-7-
Going Backward
In the previous chapter we left off with the following verse:
Ga 4:7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
At just the right time, God sent His Son into your life. You were convicted of your sin of unbelief and your sins against God. You confessed these sins, you asked for forgiveness and trusted the saving work of Jesus and accepted it personally … just for you. At that point you were a 'baby' Christian. You could say from your heart ...”Abba!” (Father) (Philips Translation)
From there you began moving forward. God tells us, “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” 1Pe 2:2
But, sadly, that was not the case in the churches of Galatia. Paul says in Galatians 4:8 ¶ Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Paul is amazed. Why would anyone do this?
Why do Christians sometimes fall back into the world? You might think, 'There could be any number of reasons'. And you could be right, but I believe it boils down to one specific and deadly reason.
I will be sharing with you a classic 20th century example. But first let's look at the extent of the situation as Paul continues on. These passages are from the Philips translation.
Ga 4:9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather are known by him, how can you revert to the weakness and poverty of such principles and consent to be under their power all over again?
Ga 4:10 Your religion is beginning to be a matter of observing special days and months and seasons and years. Paul is calling on them to compare this kind of 'religion' with the simple faith relationship that their Christianity began with.
Ga 4:11 You make me wonder if all my efforts over you have been wasted! Here is an appeal for them to remember his first contact with them, and also the hours he spent in the word with them, convincing them that Jesus, God's Son, indeed is the Savior of the world.
Ga 4:12 ¶ I do beg you to put yourselves in my place, my brothers, as I have put myself in yours. I have nothing against you personally.
And here is a different appeal. Paul may be thinking back to the harsh words that he had with them at the beginning of this letter. Perhaps he thinks it sounds like he is angry with them. And he is upset … but it is more against the ones who came in with the new gospel. There will be more about that later.
As he goes on, he reminds them of the closeness of their connection to him as it was at the beginning. He says,
Ga 4:13 You know that it was physical illness which was the cause of my first preaching the gospel to you.
Many translations insert a bit of 'interpretation' at this point. The passage we just read was from the Philips translation and I believe he got it wrong here, as have many other translations.
I believe only the King James Version gets it right here. According to the KJV physical illness was not at all the reason.
It read, ‘You know that it was through weakness in my body that I first preached the gospel to you
The Greek phrase is, ‘dia asthenia sarx
through weakness flesh
The little Greek word, 'dia' generally means 'through'. But many of the other translations render it as 'because'. While it can be used that way, I believe 'through' makes much more sense.
But I will talk about Paul's physical illness in a subsequent chapter. For now let's read on, noticing that Paul is appealing to their initial love for him, and perhaps calling them to just a bit of loyalty.
Ga 4:14 You didn’t despise me or let yourself be revolted by my disease. No, you welcomed me as though I were an angel of God, or even as though I were Christ Jesus himself!
Ga 4:15 What has happened to that fine spirit of yours? I guarantee that in those days you would, if you could, have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.
Ga 4:16 Have I now become your enemy because I continue to tell you the truth?
Let's talk about “Going back …”, Reverting to infancy … or even reverting to a place of no real relationship with the father … at all.
We know it happens. But why?
To some degree it happens to all of us. We know by personal experience that at times we are close to God and at other times, not so close.
But I want to address something much more serious.
Falling back … all the way back. Going back so far you no longer are sure there even is a God.
What are the causes?
I want to share with you a very classic example that many of you have some knowledge of. (The following is either gleaned from, or a direct quote from Alan Bean, author of Billy Graham’s Shadow.)
- Billy Graham and his friend, Charles Templeton -
"I think all of us have, at least, heard of Billy Graham. But how many of you are familiar with his 'crisis of faith'? It happened to him in August of 1949.
But allow me to back up a bit
Billy Graham was born November 7 1918. In May of 1934, at a revival meeting held on his parents farm he trusted Christ as his Savior. Mordecai Ham was the traveling evangelist.
After graduating high school in 1936, he attended Bob Jones university for one semester, then enrolled in Florida Bible Institute, leaving there in 1940, went on to Wheaton College until 1943. He married Ruth Bell that same year.
1939 had been sensing the call of God on his life. While on a golf course in Florida, answered God's call for him to enter the gospel ministry.
Contrasting conversion experiences.
Billy Graham had Christian parents, a Godly home.
Charles Templeton – was the son of a single parent, had a 9th grade education.
He spent a lot of time in bars. His depressed mother found Christ in a Nazarene church, and talked to her son repeatedly about receiving Jesus.
Chuck's life was empty. With his mothers repeated conversations about Jesus, he was now feeling dirty and sinful. Looking at himself in the mirror after work one day he especially did not like what he saw. For the hundredth time his mother told him of the difference that Jesus made in her life.
He excused himself, and went to his bedroom.
Templeton professed faith in Christ in 1936.
He wrote this in his memoirs;
“As I knelt by my bed in the darkness, my mind was strangely vacant; thoughts and words wouldn’t come to focus. After a moment, it was as though a black blanket had been draped over me. A sense of enormous guilt descended and invaded every part of me. I was unclean.
Involuntarily, I began to pray, my face upturned, tears streaming. The only words I could find were, “Lord, come down. Come down. Come down. . . .”
