The Bible Provocateur
The Bible Provocateur
LIVE DISCUSSION: Exposition - Galatians 1:1-5 (PART 2 of 4)
What does it truly mean to be justified before God? Is adherence to religious laws necessary for salvation, or is faith in Christ alone sufficient? These questions aren't just theological abstractions—they strike at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.
When Paul wrote to the Galatians, he confronted a church in crisis. New believers were being told they needed to follow Jewish ceremonial laws alongside their faith in Christ. Paul's response was unequivocal: salvation comes through grace alone, received by faith alone.
The apostle opens his letter by establishing his divine appointment—not from men or through human agency, but directly from Jesus Christ and God the Father. This powerful claim sets the stage for understanding both Paul's authority and the divine nature of Christ, who stands not as a mere man but as equal with the Father.
We explore how the law functions as a mirror, revealing our sinfulness without providing any means of cleansing. It serves as a schoolmaster leading us to Christ by exposing our desperate need for something we cannot accomplish ourselves—reconciliation with a holy God. This understanding revolutionized Martin Luther's thinking and sparked the Protestant Reformation.
The distinction between living under law versus grace remains profoundly relevant today. Many Christians unconsciously blend the two approaches, creating a burden Jesus never intended his followers to carry. True freedom comes not from perfect rule-following but from resting in Christ's finished work.
Join us as we begin our journey through this transformative letter that challenges us to examine whether we're truly living in the freedom Christ purchased or unconsciously slipping back into spiritual bondage. Your understanding of grace might never be the same again.
By who Jesus.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And they were the authority in the church.
Speaker 3:Right and what's up, and because we started that in the beginning. The other part that's missing in that is that they were called apostles when they were appointed by Christ himself personally and that was after his resurrection. Amen, and that was after his resurrection.
Speaker 1:Amen. And so in 2 Corinthians 12, 12, it says the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.
Speaker 3:And what is beautiful about that passage is that Paul clearly tells you that these were the signs of an apostle. Amen, Signs of an apostle Also.
Speaker 1:Signs of an apostle Also in Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 20,. It says something like Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone Amen.
Speaker 3:Right being the chief cornerstone. That's exactly right. So that's where we are on that, all right. So that's where we are on that, all right. So so, for those of you who just joined in, I'm in Galatians, chapter one, and I've started a series on Galatians. I'm going to go through the whole book verse by verse, not tonight, of course, but I'm going to get through as many as I can, but anyway. So so I got as far as the first three words of Galatians, where it says Paul and apostle.
Speaker 3:Now here's something that's really profound because in Galatians, chapter one, verse one, Paul opens his briefs by saying Paul and apostle, and then we get a parenthesis after that. So the remainder of the verse one is parenthetical. Paul says he's an apostle and then he says this not of man number one, neither by man number two, but by jesus christ three and god four, who raised him from the dead. Now notice this. This is important because we are to see God's glory. We need to see the glory of God and the elevation of Christ when we read the scriptures. Elevation of Christ, when we read the scriptures and Paul's calling as an apostle, as laid out here in verse one of Galatians. He says he's an apostle and the first thing he says is I wasn't called of men and I wasn't called by man. Notice this Paul and apostle.
Speaker 3:Galatians 1.1,. Paul and apostle, not of men, neither by God. I mean neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God, the Father. So for Paul to say this and I'm going to go around one by one and ask everybody for Paul to say that he was called, that he was an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ. What does this mean to you, particularly about Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1:Can I answer first?
Speaker 3:Yes, go ahead, yes, go ahead.
Speaker 1:So what he's basically saying is that his apostleship is. He's denying that his apostleship is due to any human agency Right. He was not commissioned an apostle by anybody, it says, not of men Right, nor by any mortal individual, but by Jesus christ and god, the father. So, unlike the other apostles, paul received his call from the resurrected glorified and exalted jesus christ.
Speaker 3:That's my, but the other apostles did too. They did too. Yes, they did too. But there's another distinction that I'm trying to point out here Not of men, neither by men, but by Jesus Christ. So what does this say about Jesus Christ? Mariah?
Speaker 4:That he is not merely just a man.
Speaker 1:He was taught by Christ.
Speaker 3:No, no. Look at what it says again, the very first verse Paul an apostle, not of men, neither by man.
Speaker 1:Oh, he was showing that Jesus Christ is God.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, mick, would you mind the chance? Could you remove this guy, prophetess Taylor, he's getting on my nerves, all right, would you mind the chance? Could you remove this guy, prophetess Taylor, he's getting on my nerves, alright. So now Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ. So, mariah, go ahead and finish saying what you're saying.
