Friday, October 28, 2011

Christ our Substitute


Christ our Substitute

When I came to live in Chicago I worked a few months as a substitute teacher.  A substitute teacher is a person who teaches a school class when the regular teacher is unavailable; e.g., because of illness, personal leave, or other reasons.  In some regions, the qualifications for substitute teaching may not be as strict as those for a regular teacher.  Some areas require a college degree and the successful completion of competency tests (this was the case in Chicago); others require only that the applicant possess a high school diploma or its equivalent; others again insist on full teaching qualifications (Now the case in Chicago).  Standards are often lower for short-term substitute teachers, who may only fill in for a teacher during a short illness or personal day, compared to long-term substitutes, who may be assigned to a class for up to an entire semester. Some authorities will allow a substitute teacher without any training in the subject to be taught, who will not cover new material but will simply supervise students working independently on work previously assigned by the regular teacher.  Some school administrators may not hire full-time teachers unless they have had substitute teaching experience.   Often, the role of a substitute teacher may be covered by a retired teacher from that school or district; in school districts that have gone through layoffs, some furloughed teachers may substitute in the district where they previously held full-time positions.

The noun substitute is defined as one that takes the place of another; a replacement.  It is also defined as to serve or cause to serve in place of another person or thing.  As we can see from the above paragraph a person taking the place of a teacher, must have some kind of training or education.  Most places by now require the substitute teacher to have a similar training and education; which means that the substitute teacher must be an adult. 
In the game of basketball a substitute player is a member of the team, that plays as well or almost as well as the one substituted.  Also, as a member of the same team, the substitute has the same interest and goal as the player being substituted.  So, there is identification.  So, we can see that there are requirements for a substitute: 


1.       The substitute should come from the same pool of person substituted.
2.       The Substitute should have similar if not equal training (same could be said of properties or characteristics).
3.      The substitute must be available to do substitute when necessary.
4.      The substitute should identify with person being substituted.

When we say that Christ was our substitute, this must mean that He must have fulfilled the above requirements.  As God incarnate, He became one of us, so He came from our pool.  He grew up as we grew up.  He was trained as we were (or as we could be) trained.  He was touched with our infirmities and tempted in all things as we are (yet without Sin; Hebrews 4:15).  Many times it the bible says, that Christ was moved with compassion to serve others.  So, He identified with us.  Evidently, if He was doing the job, He was available. 

All of the above would qualify Jesus to be a substitute, but not our Savior.  To save us Jesus identification went beyond a mere sympathy.  Jesus became us.  The idea is that when Jesus came to this earth we were all in Him.  Just as Levi was in Abraham when Levi paid tithes toMelchisedec.  We see this idea echoing in Romans 5 and 6 when Paul contrasts the two Adams.  Perusing the following verses we can see the idea,

Rom5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Rom5:17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)
Rom5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
Rom6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Rom6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

When Adam sinned we all sinned.  We were all in Adam.  But, when Christ conquered Sin in the flesh, so did we.  We were in Christ, which is why we die and are buried with Him.  So, we are resurrected with Him also; which is why Paul says that in Christ we are in Heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).  So when Paul says in Galatians 3:13 that, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole,’” He can do this because He is us.  Paul repeats the same concept in 2 Corinthians 5:21,

2 Corinthians 5:21 For He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Christ did not merely replace us.  He did not merely die our death.  His identity with us was complete.  He carried us and our Sin in Him.  So, He suffered the curse that we should suffer, but we suffered it with Him. So, His victory is our victory.  Do we believe it? 

Friday, October 21, 2011

Commentary: Remission

Remission


I have met several patients of cancer in my life.  Some of them have gone through surgery or other kinds of therapy to get rid of the cancerous tissue.  On more than one occasions the treatment was successful.  But, the doctor's never said that the patients were cured.  The doctors always said that the patients were in remission.  I wondered what that meant.  And as I found out, I realized that remission from a disease is very similar to how God deals with Sin.  Let us talk a little about cancer and remission, and after this we will make the parallels between Sin and cancer, and being in remission from a disease and Sin.


Cancer refers to a class of diseases.  Therefore, it is unlikely that there will ever be a single "cure for cancer" any more than there will be a single treatment for all infectious diseases.  Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibody therapy or other methods. The choice of therapy depends upon the location and grade of the tumor and the stage of the disease, as well as the general state of the patient (performance status).  There are challenges inherent in some of the treatment that can limit its effectiveness.  The effectiveness of chemotherapy is often limited by toxicity to other tissues in the body. Radiation can also cause damage to normal tissue.  Complete removal of the cancer without damage to the rest of the body is the goal of treatment. Sometimes this can be accomplished by surgery, but the propensity of cancers to invade adjacent tissue or to spread to distant sites by microscopic metastasis often limits its effectiveness.