It may have been minutes later or much longer – there was no sense of time – but I found my head in my hands, crunched small on the floor at the center of a vast emptiness. The agonizing was past. It had left me numb, speechless, immobilized, alone, tense with a sense of expectancy. In a moment, a weight began to lift, a weight as heavy as I. It passed through my thighs, my belly, my chest, my arms, my shoulders and lifted off entirely. I could have leaped over a wall. An ineffable warmth began to suffuse every corpuscle. It seemed that a light had turned on in my chest and its refining fire had cleansed me. I hardly dared breathe, fearing that I might end or alter the moment. I heard myself whispering softly, over and over, “Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you. . . .”
After a while I went to my mother's room. She saw my face, said, “Oh, Chuck. . !” and burst into tears. We talked for an hour.”
Chuck's conversion was real. He quit his job, bought an old car and preached everywhere. He traveled throughout Canada and the USA holding meetings across the country preaching to capacity crowds.
Charles Templton met Billy Graham in 1945.
They traveled through Europe together in 1946 for Youth for Christ, holding evangelistic meetings.
Templeton continued to travel North America preaching the gospel. However, after preaching in a small town in Michigan, he found himself in the home of a small man with a large library of books that challenged Christianity. He picked up and read a copy of Thomas Paine's book, The Age of Reason, and very shortly everything he thought he knew was challenged and demolished.
Each day, after reading other similar works, Templeton would enter the pulpit and preach … but now with terrible nagging doubts about God's word.
He recovered from this crisis of faith, but still had doubts that would not go away. A pastor friend of his suggested he go to seminary.
Unfortunately, his choice of seminaries made his problem worse. He went to Princeton Theological Seminary.
After his first year, just before classes were to reconvene in the fall, he dropped in on Billy Graham.
Billy Graham was holding meetings at Forest Home Retreat Center in California at the time.
Billy Grahams' crisis of faith
Templeton said to Billy that his theology was 50 years out of date.
“It’s simply not possible any longer to believe, for instance, the biblical account of creation,” Templeton argued. “The world was not created over a period of days a few thousand years ago; it has evolved over millions of years. It’s not a matter of speculation; it’s a demonstrable fact.”
“I don’t accept that” Billy replied stoically: “And there are reputable scholars who don’t.”
“Who are these scholars?” Templeton asked. “Men in conservative Christian colleges?”
That question stung. At the time of their conversation, Graham was president of the unaccredited Northwestern Bible College founded by fundamentalist preacher W.B. Riley
‘Most of them, yes,’ Graham admitted, “but that is not the point. I believe the Genesis account of creation because it’s in the Bible. I’ve discovered something in my ministry: When I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the word of God, my preaching has power. When I stand on the platform and say, ‘God says,’ or ‘The Bible says,’ the Holy Spirit uses me. There are results. Wiser men than you or I have been arguing questions like this for centuries. I don’t have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of the theological dispute, so I’ve decided once for all to stop questioning and accept the Bible as God’s word.”
‘But Billy,’ Templeton interjected, “You cannot do that. You don’t dare stop thinking about the most important question in life. Do it and you begin to die. It’s intellectual suicide.’”
“I don’t know about anybody else,” Graham answered, “but I’ve decided that that’s the path for me.”
What happened next is the stuff of evangelical legend. Graham had put up a brave front with his Canadian friend, but the confrontation left him stunned. His first instinct was to seek the counsel of Henrietta Mears, the celebrated Bible teacher and evangelical visionary who had founded Forest Home ten years earlier.
Bold, confident, and brimming, as always, with evangelical energy, Mears was just the tonic Graham needed. The inerrancy of Scripture was the bedrock of Christianity, she reminded the young evangelist. Undermine that foundation and the whole edifice collapses.
Graham picked up his Bible and wandered alone into the rugged hill country surrounding Forest Home. Spotting an old tree stump by the side of the path, Graham laid down his opened Bible, and began to pray.
“O God! There are many things in this book I do not understand. There are many problems with it for which I have no solution. There are many seeming contradictions. There are some areas in it that do not seem to correlate with modern science. I can’t answer some of the philosophical and psychological questions Chuck and others are raising.”
Graham fell to his knees.
“Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word—by faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word!”
With these words, Graham felt the Spirit of God flooding his soul. When he addressed the Forest Home audience the following evening, Henrietta Mears knew she was listening to a new man. There was a confidence, a sense of authority to his preaching that was utterly new and powerful. A month later, the response to Graham’s Los Angeles crusade was so overwhelming that organizers were forced to add several nights to accommodate the crowds. Billy Graham never looked back.
A few months into his second year of seminary, Templeton had a second personal encounter with God.
His faith in God's word was shattered. His relationship with God was suffering. He decided to fast every Wednesday in an attempt to heal his doubts and pain. Every evening he would walk the length of the golf course near his home, wrestling with God, praying for a sign.
In his autobiography he writes,
“One night I went to the golf course rather late. I had attended a movie and something in the film had set to vibrating an obscure chord in my consciousness. Standing with my face to the heavens, tears streaming, I heard a dog bark off in the distance and, from somewhere, faintly, eerily, a baby crying. Suddenly I was caught up in a transport. It seemed that the whole of creation–trees, flowers, clouds, the sky, the very heavens, all of time and space and God Himself-was weeping. I knew somehow that they were weeping for mankind: for our obduracy, our hatreds, our ten thousand cruelties, our love of war and violence. And at the heart of this eternal sorrow I saw the shadow of a cross, with the silhouetted figure on it . . . weeping.
When I became conscious of my surroundings again, I was lying on the wet grass, convulsed by sobs. I had been outside myself and didn’t know for how long. Later, I couldn’t sleep and trembled as though with a fever at the thought that I had caught a glimpse through the veil.”
