Reading Galatians With John StottSampl

A Rescue Religion

As in all his letters, Paul sends the Galatians a message of grace and peace. These are no formal and meaningless terms. They are filled with theological substance. In fact, they summarize Paul’s gospel of salvation. The nature of salvation is peace, or reconciliation— peace with God, peace with others, peace within. The source of salvation is grace, God’s free favor, regardless of any human merit or works, his lovingkindness to the undeserving. And this grace and peace flow from the Father and the Son together.

Paul immediately goes on to the great historical event in which God’s grace was exhibited and from which his peace is derived, namely, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Although Paul has declared that God the Father raised Christ from the dead, he writes now that it was by giving himself to die on the cross that he saves us.

The character of Christ’s death is indicated in the expression “who gave himself for our sins.” The death of Jesus Christ was primarily neither a display of love nor an example of heroism, but a sacrifice for sin. Christ’s death was a sin offering, the unique sacrifice by which our sins may be forgiven and put away. He bore in his righteous person the curse or judgment that our sins deserved.

If the nature of Christ’s death on the cross was “for our sins,” its object was “to rescue us from the present evil age.” Christianity is a rescue religion. From what does Christ rescue us by his death? Not from the evil world but from this evil age. Christian conversion means being rescued from the old age and being transferred into the new age, “the age to come.” The Christian life means living in this age the life of the age to come. The purpose of Christ’s death, therefore, was not only to bring us forgiveness, but that, having been forgiven, we should live a new life, the life of the age to come.

Both our rescue out of this present evil age and the means by which it has been effected are “according to the will of our God and Father.” We must never imply either that the Son volunteered to do something against the Father’s will or that the Father required the Son to do something against his own will. In the cross the will of the Father and the will of the Son were in perfect harmony.

From Reading Galatians with John Stott by John Stott with Dale and Sandy Larsen.