1 Corinthians and Galatians; you will always find the Spirit is the antithesis of the cross.
What do you mean by the Spirit of another Man?
Christ is a Man of another order and the Spirit comes from Him; it is the Spirit of Christ that is given. If a man has not the Spirit of Christ he is not of Him. It does not seem possible to give the Spirit of another Man until the first man had been set aside. God had tried the first man enough: after forty years you get the brazen serpent, and then it is “Spring up, O well” Numbers 21:17. We have this in John 3 and 4, the water of life is in the believer now, this order is invariably maintained. John 6 and 7 are the same. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you” John 6:53, and then in chapter 7 you get the Spirit mentioned.
Would you not say the Galatians and Corinthians were allowing the man which God had condemned and set aside, and therefore the cross is brought in that [p. 21] they might judge themselves first? I do not mean forgetting God’s purpose, but you seem to jump over self-judgment.
There is a difference between dealing with an individual case, and the wholesale departure from the truth, the very foundations of christianity, as at Galatia. When you deal with individuals you have to think of the particular state of their souls, not of principles; you cannot deal with masses — a general defection as at Galatia — in the same way; you state broad principles. He calls them ‘senseless,’ because they had begun in the Spirit and were going on in the flesh: one principle was absolutely inconsistent with the other; and he brings in purpose, a line of truth never before known and which may be used of God to recover. With the Hebrews the light of purpose is brought in as a means of helping them out of Judaism.
Is it not the thought that they had gone off on the wrong road and they would have to come back to the point of departure?
Yes, they were going off to Judaism but something fresh is brought in to act upon them, if God was working they would be struck with it; if you could get hold of christians in system and bring the light of purpose before them they would be astounded.
Do you think it is unwise to go and lecture on prophecy and thus seek to call the attention of the scattered sheep to the word of God? I think I know more than a dozen who have tried it successfully.
Well, I think the time is rather short for it: in early days dispensational truth was largely dwelt upon and it was necessary in order to disentangle us from the confusion of christendom, but I fancy it has done its work with us, and the only way by which you can hope to affect people inside is in what we have here in Galatians, the purpose of God, to recover them out of the legalism into which they may have fallen. Still there are cases in which souls in the systems need [p. 22] dispensational truth to disentangle them, but I do not think we should now be very interested in a lecture on the Assyrian, for instance. It will not do to think that there is a halting place for us short of God’s purpose; we have to follow Christ and to go on, if we do not, then the next thing will be we shall go back to the earth to find our satisfaction. It is interesting to see the whole extent of God’s purpose, it brings in, too, the light of the inheritance. We are come to “the heavenly Jerusalem”, Hebrews 12. The purpose of God is all that which God will effect in Christ for His own glory.
Does not prophecy touch the purpose of God?
Only the inferior part of it, the earthly side.
In writing to the Corinthians the apostle said, “We write none other things but what ye read or acknowledge” 2 Corinthians 1:13. It seems to me in dealing with saints we must start from a point of agreement, if they are to be recovered; we must take up what they acknowledge and lead them on.
In dealing with people in system no doubt that which has been useful to us in the past may still be useful, for they know very little about God’s dispensational dealings: the ‘stream of time’ might be very useful to them.
There are some breaking bread who are not clear about the two resurrections.
Well, all that might be very useful to them to clear them. Saints could not read their Bibles properly unless dispensational truth is somewhat understood.
Some who have announced themselves to lecture on prophecy have had to leave their subject and preach the gospel to the hearers.
There is an important point to remember — it is that the evangelist is not the vessel of Christ’s testimony, the church is that. The importance of this is that we see that we are in a day of weakness and decline, and cannot get away from it; it is a day of small things [p. 23] and we cannot expect great apparent results when the vessel of testimony has failed. The tendency of some evangelists is to break away from the church. Some go to the scriptures to get what will affect others, but the great thing is how it affects us. I am thinking of John 14 and 15. The disciples are prepared in chapter 14, and in chapter 15 they go out in testimony. They were to love one another, we have to see to that; it is the effect of the truth upon us, we have to be inside before we can come to the outside. We should be a people marked by love one to the other even as Christ has loved us; the evangelist goes out from that, he bears the character of that. Lots of evangelists go out in a loose kind of way perfectly indifferent to the state of the house; they do not see that the church is the vessel of testimony and that it has utterly broken down, and no one can help being affected by it.
Will you give us a definite thought about the purpose of God?