Speaker 4:That, although we like scripture says we him once after, after the flesh, but now by the spirit he's. He's not just merely a man, but god. So it then it goes on to say but by god, right, so jesus christ, not by man, but through jesus christ, appointed by God.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. But you hit the nail right on the head that I was going after and when you said that Jesus was no man. He's different. There's something different about him that Paul would say that his apostleship was not of men, neither by man, when in fact we know for a fact he was called to the office of an apostle by the Lord Jesus Christ directly. Does anybody on the panel disagree with that assessment? Anybody, all right. So let's move on the next person I want to ask, brother Greg, I want to ask you this question Paul an apostle not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father. So, brother Greg, I want to ask you this question what does this say about the relationship between Jesus Christ and God the Father?
Speaker 3:Jesus is not the Father. That's true. He's not the Father. What else does?
Speaker 5:it, say that they're in agreement.
Speaker 3:That they're in agreement. What else does it say?
Speaker 5:Because I know, you know, well, well, I don't, I don't know where you're going. I just got here, I'm just kind of waking up, uh, so that, uh, jesus is not the father, the father and the son are in agreement and they're the ones who decide who's an apostle right or a prophetess so here's the thing they're not self. Paul's not a self-appointed prophet like some people in the comments Right that just decide they're going to be in a pause. Sorry.
Speaker 3:Right, all right, all right. So here's what I want to. Here's what I want to. Here's what I'll say. On this one, brother Greg is right. It is clearly.
Speaker 3:It is clear that in Paul's mind, jesus Christ is not the father. It's also clear that God himself, the father, is not Jesus Christ. There are two distinct, what we would refer to in theological terms as hypostases or persons, persons, two distinct persons. But what is also clear here is that Jesus Christ and God the Father are spoken of on equal terms. Equal terms Paul an apostle, not of men, neither by man. So Jesus Christ and God the Father who appointed him. Neither one of them are men or a man, but both are on equal footing when it comes to calling Paul to his office as an apostle. He was called by Jesus Christ and by God the Father. There are two distinct persons, but they are equal. They are equal in issuing the calling. One does not do, one only does what the other does and the other does what the other one does. In other words, they don't deviate from the mission. They are in complete unity, complete unity. And you see here, even though the spirit of God is not addressed here specifically in this place, but you know at least. In fact, at this point it is clear that Jesus Christ and God the father are on equal footing in their appointments and in what and in how they enact things that take place in the providential, uh, the, the providence of governing this world. They, both they, as a single unity, called Paul to his office, and one is not going to seek to bring others to any office or to any role or discipleship if the other one is not involved. And this also goes for the Holy Spirit, as I can show elsewhere.
Speaker 3:But the point is Paul was called not of men, neither by man. So that means that since he was called by Jesus Christ and God the Father, these are not spoken of as men or man. It just was something that was divine. So this means that Christ is of divine nature. He's not like any man, even if a man, even if Elijah or Enoch, who were already with the Lord, these men could not appoint Paul to his apostleship. They could not do that.
Speaker 3:The appointment, as one brother says, is from the Lord Jesus Christ period. Now he says Paul an apostle not of men, neither by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the father, who raised him from the dead. So here you see that the father raising the father raise Christ from the dead, but you also have Christ himself saying and raising himself that he's going to raise himself from the dead Again, it shows that there's unity in the Trinity. There's unity in the Trinity, and so this is what we're going to continue to see as we go on throughout these expositions of the word of God. So Paul says that he's an apostle and he's speaking to all of the brethren which are with him, unto the churches of Galatia we see this in verse two to the Galatian church and the Galatian church had many things that they were dealing with, and the biggest issue with the Galatian church is much of what we see happening today in the church today.
Speaker 3:But the big aspect of what was going on in that time was that there was some confusion about what things there are that you could do that needed to be done in order to be justified before God, and what I mean by that is what they were going through then was dealing with the confusion of do I still keep aspects of the Levitical legal system, legal system, or do I rely on what Paul is saying when it comes to salvation being by grace, through faith.
