In the first century Greco-Roman world crucifixion was something that polite and well mannered people didn’t talk about.  Considered a cruel instrument of torture and shame, nevertheless, the cross is the one thing about which the apostle Paul chooses to boast–not just any cross, but the cross of Jesus Christ, where the guilt and power of sin which enslaved us are removed and broken.  And yet, because it was an instrument of shame, Paul’s opponents in Galatia (the Judaizers) refuse to preach the cross of Christ.  Instead, they are champions of human merit earned through “works of the law.”  They boast about the number of coverts they have made, yet they neither obey the commandments nor can they see that the crucified and risen Jesus has ushered in the New Creation and established the true Israel of God.  We have indeed come to the end of Paul’s Galatian letter–the Magna Carta of Christian liberty.  Paul will point us to the cross of Christ, a fitting way to conclude our time in this remarkable letter.

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