The Freedom of Forgiveness - 2

''Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers with me, To the churches in Galatia:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.'' (Galatians 1:1 - 5)

Everything about the starts of this letter is typical, but there are a few things we can draw out from the outset.

First of all Paul emphasises the nature of apostleship. He is an apostle, and this is something you can just choose to be…God makes you an apostle; you are chosen by God. You see, Paul was as far from God as anyone could be. He thought he was doing God’s will in persecuting the early Christian Church, but he completely missed the plot.
But in verse 1 he says look at me… I'm an apostle now; I serve Jesus now. I know you can’t quite believe it when you look at my old life, the way I used to live, but now look at me…can’t you see the change. It’s obvious this was nothing I could have done for myself, but something only God could have achieved.

Isn’t this like the Christian life? If it wasn’t for God wouldn’t we all be still walking in the ways we used to live? Wouldn’t we still be entangled by the same old sins, doing the same old things, time and time again…and we wouldn’t even know it.But God in his grace was as verse 16 says ‘pleased to reveal His Son to us’…pleased to reveal his grace in order that we might walk with Him, in newness of life achieving all the plans he has set before us. For Paul that was being a great preacher, for you it may be something completely different.

It’s important to remember that forgiveness of sins is a free gift of God…it is something God does in, we can’t strive towards it, we cannot rationalise and we cannot earn it. It’s his free gift. Paul is contrasting it with circumcision, which although is probably free, if you are a grown man it certainly isn’t gift. More importantly circumcision is something we do to ourselves, it boasts in ones own personal righteousness, it doesn’t give thanks to God. Obeying rules…keeping the law…circumcision... they never give thanks to God.

New birth, new life in Christ is something God does, something he initiatives. The Spirit is the sign of a believer, not circumcision and only God can give the Spirit. Why is this? This way only he gets the glory...Paul goes onto say in verse 5…’to whom by the glory forever and ever.’ The freedom of forgiveness, the freedom of new life should always lead to praise and thankfulness.