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Bible Reading Notes
February 2010
Thursday, February 25th – Galatians 1: 3
Paul, as an apostle of Christ, writes to these Galatians not simply as a man sharing with them human sentiments and opinions. Instead, he writes under the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit and is commissioned by God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ to convey to them (and to all who read this epistle) the grace and peace of the blessed gospel of God. Paul is here conveying to his readers an infinite treasure that comes from a source of infinite and eternal glory.
Friday, February 26th – Galatians 1: 3
We shall discover as we read this letter that the Galatians were in great need of the free grace of God and the peace of reconciliation that flows from that grace. Those to whom Paul was writing had been misled into a legalistic way of trying to please God through their works of the Law, rather than gratefully rejoicing in the salvation that God had accomplished for them in Christ. Although the Galatians had to some degree accepted such false, legalistic teaching that was antithetical to the free grace of God in, Paul still regarded them as members of churches of Christ in Galatia, and ministered through his apostolic authority and Christ-like love to recall them to the truth that alone sets men free from the sin that robs them of true peace with God.
Saturday, February 27th – Galatians 1: 3
The Galatian churches, through the influence of false teachers, had come to believe and live as though their standing before God depended on the degree of their conformity to His holy Law. Such teaching sounds plausible to poor sinners whose awakened consciences have prompted them to seek peace with God. However, the truth of God is not only that men have sinned against the Lord and His holy Law; the whole truth of God includes the good news that God has graciously provided the salvation sinners need. Therefore, Paul first intones his benediction in this verse with grace, that is the root cause of salvation, then with peace that is the resulting fruit of salvation. The reversal of this order is what all natural men do when they seek peace by their own fearful flight from God or by foolish attempts to placate the Lord as they clothe themselves with feeble and faulty good deeds designed to cover the shame of their sin.
Sunday, February 28th – Galatians 1: 3
The grace that Paul conveys in his benediction is a favor of glorious character and infinite magnitude. It is not a mere sentiment of indulgence, but is an objective gift that transforms in time and for all eternity all who have received it. It is not grace from an emperor, or from men of the world, or grace from angels. Instead, it is grace from the God of heaven who, by His gracious disposition and dealings with sinners, has shown Himself to be the providing and abundantly blessing Father of all believers (hence the collective designation: our Father). It is this glorious heavenly Father’s grace, not our grinding efforts, that gives us peace with God and makes us to be among loving brethren in the family of faith.
Monday, March 1st – Galatians 1: 3
The grace that genuinely saves comes to those who receive it from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is divine grace given to needy sinners to save them from the holy divine wrath that they rightly deserve and to give them peace with the Lord. That peace is manifold, consisting of a restful cessation of the sinner’s exhausting flight from God, and the commencement of the saint’s exulting joy in and love for the God who first loved him. This saving grace and the resultant blessed peace come to us from the Father who in love predestined us to adoption as His children (Eph. 1:4,5) and from the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal. 2:20).
Tuesday, March 2nd – Galatians 1: 3
Our salvation has resulted from the lovingkindness of both the Father and the Son. The divine love prompted the Father to pay the infinite cost of giving His Son to save us (Jn. 3:16), and prompted the Son to pay the infinite cost of His life for our redemption. With such great and costly divine love being the basis of our salvation, there is no reason why we should ever believe or act as though we were required to earn God’s favor by our feeble and faulty attempts to obey His law.
Wednesday, March 3rd – Galatians 1: 3, 4
We receive saving and sanctifying grace from our Father in heaven and from the Lord Jesus Christ. The peace that results from such grace also comes to us from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Such grace and peace are not mere sentiments but are infinitely substantial. They have come to us and we have entered into their infinite depths through the person and work of Christ. It cost both God the Father and His only begotten Son infinitely to give us such grace and to make for us such peace.
