Galatians 5:1-15

When summer calves are born on a cold-weather farm, farmers keep them in a pen inside the barn to protect them from harsh winter conditions. In spring, the farmer opens the gate to let the young calves discover their new freedom in the fields outside.

• The calf might jump around excitedly inside the pen but stay inside.
• Or he might charge at the opening but stop at the edge and back away.
• Then he might creep slowly to the edge and sniff around, afraid to cross the threshold.

Yearling calves aren’t sure what to do with their new freedom. They feel safer in the pen. The same was often true of Roman slaves who were freed.

• A slave received clothing, food, housing, and other resources.
• A free person would no longer receive these things from his master.

Would he return to his master and place himself back in slavery or move forward in the freedom he received? And how would he use that freedom? To indulge his selfish desires to the max or make a positive impact on the world around him?

When we believe on Christ, we should embrace our new freedom in a responsible way.

Key Thought

In this passage, Paul encourages believers to stop hesitating between bondage to the OT law and the freedom that Christ has given us. He also urges us to express this newfound freedom through love and service, not by indulging our sinful desires.

We should embrace the freedom Christ has given us. (Gal 5:1-11)

We should be stand firm in this freedom and not slip back to a law-based lifestyle that attempts to earn God’s favor through OT laws and manmade traditions.

Paul describes going back to the law as reattaching ourselves like an ox to a heavy yoke, which resembles what Peter said to legalistic influencers in Jerusalem: “Why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” (Acts 15:10).

Paul gives six negative consequences of going backward to a legalistic approach to God.

We discredit our faith in Christ. (Gal 5:2)

“If you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.” Paul means that if we choose to be circumcised to secure our salvation (or justification) from God, then we’ll render whatever relationship we claim to have with Christ null and void. We will not lose our salvation, but we will show that we’d never placed our full trust in Christ alone at all.

We obligate ourselves to obey the entire law. (Gal 5:3)

“Every man who becomes circumcised … is a debtor to keep the whole law.” The point is that the OT law is an all-or-nothing affair. We cannot pick and choose which laws are relevant for us today and which ones are obsolete. Either we obey them all or we are released from them all. Christ is the only person who’s obeyed the entire law.

We disconnect ourselves from Christ. (Gal 5:4)

“You have become estranged from Christ.” To be estranged means to “put a stop” to something or “bring it to an end.” Again, this doesn’t mean that we lose our salvation, but that our claim to believe on Christ for salvation will end and will prove to be empty.

We fall away from grace. (Gal 5:4)

“You have fallen from grace.” Fall from means falling overboard from a ship. When we turn back to religious, legalistic efforts to secure favor with God, we “jump ship” and show we were stowaways, not authorized passengers on the ship of God’s grace.

Key Questions

• If you say you’ve believed on Christ alone, are you still doing so?
• Have you added some OT laws to your behavior to secure your salvation?
• Have you returned to some other religious practices from your previous belief system?

If you’ve done these things, then you’re not believing on Christ at all.

Until now, Paul has spoken bluntly. He says if anyone who claims to believe on Christ for salvation turns back to the OT law to secure salvation, then his claim was superficial, not real. He also explains why he makes these blunt claims:

• “We through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (Gal 5:5). This means true followers of Christ who’ve trusted in him alone for salvation are enabled and motivated from within by the Spirit of God to look forward to the day when Christ will appear and declare us righteous in God’s sight forever. We wait for that day like a little girl looks forward to her birthday party.
• “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). True followers of Christ are not concerned with who’s been circumcised, who eats pork, who observes religious holidays, and who doesn’t. True followers of Christ focus instead on expressing their faith through love rather than legalistic performance. We do what we do to benefit others not to advance ourselves.

Paul gives two more consequences of going back to a legalistic life. What’s fascinating about these is that they focus not on professing believers who are false believers, but on genuine believers who embrace a legalistic approach to the Christian life.

We reverse our spiritual progress. (Gal 5:7)

“You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” Paul describes the Christian life as a marathon. Every marathon participant means well. When the starting gun fires, they all lunge forward with a burst of enthusiasm and speed, but a few hours later, it’s a different story. Paul asks them to consider who (which false teachers or influences) had lit. “cut them off” from running.

Whoever this person (or persons) was, Paul insists this influence was not from God but some other aberrant, unreliable source with no divine accreditation.

Here Paul inserts a helpful description of legalistic influencers. He says that people who promote legalism are like leaven (Gal 5:9). Just a little bit of its influence, when tolerated, can spread through an entire church. Paul says the same thing to the believers at Corinth about tolerating sexual sins in the church, 1 Cor 5:6. So, both legalism and fleshly living can harm an entire congregation.

