 In recent days, I've noticed something that had never previously occurred to me before. The great apostle Paul wrote to the New Testament churches with letters of encouragement, teaching and exhortation. Those letters also contained correction, reproof and rebuke with the goal of fixing and repairing the damage that poor decisions and sin had inflicted in those churches and in the people.
What I recently noticed was the fact that Paul's rebuke to the Galation church was more severe than his correction to the church at Corinth. Now the church at Corinth had become very carnal. They had allowed the world's ways to slip into their lives and churches. Sexual sin of very severe degree was occurring in their churches. Strife and contentions were also quite common in the Corinthian believers.
Certainly these issues were addressed to the Corinthians and corrected by the apostle Paul. His rebuke to the Galations, however, was marked with a severity that must be addressed. Paul used words like "foolish idiots" and "bewitched" to describe the choices that the Galations had made. So why such a degree of severity? The simple answer is that the Galations had departed from the grace of God and had gone back to serve God under the Law of Moses. Paul obviously felt that this was a terrible choice to make! We must again ask the question, why?
If after we receive the knowledge of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His shed blood, then we go back under the Law, the sacrifice of Jesus becomes vain, worthless and of no effect. Paul described it by saying in Galations 2:21, "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." By going under the law, we are saying that we do not need Jesus and His sacrifice for our sins. We can do it on our own. We don't need Jesus and His blood! That, my friend, is a foolish, idiotic decision. The sin of the Corinthians were "flesh" sins. The sin of the Galations, however, involved a spiritual departure from God by trying to serve God by the law. Galations 5:4 says, "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace." I think we can see why Paul's rebuke was so severe! Let's all stay strong in the Grace of God and not become "foolish" in our walk with the Father.
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