Saturday, February 15, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Galatians 2-3
Key Verse
Galatians 3:5 — “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?”
Devotional Thought
The scene in Antioch is one of the most striking confrontations in the New Testament. Peter—the same Peter who confessed Christ, who preached at Pentecost, who saw the sheet let down from heaven—had been eating freely with Gentile believers. But when certain men came from James, he drew back. He separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And his fear was contagious: even Barnabas, Paul’s own companion, was carried away. Paul stood against him to his face, not out of personal pride but because the truth of the gospel was at stake. If Gentiles must become Jews to be fully accepted, then Christ died for nothing.
Paul’s answer to this crisis is the beating heart of Galatians: a man is not justified by works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ. He presses the point with the Galatians themselves. They had received the Spirit by hearing with faith—did they now think they could be made perfect by the flesh? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, centuries before the law was given. The law came later, as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, shutting us up under sin so that we might run to the promise. It was never meant to save; it was meant to show us why we need a Savior.
Now consider this ordinary Saturday in February. The holidays are behind us, the days are still short, and many of us feel the quiet weight of routines that never quite measure up. That is precisely where the Galatian error creeps in. We begin in grace and then drift into performance—measuring our standing with God by our quiet times, our giving, our good behavior. But Paul will not allow it. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” The Christian life is not self-improvement with Jesus as a helper. It is union with the crucified and risen Lord.
And notice what this union produces: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” The gospel does not erase our differences, but it demolishes every hierarchy of merit. The ground at the foot of the cross is level. If you are Christ’s, you are Abraham’s seed, an heir according to the promise—not because you earned it, but because God swore it and Christ secured it.
Reflection
- Where in your life have you begun in the Spirit but are now trying to be made perfect by the flesh—measuring your acceptance with God by your performance rather than by faith in Christ?
- Like Peter at Antioch, is there a fear of people that is causing you to withdraw from brothers and sisters you should be embracing, and what would it cost you to walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel?
Prayer
Father, we confess that we so easily drift from the simplicity of faith in Christ into the wearying work of self-justification. Forgive us for the ways we have added our own qualifications to Your free grace. Thank You that Christ became a curse for us, redeeming us from the law’s condemnation and making us heirs of the promise. By Your Spirit, keep us rooted in the gospel we first received. Give us courage like Paul to stand for the truth, and humility like Christ to welcome all whom You have received. Let us live today not by our own righteousness, but by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. Amen.