How did Templeton deal with this experience? This vision? Did he meditate and pray about it? Was this God, giving him a second chance? A chance to re-commit his life to God? He headed for the library.
His research informed him that what had happened to him was not that unusual.
He writes, "I learned that it was of no special significance. Mystical experience has added no insight to our knowledge of God or to Christian doctrine.”
While none of us should base our walk with God on experience and miracles, if such a thing should happen in our life, we would welcome it. Our walk is to be by faith, as Paul has been pointing out to the Galatians, although Paul has forced them to remember the miracles, the experiences.
In 1951 Templeton graduated from Princeton, America was at the height of a conservative evangelicalism revival. The clear gospel, the heaven or hell message of Billy Graham was evident and being preached in evangelical churches everywhere.
The mainline churches (Presbyterian, Lutheran, United, Roman Catholic, and Anglican) were looking for an evangelistic message that avoided the heaven-hell message of Billy Graham’s crusades.
Charles Templeton was a ‘hot commodity’ when he graduated seminary. First he was hired as the official evangelist of the National Council of Churches.
Edward Boyd, in 1953 wrote an article regarding this era. He said, “There was an unmistakable element of hope and optimism in all he said. Religion was no longer a solemn, formal, worn-out thing with all the appeal of the graveyard. It was, on the contrary, happy, warm, and vital. He presented it as a challenge and an exciting way of life . . . His comparative simplicity of approach, his natural presentation of Christianity as a commodity as necessary to life as salt, and his overwhelming belief in its practical value “sold” me.”
But it was a message void of repentance. A message in which judgment day was absent. A message of no hell.
During this time Templeton wrote three books on evangelism. It did not matter what Templeton believed about a literal creation, Joshua stopping the sun, or Noah and the Ark. At this point in his life, the only doctrine that mattered was the divinity of Christ.
An example of his preaching is in this excerpt:
“To this hungry, confused and wandering generation . . . the church comes with the ‘good news’ of God. Let it be a church renewed in commitment to Christ and to his gospel! Let it be a church afire with the evangel and moving out to do its leavening and redemptive task! Let the grace of our God be heralded with no uncertain sound, and let us look with confidence to God to revive his church in the midst of these years!”
But without the “Jesus died on the cross to save your soul from hell” message ... what remains?
By 1957 Templeton decided to quit the church.
He thought he could swap Billy Graham’s version of Christianity for a respectable alternative, but it didn’t take. The Jesus who promised success and happiness was no more satisfying than the Jesus who rescued souls from hell. Since these were the only two religious commodities on offer, Templeton began to feel like a deceiver.
He continued to preach, but began to experience serious chest pains. After an examination, the doctor said, “There is nothing wrong with your heart. You are experiencing a heart spasm. But the problem is not in your heart, it is in your head. There is something in your life that is bothering you. Some conflict. Some unresolved problem. Whatever it is, deal with it. Otherwise, you will probably continue to suffer the symptoms you have described to me and will likely see other manifestations.”
A few weeks later Templeton decided to quit preaching, leave the church, renounce his faith, and move from New York to Toronto.
Paul has been talking to the Galatian churches about going backward. What they ended up with was a powerless law-based message.
Today we face issues much like Templeton faced, only to an even greater degree.
Billy Graham made a decision to believe the bible, even without having to understand it all. Charles Templeton could not … because he believed that science had disproved the bible." end quote
Countless times parents have sent their children off to a university, only to have them return without a faith in God.
And if you consider the path that disbelief in the Bible as God’s word takes, you will see it leads to a logical end. If God created the earth, not in the way it is described in Genesis, but in terms of millions of years, here is the result.
So we give God credit for the ‘big bang’, and then, at just the right moment a planet cools to just the right degree to sustain life. Then a ‘single’ cell appears. God either miraculously created it … or He just let it evolve. And since the six days of creations are indefinite periods of time, the sixth day, the day when man was created … in infinitely long. There is no literal ‘forming man from the dust of the ground and breathing life into him.’ No, creatures just kept evolving until they, at some point, are considered human. Was one of the cavemen, Adam? What about his friends? Were they not human?
By rejecting the Genesis account of creation, by saying it is not a literal account … we have to say there never was actually an Adam. The Adam and Eve account has to be just a simple story for simple people. (It would have nothing to do with the origin of sin and the need for a redeemer)
According to the Genesis account, Adam and Eve had children with actual names. All of this would be called fable if a person discounted the literal Genesis account.
I could list many other things that also become fable, but I will skip ahead to the gospel of Luke.
Luke 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
This passage is the last verse in a list of verses that gives the genealogy of Jesus, from Mary back to Adam.
Luke obviously believed there was a real person, the first person on earth, called Adam. EVERYONE, Christian or not, who believes in a ‘millions of years’ evolutionary creation, has no place for a real Adam. It is virtually impossible. Evolution, whether started by God or not, starts with a single cell, progressing up through cave men who are at last considered human. In this scenario, there is no real ‘first man’, Adam. This removes all trust from the literal Word of God.. This means that everyone in the New Testament, including Jesus, was deluded. Why would Jesus have also been deluded? Because when He was questioned about marriage, Jesus said, In the beginning God made them male and female.
“Mt 19:4 (Jesus said) unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female,”
If the beginning was a single evolved cell … then there was no male and female. So, either Jesus was wrong … and the bible cannot be trusted, or Jesus was right, the word of God is accurate.