Speaker 3:And so what was happening with the Galatian church? There was a significant number of folks who were trying to blend the two and in fact we see later on in this book Paul condemning Peter for facilitating the very idea in the mind of the Gentile believers that it was necessary that they should also adhere to some of the Levitical aspects of the old covenant and not to go along with and to be joined to salvation by grace through faith alone. And this is what we are going to find through this whole chapter, I mean through this whole book, out how and why we today, as Protestants, are Protestants, because it was out of this book. It is out of this book where Luther, martin Luther, recognized and learned and championed the fact that those of us who believe in God, we are justified by faith through grace alone. Nothing more, nothing less. Salvation is by grace.
Speaker 5:I didn't have to get circumcised, nope.
Speaker 3:Now you tell me Absolutely not. But this is what Paul is dealing with in Galatia. This is what he's dealing with, dealing with this idea of mixing aspects of the old covenant with the new covenant. And here's the thing. You have a lot of Christians today, people who call themselves Christians. I call them unbelieving Christians, and what they do is they tell you, yeah, we're saved by grace, but you need to be obedient to the law. You need to do the law. You need to adhere to the law, as if any man has ever done so, as if any man could ever do so. But we do know that Jesus Christ did it. He did it for us and it was his righteousness in obedience to God's law that was imputed to the person who believes in him by faith. Whether they are Old Testament saint or whether they are New Testament saint, the faith is the same. Brother Jeffrey, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Jonathan and good evening panel. No, jonathan, I just wanted to add you were talking about the law a moment ago. All the law does is break us. Right, that's it. It breaks us, and so it is only by the grace and the blood of the perfect, and so it is only by the grace and the blood of the perfect, perfect sacrifice that we are restored back to full relationship with God. And the simplicity of that brother to me is astounding. And yet there are so many people, jonathan, that simply can't get their mind around that, because the equation of salvation doesn't involve them. All it does is we receive what God freely gives.
Speaker 2:Their pride and their arrogance and this goes back to the prophets part and the apostles a while ago that you were talking about. The thing with that, jonathan, these are people who call themselves now apostles and prophets. Go on over here a couple chapters to chapter five where it talks about the fruit of the spirit. I don't see them today producing those nine fruits right now. Maybe I'm off the mark, maybe I'm blind, maybe I'm flat wrong, but I am saying from my experience I don't see them doing that. I don't see them humbling themselves before God and others and serving them. Seemingly they're elevating themselves Again. Tell me if I'm off the mark here.
Speaker 3:No, I don't think you're off the mark. We have one brother who I just invited up, derek Shoemaker. He makes a good point, he says that the law and he gets this from the scripture, which is what we should do he says the law is in fact. Brother Derek, are you there?
Speaker 6:Well, I'm on a loud bus.
Speaker 3:All right, all right, well, I'll repeat what you said then, if that's okay. So what Derek pointed out was this was that the law was a schoolmaster. It was a teacher. It was an instructor to bring us to Christ. It was an instructor to reveal to us the science of man, to us that we are filthy sinners, that we are wretched beings, that we go contrary to that which God intended, that we are leopards who cannot change their spots. We are those who, from the time we were born, as the sparks fly upward, as Jeremiah puts it.
Speaker 3:And so Paul makes it clear and plain in Romans 3 that there is none righteous, and he cites Isaiah there is none righteous. All have gone astray. None seek after God. So none of us desire righteousness, none of us desire holiness, none of us know how to get to God and find acceptance with him and to be reconciled with him. None of us know how to stop our war that we have waged against a thrice holy God.
Speaker 3:But God wants that relationship with man, and the way he opened that door to that relationship is by the giving of the law. To do what? To reveal your condition? To do what? To show you that you have a need that cannot be fulfilled or satisfied by you alone, in fact by you at all. He is telling you, showing us in his law, that we are in such a state, in such a condition, that it is necessary for us to see ourselves for who we are and to find a way to, to be cleansed from that condition. And so the law to the, to the, to the Christian and to the, into, into the souls of men who would believe. The law becomes that gateway for us to understand who we are and for us to desire to look to God to deal with us in such a way that we can find acceptance with him, that we can be reconciled to him Further with it.
Speaker 6:Go ahead, brother, all right. So the law came by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Like I said, the law was the schoolmaster's need to Christ, after which there was no more need of the schoolmaster. The letter killed with Moses. The Holy Spirit gives life Right. More needed a schoolmaster. The letter killed with moses. The holy spirit gives life right right.