I will trace it through the epistle. In the first chapter we have the fitting of the instrument: “When it pleased God... to reveal his Son in me” Galatians 1:16. Then in chapter 3: “Ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus” Galatians 3:26. They were in that light. In chapter 4, “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” Galatians 4:5, and verse 26, “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all” Galatians 4:26. Then in chapter 5, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” Galatians 5:1. The whole thought is of purpose rather than of grace, and the apostle touches new creation in chapter 6. Jerusalem above is what is actually established according to divine purposes; we take our character from it; we are like Isaac, children of promise. A man largely takes his character from his mother; great men commonly have had distinguished mothers. Jerusalem [p. 24] above is in contrast with Jerusalem below with its judaising tendencies for the Galatians. What we have to remember is that for God everything is accomplished in Christ; we see it all in Him. The one act of God’s great power was the resurrection of Christ, all the rest is a question of detail. I do not believe God will exercise His great power again. If you take the change of our body it is according to the power whereby Christ is able even to subdue all things to Himself. The resurrection of Christ is God’s one great act, it is the exceeding greatness of His power, and we are to be strong in that power, it is towards us.
“Jerusalem above” Galatians 4:26, refers to, but is not the new covenant, the first covenant was with the Jew and gendereth to bondage; it answers to Hagar and Ishmael. Jerusalem above is free.† Isaac was the son of the free woman. If you look at grace simply as a question of relief for man it never could bring in sonship. Paul’s gospel was a presentation of God’s purpose in regard of man. Purpose brings in sonship. If you take a man with a lot of debt and a rich man relieves him, that does not make him his son. In the new Jerusalem there is no sun, it all reflects Christ. When the church comes out what is seen is Christ.
The way then to recover souls is to present the Son of God?
That is the thing to do, but we are so poorly up to it. The thought in chapter 1 is that the Son of God was revealed in Paul that he might preach Him among the heathen. There was that which Paul had in common with the twelve, but there was that which marked him off from them; he communicated the gospel he preached to them, they added nothing to him. It was the point of recovery with the Corinthians. The Son of God was preached to them, and in Him was the yea and amen of all God’s promises. He brings
†It is presented to us in the Son of God glorified, and we are begotten of and have our character from that testimony.
[p. 25] in the Son of God in Hebrews to show the greatness of His purpose. Even in Romans it begins with the Son of God. It is easy to preach the ruin of the first man, but to preach the Son of God is a different thing.
What is “revealed his Son in me” Galatians 1:16?
It is apostolic. He had not been revealed in this way in anyone else before; everything was inaugurated in the apostle; it is all good for us, we have to preach on that line. Paul was the first to preach the Son of God in the Acts. He brings it in here in Galatians to mark him off from the twelve, it is not like 1 Corinthians 15, where he has a common testimony with the twelve. There is a new start with him, he did not get it from the twelve, he communicated it to them.
What is the difference between revealing the Son in him and to him?
Revealing the Son in him is a divine work which gives the Son of God His own proper place in the affections. Every part of the truth is touched in Galatians, so that it is brought out in wonderful power and brightness. If the Galatians were not touched by the light brought out to them it was a poor look-out for them, there was nothing left that could act upon them. If circumcised they were fallen from grace; the two principles were absolutely irreconcilable; if Isaac comes in Ishmael must go out.
He was revealed as Jesus to Paul before He was revealed as Son of God.
The revelation of Jesus was in the way. I do not fancy the revelation of the Son of God took place then, it was a work of spiritual power afterwards. The church is to be formed in that. If I preach I preach on the same line, “Ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus” Galatians 3:26. Sons of God in Christ, I fancy that is the reading of the passage, it is not Christ as the object of faith but the place we have in Him, the whole scheme of divine purpose, eternal life revealed in Christ, every purpose brought to light in Christ Jesus.
I think “by faith” is the way in which it has reached us. I think that it is the revelation of God’s purpose. Sonship brings in the thought of purpose. There is the positive statement in Romans 8: “Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son”. That is purpose most undoubtedly. Inheritance hangs on the place we have in Christ.
The question is whether we are on the ground of Ishmael and the breakdown of man, or of Isaac and the inheritance.
We have not got the inheritance yet but we have sonship?
You have not got the inheritance but you have the Spirit who is the earnest of it, and in like manner you have the Spirit of God’s Son — the power of the relationship and the earnest of the inheritance.
Why do you think “by faith” is introduced?