We need to make a conscious decision, like Billy Graham did, to believe every word of God, whether we understand it or not.
... Continuing in our Galatians text:
9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
The Apostle Paul uses very strong language here. And he has a reason to do so. He is speaking to us today.
Because Charles Templeton tried to understand the bible through the eyes of science, and found that he could not bring the two together, he chose science over placing his faith in the word of God.
This led to a downhill spiral that ended with his quitting the ministry, and then quitting Christianity completely.
The question that Paul asks the Galatians, is asked of us today.
now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world?
Temple turned back about as far as one can possibly turn back.
Six years before his death, Templeton wrote his final book: Farewell to God.
I am sure we have questions about the ultimate fate of Charles Templeton … like, Did he go so far as to lose his salvation? Was he ever genuinely saved to begin with ?
We are not God. We are to inspect ‘fruit’, but we are not God.
In God’s word we have discovered that faith is the basis for salvation … not works, not keeping a set of rules or laws.
But it would be unfair if we did not look at a warning passage from Hebrews.
Many have tried to explain these verses to mean something other than what seems very clear. The reasons can vary.
6:4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. Hebrew 6:4-6
Those who were
- Once enlightened
- Tasted the heavenly gift
- shared in the Holy Spirit
- tasted the goodness of the word of God
- tasted or understood the teaching regarding the return of Jesus
- If they should ‘Fall Away’, it is impossible for them to come back.
It seems clear to me that the writer is describing a born again believer, who falls away (what does that mean?) it is impossible to come back, seeing that Jesus would have to take their place on the cross again.
Do these verses fit Charles Templeton? Falling away could not mean falling away from good works, or falling into bad works … because salvation is not based on works. It is based on belief … so one would have to fall away from faith . Quit believing.
Did Charles Templeton quit believing? He says that he did.
I need to share a little bit more of his story.
"Three years after ‘Farewell to God’ was written, Lee Strobel requested an interview with Templeton. Strobel, with great difficulty, had made the transition from agnosticism to evangelical Christianity, and wanted to know why a former associate of Billy Graham would make the reverse trek.
Once again I will quote from Alan Bean, author of Billy Graham’s Shadow.
“The interview took a predictable course with the renowned skeptic lining the case for agnosticism. He stumbled over a word or two and sometimes forgot a familiar name; but his command of language remained strong, his wit intact.
Finally, after a series of softball questions, Strobel cut to the chase: what did Templeton make of Jesus?
Templeton’s body language softened. It was as if he suddenly felt relaxed and comfortable in talking about an old and dear friend. His voice, which at times had displayed such a sharp and insistent edge, now took on a melancholy and reflective tone. His guard seemingly down, he spoke in an unhurried pace, almost nostalgically, carefully choosing his words as he talked about Jesus.
“He was,” Templeton began, “the greatest human being who has ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was the intrinsically wisest person that I’ve ever encountered in my life or in my readings. His commitment was total and led to his own death, much to the detriment of the world. What could one say about him except that this was a form of greatness?”
I was taken aback. “You sound like you really care about him,” I said.
“Well, yes, he is the most important thing in my life,” came his reply. “I . . . I . . . I . . . ,” he stuttered, searching for the right word, ‘I know it may sound strange, but I have to say . . . I adore him! . . . Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus.
“And tough! Just look at Jesus. He castigated people. He was angry. People don’t think of him that way, but they don’t read the Bible. He had a righteous anger. He cared for the oppressed and exploited. There’s no question that he had the highest moral standard, the least duplicity, the greatest compassion, of any human being in history.
“In my view,” he declared, “he is the most important human being who has ever existed. And if I may put it this way,” he said as his voice began to crack, ‘I . . . miss . . . him!”
With that tears flooded his eyes. He turned his head and looked downward, raising his left hand to shield his face from me. His shoulders bobbed as he wept. . . .
Templeton fought to compose himself. I could tell it wasn’t like him to lose control in front of a stranger. He sighed deeply and wiped away a tear. After a few more awkward moments, he waved his hand dismissively. Finally, quietly but adamantly, he insisted: “Enough of that.”
So what it boils down to , Templeton took the position that you either believed in the God of Billy Graham … or there was not God at all. And Charles simply could not believe in the literal inerrant word of God."
There is one more story about Templeton that we should know.
Again, quoting Alan Bean:
“I have one more story for you. The scene is Charles Templeton’s penultimate day on earth. All morning he had been combative and angry, lashing out at the hospice nurses charged with his care. When Madeleine arrived, Charles settled back into his bed and his breathing slowed. Toronto Star columnist, Tom Harpur, provided this contemporary account in his weekly column:
Suddenly, Madeleine said, he became very animated, looking intensely toward the ceiling of the room, his eyes “shining more blue than I’d ever seen before.”
He cried out: “Look at them, look at them. They’re so beautiful. They’re waiting for me.
“Oh, their eyes, their eyes are so beautiful!”
Then, with great joy in his voice, he said: “I’m coming.” Charles Templeton died the following day.” end quote
God says through the apostle Paul
... if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful — for he cannot deny Himself. 2Timothy 2:12-13
What can we get from all of this?
-We are not the judge of how far one can go before spiritual death takes place
-We are not the judge to decide who is genuinely saved or not.
-The Bible gives a severe warning as to ‘going back’ and what it can produce for eternity.
-God’s grace, compassion and love is much greater than we can comprehend.
