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The Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast
GAL133 - The Grandest Reversal of Fortune (and it's in Romans too, except it's even clearer over there)
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Foreign. Every battle that you read about in history is incredibly high stakes and more interesting than just about anything I've ever done. I've never been in a situation where I've tacitly agreed that I was going to try to kill a bunch of other people and they were going to try to kill me and we'd try to make it sporting and it would be decisive. That is a crazy thing. And throughout the centuries, there have been a whole lot of times where the way things have gone down, people have ended up in that situation. Wild. I mean, I just can't even imagine some of you listening to this have been there, which is just crazy to me. But despite that acknowledgment, I think we still have to admit that some battles were more of a historical turning point than other battles. There are some where you go back and you look at it and you just think about how things turned out and the implications of it, and you go, dang, everything hinged on this one little thing, not just for that battle, but for how the world worked out. I mean, you think about how touch and go the Battle of Salamis was when Xerxes invaded Athens. I mean, that was tight. The Athenians don't win that, man. What does that mean? That's got a huge domino effect for the rest of history. You think about the Battle of Tours in. What was that? 732 A.D. between Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace, and the Muslim caliph who was leading the invasion, the Muslim invasion of Europe. That battle happened right there at the line between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Western Europe, the Pyrenees Mountains. And Martel won and checked the Muslim advance. But what if he didn't? You think about the U.S. civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg, and you got the little rock outcropping on the one end, and a regiment from Maine has to hold that. And if they fold, the north is going to lose the battle and lose the war, and then what happens? It's just wild. You think about all the Brits showing up overnight to rescue their boys from the shores at Dunkirk. We've talked about a lot of these battles before over the years, chatting together, but there's some really pivotal moments. Really dang. If that goes the one way, kind of all is lost. But if that goes the other way, the implications are so glorious as to be almost overwhelming. Likewise in Galatians, what is in play here that Paul is talking about is nuts. He's talking about every single person being. Being born into a state of slavery that will lead to ultimate death, to put it lightly. Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the Law. Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner to sin. This is the kind of stuff he's saying in Galatians chapter three. But then there's this pivotal spiritual moment, this pivotal spiritual battle that is won by God in Christ. And the result is a complete overhaul of the fate of everything, the fate of you and me. And it's like a 14 point swing. It's like a full swing in the opposite direction of the way things were shaping up to go. And Paul characterizes like this, Galatians 3. 22. But the scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. You can feel the pivot happening here. Now that faith has come, we're no longer under the supervision of the law. Okay, well, remember, the law tries to maintain order out of chaos. It tries to curtail the darker impulses of humans and societies. The law points out the character of God and most of all reveals the holiness of God compared to the sinfulness of man. So no longer being under the supervision of the law sounds pretty good. He goes on. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Whoa. Total victory. Just two sentences ago, we were slaves and prisoners. Now all of a sudden we're sons. Not just of somebody really nice or desirable or a great dude, but God through faith in Jesus Christ. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. This isn't a description of just staving off elimination or managing to avoid ending up in a worse situation. Yet this is a complete reversal. This is a reversal like the Esther reversal, where it looks like all of God's chosen people are going to get wiped out by the murderous Haman. But then things flip on their head entirely. And it turns out all of the murderous, vile people who were sharpening their knives and ready to butcher God's chosen people, all of a sudden, they're the ones who get defeated. Haman, who is setting up a gallows to hang or impale Mordecai and his people all of a sudden? No, that impaling is going to be for Haman himself. Total reversal of fortune here. It's a theme throughout the whole Bible. And the biggest, grandest reversal of fortune that we see in the whole thing is the one that Paul is highlighting right here. From death to life, from slave to free, from prisoner to son, from outsider to heir, from a part of some foreign lot that is from who knows where, to a part of the family of faith, the new family of faith receiving the blessings promised to Abraham along with Abraham. This is incredible, and it just cannot possibly be overstated. Also, I cannot emphasize enough that this is not an idea that is reserved for the end of Galatians. It's not like we're in a situation here where we look at this and we go, oh, I would really like that to be what the Bible teaches. And we have these three or four verses right here that I just read that we can cling to and just hope that that is the right distillation of the rest of the Bible. The book of Romans says