At the Manchester, Kansas. Conference Oct., 1905. Chaps, 5:, 6:

(Concluded from page 18.)

These closing chapters of our Epistle are chiefly taken up with admonitions based upon the teaching we have gone through. Thus he exhorts them to stand fast in the liberty which the grace he has developed in his instruction has made theirs, and not be again under the yoke of law.

Ques. Why is Paul in verses 2 and 3 so much opposed to circumcision, whilst in Acts 16:he circumcises Timothy ?

Ans. Because here it means to put Christians under law, which is the destruction of Christianity; whilst in Timothy's case, being the son of a Jewess, he was classed as a Jew, yet, because of his Greek father, he had never been circumcised. He was thus justly under reproach among " the Jews which were in those quarters." In his case there was no principle involved; Paul therefore circumcises him to remove the prejudice that was against him. When there is no truth in question he makes himself all things to all men to better serve them.

With the Galatians it is all different. They are Gentiles, and to circumcise them is Satan's work, for it involves the whole principle of Christianity. It says, in principle, that Christianity is an appendage to Judaism, whilst in truth it is a wholly new thing, straight from heaven, delivering the Jew from Judaism and the Gentile from heathenism. Circumcision restores law and destroys grace. It makes
Christ useless. Law had proved the hopelessness of man in his sins. Now Christ had come, had died, had obtained an eternal redemption for us, and faith, appropriating this salvation, produced love to the Saviour-a love which desires to serve Him, and thus brings fruit to God. The moment law is introduced it interferes with these blessed ways of grace and ruins Christianity. And what is Christendom now, whether Protestant, Romish, or Greek, but a vast ruin of Christianity where grace has ceased to be known save by a few who are really strangers in it.

Note ver. 9. The same occurs in ver. 6 of 1:Cor. 5:There they harbor evil practice; here evil doc-trine. In both cases it "leavens the whole lump." A people linked together by one common tie are all affected if they allow evil to abide among them after due effort to correct it. "Israel hath sinned"said God in Josh. 7:though only one among them is the transgressor. The whole nation feel their responsibility and put it away. Had the Galatians judged that leaven among them, and the whole Church of God continued in that judgment, what a different condition of things would have resulted.

Ques. What would have become of Israel if they had refused to find out the transgressor and put the evil away from among them ?

Because of the unconditional covenant of God with Abraham, He would doubtless have preserved them as He is doing now for the fulfilment of that covenant, but they would have ceased to be able to conquer the land any further. They had already ceased by their defeat before Ai.

Ques. What is conquering the land a figure of for us ?

For us it is laying hold by faith of the purposes of God for us of all the blessed things which His grace has given us title to, and which He has revealed in His Word. We are spending a few days here together, not only to fortify ourselves in what we already possess, but to lay hold of more of that which belongs to us in Christ. If we knowingly, in indifference, allow evil of any character to abide among us, our progress in the things of God is at an end. We can conquer no more, but are more likely to lose what we have already got. You will always find that the men whom the Lord uses to recover fresh ground for His people, are men who have freed themselves from complicity with evil. They are thus " sanctified, and meet for the Master's use."

Mark ver. 2:Law brings no persecution, for it is a human principle-so much for so much-there-
fore man does not oppose it. But grace is ever persecuted, for it humiliates man. It flows from the Cross, and that, while it provides salvation for man, declares him an undone sinner needing that salvation indeed. Every revival by the Spirit of God is unfailingly marked by a fresh sense of the grace of God, and therefore by a fresh exaltation of the cross of Christ.

But, in ver. 13, this blessed liberty we have under grace is not to be used to please our evil nature. Liberty given to our souls is not for liberty to practice evil, but good. A man longs to please God but finds himself Incapable of it through sin. Redemption sets him free, not only from condemnation, but also from the enslaving power of sin, that now he may be free to do the will of God. The flesh is still there, as we see in ver. 17, to oppose the Spirit, but the Spirit is there too to oppose the flesh, and the spirit who dwells in us is stronger than our flesh, and, if ungrieved, gives us victory over it. Our flesh or old nature has no good in it; our new nature received in new birth has no power in itself, though pure and holy in all its aspirations and desires, but the Holy Spirit given to us gives power and effectiveness to the new nature, and so we have no excuse whatever for allowing our flesh ever to have the upper hand of us.

Note ver. 18. To go back to law for the rule of life is an insult to the Spirit, as going back to law for justification is an insult to Christ.

Then in vers. 19-23 we have the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit contrasted-the course of the ungodly, and the character of the children of God. What an awful thing to think that "flesh," which can do such works, is, as implied in ver. 17. still in every child of God. How it should constrain us to abide in Christ, keep near to Him, lest it have power over us and produce any of those dreadful works.

On the other hand how lovely the chain of fruit-fulness, the development by the power of the Spirit of the divine nature which is in us. The law could never produce this. It can, and does, condemn the works of the flesh, but the Spirit of God alone, dwelling in us through grace, can produce the character which God loves, and which the law approves.

Ques. What is the force of ver. 25 ?

It teaches that if we are alive by the Spirit, that is, born of the Spirit, we are to act accordingly ; for by becoming Christ's we have pronounced death upon our flesh and all it likes and lasts after. We have given up the envies and emulations which activate this world, "to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven."

The first verse of chap. vi applies the Christian character toward one who is overtaken in a fault. It is not a wilful course of evil, but a fault into which a brother has fallen, and the way to restore him. We thus bear one another's burdens. But if we are proud, and think ourselves something while we really are nothing, we shall find at the end our true measure. God, who knows us well, and judges everything aright, will give us as we have sown. This is as inexorable as the sowing of your fields; If you sow oats you do not reap wheat. Let us then search ourselves earnestly, and court God's searching too, that we may be self-deceived in nothing. Only this brief life to live for Christ, to deny self, to suffer with and for Him, and then an eternity of glory.

In ver. 12 he returns to the great subject of his epistle to give a final word. Law has no persecution, and to avoid that it was being pressed upon the Galatians by certain teachers, though neither they nor any one else kept it; but in this way they could glory in man, in his morality and good deeds. "God forbid" adds the beloved apostle, "that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world." There is no honor in this, but only suffering. "A new creation," however, rises out of this, perfect and beautiful in the eye of God, and now for us the rule of life.

Ques. What are "the marks of the Lord Jesus " in ver. 17 ?

They are the scars he bears on his body from the blows and wounds he has received as a proclaimer of the Cross of Christ. Many among the Christians of his as of our day, sought to belittle, to ignore or set him aside, for the light he shed all around disturbed and condemned many, and hindered them from their selfish desires. His scars told what the motive of his life had been. Brethren, may it be ours.