I TRAVAIL IN BIRTH

Paul’s love for the saints in Galatia cannot be questioned. This accounts for the fervour and passion with which he refuted the teaching of those bringing ‘another gospel’ to them. It was not his reputation or honour, but the name of the Lord Jesus which so motivated him. His great goal was to see Christ formed in them, appreciating all that He could be for the believers. ‘Christ formed in you’ also carries the thought of moral conformity to Christ.

He likens his deep, inward agony to travail. He once laboured to see them delivered from darkness; now he laboured to see them preserved and in the good of all the liberty that Christ and His work had accomplished for them. Like a mother labouring to give birth, so he agonized over them.

His love for them is evident as well, as he addresses them as ‘my dear children’. All the affection and warmth of a mother’s heart is revealed. To the Thessalonian believers, he was as a ‘nursing mother’ and would have imparted his ‘own soul’ to them, 1 Thess. 2. 7, 8. Paul was not a detached theologian but a passionate shepherd.

His great longing was not for clones of Paul, but for disciples for Christ. In his expression, ‘Christ formed in you’, v. 19, he expresses what his greatest desire for them was. Spiritual well­being always was his priority. His prayers breathe a sincere yearning for spiritual maturity in the believers. He was not con­tent with conversion alone or with a life which was free of grosser sins. He would not settle for anything less than ‘Christ formed in you’.

Likeness and liberty, freedom from all the weak and beg­garly elements which once had them in bondage, this, and nothing short of it, was Paul’s goal for them. His ministry and teaching were all with this in view. ‘Christ formed in you’ is the spiritual appreciation of Christ and all He is which brings me into that liberty of life and, as a result, brings me into moral likeness to Him.

The Spirit’s desire has not changed. Has Christ been ‘formed in me’?