.... Don't go back!
Ga 4:7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
At just the right time, God sent His Son into your life. You were convicted of your sin of unbelief and your sins against God. You confessed these sins, you asked for forgiveness and trusted the saving work of Jesus and accepted it personally … just for you. At that point you were a 'baby' Christian. You could say from your heart ...”Abba!” (Father) (Philips Translation)
From there you began moving forward. God tells us, “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” 1Pe 2:2
But, sadly, that was not the case in the churches of Galatia. Paul says in Galatians 4:8 ¶ Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Paul is amazed. Why would anyone do this?
Why do Christians sometimes fall back into the world? You might think, 'There could be any number of reasons'. And you could be right, but I believe it boils down to one specific and deadly reason.
I will be sharing with you a classic 20th century example. But first let's look at the extent of the situation as Paul continues on. These passages are from the Philips translation.
Ga 4:9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather are known by him, how can you revert to the weakness and poverty of such principles and consent to be under their power all over again?
Ga 4:10 Your religion is beginning to be a matter of observing special days and months and seasons and years. Paul is calling on them to compare this kind of 'religion' with the simple faith relationship that their Christianity began with.
Ga 4:11 You make me wonder if all my efforts over you have been wasted! Here is an appeal for them to remember his first contact with them, and also the hours he spent in the word with them, convincing them that Jesus, God's Son, indeed is the Savior of the world.
Ga 4:12 ¶ I do beg you to put yourselves in my place, my brothers, as I have put myself in yours. I have nothing against you personally.
And here is a different appeal. Paul may be thinking back to the harsh words that he had with them at the beginning of this letter. Perhaps he thinks it sounds like he is angry with them. And he is upset … but it is more against the ones who came in with the new gospel. There will be more about that later.
As he goes on, he reminds them of the closeness of their connection to him as it was at the beginning. He says,
Ga 4:13 You know that it was physical illness which was the cause of my first preaching the gospel to you.
Many translations insert a bit of 'interpretation' at this point. The passage we just read was from the Philips translation and I believe he got it wrong here, as have many other translations.
I believe only the King James Version gets it right here. According to the KJV physical illness was not at all the reason.
It read, ‘You know that it was through weakness in my body that I first preached the gospel to you
The Greek phrase is, ‘dia asthenia sarx
through weakness flesh
The little Greek word, 'dia' generally means 'through'. But many of the other translations render it as 'because'. While it can be used that way, I believe 'through' makes much more sense.
But I will talk about Paul's physical illness in a subsequent chapter. For now let's read on, noticing that Paul is appealing to their initial love for him, and perhaps calling them to just a bit of loyalty.
Ga 4:14 You didn’t despise me or let yourself be revolted by my disease. No, you welcomed me as though I were an angel of God, or even as though I were Christ Jesus himself!
Ga 4:15 What has happened to that fine spirit of yours? I guarantee that in those days you would, if you could, have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.
Ga 4:16 Have I now become your enemy because I continue to tell you the truth?
Let's talk about “Going back …”, Reverting to infancy … or even reverting to a place of no real relationship with the father … at all.
We know it happens. But why?
To some degree it happens to all of us. We know by personal experience that at times we are close to God and at other times, not so close.
But I want to address something much more serious.
Falling back … all the way back. Going back so far you no longer are sure there even is a God.
What are the causes?
I want to share with you a very classic example that many of you have some knowledge of. (The following is either gleaned from, or a direct quote from Alan Bean, author of Billy Graham’s Shadow.)
- Billy Graham and his friend, Charles Templeton -
"I think all of us have, at least, heard of Billy Graham. But how many of you are familiar with his 'crisis of faith'? It happened to him in August of 1949.
But allow me to back up a bit
Billy Graham was born November 7 1918. In May of 1934, at a revival meeting held on his parents farm he trusted Christ as his Savior. Mordecai Ham was the traveling evangelist.
After graduating high school in 1936, he attended Bob Jones university for one semester, then enrolled in Florida Bible Institute, leaving there in 1940, went on to Wheaton College until 1943. He married Ruth Bell that same year.
1939 had been sensing the call of God on his life. While on a golf course in Florida, answered God's call for him to enter the gospel ministry.
Contrasting conversion experiences.
Billy Graham had Christian parents, a Godly home.
Charles Templeton – was the son of a single parent, had a 9th grade education.
He spent a lot of time in bars. His depressed mother found Christ in a Nazarene church, and talked to her son repeatedly about receiving Jesus.
Chuck's life was empty. With his mothers repeated conversations about Jesus, he was now feeling dirty and sinful. Looking at himself in the mirror after work one day he especially did not like what he saw. For the hundredth time his mother told him of the difference that Jesus made in her life.
He excused himself, and went to his bedroom.
Templeton professed faith in Christ in 1936.
He wrote this in his memoirs;
“As I knelt by my bed in the darkness, my mind was strangely vacant; thoughts and words wouldn’t come to focus. After a moment, it was as though a black blanket had been draped over me. A sense of enormous guilt descended and invaded every part of me. I was unclean.
Involuntarily, I began to pray, my face upturned, tears streaming. The only words I could find were, “Lord, come down. Come down. Come down. . . .”
