re
sin abounds, let us abound in sin, that grace may all the more abound."
People who reason thus are reckless. They make sport of the Scriptures
and slander the sayings of the Holy Ghost.

However, there are others who are not malicious, only weak, who may
take offense when told that Law and good works are unnecessary for
salvation. These must be instructed as to why good works do not
justify, and from what motives good works must be done. Good works are
not the cause, but the fruit of righteousness. When we have become
righteous, then first are we able and willing to do good. The tree
makes the apple; the apple does not make the tree.

VERSE 20. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God.

Paul does not deny the fact that he is living in the flesh. He performs
the natural functions of the flesh. But he says that this is not his
real life. His life in the flesh is not a life after the flesh.

"I live by the faith of the Son of God," he says. "My speech is no
longer directed by the flesh, but by the Holy Ghost. My sight is no
longer governed by the flesh, but by the Holy Ghost. My hearing is no
longer determined by the flesh, but by the Holy Ghost. I cannot teach,
write, pray, or give thanks without the instrumentality of the flesh;
yet these activities do not proceed from the flesh, but from God."

A Christian uses earthly means like any unbeliever. Outwardly they look
alike. Nevertheless there is a great difference between them. I may
live in the flesh, but I do not live after the flesh. I do my living
now "by the faith of the Son of God." Paul had the same voice, the same
tongue, before and after his conversion. Before his conversion his
tongue uttered blasphemies. But after his conversion his tongue spoke a
spiritual, heavenly language.

We may now understand how spiritual life originates. It enters the
heart by faith. Christ reigns in the heart with His Holy Spirit, who
sees, hears, speaks, works, suffers, and does all things in and through
us over the protest and the resistance of the flesh.

VERSE 20. Who loved me, and gave himself for me.

The sophistical papists assert that a person is able by natural
strength to love God long before grace has entered his heart, and to
perform works of real merit. They believe they are able to fulfill the
commandments of God. They believe they are able to do more than God
expects of them, so that they are in a position to sell their
superfluous merits to laymen, thereby saving themselves and others.
They are saving nobody. On the contrary, they abolish the Gospel, they
deride, deny, and blaspheme Christ, and call upon themselves the wrath
of God. This is what they get for living in their own righteousness,
and not in the faith of the Son of God.

The papists will tell you to do the best you can, and God will give you
His grace. They have a rhyme for it:

"God will no more require of man, Than of himself perform he can."

This may hold true in ordinary civic life. But the papists apply it to
the spiritual realm where a person can perform nothing but sin, because
he is sold under sin.

Our opponents go even further than that. They say, nature is depraved,
but the qualities of nature are untainted. Again we say: This may hold
true in everyday life, but not in the spiritual life. In spiritual
matters a person is by nature full of darkness, error, ignorance,
malice, and perverseness in will and in mind. In view of this, Paul
declares that Christ began and not we. "He loved me, and gave Himself
for me. He found in me no right mind and no good will. But the good
Lord had mercy upon me. Out of pure kindness He loved me, loved me so
that He gave Himself for me, that I should be free from the Law, from
sin, devil, and death."

The words, "The Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me," are
so many thunderclaps and lightning bolts of protest from heaven against
the righteousness of the Law. The wickedness, error, darkness,
ignorance in my mind and my will were so great, that it was quite
impossible for me to be saved by any other means than by the
inestimable price of Christ's death.

Let us count the price. When you hear that such an enormous price was
paid for you, will you still come along with your cowl, your shaven
pate, your chastity, your obedience, your poverty, your works, your
merits? What do you want with all these trappings? What good are the
works of all men, and all the pains of the martyrs, in comparison with
the pains of the Son of God dying on the Cross, so that there was not a
drop of His precious blood, but it was all shed for your sins. If you
could properly evaluate this incomparable price, you would throw all
your ceremonies, vows, works, and merits into the ash can. What awful
presumption to imagine that there is any work good enough to pacify
God, when to pacify God required the invaluable price of the death and
blood of His own and only Son?

VERSE 20. For me.

Who is this "me"? I, wretched and damnable sinner, dearly beloved of
the Son of God. If I could by work or merit love the Son of God and
come to Him, why should He have sacrificed Himself for me? This shows
how the papists ignore the Scriptures, particularly the doctrine of
faith. If they had paid any attention at all to these words, that it
was absolutely necessary for the Son of God to be given into death for
me, they would never have invented so many hideous heresies.