Thursday, March 4th – Galatians 1: 3, 4
The cost of our salvation was paid in blood. That blood first coursed through the veins of the true humanity that the divine Son of God, at infinite cost, humbly assumed for the accomplishment of our Redemption. By His incarnation, Christ condescended from the glorious heights of His divine sovereignty to be a humble servant, and from the eternal and infinite dimensions of His divinity to the confines of a babe in his mother’s womb, a boy in his peasant parents’ household, and a Man ministering to sinful people. Finally, Christ shed His precious blood for the salvation of His people. Neither greater cost nor greater love is conceivable.
Friday, March 5th – Galatians 1: 3, 4
The Father gave His Son and the Son gave Himself for a very specific purpose. Jesus Christ was born, lived His life and was crucified, resurrected, and ascended to heaven, not merely to touch sinners with His teaching of truth or His deeds of loving compassion. The Son of God became Man to live and then to lay down His perfect human life so that all who come to Him by faith in His person and work might have His perfect righteousness and be delivered from their sins and from the wicked enticements and intimidations of the world of evil humanity who are in rebellion from God. Christ’s giving Himself for our sins is the most significant act of God in all of time or eternity.
Saturday, March 6th – Galatians 1: 3, 4
Christ’s giving of Himself for the sins of His people was done according to the will of God the Father. There was and always has been and forever will be the most blessed co-operation among the three persons of the Trinity. Our triune God is the source of our salvation. He is also the goal of our salvation. We have been saved by His graciously having planned and accomplished a redemption for us, and then having applied that redemption to us so that we might have a righteous peace mercifully and lovingly made for us through the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through the person and work of Christ, accomplished by the will and to the satisfaction of the Father, and applied to us by the Holy Spirit, we have been ushered into the holy love and joyful communion of the triune God, and therefore we have peace that passes understanding (Jn. 17:20-26).
Sunday, March 7th – Galatians 1: 3-5
Because the infinitely costly treasure of salvation with its manifold blessings has come to us from the gracious, wise, and loving planning, accomplishment, and application of God, to Him belongs all glory now and forever. Each and every facet of our salvation reveals distinctive features of our God’s glory. The entirety of our salvation, with its perfection, and eternal blessedness, far exceeds in glory the sum of its individual facets. Our eternal fellowship in loving and holy communion with this glorious God of our salvation is the wondrous consummation of our sure hope of glory.
Monday, March 8th – Galatians 1: 6
From his apostolic introduction and benediction, wherein Paul touched summary notes that rang out reminders of the glorious God of salvation and the precious and inimitable glory of His redeeming grace, the apostle quickly turns to the crying need of the Galatians to whom he was writing. He speaks in v.6 in strong and pointed terms that expose and challenge the Galatians’ turning away from Christ. Such challenging speech is not inconsistent with the grace and peace that the apostle pronounced in his opening benediction, but rather serves to confirm the readers of this epistle in the genuine grace and peace of the Lord which are experienced only when such readers’ focus vitally upon the Lord and the ordinances of His grace. When believers drift from the Lord, they cannot hope to escape pain and misery so long as they neglect such a gracious Savior and His great salvation (Heb 2:1,3).
Tuesday, March 9th – Galatians 1: 6
Paul expresses amazement over the Galatians’ departure from Christ. To those who are standing by a faith in Christ that justifies them and gives them peace with God, the drifting of those less faithful to the Lord causes great grief, consternation, and astonishment. Why would anyone detest such a glorious God, such a loving Savior, and such a great salvation? For such desertion there is no cause or reason that would rightly satisfy the faithful, or the holy angelic hosts of heaven, or the God of glory. When believers drift from Christ, all pure-hearted and sound-minded souls can only be astonished.
