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“Barabbas, Part IV:” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
Tonight is Part 4 of our Series, Barabbas. I have been sharing with you how it occurred to me that Barabbas, whose name means “son of the father” was a symbol of each of us when he stood before Pilate. Like Barabbas, we were undeservedly chosen to be released, and unpunished for our sins. Last week, we made a slight course adjustment: we followed something of a “rabbit trail ” in our Study of Barabbas. The “rabbit trail” was a phrase search I performed for the words “we have” focusing on those things which, unlike Barabbas, “we have” as believers. I hope you agree with me that those words have provided enlightenment and edification to our understanding of our being chosen.
There is a question which often comes up among believers. We wonder individually, or debate with members of other Denominations, regarding which tenets of the Old Covenant we are obligated to observe. This issue is clearly addressed not only in Acts 15, but also in a number of the Apostle Paul's epistles. Our first stop tonight will address this issue beginning in 2 Corinthians 3:6: “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life...
7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: 8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? 9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. 10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. 11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious...
And then in verse 12 we have our first “we have” statement of the evening: “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:”
Matthew Henry comments: “Here the apostle makes a comparison between the Old Testament and the New, the law of Moses and the gospel of Jesus Christ, and values himself and his fellow-labourers by this, that they were able ministers of the New Testament, that God had made them so. This he does in answer to the accusations of false teachers, who magnify greatly the law of Moses.
I. He distinguishes between the letter and the spirit even of the New Testament. As able ministers of the New Testament, they were ministers not merely of the letter, to read the written word, or to preach the letter of the gospel only, but they were ministers of the Spirit also; the Spirit of God did accompany their ministrations. The letter killeth; this the letter of the law does, for that is the ministration of death; and if we rest only in the letter of the gospel we shall be never the better for so doing, for even that will be a savour of death unto death; but the Spirit of the gospel, going along with the ministry of the gospel, giveth life spiritual and life eternal.
II. He shows the difference between the Old Testament and the New, and the excellency of the gospel above the law. For, 1. The Old Testament dispensation was the ministration of death, whereas that of the New Testament is the ministration of life. The law discovered sin, and the wrath and curse of God. This showed us a God above us and a God against us; but the gospel discovers grace, and Emmanuel, God with us. Upon this account the gospel is more glorious than the law; and yet that had a glory in it, witness the shining of Moses's face (an indication thereof) when he came down from the mount with the tables in his hand, that reflected rays of brightness upon his countenance.
2. The law was the ministration of condemnation, for that condemned and cursed every one who continued not in all things written therein to do them; but the gospel is the ministration of righteousness: therein the righteousness of God by faith is revealed. This shows us that the just shall live by his faith. This reveals the grace and mercy of God through Jesus Christ, for obtaining the remission of sins and eternal life. The gospel therefore so much exceeds in glory that in a manner it eclipses the glory of the legal dispensation.
As the shining of a burning lamp is lost, or not regarded, when the sun arises and goes forth in his strength; so there was no glory in the Old Testament, in comparison with that of the New. 3. The law is done away, but the gospel does and shall remain. Not only did the glory of Moses's face go away, but the glory of Moses's law is done away also; yea, the law of Moses itself is now abolished. That dispensation was only to continue for a time, and then to vanish away; whereas the gospel shall remain to the end of the world, and is always fresh and flourishing and remains glorious.
Albert Barnes adds regarding verse 12: “Seeing then that we have such hope - Hope properly is a compound emotion, made up of a desire for an object, and an expectation of obtaining it. If there is no desire for it; or if the object is not pleasant and agreeable, there is no hope, though there may be expectation - as in the expectation of the pestilence, of famine, or sickness, or death. If there is no expectation of it, but a strong desire, there is no hope, as in cases where there is a strong desire of wealth, or fame, or pleasure; or where a man is condemned for murder, and has a strong desire but no prospect of pardon; or where a man is shipwrecked, and has a strong desire, but no expectation of again seeing his family and friends.
