Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is a debtor to do the whole law. You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love. You were running well! Who interfered with you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little yeast grows through the whole lump. I have confidence toward you in the Lord that you will think no other way. But he who troubles you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been removed. I wish that those who disturb you would cut themselves off.
For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
Martin Luther 1535 · Public Domain On vv1–26 In this chapter the Apostle Paul presents the doctrine…
In this chapter the Apostle Paul presents the doctrine of Christian liberty in a final effort to persuade the Galatians to give up the nefarious doctrine of the false apostles. To accomplish his purpose he adduces threats and promises, trying in every way possible to keep them in the liberty which Christ purchased for them.
VERSE 1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.
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"Be steadfast, not careless. Lie not down and sleep, but stand up. Be watchful. Hold fast the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free." Those who loll cannot keep this liberty. Satan hates the light of the Gospel. When it begins to shine a little he fights against it with might and main.
What liberty does Paul mean? Not civil liberty (for which we have the government to thank), but the liberty which Christ has procured for us.
At one time the emperor was compelled to grant to the bishop of Rome certain immunities and privileges. This is civil liberty. That liberty exempts the clergy from certain public charges. Then there is also another kind of "liberty," when people obey neither the laws of God nor the laws of men, but do as they please. This carnal liberty the people want in our day. We are not now speaking of this liberty. Neither are we speaking of civil liberty.
Paul is speaking of a far better liberty, the liberty "wherewith Christ hath made us free," not from material bonds, not from the Babylonian captivity, not from the tyranny of the Turks, but from the eternal wrath of God.
Where is this liberty?
In the conscience.
Our conscience is free and quiet because it no longer has to fear the wrath of God. This is real liberty, compared with which every other kind of liberty is not worth mentioning. Who can adequately express the boon that comes to a person when he has the heart-assurance that God will nevermore be angry with him, but will forever be merciful to him for Christ’s sake? This is indeed a marvelous liberty, to have the sovereign God for our Friend and Father who will defend, maintain, and save us in this life and in the life to come.
As an outgrowth of this liberty, we are at the same time free from the Law, sin, death, the power of the devil, hell, etc. Since the wrath of God has been assuaged by Christ no Law, sin, or death may now accuse and condemn us. These foes of ours will continue to frighten us, but not too much. The worth of our Christian liberty cannot be exaggerated.
Our conscience must he trained to fall back on the freedom purchased for us by Christ. Though the fears of the Law, the terrors of sin, the horror of death assail us occasionally, we know that these feelings shall not endure, because the prophet quotes God as saying: "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment: but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee." (Isa 54:8.)
We shall appreciate this liberty all the more when we bear in mind that it was Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who purchased it with His own blood. Hence, Christ’s liberty is given us not by the Law, or for our own righteousness, but freely for Christ’s sake. In the eighth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, Jesus declares: "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." He only stands between us and the evils which trouble and afflict us and which He has overcome for us.
Reason cannot properly evaluate this gift. Who can fully appreciate the blessing of the forgiveness of sins and of everlasting life? Our opponents claim that they also possess this liberty. But they do not. When they are put to the test all their self-confidence slips from them. What else can they expect when they trust in works and not in the Word of God?
Our liberty is founded on Christ Himself, who sits at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Therefore our liberty is sure and valid as long as we believe in Christ. As long as we cling to Him with a steadfast faith we possess His priceless gifts. But if we are careless and indifferent we shall lose them. It is not without good reason that Paul urges us to watch and to stand fast. He knew that the devil delights in taking this liberty away from us.
VERSE 1. And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Because reason prefers the righteousness of the Law to the righteousness of faith, Paul calls the Law a yoke, a yoke of bondage. Peter also calls it a yoke. "Why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" (Act 15:10.)
In this passage Paul again disparages the pernicious notion that the Law is able to make men righteous before God, a notion deeply rooted in man’s reason. All mankind is so wrapped up in this idea that it is hard to drag it out of people. Paul compares those who seek to be justified by the Law to oxen that are hitched to the yoke. Like oxen that toil in the yoke all day, and in the evening are turned out to graze along the dusty road, and at last are marked for slaughter when they no longer can draw the burden, so those who seek to be justified by the Law are "entangled with the yoke of bondage," and when they have grown old and broken-down in the service of the Law they have earned for their perpetual reward God’s wrath and everlasting torment.
We are not now treating of an unimportant matter. It is a matter that involves everlasting liberty or everlasting slavery. For as a liberation from God’s wrath through the kind office of Christ is not a passing boon, but a permanent blessing, so also the yoke of the Law is not a temporary but an everlasting affliction.
Rightly are the doers of the Law called devil’s martyrs. They take more pains to earn hell than the martyrs of Christ to obtain heaven. Theirs is a double misfortune. First they torture themselves on earth with self- inflicted penances and finally when they die they gain the reward of eternal damnation.
Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 1. Stand fast therefore. After having told them that…
1. Stand fast therefore. After having told them that they are the children of the free woman, he now reminds them that they ought not lightly to despise a freedom so precious. And certainly it is an invaluable blessing, in defense of which it is our duty to fight, even to death; since not only the highest temporal considerations, but our eternal interests also, animate us to the contest. Many persons, having never viewed the subject in this light, charge us with excessive zeal, when they see us so warmly and earnestly contending for freedom of faith as to outward matters, in opposition to the tyranny of the Pope. Under this cloak, our adversaries raise a prejudice against us among ignorant people, as if the whole object of our pursuit were licentiousness, which is the relaxation of all discipline. But wise and skillful persons are aware that this is one of the most important doctrines connected with salvation. This is not a question whether you shall eat this or that food, — whether you shall observe or neglect a particular day, (which is the foolish notion entertained by many, and the slander uttered by some,) but what is your positive duty before God, what is necessary to salvation, and what cannot be omitted without sin. In short, the controversy relates to the liberty of conscience, when placed before the tribunal of God.
The liberty of which Paul speaks is exemption from the ceremonies of the law, the observance of which was demanded by the false apostles as necessary. But let the reader, at the same time, remember, that such liberty is only a part of that which Christ has procured for us: for how small a matter would it be, if he had only freed us from ceremonies? This is but a stream, which must be traced to a higher source. It is because
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“Christ was made a curse, that he might redeem us from the curse of the law,” (Galatians 3:13;)
because he has revolted the power of the law” so far as it held us liable to the judgment of God under the penalty of eternal death; because, in a word, he has rescued us from the tyranny of sin, Satan, and death. Thus, under one department is included the whole class; but on this subject we shall speak more fully on the Epistle to the Colossians.
This liberty was procured for us by Christ on the cross: the fruit and possession of it are bestowed upon us through the Gospel. Well does Paul, then, warn the Galatians, not to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage, — that is, not to allow a snare to be laid for their consciences. For if men lay upon our shoulders an unjust burden, it may be borne; but if they endeavor to bring our consciences into bondage, we must resist valiantly, even to death. If men be permitted to bind our consciences, we shall be deprived of an invaluable blessing, and an insult will be, at the same time, offered to Christ, the Author of our freedom. But what is the force of the word again, in the exhortation, “and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage?” for the Galatians had never lived under the law. It simply means that they were not to be entangled, as if they had not been redeemed by the grace of Christ. Although the law was given to Jews, not to Gentiles, yet, apart from Christ, neither the one nor the other enjoys any freedom, but absolute bondage.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26 Circumcision is in other places called the seal of…
Circumcision is in other places called the seal of righteousness, but here we must have consideration of the circumstance of the Baptism come in place of circumcision. And moreover Paul reasoneth according to the opinion that his enemies had of it, which made circumcision a piece of their salvation.
Another obtestation wherein he plainly witnesseth that justification of works, and justification of faith cannot stand together, because no man can be justified by the Law, but he that doth fully and perfectly fulfill it. And he taketh the example of circumcision, because it was the ground of all the service of the Law, and was chiefly urged of the false Apostles.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–26 1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ…
1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Ver. 1. Be not again entangled] ενεχεσθε. As oxen tied to the yoke. Those that followed Judas Galileus, Act 5:37, chose rather to undergo any death than to be in subjection to any mortal. (Joseph. xviii. 2.) If civil servitude be so grievous, what ought spiritual to be? Those poor misled and muzzled souls that are held captive in the pope’s dark dungeon, have an ill time of it. Ever since, being reconciled to the Roman Church, I subjected myself and my kingdoms (said King John of England) to the pope’s authority, never anything went well with me, but all against me, Nulla mihi prospera, sed omnia adversa evenerunt.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–26 liberty here spoken of, is a right which a…
The
liberty here spoken of, is a right which a person hath to action, that he may do or forbear the doing of things at his pleasure, as he apprehends them suitable or not, without the let or hinderance of another. This is either in things of a civil nature, or of a spiritual nature. The former is not understood here, for it is none of
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the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, for subjects to be free from the lawful commands of princes, or children to be free from the laws of their parents, or servants to be free from the commands of masters. There is hardly any book in the New Testament wherein obedience of this nature, in things that are lawful, is not either exemplified as our duty in Christ and the apostles, or urged by very strong arguments. The liberty here, is that freedom from the law, of which the apostle hath been speaking all along this Epistle: from the curse of the moral law, and from the co-action of it; and principally from the ceremonial law contained in ordinances. This is the liberty which Christ hath purchased for us, and in which the apostle willeth all believers to stand fast; not being again entangled with a yoke, which God had taken off from their necks. The apostles, in their synod, Act 15:10, had called it a yoke, which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25, 26 As if he had said "Since Christ by his…
As if he had said "Since Christ by his death had purchased our freedom from the yoke and bondage of the ceremonial law, let us resolutely stand fast in this our Christian liberty, without subjecting ourselves again to circumcision, and the observation of the Mosaic rites."
Here note, 1. The servile condition of the Jewish church: they were under bondage, under a yoke of bondage. This servitude of theirs consisted in the vast number of their religious rites and observances, as to days and weeks, months, and years; in the multitude of their sacrifices of all sorts, which they were obliged every day to offer: in their frequent purifications and washings; in the strict distinctions they were obliged to make between clean and unclean meats; in the numerous rites and ceremonies they are required to observe at their marriages and burials, at bed and board, at home and abroad, nay, even in plowing, sowing, and reaping; so numerous were these observances, that they took up half their time, and were as burdensome as they were numerous.
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Well might the apostle here call it a yoke of bondage, and elsewhere, a yoke which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear. Act 15:10
Note, 2. The happy liberty and freedom from this intolerable yoke, purchased by Christ for the Christian church: Christ hath made us free. He by his obedience and death, has purchased this happy freedom for us, a freedom from ceremonial bondage, from sinful servitude and slavery; not from civil subjection, not from the yoke of new obedience, but from the obliging force of the ceremonial law, and the curse and irritating power of the moral law.
Note, 3. The Christians’ duty with reference to this privilege, namely, to stand fast in the liberty which Christ has purchased for them, without obliging themselves to observe any part of the ceremonial law, which was now a servility perfectly unprofitable, and nothing else: stand fast in it; that is, maintain and defend it both in judgment and practice.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 In the former part of this chapter the apostle…
In the former part of this chapter the apostle cautions the Galatians to take heed of the judaizing teachers, who endeavoured to bring them back under the bondage of the law. He had been arguing against them before, and had largely shown how contrary the principles and spirit of those teachers were to the spirit of the gospel; and now this is as it were the general inference or application of all that discourse. Since it appeared by what had been said that we can be justified only by faith in Jesus Christ, and not by the righteousness of the law, and that the law of Moses was no longer in force, nor Christians under any obligation to submit to it, therefore he would have them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and not to be again entangled with the yoke of bondage. Here observe, 1. Under the gospel we are enfranchised, we are brought into a state of liberty, wherein we are freed from the yoke of the ceremonial law and from the curse of the moral law; so that we are no longer tied to the observance of the one, nor tied up to the rigour of the other, which curses every one that continues not in all things written therein to do them, Gal 3:10. 2. We owe this liberty to Jesus Christ. It is he who has made us free; by his merits he has satisfied the demands of the broken law, and by his authority as a king he has discharged us from the obligation of those carnal ordinances which were imposed on the Jews. And, 3. It is therefore our duty to stand fast in this liberty, constantly and faithfully to adhere to the gospel and to the liberty of it, and not to suffer ourselves, upon any consideration, to be again entangled in the yoke of bondage, nor persuaded to return back to the law of Moses. This is the general caution or exhortation, which in the following verses the apostle enforces by several reasons or arguments. As,
I. That their submitting to circumcision, and depending on the works of the law for righteousness, were an implicit contradiction of their faith as Christians and a forfeiture of all their advantages by Jesus Christ, Gal 5:2-4. And here we may observe, 1. With what solemnity the apostle asserts and declares this: Behold, I Paul say unto you (Gal 5:2), and he repeats it (Gal 5:3), I testify unto you; as it he had said, "I, who have proved myself an apostle of Christ, and to have received my authority and instructions from him, do declare, and am ready to pawn my credit and reputation upon it, that if you be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing, etc.," wherein he shows that what he was now saying was not only a matter of great importance, but what might be most assuredly depended on. He was so far from being a preacher of circumcision (as some might report him to be) that he looked upon it as a matter of the greatest consequence that they did not submit to it. 2. What it is which he so solemnly, and with so much assurance, declares; it is that, if they were circumcised, Christ would profit them nothing, etc. We are not to suppose that it is mere circumcision which the apostle is here speaking of, or that it was his design to say that none who are circumcised could have any benefit by Christ; for all the Old Testament saints had been circumcised, and he himself had consented to the circumcising of Timothy. But he is to be understood as speaking of circumcision in the sense in which the judaizing teachers imposed it, who taught that except they were circumcised, and kept the law of Moses, they could not be saved, Act 15:1. That this is his meaning appears from Gal 5:4, where he expresses the same thing by their being justified by the law, or seeking justification by the works of it. Now in this case, if they submitted to circumcision in this sense, he declares that Christ would profit them nothing, that they were debtors to do the whole law, that Christ had become of no effect to them, and that they were fallen from grace. From all these expressions it appears that thereby they renounced that way of justification which God had established; yea, that they laid themselves under an impossibility of being justified in his sight, for they became debtors to do the whole law, which required such an obedience as they were not capable of performing, and denounced a curse against those who failed in it, and therefore condemned, but could not justify them; and, consequently, that having thus revolted from Christ, and built their hopes upon the law, Christ would profit them nothing, nor be of any effect to them. Thus, as by being circumcised they renounced their Christianity, so they cut themselves off from all advantage by Christ; and therefore there was the greatest reason why they should stedfastly adhere to that doctrine which they had embraced, and not suffer themselves to be brought under this yoke of bondage. Note, (1.) Though Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost, yet there are multitudes whom he will profit nothing. (2.) All those who seek to be justified by the law do thereby render Christ of no effect to them. By building their hopes on the works of the law, they forfeit all their hopes from him; for he will not be the Saviour of any who will not own and rely upon him as their only Saviour.
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II. To persuade them to stedfastness in the doctrine and liberty of the gospel, he sets before them his own example, and that of other Jews who had embraced the Christian religion, and acquaints them what their hopes were, namely, That through the Spirit they were waiting for the hope of righteousness by faith. Though they were Jews by nature, and had been bred up under the law, yet being, through the Spirit, brought to the knowledge of Christ, they had renounced all dependence on the works of the law, and looked for justification and salvation only by faith in him; and therefore it must needs be the greatest folly in those who had never been under the law to suffer themselves to be brought into subjection to it, and to found their hopes upon the works of it. Here we may observe, 1. What it is that Christians are waiting for: it is the hope of righteousness, by which we are chiefly to understand the happiness of the other world. This is called the hope of Christians, as it is the great object of their hope, which they are above every thing else desiring and pursuing; and the hope of righteousness, as their hopes of it are founded on righteousness, not their own, but that of our Lord Jesus: for, though a life of righteousness is the way that leads to this happiness, yet it is the righteousness of Christ alone which has procured it for us, and on account of which we can expect to be brought to the possession of it. 2. How they hope to obtain this happiness, namely, by faith, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, not by the works of the law, or any thing they can do to deserve it, but only by faith, receiving and relying upon him as the Lord our righteousness. It is in this way only that they expect either to be entitled to it here or possessed of it hereafter. And, 3. Whence it is that they are thus waiting for the hope of righteousness: it is through the Spirit. Herein they act under the direction and influence of the Holy Spirit; it is under his conduct, and by his assistance, that they are both persuaded and enabled to believe on Christ, and to look for the hope of righteousness through him. When the apostle thus represents the case of Christians, it is implied that if they expected to be justified and saved in any other way they were likely to meet with a disappointment, and therefore that they were greatly concerned to adhere to the doctrine of the gospel which they had embraced.
III. He argues from the nature and design of the Christian institution, which was to abolish the difference between Jew and Gentile, and to establish faith in Christ as the way of our acceptance with God. He tells them (Gal 5:6) that in Christ Jesus, or under the gospel dispensation, neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision. Though, while the legal state lasted, there was a difference put between Jew and Greek, between those who were and those who were not circumcised, the former being admitted to those privileges of the church of God from which the other were excluded, yet it was otherwise in the gospel state: Christ, who is the end of the law, having come, now it was neither here nor there whether a man were circumcised or uncircumcised; he was neither the better for the one nor the worse for the other, nor would either the one or the other recommend him to God; and therefore as their judaizing teachers were very unreasonable in imposing circumcision upon them, and obliging them to observe the law of Moses, so they must needs be very unwise in submitting to them herein. But, though he assures them that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision would avail to their acceptance with God, yet he informs them what would do so, and that is faith, which worketh by love: such a faith in Christ as discovers itself to be true and genuine by a sincere love to God and our neighbour. If they had this, it mattered not whether they were circumcised or uncircumcised, but without it nothing else would stand them in any stead. Note, 1. No external privileges nor profession will avail to our acceptance with God, without a sincere faith in our Lord Jesus. 2. Faith, where it is true, is a working grace: it works by love, love to God and love to our brethren; and faith, thus working by love, is all in all in our Christianity.