basically the exact same stuff, but to a different audience and with a little bit easier to understand language. Romans 3. What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? This is Paul writing as well. Not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, there's no one righteous. Not even one. He continues a little later, now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight and his sight. By observing the law, rather through the law, we become conscious of sin. I mean, like I said, it's the same thing, right? So this is great news because we got this glorious reversal in Galatians, and it turns out that this isn't the only place in the Bible where it says it. This is a recurring theme. This is great news. But now a righteousness from God apart from the law, has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. That's Romans 3:21. It's like a summary of all of Galatians 3 right there. Think about what he just said. But now a righteousness from God, not one that you earn apart from the law, has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. He's saying this isn't an innovation. This isn't a new righteousness that just got made Up. It's the one that was revealed to Abraham all the way back at the beginning. It's the promise. It's faith. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, there's no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Again, he's just drilling in plainer, simpler language. The material that he's really hitting with, the inside baseball language over there in Galatians 3. This is easy to follow with, right? This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There's no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He means Jews, Gentiles, everybody. And are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Going to read a little bit more. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice. Because in God's forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. What did he just say? Did you catch? Sounded like he's saying that all of the sin of forever, not just the time of Jesus and forward, but even the sin of the Old Testament, Abraham, Moses, their generations, all of that, all of the ugly stuff in the Old Testament, all the sin of ever was on the shoulders of Christ, was dealt with at the cross. So Paul goes on in Romans 3, where then is boasting? It's excluded? On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. It's all just Galatians. Is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too. Since there is only one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then nullify the law by this faith? And not at all. Rather we uphold the law that's so tight, it's so good. And it's so helpful to lock down this dramatic 14 point pivot point swing, amazing reversal of fortune stuff that we're reading about here in Galatians 3. From death to life, from prisoner to free, from slave to son to heir. All of this gigantic amazing reversal is spelled out in Even plainer language over here in Romans chapter, chapter three. And Paul's final point in this chapter, I read you the last verse of it just now, is that the law isn't nullified by this reality. Rather, we're upholding the law, faith in Christ and what Christ did, just as Christ said in Matthew 5:17, it is the fulfillment, it is the completion of the law. This is where the law was always pointing toward. This is what the tool of the law was always meant to nudge people toward. Paul says, in acknowledging this timeless truth of God, about faith and about a righteousness from God that is apart from the law, in acknowledging that you are upholding the law. I want to look at some more stuff from Romans, but yeah, we're into it a little ways. We'll save that for next time around. But I'm just. I'm amped about the way this is coming together. You might think like, oh, I got all of this solved. And then I just bring this prepared stuff to you and try to act like I'm learning on the fly to make it more interesting so we can have a podcast. That is not true. I am learning with you. Yes, I've been through the Bible a gajillion times. Yes, I went to school for this many times over. And yes, I do prepare for this. But also, you being here forces me to think about it in different ways, to think about it harder, to think about it in fresh ways, to be a little more honest about some of the parts that are hard to understand and that challenge me. And I have been in the muck with you through Galatians 3 and getting to the end of Galatians 3 into this reversal of fortune that is described here legitimately. Like, you don't understand how much I have been toiling over this along with you. It's hard. I am feeling Galatians and I'm feeling the weight of it. But now also, we're here to this part, which of course I've read before, but it's hitting me fresh and legitimately. Hey, pulling back the curtain on my own soul here, getting to this life giving, wonderful stuff at the end of Galatians 3 and the parallel passages that we just looked at in Romans 3. There's a certain degree of the joy and enthusiasm of my salvation that I am re encountering as I record this stuff and as we have these conversations. This is very meaningful to me and I'm not having to fake hype to be excited about it. So thank you again for being there because if you weren't. I wouldn't go this hard into this text. I'd like to think I would, but I just wouldn't. So. You're making my life better. You're making my faith stronger. You're helping me understand the Bible better. You're helping me connect with God, with my maker, and understand his character better. And I'm frankly pretty excited about it. So, yeah, more Bible stuff next time around. You get the drill? I appreciate you. I'm Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon. Sam.