5:1-18

Context

Commentators generally agree that Galatians can be divided into three parts:

Biography: chapters 1-2

Theology: chapters 3-4

Ethics: chapters 5-6

Beginning with chapter five, the apostle Paul takes the theology he outlined in chapters three and four and applies to everyday life.

Free by Grace Through Faith (1-6)

Free in Christ (1)

The declaration

The declaration is that those who are in Christ have been set free by Christ. The question is, from what have we been set free?

How did Paul describe our former state?

Galatians 4:8–10 ESV

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 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? You observe days and months and seasons and years!

The short answer is slavery.

Our former state is portrayed as a slavery, Jesus Christ as a liberator, conversion as an act of emancipation and the Christian life as a life of freedom. - John Stott, The Message of Galatians

This freedom is freedom from the law, freedom from sin. Jesus secured this freedom for His people, and as people are respond by faith, they are set free from this bondage.

So, this is good news. Once enslaved, now set free. That’s really good new. A former slave does not want to become a slave again. And that’s what makes the command peculiar.

The command

What is the command? It’s actually 2 commands

stand firm = hold your ground, be steadfast (active command)

do not submit again to a yoke of slavery = lit. do not become subjected to or become forced to experience again being unified to (yoked) to this slavery to sin. (passive command)

What makes this a peculiar command is that it’s necessary in the first place. When we understand the indicative truth stated in the first half of verse 1: Christ has set us free, it is baffling that we would need to be exhorted (commanded) to not go back to our former slavery AGAIN.

I want to provide another quote that I came across in Philip Ryken’s commentary on Galatians. He quotes Archibald Alexander who was the leading professor at Princeton Theological Seminary starting in 1810.

There is a defect in our belief in the freeness of divine grace. To exercise unshaken confidence in the doctrine of gratuitous pardon is one of the most difficult things in the world; and to preach this doctrine fully without verging towards antinomianism is no easy task, and is therefore seldom done. But Christians cannot but be lean and feeble when deprived of their proper nutrient. It is by faith that the spiritual life is made to grow; and the doctrine of free grace, without any mixture of human merit, is the only object of faith… Here, I am persuaded, is the root of the evil; and until religious teachers inculcate clearly, fully, and practically, the grace of God, as manifest in the Gospel, we shall have no vigorous growth of piety among professing Christians. - Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience.

It is, according to Alexander, exceptionally difficult for people to live in, rest in the grace of God through faith. Resisting the tendency to attach our works to the grace of God is what produces a different gospel, which is no gospel at all.

The command to stand firm and not to submit to a yoke of slavery points to this tendency. We have a tendency to live this way and to teach this message.

Christ’s redemptive work has set His people free.

The crisis of works (2-4)

The disadvantage (2)

We no longer have anything to gain from the benefits Christ provides His people if we seek justification through our works.

This is actually the first time in this epistle that the issue of circumcision is explicitly mentioned. It has been clear before, but not named until now.

Now remember, the Judaizers were preaching circumcision to the Gentiles. Make no mistake, these teachers absolutely believed circumcision was necessary for salvation and incorporation into the people of God.

Acts 15:1–2 ESV

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.

And remember what Paul said back in chapter 2

Galatians 2:21 ESV

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

If we try to get right with God by meriting His favor through our effort, not only are we committing ourselves to efforts of futility (we will never achieve our desire), but we, at best, marginalize the work of Christ on the cross. He died for no purpose.

The burden (3)

So, by pursuing peace with God through works, we loose the advantages of Christ’s work, but we gain an impossible burden.

In verse 3, Paul makes clear that if one accepts that being circumcised, which is part of OT law, is necessary for salvation, then obeying the entire law is necessary for salvation. When it comes to obeying the law for justification, its all of it all the time.

James 2:10 ESV

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

Perfect obedience of the entire law all the time.

See also Gal. 3:10, which is Paul’s interpretation of Deut. 27:26. He adds the word all in Gal.

What was the purpose of circumcision? It was the sign of belonging to the Old Covenant.

The wake up call (4)

What did circumcision signify?

cutting off the foreskin was a way of saying that a Jew was separated fro the world.

But it also proclaimed that if he rejected God, he would be cut off from God’s people.

Paul was essentially telling the Galatians the opposite. They belonged to the New Covenant, not the Old, and if they sought their justification through circumcision, they would be cut off from Christ.

So, what undergirds all of this is that if we seek our justification through our works, Jesus becomes a stranger to us.

What about assurance of salvation? Perseverance of the saints/eternal security

It is possible for people to leave the community of God’s grace.

Anyone who pursues their justification through their own works, and depends on these works for their salvation never trusted Christ for salvation in the first place.

The hope of righteousness (5-6)

So, Paul has made it explicitly clear that no one can be saved through their works. The question becomes then, how can one be saved? I think this answer has been supplied more than once in the epistle already, but Paul states it plainly in v. 5: through the Spirit by faith. People are justified by faith alone.