In such cases, despondency or despair are the results. It is the union of the two feelings in proper proportions which constitutes hope. There has been considerable variety of views among expositors in regard to the proper meaning of the word in this place. Mr. Locke supposes that Paul here means the honorable employment of an apostle and minister of the gospel, or the glory belonging to the ministry in the gospel; and that his calling it “hope,” instead of “glory,” which the connection would seem to demand, is the language of modesty.
(1) It refers primarily to Paul, and the other ministers of the gospel. It is not properly the Christian hope as such to which he refers, but it is that which the ministers of the gospel had.
(2) It refers to all that he had said before about the superiority of the gospel to the Law; and it is designed to express the result of all that on his mind, and on the minds of his fellow-laborers.
(3) It refers to the prospect, confidence, persuasion, anticipation which he had as the effect of what he had just said. It is the prospect of eternal life; the clear expectation of acceptance, and the anticipation of heaven, based on the fact that this was a ministry of the Spirit 2Co_3:8; that it was a ministry showing the way of justification 2Co_3:9; and that it was never to be done away, but to abide forever 2Co_3:11. On all these this strong hope was founded; and in view of these, Paul expressed himself clearly, not enigmatically; and not in types and figures, as Moses did.
Everything about the gospel was clear and plain; and this led to the confident expectation and assurance of heaven. The word “hope,” therefore, in this place will express the effect on the mind of Paul in regard to the work of the ministry, produced by the group of considerations which he had suggested, showing that the gospel was superior to the Law; and that it was the ground of more clear and certain confidence and hope than anything which the Law could furnish.”
Let us move on to our next “we have” occurrence: It is found in 2 Corinthians 4:7: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”
John Gill writes, “But we have, this treasure in earthen vessels,.... This is a further commendation of the Gospel; and by which the apostle removes an objection against it, taken from the cross and persecutions that attend it, and the outward meanness of the ministers of it. The Gospel is called a "treasure", for not grace, nor Christ, but the Gospel is here meant; which is so styled, because it contains rich truths, and an abundance of them; comparable to gold, silver, and precious stones, for the price of them, their antiquity, distance of place from whence they come, and their duration;
because it has in it rich blessings, spiritual ones, the blessings of the new covenant, solid, substantial, and irreversible ones, and a fulness of them; and because it consists of exceeding great and precious promises, of more worth than thousands of gold and silver; free, absolute, and unconditional ones, which are yea and amen in Christ, and relate both to this, and the other world; and also because it exhibits and shows forth to us the riches of God and of Christ, of grace and of glory; which are unsearchable, substantial, satisfying, and durable: the repository, or cabinet, in which this treasure is, are "earthen vessels"; by which are meant, ministers of the word, who are so in themselves, in their own esteem, and in the esteem of others.
The doctors and scholars among the Jews compared this to what a disciple of a wise man like, in the esteem of a man of the world: at first he is like to a golden cup; when he has conversed with him, he is like to a silver cup; and when he has received any profit by him, he is likened "to an earthen cup", which, when broken, cannot be repaired again. The law (say they) is not confirmed but by him, who makes himself "as an earthen vessel." Caesar's daughter said, wisdom is beautiful "in an ugly vessel"; and he brought her a simile in proof of it from wine, which is not kept in a silver vessel.''
And the reference may be to pearls, which are said to have been found in such shells, particularly in oysters; and is designed to express, either the frail mortal bodies of the ministers of the Gospel, comparable to brittle shells; or baked earth; or rather the outward mean despicable condition of the apostles, and preachers of the word; being men of no figure in the world, for birth, learning, or outward grandeur; and being attended with sinful infirmities also, as other men; and more especially as they were labouring under reproaches, afflictions, and persecutions, for the sake of the Gospel.
The reason why it pleased God to put such a rich and valuable treasure into the hands of persons so mean and contemptible was that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us: that is, that it might appear that the making of such persons ministers of the word was not of themselves, was not owing to their natural abilities, or to any diligence and industry, and acquirements of their own, or to any instructions they had received from others, but to the grace of God, and the effectual working of his power.