Speaker 6:If the first covenant had been found faultless, there should have been no place for the second. Why the law was good if used lawfully. Jesus was the first begotten of the dead. They were dead in their sins. Under the law, the sting of sin was death. The strength of sin was the law, the condemnation 600 plus rules telling you do this. This is your punishment. You did this wrong. This is your punishment Again. You broke one, you broke them all. What's the tree of the knowledge? What's the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of the difference between good and evil? It's a whole lot of rules. Did I break this one? Did I break that one? How do I not break this? Oh, I did it again. I broke this one. You broke one. You broke them all. You know that's kind of how it was, and if it's represented with the knowledge, the reminder of good versus evil, and it was a schoolmaster. It had his place in time. It was leading to Christ.
Speaker 6:I look at the Israelites as similar to an individual. Right, you have your Genesis in the womb, the fertile crescent and Mesopotamia with the birthplace of civilization. That's where the Israelites came out of and they had the greater light, so to speak. They were more sophisticated, they dwelt in tents and things like that. So the fertile crescent, if you get what I'm saying, and Mesopotamia with the birthplace of civilization, you get your Genesis in the womb. And so, like an individual with the Israelites, right, you get your Genesis and the womb. Then you get your promised land, wherever you end up, where God has intended for you. Then you get a bunch of rules in life. You get your parents, your teachers, the authorities. They give you a bunch of rules to live with and then, in Numbers, as a sense is taken and the younger generation becomes the older generation.
Speaker 6:What does Deuteronomy mean? Deuteronomy means second law, the law of the next generation, when they take whatever they were taught and do whatever they want to do with it. So, just like an individual in life, the Israelites had to mature and the law is theirs. The law is represented with Abraham and Hagar in Galatians in the allegory of the covenants. Abraham and Hagar, and she was the bondmaid, that schoolmaster that led to Christ. Her name means forsaken, and the Israelites break the covenant because they just couldn't do it. Jesus was the first begotten of the dead. They were dead in their sins under the law. The sin of sin was death. The strength of sin was the law. So it's all about raising the Israelites up to maturity in Christ when he would come along Again. Deuteronomy means second law. It's like wash rinse repeat with generation to generation, generation to generation, so on and so forth. And it happens with us as individuals in life, and it happened with the Israelites.
Speaker 3:Alright, that's the end of the live tonight, folks, no very good. Well said, brother.
Speaker 6:Very, very, very good, very good adorned themselves with, after eating of the fruit of knowledge of the difference between good and evil.
Speaker 1:They made aprons of fig leaves.
Speaker 6:They made aprons of fig leaves to cover their nudity. Jesus saw that fig tree wasn't bearing any fruit, so he cursed it in a wizard way Again. If the first covenant had been found faultless, there should have been no place for the second. The law was good if used lawfully.
Speaker 3:Law was good, perfect and righteous, but the problem was with man, not the law itself. So, brother, right on Legacy, what's your thoughts?
Speaker 5:I'm out of words. I'm just sitting here listening. I'm always the one talking. They always say if I start talking I take over the law. So I just say, go say the number is less.
Speaker 3:Oh, come on, you can give us a little something. Just give us a little taste, a little something short, just give us a little quickie. I ain't got nothing. I wish I did. All right, no problem, brother, we'll hang around and, whenever you, I'll make the rounds throughout the night and then I'll give you another shot at it if you're up to it.
Speaker 3:So we see here that, as we talked about and our brother, derek Shoemaker, gave a really great assessment about the law. I really enjoyed that and it's funny because I haven't heard in a long time the meaning of the right Deuteronomy and I've totally forgot about it. But it but what the brother was saying is exactly right. I can't really argue too much with what he had to say at all. Actually, I think what he said is true and is correct.
Speaker 3:The whole idea is that the law and the purpose of it was to bring us to our knees, was to be this weight on us that makes us squirm with desire for a need to get out of this condition of sin and depravity that we were in, and so we are, and what it should do is point us to where we must go if we would find and establish peace with God, and that's what the law is designed to do. Show you your sin, reveal to you your sin, and that's what the law is designed to do. Show you your sin, reveal to you your sin, and that's what it teaches us. And it teaches us that we have need of grace. And that's what it's designed to be.
Speaker 6:Condemnation right If you walk eating of the tree of life with one eye, just walking by faith and not by sight, living in life having your own little taste of heaven.
