faith, but the flesh deters them. You see, our reason
always thinks it is too easy and cheap to have righteousness, the Holy
Spirit, and life everlasting by the mere hearing of the Gospel.

VERSE 3. Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made
perfect by the flesh?

Paul now begins to warn the Galatians against a twofold danger. The
first danger is: "Are ye so foolish, that after ye have begun in the
Spirit, ye would now end in the flesh?"

"Flesh" stands for the righteousness of reason which seeks
justification by the accomplishment of the Law. I am told that I began
in the spirit under the papacy, but am ending up in the flesh because I
got married. As though single life were a spiritual life, and married
life a carnal life. They are silly. All the duties of a Christian
husband, e.g., to love his wife, to bring up his children, to govern
his family, etc., are the very fruits of the Spirit.

The righteousness of the Law which Paul also terms the righteousness of
the flesh is so far from justifying a person that those who once had
the Holy Spirit and lost Him, end up in the Law to their complete
destruction.

VERSE 4. Have ye suffered so many things in vain?

The other danger against which the Apostle warns the Galatians is this:
"Have ye suffered so many things in vain?" Paul wants to say: "Consider
not only the good start you had and lost, but consider also the many
things you have suffered for the sake of the Gospel and for the name of
Christ. You have suffered the loss of your possessions, you have borne
reproaches, you have passed through many dangers of body and life. You
endured much for the name of Christ and you endured it faithfully. But
now you have lost everything, the Gospel, faith, and the spiritual
benefit of your sufferings for Christ's sake. What a miserable thing to
endure so many afflictions for nothing."

VERSE 4. If it be yet in vain.

The Apostle adds the afterthought: "If it be yet in vain. I do not
despair of all hope for you. But if you continue to look to the Law for
righteousness, I think you should be told that all your past true
worship of God and all the afflictions that you have endured for
Christ's sake are going to help you not at all. I do not mean to
discourage you altogether. I do hope you will repent and amend."

VERSE 5. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh
miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the
hearing of faith?

This argument based on the experience of the Galatians, pleased the
Apostle so well that he returns to it after he had warned them against
their twofold danger. "You have not only received the Spirit by the
preaching of the Gospel, but by the same Gospel you were enabled to do
things." "What things?" we ask. Miracles. At least the Galatians had
manifested the striking fruits of faith which true disciples of the
Gospel manifested in those days. On one occasion the Apostle wrote:
"The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." This "power"
revealed itself not only in readiness of speech, but in demonstrations
of the supernatural ability of the Holy Spirit.

When the Gospel is preached unto faith, hope, love, and patience, God
gives His wonder-working Spirit. Paul reminds the Galatians of this.
"God had not only brought you to faith by my preaching. He had also
sanctified you to bring forth the fruits of faith. And one of the
fruits of your faith was that you loved me so devotedly that you were
willing to pluck out your eyes for me." To love a fellow-man so
devotedly as to be ready to bestow upon him money, goods, eyes in order
to secure his salvation, such love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

"These products of the Spirit you enjoyed before the false apostles
misled you," the Apostle reminds the Galatians. "But you haven't
manifested any of these fruits under the regime of the Law. How does it
come that you do not grow the same fruits now? You no longer teach
truly; you do not believe boldly; you do not live well; you do not work
hard; you do not bear things patiently. Who has spoiled you that you no
longer love me; that you are not now ready to pluck out your eyes for
me? What has happened to cool your personal interest in me?"

The same thing happened to me. When I began to proclaim the Gospel,
there were many, very many who were delighted with our doctrine and had
a good opinion of us. And now? Now they have succeeded in making us so
odious to those who formerly loved us that they now hate us like
poison.

Paul argues: "Your experience ought to teach you that the fruits of
love do not grow on the stump of the Law. You had not virtue prior to
the preaching of the Gospel and you have no virtues now under the
regime of the false apostles."

We, too, may say to those who misname themselves "evangelical" and
flout their new-found liberty: Have you put down the tyranny of the
Pope and obtained liberty in Christ through the Anabaptists and other
fanatics? Or have you obtained your freedom from us who preach faith in
Christ Jesus? If there is any honesty left in them they will have to
confess that their freedom dates from the preaching of the Gospel.

