1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Galatians 5:1–6, ESV)
This critical passage answers lingering questions about what the gospel of grace will inevitably produce. If I gain a good standing before God based entirely on trust in the work of Christ, then doesn't that mean I can go on living however I'd like to live? If God adopts me through Christ's merit and not my own, doesn't that give me the license to live as I want? Doesn't the Bible say something about holy and righteous living after trusting Christ? Isn't God a holy God who wants holy people? So, isn't the freedom found in the gospel of grace radically impractical and permissive? Paul wrote the last third of his letter to the Galatians to answer these objections. He has dealt fully with their theological objections to the gospel of grace he preached (Gal. 1-4), but now he begins his ethical defense, showing us what kind of person it produces. First, we will learn that the gospel produces incredible freedom—and we are expected to protect and enjoy that freedom. How?
Stand on Christ (1)
The first step to enjoying gospel freedom is to stand on Christ. In the first verse of this new section, Paul said, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (1). Here, Paul tells us in a dense little sentence about the freedom Christ won for us. How did Christ set us free (1)? The answer is on the cross. But from what did Christ set us free? The surrounding passages before and after this verse demand a specific answer. Christ set us free from the law by fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law that we had no hope of keeping on our own. So Christ set us free from the law, but why did he do this? What was his goal or purpose in freeing us? Paul said it was for freedom that Christ did his work of amazing grace (1). His goal was for us to be set free and continue on in freedom. As one translation said, "Christ set us free to be free" (NEB). This freedom is essential to understand correctly because our modern world, including many Christians, thinks of freedom as the ability to do whatever they please. However, simple observation and experience demonstrate this is not freedom at all. The nature of the human condition is to become enslaved when we do whatever we please. The Bible presents an alternate and truer version of freedom. "Human beings are truly free when they are no longer under the dominion of natural desires. Those who are constrained by natural desires are not free but slaves, whereas those who live in love are liberated to serve others, so that slavery to the will of God is perfect freedom." —Thomas Schreiner [1] It's not hard to imagine someone exercising freedom by indulging in an appetite of some kind, only to find themselves enslaved to the thing they freely chose. Our world is full of support groups for people addicted to drugs, alcohol, nicotine, pornography, gambling, junk food, unhealthy body image, and a cacophony of self-damaging practices. These constraining habits begin as freedoms but easily turn into addictions because freedom from constraint of any kind is not true freedom. Paul refers to freedom from the law, which sets us free for God. The gospel frees us from a performance-based standing before God, so we are free to live in the way God made us to live. We are free to enjoy, respond to, and experience him. In Genesis 3, you'll discover Adam and Eve in communion, fellowship, and freedom before God. But through sin, they lost their freedom, and life changed dramatically for the worse. Like taking a fish out of water, they were no longer in the environment for which they were made. But, through the gospel, we are set free from that environment that distanced us from God and brought back into closeness with him. We are free from the tyranny of the law and the constant struggle to keep it as a way to win God's favor. We are now living how God designed us to live—free to enjoy him.
Stand in His Freedom
Paul tells us that it is Christ's intention that we enjoy that freedom—that we stay free! Christ set us free so that we could be free, and Paul even warns that we must stand firm in that freedom and refuse to submit again to a yoke of slavery (1). Paul's warning is surprising. His statement that Christ set us free for freedom is so resounding, strong, and clear that we might think there is no danger of losing it. But Paul knew that, despite the divine source of freedom, humans are prone to legalism and can slip from the beautiful position Christ won for us. Soon, the same feelings of guilt, shame, and misery creep back in. Like a prisoner who chooses to remain imprisoned because it is what he knows, we often drift back into a works-based relationship with God because it is what we know, so Paul tells us to maintain the freedom Christ won for us. Just as Joshua led Israel into victory but then told them to be sure not to become enslaved to the nations around them, so we have been led into freedom by Jesus, and now he wants us to resist becoming enslaved again to the law. So Paul tells us to stand firm in what Christ has done for us. No other work is needed to be approved before God. Next week, we’ll see two more ways to protect and enjoy our gospel freedom: by remaining in grace and waiting for righteousness.
[1] Schreiner, Thomas R. 2010. Galatians. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. ↩