LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Perfected
"Are you so clumsy? After having started with the Spirit, do they now intend to perfect themselves with human efforts?" (Gal. 3:3.
The Galatians' beginning was good, but their end was not. They had begun by the Spirit, but ended up trying to perfect themselves in the flesh. What does "in the flesh" mean? This expression is not always correctly understood. The NIV uses the expression "with human efforts". And what are these efforts? The same epistle to the Galatians makes it clear: "Now, knowing God, or rather, being known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and poor rudiments, to which you would be enslaved again? You keep the days, the months, the times, and the years. I am afraid of you, that I have labored with you in vain".
Here it speaks of "the weak and poor rudiments". These are the "human efforts". To keep the days, the months, the times and the years was what the law prescribed for man to try to achieve righteousness. In the Old Covenant, everyone strove to achieve it; however, no one succeeded.
When the time of the gospel came, when the righteousness of God is revealed by faith and for faith, some Christians coming from Judaism introduced these observances, with the intention of perfecting the believers. However, all that man can do for God (that is, through the works of the law), is useless to perfect anyone. No doubt, these are holy and good things, and they may give a certain good reputation to the one who performs them, but they are useless; moreover, they are a heavy burden on the gospel.
In Colossians, Paul returns to the charge against such things. "For if ye have died with Christ concerning the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye submit yourselves to such precepts as, Do not handle, or taste, or even touch (in conformity to commandments and doctrines of men) things which all are destroyed with the using? Such things indeed have a certain reputation of wisdom in voluntary worship, in humility and in harsh treatment of the body; but they are of no value against the appetites of the flesh" (2:20-23).
The way of perfection has nothing to do with the law, for the law produces slaves. Only the grace of God sets us free. So if we begin by believing, and if by this believing we receive the Spirit (Gal. 3:2), we must continue on this path: continue believing, in order to be perfected by the Spirit. Only the Spirit can perfect what the Spirit began.
We are very exposed, and we are very prone to fall into the path of "human efforts". We are quick to seek solutions to the needs we face, to create strategies to perfect ourselves on our own. Eastern philosophies offer a whole range of possibilities; modern psychology education also seems to help. But all that is useless. God's way is different from all human ways, and it goes against all human logic.
We are not improved, but taken out of the way; we are not perfected by doing things, but by waiting by faith for God's salvation at all times. It is not by increasing but by subtracting that we attain by faith and by the Spirit, the fullness in Christ.