Wednesday, March 10th – Galatians 1: 6, 7
The Galatians were deserting Christ for another gospel. The way Paul expresses this is significant. It alerts us to how the Galatians viewed their movement and how the apostle by the light of God’s truth viewed their movement. The Galatians were influenced by some who claimed to possess biblical knowledge superior to what Paul possessed. Those teachers also taught what they claimed were necessary components of the gospel that Paul had not taught. Therefore, the Galatians viewed their embracing of the new teachers and their teaching as a good and right progression in the unfolding of the gospel. In the most clear and powerful terms, Paul declares that those who were influencing the Galatians were not teaching but troubling them; were not advancing them in the true gospel, but were thrusting them into a contrary and counterfeit gospel; and were not leading them into the truth that sets men free, but were luring them away from Christ, the only living truth and loving Savior. There is a way that can seem right even to believers, but the end of such a way is death.
Thursday, March 11th – Galatians 1: 6, 7
The Galatians were being told by their new teachers (and they thought accordingly) that they were advancing in the truth of Christ’s gospel. In fact, they were plunging themselves into a different, distorted, and counterfeit gospel. With every new step of learning they thought they were attaining, they were moving steadily away from the grace and peace of God in Christ. There are doctrines that deviate from the truth and there are forms of devotion that are tantamount to a desertion from Christ. We do well to discern truth from error and love the former while hating the latter.
Friday, March 12th – Galatians 1: 6, 7
It seems unclear to some whether Paul is referring in v.6 to himself or to Christ when he writes of the Galatians so quickly deserting Him. Yet the apostle does not intend the reference to be either to himself or to Christ, but rather the Galatians’ desertion was from both. Those who depart from Christ depart from His apostles and their teaching, while those who depart from Christ’s apostles depart from Christ. Let us cleave to our Savior and to His apostles’ teaching and to our brethren in the blessed grace and peace of the true gospel.
Saturday, March 13th – Galatians 1: 8, 9
While Paul used strong language in expressing his astonishment over the Galatians’ defection from Christ and His gospel, the apostle uses searing words when he refers to those who had led them astray. The strong words written to the Galatians were not contrary to but consistent with the grace and peace of God and the brotherly love of Paul. The apostle used them to restore his spiritual children to the Lord and His ordinances wherein they would grow in the grace, knowledge and blessing of the Christ from whose grace they had defected. However, the apostle has no words of blessing, but only repeated and emphatic words of cursing to pronounce upon those who had led his spiritual children astray. In this, the apostle faithfully represents his divine Master, who declared that for the man who caused one of His little ones to stumble, it would have been better for that man to be drowned in the sea (Mt. 18:6). While there is no condemnation for those in Christ, however chastened they might be, there is nothing but condemnation for those who stand apart from the saving grace of God in Christ, and teach others to take such an accursed stand.
Sunday, March 14th – Galatians 1: 8, 9
Paul condemns anyone who would preach to God’s people anything contrary to the gospel. Whether Paul himself began to preach contrary to the gospel or whether a heavenly angel so preached, the apostle lets his words of anathema stand. This is because people are not saved by apostles or angels but by the Word of God’s sovereign and gracious salvation through Christ alone. Accordingly, the Bereans were regarded as being noble-minded when they tested Paul’s preaching in light of the Scriptures (Acts 17:10,11). All believers are taught not to believe every spirit, but to test them to see whether they are from God (1 Jn. 4:1). For Satan can and does appear as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14), and the devil had already used another apostle, Peter, to speak contrary to the purposes of God (Mt. 16:23). No one who persists in speaking contrary to the gospel can be blessed or be an instrument of God’s blessing.
Monday, March 15th – Galatians 1: 7-9
We should respect the workers of the Lord who preach the Word of life, but we should rely on the Word preached, not on the preachers themselves. We should rely only upon the good news of the whole counsel of God contained in Scripture because it is the power of God for salvation to every one who believes. Our respect for those who preach the gospel is based upon their commitment to and reasonable competence in declaring the gospel without distorting it.