IV. To recover them from their backslidings, and engage them to greater stedfastness for the future, he puts them in mind of their good beginnings, and calls upon them to consider whence it was that they were so much altered from what they had been, Gal 5:7.
1. He tells them that they did run well; at their first setting out in Christianity they had behaved themselves very commendably, they had readily embraced the Christian religion, and discovered a becoming zeal in the ways and work of it; as in their baptism they were devoted to God, and had declared themselves the disciples of Christ, so their behaviour was agreeable to their character and profession. Note, (1.) The life of a Christian is a race, wherein he must run, and hold on, if he would obtain the prize. (2.) It is not enough that we run in this race, by a profession of Christianity, but we must run well, by living up to that profession. Thus these Christians had done for awhile, but they had been obstructed in their progress, and were either turned out of the way or at least made to flag and falter in it. Therefore,
2. He asks them, and calls upon them to ask themselves, Who did hinder you? How came it to pass that they did not hold on in the way wherein they had begun to run so well? He very well knew who they were, and what it was that hindered them; but he would have them to put the question to themselves, and seriously consider whether they had any good reason to hearken to those who gave them this disturbance, and whether what they offered was sufficient to justify them in their present conduct. Note, (1.) Many who set out fair in religion, and run well for awhile - run within the bounds appointed for the race, and run with zeal and alacrity too-are yet by some means or other hindered in their progress, or turned out of the way. (2.) It concerns those who have run well, but now begin either to turn out of the way or to tire in it, to enquire what it is that hinders them. Young converts must expect that Satan will be laying stumbling blocks in their way, and doing all he can to divert them from the course they are in; but, whenever they find themselves in danger of being turned out of it, they would do well to consider who it is that hinders them. Whoever they were that hindered these Christians, the apostle tells them that by hearkening to them they were kept from obeying the truth, and were thereby in danger of losing the benefit of what they had done in religion. The gospel which he had preached to them, and which they had embraced and professed, he assures them was the truth; it was therein only that the true way of justification and salvation was fully discovered, and, in order to their enjoying the advantage of it, it was necessary that they should obey it, that they should firmly adhere to it, and continue to govern their lives and hopes according to the directions of it. If therefore they should suffer themselves to be drawn away from it they must needs be guilty of the greatest weakness and folly. Note, [1.] The truth is not only to be believed, but to be obeyed, to be received not only in the light of it, but in the love and power of it. [2.] Those do not rightly obey the truth, who do not stedfastly adhere to it. [3.] There is the same reason for our obeying the truth that there was for our embracing it: and therefore those act very unreasonably who, when they have begun to run well in the Christian race, suffer themselves to be hindered, so as not to persevere in it.
V. He argues for their stedfastness in the faith and liberty of the gospel from the ill rise of that persuasion whereby they were drawn away from it (Gal 5:8): This persuasion, says he, cometh not of him that calleth you. The opinion or persuasion of which the apostle here speaks was no doubt that of the necessity of their being circumcised, and keeping the law of Moses, or of their mixing the works of the law with faith in Christ in the business of justification. This was what the judaizing teachers endeavoured to impose upon them, and what they had too easily fallen into. To convince them of their folly herein, he tells them that this persuasion did not come of him that called them, that is, either of God, by whose authority the gospel had been preached to them and they had been called into the fellowship of it, or of the apostle himself, who had been employed as the instrument of calling them hereunto. It could not come from God, for it was contrary to that way of justification and salvation which he had established; nor could they have received it from Paul himself; for, whatever some might pretend, he had all along been an opposer and not a preacher of circumcision, and, if in any instance he had submitted to it for the sake of peace, yet he had never pressed the use of it upon Christians, much less imposed it upon them as necessary to salvation. Since then this persuasion did not come of him that had called them, he leaves them to judge whence it must arise, and sufficiently intimates that it could be owing to none but Satan and his instruments, who by this means were endeavouring to overthrow their faith and obstruct the progress of the gospel, and therefore that the Galatians had every reason to reject it, and to continue stedfast in the truth which they had before embraced. Note, 1. In order to our judging aright of the different persuasions in religion which there are among Christians, it concerns us to enquire whether they come of him that calleth us, whether or no they are founded upon the authority of Christ and his apostles. 2. If, upon enquiry, they appear to have no such foundation, how forward soever others may be to impose them upon us, we should by no means submit to them, but reject them.
VI. The danger there was of the spreading of this infection, and the ill influence it might have upon others, are a further argument which the apostle urges against their complying with their false teachers in what they would impose on them. It is possible that, to extenuate their fault, they might be ready to say that there were but few of those teachers among them who endeavoured to draw them into this persuasion and practice, or that they were only some smaller matters wherein they complied with them - that though they submitted to be circumcised, and to observe some few rites of the Jewish laws, yet they had by no means renounced their Christianity and gone over to Judaism. Or, suppose their complying thus far was as faulty as he could represent it, yet perhaps they might further say that there were but few among them who had done so, and therefore he needed not be so much concerned about it. Now, to obviate such pretences as these, and to convince them that there was more danger in it than they were aware of, he tells them (Gal 5:9) that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump - that the whole lump of Christianity may be tainted and corrupted by one such erroneous principle, or that the whole lump of the Christian society may be infected by one member of it, and therefore that they were greatly concerned not to yield in this single instance, or, if any had done so, to endeavour by all proper methods to purge out the infection from among them. Note, It is dangerous for Christian churches to encourage those among them who entertain, especially who set themselves to propagate, destructive errors. This was the case here. The doctrine which the false teachers were industrious to spread, and which some in these churches had been drawn into, was subversive of Christianity itself, as the apostle had before shown; and therefore, though the number either of the one or the other of these might be but small, yet, considering the fatal tendency of it and the corruption of human nature, whereby others were too much disposed to be infected with it, he would not have them on that account to be easy and unconcerned, but remember that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. If these were indulged the contagion might soon spread further and wider; and, if they suffered themselves to be imposed upon in this instance, it might soon issue in the utter ruin of the truth and liberty of the gospel.
VII. That he might conciliate the greater regard to what he had said, he expresses the hopes he had concerning them (Gal 5:10): I have confidence in you, says he, through the Lord, that you will be none otherwise minded. Though he had many fears and doubts about them (which was the occasion of his using so much plainness and freedom with them), yet he hoped that through the blessing of God upon what he had written they might be brought to be of the same mind with him, and to own and abide by that truth and that liberty of the gospel which he had preached to them, and was now endeavouring to confirm them in. Herein he teaches us that we ought to hope the best even of those concerning whom we have cause to fear the worst. That they might be the less offended at the reproofs he had given them for their unstedfastness in the faith, he lays the blame of it more upon others than themselves; for he adds, But he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. He was sensible that there were some that troubled them, and would pervert the gospel of Christ (as Gal 1:7), and possibly he may point to some one particular man who was more busy and forward than others, and might be the chief instrument of the disorder that was among them; and to this he imputes their defection or inconstancy more than to any thing in themselves. This may give us occasion to observe that, in reproving sin and error, we should always distinguish between the leaders and the led, such as set themselves to draw others thereinto and such as are drawn aside by them. Thus the apostle softens and alleviates the fault of these Christians, even while he is reproving them, that he might the better persuade them to return to, and stand fast in, the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free: but as for him or those that troubled them, whoever he or they were, he declares they should bear their judgment, he did not doubt but God would deal with them according to their deserts, and out of his just indignation against them, as enemies of Christ and his church, he wishes that they were even cut off - not cut off from Christ and all hopes of salvation by him, but cut off by the censures of the church, which ought to witness against those teachers who thus corrupted the purity of the gospel. Those, whether ministers or others, who set themselves to overthrow the faith of the gospel, and disturb the peace of Christians, do thereby forfeit the privileges of Christian communion and deserve to be cut off from them.
VIII. To dissuade these Christians from hearkening to their judaizing teachers, and to recover them from the ill impressions they had made upon them, he represents them as men who had used very base and disingenuous methods to compass their designs, for they had misrepresented him, that they might the more easily gain their ends upon them. That which they were endeavouring was to bring them to submit to circumcision, and to mix Judaism with their Christianity; and, the better to accomplish this design, they had given out among them that Paul himself was a preacher of circumcision: for when he says (Gal 5:11), And I brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, it plainly appears that they had reported him to have done so, and that they had made use of this as an argument to prevail with the Galatians to submit to it. It is probable that they grounded this report upon his having circumcised Timothy, Act 16:3. But, though for good reasons he had yielded to circumcision in that instance, yet that he was a preacher of it, and especially in that sense wherein they imposed it, he utterly denies. To prove the injustice of that charge upon him, he offers such arguments as, if they would allow themselves to consider, could not fail to convince them of it. 1. If he would have preached circumcision, he might have avoided persecution. If I yet preach circumcision, says he, why do I yet suffer persecution? It was evident, and they could not but be sensible of it, that he was hated and persecuted by the Jews; but what account could be given of this their behaviour towards him, if he had so far symbolized with them as to preach up circumcision, and the observance of the law of Moses, as necessary to salvation? This was the great point they were contending for; and, if he had fallen in with them herein, instead of being exposed to their rage he might have been received into their favour. When therefore he was suffering persecution from them, this was a plain evidence that he had not complied with them; yea, that he was so far from preaching the doctrine he was charged with, that, rather than do so, he was willing to expose himself to the greatest hazards. 2. If he had yielded to the Jews herein, then would the offence of the cross have ceased. They would not have taken so much offence against the doctrine of Christianity as they did, nor would he and others have been exposed to so much suffering on the account of it as they were. He informs us (Co1 1:23) that the preaching of the cross of Christ (or the doctrine of justification and salvation only by faith in Christ crucified) was to the Jews a stumbling-block. That which they were most offended at in Christianity was, that thereby circumcision, and the whole frame of the legal administration, were set aside, as no longer in force. This raised their greatest outcries against it, and stirred them up to oppose and persecute the professors of it. Now if Paul and others could have given into this opinion, that circumcision was still to be retained, and the observance of the law of Moses joined with faith in Christ as necessary to salvation, then their offence against it would have been in a great measure removed, and they might have avoided the sufferings they underwent for the sake of it. But though others, and particularly those who were so forward to asperse him as a preacher of this doctrine, could easily come into it, yet so could not he. He rather chose to hazard his ease and credit, yea his very life itself, than thus to corrupt the truth and give up the liberty of the gospel. Hence it was that the Jews continued to be so much offended against Christianity, and against him as the preacher of it. Thus the apostle clears himself from the unjust reproach which his enemies had cast upon him, and at the same time shows how little regard was due to those men who could treat him in such an injurious manner, and how much reason he had to wish that they were even cut off.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–25 Stand fast therefore in the liberty,.... There is the…
Stand fast therefore in the liberty,.... There is the liberty of grace, and the liberty of glory; the former of these is here meant, and lies in a freedom from sin; not from the indwelling of it, but from the dominion, guilt, and damning power of it; from the captivity and tyranny of Satan, though not from his temptations and insults; from the law, the ceremonial law, as an handwriting of ordinances, a rigid severe schoolmaster, and a middle wall of partition, and from all its burdensome rites and institutions; from the moral law as a covenant of works, and as administered by Moses; and from the curse and condemnation of it, its bondage and rigorous exaction, and from all expectation of life and righteousness by the deeds of it; but not from obedience to it, as held forth by Christ, and as a rule of walk and conversation; and from the judicial law, or those laws which concerned the Jews as Jews: moreover, this liberty lies in the free use of things indifferent, as eating any sort of food without distinction, so that it be done in faith, with thankfulness to God, in moderation, and with temperance, and so as that the peace and edification of fellow Christians are not hurt; also in the free use of Gospel ordinances, which they that are fellow citizens with the saints have a right unto, but not to lay aside or neglect at pleasure; which is not to use, but to abuse their liberty: again, another branch of it is access to God, with freedom and boldness at the throne of grace, through the Mediator, under the influences of the divine Spirit; to which may be added, a deliverance from the fears of death corporeal, who is a king of terrors to Christless sinners, and which kept Old Testament saints, all their lifetime subject to bondage and eternal, or the second death, by which Christ's freemen are assured they shall not be hurt: now, in this liberty, the children of the free woman, believers under the Gospel dispensation, are very pertinently exhorted to stand fast, in consequence and consideration of their character; that is, they should highly prize and esteem it, as men do their civil liberty; and maintain it and defend it, at all hazards; abide by the doctrine of it without wavering, and with intrepidity; not giving up anyone part of it, however, and by whomsoever, it may be opposed, maligned, and reproached; and keep up the practice of it, by obeying from the heart the doctrine of it, by becoming the servants of righteousness, by frequent attendance at the throne of grace, and continual observance of the ordinances of Christ; and then should take heed of everything that tends to break in upon it, as any doctrine or commandment of men; particularly the doctrine of justification by works, and all sorts of superstition and will worship: and the rather, because of the concern Christ has in this liberty, it is that
wherewith Christ hath made us free; we are not free born, but on the contrary homeborn slaves, as Ephraim was; nor could this liberty in any of its branches be obtained by us, by any merit, righteousness, act, or acts of ours, but is wholly of Christ's procuring for us, both by price and power; whereby he has ransomed and delivered us out of the hands of all our spiritual enemies, sin, Satan, the law, and death; and it is of his proclaiming in the Gospel, and of his applying by his Spirit, whom he sends down into our hearts as a free Spirit, to acquaint us with it, and lead us into it, who works faith in us to lay hold upon, and receive this blessing of grace as others:
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and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. The metaphor is taken from oxen put under a yoke, and implicated with it, from which they cannot disengage themselves: some of the members of this church had been Jews, who had formerly been under the yoke of the law, and seemed desirous to return to their former state of bondage, from which the apostle dissuades, and therefore uses the word again: or else he may refer to the bondage of corruption and idolatry, which they as Gentiles were in, before their conversion; and intimates, that to give into the observance of; Jewish rites and ceremonies would be involving themselves in a state of bondage again; for by "the yoke of bandage" he means the law, which the Jews frequently call "the yoke of the commandments" (l); particularly the ceremonial law, as circumcision; which Peter, Act 15:10 represents as a yoke intolerable; the observation of days, months, times, and years; the multitude of sacrifices, and which could not take away sin; but proclaimed their guilt and obligation to punishment, and were an handwriting of ordinances against them, and thereby they were held and kept in bondage, and such a yoke is the moral law as delivered by Moses, requiring perfect obedience, but giving no strength to perform, nor pointing where any is to be had; showing a man his sin and misery, and so working wrath in his conscience, but giving not the least intimation of a Saviour, or of life and righteousness by another; accusing, pronouncing guilty, cursing, and condemning; hence such as seek for righteousness by it are in a miserable subjection to it, and are sadly implicated and entangled with the yoke of it: every doctrine and ordinance of men is a yoke of bondage which should not be submitted to; nay, any action whatever, performed in a religious way and in order for a man's acceptance with God, and to obtain his favour, and according to his observance of which he judges of his state, and speaks peace and comfort to himself, or the reverse, is a yoke of bondage: as, for instance prayer at such and so many times a day, reading such a number of chapters in the Bible every day, fasting so many times in the week, and the like; so that what are branches of Christian liberty, such as frequent prayer to God, reading the sacred writings for instruction and comfort, and the free use of the creatures, are turned into a yoke of bondage, which should be guarded against.
(l) Misn. Beracot, c. 2. sect. 2. T. Hieros. Beracot, fol. 4. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Stand fast therefore in the liberty - From the…
Stand fast therefore in the liberty - From the ceremonial law. Wherewith Christ hath made us - And all believers, free; and be not entangled again with the yoke of legal bondage.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–26 The apostle exhorts the Galatians to stand fast in…
CHAPTER V.
The apostle exhorts the Galatians to stand fast in the liberty
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of the Gospel, and not by receiving circumcision bring
themselves into a yoke of bondage, 1-4.
Shows the superior excellence of Christianity, 5, 6.
Mentions their former steadiness, and warns them against the
bad doctrine which was then preached among them, 7-9.
Expresses his confidence that they will yet return; and shows
that he who perverted them shall bear his own punishment,
10-12.
States that they are called to liberty, and that love is the
fulfilling of the law, 13, 14.
Warns them against dissensions, and enumerates the fruits of the
flesh, which exclude those who bear them from the kingdom of
God, 15-21.
Enumerates also the fruits of the Spirit, which characterize the
disciples of Christ, 22-24.
Exhorts them to live in the Spirit, and not provoke each other,
25, 26.
NOTES ON CHAP. V.
Verse 1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty] This is intimately connected with the preceding chapter: the apostle having said, just before, So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond woman, but of the free, immediately adds, Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Hold fast your Christian profession; it brings spiritual liberty: on the contrary, Judaism brings spiritual bondage. Among the Jews, the Messiah's reign was to be a reign of liberty, and hence the Targum, on La 2:22, says: "Liberty shall be publicly proclaimed to thy people of the house of Israel, על יד משיחא al yad Mashicha, by the hand of the Messiah, such as was granted to them by Moses and Aaron at the time of the passover."
