Galatians 1:3-5 - Profoundly Ordinary

God's simple, ordinary greeting to you is massively profound!

So often words we hear over and over go in one ear and float right out the other. Don't let that happen with the familiar words you read here today!

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Galatians 1:3–5 (NIV)

³ Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴ who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, ⁵ to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

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Canons of Dordt

Point 1 - God's Unconditional Election

Point 2 - Limited Atonement

Point 3 - Total Depravity

Point 4 - Irresistible Grace

Article 10: Conversion as the Work of God

1. The fact that those who are called through the ministry of the gospel come to Christ and are brought to conversion 

   1. must not be ­credited to human effort, 

      1. as though one distinguishes oneself 

         1. by free choice 

         2. from others who are furnished with equal or sufficient grace for faith and conversion 

      2. (as the proud heresy of Pelagius maintains). 

   2. No, it must be credited to God: 

      1. just as from eternity God chose his own in Christ, 

      2. so within time God effectively 

         1. calls them, grants them faith and repentance, 

         2. and, 

            1. having rescued them from the dominion of darkness, 

            2. brings them into the kingdom of his Son, 

   3. in order that they 

      1. may declare the wonderful deeds of the One 

         1. who called them out of darkness 

         2. into this marvelous light, 

      2. and may boast not in themselves, 

         1. but in the Lord, 

         2. as apostolic words frequently testify in Scripture.

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Summary

Sometimes words that we hear often begin to lose their meaning. For example, you've probably been greeted several times this week with the question "how's it going," but since phrase gets used so often, it just floats into one ear and right out the other, generating just a generic reply of 'fine' or 'good.' We don't often really think about what the words actually mean when we're so used to hearing them.

Don't let that be the case for this greeting Paul writes here, which you hear and read so often, in which grace and peace are extended as a blessing to you. We read these words at the beginning of nearly every epistle in the Bible - especially Paul's - and we hear them at the beginning of every worship service. So it's quite easy to just let them float in one ear and right out the other like all other routine greetings we receive without really considering the massive implication of what we just read or heard.

The fact of the matter is that you deserve quite the opposite of grace and peace from God our Father. We've been reminded this year over and over that when Adam sinned, we all sinned, and in doing so, God is under no obligation to extend His blessing to us. Certainly we're each aware of our own sins that we've piled on top of that. In God's justice we ought to receive wrath, condemnation and eternal punishment.

So let the magnitude of this common greeting sink in: you now have grace and peace in your life because the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself for your sins to rescue you from this present evil age.

  Dig Deeper  

We live in a day and age where doctrine and theology are often minimized by churches who consider such things as trivial or even divisive (actually, these attitudes are nothing new; they've been present all throughout church history, often producing disastrous results). But notice how doctrinal this seemingly ordinary greeting of grace and peace is!

Your ability to enjoy and live in this grace and peace is rooted in the Trinity. It comes to you from both God our Father (be thinking throughout the day of the significance of that little word our and how the meaning of this phrase would lose so much if Paul had simply written God the Father) AND the Lord Jesus Christ (again, just by referring to Jesus as Lord packs serious theological significance). Although Paul doesn't mention the Holy Spirit here in the greeting to the Galatians, he does in several other epistles.

Secondly, this greeting coveys the foundation of Christian doctrine: that Christ gave Himself for our sin to rescue us. Christianity isn't simply a set of rules to live by (although it includes them) or a collection of feel good pick-me-ups for when your having a bad day (although it does that). At it's core, Christianity is an announcement of the good news regarding how the will of our God and Father was worked out for our salvation.

Christian doctrine always culminates in doxology (words of praise & glory), and this short greeting of grace and peace reminds us that God is to be glorified for ever and ever for the salvation He's provided us through Jesus Christ. Even the final word of today's passage packs significant theological meaning: Amen, a word spelled & pronounced the same in every language, simply means that this blessing of grace and peace is sure to be.

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father (concentrate on the simple profoundness of being able to address God that way!);

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that your activities today will glorify your God and Father;

• ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

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Read the New Testament in a year! Today: 1 Corinthians 10