It may have been minutes later or much longer – there was no sense of time – but I found my head in my hands, crunched small on the floor at the center of a vast emptiness. The agonizing was past. It had left me numb, speechless, immobilized, alone, tense with a sense of expectancy. In a moment, a weight began to lift, a weight as heavy as I. It passed through my thighs, my belly, my chest, my arms, my shoulders and lifted off entirely. I could have leaped over a wall. An ineffable warmth began to suffuse every corpuscle. It seemed that a light had turned on in my chest and its refining fire had cleansed me. I hardly dared breathe, fearing that I might end or alter the moment. I heard myself whispering softly, over and over, “Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you. . . .”
After a while I went to my mother's room. She saw my face, said, “Oh, Chuck. . !” and burst into tears. We talked for an hour.”
Chuck's conversion was real. He quit his job, bought an old car and preached everywhere. He traveled throughout Canada and the USA holding meetings across the country preaching to capacity crowds.
Charles Templton met Billy Graham in 1945.
They traveled through Europe together in 1946 for Youth for Christ, holding evangelistic meetings.
Templeton continued to travel North America preaching the gospel. However, after preaching in a small town in Michigan, he found himself in the home of a small man with a large library of books that challenged Christianity. He picked up and read a copy of Thomas Paine's book, The Age of Reason, and very shortly everything he thought he knew was challenged and demolished.
Each day, after reading other similar works, Templeton would enter the pulpit and preach … but now with terrible nagging doubts about God's word.
He recovered from this crisis of faith, but still had doubts that would not go away. A pastor friend of his suggested he go to seminary.
Unfortunately, his choice of seminaries made his problem worse. He went to Princeton Theological Seminary.
After his first year, just before classes were to reconvene in the fall, he dropped in on Billy Graham.
Billy Graham was holding meetings at Forest Home Retreat Center in California at the time.
Billy Grahams' crisis of faith
Templeton said to Billy that his theology was 50 years out of date.
“It’s simply not possible any longer to believe, for instance, the biblical account of creation,” Templeton argued. “The world was not created over a period of days a few thousand years ago; it has evolved over millions of years. It’s not a matter of speculation; it’s a demonstrable fact.”
“I don’t accept that” Billy replied stoically: “And there are reputable scholars who don’t.”
“Who are these scholars?” Templeton asked. “Men in conservative Christian colleges?”
That question stung. At the time of their conversation, Graham was president of the unaccredited Northwestern Bible College founded by fundamentalist preacher W.B. Riley
‘Most of them, yes,’ Graham admitted, “but that is not the point. I believe the Genesis account of creation because it’s in the Bible. I’ve discovered something in my ministry: When I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the word of God, my preaching has power. When I stand on the platform and say, ‘God says,’ or ‘The Bible says,’ the Holy Spirit uses me. There are results. Wiser men than you or I have been arguing questions like this for centuries. I don’t have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of the theological dispute, so I’ve decided once for all to stop questioning and accept the Bible as God’s word.”
‘But Billy,’ Templeton interjected, “You cannot do that. You don’t dare stop thinking about the most important question in life. Do it and you begin to die. It’s intellectual suicide.’”
“I don’t know about anybody else,” Graham answered, “but I’ve decided that that’s the path for me.”
What happened next is the stuff of evangelical legend. Graham had put up a brave front with his Canadian friend, but the confrontation left him stunned. His first instinct was to seek the counsel of Henrietta Mears, the celebrated Bible teacher and evangelical visionary who had founded Forest Home ten years earlier.
Bold, confident, and brimming, as always, with evangelical energy, Mears was just the tonic Graham needed. The inerrancy of Scripture was the bedrock of Christianity, she reminded the young evangelist. Undermine that foundation and the whole edifice collapses.
Graham picked up his Bible and wandered alone into the rugged hill country surrounding Forest Home. Spotting an old tree stump by the side of the path, Graham laid down his opened Bible, and began to pray.
“O God! There are many things in this book I do not understand. There are many problems with it for which I have no solution. There are many seeming contradictions. There are some areas in it that do not seem to correlate with modern science. I can’t answer some of the philosophical and psychological questions Chuck and others are raising.”
Graham fell to his knees.
“Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word—by faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word!”
With these words, Graham felt the Spirit of God flooding his soul. When he addressed the Forest Home audience the following evening, Henrietta Mears knew she was listening to a new man. There was a confidence, a sense of authority to his preaching that was utterly new and powerful. A month later, the response to Graham’s Los Angeles crusade was so overwhelming that organizers were forced to add several nights to accommodate the crowds. Billy Graham never looked back.
A few months into his second year of seminary, Templeton had a second personal encounter with God.
His faith in God's word was shattered. His relationship with God was suffering. He decided to fast every Wednesday in an attempt to heal his doubts and pain. Every evening he would walk the length of the golf course near his home, wrestling with God, praying for a sign.
In his autobiography he writes,
“One night I went to the golf course rather late. I had attended a movie and something in the film had set to vibrating an obscure chord in my consciousness. Standing with my face to the heavens, tears streaming, I heard a dog bark off in the distance and, from somewhere, faintly, eerily, a baby crying. Suddenly I was caught up in a transport. It seemed that the whole of creation–trees, flowers, clouds, the sky, the very heavens, all of time and space and God Himself-was weeping. I knew somehow that they were weeping for mankind: for our obduracy, our hatreds, our ten thousand cruelties, our love of war and violence. And at the heart of this eternal sorrow I saw the shadow of a cross, with the silhouetted figure on it . . . weeping.
When I became conscious of my surroundings again, I was lying on the wet grass, convulsed by sobs. I had been outside myself and didn’t know for how long. Later, I couldn’t sleep and trembled as though with a fever at the thought that I had caught a glimpse through the veil.”