The liberty mentioned by the apostle is freedom from Jewish rites and ceremonies, called properly here the yoke of bondage; and also liberty from the power and guilt of sin, which nothing but the grace of Christ can take away.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 7, 11, 13, 16, 19, 22, 24, 25 Gal 5:1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty, &c.…
Gal 5:1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty, &c. — The apostle (chap. 3.) having, from Abraham’s justification by faith, proved, 1st, That all who believe in Christ, and in the promises of God through him, are the seed of Abraham, whom God in the covenant promised to justify by faith: 2d, That the law of Moses, which was given long after the Abrahamic covenant, could neither annul nor alter that covenant, by introducing a method of justification different from that which was so solemnly established thereby: 3d, That men are heirs of the heavenly country, of which Canaan was the type, not meritoriously, by obedience to the law, but by the free gift of God: 4th, That the law was given to the Israelites, not to justify them, but to restrain them from transgressions, and by making them sensible of their sins, and of the demerit thereof, to lead them to Christ for justification: further, having (chap. 4.) observed that the method of justification by faith, established at the fall, was not universally published in the first ages, by immediately introducing the gospel, because the state of the world did not admit thereof; and because it was proper that mankind should remain a while under the tuition of the light of nature, and of the law of Moses: also, having declared that the supernatural procreation of Isaac, and his birth in a state of freedom, was intended to typify the supernatural generation of Abraham’s seed by faith, and their freedom from the bondage of the law of Moses, as a term of salvation: the apostle, in this 5th chapter, as the application of his whole doctrine, exhorts the Galatian believers to stand fast in that freedom from the Mosaic law which had been obtained for them by Christ, and was announced to them by the gospel; and not to be entangled again with, or held fast in, (as ενεχεσθε may be rendered,) the yoke of Jewish bondage, as if it were necessary to salvation. “The apostle, though writing to the Gentiles, might say, Be not again held fast in the yoke of bondage, because the law of Moses, which he was cautioning them to avoid, was a yoke of the same kind with that under which they had groaned while heathen. By this precept, the apostle likewise condemns the superstitious bodily services enjoined by the Church of Rome, which are really of the same nature with those prescribed by Moses, with this difference, that none of them are of divine appointment.” — Macknight.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Stand fast, therefore - Be firm and unwavering. This…
Stand fast, therefore - Be firm and unwavering. This verse properly belongs to the previous chapter, and should not have been separated from it. The sense is, that they were to be firm and unyielding in maintaining the great principles of Christian liberty. They had been freed from the bondage of rites and ceremonies; and they should by no means, and in no form, yield to them again.
In the liberty ... - Compare Joh 8:32, Joh 8:36; Rom 6:18; Notes, Gal 4:3-5.
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And be not entangled again - Tyndale renders this, “And wrap not yourselves again.” The sense is, do not again allow such a yoke to be put on you; do not again become slaves to any rites, and customs, and habits.
The yoke of bondage - Of servitude to the Jewish laws; see the note at Act 15:10.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 14, 17, 22 Be not held again under the yoke of bondage,…
Be not held again under the yoke of bondage, of the old law. (Witham) --- This verse must be understood in the same manner as the 9th verse of the preceding chapter. See the annotations upon it.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Galatians Chapter 5
Galatians Chapter 5
It is in this liberty, the liberty of Christ, alluding to the free woman and Jerusalem above, that they were to stand fast, and not put themselves again under the yoke of the law. If they took that ground they made themselves responsible to keep it personally and wholly, and Christ was of no effect to them. They could not rest upon the work of Christ for righteousness, and then hold themselves responsible to fulfil righteousness themselves according to the law. The two things contradict each other. Hence too it would be no longer grace on which they stood. They forsook grace, in order to satisfy the requirements of the law. This is not the Christian’s position.
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Here is the Christian’s position. He does not seek for righteousness before God as a man who does not possess it; he is the righteousness of God in Christ, and Christ Himself is the measure of that righteousness. The Holy Ghost dwells in him. Faith rests in this righteousness, even as God rests in it, and this faith is sustained by the Holy Ghost, who turns the heart that is established in that righteousness towards the glory that is its recompense-a recompense which Christ enjoys already, so that we know what that righteousness deserves. Christ is in the glory due to righteousness, to the work which He accomplished. We know this righteousness in virtue of that which He has wrought, because God has owned His work and set Him at His right hand on high. The glory in which He is is His just reward, and the proof of that righteousness. The Spirit reveals the glory, and seals to us that righteousness on which faith builds. It is thus that the apostle expresses it: “We, through the Spirit, wait for the hope [the hoped-for glory] of righteousness by faith.” To us it is faith, for we have not yet the thing hoped for-the glory due to that righteousness which is ours. Christ possesses it, so that we know what we hope for. It is by the Spirit that we know it, and that we have the assurance of the righteousness which gives us the title to possess it. It is not righteousness we wait for, but, by the Spirit in faith, the hope that belongs to it. It is by faith; for in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working by love. There must be a moral reality.
The apostle’s heart is oppressed at the thought of what they were rejecting, and the mischief this doctrine was doing. It overflows. In the midst of his argument he interrupts himself. “Ye did run well: who has hindered you from obeying the truth?” To be so easily persuaded of this Judaising doctrine, which was but a fatal error, was not the work of Him who had called them. It was not thus that through grace they had become Christians. A little leaven corrupted the whole.
Nevertheless the apostle regains his confidence by looking higher. By resting on the grace which is in Christ towards His own, he can re-assure himself with regard to the Galatians. He stood in doubt when he thought of them; he had confidence when he thought of Christ, that they would surely not be otherwise minded. Thus delivered from the evil by grace, as in the moral case of the Corinthians, he was ready to punish all disobedience, when all that knew how to obey had been brought fully back to obedience; so here also, every heart that was susceptible of the influence of the truth would be brought back to the power of the truth of Christ; and those who, active in evil, troubled them by false doctrine, those whose will was engaged in propagating error, should bear their burden. It is very beautiful to see the apostle’s uneasiness, when he thinks of men-the fruit moreover of his love for them-and the confidence which he regains as soon as he lifts up his heart to the Lord. But his abrupt style, his broken and unconnected words, shew how deeply his heart was engaged. The error that separated the soul from Christ was to him more terrible than the said fruits of practical separation. We do not find the same marks of agitation in the epistle to the Corinthians; here the foundation of everything was in question. In the case of the Galatians the glory of Christ the Saviour was at stake, the only thing that could bring a soul into connection with God; and on the other hand it was a systematic work of Satan to overthrow the gospel of Christ as needed for the salvation of men.
Here, interrupting himself, he adds, “And I, if I preach circumcision, why am I persecuted?” It will in fact be seen that the Jews were habitually the instigators of the persecution which the apostle suffered from the Gentiles. The spirit of Judaism, as has been the case in all ages, the religious spirit of the natural man, has been Satan’s great instrument in his opposition to the gospel. If Christ would put His sanction on the flesh, the world would come to terms and be as religious as you please, and would value itself upon its devotion. But in that case it would not be the true Christ. Christ came, a witness that the natural man is lost, wicked, and without hope, dead in his trespasses and sins; that redemption is necessary, and a new man. He came in grace, but it was because man was incapable of being restored; and consequently all must be pure grace and emanate from God. If Christ would have to do with the old man, all would be well; but, I repeat, He would no longer be Christ. The world then, the old man, does not endure Him. But there is a conscience, there is a felt need of religion, there is the prestige of an ancient religion held from one’s fathers; true perhaps in its original foundations, although perverted. Thus the prince of the world will use carnal religion to excite the flesh, the ready enemy, when once awakened, of the spiritual religion which pronounces sentence upon it.
It is only to add something to Christ. But what? If it is not Christ and the new man, it is the old man, it is sinful man; and, instead of a needed and accomplished redemption, and an entirely new life from above, you have a testimony that agreement between the two is possible; that grace is not necessary, except at most as a little help; that man is not already lost and dead in his trespasses and sins, that the flesh is not essentially and absolutely evil. Thus the name of Christ is made subservient to the flesh, which willingly adorns itself with the credit of His name, in order to destroy the gospel from its very foundations. Only preach circumcision, accept the religion of the flesh, and all difficulty will cease; the world will accept your gospel, but it will not be the gospel of Christ. The cross in itself (that is, the total ruin of man-man proved to be the enemy of God), and perfect finished redemption by grace, will always be a stumbling-block to one who desires to maintain some credit for the flesh. “Would to God,” says the apostle-for he sees the whole gospel falling into ruin before this device, and souls destroyed-”would to God that they who trouble you were cut off!” What have we seen since then? Where is the holy indignation of the apostle?
He then touches on the point of the practical consequences of this doctrine, and explains how the doctrine of perfect grace was connected, without the law, with a walk worthy of the people of God. Ye have then been called, he says, unto liberty: only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh-which the flesh would readily do. God gave the law to convince of sin; the flesh would use it to work out righteousness. He acts in grace, that we may be above sin and outside its dominion: the flesh would use grace as an occasion to sin without restraint. The Christian, truly free from the yoke of sin, as well as from its condemnation (for Christ risen is his life as well as his righteousness, and the Spirit is the power and guide of his walk towards glory, and according to Christ), instead of serving his lusts, seeks to serve others, as free to do it in love. Thus the law itself is fulfilled, without our being under its yoke: for the whole practical law is summed up in this word: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
If, yielding to the flesh, and attacking those who were not circumcised, they devoured one another, they were to take heed that they were not consumed one of another. But the apostle would give something more positive. “This I say then,” he continues, after the interruption of his subject, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” It is not by putting oneself under the law that one has power against sin. It is the Spirit (given in virtue of the ascension of Christ our righteousness, to the right hand of God) who is the Christian’s strength. Now the two powers, the flesh and the Spirit, are antagonistic. The flesh strives to hinder us when we would walk according to the Spirit, and the Spirit resists the working of the flesh to prevent it from accomplishing its will.[5] But if we are led of the Spirit, we are not under the law. Holiness, true holiness, is accomplished without the law, even as righteousness is not founded on it. ‘Nor is there any difficulty in judging between what is of the flesh and what is of the Spirit; the apostle enumerates the sad fruits of the former, adding the sure testimony that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The fruits of the Spirit are equally evident in their character, and assuredly against such things there was no law. If we walk according to the Spirit, the law will find nothing to condemn in us. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh and its lusts. This is what they are, inasmuch as they are Christians; it is that which distinguishes them. If these Galatians really lived, it was in the Spirit: let them then walk in the Spirit.
Footnotes for Galatians Chapter 5
5: It is not “so that ye cannot,” but “in order that ye might not.”
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv13, 25 G. Extended exhortation to the Qalatians, instead of turning…
G. Extended exhortation to the Qalatians, instead of turning back from Faith to works of the Law, to give activity to their Faith (in a right understanding of Christian freedom) by ministering Love, as the best fulfilment of the Law
Gal_5:13 to Gal_6:10
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1. More general—reverting to the principle of ethical opposition between Spirit and Flesh, in a discussion, partly didactic
(Gal_5:13-24)
(Gal_5:16-24.—Epistle for 14th Sunday after Trinity)
13For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty [ye were called unto liberty, brethren];14 only use not liberty [or your liberty] for an occasion to the flesh, but by [or by means of your] love serve one another. 14For all the [the whole] law is fulfilled15 in one word,16 even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.17 15But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. 16 This I say then [Now I say], Walk in [by]18 the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and [for]19 these are contrary [opposed] the one to the other; so that 18ye cannot do the things that ye would [that20 ye may not do what things ye would]. But if ye be led of [by] the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these [of which kind are],21 adultery [omit adultery],22 20fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness [wantonness], idolatry, witchcraft [sorcery], hatred [hatreds], variance [strife],23 emulations [jealousy], wrath, strife, seditions, 21heresies [caballings, dissensions, factions], envyings, murders,24 drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past [I forewarn you as I did forewarn you], that they which do such things [as these]25 shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 23longsuffering, gentleness [benignity], goodness, faith [or trustfulness], Meekness, 24temperance: against such [as these] there is no law. And [Now]26 they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the [its] affections and lusts.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Gal_5:13. For ye were called unto liberty, brethren.—“For”: Paul justifies the strong expression, he has used in Gal_5:12, against the false teachers. They deserved this rebuke, for—they seek to deprive you of your freedom, and yet—ye are called to that (by God through your conversion to Christ); therefore they strive against the counsel and will of God Himself.—To this thought: “ye were called unto liberty,” Paul however now adds a restriction, a warning against misunderstanding and misuse of this liberty (which in all that precedes he had vindicated with such decision for Christians, and which he had made it their duty not to surrender): only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, μόνον μὴ κ. τ. λ. We must supply, say τρέπετε=Turn not, use not liberty as a pretext for the flesh=let not the flesh (your sinful human nature) obtain in this freedom (from the law) an occasion to pretend that it is therefore now allowed to man to do what he will, and therefore it also may claim indulgence with its sinful lusts. This of course would be an entire perversion of Christian freedom, were the flesh thus allowed to take advantage of it. The antithesis shows distinctly, what Paul regards as the essence of the sarcical state; not by any means the corporeal nature, properly so called, but the selfish Egoism. For he exhorts: but by your love serve one another; love being conceived as the means of serving.—Δουλεύειν in happy antithesis to the ἐλευθερία of Christians. Christians are not to be servants to the law; in this sense they are free; but on the other hand this freedom does not exclude but includes δουλεύειν in the sense of “serving one another. [Lightfoot: “Both ἀλάπης and δουλεύετε are emphatic. St. Paul’s meaning may be expressed by a paraphrase thus; ‘you desire to be in bondage: I too recommend to you a bondage, the subservience of mutual love. Temper your liberty with this bondage, and it will not degenerate into license’.”—R.]