Speaker 6:Or you're double minded. Did I break this one? How do I do good? How do I do evil? How do I do good? How do I do evil? Your body is full of darkness. It's the condemnation it tells you every time you did something wrong. One more thing I just want to mention. Commandments are different than laws. It says in Proverbs obey the commandments of your father and forsake not the law of your mother. The father of the house says thou shalt not. The mother says if you do this, this will be your punishment. The letter killed, but the spirit gives life. It killed by stoning to death. It was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Jesus said that he who is without sin cast the first stone. You know, that's part of the difference too Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Now, brother Nathan said that the law and I know where he's going with this. I believe I do, because I've used this before that the law of God is a mirror, and a mirror. All it does is reveal the problem, but it doesn't clean up the problem. It doesn't fix the problem, but it doesn't clean up the problem. It doesn't fix the problem. When you get up in the morning and you look in the mirror, you see oh well, you know what. My face is dirty, it's filthy. I need to wash my face. Or women look in the mirror and they go. It's time for me to put on my makeup.
Speaker 3:So the law reveals to you your sinful condition, but what you do not do is rub your face on the mirror expecting it to cleanse you.
Speaker 3:It doesn't do that. It just reveals and it points you to another direction that where you need to go to seek that which is able to remove that filth, that that it rests upon us, the filth that isaiah said was like filthy rags. And so this is what we need. This is what we need to have put away, but it is the law of God that reveals it, and if the law of God doesn't reveal it, man remains in his state of pomposity toward God, he still, he resists God and he feels and he sees himself something greater than what he is. He lives in his pride because he has not looked into the mirror of God's holy law and sees what he really is. So every one of these sinners that runs around here, who used to be I mean who are now just like we used to be we have been blessed to see. We have been blessed that mirror has been put in front of us to reveal to us our sinful condition, our depravity.
Speaker 2:Not just our depravity, jonathan. I want to take it a step further, brother, if I may Our sheer, absolute and complete hopelessness. Right, apart from Christ, there is nothing. Right, there's no hope, there is no help, help, there is no anything, there is death. And I'm going to paint an overly horrible picture here. Well, yeah, I am. I take it back because I'm trying to put it in a perspective that God wants us to see it apart from Christ, we are helpless. Brother, we brother, we are hopeless, we are stuck and we can't change that apart from him. Amen, amen, I love you, brother. Boy, you're on a roll tonight, man, you know you got a lot of people coming after you here, the prophetess Taylor, a while ago. I wish you'd let her in here to just let her talk a little bit and see if she could change her mind, which she couldn't, but you know, maybe you could change hers.
Speaker 3:We want to grow here. I don't have time for all the All right. We want to grow together in this grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I got no time for these people that just speak nonsense, because I know what generally happens. They get up here and they say things that they can't substantiate at all. It's just a waste of time, and that, you know, dealing with that type of person is what made me almost give up on doing lives altogether, and so I'm glad I never did, because because it is much easier to just get rid of them, because these people you can't help, especially these people that that are, you know, these people you can't help, especially these people that are tied up into the law or they're tied up into thinking they're apostles and thinking they're doing miracles and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But I hear you, though. I hear you, jonathan. The problem with that is and you're absolutely right is the fact that there's more of them than you can possibly imagine, right?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, there are. But see, this is what Christian warfare is about dealing with this kind of thing, and sometimes the best way to deal with this is to fortify one another to stand against these lies, you know, and so the goal here is, for me at least you know, and I know that a lot of there are a lot of good, good faithful people that have their lives and they have their, their, their different social media platforms. Good faithful people that have their lives and they have their different social media platforms. They have their churches or whatever. There are different people that have different, that God uses differently in order to build the church up, and I'm grateful and thankful for every single one of them and every one of you. Ashley, who engages Mariah, go ahead, sister. You were going to say something.
Speaker 4:Looking at verse three and it says grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ and God, the father um which we all know is the same grace, that's um given through Jesus Christ, is the same grace, that is, that the father has the same peace in which Jesus Christ leads with us, is the same as the Father. And you know. I thank you for this because, although I knew these things, I never actually realized the equality in which these sentences are equating to the son and to the father.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, it's a, it's a big thing, and when you see it because I get, sometimes there are certain verses that when they, finally, when they hit you, you almost never forget where you were when it happened. You know, and um, and I, I, um, remember a lot of these, and this is what you're saying right now is one of these things and from this very chapter that we're talking about, you know, when Paul says that he was an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, you can look at that and go wait a minute. Isn't Jesus Christ a man? No, he's not just that. He's something more than a man. He's something different. He's divine. He's the God man. He's righteous and holy. He's divine. He's the one that is on equal footing with his father. They're the same in terms of all of their attributes omnipresent, omniscient. They share all of the same things. One doesn't go out of his way to do something more than what the other one is going to do.