I always say, there is no remedy against the sects, no power to resist
them, except this article of Christian righteousness. If we lose this
article we shall never be able to combat errors or sects. What business
have they to make such a fuss about works or merits? If I, a condemned
sinner, could have been purchased and redeemed by any other price, why
should the Son of God have given Himself for me? Just because there was
no other price in heaven and on earth big and good enough, was it
necessary for the Son of God to be delivered for me. This He did out of
His great love for me, for the Apostle says, "Who loved me."

Did the Law ever love me? Did the Law ever sacrifice itself for me? Did
the Law ever die for me? On the contrary, it accuses me, it frightens
me, it drives me crazy. Somebody else saved me from the Law, from sin
and death unto eternal life. That Somebody is the Son of God, to whom
be praise and glory forever.

Hence, Christ is no Moses, no tyrant, no lawgiver, but the Giver of
grace, the Savior, full of mercy. In short, He is no less than infinite
mercy and ineffable goodness, bountifully giving Himself for us.
Visualize Christ in these His true colors. I do not say that it is
easy. Even in the present diffusion of the Gospel light, I have much
trouble to see Christ as Paul portrays Him. So deeply has the diseased
opinion that Christ is a lawgiver sunk into my bones. You younger men
are a good deal better off than we who are old. You have never become
infected with the nefarious errors on which I suckled all my youth,
until at the mention of the name of Christ I shivered with fear. You, I
say, who are young may learn to know Christ in all His sweetness.

For Christ is Joy and Sweetness to a broken heart. Christ is a Lover of
poor sinners, and such a Lover that He gave Himself for us. Now if this
is true, and it is true, then are we never justified by our own
righteousness.

Read the words "me" and "for me" with great emphasis. Print this "me"
with capital letters in your heart, and do not ever doubt that you
belong to the number of those who are meant by this "me." Christ did
not only love Peter and Paul. The same love He felt for them He feels
for us. If we cannot deny that we are sinners, we cannot deny that
Christ died for our sins.

VERSE 21. I do not frustrate the grace of God.

Paul is now getting ready for the second argument of his Epistle, to
the effect that to seek justification by works of the Law, is to reject
the grace of God. I ask you, what sin can be more horrible than to
reject the grace of God, and to refuse the righteousness of Christ? It
is bad enough that we are wicked sinners and transgressors of all the
commandments of God; on top of that to refuse the grace of God and the
remission of sins offered unto us by Christ, is the worst sin of all,
the sin of sins. That is the limit. There is no sin which Paul and the
other apostles detested more than when a person despises the grace of
God in Christ Jesus. Still there is no sin more common. That is why
Paul can get so angry at the Antichrist, because he snubs Christ,
rebuffs the grace of God, and refuses the merit of Christ. What else
would you call it but spitting in Christ's face, pushing Christ to the
side, usurping Christ's throne, and to say: "I am going to justify you
people; I am going to save you." By what means? By masses, pilgrimages,
pardons, merits, etc. For this is Antichrist's doctrine: Faith is no
good, unless it is reinforced by works. By this abominable doctrine
Antichrist has spoiled, darkened, and buried the benefit of Christ, and
in place of the grace of Christ and His Kingdom, he has established the
doctrine of works and the kingdom of ceremonies.

We despise the grace of God when we observe the Law for the purpose of
being justified. The Law is good, holy, and profitable, but it does not
justify. To keep the Law in order to be justified means to reject
grace, to deny Christ, to despise His sacrifice, and to be lost.

VERSE 21. For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in
vain.

Did Christ die, or did He not die? Was His death worth while, or was it
not? If His death was worth while, it follows that righteousness does
not come by the Law. Why was Christ born anyway? Why was He crucified?
Why did He suffer? Why did He love me and give Himself for me? It was
all done to no purpose if righteousness is to be had by the Law.

Or do you think that God spared not His Son, but delivered Him for us
all, for the fun of it? Before I would admit anything like that, I
would consign the holiness of the saints and of the angels to hell.

To reject the grace of God is a common sin, of which everybody is
guilty who sees any righteousness in himself or in his deeds. And the
Pope is the sole author of this iniquity. Not content to spoil the
Gospel of Christ, he has filled the world with his cursed traditions,
e.g., his bulls and indulgences.

