Galatians 1/
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
Paul the apostle, former rejector of Christ, now ardent follower – is speaking here, under God’s inspiration, in this passage of scripture.
And guess what?
He is marvelling.
Have you or I ever marvelled – ?
All kinds of things can cause us to marvel. Some good, some bad. Sometimes the things little children say can have that effect.
Like the time my middle daughter at the age of three or so – asked a friend of ours who was visiting with us, why his skin was so dark?
Fortunately as a gracious Christian – his answer was gracious – and he (with a twinkle in his eye) informed her that God had just left him in the oven that bit longer than her 😇.
Being present to witness the miracles of Christ or to hear His words – caused many to marvel.
I can truly say I marvel that God in Christ can accept me and bestow love upon me.
3 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!
A child of God – who me?
I don’t have to look far – to realise that in myself there is nothing that warrants acceptance by God, in light of the fact that His nature is so completely different than the one I was born with.
His divine nature described as follows:
…He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
His unapproachable light – in whom there is no darkness at all – speaks of His absolute uncontaminated purity, and holiness.
Enter yours truly – along with the rest of the human race and you have the complete opposite.
All boasting of any righteousness of our own is excluded – and the thing we need to marvel at is THE GRACE OF GOD!
His marvellous unmerited favour – He is willing to bestow on every sinner – Paul marvels here (Gal. 1/6) at the foolishness of not receiving and remaining in that grace – as was the case with the Galatian believers.
God imparts Himself to those who are willing to give their lives up to Christ. He favours us for this reason alone. We seek Him, call upon Him in prayer and ask for that unmerited favour, turning from sinful behaviour.
On sincerely doing so, He comes to us and The Holy Spirit imparts something wonderful and supernatural to us. That is why He is described in the following way as-
…the Spirit of grace…
Strangely enough this tail end of a verse of scripture is in a negative context, which doesn’t serve my purpose here. I simply want to make the point that The Holy Spirit of the Living God comes to us to impart this marvellous Grace that brings forgiveness of sins and fellowship with God. He is ‘the Spirit of Grace’.
But it doesn’t end there. He as The Holy Spirit of Grace is present 24/7 to continuously remind us that we are accepted by God and loved by Him.
This is motivational and we enter more and more into fellowship as we keep coming on the basis of the bestowal of His unmerited favour. So that we can be continuously forgiven and accepted on the merits of Christ and not our own faltering failing nature.
In so doing 24/7 the faltering failing sinful nature is subdued and kept ‘under’ as we enjoy life and life more abundantly in Christ.
This is MARVELLOUS – or in the words of the hymn this is – AMAZING Grace!