Living by Faith in Jesus (Galatians 2:20)

‘And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’

Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one of the earliest letters of the New Testament. He wrote it after a gathering of church representatives known as the Council of Jerusalem which had met to deal with a destructive issue that had arisen in the churches of Galatia, an issue that threatened the peace and growth of all churches at that time. Yet from one point of view, the issue was an attempt to answer a question that occurs in all periods of time. The question is, ‘How does a person live the Christian life?’ I wonder how we would answer that question.

The answer given in Galatia, because of the influence of false teachers, was that in addition to faith in Jesus a true disciple had to keep the Jewish ceremonial law. Although answer is not likely from anyone today, answers like it happen. The answers involve faith in Jesus plus something else. We could have Jesus plus a list of our own rules or Jesus plus a list of practices that others advocate. In doing so, we cease to focus on Jesus in our life of faith.

Mystery of Jesus

In the verse, Paul makes a claim about Jesus that includes three details. First, he says that Jesus is the Son of God; second, he says that Jesus loved him; and third, he says that Jesus gave himself for Paul. We can say about each of them that they are a mystery provided we are using the word ‘mystery’ in its New Testament meaning of something previously hidden but now revealed by God.

We know that it is possible to deduce from considering the world and the solar system that a powerful creator God exists. Paul mentions that response from creatures in Romans 1 and David also sings about it in Psalm 19. It may only take a minute’s serious reflection on the visible created order for us to come to that conclusion about the powerful ability of God. But we could look at the cosmos for a hundred years and never discover the amazing detail that the powerful God exists as a trinity of three equal divine persons. We can only know that reality through precise the divine revelation given in the New Testament, revelation connected to the coming of Jesus into our world as a man.

First, calling Jesus the Son of God leads to the mystery of the Trinity. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. He is the Son of God, which describes an eternal relationship he experiences with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. While there are many aspects of that relationship which we cannot understand to a great degree, we accept them because revealed in God’s Word.

As the Son of God, Jesus always had and always will have all the attributes of God, he always has and always will share the aims of God, and he always has and always will engage in the actions of God. What we say about the Father and the Holy Spirit, we also say about Jesus, the Son of God. Each of the divine persons took part in the work of creation, for example. It is a helpful activity to consider what the Bible says about how the three persons work together. Or we could think about the threefold references describing how each was involved in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Second, there is the mystery of the love of Jesus. We should note that Paul does not use the present tense when referring to the love of Jesus here. Instead, he wants his readers to look back when thinking about the love of the Son of God. How far back does he want them to look? He wants them to look back beyond when the Son of God gave himself for them on the cross. His giving of himself was the consequence of his love. Does the Bible say when his love began?

I think it does, and it does so by referring to an eternal agreement between God the Father and God the Son. Jesus refers to this agreement or arrangement when he says in his prayer to the Father recorded in John 17 that the Father gave him a people to save. He says that the Father loved them even as he loved his Son, which in the context refers to the fact that his love for them and for his Son is eternal. In love he gave them to his Son and the Son in love received them from the Father. This divine love is without beginning. It is an eternal, personal love that the Son of God has for each of his people.

Third, there is the mystery of the Son of God giving himself for us. Paul is referring to what took place on the cross of Calvary. Since he was the eternal God, it meant that for the Son of God to go there, he had to become a real man, which he did when he was conceived in the womb of Mary. In order for him to be a suitable substitute, he had to be a sinless man, and he revealed that he was sinless by living a perfect life as a child, teenager and adult. In order for him to perform this task of paying the penalty for sin, he had to offer himself willingly and fully, which he did, and so paid the penalty when he suffered as the substitute of his people. It was an awful experience for him when he was on the cross, as he underwent the forsaking of his Father, but his love to God and to his people ensured that he endured whatever came his way on the cross.

Paul’s Method

The words of Paul in this verse from Galatians also challenge us to live for Jesus in the way that the faithful apostle did. How did he do it? He lived by constant faith in the Son of God, at least he did so from his conversion. Of course, Paul’s faith was not merely an acceptance of a fact such as an acceptance that Jesus literally died on the cross. What can we say about his faith? What marked it? Here are four ways.

First, it was an expression of dependence on Jesus. Before his conversion, Paul had been a very diligent man as he tried to work his way to heaven by his own actions. He had discovered that all his efforts had not taken him an inch closer to heaven. In fact, his attempts had done the opposite. The harder he tried to live for God, the further away he went from God. But then he was enabled to see that he was asked in the gospel to depend only on Jesus, which he did, and never ceased to do from the moment of conversion until the close of his life.

Second, it was an expression of penitence for his sin. No doubt we have heard the statement that faith and repentance are spiritual twins that exist together. We don’t have one of them without the other. A believer in Jesus is grateful for his sacrifice as the sinner’s substitute, but that believer is also sorry that such a sacrifice was needed. He is glad that God provided the sacrifice, but he regards with sorrow the sins that caused it to happen.

Third, it was an expression of devotion to Jesus. Christian devotion is not based on what a believer imagines he might do for Jesus. Rather it is based on the faithfulness of Jesus to his people, a faithfulness that never lets them go. The believer’s devotion is not perfect, but it persists in clinging to Jesus. Every day, Christ is his help and his hope. This is the way for a Christian to live. He leans on Jesus – that is Christian devotion; he uses Jesus as the one who saves him from the perils he encounters on his journey of life. He speaks to Jesus, asks repeatedly for his help, and receives from Jesus what is needed for taking the next step.

Fourth, it was an expression of delight in Jesus. Paul was a highly intelligent man, but he could not understand the way that the Galatians had left the gospel of Christ for a message that contained no good news for them. Paul knew and embraced the amazing fact that the God of heaven had given his own Son to be the Saviour of a sinner like him. He loved to think about the love of God in this way and of the many blessings that had come his way as a consequence, and in doing so discovered the path of true delight.

Is that what our faith in Jesus is like? We must be dependent on Jesus, penitent about our personal sins, devoted to the service of Christ, and delighted in him and his great plans for his people.

Martin Luther tells how to live by faith in the Son of God: ‘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.’