Speaker 3:So, in other words, like you have people that are always saying and you'll hear me say this a thousand times a day if we talked every day which is that there's no way that the Lord Jesus Christ came down here to be a sacrifice, a vicarious substitute, in the place of all mankind without exception, in the place of all mankind without exception, if the father only elected a finite number. So in other words, christ did not come here to save and to redeem any more than those whom Christ said that his father gave him to redeem. And we see that clearly in John 6, from 37, verse 37 on through verse 44. It is clear Jesus says I came to redeem those whom my father gave me, no more and no less. And the Holy Spirit is not going to regenerate any more than the father elected and gave to Christ who died for them. Father elected and gave to Christ who died for them.
Speaker 3:And now the Holy Spirit goes to redeem or to regenerate only those whom Christ redeemed, who are only those whom the Father gave him to redeem. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal, not only in nature but in purpose. They govern providence equally in their eternal divine tribunal. They agree on everything. The number of people that the father elected is the same number of people that the son saved and the same number of people that the Holy Spirit regenerated, so that they know that that salvation that they received from before. The foundation of the world is now theirs. It's not complicated, not to the Christian, the unbelieving Christians. They have problems, and so we want to go through these verses, deal with the word of God and be objective at having these discussions that are meaningful, so that we can come to a meeting of the minds, not fight and bicker. That's too easy.
Speaker 1:Brother Jonathan, somebody asked in the comments who are the elect.
Speaker 3:Everyone who is saved, in other words, everyone who comes to faith. In other words, everyone who comes to faith, every true blood bought in and born again, believer, who trust Christ as their Lord and Savior. Those are the ones who are the elect. I don't know, none of us knows who anybody is, but that person knows If you are a believer, you know.
Speaker 3:You know that God called you to this faith. You know that God revealed to you your sin. You know that God put the weight on you, on your heart, to turn to him in repentance. You know that it was God who broke you. You know that it was God who makes you want to be a better human being to your fellow man, because we're told to love all. You know that god, it is god who gave you the understanding of the word when you came across it. You know that it's the holy spirit that lives in you that shows you how to discern the difference between what you once thought was good and to know that it is now bad, and what you thought was bad. You know, and vice versa. So this it, you know, the Spirit of God living in you, is the ceiling, the ceiling as EAL of your salvation in Christ and those who have received the Holy Spirit. All of them, they know it they know it.
Speaker 6:who's received it first? Right, all 12 apostles were Jews. The 120 in the upper room were Jews, jews there at Pentecost, out of every nation under heaven proselytes, cretans, arabians, etc. But if you look at it this way, it's kind of like the law was added because of transgression.
Speaker 3:All right, we'll come back. We'll come back.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm still looking into it. I think what I'm saying is it just started out with the Jews and then it went out to the Gentiles. It started out Jesus was a Jew. All 12 apostles were Jews. The original Christians were all Jews. And then Paul was sent out to the Gentiles. Gentiles get the Holy Ghost in Acts 10. It started with the Jews.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nobody's arguing that they, they, they. It started with them, but. But. But it also started like, for instance, abraham. Abraham became a jew when he was 99 but when did he have faith?
Speaker 6:4 000 I think, the 144 000 were leading up to christ, and then, after christ, you got the innumerable company of angels well, I don't, know't know.
Speaker 3:See, this is one part where I would go in a different direction about the 144,000, because I do not believe those are 144,000 super Jews that are going to come on the face of the earth later on in the future. That's a different subject, but I'll certainly love to deal with that because I don't believe that at all. I believe that the 144 000 represents the represents. I don't want to get into this now because I want to stick with galatians, but I'll just say at the outset I have the opinion that we could talk about it in a different discussion that the 144 000 is a symbolic number representing the totality of the believing church, both combining the old covenant saints and the new covenant saints. That's what I believe the 144 thousand is representing. Um, and I can defend that now. You may that you may disagree with it, but I can defend that the fruit of the spirit, the list of them.
Speaker 6:Nobody ever finishes the sentence. We're talking about galatians. I'm going back to galatians I know, but I mean the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, weakness, temperance. And then it says right after that it doesn't stop the sentence. Against such there is no law right, absolutely, that's right.
Speaker 3:That's absolutely true. So in galatians 3, I'm down in verse 3 right now. So paul says grace be to you and peace from god the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice, I want everybody to notice this when Paul gives his greetings, they usually begin with grace and peace to you, or grace, mercy and peace from God the Father. So you will always see grace and peace, or grace, mercy and peace.