Until Christ Is Formed in You

Up to this point in the letter, Paul has been almost entirely a scholar and prosecutor — sharp, relentless, unflinching. Here, suddenly, another side of him comes through. He reminds the Galatians of how warmly they once received him, arriving sick and struggling, and they treated him “as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus” — he even suggests they would have plucked out their own eyes and given them to him, if it would have helped. That kind of love doesn’t evaporate because of a hard letter. Paul asks, almost wounded, “Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” Real love and hard truth were never opposites for him. They came from the same place.

Then comes the tenderest line in the whole letter: “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.” Paul isn’t satisfied with them merely believing correct doctrine on paper — he wants Christ’s actual character, His essential shape, formed in them from the inside out. That’s the difference between the Judaizers and Paul, and it’s a difference worth noticing in yourself too: the Judaizers wanted a following, zealous for them; Paul wanted transformation, so that people would look increasingly like Jesus regardless of who got the credit. Real spiritual love isn’t soft correction avoidance, and it isn’t harsh correction without warmth. It’s both, held together, aimed at one goal — that Christ would be formed in the person being loved.