Galatians 1:3-5
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
This was Paul’s preferred greeting when writing to various church communities. It combined the traditional Greek greeting (grace) with the traditional Hebrew greeting (peace) and was sure to touch the heart of his readers…as surely as it reflected the heart of God. Martin Luther remarked that, “These two terms, grace and peace, constitute Christianity.” Grace is what God has shown you in redeeming you…and peace is what He has provided you by His Word and His Spirit.
“…who gave himself for our sins…”
Paul then moves from God the Father to God the Son—the Lord Jesus Christ—helping us to move from what can seem to be a higher plane (thoughts of God) to the lower plane of daily human existence where most Christians can encounter the God Man in a more intimate way. Not only did God give us his one and only son (Jn 3:16), but Jesus gave himself to us as well. It is one thing to loan a friend or a neighbor something of value or great usefulness…but it is altogether another thing to give of yourself. To invest your time, your energy, your sweat, and/or your tears. To take the time to listen or advise. To weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn (Rom 12:15). This is the kind of Savior we have in Jesus.
“…to deliver us from the present evil age…”
The days are indeed evil, are they not? I have never seen a season like this one in our nation. Americans are deeply divided—seemingly down the middle—and right is now wrong in this new Age of Enlightenment. The idea of “deliverance” in this passage is not to deliver us from the presence of evil, but from the power of evil. Although the ESV uses the word evil, a better translation would be wicked. Of this disturbing use of the word, John Calvin wrote, “And yet by this single word, as by a thunderbolt, he lays low all human pride; for he declares, that, apart from that renewal of the nature which is bestowed by the grace of Christ, there is nothing in us but unmixed wickedness. “Or, as the Puritan John Bradford wrote, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
“…according to the will of our God and Father…”
The will of God can be a challenging subject for many Christians, but in this opening to his letter, Paul makes it simple and abundantly clear—Grace to you and Glory to God. I love how Pastor John Piper ended his message on Paul’s opening thoughts in his letter to the Galatian church:
“Remember that Christ died to cover all your sins so that a holy God could come upon you with gracious power and free you from the evil of this age. Live every moment by faith in him, and you will not think or feel the way the world does. And remember that this Jesus rose from the dead, and appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, and commissioned him as an apostle, and today speaks to us through his letter to the Galatians. He died to free us from a mindset that leads to destruction; and he rose and authorized the writing of this book to fill us with a mindset that leads to eternal life. Trust him. Study him. It will be grace to you and glory to God!”
Amen and Amen!