We remove the distinctive message of the gospel. (1 Cor 5:11)

“If I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased.” Some people apparently (but mistakenly) thought Paul encouraged Christians to be circumcised. Paul makes it clear that he does not.

He also points out that if he – or anyone else – did that, they “remove the offense of the cross.” This offense is the fact that the cross requires us to admit our religious efforts and works can’t save us. If they could, then such an awful thing as Christ dying on the cross would have no purpose and would never have needed to occur.

When we add circumcision and the OT law to the gospel and Christian life, we strip the gospel of its most offensive but crucial element – Christ’s death on the cross for our sins.

Key Questions

• Have you gotten off-track in your Christian life?
• Have you stopped being motivated by the fact that God accepted you through Christ and begun viewing him as a mean drill instructor you’ve got to work hard to impress?
• Which best describes your Christian life right now? A yearling calf released into the fields at springtime or an overworked cow fastened to an uncomfortable yoke and pulling a heavy burden?

Think well of professing believers but not of false teachers.

Despite all the direct things Paul has said in this letter and the difficult feelings he has felt for the believers in Galatia, he believed the best for them (Gal 5:10). “I have confidence in you, in the Lord,” he said, “that you will have no other mind.”

If they reverted to a legalistic approach to salvation, he would consider their faith to be illegitimate and invalid. However, he was persuaded this would not actually occur. His blunt and stunning claims would correct their thinking and keep them on track with Christ.

Paul felt differently about the legalistic influencers.

“He who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is” (Gal 5:10). Here Paul expresses a strong desire for these legalistic teaches to receive a harsh sentence from God at the future, eternal judgment.

“I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off!” (Gal 5:12). Here Paul mocks circumcision sarcastically. Since these false teachers had made such a big deal about it, he says that he wishes they would just go all the way and perform an even more dramatic surgery (by castrating or mutilating themselves). This is sharp language for sure, but it shows how strongly Paul opposed legalism (and so should we).

Key Questions

• Who do you judge more harshly?
• A new believer or church member whose working through some false teaching or the bad influencers themselves?
• What new/professing believer(s) are you helping understand their liberty in Christ?

We should use our liberty to love and serve others, not satisfy fleshly desires. (Gal 5:13-15)

Here Paul repeats his emphasis on liberty as our calling (cf. Gal 5:1) but adds a second warning. “You, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Not only should we not go back to the law, but we should not go forward to indulge the flesh, either.

• Like the calf emerging from his barn stall at springtime, we should neither go back to the stall nor should we run out to the highway or into our neighbor’s garden.
• Like the Roman slave released from slavery, we should neither go back into slavery nor go out into society to steal, kill, and vandalize.

“Through love serve one another” (Gal 5:13). This is the second time Paul has presented love as the proper outworking of our faith. Genuine faith in Christ will reject legalism to advance ourselves but practice godly love instead to benefit others.

Though the word serve may not stand out to you here, it should. It’s the same word that Paul used previously to describe the bondage of the law (Gal 5:1).

As followers of Christ who’ve been justified by God, we should behave as though we’re indebted to one another, yet not out of obligation but out of love.

• We should no longer be concerned about earning personal favor with God but are free to help others believe on Christ as well and to grow in their walk with God.
• Our newfound freedom is not freedom to do whatever our flesh wants to do but to not do whatever our flesh wants to do.

Even the OT law had this purpose, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:14; cf. Lev 19:18). So, a mark of love (but not legalism or fleshly living) is the ability to get along with one another.

Legalism (performance-based Christianity) fosters competition and leads to destroying one another rather than building one another up.

Paul illustrates this dynamic in a clever but humorous way. “But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!” (Gal 5:15).

• The word bite often refers to a snake bite, which may allude to Satan’s underlying influence on judgmental, legalistic divisions in the church.
• Also, can you see the progression here? If we take enough bites out of each other, then we’ll end up swallowing each other; and if we swallow each other, then we’ll end up destroying each other completely.

So, we should use Christian freedom to love and serve others, not satisfy selfish desires or hurt and discourage our fellow believers.

Key Questions

• Are you using your freedom from the law to indulge any sinful desires or habits? If so, then confess that to God and depend on him to free you from those desires as well.
• How are you using your freedom in Christ to serve other believers in the church?
• Can you name 1, 2, or 3 ways you’ve served someone else in the church in love?
• Are you criticizing, judging, gossiping, or nit-picking at anyone in the church by the way you speak about them with others?