In chapter two of the Book of Galatians, I saw something more clearly than I had before. There was an event which had taken place earlier in Antioch which Paul was relating to the Galatian church as a great warning, both to them and therefore to us as well. A group of men had come down to Antioch from Jerusalem, having been sent from James. Peter and Barnabas were there with Paul, apparently co-ministering with him to the people there in Antioch. The Jews, upon arriving there, were very persuasive and succeeded in bringing even Peter and Barnabas under the law. Paul, as we know, rebuked Peter openly. Why? Because this was no small matter. Everything hinged upon it. If law-keeping, which could be thought of as the self, seeking to maintain its own right standing with God, were to invade the church it would destroy the entire meaning of the death of Christ. His death was necessary because we are in all ways totally unable to do anything to make ourselves right with God. Jesus finished everything for us on the cross. To take back upon ourselves the effort of self to attain righteousness is to deny our own helpless ruined condition and therefore as Paul says in verse 21, it makes the death of Christ for us, useless. He makes so clear in that same chapter that he had been crucified with Christ and the life he now lived was by the faith of the Son of God. This is the true message for the church which is as much needed today as it was then. If we operate out from self, in any form, seeking to maintain a rightness with God by our own self effort, we are repeating the error of Galatia.
Barbara Hemig
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