Galatians 6:14–16

These law teachers were boasting in the converts they were making among the Galatian Christians. They were boasting over each one who received circumcision. They were boasting in the flesh. Paul had only one boast — the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! To most people today His cross is still a shame and a scandal (Gal. 5:11). Even most Christians today are ashamed to mention His cross as they go about their daily work. To Paul, it was all his glory, it was all his boast.

It is the cross that brings suffering. The enemy hates the cross. He is willing to have the law, but not the cross. Leave out the cross and you can avoid suffering for Christ's sake.

He did not boast in a worldly religion, in what the world and self could recognise as done in the flesh. He boasted only in the cross. This is the shame of it more than the death, though death it was — a death of shame by which the world was put out. What was morally all his glory put an end to every worldly glory. All that was glorious to him was the world's deepest shame. He had been crucified to the world, and he looked down at it from the place that closed all connection with it.

Paul could cry out: He gave Himself for me! He died on a Roman execution post, like the lowest and worst criminal — all because He took my place. That was the cross! It is not the cross we so often see printed and painted, or made up into ornaments of gold or silver or wood.

The "world" in this verse of course means the world system, and not the people in the world as in John 3:16. But let us pause and ask ourselves whether we are of one mind with Paul in this matter. Is the world crucified to us in actual experience and in practice, and we to it? Or are we finding a part, if not the whole, of our life and enjoyment in the world system, even though it is a judged and condemned thing, as John 12:31 states?

The apostle speaks of the cross in its application to himself as regards the world. Crucifixion was not merely death, but a death of shame. It was as though he said, "In the death of Christ the world system has been hung up in disgrace in my eyes. And I have been hung up in disgrace in the world's eyes. I discard the world as a thing of shame, and it discards me as a thing of shame." And the remarkable thing is that Paul gloried in all of it. He was not in the least depressed or gloomy about it.

Paul looked on the world as a thing that ought to be nailed to the cross; and the world, in having crucified Christ, had crucified all who belonged to Him. So there is a double crucifixion, as regards the believer and the world; and if this were fully entered into, it would prove that the two can never be merged.

Paul was completely delivered from the world; for if both were crucified, one to the other, there could be no attraction between the two. The world with all its charms and fascinations could not attract someone who held it as morally judged in the death of Christ. And someone who held himself as crucified through the cross had no attraction for the world. Seen this way, the cross is a barrier between the Christian and the world that nothing can climb over. It is not only a barrier. It is also the means that uncovers and exposes the true character of the world.

Along with the cross goes a new creation. How blessed, and how all-important for our souls! The cross has sentenced the world; and this very sentence on the world is our deliverance from the world. We are crucified to it by grace, as the world is crucified to us by judgment.

In the cross these old outward forms and ceremonies all passed away. They were nothing. In themselves they were absolutely useless. As a sign of trusting to the law, they could only bring the law's curse. But what does matter is new creation. This word "new" means something fresh, that we have not had before.

Then, with the law, the flesh and the world set aside, we bring in Christ, the Spirit and New Creation. Christ takes the place of the law as the rule of life (Gal. 2:20); the Spirit takes the place of the flesh (Gal. 3:3; Gal. 5:16-25); and New Creation takes the place of the world (Gal. 6:14-15). The principles of the present world must not govern us. The rule of New Creation must.

It is not the old life whitewashed, as hypocrites claim. It is not the old repaired and decorated, as moralists would have it. It is not the fine garment of self-righteousness that a man works out on earth and others would hand to us. It is not even the old changed and made over by the Holy Spirit, as some say. No; it is what the word of God declares, "new creation." (Gal. 6:15.)

The first man is a ruin beyond repair. The proof is the coming of a second Man. Why a second, if anything could be made of the first? If our old Adam nature was in any way capable of being improved, there was no need of something new.

To speak merely of being crucified to the world would not have been enough. There is more than that in Christ. People may boast about their forms, or about having no forms. But whatever it is, it is all wrong unless you have real, solid blessing from God… As a Christian, I belong to a system already set up in Christ, in the presence of God. I know what my new nature is when I think of Christ. I see Him risen from the dead and in glory… The Christian has the new creature in perfection in Christ. It is called "new creation" here because it is not simply life found, but life set in contrast with the old, which had to do with the world.

Every true Christian is part of that new creation, as the fruit of God's workmanship (see Eph. 2:10), and the great thing is to walk by it. The Galatians, as we have seen, had fallen into treating the law of Moses as the rule of their life, and living under it. No, says the apostle, the true rule of the believer's life is new creation. We do not walk as servants under a code of rules imposed from outside. We walk as sons of God, a new creation in Christ Jesus, indwelt by the Spirit of God's Son.

There is a rule by which we are to walk here, and that is the rule of the new creation (Gal. 6:15-16). Right now we are still in earthly circumstances. Yet God has given us all we need, so that we may pass through them in a heavenly manner. So let me ask you, my reader, in all affection: is everything about you suited to that heavenly scene — the training of your family, the conduct of your business, the doing of your duties, the use of your time, the furniture of your house, the clothes you wear, your friendships?

The Greek word kanon meant a rod or rule for testing things. Paul uses it this way in Galatians 6:16 and Philippians 3:16.

He pronounces peace and mercy upon as many as walk by this rule. What rule? The rule of new creation. There is a certain walk, then, for those who grasp their place in the new creation, and a rule for it.

To walk according to this rule — the rule of new creation — is to respond in faith to the grace that has called us. It is to walk in a way that matches that grace, as dead to the law, the flesh, and the world (Galatians 2:19; 5:24; 6:14). There will be peace and mercy for such people on their path through this world — not only for the Gentile believers, such as the Galatians, but also "upon the Israel of God."

The word means to walk in line... We might say, "As many as keep step by this rule"; to them the Apostle says, "Peace on them and mercy." The law can only bring trouble and a curse. These law teachers had brought trouble; in contrast, the Apostle sends a message of peace to those who walk by the rule of the new creation. Greetings to an assembly do not usually include mercy — only greetings to a person do. But in Galatia there were true ones in the assemblies, and in this time of trouble they needed mercy. This is probably the only case where he wishes mercy on assemblies.

God has neither peace nor mercy for a wilful walk. While that walk continues, it interrupts true fellowship with the Father of our spirits, and so interrupts all personal blessing. There is mercy in store, and peace at the end, for all who truly are "of God," while there is anger in present judgment for those who provoke Him by their ways.

Here "Israel of God" seems to mean not every saint in general, but the believing ones in Israel — those Jews who had rejected their own works and found shelter only in Christ Jesus. Paul names two parties, not one. "All who walk by this rule" points mainly to the Gentile believers. The "Israel of God" are the Jewish saints — not literal Israel as such, but "the Israel of God," the true Israelites whom grace made willing to receive the Saviour.

Peace and mercy are on all such and on the true Israel — at present, of course, found within the church of God. We believe the apostle puts it this way to pour contempt on the Judaizing teachers. They were pushing a counterfeit.

Scripture uses this expression once, and it has no possible connection with the millennial state at all. It appears in Galatians 6:16. There, after false teachers had tried to bring Judaism in among Christians, the apostle says, "as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God" — clearly in contrast with the Judaism of the flesh, which the false teachers were trying to introduce.