We will always affirm with Paul that either Christ died in vain, or
else the Law cannot justify us. But Christ did not suffer and die in
vain. Hence, the Law does not justify.

If my salvation was so difficult to accomplish that it necessitated the
death of Christ, then all my works, all the righteousness of the Law,
are good for nothing. How can I buy for a penny what cost a million
dollars? The Law is a penny's worth when you compare it with Christ.
Should I be so stupid as to reject the righteousness of Christ which
cost me nothing, and slave like a fool to achieve the righteousness of
the Law which God disdains?

Man's own righteousness is in the last analysis a despising and
rejecting of the grace of God. No combination of words can do justice
to such an outrage. It is an insult to say that any man died in vain.
But to say that Christ died in vain is a deadly insult. To say that
Christ died in vain is to make His resurrection, His victory, His
glory, His kingdom, heaven, earth, God Himself, of no purpose and
benefit whatever.

That is enough to set any person against the righteousness of the Law
and all the trimmings of men's own righteousness, the orders of monks
and friars, and their superstitions.

Who would not detest his own vows, his cowls, his shaven crown, his
bearded traditions, yes, the very Law of Moses, when he hears that for
such things he rejected the grace of God and the death of Christ. It
seems that such a horrible wickedness could not enter a man's heart,
that he should reject the grace of God, and despise the death of
Christ. And yet this atrocity is all too common. Let us be warned.
Everyone who seeks righteousness without Christ, either by works,
merits, satisfactions, actions, or by the Law, rejects the grace of
God, and despises the death of Christ.

CHAPTER 3

VERSE 1. O foolish Galatians.

THE Apostle Paul manifests his apostolic care for the Galatians.
Sometimes he entreats them, then again he reproaches them, in
accordance with his own advice to Timothy: "Preach the word; be instant
in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort."

In the midst of his discourse on Christian righteousness Paul breaks
off, and turns to address the Galatians. "O foolish Galatians," he
cries. "I have brought you the true Gospel, and you received it with
eagerness and gratitude. Now all of a sudden you drop the Gospel. What
has got into you?"

Paul reproves the Galatians rather sharply when he calls them "fools,
bewitched, and disobedient." Whether he is indignant or sorry, I cannot
say. He may be both. It is the duty of a Christian pastor to reprove
the people committed to his charge. Of course, his anger must not flow
from malice, but from affection and a real zeal for Christ.

There is no question that Paul is disappointed. It hurts him to think
that his Galatians showed so little stability. We can hear him say: "I
am sorry to hear of your troubles, and disappointed in you for the
disgraceful part you played." I say rather much on this point to save
Paul from the charge that he railed upon the churches, contrary to the
spirit of the Gospel.

A certain distance and coolness can be noted in the title with which
the Apostle addresses the Galatians. He does not now address them as
his brethren, as he usually does. He addresses them as Galatians in
order to remind them of their national trait to be foolish.

We have here an example of bad traits that often cling to individual
Christians and entire congregations. Grace does not suddenly transform
a Christian into a new and perfect creature. Dregs of the old and
natural corruption remain. The Spirit of God cannot at once overcome
human deficiency. Sanctification takes time.

Although the Galatians had been enlightened by the Holy Spirit through
the preaching of faith, something of their national trait of
foolishness plus their original depravity clung to them. Let no man
think that once he has received faith, he can presently be converted
into a faultless creature. The leavings of old vices will stick to him,
be he ever so good a Christian.

VERSE 1. Who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth?

Paul calls the Galatians foolish and bewitched. In the fifth chapter he
mentions sorcery among the works of the flesh, declaring that
witchcraft and sorcery are real manifestations and legitimate
activities of the devil. We are all exposed to the influence of the
devil, because he is the prince and god of the world in which we live.

Satan is clever. He does not only bewitch men in a crude manner, but
also in a more artful fashion. He bedevils the minds of men with
hideous fallacies. Not only is he able to deceive the self-assured, but
even those who profess the true Christian faith. There is not one among
us who is not at times seduced by Satan into false beliefs.

This accounts for the many new battles we have to wage nowadays. But
the attacks of the old Serpent are not without profit to us, for they
confirm our doctrine and strengthen our faith in Christ. Many a time we
were wrestled down in these conflicts with Satan, but Christ has always
triumphed and always will triumph. Do not think that the Galatians were
the only ones to be bewitched by the devil. Let us realize that we too
may be seduced by Satan.

VERSE 1. Who ha