That is why it is not said that a person is to be cured of cancer, but that the cancer is in remission.  A remission is a temporary end to the medical signs and symptoms of an incurable disease.  Remission is the state of absence of disease activity in patients known to have a chronic illness that cannot be cured. It is commonly used to refer to absence of active cancer or inflammatory bowel disease when these diseases are expected to manifest again in the future.  


Sin, this side of eternity, is like cancer in that it can be treated but it does not disappear.  As long as we live in this earth, those who live by faith can stop committing Sin; however their sinful nature is still alive.  As long as we live in this Earth, Sin is always a threat.  Just like cancer can show its ugly face when and where you least expect it, so can Sin when not held in check.  It is always present and always fighting for the upper hand.  But, as long as we subject ourselves to the Jesus treatment, Sin will be in remission.  This is what Peter talks about Jesus in Acts 10:43,


Acts 10:43 To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins.


There is a similar expression in John 3:16, "…that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  The verb believeth in the Greek is in the continual present.  This means that it should read as such, "whosoever continually believes in Him …" Also, the Greek word for believe here is the same for faith.  So, "whosoever continually has faith – believes, trust, has confidence …" So, the remission of Sin comes through believing and so does righteousness.  We know this from Genesis 15:6,

Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.


Ellen White said that "The law demands righteousness, and this the sinner owes to the law; but he is incapable of rendering it. The only way in which he can attain righteousness is through faith" (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 367).  So, now we see that there is a relationship between remission of Sin, "not perishing, but having everlasting life," and being righteous.  Believing causes all three.  So, this means that those who are righteous by continually believing, experience remission of Sin, and eventually receive incorrupt and immortal bodies (1 Corinthians 15:53). 


The word righteous is a synonym for just.  So, the expression justification by faith means, made righteous by continually believing.  So, Paul tell the Galatians,


Galatians 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.


True justification by faith always produces law keeping Christians.  And, since the law is summed up (fulfilled) in Love (Romans 10:13), true justification by faith always produces people that love God above all things and their neighbor as themselves (Galatians 5:14).

 

 -- 

Raul Diaz
www.wolfsoath.com

Friday, October 14, 2011

Did Peter know he was wrong?

Did Peter know he was wrong? 

One Sabbath School class was discussing the life of Peter.  Emphasis was given to Peter before conversion and after conversion.  Before conversion, although Peter was boisterous and short tempered, he denied the Lord.  After conversion Peter was the opposite.  After this, they briefly discussed Paul confronting Peter about his prejudice behavior as recorded in Galatians 1.   The teacher then asked the class, "With which Peter do you indentify: the one before conversion or the one after conversion?"  There was murmuring in the class.  Tony, who was sitting in the back raised his hand and said, "I identify with Peter."  The teacher and some of the students turned around and asked him to clarify, "which Peter, the one before conversion or the one after?"  The student referring to the event of Paul confronting Peter, answered, "I identify with Peter in that even though he knew that crowd is wrong, I see myself following them."  The class hushed for a few seconds, and then there was murmuring again.  Tony looked around and saw people nodding.  The teacher sighed, but did not speak.  A sister in front of Tony smiled and nodded at him.  Another sister, walking down the aisle, smiled and touched his arm.  It seemed that many agreed with him.  They saw themselves drifting the wrong way knowingly.  Now, just because many people do this does not make it right? 

Paul found that this was wrong, which is why he confronted Peter.  Did Peter know He was wrong?  He should have.  Peter was present at the Jerusalem Council when it was declared that circumcision was not necessary to salvation and therefore not to be made an issue (Acts 15:1-24).  He had encountered this situation before when God had clearly revealed to him that he was not to consider any one class of people as "common or unclean" (Acts 10:28).  He had even declared that he understood "that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him" (Acts 10:34, 35).  Clear testimony had been borne by the Holy Spirit, the other apostles, and the corporate church body that there was to be no distinction between Jew and Gentile, and that righteousness is by faith alone in Christ Jesus.  In light of all this, Peter and others withdrew themselves from the uncircumcised Gentile believers.  This discrimination was in effect saying, "Except ye be circumcised... ye cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1).  This action on the part of Peter and the others was not only a denial of the gospel, but it was a virtual denial of Christ.  So, we can conclude that Peter knew better.  But, he allowed himself to be carried away by the influence of the other Jews, "fearing them which were of the circumcision" (Galatians 2:12). Peter's attitude grieved God.  Ellen White says, 