How did Templeton deal with this experience? This vision? Did he meditate and pray about it? Was this God, giving him a second chance? A chance to re-commit his life to God? He headed for the library.
His research informed him that what had happened to him was not that unusual.
He writes, "I learned that it was of no special significance. Mystical experience has added no insight to our knowledge of God or to Christian doctrine.”
While none of us should base our walk with God on experience and miracles, if such a thing should happen in our life, we would welcome it. Our walk is to be by faith, as Paul has been pointing out to the Galatians, although Paul has forced them to remember the miracles, the experiences.
In 1951 Templeton graduated from Princeton, America was at the height of a conservative evangelicalism revival. The clear gospel, the heaven or hell message of Billy Graham was evident and being preached in evangelical churches everywhere.
The mainline churches (Presbyterian, Lutheran, United, Roman Catholic, and Anglican) were looking for an evangelistic message that avoided the heaven-hell message of Billy Graham’s crusades.
Charles Templeton was a ‘hot commodity’ when he graduated seminary. First he was hired as the official evangelist of the National Council of Churches.
Edward Boyd, in 1953 wrote an article regarding this era. He said, “There was an unmistakable element of hope and optimism in all he said. Religion was no longer a solemn, formal, worn-out thing with all the appeal of the graveyard. It was, on the contrary, happy, warm, and vital. He presented it as a challenge and an exciting way of life . . . His comparative simplicity of approach, his natural presentation of Christianity as a commodity as necessary to life as salt, and his overwhelming belief in its practical value “sold” me.”
But it was a message void of repentance. A message in which judgment day was absent. A message of no hell.
During this time Templeton wrote three books on evangelism. It did not matter what Templeton believed about a literal creation, Joshua stopping the sun, or Noah and the Ark. At this point in his life, the only doctrine that mattered was the divinity of Christ.
An example of his preaching is in this excerpt:
“To this hungry, confused and wandering generation . . . the church comes with the ‘good news’ of God. Let it be a church renewed in commitment to Christ and to his gospel! Let it be a church afire with the evangel and moving out to do its leavening and redemptive task! Let the grace of our God be heralded with no uncertain sound, and let us look with confidence to God to revive his church in the midst of these years!”
But without the “Jesus died on the cross to save your soul from hell” message ... what remains?
By 1957 Templeton decided to quit the church.
He thought he could swap Billy Graham’s version of Christianity for a respectable alternative, but it didn’t take. The Jesus who promised success and happiness was no more satisfying than the Jesus who rescued souls from hell. Since these were the only two religious commodities on offer, Templeton began to feel like a deceiver.
He continued to preach, but began to experience serious chest pains. After an examination, the doctor said, “There is nothing wrong with your heart. You are experiencing a heart spasm. But the problem is not in your heart, it is in your head. There is something in your life that is bothering you. Some conflict. Some unresolved problem. Whatever it is, deal with it. Otherwise, you will probably continue to suffer the symptoms you have described to me and will likely see other manifestations.”
A few weeks later Templeton decided to quit preaching, leave the church, renounce his faith, and move from New York to Toronto.
Paul has been talking to the Galatian churches about going backward. What they ended up with was a powerless law-based message.
Today we face issues much like Templeton faced, only to an even greater degree.
Billy Graham made a decision to believe the bible, even without having to understand it all. Charles Templeton could not … because he believed that science had disproved the bible." end quote
Countless times parents have sent their children off to a university, only to have them return without a faith in God.
And if you consider the path that disbelief in the Bible as God’s word takes, you will see it leads to a logical end. If God created the earth, not in the way it is described in Genesis, but in terms of millions of years, here is the result.
So we give God credit for the ‘big bang’, and then, at just the right moment a planet cools to just the right degree to sustain life. Then a ‘single’ cell appears. God either miraculously created it … or He just let it evolve. And since the six days of creations are indefinite periods of time, the sixth day, the day when man was created … in infinitely long. There is no literal ‘forming man from the dust of the ground and breathing life into him.’ No, creatures just kept evolving until they, at some point, are considered human. Was one of the cavemen, Adam? What about his friends? Were they not human?
By rejecting the Genesis account of creation, by saying it is not a literal account … we have to say there never was actually an Adam. The Adam and Eve account has to be just a simple story for simple people. (It would have nothing to do with the origin of sin and the need for a redeemer)
According to the Genesis account, Adam and Eve had children with actual names. All of this would be called fable if a person discounted the literal Genesis account.
I could list many other things that also become fable, but I will skip ahead to the gospel of Luke.
Luke 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
This passage is the last verse in a list of verses that gives the genealogy of Jesus, from Mary back to Adam.
Luke obviously believed there was a real person, the first person on earth, called Adam. EVERYONE, Christian or not, who believes in a ‘millions of years’ evolutionary creation, has no place for a real Adam. It is virtually impossible. Evolution, whether started by God or not, starts with a single cell, progressing up through cave men who are at last considered human. In this scenario, there is no real ‘first man’, Adam. This removes all trust from the literal Word of God.. This means that everyone in the New Testament, including Jesus, was deluded. Why would Jesus have also been deluded? Because when He was questioned about marriage, Jesus said, In the beginning God made them male and female.
“Mt 19:4 (Jesus said) unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female,”
If the beginning was a single evolved cell … then there was no male and female. So, either Jesus was wrong … and the bible cannot be trusted, or Jesus was right, the word of God is accurate.