Because you have no title to it but by faith, there is no other way into it. It is only faith that can enter into it, and it stands contrasted with what was under the schoolmaster, it speaks of faith having come and being no longer under the law. Faith is the light of divine purpose. Faith always did, as a matter of fact, look forward into the other world; Hebrews 11 shows that. Christ being formed in you is the effect of it.
Is that individual or corporate?
I think myself it is corporate, but I should not press it. It seems to me the apostle has behind all this the thought of what the church is, but still it has to be wrought in each one even if the result is corporate.
Is it the same as chapter 2:20: “Christ liveth in me?” (Galatians 2:20)
There it is individualised. The great idea to me is what is expressed in Colossians 1: “The riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations which is Christ in you the hope of glory”. That is the great idea of the body; the body is the vessel in which [p. 27] Christ is to be displayed, you cannot really understand the house without understanding the body. You must understand what is within before you can appreciate fully what is without. Ephesians 3 comes in to fill up chapter 2.
Then you think Christ in you is corporate?
Every trait of Christ was to come out in the body, nothing whatever to be lacking; that is what I understand by Christ formed in you, and that is why I call the church the vessel of testimony. What was really in display in Christ is to come out morally now. The church is the fulness of Him that filleth all in all, it is the vessel for the display of Christ. It is difficult to make it merely individual, you lose the breadth and greatness of the divine thought; a part comes out in each, of course, Christ has to be formed in everyone. Paul could say: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20), but what would be true of the whole company, was that divine affection which overrides every distinction in the flesh, Christ all and in all. The distinctions are there in the flesh but we get above them. I do not see too much of it with us; it ought to be seen. Mind, I am not saying we are the church or the body, but we are in the light of it, and what is proper to the church ought to come out in us. The more we appreciate the light of it the more there will be seen in us.
What I understand by the Son of God is, that the Son has come out from God but without ceasing to be the object of the Father’s affection, and that is what you are brought into. You cannot understand the love of God in relationship apart from Christ’s becoming a Man, and so we get “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). You can never enter into this except by the Spirit. You stand a little company in the presence of the Father’s love, but you do not know anything about it except [p. 28] in Christ, there you get the character of it; He is the perfect object of it.
We have God’s love to us and also to the world?
Yes, there is the sovereignty of love and the love of relationship. The first is in view of the last, but it is not the love of relationship. God has been pleased to reveal His nature, which is love, and love always has its own object to fulfil. In Romans 8:39, He has got to His point; it is the identification of the saints with One who is naturally and properly the object of God’s love. His glory is the glory as of an only-begotten with a father (John 1:14), and no other takes that place. You get Him loved as Man on earth: to take us up to that level, He identifies us with Himself and takes us back to the place from whence He came.
Is not Romans 8 an individual persuasion?
Yes, but it is an individual persuasion about a company, i.e., the ‘us’. I am amazed at what christianity is. I feel to know nothing about it; the little bit I see of it fills me with the greatness of the divine thoughts; everything about God is so inexpressibly great.
The revelation must be mediatorial, there must be a proper channel to communicate it.
The mediatorial character of it is the way in which God has been pleased to place Himself in relation with men.
What about: “According to the will of God and our Father” (verse 4)?
That is purpose. Christ comes to do the will of God, gives Himself to carry out His pleasure.
To deliver from this present evil world?
That is true, but the will is more than that, it is positive. The love of God is like an ocean seeking to break forth from its bounds, and it must find out a way and has found out a way since Christ died, but it was ever there and would come out, and it has cleared away everything that stood in the way, and now this [p. 29] frees me from the whole system of things here, the present evil course of things.
In speaking of deliverance you distinguish between sin and the flesh?
I think Scripture does. Sin is taken up in Romans 6 and flesh in Romans 8.
We have the world in that sense blotted out before we get the unfolding of God’s purpose. Babylon must go before the heavenly Jerusalem comes out.
I think everything was cast into the burning when Christ died. How good to know it and to accept it.
He “gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us” (Galatians 1:4), is that the idea of the heart’s affection?
Yes, and He met the whole question of responsibility to bring about the purpose of God.
When it says: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again” (John 10:17), is it not stating something for the hearts of the disciples? I cannot exactly understand what is said sometimes of supplying motive to God for loving Him.
His obedience drew out the Father’s affection, it rested upon Him for all eternity, surely, but we must accept the statement. I would not say God’s love because I think it speaks of the Father’s love. It is a different thought.