"Even the best of men, if left to themselves, will make grave blunders. The more responsibilities placed upon the human agent, the higher his position to dictate and control, the more mischief he is sure to do in perverting minds and hearts if he does not carefully follow the way of the Lord. At Antioch Peter failed in the principles of integrity. Paul had to withstand his subverting influence face to face. This is recorded that others may profit by it, and that the lesson may be a solemn warning to the men in high places, that they may not fail in integrity, but keep close to principle."—Ellen G. White Comments, The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1108.

 As Ellen White said, this incident should be a solemn warning to us.  We too can fail in integrity and violate the principles laid out by the Gospel.  Even so, Peter should still be an example to us in that he was humble.  The fact that Peter died a martyr for Christ tells us that Peter repented.   In that sense we should be like Peter after conversion. 

 


--
Raul Diaz
www.wolfsoath.com

Friday, October 07, 2011

Commentary: Look for what is Not There

Look for what is Not There


In an episode of a TV show, two FBI scientific investigators are called to Philadelphia to find out why people from all over the city were dying of similar symptoms.  Other than the facts that they all lived in Philadelphia and were dying with similar symptoms the victims seemed to have nothing else in common.  They were from all kinds of backgrounds and from all over the city.  One of the investigators realized that what all the evidence they had there was not leading them anywhere, so he decided to look for what was not there.  Most of the victims were dying miles from their homes.  He figured they had to travel, but they were no car keys in the victims' remains.  Further investigation showed that they all took the subway.  Could the subway lead to the answer of how the contagion started?  All of these people would have to coincide at the same please and the same time in the subway.  Once they found the spot where they could all coincide, they found someone carrying the contagion agent.  What was not there – the lack of car keys – led to the solution.


Most epistles of Paul follow a similar format, which included:   (1) a greeting; (2) a word of thanksgiving; (3) the main body of the letter; and, finally, (4) a closing remark and salutations.  Now, When Paul wrote to the Galatians, he was not trying to produce a literary masterpiece. Instead, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Paul was addressing specific situations that involved him and the believers in Galatia (so was the case with other letters).  However, the letter of Galatians seems to break the mold.  There are obvious similarities between Galatians and the others, but what is not there sets them apart.  In other words, although Paul's epistles generally follow the basic format of ancient letters, Galatians contains a number of unique features not found in Paul's other epistles. When recognized, these differences can help us better understand the situation Paul was addressing.


In the salutation of the epistles Paul typically introduced himself as an apostle, but in Galatians the salutation is a little longer, as he goes out of his way to describe the basis of his apostolic authority.  Let us read it,

Gal1:1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

Gal1:2 And all the brethren which are with me, unto the churches of Galatia:

Gal1:3 Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,

Gal1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:

Gal1:5 To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

 

What this means to us is that unlike the other churches, his apostleship was being questioned and undermined in Galatia.  When you cannot attack the message you attack the messenger.  Paul's opponents could not attack his message, so they attacked Paul's calling as an Apostle.  Now, if Paul was not an apostle, then his message was not necessarily from God.  Ellen White says,


"In almost every church there were some members who were Jews by birth. To these converts the Jewish teachers found ready access, and through them gained a foot-hold in the churches. It was impossible, by scriptural arguments, to overthrow the doctrines taught by Paul; hence they resorted to the most unscrupulous measures to counteract his influence and weaken his authority. They declared that he had not been a disciple of Jesus, and had received no commission from him; yet he had presumed to teach doctrines directly opposed to those held by Peter, James, and the other apostles. . . "(Sketches from the Life of Paul, page 188 – 189)


The other thing that is different is the thanksgiving.  This is missing in Galatians.  Paul found reasons to thank God for those to whom he wrote his letters.  The churches in Galatia had none.  Although Paul addresses all kinds of local challenges and problems in his letters to the churches, he still made it a practice to follow his opening greeting with a word of prayer or thanksgiving to God for the faith of his readers.  He even does this in his letters to the Corinthians, who were struggling with all kinds of questionable behavior (compare 1 Cor. 1:4 and 5:1).  The situation in Galatia is so upsetting, however, that Paul omits the thanksgiving entirely and gets right to the point.  Ellen White also points this out,