(p) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 52. 2. (q) Shirhashirim Rabba, fol. 4. 2. (r) Juchasin, fol. 33. 2. (s) Laniado in Judg. vii, 16. (t) In Misn. Celim, c. 2. sect. 8. (u) Bartenora in ib. (w) De Joseph. p. 536.”
As we move to our next “we have” occurrence, we come to 2 Corinthians 5:1: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
To help us understand this more deeply, I call on Alexander MacClaren's Exposition: “TENT AND BUILDING: Knowledge and ignorance, doubt and certitude, are remarkably blended in these words. The Apostle knows what many men are not certain of; the Apostle doubts as to what all men now are certain of. ‘If our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved’-there is surely no if about that. But we must remember that the first Christians, and the Apostles with them, did not know whether they might not survive till the coming of Christ; and so not die, but ‘be changed.’
And this possibility, as appears from the context, is clearly before the Apostle’s mind. Such a limitation of his knowledge is in entire accordance with our Lord’s own words, ‘It is not for you to know the times and the seasons,’ and does not in the smallest degree derogate from his authority as an inspired teacher. But his certitude is as remarkable as his hesitation. He knows-and he modestly and calmly affirms the confidence, as possessed by all believers-that, in the event of death coming to him or them, he and they have a mansion waiting for their entrance; a body of glory like to that which Jesus already wears.
I. So my text mainly sets before us very strikingly the Christian certitude as to the final future. I need not dwell, I suppose, upon that familiar metaphor by which the relation of man to his bodily environment is described as that of a man to his dwelling-place. Only I would desire, in a word, to emphasise this as being the first of the elements of the blessed certitude in which Christian people may expatiate-the clear, broad distinction between me and my physical frame. There is no more connection, says Paul, between us and the organisation in which we at present dwell than there is between a man and the house that he inhabits.
‘The foolish senses crown’ Death and call him lord; but the Christian’s certitude firmly draws the line, and declares that the man, the whole personality, is undisturbed by anything that befalls his residence; and that he may pass unimpaired from one house to another, being in both the self-same person. And that is something to keep firm hold of in these days when we are being told that life and consciousness are but a function of organisation, and that if the one be annihilated the other cannot persist. No; all illustrations and metaphors must necessarily fail, which deny that the man is one thing and his house altogether another.
And now, if we turn for a moment to the characteristics of the two conditions with which my text deals, we get some familiar enough but yet great and strengthening thoughts. The ‘earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved,’ or, more correctly, retaining the metaphor of the house, is to be pulled down-and in its place there comes a building of God, a ‘house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’
Now the contrast that is drawn here, whilst it would run out into a great many other particulars, about which we know nothing, and therefore had better say nothing, revolves in the Apostle’s mind mainly round these two ‘earthly’ as contrasted with ‘in the heavens’; and ‘tabernacle,’ or tent, as contrasted, first of all with a ‘building,’ and then with the predicate ‘eternal.’
That is to say, the first outstanding difference which arises before the Apostle as blessed and glorious, is the contrast between the fragile dwelling-place, with its thin canvas, its bending poles, its certain removal some day, and the permanence of that which is not a ‘tent,’ but a ‘building’ which is ‘eternal.’ Involved in that is the thought that all the limitations and weaknesses which are necessarily associated with the perishableness of the present abode are at an end for ever. No more fatigue, no more working beyond the measure of power, no more need for recuperation and repose; no more dread of sickness and weakness; no more possibility of decay:
‘It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption’-neither ‘can they die any more.’ Whether that be by reason of any inherent immortality, or by reason of the uninterrupted flow into the creature of the immortal life of Christ, to whom he is joined, is a question that need not trouble us now. Enough for us that the contrast between the Bedouin tent-which is folded up and carried away, and nothing left but the black circle where the cheerful hearth once glinted amidst the sands of the desert-and the stately mansion reared for eternity, is the contrast between the organ of the spirit in which we now dwell and that which shall be ours.