We need to make a conscious decision, like Billy Graham did, to believe every word of God, whether we understand it or not.
... Continuing in our Galatians text:
9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
The Apostle Paul uses very strong language here. And he has a reason to do so. He is speaking to us today.
Because Charles Templeton tried to understand the bible through the eyes of science, and found that he could not bring the two together, he chose science over placing his faith in the word of God.
This led to a downhill spiral that ended with his quitting the ministry, and then quitting Christianity completely.
The question that Paul asks the Galatians, is asked of us today.
now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world?
Temple turned back about as far as one can possibly turn back.
Six years before his death, Templeton wrote his final book: Farewell to God.
I am sure we have questions about the ultimate fate of Charles Templeton … like, Did he go so far as to lose his salvation? Was he ever genuinely saved to begin with ?
We are not God. We are to inspect ‘fruit’, but we are not God.
In God’s word we have discovered that faith is the basis for salvation … not works, not keeping a set of rules or laws.
But it would be unfair if we did not look at a warning passage from Hebrews.
Many have tried to explain these verses to mean something other than what seems very clear. The reasons can vary.
6:4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. Hebrew 6:4-6
Those who were
- Once enlightened
- Tasted the heavenly gift
- shared in the Holy Spirit
- tasted the goodness of the word of God
- tasted or understood the teaching regarding the return of Jesus
- If they should ‘Fall Away’, it is impossible for them to come back.
It seems clear to me that the writer is describing a born again believer, who falls away (what does that mean?) it is impossible to come back, seeing that Jesus would have to take their place on the cross again.
Do these verses fit Charles Templeton? Falling away could not mean falling away from good works, or falling into bad works … because salvation is not based on works. It is based on belief … so one would have to fall away from faith . Quit believing.
Did Charles Templeton quit believing? He says that he did.
I need to share a little bit more of his story.
"Three years after ‘Farewell to God’ was written, Lee Strobel requested an interview with Templeton. Strobel, with great difficulty, had made the transition from agnosticism to evangelical Christianity, and wanted to know why a former associate of Billy Graham would make the reverse trek.
Once again I will quote from Alan Bean, author of Billy Graham’s Shadow.
“The interview took a predictable course with the renowned skeptic lining the case for agnosticism. He stumbled over a word or two and sometimes forgot a familiar name; but his command of language remained strong, his wit intact.
Finally, after a series of softball questions, Strobel cut to the chase: what did Templeton make of Jesus?
Templeton’s body language softened. It was as if he suddenly felt relaxed and comfortable in talking about an old and dear friend. His voice, which at times had displayed such a sharp and insistent edge, now took on a melancholy and reflective tone. His guard seemingly down, he spoke in an unhurried pace, almost nostalgically, carefully choosing his words as he talked about Jesus.
“He was,” Templeton began, “the greatest human being who has ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was the intrinsically wisest person that I’ve ever encountered in my life or in my readings. His commitment was total and led to his own death, much to the detriment of the world. What could one say about him except that this was a form of greatness?”
I was taken aback. “You sound like you really care about him,” I said.
“Well, yes, he is the most important thing in my life,” came his reply. “I . . . I . . . I . . . ,” he stuttered, searching for the right word, ‘I know it may sound strange, but I have to say . . . I adore him! . . . Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus.
“And tough! Just look at Jesus. He castigated people. He was angry. People don’t think of him that way, but they don’t read the Bible. He had a righteous anger. He cared for the oppressed and exploited. There’s no question that he had the highest moral standard, the least duplicity, the greatest compassion, of any human being in history.
“In my view,” he declared, “he is the most important human being who has ever existed. And if I may put it this way,” he said as his voice began to crack, ‘I . . . miss . . . him!”
With that tears flooded his eyes. He turned his head and looked downward, raising his left hand to shield his face from me. His shoulders bobbed as he wept. . . .
Templeton fought to compose himself. I could tell it wasn’t like him to lose control in front of a stranger. He sighed deeply and wiped away a tear. After a few more awkward moments, he waved his hand dismissively. Finally, quietly but adamantly, he insisted: “Enough of that.”
So what it boils down to , Templeton took the position that you either believed in the God of Billy Graham … or there was not God at all. And Charles simply could not believe in the literal inerrant word of God."
There is one more story about Templeton that we should know.
Again, quoting Alan Bean:
“I have one more story for you. The scene is Charles Templeton’s penultimate day on earth. All morning he had been combative and angry, lashing out at the hospice nurses charged with his care. When Madeleine arrived, Charles settled back into his bed and his breathing slowed. Toronto Star columnist, Tom Harpur, provided this contemporary account in his weekly column:
Suddenly, Madeleine said, he became very animated, looking intensely toward the ceiling of the room, his eyes “shining more blue than I’d ever seen before.”
He cried out: “Look at them, look at them. They’re so beautiful. They’re waiting for me.
“Oh, their eyes, their eyes are so beautiful!”
Then, with great joy in his voice, he said: “I’m coming.” Charles Templeton died the following day.” end quote
God says through the apostle Paul
... if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful — for he cannot deny Himself. 2Timothy 2:12-13
What can we get from all of this?
-We are not the judge of how far one can go before spiritual death takes place
-We are not the judge to decide who is genuinely saved or not.
-The Bible gives a severe warning as to ‘going back’ and what it can produce for eternity.
-God’s grace, compassion and love is much greater than we can comprehend.
.... Don't go back!