Tuesday, March 16th – Galatians 1: 7-9
The words are significant that Paul uses to indicate the fatal flaws in the teaching of those whom he curses. The apostle writes that they distort, not that they deny the gospel (v.7). He further declares that they offer a so-called gospel that is contrary to the true gospel, not openly against it (v.8). The Greek preposition used in v.8 literally means beside, and not against. In other words, it is not just clear denials of salvation by the sovereign grace of God through Christ that are accursed, but also those formulations of the gospel that lay the requirement of some human merit or endeavor beside the gospel that are accursed. We are not saved by anything less than Christ; nor are we saved by anything in addition to Christ; but we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone.
Wednesday, March 17th – Galatians 1: 6-9
Paul is in these verses contending against another gospel, which is not simply another legitimate variation or expression of or perspective upon the gospel, but rather is something radically different from it. Yet, this radical difference is disguised by the apparent compatibility that the accursed counterfeit gospel has with the genuine gospel. Accordingly, the Galatians were guilty of (and we are warned against) a lack of spiritual vigilance and critical discernment. Martin Luther writes in his Commentary (p.63) on this letter: No heretic comes under the title of errors and of the devil, neither does the devil himself come as a devil in his own likeness….Yea, even the black devil, who forces men to manifest wickedness, makes a cloak for them to cover that sin which they commit or purpose to commit. Any other gospel is no gospel at all, whoever may declare it!
Thursday, March 18th – Galatians 1: 6-9
A distorted gospel is not good news of blessing but an awful declaration of cursing. A distorted gospel moves men not to greater devotion to Christ, but rather to an ungrateful deserting of Christ. A distorted gospel does not convey grace that leads to godly peace, but rather it undermines grace and disturbs the peace and purity of the Church. As Martin Luther well observes in his Commentary (p.68): It seems to be a light matter to mingle the law and the gospel, faith and works, together; but it does more mischief than a man’s reason can conceive, for it does not only blemish and darken the knowledge of grace, but also it takes away Christ with all of His benefits….
Friday, March 19th – Galatians 1: 10
The distorting teachers referred to in vv.7-9 criticized Paul, as we can gather from what he says of them throughout this letter, but the apostle cursed them. Should such cursing be in the Church of Christ? It should be when the saving truth of God in Christ is rightly apprehended in distinction from those errors that undermine that truth. Furthermore, Paul goes on in v.10 to declare that the serious and anathematizing attitude he has toward those who adulterate the gospel results from his close affinity with God and that such holy zeal pleases the God of grace whose gospel the adulterators were treating as deficient and defective. The apostle’s cursing is a reflection and anticipation of the judgment of God when He says to those who rely on anything other than His gracious and precious gospel: Depart from Me, you accursed into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25:41).
Saturday, March 20th – Galatians 1: 10
The apostle lived, preached, and wrote his epistles not as one seeking to please men but rather as one seeking to please God. He further declares himself to be a bond-servant of Christ, the One who was despised and rejected by men but who was beloved and approved by God. Paul was a man-pleaser when he believed and taught that men were saved by their keeping of God’s Law. Such teaching pleased men because it spurred and nourished their pride to think that by their natural endowments and attainments they could stand before God as accepted and not accursed. Read of Paul’s natural pride in Philippians 3:4-11 and note how his life, perspective, and value system changed radically when he came to know Christ. Read also in 2 Corinthians 11:22-33 how utterly Paul failed to be a man-pleaser after his conversion to Christ. No one could rightly doubt that this apostle wrote as he did to please his heavenly Master and not to placate men.
Sunday, March 21st – Galatians 1: 11, 12
In v.10, Paul asserts that his faithful and forceful words contained in vv.6-9 pleased God. In vv.11,12, the apostle gives reasons why he was so zealous in his regard for the gospel. He declares the gospel to be of divine origin, and to have been immediately given to him by God. Rightly did Paul in his capacity of apostle and bondservant of Christ regard the gospel as the infinitely precious, unique, and potent power of God for salvation to all who believe in Christ.