And the other contrast is no less glorious and wonderful. ‘The earthly house of this tent’ does not merely define the composition, but also the whole relations and capacities of that to which it refers. The ‘tent’ is ‘earthly’ , not merely because, to use a kindred metaphor, it is a ‘building of clay,’ but because, by all its capacities, it belongs to, corresponds with, and is fitted only for, this lower order of things, the seen and the perishable. And, on the other hand, the ‘mansion’ is in ‘the heavens,’ even whilst the future tenant is a nomad in his tent. That is so, because the power which can create that future abode is ‘in the heavens.’
It is so called in order to express the security in which it is kept for those who shall one day enter upon it. And it is so, further, to express the order of things with which it brings its dwellers into contact. ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.’ That future home of the spirit will be congruous with the region in which it dwells; fitted for the heavens in which it is now preserved. And thus the two contrasts-adapted to the perishable, and itself perishable, belonging to the eternal and itself incorruptible-are the two which loom largest before the Apostle’s mind.
Do you know so fully all the possibilities of creation as that you are warranted in asserting that such a thing as a body which is the fit organ of the spirit, and is incorruptible like the heavens in which it dwells, is an impossibility? Surely the forms of matter are sufficiently varied to make us chary in asserting that other forms are impossible, to which there may belong, as characteristics, even these glorious ones of my text. The old story of the king in the tropics, who laughed to scorn some one who told him that water could be turned into a solid, may well be quoted in this connection... Let us thankfully accept the teaching by which we, too, in all our ignorance, may be able to say, ‘We know that . . . we have a building of God . . . eternal in the heavens.’
The teaching of my text and its context casts great light-and I think by many people much-needed light-on what the resurrection of the dead means. That doctrine has been weighted with a great many incredibilities and... absurdities, by well-meaning misconceptions and exaggerations. We have heard grand platitudes about ‘the scattered dust being gathered from the four winds of heaven,’ and so on, but the teaching of my text is... does not mean the assuming again of the body that is left behind and done with, but the reinvestiture of the man with another body. And so the Scriptural phrase is, not ‘the resurrection of the body,’ but ‘the resurrection of the dead.’ It is a house ‘in the heavens.’ It comes ‘from heaven.’
We leave the ‘tent’; we enter the ‘building.’ There is nothing here of some germ of immortality being somehow extricated from the ruins, and fostered into glorious growth. Or, to take another metaphor of the context, we strip off the garment and are naked; and then we are clothed with another garment and are not found naked. The resurrection of the dead is the clothing of the spirit with the house which is from heaven... Therefore let us, whilst we grope in the dark here, and live in a narrow hovel in a back street, look forward to the time when we shall dwell on the sunny heights in the great pavilion which God prepares for them that love Him.
II. And now note, again, how we come to this certitude. ‘We know, . . . for in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven.’ Now that singular emplacement of ideas may be set forth thus-whatever longing there is in a Christian, God-inspired soul, that longing is a prophecy of its own fulfilment. We know that there is a house, because of the yearning, which is deepest and strongest when we are nearest God, and likest what He would have us to be-the yearning to be ‘clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.’
That is a truth that goes a long way; though to enlarge on it is irrelevant to our present purpose. It has its limitations, as is obvious from the context, in which are human elements which are not destined to be gratified, mingled with the yearning, which is of God, and which is destined to be satisfied. ‘Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’ Whatsoever, in touching Him, we do deeply long for... is a prophecy of its own fulfilment. And as surely as the stork in the heavens, flying southward, will reach the sunny lands which draw it from the grim northern winter, so surely may a man say, ‘I know that I have a house in heaven...
Of course such longing, such aspiration and revulsion are no proofs of a fact except there be some fact which changes them, from mere vague desires, and makes these solid certainties. And such a fact we have in that which is the only proof that the world has received, of the persistence of life through death and the continuance of personal identity unchanged by the grave, and that is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Our faith in immortality does not depend merely on our own subjective desires and longings, but these desires and longings are quickened, confirmed, and certified by this great fact that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead;
and therefore we know that the yearnings in us are not in vain. So we come to this certitude, first, by reason of his experience; and, second, by reason of the longings which that experience fosters if it does not kindle, within our hearts. And let no man take exception to the Apostle’s word here, ‘we know,’ or tell us that ‘Knowledge is of the things we see.’ That is true, and not true. It is true in regard to what arrogates to itself the name of science. And we are willing to admit the limitation if the men who insist upon it will, on their sides, admit that there are other sources of certitude than so-called ‘facts,’ by which they mean merely material facts.
