Gospel of John [17:13-14]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 14. Gal 3:1-14.

Title: Gospel of John [17:13-14]. The Lord's priestly prayer; part 14. GAL 3:1-14.

 

 

JOH 17:11 "And I am no more in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, the name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are.

 

JOH 17:12 "While I was with them, I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me; and I guarded them, and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

 

JOH 17:13 "But now I come to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy made full in themselves.

 

Joy is one of the words that has not really changed its meaning over the centuries. The Greek word chara means joy and delight. It is a system of thinking that has a wide range of emotional responses. The words of Christ will fill us with joy and delight. By them we become partners with our divine nature and reside in the love of the Father as our Lord did and we become full of divine joy as our Lord experienced. Joy is second on the list of the fruit of the Spirit. To experience it we must walk by means of the Spirit.

 

Our Lord laid aside His joy temporarily, HEB 12:2. We never have to. He was being judged for the sins of the world, believers will never be judged.

 

This joy does not depend on circumstances. It is God's perfect happiness, which is eternal and priceless and given to every believer in grace.

 

This joy comes from the words understood. Yet these words can only be understood through the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. This entreats us to take a brief look at the Mosaic Law and its words in contrast to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. There is no provision for the indwelling Spirit and His ministry in maturing or completing the believer in the Mosaic Law. If our Lord's joy is to be made full in us it is the Spirit of God within us that must work that completion or maturity in joy, in love, in righteousness by using the words that the Father gave to the Son who subsequently has given them to us.

 

GAL 3:1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified [posting of a public announcement - Paul's gospel]?

 

GAL 3:2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?

 

They can only answer this - by faith.

 

GAL 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

 

"perfected" - evpitele,w[epiteleo] = to bring something to the place where it is complete, to accomplish perfectly. The flesh will not complete the joy of Christ in us.

 

The cognate noun is the word Paul uses when he speaks of a spiritually mature Christian, one who is living a well-rounded, well-balanced, mature life. By the word flesh here he refers to all that a person is as the product of natural generation apart from the morally transforming power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration.

 

The flesh speaks of the unsaved man, body, soul, and spirit, controlled by his totally depraved nature, together with all his human accomplishments, positions, capabilities, and philosophies.

 

The following scriptures illustrate this:

 

JOH 3:6

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

 

Php 3:3

 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh

 

ROM 6:19

 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

 

ROM 7:5-6

For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

 

ROM 8:3

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh

 

Because there was no provision in the Mosaic economy for an indwelling Spirit who would sanctify the believer as that believer trusted Him for that work, the Galatians were turning away from the teaching and the reality of the ministry of the Spirit in the life of the believer in this dispensation of grace, and were starting to depend upon self effort in an attempt to obey an outward legalistic system of works.

 

Thus these Christians who had begun their Christian lives in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, now were depending upon self effort to continue in them the work of sanctification which the Holy Spirit had begun.

 

God the Holy Spirit does the work in bringing us to maturity by using the word of God. We trust Him to do so as we learn the word. We make decisions in faith not to hinder His work.

 

This is therefore a life of faith and not of works. Whatever work of fruit that we produce is the result of that faith in the Spirit to do what He wills as we allow Him and the word of God to fill our souls. That filling will bring with it the experience of the fullness of Christ's joy in us.

 

GAL 3:4 Did you suffer so many things in vain —  if indeed it was in vain?

 

The Galatians suffered due to their faith, as we have been noting will happen to all believers. For this reason our Lord prays that the Father keep us in His name and keep us from the evil one.

 

When he says, "if indeed it was in vain," is a hope in Paul that they can recover and that maybe they hadn't swung all the way over from grace to the Law.

 

GAL 3:5 Does He then, who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?

 

He who provides is God the Father. Paul is stating that the same Spirit who is completing them to maturity and thus filling them with joy, love, and righteousness is the same one who has bestowed upon many of them their supernatural spiritual gifts. The temporary and spectacular gifts like miracles, healings, tongues etc. are still in us and they are likely what he is referring to.

 

So he could say, "Those of you who had the power of healing; did you get that because of works of the Law or by hearing with faith?" And to us today: "Those of you who peace; did you get that because of some work of the Law or by hearing with faith."

 

God's peace in a fallen creature is just as much, and I think, even more, of a miracle as healing a dying man. Does anyone have God's love, joy, or peace because they did a work or works or do they have them by hearing the word of God in faith under the Spirit's instruction?

 

GAL 3:6 Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

 

Abraham did no work here. He was not as of yet circumcised nor was the Law even in existence. The Judaizers misinterpreted God's promise to Abraham that his seed would bring blessing and salvation to the world, which they believed was only the circumcised Jew. The seed spoken of by God to Abraham was Jesus Christ.

 

The gospel of grace came into the world that had its own definitions of joy, love, and righteousness and gave their true meanings.

 

Yet in Christ the divine standard of these, which can fill any man, has been achieved and plainly defined from God's name or God's character.

 

In pagan Greece the dikaios (righteous) person is he who does not selfishly nor yet self-forgettingly transgress the bounds fixed for him, and gives to everyone his own, yet still desires what is his, and does not in the least withdraw the assertion of his own claims, a view which Christianity has continually to combat.