VERSE 6. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for
righteousness.

The Apostle next adduces the example of Abraham and reviews the
testimony of the Scriptures concerning faith. The first passage is
taken from Genesis 16:6: "And he believed in the Lord; and he counted
it to him for righteousness." The Apostle makes the most of this
passage. Abraham may have enjoyed a good standing with men for his
upright life, but not with God. In the sight of God, Abraham was a
condemned sinner. That he was justified before God was not due to his
own exertions, but due to his faith. The Scriptures expressly state:
"Abraham believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for
righteousness."

Paul places the emphasis upon the two words: Abraham believed. Faith in
God constitutes the highest worship, the prime duty, the first
obedience, and the foremost sacrifice. Without faith God forfeits His
glory, wisdom, truth, and mercy in us. The first duty of man is to
believe in God and to honor Him with his faith. Faith is truly the
height of wisdom, the right kind of righteousness, the only real
religion. This will give us an idea of the excellence of faith.

To believe in God as Abraham did is to be right with God because faith
honors God. Faith says to God: "I believe what you say." When we pay
attention to reason, God seems to propose impossible matters in the
Christian Creed. To reason it seems absurd that Christ should offer His
body and blood in the Lord's Supper; that Baptism should be the washing
of regeneration; that the dead shall rise; that Christ the Son of God
was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, etc. Reason shouts that
all this is preposterous. Are you surprised that reason thinks little
of faith? Reason thinks it ludicrous that faith should be the foremost
service any person can render unto God.

Let your faith supplant reason. Abraham mastered reason by faith in the
Word of God. Not as though reason ever yields meekly. It put up a fight
against the faith of Abraham. Reason protested that it was absurd to
think that Sarah who was ninety years old and barren by nature, should
give birth to a son. But faith won the victory and routed reason, that
ugly beast and enemy of God. Everyone who by faith slays reason, the
world's biggest monster, renders God a real service, a better service
than the religions of all races and all the drudgery of meritorious
monks can render.

Men fast, pray, watch, suffer. They intend to appease the wrath of God
and to deserve God's grace by their exertions. But there is no glory in
it for God, because by their exertions these workers pronounce God an
unmerciful slave driver, an unfaithful and angry Judge. They despise
God, make a liar out of Him, snub Christ and all His benefits; in short
they pull God from His throne and perch themselves on it.

Faith truly honors God. And because faith honors God, God counts faith
for righteousness.

Christian righteousness is the confidence of the heart in God through
Christ Jesus. Such confidence is accounted righteousness for Christ's
sake. Two things make for Christian righteousness: Faith in Christ,
which is a gift of God; and God's acceptance of this imperfect faith of
ours for perfect righteousness. Because of my faith in Christ, God
overlooks my distrust, the unwillingness of my spirit, my many other
sins. Because the shadow of Christ's wing covers me I have no fear that
God will cover all my sins and take my imperfections for perfect
righteousness.

God "winks" at my sins and covers them up. God says: "Because you
believe in My Son I will forgive your sins until death shall deliver
you from the body of sin."

Learn to understand the constitution of your Christian righteousness.
Faith is weak, but it means enough to God that He will not lay sin to
our charge. He will not punish nor condemn us for it. He will forgive
our sins as though they amount to nothing at all. He will do it not
because we are worthy of such mercy. He will do it for Jesus' sake in
whom we believe.

Paradoxically, a Christian is both right and wrong, holy and profane,
an enemy of God and a child of God. These contradictions no person can
harmonize who does not understand the true way of salvation. Under the
papacy we were told to toil until the feeling of guilt had left us. But
the authors of this deranged idea were frequently driven to despair in
the hour of death. It would have happened to me, if Christ had not
mercifully delivered me from this error.

We comfort the afflicted sinner in this manner: Brother, you can never
be perfect in this life, but you can be holy. He will say: "How can I
be holy when I feel my sins?" I answer: You feel sin? That is a good
sign. To realize that one is ill is a step, and a very necessary step,
toward recovery. "But how will I get rid of my sin?" he will ask. I
answer: See the heavenly Physician, Christ, who heals the
broken-hearted. Do not consult that Quackdoctor, Reason. Believe in
Christ and your sins will be pardoned. His righteousness will become
your righteousness, and your sins will become His sins.