If it is meant to assert that we are less sure of the love of God, of immortality, than we are of the existence of this piece of wood, or that flame of gas; then I humbly venture to say that there is another region of facts than those which are appreciable by sense; that the evidence upon which we rest our certitude of immortal blessedness is quite as valid, quite as true, quite as able to bear the weight of a leaning heart as anything that can be produced, in the nature of evidence, for the things round us. It is not, ‘We fancy, we believe, we hope, we are pretty nearly sure,’ but it is ‘We know . . . that we have a building of God.’
Such a joyous, calm certitude draws men’s thoughts away from this shabby and transitory present, and fixes them on the solemn majesties of that eternal future. Yes! and nothing else will. Take away the idea of resurrection, and the remaining idea of immortality is a poor, shadowy, impotent thing. There is no force in it; there is no blessedness in it; there is nothing in it for a man to lay hold of. And, as a matter of fact, there is no vivid faith in a future life without belief in the resurrection and bodily existence of the perfected dead.
And we shall not let our thoughts willingly go out thither unless our own personal wellbeing there is very sure to us. When we know that for us individually there is that house waiting for us to enter into it, when the Lord comes, then we shall not be unwilling to turn our hearts and our desires thither. We look at the things which are not seen, for we know that we have a house eternal.”
Lastly, tonight, we will review one final “we have” statement found in Galatians 2:4: “And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:”
The Expositor's Bible explains, “PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN: FOURTEEN years" had elapsed since Paul left Jerusalem for Tarsus, and commenced his Gentile mission. During this long period-a full half of his missionary course-the Apostle was lost to the sight of the Judean Churches. For nearly half this time, until Barnabas brought him to Antioch, we have no further trace of his movements. But these years of obscure labour had, we may be sure, no small influence in shaping the Apostle’s subsequent career.
It was a kind of Apostolic apprenticeship. Then his evangelistic plans were laid; his powers were practised; his methods of teaching and administration formed and tested. This first, unnoted period of Paul’s missionary life held, we imagine, much the same relation to his public ministry that the time of the Arabian retreat did to his spiritual development.
We are apt to think of the Apostle Paul only as we see him in the full tide of his activity, carrying "from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum" the standard of the cross and planting it in one after another of the great cities of the Empire, "always triumphing in every place"; or issuing those mighty Epistles whose voice shakes the world. We forget the earlier term of preparation, these years of silence and patience, of unrecorded toil... which had... their part in making Paul the man he was. Paul served first as a private missionary pioneer in his native land, then as a junior colleague and assistant to Barnabas, until the summons came to take a higher place, when "the signs of an Apostle" had been fully "wrought in him."
At the same time, the Apostle, while fixing our attention mainly on his own position, gives to Barnabas his meed of honour; for he says, "I went up with Barnabas,"-"we never yielded for an hour to the false brethren,"-"the Pillars gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we might go to the Gentiles." But it is evident that the elder Gentile missionary stood in the background. By the action that he takes Paul unmistakably declares, "I am the Apostle of the Gentiles,” and that claim is admitted by the consenting voice of both branches of the Church. The Apostle stepped to the front at this solemn crisis, not for his own rank or office’s sake, but at the call of God, in defence of the truth of the gospel and the spiritual freedom of mankind.
But the Apostle goes on to say, that he "went up in accordance with a revelation." For this was one of those supreme moments in his life when he looked for and received the direct guidance of heaven. It was a most critical step to carry this question of Gentile circumcision up to Jerusalem, and to take Titus with him there, into the enemies’ stronghold. Moreover, on the settlement of this matter Paul knew that his Apostolic status depended, so far as human recognition was concerned. It would be seen whether the Jewish Church would acknowledge the converts of the Gentile mission as brethren in Christ; and whether the first Apostles would receive him, "the untimely one," as a colleague of their own. Never had he more urgently needed or more implicitly relied upon Divine direction than at this hour.