With this verse a new section, of course, begins, but it is incorrect to begin here, as is variously done, a second or third main division. Above all it is not to be supposed that the Apostle henceforth addresses himself to those Galatian Christians who had held fast the principle of evangelical freedom; on the contrary he has throughout the whole Epistle the same individuals in mind, namely, those led astray by Judaism, and his present exhortation also is immediately connected with the leading thought of the Epistle. How nearly? This he, himself, plainly sets forth in the first place with μόνον μή: the energetic admonition to the maintenance of freedom receives its needful complement in the warning against misuse of the same, by the reference to its ethical character.—But this is unquestionably only one side, hardly more than the mere point of attachment. Paul gives his exhortation to serviceable love not merely as a precaution in case the Galatians, perceiving the inadmissibleness of the legal position, should desire to return to the freer one, but this also belongs, together with the entire explication which it receives in the following verses, to the polemics against their present erroneous view. To that legalism, which he combatted, as slighting faith, and surrendering Itself into false bondage, he opposes as the truth, “the fulfilling of the law” by the activity of faith in love (comp. Gal_5:6), where we make ourselves servants, more generally in a walk by the Spirit, in which one is free from the law in the very “fulfilling” of it (Gal_5:14; Gal_5:18; Gal_5:23). He is the more earnest in holding this up to them, because the Galatians especially, in spite of (or on account of) their legal zeal, were wanting in this fulfilment of the law through a walk by the Spirit, a fulfilment which obliges Christians also (comp., especially Gal_5:15). The same persons who wanted to impose the law upon themselves, were content to be lacking in that which is the heart of the law; those who wished to make themselves servants to the law, would not be servants to one another. It was therefore of moment, to exclaim to these: Behold, what you need, is not in any way to turn yourselves away from faith, as if this were too little, to the law, but simply to make faith active through a walk in the Spirit, in love. Comp. Gal_5:6, and also chap. 6, where the more detailed exhortations follow. We thus see plainly how impossible it is to disconnect this section from the preceding one, how on the other hand it concurs with the entire polemics of the Apostle, nay, how these find in it their true, convincing culmination.—It is of course incorrect to oppose this section, as hortatory, to the preceding part of the Epistle, as didactic, for this reason that the preceding part also includes exhortation (especially ver.1); this however was dogmatic, and now comes ethical exhortation. Unquestionably therefore this section might with some propriety be called the Ethical part, in distinction from the Doctrinal; but if by this were meant, as commonly, that Paul now leaves the controversy concerning the relation of the Law to Faith, and, having no longer in mind the defection of the Galatian churches, merely proceeds to exhort to a walk of Christian morality, with reference to ethical short-comings, this too must be deemed incorrect according to what has been remarked. Moreover, even if such a distinction into a dogmatic and an ethical part is not unwarranted in fact, it is at all events not exact in form; this section cannot be formally contrasted with all that precedes. For certainly the discourse proceeds without interruption; Paul is speaking hortatively to the Galatians (especially from ver.1 on), but on the ground of the doctrinal exposition, and now he merely gives a sudden ethical turn to this exhortation, bringing, as has been remarked, the whole to an appropriate conclusion.27
Gal_5:14. For the whole law is fulfilled.—It is not easy to determine either the meaning of this clause, or its connection with what precedes. The first explanation, which offers itself on account of ἐν ἑνὶ λόγῳ, taken πληροῦται as= ἀνακεφαλαιοῦται, comprehenditur, as Rom_8:9. [So Luther, Calvin, Olshausen, et al.—R.] But this must be rejected as lexically untenable. Besides with the reading [now generally adopted], πεπλήρωται it becomes at once incorrect.—As little does νόμον πληρ. have here the same sense as in Mat_5:17=to bring out, to make evident the deeper sense, the ideal substance in distinction from the literal form. Doubtless it is not a πληροῦν in the doctrine that is here in question, and in reality, if πληρ. were taken in this sense, the explanation would come back again to the one already disapproved, namely, that the commandment of love to our neighbor is the substance of ὁ πᾶς νόμος, since that which is substance, in another aspect, is also foundation. Πληροῦν is to be understood of fulfilment by deed, conformity, satisfacere legi. [Ellicott: “The perfect πεπλήρωται suitably points to the completed and permanent act.”—R.] It is peculiar then, no doubt, that this is said to be in one word, ἐν ἑνὶ λόλῳ, and this to be regarded as an abbreviated expression for; By conformity to the one word, precept (from Lev_19:18), immediately follows: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.—[Meyer: “Neighbor is for the Christian, who rightly (Mat_5:17) applies this Mosaic command to himself, his fellow-Christian (comp. Gal_5:13, ἀλλήλοις), as for the Jew it was fellow-Jew; but how little this is to be taken as excluding any one whatever, is shown by the whole spirit of Christianity, which finds its most beautiful expression in the case of the Samaritan (Luke 10); Paul himself was such a Samaritan toward Jew and Gentile.”—R.] But how far does Paul declare obedience to the one commandment of love to our neighbor, an obedience to the whole law? Not in the sense in which Love is styled πλήρωμα νόμου (Rom_13:8-10). Nearly related as the two passages appear to be, they must by no means be confounded. For in Romans 13 it is expressly stated what is to be understood by νόμος, namely, the individual commandments of the Decalogue which respect conduct towards our neighbor, and love is called the πλήρωμα of those, because, whoever has the dispositions of love, and in truth only such a one, will of course fulfil also the duties of love commanded by the law. But that “the whole law” in this passage is not to be arbitrarily turned into “second table of the Decalogue,” nor even interpreted generally = Moral law, is plain; on the contrary, it doubtless signifies nothing else than: the whole Mosaic law. But in the second place it is also clear, that Paul cannot mean to say, that in love to our neighbor is found the pledge of the fulfilment of the whole law. For this latter Paul has not at all in mind, it is precisely the opposite that he is aiming at; his meaning is, that on him who does this there is no future requirement made in respect to observance of the law, that from this he is free. The sense of πεπλήρωται can therefore only be: He is to be regarded as if he had fulfilled the law, and therefore the law can exact nothing further of him. By no means therefore is the commandment of love to our neighbor regarded by Paul as the summary of the whole law; this would be entirely incorrect. He will rather say this, that if any one fulfils this, all the rest comes no more into account; of course, with reference to his emphatic demonstration in what precedes, that the law has lost its binding force for the believer. If the believer now does not take this faith to be a dead one, but quickens it through love, he has done all; there can be of further claims of the law upon him no mention, but he ought on the other side to have and exercise love, for only then can he regard himself as free from the claims of the whole land besides, only then, in fact, is he a believer.—If it is asked how Paul could view the whole law as fulfilled in love to our neighbor, especially without even mentioning love to God, this question is mostly raised with the understanding that he means to designate the commandment of love to our neighbor as the summary, or the fulfilment of it as the condition and principle of the fulfilment of the whole law; and if he meant it so, his assertion must unquestionably be declared unwarranted.28 (Where the former is in question, Jesus in Mat_21:34 sq. places the two commandments together; and where the latter, Paul, Romans 13., restricts the law to the second table.) But this understanding of his proposition has been already designated as incorrect. He doubtless means to say: Of him who has love to his neighbor the law can exact nothing more. The question, rightly stated, is therefore only this: How could Paul attribute to love towards our neighbor so eminent a position, that he designates him who should fulfil it as free from all else? Must he not also, nay, above all, demand of the believer a fulfilling of the commandment of love to God, and could he, except on condition that both were found in a man, esteem it equivalent to a fulfilment of the whole law? As to this it is simply to be remarked, that (1) he conceives Faith as essentially comprehending love to God, and (2) cannot conceive love to our neighbor without love to God, and therefore in demanding the former from Christians, he of course does not mean to release them from the latter. He does not, however, mention love to God, for his exhortation has not respect to a merely inward fulfilling of the law, belonging to the disposition, but to that fulfilling of the law which comes into manifestation, and shows itself forth in the walk, to the true ethical conduct of the life, and especially of the common life, and this rests upon love to our neighbor. Therefore this only is made the subject of discourse.—If now the Apostle uses this proposition to establish the preceding exhortation (γάρ), this is not in the sense that he means thereby to represent the “serving by love” (Gal_5:13), as a divine duty because commanded by the law; after he has previously denied so decidedly that Christians are under the law, he cannot make the fact that it is commanded in the law a motive for the exercise of love. The principal emphasis lies rather upon πᾶς and πεπλήρ., on the circumstance that through serving love the whole law is fulfilled, in the sense given=enough has been done for the law, i. e., negatively, they are therewith absolved from the rest of the law. Therefore nearly=Love one another: for therewith the whole ground of controversy, respecting the observance of the law, whether this or that precept is to be observed, is taken away. The whole sentence, therefore, serves rather to strengthen his exhortation than to give, strictly speaking, a reason for it. The commandment of love to our neighbor, although expressed by a citation from the law (Leviticus): ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλ. κ. τ. λ, does not therefore come into consideration as a particular commandment of the law, as if Paul from the other commandments, as being abrogated, excepts this one as remaining in force; only the commandment to exercise love towards our neighbor remains in fact valid for the Christian (and if it is done, the law has no further claim upon him); but to him it is a commandment not on account of the law, but because he is a Christian, on account of his faith in Christ, or because (Gal_5:6) “in Christ” alone “faith working through love” “availeth anything.” Into the question how far the faith in Christ obliges to love, Paul does not enter, but he then goes on to show that this love is the operation of the Spirit, which faith brings.—While the proposition serves primarily to commend the exhortation, and while such an argument must have had the more weight for this end with those zealous for the law, yet of course at the same time it deals a blow against this zeal for the law, and exhibits its emptiness; for all the rest, the many observances are, according to it, purely superfluous; with the one thing. Love to our neighbor, all is done. [Meyer “Paul looked down from a lofty spiritual level, and saw all other commands of the law subordinated to the law of love, that whoever had fulfilled this command, must be treated as having fulfilled the whole.” The fact that Paul chose this particular expression, “the whole law is fulfilled,” places his teaching in opposition to antinomian tendencies, just as the Sermon on the Mount shows Christ’s position to the law, viewed as a purely ethical rule of life. “The whole law,” i. e., the Mosaic law, regarded in this light, was fulfilled in the case of the believer by this love to his neighbor; for the whole law of Moses had an ethical purpose, which purpose is now fulfilled to its full extent only when the believer, because he as a believer, is living “by the Spirit.” has that temper of heart to God, which enables him to obey this “one word.”—Schmoller insists too strongly on the idea that “all the rest are superfluous.” It is doubtful whether this is implied even in Gal_5:18. The Doctrinal Notes show his meaning more clearly.—R.]
Gal_5:15. But if ye bite and devour one another.—This is = if ye intend of serving one another through love, do just the opposite: bear ill will towards and hate one another, and let this come into act, plot mischief against one another, yea, seek to destroy one another; something like this is the sense of these strong expressions borrowed from ravening beasts. Then take heed, adds Paul with incisive words, that the result be not the opposite of what you intend, that ye be not consumed of one another.—Each might be disposed to supplant the other, but in the end it will come to this, all will be wasted away. The sentence thus coöperates per contrarium to the establishment of Gal_5:12. The explanation: “your Christian community will go to pieces,” I am inclined to regard as too special. It is not improbable, indeed, that this influence of the Judaizers occasioned divisions among the Galatians, and threw them into controversies upon the question of the law; yet I should not be disposed to refer this δάκνειν καὶ κατεσθίειν so definitely to that, as is commonly done. For this is at least intimated nowhere else in the Epistle.
Gal_5:16. Now I say, walk by the Spirit.—With λέγω δέ Paul conducts his exhortation to serve one another by love (agreeably to the warning already given in the first half of Gal_5:13.) back to a more general, fundamental exhortation to walk by the Spirit (for in the Spirit he sees the Agent that leads to love), and then designates Spirit and Flesh as the two ethical principles opposite to one another, expressing themselves in opposite workings.—Πνεύματιπεριπ. Dative of instrument; properly: walk through the Spirit, so that He is (not the path in which—Wieseler, but) the power, through which they walk=πνεύματι ἀγόμενοι, Gal_5:18. [The dative may be instrumental, as in Gal_5:18, but it is better, perhaps, with Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, to consider it a normal dative, that by which, according to which they are to walk (almost =κατὰ πνεῦμα), for the reason that “Spirit” is contrasted in this passage not merely with “flesh,” but also with “law,” and the double contrast is best brought out thus, since under the idea of the normal dative, that of rule or direction is included. Wieseler brings out the same meaning, but takes the dative as instrumental.—R.] Πνεῦμα is here also doubtless =The Holy Ghost; it is this, that overcomes the σάρξ. He enters, it is true, into the hearts of believers, and works only by impelling and determining the walk, as He who dwells in the believers. But yet πνεῦμα is not on this account=the new disposition of the believer himself, sanctified by the Spirit, but remains ever distinct from the individual human spirit as Divine, transcending it. [Meyer adopts this view, and remarks that the absence of the article is not against it. “The distinction affirmed by Harless, that τὸ πνεῦμα means the objective Holy Ghost, πνεῦμα without the article the subjective, cannot be justified, since πνεῦμα has the nature of a proper name, and always, even when it dwells and reigns in the human spirit, remains objective, as the Divine πνεῦμα specifically distinct from the human (Rom_7:16).”—R.]
And ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.—We are led to construe this clause, as one of result, both by grammatical considerations (καί with οὐ μή and the subjunctive or future after an imperative has this force commonly) and by the context. In “walk by the Spirit” he indicates the means of victory over “the lust of the flesh.” [On the grammatical point urged above, see the note of Ellicott in loco. He claims that the clause might be imperative, but “as there is no distinct instance of such a construction in the New Testament, and still more as the next verses seem more naturally to supply the reasons for the assertion than for the command, it seems best to adopt the future translation.” (So E. V., Meyer also in 4th ed., and above.) This future with οὐ μή is strong: “shall in no wise” (Lightfoot).—On the word “flesh,” see Doctrinal Note 4.—R.]
Gal_5:17. For.—This introduces, in the first place, simply the proof of a “lust of the flesh” (Gal_5:16)=of such an one I speak, for the flesh lusteth. Paul does not stop, however, but is led further to the antagonistic idea ἐπιθυμεῖν Πνεῦμα.—Against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.—Each principle combats the other, and seeks to wrest the dominion from it, and on the other hand to place itself in the possession of this. [It is scarcely proper to supply the verb ἐπιθυμεῖν with Πνεῦμα, but the Apostle’s meaning is obvious. Lightfoot suggests “strives,” “fights against.”—R.] This is explained by what follows: these are opposed the one to the other, that ἴνα=with the design, that ye may not do what things ye would, bring into effect precisely the desire which you have admitted into your will. Ἃἂνθέλητε is neither to be restricted to the good nor to the evil will. The inquiry whether the two powers in the cases in question, attain the object desired by them or not, is not proposed here, since the only purpose is to bring vividly to view the irreconcilable antagonism of their tendencies. Wieseler. Ἵνα is therefore not at all to be understood in an ecbatic sense. [Alford: “The necessity of supposing an ecbatic meaning for ἵνα in theology is obviated by remembering, that with God results are all purposed.—R.] The contest moreover is by no means to be conceived as an interminable one. The context shows that on the contrary there is expected of the Christian a complete surrendering of himself in order to be actuated by the one principle, the Spirit, and a refusal to give way to the lust of the flesh, whose motions, it is true, must still be experienced. The passage therefore, is entirely different from Rom_7:17 sq. [The reference is to “the free-will in its ordinary acceptation, subject only to this necessary and obvious limitation, that this conflict must be only predicated in its full extent, of the earlier and more imperfect stages of a Christian course. The state of the true believer is conflict, but with final victory.” Ellicott.—R.]
Gal_5:18 then speaks of the victoy of this principle: But if ye be led by the Spirit=if the combat becomes a victory, and that on the right side; if the ἐπιθ. of the πν. becomes an ἄγειν. [Bengel: ubi vero spiritus vincit, acie res decernitur. The dative here is instrumental.—R.]—Ye are not under the law.—This is according to Gal_5:14; there it was only stated specially of love, here generally of the “being led by the Spirit,” which correspondence makes evident, how Paul regards its relation to the exercise of love; the two are to him essentially one, that is, the former is the principle of the latter. What in Gal_5:14 is called somewhat enigmatically a fulfilling of the whole law, is here simply and literally described as “a not being under the law.” The latter is essentially identical with the former; the sense is: The law then can exact nothing more of you; implying naturally: for you are then in the right ethical condition beseeming the Christian, even though not carrying out every detail prescribed in the law. But if you—is the thought implied—are not led by the Spirit, you are then still under obligation to the law; for you are then in fact not yet all in Christ. [Meyer: “Through the impelling power of the Spirit you find yourselves in such a moral condition of life (‘newness of life,’ Rom_6:4) that the law has no power to find fault with you, to condemn and punish you. This explanation is the only correct one according to Gal_5:23 : and this freedom is the true moral freedom from the law.” So Ellicott, who remarks: “The more obvious conclusion might have seemed, ‘ye are not under the influence of the flesh,’ but as the law was confessedly the principle which was ordained the influences and works of the flesh, the Apostle (in accordance with the general direction of his argument) draws his conclusion relatively rather to the principle, than to the mere state and influences against which that principle was ordained.” It must be borne in mind that Paul’s use of the phrase “under the law” usually regards the law as a judge and pedagogue; here the Christian is viewed as one led by the Spirit, and thus taken from “under the law,” but so led according to the law, as a guide to our new life of gratitude, that of the fruit of the Spirit it is ever true “against such there is no law” (Gal_5:23).—R.]
Gal_5:19-21. Now the works of the flesh are manifest.—Φανερά, evident=plainly conspicuous and therefore of course undeniable. This φανερά is the main point, and therefore placed first. For Paul wishes to furnish the Galatians inducement for being “led by the Spirit,” and therefore he not only calls the works of the flesh “evident,” but moreover carefully enumerates them, portrays them before their eyes (puts them in the pillory); so that every one may know, what conversely belongs to being led by the Spirit, that one may not practice such things, if he will be one led by the Spirit and not under the law. The positive side is then given Gal_5:22 sq.—That Paul does not mean to say that all of these things are found among the Galatians, is easily understood.—“Works of the flesh”=“that which is brought to pass when the flesh, i. e., the sinful human nature, and not the Holy Ghost, is the actuating principle.” Meyer. Therefore naturally many sins are here enumerated, which are by no means carnal sins in the common acceptation, but rather in a very special sense sins against love, agreeably to the context. There are four classes: 1. Lust (πορν.—ἀσελγ.) 2. Idolatry (εἰδωλολ., φαρμ.), 3. Contentiousness (ἔχθραι—φόνοι). 4. Intemperance (μέθαι—κῶμοι). The third class is treated the most in detail. [While we must not regard this specification as a charge against the Galatians in particular, it is extremely improbable that the Apostle would not choose such sins as most “easily beset” his readers. Lightfoot very properly observes: “From early habit and constant association a Gentile church would be exposed to sins of the first two classes. The third would be a probable consequence of their religious dissensions, inflaming the excitable temperament of a Celtic people. The fourth seems to be thrown in to give a sort of completeness to the list, though not unfitly addressed, to a nation whose Gallic descent perhaps disposed them too easily to these excesses.”—R.]—Uncleanliness, ἀκαθ., lustful impurity in general after the special fornication, πορνεία; wantonness, ἀσελγ., lustful wantonness. [Lightfoot: “The same three words occur together in a different order, 2Co_12:21. The order here is perhaps the more natural: πορνεία a special form of impurity;29 ἀκαθαρσία uncleanness in whatever guise, ἀσέλγεια an open reckless contempt of propriety. A man may be ἀκάθαρτος and hide his sin; he does not become ἀσελγής until he shocks public decency.” As the reference in the New Testament is usually to sensuality, “wantonness” is the best rendering, “standing as it does, by the double meaning which it has, in remarkable ethical connexion with this word” ἀσέλγεια. See Trench, Syn. New Testament § xvi.—R.]—The transition from the first class to the second is easily found in the fact that with idolatrous worship many forms of unchastity were connected; but idolatry is not on that account to be considered as a species of lustful indulgence. [Yet the two forms of sin are so frequently joined together in the New Testament and the latter is so common a metaphor for the former in the Old Testament, as to suggest a more intimate connection than the simple fact that sensual excesses usually accompanied idolatrous worship. This fact must be regarded as an indication of some underlying affinity.—R.]—Φαρμακεία, here apparently, in juxtaposition with idolatry=Sorcery, not poisoning, [Lightfoot: “ ‘Idolatry,’ the open recognition of false gods, ‘sorcery,’ the secret tampering with the powers of evil. It is a striking coincidence, if nothing more, that φαρμακεῖαι were condemned by a very stringent canon of the council held at Ancyra, the capital of Galatia, about A. D. 314.”—R.]—Third class: the substantives up to αἱρέσεις have reference to dissension, the first four as shown in individual conduct, among which however, jealousy, ζῆλος and wrath, θυμοί, refer to the inner aspect, the source. [The latter is rendered “displays of wrath” by Ellicott, and thus referred to outward manifestations, which seems preferable, since the plural is used, serving to denote the concrete form of the abstract sin (so too the plurals which follow); were the reference to the source the singular were more appropriate. See Trench, Syn. New Testament, § xxvii., on the precise meaning of the word.—R.] The three following, caballings, dissensions, factions refer to the dissension of bodies of men.—Envyings, murders follow these, evidently named together mainly on account of the paronomasia, since φθόνος would otherwise belong with ζῆλος; “murders,” however, fittingly closes the list as the culmination of discord. Besides, the two are perhaps put in juxtaposition with reference to the concurrence of envy and murder in the first murder, comp. 1Jn_3:12. [Lightfoot: “A principle of order may be observed in the enumeration: 1. ἔχθραι, a general expression opposed to άγἀπη, breaches of charity in feeling or in act; from this point onward the terms are in an ascending scale: 2. ἔρις ‘strife,’ not necessarily implying self-interest; 3. ζῆλος ‘rivalry’ in which the idea of self-assertion is prominent: 4. θυμοὶ ‘wraths,’ a more passionate form of ἔρις; 5. ἐριθεῖαι30 ‘factious cabals,’ a stronger development of ζῆλος: 6, 7. hostility has reached the point where the contending parties separate; such separation is either temporary (διχοστασίαι ‘divisions’), or permanent (αἱρέσεις ‘sects, heresies’): 8. φθόνοι, a grosser breach of charity than any hitherto mentioned, the wish to deprive another of what he has; 9. φόνοι, the extreme form which hatred can take, the deprivation of life.”—On drunkenness, revellings, Ellicott remarks: “the latter is the more generic and inclusive, to which the former was the usual accompaniment.”—R.]—In order to brand still further “the works of the flesh,” and to restrain from them, he points moreover to the punishment decreed against them, in words which are meant to express: that however often one might come to speak of them, he would always have to render the same judgment, and to express moreover that this judgment might be rendered in advance with perfect distinctness.—Προ in προλέγω and προεῖπον=before it comes; the preterite in προεῖπον=during my presence among you.—Shall not inherit the kingdom of God.—Just as in 1Co_6:9 sq.; Eph_5:5, of course with the pre-supposition: If no conversion intervenes.