On one occasion Jesus said to His disciples: "The Father loveth you."
Why? Not because the disciples were Pharisees, or circumcised, or
particularly attentive to the Law. Jesus said: "The Father loveth you,
because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
It pleased you to know that the Father sent me into the world. And
because you believed it the Father loves you." On another occasion
Jesus called His disciples evil and commanded them to ask for
forgiveness.

A Christian is beloved of God and a sinner. How can these two
contradictions be harmonized: I am a sinner and deserve God's wrath and
punishment, and yet the Father loves me? Christ alone can harmonize
these contradictions. He is the Mediator.

Do you now see how faith justifies without works? Sin lingers in us,
and God hates sin. A transfusion of righteousness therefore becomes
vitally necessary. This transfusion of righteousness we obtain from
Christ because we believe in Him.

VERSE 7. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are
the children of Abraham.

This is the main point of Paul's argument against the Jews: The
children of Abraham are those who believe and not those who are born of
Abraham's flesh and blood. This point Paul drives home with all his
might because the Jews attached saving value to the genealogical fact:
"We are the seed and children of Abraham."

Let us begin with Abraham and learn how this friend of God was
justified and saved. Not because he left his country, his relatives,
his father's house; not because he was circumcised; not because he
stood ready to sacrifice his own son Isaac in whom he had the promise
of posterity. Abraham was justified because he believed. Paul's
argumentation runs like this: "Since this is the unmistakable testimony
of Holy Writ, why do you take your stand upon circumcision and the Law?
Was not Abraham, your father, of whom you make so much, justified and
saved without circumcision and the Law by faith alone?" Paul therefore
concludes: "They which are of faith, the same are the children of
Abraham."

Abraham was the father of the faithful. In order to be a child of the
believing Abraham you must believe as he did. Otherwise you are merely
the physical offspring of the procreating Abraham, i.e., you were
conceived and born in sin unto wrath and condemnation.

Ishmael and Isaac were both the natural children of Abraham. By rights
Ishmael should have enjoyed the prerogatives of the firstborn, if
physical generation had any special value. Nevertheless he was left out
in the cold while Isaac was called. This goes to prove that the
children of faith are the real children of Abraham.

Some find fault with Paul for applying the term "faith" in Genesis 15:6
to Christ. They think Paul's use of the term too wide and general. They
think its meaning should be restricted to the context. They claim
Abraham's faith had no more in it than a belief in the promise of God
that he should have seed.

We reply: Faith presupposes the assurance of God's mercy. This
assurance takes in the confidence that our sins are forgiven for
Christ's sake. Never will the conscience trust in God unless it can be
sure of God's mercy and promises in Christ. Now all the promises of God
lead back to the first promise concerning Christ: "And I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed;
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." The faith of
the fathers in the Old Testament era, and our faith in the New
Testament are one and the same faith in Christ Jesus, although times
and conditions may differ. Peter acknowledged this in the words: "Which
neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that
through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as
they." (Acts l5: 10, 11.) And Paul writes: "And did all drink the
spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed
them: and that Rock was Christ." (I Cor. 10:4.) And Christ Himself
declared: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it
and was glad." (John 8:56.) The faith of the fathers was directed at
the Christ who was to come, while ours rests in the Christ who has
come. Time does not change the object of true faith, or the Holy
Spirit. There has always been and always will be one mind, one
impression, one faith concerning Christ among true believers whether
they live in times past, now, or in times to come. We too believe in
the Christ to come as the fathers did in the Old Testament, for we look
for Christ to come again on the last day to judge the quick and the
dead.

VERSE 7. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are
the children of Abraham.

Paul is saying: "You know from the example of Abraham and from the
plain testimony of the Scriptures that they are the children of
Abraham, who have faith in Christ, regardless of their nationality,
regardless of the Law, regardless of works, regardless of their
parentage. The promise was made unto Abraham, 'Thou shalt be a father
of many nations'; again, 'And in thee shall all families of the earth
be blessed.'" To prevent the Jews from misinterpreting the word
"nations," the Scriptures are careful to say "many nations." The true
children of Abraham are the believers in Christ from all nations.

VERSE 8. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the
heathe