The past couple of days I have been meditating on the parallel between a prophecy of Jesus being “formed” in Mary’s womb[1] and Paul’s use of the imagery of childbirth to speak of Jesus Christ being “formed in you!”[2] Here they are side-by-side:
|
Isaiah 49:5 |
Galatians 4:19-20 |
|
And now the Lord says, |
It is always good to be made much of for a
good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, my
little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of
childbirth until Christ is formed in you! I wish I could be present with you now and
change my tone, for I am perplexed about you. |
There aren’t enough words to convey the glory of this, that in a rhyming thought to the way God formed Jesus in Mary’s womb, he is at work to have Christ formed in us.
One thing I have often been in trouble for is making everything about Jesus. People have accused me of not having normal interests like everyone else (ignoring my love of writing, songwriting, gardening, woodworking, photography, guitar playing, backroad drives, hiking, camping, exploring the seashore, and playing with my little friends in our daycare).
However, when I consider the anguish Paul described as he felt like a woman in labor, I can’t see how he would have accused me of being too much about Christ. He knew that the Galatian Christians were being led astray to a works-based religiosity that completely nullified the gospel of grace through faith. What was being formed in them was a message of despair, a toxin poisoning the womb, so to speak.
Paul’s message was that, while the false teachers were making much of themselves and their so-called brilliance in designing a gospel that added the old covenant to the new, Paul was urging the Galatian Christians to get their eyes back on Christ so that Christ himself would be formed in them.
To show how all-encompassing this was in Paul’s mind, here are the words from a couple of commentators to help you see where I’m going with this. One describes “Christ is formed in you” as meaning, “that you may live nothing but Christ, and think nothing but Christ, and glory in nothing but Him, and His death, resurrection, and righteousness.”[3]
Another expands on this to mean,
…until Christ be formed in you, that is, until your whole inner being proclaims Christ’s being and his ways, so that you will trust fully in your Savior, will be like him in your thoughts, wishes, and aspirations, and will reflect him in the common words you speak, in life’s common looks and tones, in intercourse at hearth or board with your beloved ones, in brief: in the entire gamut of your existence and manifestation among men.[4]
What this tells me is that the concept of Jesus Christ being formed in us is all-consuming. It does mean that our lives are all about him. And Paul wanted us to know that the apostles felt anguish as a woman in labor, seeking that the life of Christ would be birthed in the children of God as fully as is possible this side of heaven.
But when Paul says “again”, it speaks of this impossible picture of a child turning away to deadly things and the mother somehow having to go through the same anguish of childbirth all over again to bring the child back to life. Paul was perplexed as to how it had happened that these people needed to be brought back to Jesus when they had already welcomed him into their lives.
One of my life-themes has been God calling me to suffer for people when they are not willing (or able) to do anything for themselves (that’s what babies are like, after all). When we are burdened for the lost who don’t care one little bit about their eternal destiny, or church folk who had started so well in their love for Jesus grow cold and don’t seem to care how they are doing, God burdens our hearts to love these people like a woman would go through the anguish of labor all over again if she could bring her rebellious child back into the life of Jesus Christ.
Paul’s mentoring makes it clear that God wants us to let ourselves feel the anguish of childbirth as we labor over the lost and deceived to seek their turning or returning to Christ. For starters, that means expressing this anguish-of-childbirth in a willingness to feel anguish in prayer as we agonize over our intercession for others.
However, we do this with the expectation that the Holy
Spirit will also orchestrate ways for us to do this in person. And when he
does, we join God in his work like a woman who desperately wants to give birth
and welcome the child for which she labored!
© 2023
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
[1]
Isaiah 49:5
[2]
Galatians 4:19
[3]
Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and
Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 334). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[4]
Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Galatians
(Vol. 8, p. 176). Baker Book House.
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