Gal_5:22-23. After the negative exposition, Paul now states explicitly in what the being led by the Spirit consists, or, more particularly, reveals itself.—The fruit of the Spirit.—Καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματος, essentially the same as ἔργα, “works,” Gal_5:19 : That which comes to pass, which is brought into effect, when the Holy Ghost is the impelling principle. But in what follows it is only qualities that are mentioned, and not works, and so of course ἔργα was not appropriate. And certainly it is not unintentional, that Paul in the first place names only the inward “fruit of the Spirit,” consisting in the disposition of the soul, for the reason that the Spirit primarily and principally changes and must change the inward disposition. When this is done, there is a genuine leading by the Spirit, living by the Spirit, which then finds external manifestation also in a walking by the Spirit.—The singular καρπός also is significant, “proceeding from the conception of the inward unity and ethical continuity of all that the Spirit works.” As “Spirit” in this connection is conceived as the principle from which serving love proceeds, the enumeration of precisely these virtues is easily explicable. That many things besides are effected by the Spirit, does not need to be said. At the head stands Love, as the most general, and at the same time the chief virtue of Christians (comp. Gal_5:13-14). Gal 10: Χαρά, one is inclined to take as Joy with the brethren, opposed to ζῆλοι, φθόυοι. It is no objection that this incidental idea is not contained in the word itself; the connection might easily indicate in what particular sense χαρά is here to be taken. Yet the explanation of it as the inward joyfulness of the Christian in the consciousness of the love of God may also be justified, as this too stands in close connection with his conduct towards his brethren, and is incompatible with an unloving behavior. At all events the following words from εἰρήνη to πραΰτης belong together, as designating the fruits of “love,” unselfish love; εἰρήνη therefore denotes peace with others, μακροθυμία patience under injuries, χρηστ. gracious, friendly character, ἀγαθ. is nearly related to this: Benevolence (Luther); not so generally as, good dispositions (the special meaning is quite frequent in the Septuagint): πίστις here of course not=justifying faith, but either trustfulness, as opposed to mistrust, or faithfulness.—Finally, temperance, ἐγκράτεια, is added in antithesis particularly to the sins of lust and intemperance (Gal_5:19-21).—[Here again Lightfoot is excellent: “The difficulty of classification in this list is still greater than in the case of the works of the flesh. Nevertheless some sort of order may be observed. The catalogue falls into three groups of three each. The first of these comprises Christian habits of mind in their more general aspect, ‘love, joy, peace.’ (The fabric is built up story upon story. Love is the foundation, joy the superstructure, peace the crown of all.) The second gives special qualities affecting a man’s intercourse with his neighbor, ‘long-suffering, kindness, beneficence.’ (This triad is again arranged in an ascending scale; μακροθυμία is passive, ‘patient endurance under injuries inflicted by others;’ Χρηστότης, neutral, ‘a kindly disposition towards one’s neighbors’ not necessarily taking a practical form;31 ἀγαθωσύνη, active, ‘goodness, beneficence’ as an energetic principle.) The third, again general in character like the first, exhibits the principles which guide a Christian’s conduct.”—Ellicott: “Ἐγκράτεια, ‘temperance,’ is distinguished by Diog. Laert, from σωφροσύνη as implying a control over the stronger passions, whereas the latter implies a self-restraint in what is less vehement.”—R.]—Against such as these there Is no law.—Τοιούτων is neuter, as in Gal_5:21, and the sense is: Such virtues the law condemns not. This, however, implies of course: Against those that possess such qualities the law is not, and this is the same thought, only more specially conceived, as in Gal_5:14; Gal_5:18. The law requires nothing more of them, and therefore also it can bring no accusations against them. [Or rather, because the law can find nothing to oppose or restrain in such things (which fulfil its ethical purpose), the law has no power over those who bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Schmoller presses too strongly the implied thought. Beza and others make a meiosis here: these are pleasing to God, but as Meyer remarks: Paul wishes to explain only what he has said in Gal_5:18 of those led by the Spirit. He sets forth the fruit of the Spirit and says: against virtues and states such as these the law is not, and he thus makes clear, how those led by the Spirit by virtue of their moral condition are not subject to the Mosaic law. For whoever is so circumstanced, that a law is not against him, over him it has no power.—R.]
Gal_5:24. And they that are Christ’s.—Another proposition weighty in itself, and especially also in the connection. It joins on well to what precedes, with which it is probably better to connect it, although on the other hand what follows naturally connects itself with this. That is, as Paul went back from the exhortation to the exercise of love towards our neighbor to the exhortation to a walk in the Spirit, as the principle of love, so now he goes back beyond that again, and shows how this walk in the Spirit is itself grounded in fellowship with Christ. As thus, in the first place he spoke of the fruit of the Spirit, and then says: Now it is those that are Christ’s, who have crucified their flesh, etc.; who therefore have crucified the very disposition opposed to the aforesaid fruit of the Spirit, the disposition from which the works of the flesh proceed, so that the opposite disposition, the fruit of the Spirit, can find a place. [Ellicott: “The connection of the whole paragraph appears to be as follows:—‘The Spirit and the flesh are contrary to each other; if the flesh prevail, man is given over to all sin, and excluded from the kingdom of God: if the Spirit be the leading principle, man brings forth good fruits, and is free from the curse of the law. Now the distinguishing feature of the true Christian is the crucifixion of the flesh; consequently, it must be obvious from what has been said, the living in and being led by the Spirit’.”—R.]—Have crucified, ἐσταύρωσαν.—This is conceived as something accomplished, and is therefore apparently to be referred to an individual act, the act of becoming a Christian through faith and baptism. The meaning, to be sure, is not, that now the flesh, with its affections and lusts, is not any longer present at all with those that have become Christians. But yet at least a walk in the flesh should not any longer exist in the case of Christians; we may declare to these that such a walk is in contradiction to their essential character as Christians, and that a walk in the Spirit may rightly be expected of them; yet this is only possible because we may urge this upon them: You now have crucified the flesh. It is to be noted also, that the language is not: slain, but, crucified. The former could not so well be said, as it is conceived rather as a task of the Christian to be accomplished only by continual effort (Col_3:5). In “crucified,” however, the simple slaying is not the main idea, but the condemning, giving sentence, surrendering to infamous death; and this has necessarily taken place in becoming Christ’s. [Ellicott: “Though this ethical crucifixion is here designated as an act past, it really is and must be a continuing act as well. This however the aorist, with its usual and proper force, leaves unnoticed; it simply specifies, in the form of a general truth, the act as belonging to the past, without affirming or denying any reference to the present. In all such cases the regular reference of the tense to the past may be felt in the kind of summary way in which the action is stated,—the sort of implied dismissal of the subject, and procedure to something fresh.”—R.]—Ἐσταύρ. naturally alludes to the cross of Christ, and the fellowship with Christ involves a crucifixion of the flesh for the very reason that it is fellowship with Christ’s death on the cross; for through this the fact that men’s σάρξ deserves condemnation and is obnoxious to death, is demonstrated and set forth in a way of irresistible force; for Christ indeed has only suffered what men have deserved on account of their sinful “flesh,” and therefore what this itself has deserved. Whoever therefore appropriates to himself in faith Christ’s death upon the cross, regards the “flesh” in himself no longer; for him in Christ’s death this has been crucified. (Comp. Rom_6:6.) [Meyer: “ ‘Have crucified the flesh,’ expresses: to have divested themselves of all vital fellowship with sin, whose seat the σάρξ is, so that, as Christ was objectively crucified, we, by means of the entrance into the fellowship of this death on the cross, crucify the σάρξ subjectively, moral consciousness of faith, i.e., have made it entirely lifeless and inoperative through faith as the new vital element, to which we have passed over. To Christians considered ideally as here, this ethical slaying of the flesh is something which has taken place, in reality however, it is also something taking place and continuing.”—R.] Παθήματα are passions, aroused by the σάρξ in the sensibility; these then show themselves active in definite sinful lusts, ἐπιθυμίαι. In the παθ. the man is, as is implied in the word passive; but this passivity becomes activity in the ἐπιθυμίαι. [Comp. Col_3:5, and see Trench, Syn. New Testament, 2d series, § xxxvii.—R.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Men are pointed away from the law and to faith, first and above all, because only faith in Christ and not the keeping of the precepts of the law, or the doing of works of the law, is the way to the attaining of justification and of the divine inheritance (subjectively: to the attaining of the comfort of the forgiveness of sins, of the adoption of children and the hope of the eternal inheritance). For him who has this faith, the law loses its importance, for the reason that a usus justificatorius it has not, while it has already fulfilled its usus pædagogicus, of impelling to faith, in the case of such a one.—But nevertheless the Apostle is the farthest possible from meaning that the believer on Christ is dispensed from giving a truly moral (ethico-religious) character to his inward disposition and his life (from the doing of “good works”), and is entitled to persevere in sin, that is, to indulge the “flesh.” So far is this from being true that this, despite his faith and despite the fact that faith is the condition of salvation, nevertheless excludes him from the kingdom of God and from eternal life (Gal_5:21; Gal_6:8). And, indeed, this cannot be the opinion of the Christian, for this his faith in Christ involves not merely an impulse and power to the avoidance of sin, to the willing and doing of good, but because it is a coming into fellowship with Christ’s death, it immediately involves also the arising of a hatred against sin, a condemning of the flesh (Gal_5:21), and because it is a receiving of Christ, it involves also the beginning of a life for God (comp. Gal_2:19 sq. and the Doctrinal Notes on that section). The latter fact, the new life, which arises or is given with faith on Christ, receives in this section its exact expression; there begins in man a working of the Spirit (πνεῦμα), who, overcoming the flesh (Gal_5:16), brings forth fruit in an ethically good, God-pleasing disposition of heart and life (Gal_5:22 sq.). Nay, it is only this faith in Christ which leads to this goal, as it is only this which leads to the other goal of justification. The law cannot effect this second, and quite as little can it effect the first. On the contrary, it arouses the σάρξ (and the ἁμαρτία dwelling therein), but does not assist to the receiving of the Spirit (comp. Gal_2:2, and Rom_7:8). So little therefore does faith in Christ dispense from a disposition and course of action pleasing to God, that it is just this, nay more, only this which leads thereto. If any one is disposed to call this disposition and activity to the Christian, thus conformed to God’s will, a “fulfilling of the law,” he does not name it wrongly; only in doing it he is to keep in mind (1) that it is not to be understood in a formal, but only in a material relation: a doing of that which the law commands, yet not because the law commands it, but in the strength and on the impulse of faith, or more properly, of the Spirit, something therefore entirely different from what Paul calls “works of the law;” it is that which he so often names ἔργα ἀγαθά, works of the Spirit, rather than of the law; (2) that in this appellation law is taken in a quite restricted sense, of the properly ethical commandments (see Rom_13:8 sq., where it plainly appears what Paul means by the νόμος; when he speaks generally, he uses the expression ἐντολαὶ θεοῦ, 1Co_7:19). “Fulfilling of the law” will therefore always be an only partially adequate expression for a Christian life, a conformity of the life to God’s will. Entirely abandoning the Old Testament point of view therefore, Paul speaks directly of an ἀναπληροῦν τὸν νόμον Χριστοῦ (Gal_6:2).32
2. But it is true that the “doing of good works” the making faith active in a walk and mind pleasing to God, does not come to pass, as it were, of itself (as might appear from what precedes), even with the believer (even though, as of course is pre-supposed, his faith is an actual one of inward persuasion, and not merely nominal, is actually equivalent to a τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἶναι, and therefore bears within it the energy perfectly adequate to a moral renewal of the life). Even with the believer the σάρξ has not disappeared. Therefore, although abstractly we must say: the believer cannot dispense himself from a genuine ethical renewal of his life, yet in concreto we are rather to say: He ought not. The “thou oughtest” comes back even to him who stands on the foundation of faith. This appears in the case of the believer, in a twofold manner. In the first place and chiefly on the side of the πνεὺμα, which he receives in faith; for this works not merely as it were physically, in the form of an energy of nature, converting the will of man into agreement with the mind of God (and the figure of the καρπός must be understood cum grano salis: a bare growing up it certainly is not); the result is brought about ethically and not physically; the πνεῦμα also approaches the will with requirements, which it is true are far more intensive, which have as it were a quite different power of bending the will from the requirements of the law or of the conscience (the law of the letter or of the conscience); for they are strengthened by the persuasion which is received along with faith into the heart, of the condemnation of sin as well as the forgiveness of it, of the holiness as well as the compassion inhering in the grace of God in Christ. But it is with an “ought,” however intensive, that the πνεῦμα in the believer approaches the will of man, and seeks to determine it to let itself be guided by him, to determine it to the ἄγεσθαι and then also to the πνεύματι περιπατεῖν: and in doing this he meets with many hindrances on the side of the σάρξ (Gal_5:17).—This is the immediate, inward “ought” that has place and is needful even with the believer. But to this inward monition and impulse of the Spirit, there must be added, in order to keep it ever alive and guard it against all impure admixture, one coming from without. Of this we have in this very section the speaking proof. The Apostle sees occasion given him to admonish the Galatian Christians with earnest words to a disposition and course of life answerable to their faith; he approaches them with an “Ought:” “So ought it to be with Christians = because you believe in Christ!” And his admonition here and elsewhere holds good also for us; it is the testimony of the Spirit conveyed through the word—testimonium externum (in distinction from internum)—the comprehensive exposition of which is the function of New Testament ethics.