How different from his manner of writing to the Corinthian church is the course which he pursues toward the Galatians! In dealing with the former, he manifests great caution and tenderness, while he reproves the latter with abrupt severity. The Corinthians had been overcome by temptation, and deceived by the ingenious sophistry of teachers who presented errors under the guise of truth. They had become confused and bewildered. To teach them to distinguish the false from the true, required great caution and patience in their instructor. Harshness or injudicious haste would have destroyed his influence over those whom he sought to benefit… In the Galatian churches, open, unmasked error was supplanting the faith of the gospel. Christ, the true foundation, was virtually renounced for the obsolete ceremonies of Judaism. The apostle saw that if these churches were saved from the dangerous influences which threatened them, the most decisive measures must be taken, the sharpest warnings given, to bring them to a sense of their true condition. (Sketches from the Life of Paul, 189 – 190)


As Ellen White says the biggest danger that the Galatians faced was rejecting Christ.  This would mean forfeiting their salvation.  Something Paul could not allow, without a fight.  He loved them too much to let them go.  So, why is this important to us?  It is important to us because, we can fall in the same trap.  For example, it is no secret that Ellen White's calling as a prophet has been under attack not only by non-Adventists but by Adventists as well.  This poses a problem for us: if she is not a prophet, then our understanding of the atonement in the light of the Sanctuary message is not valid.  Therefore we have no reason to exist.  Everything we have taught for almost 170 years is a lie.  Thus, we are a fraud. 

If Paul wrote a letter to our church today what would it say?  Would he have to defend his Apostleship or defend Ellen White's "prophet-ship?"  Would he have to defend her message?  These are serious issues to ponder.  


--
Raul Diaz
www.wolfsoath.com

Monday, October 03, 2011

The Dynamics of the Everlasting Gospel II by Pastor Jack Sequeira

The Dynamics of the Everlasting Gospel II

International Speaker Pastor Jack Sequeira returns October 7-15th, 2011 to:
Broadview Seventh-day Adventist Church (Website Contact)
3101 S. 25th Ave.
Broadview, IL


For map and Directions click here

Itinerary:

DATES,  TIMES and Topics

Friday Oct 7th 7-8:30pm - God’s Show and Tell

Saturday Oct 8th 10am-12pm - The Fire that Consumes
Lunch 12:15pm-1:45pm
2:00pm-3:30pm Redemption Unfolded
Questions and Answers

Sunday Oct 9th 10am-12pm - Significance of the Courtyard
Refreshments 12:30pm-1:00pm
1:15pm-2:15pm - God With Us
Questions and Answers


Monday Oct 10th 7-8:30pm - You are God’s Temple

Tuesday Oct 11th 7-8:30pm - Christ Our High Priest

Wednesday Oct 12th 7-8:30pm - Cleansing of the Sanctuary

Thursday Oct 13th 7-8:30pm - Yom Kippur

Friday Oct 14th 7-8:30pm - Not I but Christ

Saturday Oct 15th - 10am-12pm -Redemption in a Nutshell
Lunch 12:15pm-1:45pm
2:00pm-3:30pm - The Gospel Vindicated
Questions and Answers

(It is an evangelism event.)

Saturday, October 01, 2011

What exactly IS righteousness by faith?


excellent foundation for this quarter's lessons



"Studies in Galatians"

What exactly IS righteousness by faith? -- 

Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, 76, 37 , pp. 588, 589.
IT was "certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed" who had caused all the trouble in the churches in Galatia, and called forth a letter to the Galatians. It was these also who had troubled the brethren at Antioch, and raised there the controversy abroad on the council Jerusalem.  It was these who, even after the council, had caused Peter to swerve, at Antioch, from the truth of the Gospel, which, in turn, forced Paul to withstand him to the face. It was these of the sect of the Pharisees who spread a false gospel against the true, and subverted souls who were even already saved—as at Antioch and in Galatia. In a study of the Book of Galatians, it is, therefore, essential to know just what the sect of the Pharisees did hold.

When Jesus would give an illustration of "certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others," he chose "a Pharisee." And this Pharisee, even in praying, first thanked God that he was not like other men; and then presented himself to the Lord for approval upon what he had done. Luke 18:9-12. It is therefore perfectly plain that the one great peculiarity of the sect of the Pharisees was self-righteousness—claiming righteousness upon what they have done.

Consequently everything that a Pharisee did, was done that he might obtain righteousness by the doing. And if there was anything that he was not inclined to do, he must force himself to do it, by a direct vow, and then still claim the merit of righteousness in the doing.

