{"id":6801,"date":"2021-03-11T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2021-03-10T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=6801"},"modified":"2021-03-10T08:47:51","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T22:47:51","slug":"the-choice-of-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2021\/03\/11\/the-choice-of-path\/","title":{"rendered":"The Choice of Path"},"content":{"rendered":"

Galatians 4:28-29 28<\/sup>Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.<\/span> 29<\/sup>But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Paul now begins to apply his analogy to the Galatians by comparing them to Isaac, the child of the promise God made to Abraham. Isaac was born because of God’s grace working in Abraham and Sarah. Their part was to trust in God. As Paul points out in Romans 4:3, Abraham was considered righteous because he believed in God’s promises. To become a child of this same promise on must also believe God. Abraham’s experiences pointed to an even greater promise that would one day come at just the right time in history in Jesus the Messiah. The Galatians had also believed in God’s promise found in the gospel. Paul is helping them return to their spiritual roots and realize that what had recently been taught to them by the outsiders was wrong. The gospel is experienced through faith. The promise of justification before God cannot come through human effort. Isaac was born out of grace.<\/p>\n

The way of faith is not easy. Verse 29 warns the Galatians that what they are experiencing from the agitators is similar to what Isaac experienced from Ishmael.\u00a0Paul mentions two key concepts that he will elaborate upon in the following chapter. The flesh wages war against the Spirit. Ishmael, the child of slavery, was born by the flesh by human effort and without God’s assistance. Isaac, the child of freedom and promise, was born by the assistance of God’s Spirit.<\/p>\n

Paul has brought the allegory to a close and prepared for the theological discussion to follow. The Galatians need to make a choice on which path they will follow. If they choose to go with their own strength and the way of the flesh, they will fail. This path only leads to slavery. The path that Paul first taught them and now reminds them is the way of faith. It is allowing the resurrected life of Christ to work within the crucified self. It is the way of trusting in God’s promise of righteousness. This is the way of the Spirit and it brings freedom. This is the same path that is before us. Which will we choose?<\/p>\n

For older posts, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Galatians 4:28-29 28Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. Paul now begins to apply his analogy to the Galatians by comparing them to Isaac, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6801"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6821,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801\/revisions\/6821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}