3. That even the believer is not and cannot be spared the earnestly admonishing and impelling “ought” because even with him there is not found a steady will (on account of the old Adam), is the meaning of the church doctrine of the tertius legis usus, the usus legis with the renatus (the us. didact. or normal.), and understood in this sense it is correct. But as it is expressed it is distorted and incorrect, and is in conflict with the indisputable Pauline doctrine, that the believer is not ὑπὸ νόμον, that he may not be placed nor place himself under it. He is indeed under a law of the Spirit, so far as the Spirit admonishes, requires, rebukes, yet the Spirit does by no means merely this, but far more; this is the very least that he does. But especially is the believer in no sense whatever under the law of the letter, the Old Testament law, the proper lex, and with all its generalizing of the conception of lex, the Formula Concordiæ, nevertheless, in the section touching this matter does not really go beyond the Mosaic law. It does not arrive at the conception of the law of the Spirit (the law of faith), whether this is entirely inward, or expressed also in the word of Scripture (in the New Testament word of Scripture, which for the fulfilment of the ethical requirement presupposes the faith in Christ with what it has and gives). The law of the letter (the proper lex), has, it is true, its great significance for the believer but it has its place not, so to speak, after Faith, but only before the same, as pædagogus (see above on Gal_3:19 sq.); and in this sense it permanently retains its importance, and is indispensable for faith. That is, the sinfulness and imperfection of the new life even in the believer, make it needful that the law should not once only, but ever afresh, awaken in him the knowledge of sin and the impossibility of himself attaining salvation and eternal life, and by that very means drive him to assure himself of it in. faith in Christ; and so ever impel him anew to faith. So far, therefore, as a usus of the lex, strictly so called, can be predicated even as to the renatus, it falls under the usus pædagogicus, as usus secundus. But in this pedagogy its function is continually exhausting itself again; this function only does Paul ascribe to it, and another, the function docere, ut in vera pietate vivemus et ambu-lemus, we have no right to attribute to it, especially as we thereby come into conflict with the definite assurance that the law only stirs up sin and the σάρξ, and of itself continually hinders anew the Spirit’s gaining dominion and therewith the attainment of the vera pietas. The law contributes directly neither to justification nor to the new life, and cannot therefore be directly the means of maintaining the latter. What it can and should do, was and is, to open the way for that which does lead to justification and to the new life, namely, Faith. As this is its work at first, so is it ever after. The accomplishment of these two things it must then leave to faith, first as that which lays hold of God’s grace—for justification, then as that which has laid hold of it and therewith receives the Spirit. This Holy Ghost now, and not the νόμος, is alone in condition as the spirit of faith to assist to ever renewed victory over the σάρξ, partly through His teaching, partly through His monition, partly through His persuasion and drawing. For if the believer did right because admonished by the law, he would only attain again to ἔργα νόμου, but not to veritable ἔργα ἀγαθά.—Only so much is true, that in concreto very many a Christian, because faith has been with him from the beginning or has become only a name, allows himself to be guided merely by the law of the letter, at least if he has moral earnestness of temper, and thereby accomplishes nothing more than ἔργα νόμου, as to which he simply deceives himself, in accounting them perhaps for ἔργα τοῦ πνεύματος. More or less, moreover, does he seek in these ἔργα νόμου his justification also, and his hope; half-way at least, reckoning as the other half the merit of Christ, yet more in name than in reality. [It is only necessary to remark here, that Paul uses the word νόμος as covering the whole Mosaic law. That this whole Mosaic law has not the third use, of “teaching us how we may live and walk in true piety,” is very evident. So also, that the new life of the believer is only a new life, in so far as it is through the teaching, monition, persuasion and drawing of the Spirit, must be believed and felt by the Christian. Still what does that Spirit teach and admonish us to do? To “walk even as he walked,” all will agree. And how did He walk, that Master whom we follow?—He fulfilled all righteousness, He obeyed the law for us. Clearly then the Spirit, which receives of the things of Christ and shows them unto us, will show us as our duty, what Christ did, the complete obedience to God’s requirements, and this will include all of permanent ethical value in the Mosaic law.—That may be but a part, yet it is a part, for what was in itself right at Sinai’s foot is right at the foot of the cross. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, Holiness is opposed to sin, Sin is opposition to God, it expresses itself in disobedience to His moral law,—the Holy Spirit must teach, admonish, persuade and draw us to the observance of whatever has been at any time an expression of God’s moral law. The law cannot have a usus pædagogicus still, did it not convict us of sin; it cannot convict us of sin, unless its requirements are holy, and just and good; and as such the Spirit of Holiness must teach us the moral law still.—The controversy about the third use of the law, between the Lutherans and Reformed, seems to be one of terms. The only practical question that can arise out of it, is one respecting the obligation to observe the Fourth Commandment.—R.]
4. Spirit and Flesh. Πνεῦμα and σάρξ are the two polar antithesis, as the Apostle most vividly shows in this section, Gal_5:17. Πνεῦμα is the Holy Ghost, the Divine principle, that enters along with faith in Christ into the man, generating in him a divine temper and divine life, and that in conflict with the σάρξ and its παθήματα and ἐπιθυμίαι. Σάρξ is in itself simply (in antithesis to the Divine principle), human nature, of course the whole because the living nature, and embraces therefore body and soul. But it is not human nature on the side of its relation to God, but on the side of its alienation from God, on which side man with relation to God draws himself back upon himself, seeks himself and takes honor to himself, withdrawing it from God; in short human nature as sinful.—The use of “flesh” to denote human nature in general, is grounded in the Hebrew idiom, according to which בָשָׂר is used by synecdoche for the whole man, and this idiom itself is in its turn, without doubt, grounded in the experience and Scriptural doctrine of the frailty of man, which induced the sacred writers to derive the designation for man generally’, from that part of man in which his frailty is most conspicuous. As this frailty again has its ground, according to Biblical teaching, in man’s alienation from God, there became connected with σάρξ, the established designation of human nature, the accessory idea of alienation from God=sinfulness. This took place in the proportion in which this view into man’s alienation from God even from birth, as the deepest ground of his frailty, became clear, and in the New Testament, therefore, more than in the Old.—The expression σάρξ, therefore gives us no right whatever, to think of the bodily organism more than of the soul, and (with reference to the accessory notion of sinfulness,) to find intimated in the expression either the view of the derivation of sin from the body, or an especial reference to so-called fleshly sins more than others. (Comp. Wieseler’s thorough exposition of this conception.)—The essential element in the idea of the σάρξ is the turning away from God and referring ourselves to ourselves, the self-seeking, egoistic element. This is primarily in respect to God, but immediately connected with it is the fact that a man in reference to other men also seeks himself, his enjoyment or his gain. It is easily explicable therefore why love appears as the first effect of the πνεῦμα, being the temper and act opposed to selfishness. In this section the Apostle has, it is true, special occasion to exhort to the love of our neighbor, but his speaking of love is not on this account merely casual. [Comp. on σάρξ, J. Müller, Christian doctrine of sin.—R.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Gal_5:13. Luther:—The natural man understands nothing of the doctrine of grace; therefore comes it, when he hears this doctrine, that he straightway draws it down to his own lust and lewdness, and concludes on this wise; If the law concerns us not and has no right to us, then will we live as we list.—How we at this time have seen in all ranks that all will fain be evangelical and enjoy the Christian liberty, and yet nevertheless the great crowd goes its own way; this one follows his avarice, the other his lewdness, the third his pride and haughtiness, etc.—Rieger:—The liberty to which we are called by the gospel, is not so intended that we may tear ourselves loose from the law at our own will and please the flesh.—Into such a freedom the law can with honor dismiss man; for through Christ and the curse borne on the cross the law has its highest honor, and sin or the flesh wins thereby no advantage. For precisely that which was impossible to the law, namely, to bring to pass an inward enduring hatred against evil and an inward cleaving to good, from a willing heart, is accomplished by faith in Christ, and therefore the liberty of faith is not against the law.—Heubner:—By the side of the highest good stands the highest evil, by the side of freedom, lawlessness. No word has been so abused and desecrated, as Freedom.
Luther:—“By love serve one another.” We must diligently teach in religion both sorts of doctrine, of Faith and Works; yet so that we carry neither too far. Else, where one teaches Works alone, he loses Faith, but if one teaches concerning Faith alone, forthwith gross, carnal men begin to dream that works are not necessary. Yet must the doctrine of Faith be planted first, or it cannot be understood what good works really are.—Although we have been justified, yet have we still sin in us, which rhymes as ill with good works as with faith, but draws us away from both. Besides flesh and reason is so disposed that it has by nature all its delight and pleasure in Pharisaic and superstitious works, and does those works with far greater earnestness which itself has chosen, than those which God has commanded. Therefore have rightminded preachers as much to do, in admonishing the people to genuine love and really good works, as in teaching genuine faith.—Christians must consider thus, that in their conscience they are indeed free from the curse of the law, sin and death, but as to the body they are servants, for therein should one serve another by love.
Gal_5:14. It is needless for any one to trouble you with circumcision and Moses’ ceremonies; see to this before all things, that you remain steadfast in the doctrine of faith. Will you after that do good works, as indeed you should, I will with a single word point out to you the noblest and greatest of all works, which ye should do, that ye may fulfil all laws: Love one another! Therefore the true, perfect doctrine and Christian theology of Faith and Love is in long and in short this: Believe on Christ, love thy neighbor as thyself! It is most short, to look upon the words, but if it is to be practical, it is broader, higher and deeper than heaven and earth.—The reason imagines it a very low thing, to say nothing of its being an act of God’s service, for one to help the other by love, i. e., for one to instruct and set aright a wanderer, comfort a mourner and afflicted, support the weak, for every one to help his neighbor, as he can, and make up for that which he lacks; item, for one to be obedient to government, hold his parents in honor, to have patience at home and bear with a whimsical, strange-tempered yoke-fellow, with ill-mannered servants, etc.; all which amounts to this: By love serve one another. But believe me, they are not contemptible and mean, but excellent and precious works, because God has commanded them and they please Him. It is of no concern therefore, whether the world looks upon them as mean and contemptible or not.—It is a short word, but excellently and powerfully spoken: Love thy neighbor as thyself! We cannot give any one a better, more certain and more exact example, how he should love his neighbor, than if we say to him that he should love him so as he loves himself. Nor can one have a better, nor nobler virtue than Love, and this high virtue can be directed towards nothing better than towards our neighbor.—If thou wouldst know how thou shouldst love thy neighbor, consider diligently how dear thou art to thyself, that thou wouldst gladly have help and counsel given thee, if thou wert in distress and necessity, as much as all creatures could. Therefore needest thou no book, out of which to learn how thou shouldst love thy neighbor.—Rieger:—The call of the gospel to Christ and the grace which has come by Him, the sense of being one Spirit with Christ, brings us under the law of Christ, where in love we have all at once, and assumes also the willingness to serve one another through love. The warding off the claims of faith in the gospel with the pretext of love to man, is a critical sign of our times.
Gal_5:15. Starke:—Hatred, envy and reviling are as the teeth of snakes and lions. What shame, that among Christians there is such an evil kind of people!—What mean these wearisome, and mischievous lawsuits?—Lange:—Each vice brings in time some punishment with it, as every virtue has in advance some recompense. For even as love does him good that cherishes it, so does hatred and contention bring nothing but disquiet and ill-content, and indeed injures the body also in health.—Rieger:—The biting begins on good pretexts; but men easily go further, to do mischief to the property, to disparage the merits, etc.—Roos:—To bite and devour one another, is not only the wont of the populace, but also the way of many learned men, whereof their learned journals, reviews, etc., bear witness. And so do they devour one another mutually, i. e., they destroy altogether one another’s credit and the usefulness which each yet had, perhaps also a part of their life. Their esprit is flesh, what may then the rest be?
Gal_5:16-17. Luther:—Paul means by lust of the flesh not alone unchastity, but also all other sinful cravings, whereby the saints are tempted.—It is impossible that you can follow the Spirit in all things whatever and not also feel the flesh, and that you should remain unhindered by it; yea, it will hinder you and so hinder you that you will not be able to do what you gladly would do. In this all that you can do is to withstand the flesh, which quickly becomes inflamed with anger, impatience, etc.; murmurs, hates, bites, becomes angry against God, falls into doubting; and to follow the Spirit, which admonishes you to peace, patience, hope, faith. To know this is for believers most profitable and comforting. When I was yet a monk, I often thought that I must be lost, when I felt an evil temptation. Then undertook I many kinds of discipline, confessed every day, and yet it all helped me nothing. For the same temptations evermore recurred; therefore tormented I myself perpetually with such thoughts: See, there you have committed such and such a sin, etc., therefore there is no help for you, all your good works are come to nothing. Had I then rightly understood St. Paul’s words, I would not have tormented myself so severely, but would have considered with myself, as I am now wont to do: Dear Martin, it amounts to nothing, your leading an angelical life here on earth; so long as you live in the flesh, it will not give over its way. Yet do not therefore despond, but withstand it through the Spirit, that thou mayest not fulfil its lust, and it cannot hurt thee, because thou art in Jesus Christ.—Whoever thinks that a Christian must have no fault at all in him, and yet feels that in himself there are many and manifold shortcomings, such a one must at the last be consumed of melancholy. But whoever understands it, him must such temptation of the flesh, i. e., evil, serve for his best good. For when the flesh will tempt to sin, he is led with earnestness to pray, to seek forgiveness of sins through Christ, to lay hold of the righteousness of the law, after which perhaps he would never have so greatly longed.—It is to Christians profitable and good that they feel such troublesomeness of the flesh, that they may not become proud over the supposed righteousness of their works, as if they were in favor with God on account of the same.
Starke:—The contest of the flesh and the Spirit exists alone in the regenerate. The conflict which exists in an unregenerate man, so that he does not fulfil all evil lusts that stir in him, is only a conflict of the reason with its natural impulses and gross sensual desires. This is to be carefully distinguished from the former, that one may not, because he feels within himself a struggle against sin, immediately reckon himself regenerate.—The strife of the Spirit against the flesh is an infallible token of regeneration and a state of grace, and is distinguished from the strife which is waged by the mere powers of reason in this, that the former always wins the victory.—These words are misused by the children of the world to this effect, that it is vain to strive after a holy character, because we cannot, after all, do what we would. But mark, what the regenerate, who are spoken of here, will according to the Spirit, and what according to the flesh. They are not aiming first to obtain the dominion over sin, for this they have already, but they would fain quench and be rid of everything sinful; but this, on account of the flesh cleaving to them, they cannot do. According to the flesh they would fain let sin come to dominion again, but that they do not, because the Spirit strives against it and overcomes the flesh. Therefore it follows from this, that a believer can by all means live holy, but here can arrive at no perfection.
Rieger:—The flesh and the sin which cleaves to the same, lust and its allurements and enticements we indeed experience, nay more, there may also occur cases where it is not as plain as we could wish that the lust hats not been admitted and treacherously taken the will with it. But by renewal in the spirit of tile mind one may always count himself to be no debtor to the flesh, to fulfil its lusts, but may take the curse from Christ’s cross and hang it upon the flesh, and from Christ’s Spirit may gain the willingness to separate therefrom. Between the strivings of the Spirit and of the flesh against each other it must become evident, which way the man, after receiving sufficient strength, is bending his will, and on which side he takes his stand. If the Spirit’s impulses and leadings continue with a man and if he is honestly minded to obey the Spirit and its holy opposition to the flesh, he does not indeed deny the law the right to show him his imperfections, but he is not under it, and is not at the last judged by it. Christ has taken the believer under His atoning shield against the curse of the law, and has moreover bestowed on him His spirit, which impels him as to all other good, so also to combat for this faith, although there is many a conflict and many a doubt before he can without ceasing so believe and act.
Gal_5:19. Luther:—It is a very different thing to be tempted by the flesh, and yet not to follow its lusts, but to Walk in the Spirit and strive against them, from what it is to consent to the lust of the flesh and abide therein and nevertheless to make great boast of the Spirit, and to make as though one lived Christianly. The former St. Paul comforts, in that he says: Because they are ruled by the Spirit they are not under the law; but the others he threatens with everlasting damnation, in that he declares: They that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven.—Spener:—By works of the flesh, Paul, it is true, understands principally actual outward, out-breaking deeds, but he does not thereby exclude inward vices, which are also rightly called works of the flesh. Nay, as respects the outward sins themselves, their sinfulness consists not merely in the outward deed itself, but in the evil and prevailing inclination thereto. Therefore is one guilty of adultery, fornication, gluttony, drunkenness, quarrelsomeness, etc., who allows such vices to gain the upper hand in his soul, even though from want of opportunity, or fear of infamy or trouble he restrains himself from the outward act; for God looks on the heart and its longings.
“Drunkenness, revellings.” In Starke:—The Apostle is not speaking merely of the habit and custom of drinking; therefore it is a false excuse if any one thinks that a debauch is no sin if only one does not make a business of it. The devil invented this excuse. When any one so overfills himself that he is unfit for prayer and the business of his calling, that is drunkenness; what then are we to think of the respectable world with its sinful and damnable Christian drinking bouts? and what too of this continual drinking of healths, than as of a temptation to swill down liquor?—“They which do such things.” It is not said: They that do such things daily; for even though one does any such thing only now and then, on certain occasions, yea even only once, but voluntarily, he forfeits the kingdom of God, so long as he remains under the dominion of this work of the flesh. Nor is it said: They that do all this. It is not needful for a man to do all these sins or many such, to fall under the penalty, but it is enough, if a man lets one single sin rule over him, let it be what it will. Now it rules over him, not only while he is committing it, but so long as the purpose never to commit it again, is not yet fully fixed.—They shall not only not procure eternal life by their works of the flesh (as may well be supposed), but, if they set their hopes, not upon earning eternal life by their works, but receiving it as a gift to be received by faith, they will not, leading a dissolute life, inherit it any more than earn it.—He inherits not the kingdom of grace, still less the kingdom of glory, even though his funeral sermon extols him as blessed, surely, very, or even most blessed.
Gal_5:22. It is not enough to flee the manifest works of the flesh, but we must bring true virtues to take their place. The Spirit of Christ must water and warm the hearts of men with His heavenly consolation, if they are to be fruitful to good works.—“Works of the flesh,” said Paul, as being what comes into view and can be apprehended by reason alone, as to what they are, and that they are evil; but he does not use this term of the fruits of the Spirit as being for the most part internal, and although they express themselves in outward works, yet they cannot be comprehended and judged by the mere reason; nay, reason, should she pronounce a judgment, would be more apt to pronounce a judgment against them. Indeed, the fruits of the Spirit often exist in good measure in those, who yet in true poverty of Spirit complain of the lack of them.—Roos:—All these fruits are found in every spiritual man, although in one this, in another that fruit is more richly possessed.
