Truth or Tradition

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

TRUTH OF TRADITION

Gal 4:8-16

8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you know God — or rather are known by God — how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10 You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11 I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.12 I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong. 13 As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. 14 Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. 15 What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

NIV

Living by the principles of anything other than being known by God seems to be a waste of time. What does that mean exactly? What principles are weak and miserable? What principles enslave us? It seems Paul is making some reference to the traditions of men, rather than the truth of God. We know those Jews that came after Paul want the Gentiles to get circumcised. It would appear they also want the Gentiles to become as Jewish as to adopt all the festivals they celebrate as well. This seems to go back to the idea of once being freed from the law, why put ourselves back in bondage to the law. However, there are two laws we should note. The law of sin and death is that which we have been set free from and we are now slaves to the law of Christ. But what is the law of Christ? It is the law of righteousness. This is not, again, some traditions of men, but rather a life of faith in Jesus Christ which leads to righteousness and eternal life. But we have to understand it is not by trying to live a holy and righteousness life by abiding by a set of rules and regulations which is a form of law. It is a relationship of the heart we have with Jesus. What we do is live by faith not by sight, not by what our appearance of righteousness, but by our being in Christ, for he is our righteousness. We cannot attain anything good by trying to be good, trying to live under the principles that are weak and miserable. Trying to live by them steals all our joy. Life becomes a life of duty and toil and despair because we always fail to live up to those principles. We live under a form of self-condemnation because we cannot be perfect enough to satisfy whatever form of the law we established for ourselves. Have we become enemies of the truth for the sake of human traditions? Living for Jesus is living full of joy for we have eternal life, our destiny is heaven, our life is full and complete in Jesus. We live in the grace and peace of our Lord. Sure, in order to belong to an earthly organization, even a church, or denomination, we agree with their particular statement of faith. But that is just what it is, a statement of what they believe about salvation, baptism, God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Justification, sanctification, etc. Those statements do not include a list of don’ts or rules of human traditions to abide by. They are positive statements of faith. We can become so entrenched in living by rules we have absolutely no joy whatsoever, in fact, we live a weak and miserable existence. We have to make a choice to live by the truth or by tradition.