Christ Set Forth - A Study Through the Book of Galatians

Galatians is at one and the same time the most hard-hitting and the most liberating letter the Apostle Paul ever wrote. It’s hard-hitting in that Paul doesn’t pull any punches. The Galatians are in danger of losing their grasp on the gospel itself and falling from grace. However, it’s liberating because the glorious life giving truths of the gospel ring out with distinct clarity in every chapter. Jesus Christ himself is the very embodiment of all of God’s promises and the good news is that full and sufficient salvation is in him and him alone. We don’t need to add anything to Christ. However, the Galatians, under the spell of the Judaistic legalism of their day, were in danger of deserting Christ for some mixture of grace and works. In this case, addition actually brings about a terrible subtraction. Paul is beside himself, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6). In chapter 3:1, with a breaking heart, he reminds them how he worked hard to portray Christ to them. The idea is that, in his preaching and writing, Christ was “set forth” (KJV), or placarded before them, with such compelling clarity that it was as though he had appeared before their very eyes in all of his saving glory. Paul’s solution is not merely to plead with this wayward church, but he picks up his pen and goes to work so that they might once again see Christ set forth. It’s when we finally see Christ in his all-sufficient beauty arrayed before us like this again and again, that we will stop putting our confidence in ourselves and in what we can do to give us a right standing before God and to experience victory over the power of sin in our lives. We trust that this series will help you to see Christ. It’s our prayer that, as we read and hear, we would rejoice once again in the gospel and experience something of its transforming power in our lives. Amen.