The David Spoon Experience 10-10-23 part 2

1) Chapter 5 in Galatians is one of the great verses for everyone who has found deliverance through Jesus Christ, whether from addiction, sin, illness, or anything else. This is a banner passage: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has set you free." You and I have been set free from our addictions, sin, illness, or anything else. We need to stand firm in our freedom. By the way, that can include people too.

2) Then Paul drops the hammer: if you're trying to make yourself right through circumcision, Jesus Christ cannot help you. Why is that? Because you're trying to keep the law. Why is that? Because you're trying to appear justified or right before God. Why is that? Because you haven't accepted the righteousness that comes through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ and are trying to create your own. That is no different than anyone else trying to establish their own righteousness apart from Christ. Except as believers who started off in the right direction, we should know better.

3) And here's the significant passage that many people misinterpret: "For if you're trying to make yourself right with God by keeping the law, you've been cut off from Christ; you've fallen away from grace." That doesn't mean that grace is insufficient. What it means is that people have substituted work and human achievement for the righteous achievements of Jesus Christ. Falling away from grace means they started in grace and then fell from there and moved into the law. It's not that there can never be redemption for these people; it means they're heading in the wrong direction from the freedom of Jesus back into religion. The reason we know they can be redeemed is because the letter was written to them in the first place.