Galatians 5:1-12 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
In today's focus we see Paul expressing openly what happens if works enter the picture of the salvation message through Christ Jesus. If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. You have fallen away from grace. Paul understood well that the only path to be right with God came through faith in the works of Jesus Christ: first the cross, then the grave, and finally the resurrection. NO OTHER WAY will find eternal life guaranteed to humans. Paul’s life illustrated how strongly he believed in faith as the only way to God. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ. (Galatians 5:14) Without Christ, people are lost in their sins and desperately exist as slaves to the devil, the prince of this world. I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. (Romans 7:23) Paul knows that even the most religious people, those who desire to do right all the time for God’s glory, are bound in slavery. Their wish to be pleasing to God continually is betrayed by their inability to be obedient to God’s nature in every situation in life. This weakness to do right all the time leads them into condemnation, a condition that Jesus came to deliver them from; He came not to condemn but to save. Rather than freedom from sin, the law binds them into condemnation. The law itself undermines their peace with God and brings them into even more bondage to sin. Instead of being free in the household of God as children of God, they find the law has brought more slavery to them: for the law reveals clearly that they are not free from sin. Instead of drawing people closer to God, the law alienates people from a place of peace with God. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ. Why were the Galatians even considering circumcision? They knew this was not the message Paul delivered to them when they greeted him at first with great love. As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. (Galatians 4:13-14) Why now are they alienating themselves from Paul’s message of faith in Jesus Christ as the only way for Jews and Gentiles to be justified before God? Sadly, a little leaven of another message had crept into their Christian community: circumcision. This message was probably brought to them by either the Christian Jews or the Jewish community of Galatia. Paul knew this leaven of circumcision and the subsequent law would destroy the message of Jesus Christ as the ONLY WAY to be right with God. This seemed like a harmless addition to Christianity, but Paul knew this lethal message would infiltrate Christianity completely and destroy it. That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” So Paul, who was first greeted by the Galatians as Christ himself, was now fighting a persuasion that many Galatians thought was harmless and even beneficial to the salvation message that Paul preached. Paul understood well that this innocuous persuasion was aimed at the very heart of Christianity; consequently, he was greatly concerned.
Is the law contrary to the holiness of God? Is it corrupt, contaminating righteousness? No, the law reveals clearly God’s demands on people’s lives; it is good, not evil. However, men and women for centuries never were completely able to satisfy the law and all of its regulations. Therefore, they always were falling short of God’s perfection, his holiness and righteousness. If men and women always fall short of God, who then can please God? The answer of course is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Son of Man. Jesus came in the likeness of man in the flesh and kept the law perfectly. He always did the will of the Father, so perfectness, righteousness and holiness lay in him. Therefore, all who believe in his name, his works, will be be right with God, for faith in him puts them IN CHRIST, hidden in Jesus’ goodness and not in their own weak flesh. A good and complete work has come to Earth in the form of Jesus Christ. Whoever believes in him (Jesus) is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:18) Jesus is very rigid in his demands that people must be born again to enter the kingdom of God and that there IS NO OTHER WAY to be right with God. He tells Nicodemus that the Son of Man must be lifted up on the cross so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. (John 3:14) However in Galatia, Christians were trifling with this message that Christ alone brings a right relationship with an eternal God. But true righteousness can come only through Jesus Christ. Jesus tells people that John the Baptist was the holiest of humans, but his holiness in the flesh would fall short of the kingdom of heaven. Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (Matthew 11:11) He also refers to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law’s lifestyle as righteous by following the law, obeying the commandments and observing holy days religiously. These men were considered by people as very holy in their lifestyle and religious practices. However, Jesus points to them and says, I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20) John the Baptist and the Pharisees and teachers of the law lived their lives as outward examples of righteous people, following God in a sacrificial manner. But their lives of service to God would never cause them to enter the kingdom of God, for righteousness that is acceptable to God could and would only come through Jesus Christ. They obeyed the law and its regulations, at least outwardly, and they were circumcised, fulfilling the covenant to Abraham, but their lives were not acceptable to a holy, eternal God. To know God, they had to be born again. They had to be new creatures to enter into a new creation, set apart for their eternal existence. They must throw off the nature of Adam and put on the nature of Jesus Christ. The fruit of the flesh are many, revolving around self-gratification: filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. (Romans 1:29) The fruit of Jesus Christ who came as a servant of mankind is the opposite of the fruit of self-willed men and women: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23) Laws and police are necessary to control men and women after the nature of Adam in the flesh. But no laws or policemen are needed if people display the nature of the second man: Jesus Christ. He came to change the heart.
Paul is telling the Galatians The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? True faith in Jesus Christ and therefore in God is demonstrated through love, not circumcision or following the law. If circumcision and the law replace faith in Jesus Christ alone, the attributes of the flesh will accompany that kind of lifestyle, for men and women are weak when functioning in their own flesh. They will fall back into condemnation because the flesh is not obedient to keeping the whole law. The flesh will never be perfect; Jesus said for us to be perfect as God is, for God even loves his enemies passionately. While men were still his enemies, God gave his beloved Son to them as a sacrifice for their sins, their hatred of him. The law will only lead to slavery to men and women’s sinful nature. Paul tells the Galatians, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free from the law. Christ anoints us as children of God. God is free, so are his children. We are now truly in the likeness of God, not just in the likeness of human beings. Paul is encouraging the Galatians to put aside this message of circumcision as being a way to please God. There is a better way, THE ONLY WAY, to please the eternal Father and that is through faith in Christ and his works in the flesh: dying on the cross, entering the grave, and coming out of the grave in resurrected form. As new creatures presently still living in the flesh, our nature should be one of loving others, especially the brethren. John expresses this love clearly in his first letter to the church. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:7-12) Our breakfast companions, how great is that. Love will not hurt others, betray others, corrupt others, abuse others. Love will sacrifice one’s life for the benefit of others. Paul knows this truth. His life was a complete sacrifice for God. When God stopped this murderer on the road to Damascus, he struck Paul blind. The crucible of hopelessness and fire burned into his life. Paul thought his life was over when for three days, he lay sightless. His life was over, finished, nothing but death lay before him. But God had other plans for his life. He left that grave of sightlessness as a new creature, filled with love for the world. From that time on, he fought slavery to sin that men and women were under at a great cost to him: beatings, nakedness, stoning, whipping, starvation, coldness, loneliness, and the like. He fought the good fight for his righteous Lord. Now Paul is telling the Galatians, let nothing cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? The truth is Jesus Christ, the way, the truth and the life. Dear friends, do not let anything move you away from Jesus Christ only. No other way will make you pleasing to God. No other way will make you children of the Living God. Only Christ and his works on the cross, in the grave, and through the resurrection. Paul is pleading with the Galatians to keep the faith; we are pleading with you, KEEP THE FAITH IN THE ONE AND ONLY SAVIOR, CHRIST YOUR REDEEMER AND LORD!
