God doesn't make mistakes

This week we take a look at the phrase, “ God doesn’t make mistakes”. I don’t know about you, but this phrase more than many of the others we’ve looked at in this series causes me to squirm. Because I am going to just get it out there and just say it…this causes us to normalize or justify things by ourselves declaring that this was what God wanted. While I believe we can understand the Bible to give us insight into God and what God wants for this world, I also caution us to very seriously consider declaring things on God’s behalf especially when saying something like God doesn’t make mistakes. In this way, it is loosely tied to the phrase we looked at two weeks ago about ‘God needed another angel’. We need to caution ourselves when declaring what we believe God is doing or what God wants or what God is about. The reason I say we need to exercise caution is becuase we may be declaring things about God or what God wants which are not things God either doesn’t declare or God did not do or cause to happen.

The other side of this phrase is to help us understand that we don’t fully understand God and God’s ways. If we read something somewhere in the Bible and then read something different in another part of the Bible, one very common and surface interpretation, especially from critics, is that the Bible is contradictory and that God clearly made a mistake and then did something different to right or cover up the mistake that God made before. If someone then believes that God doesn’t make mistakes and then sees something that looks like a mistake they could end up questioning everything they believe.

This conversation that Paul is having with the Galatians is a great example in understanding this phrase, because we see in this text that Paul seems to be arguing against circumcision which, as a Pharisee, he would have known was a covenant that God made between Abraham all the way back in Genesis. If we look throughout the Old Testament we see how God creates not one but 5 major covenant with God’s people and then God creates a final major covenant which we call the New Covenant in Christ Jesus. Now we obviously don’t have time to get into all the covenants on a Sunday morning, but each covenant was given to a person on behalf of others at different points in the history of the people of Israel. And I believe that is part of Paul’s point here.

They were given to help people in their relationship with God, and for God to declare them as God’s people. The New Covenant that I mentioned which is that of Jesus is seen most clearly through what we call Holy Week. Jesus has the last supper in which he says that the cup is the new covenant by my blood, which is poured out for you. The New Covenant is a covenant where Jesus gives his life for our sake so that we may be forgiven our sins. It is love and it is grace. When we talk of grace, especially as Lutherans, we are speaking of something God has done and there is absolutely nothing we have done to earn that love and forgiveness, and there is nothing we will ever be able to do to earn that grace. This was the covenant that we have and live by and this is the very essence of Paul’s point here and elsewhere in his letters.

Paul has heard that there are some people in the Galatian church that are trying to convince Gentile believers that in order to actually follow Christ they need to be brought in through the covenant of circumcision as well. The point of circumcision and the Law was to make people aware of their sin and to offer sacrifice and do other things to become clean and holy again. So if that is the point of the Law is to do works to make us right with God, doesn’t that take away from the New Covenant that God established through Jesus that we are saved by grace apart from the works of the law? Paul is trying to help all the Galatians to see that the new covenant was meant to bring in all people not to force them to jump through all the hoops and become hopelessly bogged down by the law.

Martin Luther actually points out that as a monk he was constantly going to confession and doing works of penance and silence and all the works that the monastic order commanded him to do. What he realized was that the more he confessed, the more work he did, the more he tried to become less of a sinner, he actually became even more aware of how unworthy and unrighteous he was as a person. He eventually realized he was actually just like those people Paul was arguing against in the Galatian church. By all of his attempts to purge his impurity and sin out of his life we was actually trying to achieve works righteousness. That is, until, he realized: 1. He could never become righteous by works. 2. It was only God’s grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ that would make him right with God.

So Paul is being harsh to the Galatian church to prove a point. If you become circumcised to become a Christian then you are actually saying that you would rather follow the path of the old covenant than the new covenant of Jesus. Which is why he says that having Christ won’t help you because you have just declared that you will live by the law and works righteousness and not by the law of grace through Jesus which doesn’t require those things. Christ came to fulfill the law and the fulfillment of the law was to declare grace and forgiveness through faith, which Paul says in verse 6 which I believe is the most important verse in our text today. Christ is not going to welcome you as adopted children of God based on whether or not you have been circumcised, but based on the life of faith you live that is worked out through the love you show, that was actually first shown to you in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

So did God make a mistake by declaring circumcision for all males? No. Did God make a mistake by giving the law to the people? No. God gave the people the covenants and the tools that were needed. So instead of seeing it as God making a mistake we should see it in two ways I believe. 1. As I said before that God’s ways are far more complex than we can understand. 2. God has always been about finding ways to include the whole human family into one family of God which was made complete in Christ Jesus. So let’s stop trying to force people to do things or accept things by telling them God doesn’t make mistakes, because we could be forcing them and ourselves to live under the law instead of under grace. Let’s instead embrace the complexity of this world and God so that we can experience the freedom that comes from in faith in Jesus. Freedom in Christ doesn’t come from us trying to make everyone be the same and likeminded in every single aspect of our lives, but to recognize that we should serve one another in love because all the law and commandments can be summed up in this one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself. Amen.