Luther:—Joy. This means the loving discourse of the bridegroom and his bride, i. e., the joyful, loving thoughts, which a believing heart has concerning Christ, the wholesome admonitions, the joyful hymns, thanksgiving psalms and songs of praise, with which Christians admonish and cheer one another. The Scripture testifieth once and again, that God had no pleasure in the sadness of the spirit, but wills, that we be joyful in Him. Therefore also He sent His Son, not to make us perturbed and mournful, but joyful. Therefore do the Prophets, Apostles and Christ Himself admonish, yea, command us, that we be glad and joyful. Where this spiritual joy is, there does the heart inwardly rejoice through faith in Christ, and moreover shows forth such joy outwardly with words and gestures; yea, it can be joyful even in the midst of affliction and death. Such joy is to the world unknown.—Patience. This is a virtue of such sort, that one does not alone endure and suffer waywardness, ill-luck, wrong, etc., but also bears long with those that do him such evil, and waits if perchance they may at some time amend themselves. The devil has this way, that when he cannot in tempting us overcome by main force and might, he watches nevertheless with wearisome continuance, and worries us out if he can, for he knows well what weak, earthen vessels we are, that cannot at the last endure violence and repeated hard strokes; therefore he oft gains great advantage, in that he perseveres so long and diligently.—Gentleness.—This is: that one is so disposed, that every one gets on well with him and loves to deal with him. For Christians should not be unfriendly and cross-tempered people, but mild, courteous, friendly, such as every one loves to consort with, who bear with others’ faults, are easy to give way to others, and can put up with the whim of others. Such a courteous friendly man was our Lord Jesus Christ, as we see in the Gospel from beginning to end.
In Starke:—Goodness—All nature is to us a mirror of kindness. For where is there a creature that does not serve and do good to man? For us the sun shines, for us the earth bears fruit, us does the heaven cover, to us does the air minister breath, everything stands at our command; should we then be the only ones not to practice kindness?—Luther:—Faith.—He that has this faith, such an one suspects no evil of other people, but has a loving, simple heart towards every man; and although he be deceived, he yet remains long-suffering and kind, and forbears with him that hath deceived him. In summa, he believes every man and yet puts his confidence in no man but alone in God.—Roos:—Against spiritual men the law is not, for although they are not without fault yet they are wholly under grace (Rom_6:14), and are partakers of the blessing in Christ Jesus (Gal_3:13-14). There are people, who imagine themselves to have preached the gospel, when they encourage others, by a human persuasion, to let go the Jewish way of thinking, not anxiously to count this or that for a sin, and to entertain no scruple about permitted things. But although such persuasions, addressed to a natural man, may bring about a show of freedom, and such a man may then imagine that he is no longer under the law, though he really is, yet the great question remains, whether the law is not against him. The right of the law to curse him, is not an usurpation, but a well-founded, sacred right, to which there is nothing to oppose but Christ’s death on the cross. Has then every one who boasts of freedom become a believer in this crucified Saviour? And has he also, by means of this faith, become spiritual, so that he exhibits the fruit of the Spirit within him? It is only against such that the law is not.
Gal_5:24. “Have crucified the flesh.”—Starke:—This word well expresses how sin must, little by little, be disabled and slain, for the crucified man did not die at once; he was first made fast with nails to the cross and then kept there, till through the loss of blood and through hunger and thirst he became weaker and weaker, and finally died. In the beginning of repentance the old man is nailed to the cross, and then in conversion he is fastened to it anew, when he gets a hand or a foot free; the soul carefully avoiding all occasions whereby evil lusts can be aroused, until indwelling sin is more and more disabled by all manner of acts of repentance and devotion, which are contrary to corrupt nature, which acts must extend through the whole life. But now all power to crucify the flesh is to be derived from Christ’s death on the cross.
Rieger:—They that have ceased from the law and all endeavors to obtain life and righteousness therefrom, and on the other hand belong to Christ and accept Him as the source of their life and holiness, such keep their flesh crucified. They are and live yet in the flesh, to be sure, and so experience how close sin cleaves and how heavy it weighs; they experience the enticements of inward lust, but they have learned from the gospel the meaning of God in the cross of Christ, and have believed it, and can believe the judgment executed on the body of their Redeemer as in God’s eyes in force also against their own flesh. And indeed they desire no rest for the flesh, but impose on it the curse, which through Christ’s cross is imposed thereon, and behold this wearisome and painful dying with a hope gathered out of the gospel.
On Gal_5:13-15. Christianity and Freedom: (1) How little we have occasion, on behalf of freedom, to repent of being Christians and becoming Christians more and more; (2) how deeply we must rue that freedom which we do not establish and confirm by the power of Christ.—The Christian is free and yet a servant of all.—The right union of Freedom and Love (1) needful (2) difficult.—By love serve one another! (1) An actual (2) but also a blessed service.
On Gal_5:16-24 : Walk in the Spirit, etc., ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh: (1) the lust of the flesh, (2) the resisting of it in the Spirit.—The walk in the Spirit; (1) is not accomplished without conflict (Gal_5:17) (2) but saves from destruction (Gal_5:19-21), (3) leads to a glorious goal (Gal_5:22).—With his exhortations to walk in the Spirit (1) the Apostle places us upon a fearful battle-field (Gal_5:17), (2) gives us the view into a frightful abyss (Gal_5:19 sq.), (3) leads us into a lovely garden (Gal_5:22 sq.). The conflict of the flesh and the Spirit: (1) in what does it consist? (2) to what should it impel?—Temptations through the flesh must come: despond not!—but must be combatted and overcome through the Spirit: be not careless!—There is no believer so holy or strong that he does not feel his flesh, but also none so weak that he cannot withstand it.—The motions of the flesh a damper to pride, a testimony against self-devised spiritualism.—Three times three fruits of the Spirit; a lovely garland.—To have crucified the flesh a token that one is Christ’s.—Who can crucify his flesh? Only he who is Christ’s.—The crucifying of the flesh (1) takes place indeed, when one is Christ’s, but (2) does not of itself make certain that one is Christ’s.
Kapff:—Under what law is the believer? (1) Not under that of the flesh, (2) not under that of Moses, but (3) under that of the Spirit.—Rautenberg:—The crucifixion of the flesh: a token of true Christianity, a work of the Holy Ghost, a victory of Christian freedom, a progress to inward peace.—In Lisco:—The conflict of the Spirit with the flesh: (1) Where does it arise? Only where a life in the Spirit is begun. (2) Why is it necessary? a) On account of the inward incompatibility of flesh and Spirit, b) on account of the consequences, which proceed therefrom, good or evil fruits. (3) How should it end? By the Spirit’s overcoming the flesh.—The walk in the Spirit: (1) It kills the works of the flesh, (2) it brings in its place the fruits of the Spirit.—Flesh or Spirit? Choose! (1) The flesh is thy destruction; (2) the Spirit creates divine life; (3) as Christians we are bound to the life of the Spirit.—(Fast-day Sermon): The call on Fast-day: the works of the flesh are manifest. (1) What works are works of the flesh: (2) what those have to expect, who do such works.—(Whit-Sunday Sermon): We are partakers of the Holy Spirit only when we do the works of the Spirit.—Genzken:—What do we yet lack of a walk in the Spirit? (1) The beginning is, that the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and many have not even advanced so far; (2) the next step is, that we no more fulfil the lusts of the flesh, and many are not even ashamed of the manifest works of the flesh; (3) the consummation is, that we bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, and from that we are all yet far distant.—Greiner:—Flesh and Spirit: (1) they are contrary one to the other; (2) their ways lead asunder in time and eternity.—Engelhard:—The life of that man, who is ruled by the Spirit of God: (1) He breaks with sin and mortifies daily the old man; (2) he is filled with the fruits of righteousness, which do not conflict with the law, but which can never be accomplished under the dominion of the law; (3) and receives accordingly the most excellent of all rewards, the inheritance of the kingdom of God.
Gal_5:13-24. Frantz:—Beware that ye do not, through freedom, give a handle to the flesh, for (1) freedom in Christ is not without law; it has its law, only not in the members, but in Christ, which law is love. (2) It is not without control; but its control is exercised not by the flesh, but by the Spirit.
Footnotes:
[14]Gal_5:13.—[It seems better to retain the Greek order, which places ἀδελφοί at the end of the clause. The aorist ἐκλήθητε may be rendered by the English perfect, but Ellicott gives the simple past tense as above.—R.]
[15]Gal_5:14.—Rec: πληροῦται. The correct reading is that of Lachmann,Tischendorf: πεπλήρωται. So א. [A.B.C. and modern editors.—R.]
[16]Gal_5:14.—Ἐν ὑμῖν before ἐν ἐνὶ λόγω is not sufficiently supported.
[17]Gal_5:14.—[Lightfoot: “The received text has ἑαυτόν which some would retain against the authority of the best MSS., on the ground that it was altered by scribes ignorant of this usage of ἑαυτοῦ for the first and second persons. The case however with respect to the New Testament seems to stand thus; that whereas (1) in the plural we always find ἑαυτῶν. etc., never ἡμῶν αὐτῶν, ὑμῶν αὐτῶν etc., as mere reflexives, yet (2) in the singular there is not one decisive instance of ἑαυτοῦ in the first or second persons; the authority of the best MSS. being mostly against it. See A. Buttmann, p. 99.”—R.]
[18]Gal_5:16.—[Πνεύματι. The normal dative (Meyer); the instrumental dative (Schmoller). In either case “by” not “in.”—R.]
[19]Gal_5:17.—Ταῦτα γά ρ is to be preferred to ταῦτα δέ, as better attested. [The latter which is the reading of the Rec., and Lachmann is probably a correction, to avoid the repetition of γάρ. The Rec. and Lachmann also read ἀντίκ. ἀλλήλους, on insufficient authority; א. K. L.: the order is reversed in most MSS. and by the best modern editors.—R.]
[20]Gal_5:17.—[Ἴνα is considered telic here as usually, by the best commentators. “So that” must be rejected. See Exeg. Notes.—R.]
[21]Gal_5:19.—[Ἄτινα has here a classifying force (Ellicott).—R.]
[22]Gal_5:19.—Μοιχεία of the Rec. is to be rejected with Iachmann, Tischendorf. [So א. A.B.C. Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth, Lightfoot.—R.]
[23]Gal_5:20.—Rec: ἔρεις, ζήλοι; the singular changed into the plural, apparently on account of the neighboring plurals. א. has ἔρις, ζήλοι. [The variations are great; the best editors now adopt the singular in both these cases. On the meaning of the words in these lists ot vices and virtues, see Exeg. Notes.—R.]
[24]Gal_5:21.—Φόνοι is to be retained, the preponderance of authority is in its favor. [Omitted in א. B. by Tischendorf, bracketted by Lachmann, Alford and Lightfoot. Retained by Meyer and Ellicott, on the authority of A. C. D. E. F. G. K., most cursives and versions. The similarity in souud to the preceding word is quite as much an argument for retaining as for rejecting it.—R.]
[25]Gal_5:21.—[Τὰ τοιαῦτα. “Such things as these,” “all such things.” “The article with τοιοῦτος denotes a known person or thing, or the whole class of such, but not an undefined individual out of the class; as in that case τοιοῦτος is anarthrous” (Ellicott). So in Gal_5:23.—R.
[26]Gal_5:21.—[Δέ must be rendered “now” or “but”, not “and.” The two classes of deeds have been set forth, and this verse is a practical application.—R.]
[27][On the division of the Epistle, see Introd. § 4. While we must guard agaunst too formal division of the Epistle, we may distinguish it into parts without separating them or breaking the current of thought. The memory is much assisted by the convenlent division of Lightfoot: personal, doctrinal and practical. Whether the last named part begins with Gal_5:1, or here, is perhaps immaterial, since such distinction into parts involves neither the supposition that the Apostle made such formal distinction, nor an arbitrary view of the Epistle as a whole. We may mar the unity quite as much by insisting on too strict sub-division into sections.—R.]
[28][Schmoller probably means to make an argument ab impossibili here, but the form of it is not pleasing. Certainly it were better to say: Paul could not mean this, for it is contrary to the teachings of his Master and inconsistent with his own statements elsewhere. Meyer remarks: “That, by citing only the command of love to our neighbour, Paul does not exclude the command of love to God, is self-evident to the Christian consciousness from the necessary connection of love to God and to our neighbor (comp. 1Jn_4:20; 1Co_8:1-3); the context (Gal_5:13-15) led Paul to speak of the latter only.”—R.]
[29][“Observe the prominence always given to condemnations of this deadly sin, it being one of the things which the old pagen world deemed as merely ἀδιάφορα.”—Ellicott.—R.]
[30][Wordsworth:—“The word ἐρίθεια is from ἔριθος, a laborer for hire, 1. a mercenary; and 2. one who hires him self to a cabal for party purpose; and therefore signifies 3. a venal partisan; such as the factions of gladiators, and other ruffians hired by rival candidates at elections to intimidate the voters in the Roman forum. Hence ἐρίθεια signifies venal partisanship.”—R.]
[31][Hence well expressed by “benignity.” So Jerome, who renders this and the following word respectively: benignitas, bonitas. See Trench, Synon. 2d series.—The remarks of Lightfoot are collated; the parts included in parenthesis are taken from his comments on the separate triads.—R.]
[32][Whether theologians agree about terms or not, they all must recognize the fact that in so far as any law of God has a directly ethical purpose, it must continue to be binding on those who are Christ’s, not binding as a law, with condemnatory power, so as to bring us again into bondage, after Christ has made us free, nor even binding on the conscience, so far as its punitive functions are concerned, but binding us with the cords of love, the bands of a man, a rule for the loving children of a Father, a guide for the glad gratitude of those whom Christ has made free. Thus far all that was of those whom Christ has made free. Thus far all that was of permanent ethical purpose in the Old Testament law must remain “the law of Christ;” to admit a change in God’s ethics is repugnant to our souls. How much this includes is the practical questions, which the New Testament itself answers in the life of Christ and the teachings of His Apostles. That it includes the Decalogue, that each and all of those Commandments are still in force, as a law, in the sense indicated above, there can be no reasonable doubt.—R.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–26 Behold--that is, Mark what I say.
Behold--that is, Mark what I say.
I Paul--Though you now think less of my authority, I nevertheless give my name and personal authority as enough by itself to refute all opposition of adversaries.
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if ye be circumcised--not as ALFORD, "If you will go on being circumcised." Rather, "If ye suffer yourselves to be circumcised," namely, under the notion of its being necessary to justification (Gal 5:4; Act 15:1). Circumcision here is not regarded simply by itself (for, viewed as a mere national rite, it was practiced for conciliation's sake by Paul himself, Act 16:3), but as the symbol of Judaism and legalism in general. If this be necessary, then the Gospel of grace is at an end. If the latter be the way of justification, then Judaism is in no way so.
Christ . . . profit . . . nothing-- (Gal 2:21). For righteousness of works and justification by faith cannot co-exist. "He who is circumcised [for justification] is so as fearing the law, and he who fears, disbelieves the power of grace, and he who disbelieves can profit nothing by that grace which he disbelieves [CHRYSOSTOM].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–26 1. Therefore—The separation of this verse from the last…
1. Therefore—The separation of this verse from the last chapter is unfortunate, as this therefore closely connects it therewith. Ye are free sons of the free, stand fast therefore in freedom.
Liberty—From the old ritualism. It is not the high freedom from sin, guilt, and depravity, wrought by Christ, which is here specified; but the emancipation from old Judaism. This verse is perplexed with various readings, yielding slightly different meanings. With liberty Christ has made us free, stand fast therefore. Or, unto or for freedom Christ has made us free. Neither of these is to be preferred to the received translation. Stand fast.—Opposed both to being moved and to bowing down. Keep both a firm position and an erect attitude; firm, as not being displaced by the onset of your assailants; erect, as not bowing to their yoke.
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Yoke—Like bondwoman in Gal_4:30, is without the definite article. The Galatians had been mostly Gentiles; yet St. Paul’s again implies that their fall into a Judaism is simply a relapse into a ritualism now null, and essentially to be identified with the heathen ritualism they had left. Note, Gal_4:31. Dead Judaism and ethnicism are equally Christless. And that—the conclusion and seal of the whole argument—is the basis of the following closing exhortation.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26 Gal_5:1-12. Exhortation to stand fast in the Liberty of…
Gal_5:1-12. Exhortation to stand fast in the Liberty of the Gospel
1. Many editors place this verse at the end of ch. 4, connecting it immediately with Gal_4:31 of that chapter; ‘we are not children of a bondwoman, but of her who is free with that freedom wherewith Christ hath emancipated us. Stand fast therefore and be not again entangled with a yoke of bondage’.
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But the received arrangement of the chapters is better. Chapter 4 is didactic; chapter 5 is hortatory, and therefore properly begins with the injunction ‘stand fast’.
It is however interesting to note that in the original the last word of ch. 4 is ‘free’, and ‘the freedom’ are the opening words of ch. 5. We have a similar instance of the repetition of a word in juxtaposition in Rom_15:12-13, ‘In Him shall the Gentiles hope. Now the God of hope fill you … that ye may abound in hope’.
Here we may render, In the freedom then wherewith Christ made us free stand fast &c. The freedom thus bestowed is spiritual liberty which is quite independent of outward circumstances. St Paul in chains, a prisoner in Rome, exulted in it. Nero on his throne, the master of the world, with thirty legions at his back, was the miserable slave of his lusts. Luther beautifully remarks: ‘Let us learn to count this our freedom most noble, exalted, and precious, which no emperor, no prophet nor patriarch, no angel from heaven, but Christ, God’s Son, hath obtained for us; not that He might relieve us from a bodily and temporal subjection, but from a spiritual and eternal imprisonment of the cruelest tyrants, namely the law, sin, death, the Devil’.