Waiting not working (5)

we ourselves is emphatic to make clear that Paul is referring to believers.

We who are Christians are the ones waiting for the hope of righteousness.

But what hope of righteousness are Christians waiting for?

This hope points those who have been justified to the fact that one day God will render His verdict on every person, and while this is a sobering thought, Christians wait for it with eager expectation. There is certainty in this hope. The children of God know that on this day of judgement they will be declared not guilty.

Now notice this waiting is done through the Spirit by faith.

Spirit

In 3:1-5, the Spirit was introduced in connection with Paul’s reminder to the Galatians that their conversion came by means of the Spirit

In 4:6, the Spirit is connected to the sending of the Son into the world to accomplish His redemptive mission.

Isaac, representing the believers in Christ, was described as the son born by the power of the Spirit in 4:29.

The Spirit here in 5:5 mentioned as Paul approaches his teaching on the Christian life. The life of someone who is waiting for the hope one possesses in Christ, is lived by the power of the Spirit. The fruit of this life is the fruit of the Spirit.

by faith

here in v. 5, faith is connected to love. Love for God, and this faith come through the Spirit.

The only thing that matters (6)

This would have been a shocking statement to make. Circumcision is irrelevant? He says something similar in the next chapter

Galatians 6:15 ESV

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

On what basis does Paul say that circumcision does not matter? In Christ. Both the circumcised Jews and the uncircumcised Gentile are justified the same way and are therefor in Christ, that is to say one in Christ.

The truly justified life is one that expresses itself by faith through a love for God and for others.

The Offense of the Cross (7-12)

The opposition to the truth (7-8)

What do we know about the truth from verse 7?

it was being contradicted

it is something to be obeyed: we are not just called to know the truth, but we are to obey the truth. As far as a right standing before God, we need to believe the gospel. When it come to living for God, we are called to obey the gospel. As one commentator put it, there is an unbreakable bond between theological integrity and spiritual vitality.

Conduct matters.

What does this persuasion refer to?

The Judaizers. They were teaching something that contradicted the gospel. They were messing with the gospel.

Paul makes it clear that the message of the Judaizers was not from God. Despite how persuasive the Judaizers may have been, the their message denied the truth.

Remember how God called the Galatians, and how He call His people today.

Galatians 1:6 ESV

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—

God calls His people by the grace of God, and the message of the false teachers is one that denied the grace of God.

Pervasive but no defeating (9-10)

Just a little is deadly (9)

A proverb from the bakery

What may have seemed to be a minor adjustment to the gospel that Paul preached corrupts the whole message.

What’s the message for us today? Any church, any Christian school, any Christian community that is unwilling to recognize and to reject perversions of the gospel when they come up in its midst forfeits their right to bear witness to the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel message is an exclusive message.

John 14:6 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Once saved always saved (10)

Remember Paul spent considerable time among these people while working among them to plant the churches in that region. He preached the truth to them and they believed.

What is the source of his confidence in the legitimacy of their profession of faith? The Lord.

Paul believed that the Galatians were truly saved by the grace of God through faith. This was not misplaced confidence because the source of his confidence was not the Galatians or himself.

He believed what he wrote to the Philippians:

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

And while the one who was troubling them was having an impact and causing significant disruption, Paul knew that all the wrongs would be made right.

The day will come when every error will be exposed and God’s truth will reign. This is something for us to know and be encouraged by. We see in the Psalms the question that asks, why do the wicked prevail. We understand that question. Justice will be served, but in the mean time, those who are in Christ will be preserved until the end.

The offense of the cross (11-12)

Why am I still being persecuted? (11)

It appears that the Judaizers had spread a rumor around about Paul. They suggested that Paul himself was an advocate of circumcision.

Circumcision was not Paul’s hobby-horse. This is what he wrote to the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 7:18–19 ESV

Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.

Paul’s point here is that Gentiles need not become Jews, nor Jews Gentiles. The concern for Paul when it came to circumcision was that it was not understood to be necessary for salvation.

If that rumor was true, then what explains the fact that Paul was being persecuted? Paul was a persecutor before he was saved. If he was preaching a message that his former colleagues agreed with, then why was he being persecuted?

This was no only debunking the ridiculous rumor, but showing the Galatians that he was still preaching Christ crucified because it is the truth.

His persecution showed the offense of the cross (mentioned in v. 11). That the only way to be saved is through faith in the work of Christ on the cross is offensive to people. Why?

highlights their sin

their inability to do anything about it in their own strength

If it’s true, go all the way. (12)

Paul is frustrated with the Judaizers. They preached a false gospel.

And if they really believed circumcision was so important, then why not go all the way? Or I would like to see the knife slip.

This has been called the crudest of Paul’s statements.

Perhaps castration would result in a more powerful salvation. Paul is pointing out the absurdity of the Judaizers’ message but also his own frustration that this lie had been perpetrated among this church that he loved.