Monday, March 22nd – Galatians 1: 11, 12
Paul declares that the gospel he proclaimed to the Galatians was not of human origin. This implies that it was of divine origin. Therefore, the gospel, being of divine origin, was like God Himself who gave it to Paul and through Paul to the Church. The gospel is pure, holy, without error, true, lovingly appealing, and powerful. Its doctrines are as eternally valid as is the God who gave it. Anything that man seeks to add to this gospel only obscures its glory and power and attempts to add imperfection and cursing to that which is perfect, blessed, and blessing.
Tuesday, March 23rd – Galatians 1: 11, 12
The gospel Paul received and declared was of divine origin. The finite and fallible speculations of man could not improve it but could only obscure its perfection. The gospel Paul received and declared also was communicated to him by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Savior of sinners, and living divine Word. The true gospel is infinitely more than a collection of facts and doctrines, although it contains facts and doctrines. It is a communication through divinely inspired scriptural propositions of the person and work of the living Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth. At one point in His earthly ministry, Jesus declared to some of his opponents: You search the Scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me. (Jn. 5:39). Every word of Scripture points to Christ, the living Word, as Jesus told the Emmaus Road disciples (Lk. 24:27), and the eternal life promised to believers in Scripture consists of our knowing God through Christ (Jn. 17:3). All Scripture points men to Christ because the living Christ is the central and pervasive theme of all Scripture. It was in light of his encounter with the living Christ that Paul came to understand that Scripture is not a book of directives for man’s performance but rather a wonderful declaration of the good news of God’s salvation of sinners through Christ.
Wednesday, March 24th – Galatians 1: 12
Paul says that he received the gospel through a revelation of Jesus Christ. The apprehension that Paul had of the glorious person of the resurrected and ascended Christ on the Damascus road deprived him of his physical sight that he had so consistently and adamantly used to misread the Scriptures and to search for and persecute the followers of Christ. At the same time, the eyes of Paul’s heart were opened to see and understand as much as, if not more than, what all the other apostles of Christ saw in their three years of walking with Jesus. It was for Paul a matter of Scripture being seen rightly in the light of the gracious Savior and glorious Lord Jesus Christ, and it was the good news of salvation of sinners through this Christ that Paul received by God to deliver to sinners to make them new creatures in Christ.
Thursday, March 25th – Galatians 1: 13, 14
The gospel Paul had delivered to the Galatians was not only of divine origin and communicated to the apostle by the risen Christ, but that gospel had radically changed Paul’s life. Paul therefore reminds his readers of what they knew he had been before he received the gospel of salvation through Christ. He had been a Jewish Pharisee, feeding on the shadows of the ceremonial law while he despised, hated, and hounded those who devoted themselves to Jesus, the substance of salvation. Paul had been proud of his natural endowments and of his personal attainments, while he zealously guarded the Jewish traditions that had come, by his day, to smother the liberating truth of God contained in the Old Testament that pointed to Christ. He also with extreme determination persecuted the living stones in the one true church of God. That such an accomplished, proud, and zealously determined Pharisee should be transformed into the greatest apostle of Christ was compelling evidence of the power that the gospel Paul preached possessed to transform the lives of those who accepted it.
Friday, March 26th – Galatians 1: 13, 14
From Paul’s own admission, he had lived his former life based not on pragmatism or gross immorality; neither had he lived a life of true piety. His natural disposition was one of religious pride (cf., Phil. 3:4-6). Yet that pride and all of Paul’s religious performances were but a veneer that he had fearfully applied to cover the reality and shame of who and what he really was: a sinner dead in his transgressions and sin (Eph. 2:1-3). Paul was totally committed to his veneer and closed to and hostile against a gospel of grace that promised and provided salvation to needy sinners. Nothing could have changed Paul, certainly no distorted gospel consisting of an admixture of faith and works. Only the grace of God effectually working in Paul to raise him from his spiritual death could change him; and change him the gospel of Christ did and only that gospel did, forever.
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