GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
GALATIANS 6:17-18
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17 Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus on my body. 18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.
Paul finishes the letter with a command, a declaration, and a blessing. The command is, “Let no one cause me any trouble.” He means that he has now made his defense of the gospel, he has demonstrated that circumcision nor any of the Mosaic Law is a requirement for salvation now that Christ has come. So if anyone reads or hears this and still rejects it– Paul has nothing else to say. Such a man sets himself outside the church and outside the body of Christ. He said something like this to the Corinthians: “If anyone wants to be quarrelsome about this, we have no such custom, and neither do the churches of God” (1 Cor. 11:16). He is like the man David warns about in Psalm 10, always “lurking near the villages, watching in secret for victims” (Psalm 10:8), “lying in wait to catch the helpless, and dragging them off in his net” (10:9). Such a man argues only to argue. He does not deserve the effort of an answer. Only sending him outside, only ignoring his constant quarreling, will give him time to consider his sins and perhaps come to repentance. Augustine pondered the same thing:
“To what end shall we ever bring our discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we proceed on the principle that we must always reply to those who reply to us? For those who are either unable to understand our arguments, or are so hardened by the habit of contradiction, that though they understand they cannot yield to them, reply to us, and, as it is written, “speak hard things,” and are incorrigibly vain” (City of God, II:1).
The declaration Paul makes serves the purpose of the command. “Don’t give me any more trouble,” he says, “because I’ve proven my loyalty to the gospel with the marks I bear on my body.” He does not mean the modern (since Medieval times) notion of stigmata, although that word is precisely the Greek term he uses here (στίγματα). Luther judged such things (beginning with St. Francis of Assisi) to be “a pure fiction and a joke.” But he goes on to say: “But even if Francis did bear stigmata on his body, as he is portrayed [in paintings and sculpture], they were not printed on him on account of Christ. He printed them on himself by some sort of foolish devotion or, more likely, vainglory, by which he was able to flatter himself into believing that he was so dear to Christ that Christ had even printed his wounds on that man’s body.”
So if Paul is not talking about that kind of stigmata (and he certainly isn’t), then what does he mean? He talks about it several times. “God put us apostles at the end of the procession, like those who are sentenced to death. We have become a spectacle to the whole world, to angels and to men” (1 Corinthians 4:9). And he also says: “We are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed, we are harassed and homeless, and we work hard, laboring with our own hands. When we are cursed we bless; when we are persecuted we endure it. When we are slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the scum of the earth, everyone’s garbage, to this very day” (1 Corinthians 4:11-13). And again: “When we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out exactly that way, as you well know!” (1 Thessalonians 3:4). And yet again: “I know what it is to be in need. I know what it is to have more than enough. I have learned the secret of being content in each and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living with enough, or in want” (Philippians 4:12). And these aren’t all. All of the suffering that Paul went through on account of Christ are marks in his flesh. Some of them were left by stones (Acts 14:19), others by blows from the hands of men (Acts 23:2-3). Sometimes he was threatened and conspired against (Acts 9:22-23), and sometimes he was publicly beaten (Acts 16:22-23). But everything he went through, he accepted as if it had happened to Jesus himself, because he was the Apostle of Jesus. He had work to do, a command from God to preach to the Gentiles (Acts 13:2). And so this is what he did.
He finishes with a blessing: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. This blessing for grace on the spirit of his readers is something Paul does in four of his letters (see also Philippians 4:23; Philemon 1:25 and 2 Timothy 4:22). This follows the promise that came through the prophet: “I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace, the Spirit who pleads for mercy” (Zechariah 12:10). This is what we all have; all who have faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit has been sent to us. He dwells in us and he also brings the Father’s blessings to us, especially God’s undeserved grace. For without grace, we would have had no Christ to rescue us. Without grace, there would be no peace. Without grace, which is one of God’s attributes which can never be removed or changed from God’s holy essence (Exodus 34:6; Psalm 145:8), we would have nothing but God’s wrath hounding us and punishing us forever. But we are blessed with God’s grace, his forgiveness, and all the other blessings that come with these things.
“The Lord be gracious to you, and give you peace” (Numbers 6:25-26).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Galatians 6:17-18 Paul ends his letter