The Apostle, in bringing Titus, had brought up the subject-matter of the controversy. The "gospel of the uncircumcision" stood before the Jewish authorities, an accomplished fact. Titus was there, by the side of Paul, a sample-and a noble specimen, we can well believe-of the Gentile Christendom which the Jewish Church must either acknowledge or repudiate. How will they treat him? Will they admit this foreign protege of Paul to their communion? Or will they require him first to be circumcised? The question at issue could not take a form more crucial for the prejudices of the mother Church.
It was one thing to acknowledge uncircumcised fellow-believers in the abstract, away yonder at Antioch or Iconium, or even at Caesarea; and another thing to see Titus standing amongst them in his heathen uncleanness, on the sacred soil of Jerusalem, under the shadow of the Temple, and to hear Paul claiming for him-for this "dog" of a Gentile-equally with himself the rights of Christian brotherhood! The demand was most offensive to the pride of Judaism, as no one knew better than Paul; and we cannot wonder that a revelation was required to justify the Apostle in making it.
To the authorities at Jerusalem the question put by the delegates from Antioch on the one side, and by the Circumcisionists on the other, was perfectly clear. If they insist on Titus’ circumcision, they disown Paul and the Gentile mission: if they accept Paul’s gospel, they must leave Titus alone. Paul and Barnabas stated the case in a manner that left no room for doubt or compromise. Their action was marked, as ver. 5 declares, with the utmost decision. And the response of the Jewish leaders was equally frank and definite.
We have no business, says James, "to trouble those from the Gentiles that turn to God." Their judgment is virtually affirmed in Galatians 2:3, in reference to Titus, in whose person the Galatians could not fail to see that their own case had been settled by anticipation. "Those of repute" disowned the Circumcisionists; the demand that the yoke of circumcision should be imposed on. the Gentiles had no sanction from them. If the Judaisers claimed their sanction, the claim was false.
Here the Apostle pauses, as his Gentile readers must have paused and drawn a long breath of relief or of astonishment at what he has just alleged. If Titus was not compelled to be circumcised, even at Jerusalem, who, they might ask, was going to compel them?-The full stop should therefore be placed at the end of Gal_2:3, not Gal_2:2. Gal_2:1-3 form a paragraph complete in itself. Its last sentence resolves the decisive question raised in this visit of Paul’s to Jerusalem, when he "took with him also Titus."
What Paul means by "false brethren:" They were men bearing the name of Christ and professing faith in Him, but Pharisees at heart, self-seeking, rancorous, unscrupulous men, bent on exploiting the Pauline Churches for their own advantage, and regarding Gentile converts to Christ as so many possible recruits for the ranks of the Circumcision. But where, and how, were these traitors "privily brought in"? Brought in, doubtless by local Jewish sympathisers, without the concurrence of the officers of the Church. They "came in privily": -slipped in by stealth-"to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus."
Now it was at Antioch and in the pagan Churches that this liberty existed in its normal exercise-the liberty for which our Epistle contends, the enjoyment of Christian privileges independently of Jewish law-in which Paul and his brother missionaries had identified themselves with their Gentile followers. The "false brethren" were Jewish spies in the Gentile Christian camp. We do not see how the Galatians could have read the Apostle’s words otherwise; nor how it could have occurred to them that he was referring to the way in which these men had been originally "brought into" the Jewish Church.
Paul had gone up with Barnabas and "certain others"-including the Greek Titus chosen by himself. This measure was the boldest and the only effectual means of combating the Judaistic propaganda. It drew from the authorities at Jerusalem the admission that "Circumcision is nothing," and that Gentile Christians are free from the ritual law. This was a victory gained over Jewish prejudice of immense significance for the future of Christianity. The ground was already cut from under the feet of the Judaic teachers in Galatia, and of all who should at any time seek to impose external rites as things essential to salvation in Christ. To all his readers Paul can now say, so far as his part is concerned: The truth of the gospel abides with you.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Barabbas, Part 4.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on May 8th, 2019.