And it was the very righteousness of God that was claimed as the merit and the result of the doing; because it was the word of God that was followed, it was the command of the Lord that was obeyed, in the doing.

The word "Pharisee" is from "parash," which signifies "separated," or "set apart." The Pharisees were those who were separated, set apart, from the rest of the people by their superior righteousness, which was because they had done more than any others; and they were separated, set apart, unto God because it was in the doing of the law of God that their righteousness consisted.  Everything that God had commanded, required, or directed, must be done in order that righteousness may be obtained in the doing.  And to be perfectly certain that they could rightfully claim the righteousness when the thing was done, it was essential that every obligation must be performed so exactly right that there could be no question. And in order that this might be so, every requirement in the word of God was drawn out in divisions and subdivisions to the smallest minutiae, even to each particular letter of each word, each one to be scrupulously and ceremoniously performed. "The very raison d'etre of the Pharisees was to create 'hedges' of oral tradition about the law."—Farrar's "Life of Christ," Excursus 9, par. 1. These "hedges" were of course to protect the law from violation. They were assurances to the doer of them that in the doing of them he was preserved from violating the law, and that so he was a doer of the law.

This led to an utter perversion not only of every commandment and ordinance of the Lord, but of the very idea of every commandment and ordinance.

God had given the ten commandments, not as a means of obtaining righteousness by the doing of them, but (1) to give the true knowledge of sin, that forgiveness and salvation might be found by faith; and (2) to witness to the righteousness obtained by (that) faith.

This was shown (a) in the service that was commanded, and (b) in the very terms used in speaking of the tables of the law. (a) In the service commanded it was plainly said that when they had done anything against the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and were guilty, they were to bring a sacrifice of a young bullock, and confess the sin, and with the blood the priest should make atonement for them, and it should be forgiven them. Lev. 4:13-21. Here were the ten commandments to give the knowledge of sin, and of the guilt; here was forgiveness and at-one-ment with God without the doing of the law, but solely through faith. (b) The term used in speaking of the was "the tables of the testimony;" the ark, in which was the law, was called the "ark of the testament;" and the tabernacle, in which was the ark, was called the "tabernacle of the testimony." Now testimony is the evidence borne by a witness; and that this is the meaning of the word here is certain by the fact that the tabernacle was plainly called "the tabernacle of witness." Num. 17:7, 8; 18:2; 2 Chron. 24:6. The tables of the testimony were the tables of witness, which in itself testified that the law was intended, not to be a means of the righteousness of God obtained by it, but to be witness to the righteousness of God obtained without it.

God had given the ordinances of sacrifice and offering and burnt offering and offering for sin, not as a means of obtaining righteousness by them, but as expressions of the faith that obtained the righteousness of God without them—faith that obtained the righteousness of God through a sacrifice and offering already made by God, and promised to be sent in due time.

God had given circumcision, not as a means of obtaining righteousness by it, but as a sign of the righteousness of God obtained by faith and held by faith before circumcision was performed.

Thus the Pharisees perverted into works and righteousness by works, all that God had given to be of faith. All that God had given to be a blessing and a delight they turned into a burden and a yoke of bondage. And when it did not give peace to the straining and toiling workers, as it could not, to the many fine-spun distinctions drawn upon the plain word of God they yet further added a multitude of exactions of their own. To the Sabbath commandment alone there were added four hundred and one requirements. A whole treatise was devoted to hand-washings (Mark 7:1-5); another whole treatise was occupied with the proper method of killing a fowl. "The letter of the law thus lost its comparative simplicity in bound-less complications, until the Talmud tells us how Akibba was seen in a vision by the astonished Moses, drawing from every horn of every letter whole bushels of decisions."—Farrar.

Another evil was wrapped up in this: The facility of interpretation that was developed in drawing out the infinite variety of distinctions in sentences, in words, and even in letters, in order to discover the exact degree of obedience required to attain to righteousness, was readily employed in evading any obligation of the law of God that the covetous heart might desire. Mark 7:9-13; Matt. 23:14-28. "We know the minute and intense scrupulosity of Sabbath observance wasting itself in all those abhoth and toldoth,—those primary and derivative rules and prohibitions, and inferences from rules and prohibitions, and combinations of inferences from rules and prohibitions, and cases of casuistry and conscience arising out of the infinite possible variety of circumstances to which those combinations of inference might apply,—which had degraded the Sabbath from 'a delight, holy of the Lord, honorable,' partly into an anxious and pitiless burden, and partly into a network of contrivances hypocritically designed, as it were, in the lowest spirit of heathenism, to cheat the Deity with the mere semblance of accurate observance. . . .

"Teachers who were on the high road to a casuistry which could construct 'rules' out of every superfluous particle, had found it easy to win credit for ingenuity by elaborating prescriptions, to which Moses would have listened in mute astonishment. If there be one thing more definitely laid down in the law than another, it is the uncleanness of creeping things; yet the Talmud assures us that 'no one is appointed and member of the Sanhedrin who does not possess sufficient ingenuity to prove from the written law that a creeping thing is ceremonially cleaned,' and that there is an unimpeachable disciple, at Jabne, who could produce one hundred and fifty arguments in favor of the ceremonial cleanness of creeping things.  Sophistry like this was at work even in the days when the young student at Tarsus set at the feet of Gamaliel."—Ib., "Life and Work of Paul," chap. 4, par. 2-6.

Thus the Pharisees in their exactions and ceremonialism had developed to perfection the self-love of self-righteousness in the merit of their own doings. A perfect illustration is found in what Rabbi Simeon, the son of Jochai, said: "If there were only thirty righteous persons in the world, I and my son should make two of them; and if there were but twenty, I and my son would be of the number; and if there were but ten, and I and my son would be of the number; and if there were but five, and I and my son would be of the five; and if there were but two, I and my son would be those two; and if there were but one, MYSELF should be that one.:—Emphatic Diaglott, at Luke 18:11.

"They had received unsanctified and confused interpretations of the law given them by Moses: they had added tradition to tradition; they had restricted freedom of thought and action until the commandments, ordinances, and services of God were lost in a ceaseless round of meaning less rights and ceremonies. Their religion was a yoke of bondage." "The views of the people were so narrow that they had become slaves to their own useless regulations." "This confidence in themselves and their own regulations, with its attendant prejudices against all other nations, caused them to resist the Spirit of God, which would have corrected their errors." "Thus, in their earthliness, separated from God in Spirit, while professedly serving him, they were doing just the work that Satan wanted them to do—taking a course to impeach the character of God, and cause the people to view him as a tyrant. In presenting their sacrificial offerings in the temple, they were as actors in a play. The rabbis, the priests and rulers, had ceased to look beyond the symbol of the truth that was signified by their outward ceremonies." They expected to derive righteousness acceptable to God from the performance of the ceremony of offering a symbol which, to them, was meaningless for any other purpose than as a means of gaining righteousness in the performance of the ceremony. The beginning and end, the all in all of the religion of the Pharisees, whether it related to the moral law, to the God-given ceremonial law, or to their own traditions, was ceremonialism, and ceremonialism alone. And Paul had been one of these Pharisees, of "the most straitest sect."

And this is what those "certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed" thought to drag over and fasten upon Christianity. They wished to force even the divine faith of Christ into their low, narrow human ceremonialism. Oh, yes! it is well enough to believe in Jesus; but that is not enough: "except ye be circumcised and keep the law [their whole boneless system of interpretations of the law, moral and ceremonial, there whole mass of ceremonialism], ye cannot be saved." And that even when they had done all that the system of the Pharisees supply and demand it, they could not be saved, was confessed in the despairing cry of the rabbis: "If but one person could only for one day keep whole law, and not offended one point,—nay, if but one person could but keep that one point of the law which affects the due observance of the Sabbath,—then the troubles of Israel would be ended, and the Messiah at last would come."—Id., par. 3. And from every really conscientious heart it forced that other despairing cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. 7:24.

But in his great mercy and his divine goodness, without requiring all the burdens and toil of the Pharisaic ceremonialism, and in answer to the longing cry of every burdened heart, the Messiah came, and brought to all men the free gift of the righteousness of God, and of his full salvation. This righteousness and this full salvation, Saul the Pharisee found, and it made him forever Paul the Christian, nevermore desire in the "righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." And then, having in Christ perfect righteousness, full salvation, and the power of an endless life; having found in Christ the living gospel instead of the dead form of law; because he would never more admit the multitudinous exactions, the vain strivings, the hollow self-righteousness, and the false gospel of the Pharisees, he was persecuted, and his work in the gospel of Christ was opposed, till the day of his death, by "the Pharisees which believed," as well as by all the Jews, who did not believe, by false brethren as well as by open enemies.

And this it was that called forth the book of Galatians.