Stand fast] perhaps, ‘stand upright’, not bowing your neck to the yoke of legal observances.
again] They who had escaped from the thraldom of heathenism were not to submit to the slavery of Judaism. They who had once tasted freedom in Christ were not to be again entangled in the bondage of the law.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (1) Stand fast therefore.—The external evidence is very strong…
V.
(1) Stand fast therefore.—The external evidence is very strong in favour of a different reading: With (or, perhaps, For) liberty did Christ make us free. Stand fast, then, and be not entangled, &c. There seems to be no sufficient reason why this should not be adopted.
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In the liberty.—The best grammarians seem agreed to take this rather in the sense, for liberty; otherwise it would be tempting to explain it as an instance of the Hebraising construction which we find in Joh_3:29 : “Rejoice with joy” (Authorised version “rejoice greatly”). It would then mean: “with a system, or state, of freedom Christ freed us;” in other words: “placed us in a state of freedom, so that we are free.”
The yoke of bondage—i.e., the Judaising restraints and restrictions.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Ver. 1.
Ver. 1.
The importance of standing by Christian liberty.
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firm, therefore, in the liberty for which Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." The apostle hopefully assumes that the Galatians had not yet surrendered their liberty.
I JUDIASM WAS A YOKE OF BONDAGE. It might well be described in such terms by the Apostle Peter at an earlier period. (Act_15:10) The bondage consisted in the number, complexity, and variety of its rites and ceremonies, associated with days, and weeks, and months, and years; in the burdensome repetition of sacrifices; in the expensiveness of the old ritual; in the time and labour consumed in purifications and washings; and in the place which every trivial or important transaction of life, such as marriage, burial, ploughing, sowing, reaping, held in the religious economy of a theocratic people. The Gentiles in Galatia had had experience of the degrading yoke of heathen bondage. Were they to be "entangled again" with a yoke, even that of Judaism?
II THE LIBERTY WON BY CHRIST. The liberty here referred to is exemption from the rites and requirements of the ceremonial Law, including circumcision itself. But that liberty implies a great enlargement in Christian blessing.
1. It sets the believer free from the terrors of the old economy. "We have received, not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption." Christ has freed us from many fears that must have marred the peace of Old Testament saints.
2. He destroys the physical drudgery of religion. His yoke is easy as his burden is light.
3. His liberty lifts us out of the state of spiritual childhood in which the Jews dwelt, that we may have a larger comprehension of the mysteries of the kingdom. (Heb_6:2)
III THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDING BY OUR NEWLY ACQUIRED LIBERTY.
1. It would be an insult to Christ, who bought it, if his followers were to surrender it.
2. A man may bear an unjust burden, but not a burden upon conscience.
3. It is our interest to stand in the full liberty of the gospel. "As free, yet not using our liberty as a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of. (1Pe_2:16)
4. Our firmness will encourage others to a resolute assertion of Christian liberty against all sorts of ritualistic priesthoods.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Ver. 1.
Christian freedom.
St. Paul concludes the arguments and expostulations of the two previous chapters with a vigorous exhortation. This has, of course, its special application to the condition of the Galatian Churches, and the liberty to which it directly applies is deliverance from the bondage of Law. But it admits of wider application to the circumstances of our own day. We have here brought before us a privilege, a danger, and a duty.
I A PRIVILEGE. Christ confers freedom. (see Joh_8:36)
1. Religious freedom.
1. From servile terrors of superstition;
2. from priestly tyranny;
3. from mechanical ritual;
4. from external constraints in moral and religious life; and
5. from the rule of the flesh over the spirit.
1. Intellectual freedom. Unbelievers sometimes arrogate to themselves the proud title of free-thinkers; yet it would seem too often that the only freedom they allow is freedom for expressing ideas with which they sympathize. The bigotry of Roman Catholic intolerance seems likely to be equalled by the bigotry that many leading opponents of Christianity show towards those who decline to abandon their faith. It is Christ who breaks the fetters of the mind. The Christian dares to think. The grounds of this liberty are
1. loyalty to truth, and faith in its ultimate triumph;
2. light and power to attain truth.
1. Political freedom. This is the outgrowth of Christianity
1. through the spread of the spirit of universal brotherhood, and
2. through the cultivation of conscience which makes the gift of liberty safe.
II A DANGER. Christian freedom is in danger.
1. It is attacked from without. It has to face the assaults of the ambitious. There are always those who desire to exercise undue influence over others.
2. There is danger in officialism. The official appointed as a servant of the general body usurps the place of the master. The fable of the horse who invited a man to ride him is thus often exemplified.
3. It is undermined from within. The force of habit wears grooves that become deep ruts out of which we cannot stir. The dead hand lies heavy upon us. Creeds which were the expression of free thought contending in open controversy in one age become the bonds and fetters of a later age. Ritual, which palpitated with living emotion when it first joined itself naturally as the body to clothe the soul of worship, becomes fossilized, and yet it is cherished and venerated though it hangs about men"s necks as a dead weight. The very atmosphere of liberty is too bracing for some of us. It will not allow us to sleep. Therefore love of indolence is opposed to it.
III A DUTY. We are called to take a stand against all encroachments on our Christian freedom. Here is a call to Christian manliness. The freedom is given by Christ; but we are exhorted to maintain it. He fought to win it; we must fight to hold it. This is not a mere question of choice a matter only of our own inclination or interest; it is a solemn duty. We must stand firm for liberty on several accounts.
1. That we may not be degraded to servitude. It is a man"s duty not to become a slave because slavery produces moral deterioration.
2. That we may have scope for the unhampered service of God and man.
3. That we may hand down to generations following the heritage of liberty. Once lost it cannot be easily recovered. We owe to our descendants the duty of maintaining intact the entail of a grand possession which we received from our forefathers, and which was secured to them at great cost. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath…
Gal_5:1
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us freer and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
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The freedom of the Christian
It is necessary that we first see generally what that liberty is, wherewith Christ maketh His people free. I cannot hold any one free, so long as his own conscience locks him up into the fear of death and punishment. The mind which has places which it is afraid to touch, can never expatiate every where; and the mind which cannot go anywhere, never is free. It is the sense of pardon which is that mans emancipation. Have we not all felt the difference.
to work that we may be loved, and to work because we are loved; to have a motive from without, or to have a motive from within; to be guided by a fear, or to be attracted by an affection? But, again, to obey any one isolated law, however good that law may be, and however we may admire and love the Lawgiver, may still carry with it a sense of confining and contraction. To do, not this or that command, but the whole will, because it is the will of one we love--to have caught His mind, to breathe His spirit, to be bound up with His glory--that has in it no littleness; there are no circumscribing confines there; and these are the goings out of the unshackled being in the ranges which match with his own infinity. And yet once more. Such is the soul of man, that all that in his horizon falls within the compass of time, however long--or of a present life however full--that mans circle being small, compared to his own consciousness of his own capability, through that disproportion, he feels a limitation. But let a man once look, as he may, and as he must, on that great world which lies beyond him as his scope and his home, and all that is here as only the discipline and the school-work by which he is in training, and immediately everything contains in it eternity. And very free will that man be among the dead, because his faith is going out above the smallnesses which surround him, to the great, and to the absorbing, and to the satisfying things to come. It will not be difficult to carry out these principles, and apply them to the right performance of any of the obligations of life. It needs no words to show that whatever is done in this freedom will not only be itself better done, but it takes from that freedom a character which comports well with a member of the family of God; and which at once makes it edifying to Him, and acceptable and honouring to a heavenly Father. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Spiritual freedom
What is liberty? Obedience to ones self; obedience to a law which is written in a mans own heart. If I obey myself, and myself is not a right self, it is, indeed, liberty, but being a bad liberty, it becomes licentiousness. It is compulsion; it is bondage. Liberty is when the outer law and the inner law are the same; and both are good.
1. Every one has a past which fetters him. The moment a man really believes, and accepts his pardon, he is cut off from all his sinful past! He is at liberty--free from his own bitter history--free from himself!
2. Now look to the liberty from the present. If I have received. Christ into my heart, I am a pardoned man, I am a happy man, and I know and feel that I owe all my happiness to Him--therefore I love Him; I cannot choose but love Him; and my first desire is to please Him; to follow Him; to be like Him; to be with Him. My life is to become a life of love. In obeying God, I obey myself. The new life and the new heart are in accord.
3. And what of the future? A vista running up to glory! But are there no dark places? Chiefly in the anticipation. When they come, they will bring their own escapes and their own balances. He has undertaken for me in everything. He will never leave me. So I am quite free from all my future. To die will be a very little thing. The grave cannot hold me. He has been through, and opened the door the other side. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Christian liberty
I. The liberty of the subjects that are freed. Christian liberty stands--
1. In immunity from evil.
(1) From that which is evil in itself. Satan; sin
(a) in the fault,
(b) in the punishment--whether the inward slavery of an accusing conscience or outward wrath of God, death, and damnation.
(2) From that which is evil to us, as
(a) burdensome traditions,
(b) the law, either ceremonial or moral, as regards either the obligation or the curse.
2. Less than this is bondage, more than this is looseness.
II. The prerogative of the King of Glory that hath freed them.
1. They could not free themselves.
2. Angels could not free them.
3. Only Christ could, whose ransom was infinite.
4. Only Christ has, whose love is infinite. How?
(1) By force; in that He hath conquered him whose captives we were.
(2) By purchase; in that He hath paid the full price to him to whom we were forfeited. We could not be free by birth since we were sons of wrath; nor by service since we were vassals of Satan.
5. Christ has freed us from seven Egyptian masters.
(1) The bondage of sin by the Spirit of Christ (Rom_6:12; Rom_7:14; 2Pe_2:19; Rom_7:24-25; 2Co_3:17).
(2) An accusing conscience by the blood of Christ (Heb_10:19; Heb_10:22).
(3) The wrath of God by faith in Christ (Heb_10:27; Rom_5:1).
(4) The tyranny of Satan by the victory of Christ (2Ti_2:26; Heb_2:14).
(5) The curse of the law by the satisfaction of Christ (Gal_3:10; Gal_3:13).
(6) The law of ceremonies by the consummation of Christ (Rom_8:2; Eph_2:14-16).
(7) Human ordinances by the manumission and instruction of Christ (Gal_4:10-11; 1Co_7:23).
III. The maintenance of the liberty which the power of that great prerogative hath achieved.
1. How strange that such an exhortation should be necessary. In the case of a liberated bird or an emancipated slave it would be superfluous.
2. Yet facts prove it necessary in the case of Christs freemen. (Bishop Hall.)
Christian believers exhorted to the maintenance of their spiritual liberty
I. This exhortation implies--
1. That attempts will be made to deprive us of this liberty. This is discovered soon after its first enjoyment.
(1) By Satan and sin.
(2) By companions.
(3) By pleasure.
(4) By persecution.
(5) By deceivers who attempt to undermine the doctrine on which salvation rests.
2. The awful possibility of losing this liberty, as testified
(1) by Scripture;
(2) by the history of the Church;
(3) by observation;
(4) by experience.
3. That there is no necessity to lose this liberty. When lost it is most frequently by
(1) a culpable ignorance of spiritual duties and privileges;
(2) a presumptuous self-confidence leading to unwatchfulness;
(3) a weak and wicked self-indulgence.
4. Yet while there is no necessity to forfeit their liberty, Christians are exposed to great and peculiar dangers
(1) from constitution and temperament;
(2) circumstances;
(3) difficulties and sorrows;
(4) spiritual exercises.
II. The duties in the observance of which spiritual freedom may be maintained.
1. The devotional reading of Scripture day by day in connection with religious biography and kindred works.
2. A regular and conscientious attention to private prayer.
3. A spirit of watchfulness.
4. Constant self-denial.
5. Unceasing cultivation of holiness. In conclusion:
Remember--
1. The price paid for your redemption.
2. The wretched state of the re-enslaved believer. (H. H. Chettle.)
Christian freedom
I. In the voluntary service of God (Luk_1:74; 1Ti_1:9).
II. In the free use of the creatures of God (Tit_1:15; Rom_14:14).
III. To come unto God through Christ in prayer. (Rom_5:2; Eph_3:12).
IV. To enter heaven (Heb_10:19). (W. Perkins.)
Liberty not lawlessness
Liberty is harmony between the law and the nature and inclinations of its subjects. Law is essential to freedom, but freedom requires that the law shall be such as comports with the best interests and highest reason of those who have to obey it; for then their best desires will concur with their obligations, and, wishing to do only what the law requires them to do, they will be conscious of no restraint. (Newman Hall.)
Spiritual and related freedoms
Let me remind you of the arrangement of the ancient temple. In the centre was the sanctuary, with the altar of sacrifice before it, and the altar of incense within; and beyond the veil, the Holy of Holies and the mercy seat. Here worship was offered, atonement made, the presence of God manifested. Let this represent liberty-spiritual--the union of the soul with its Maker. Beyond the sanctuary and enclosing it, was the Court of the Jews, through which access was obtained to the inner shrine. Let this represent liberty-doctrinal--that revealed truth by which the soul obtains admission into the liberty of Gods children. Beyond was the Court of the Gentiles--further from the Holy of Holies--but connected with it, surrounding and defending it. Let this represent liberty-ecclesiastical, by which doctrinal truth is best conserved and thus spiritual liberty best attained. Beyond all these were the outer walls and gates, and the lofty rock on which it was upreared. Let this represent liberty national, by which ecclesiastical freedom is guaranteed. (Newman Hall.)
Freedom and slavery
Know that to be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and fast, to be frugal and abstinent, and, lastly, to be magnanimous and brave; so to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave; and it usually happens that that people who cannot govern themselves, are delivered up to the sway of those whom they abhor, and made to submit to an involuntary servitude. (Milton.)
The souls rebellion against its thraldom
As the lark, imprisoned since it burst its shell, though it has never sprung upward to salute the rising sun, will often manifest how cruel is its captivity by instinctively spreading its wings and darting upward, as if to soar, but only beats its head against the wires and falls back on its narrow perch; so the soul of man, designed to soar and utter its raptures in the rays of the great central sun, will sometimes, even in its cage, attempt to rise and breathe a loftier atmosphere, but falls back vainly struggling against the bars which sin and death have framed around it. (Newman Hall.)
Standing fast in liberty
The phrase alludes to the duties of soldiers on military service. When marshalled in the ranks they must stand firm, without yielding their ground, without bending their knees; when placed as sentinels they must stand upon their guard and permit no enemy to surprise them. You are soldiers of Christ, and must stand fast--be valiant for the truth--and look to yourselves. (H. H. Chettle.)
Liberty from law unconscious obedience
No man has reached liberty until he has learned to obey with such facility and perfection that he does it without knowing it, If I step upon a little bit of plank in the street I walk along over it without thinking. Although it is only four inches wide I can walk on it as well as I can on the rest of the pavement. But put that plank between two towers one hundred feet high in the air and let me be called to walk over it. I begin to think, of course, of what I am called upon to do. And the moment I begin to think I cannot do it. When you try to do a thing you cannot do it as well as when you do it without trying. (H. W. Beecher.)
Christian liberty
The apostle now enters upon the more practical part of the Epistle. Freedom is the link which connects the two parts together.
I. Christian liberty is the liberty of faith. Faith receives the truth, the whole truth, concerning sin and redemption; and it is the truth, believed, that makes men free.
II. Christian liberty is the liberty of hope.
1. A hope which maketh not ashamed, for it is based on Christs accomplished work.
2. A hope which patiently waits for that which it knows it will assuredly possess.
III. Christian liberty is the liberty of love. The Saviours love to the sinner draws the sinners love to Himself.
IV. Christian liberty is the liberty of holiness. The safeguards of political liberty lie not in the laws which regulate, or the armies which defend it, but in the spirit which animates a people, in their respect for law, in their mutual toleration, in their recognition of others rights, and, above all, in their hearty devotion to the government under which they live. Where these prevail, a nation is already free, and a liberty so founded will never degenerate into license. So also Christian liberty is best secured from abuse, not by the threat of penalties, or by an appeal to fear, but by the operation of those principles which lie at the foundation of Christian character. The gospel sets man free from a bondage beneath which a loving obedience is impossible, in order that, being free, he may serve God in the spirit of Christian liberty. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.)
Spiritual liberty
Spiritual liberty consists in freedom from the curse of the moral law; from the servitude of the ritual; from the love, power, and guilt of sin; from the dominion of Satan; from the corruption of the world; from the fear of death and the wrath to come. (C. Buck.)
Christian liberty
The liberty wherewith Christ has made men free is a deliverance from a system of rules, positive and prohibitory--a temporary and provisional system which had an educational value, training men to the full privileges of religious manhood. It is an abdication of privilege, when men fall back upon the old standpoint of Judaism, and fence themselves in by rigid rules as if of primary importance. There is a perpetual tendency to make men subject to ordinances, whose language is, Touch not, taste not, handle not, after the commandments and ordinances of men; and not only to adopt these precepts as useful helps for their own moral progress, but to impose them upon others, almost as if they were of Divine origin; and to make them the standard of their judgment upon the spiritual condition of their fellow men. Every school of religious thought exhibits proofs of this temptation to represent as commandments of God, precepts of mans own devising. This Judaising temper displays itself whenever men try to narrow down eternal principles of conduct into minute rules, which can prefer no higher claim than to be deemed useful to some, whilst they may be positively injurious to others In vindicating the freedom brought to us by the gospel, we throw ourselves back on the primary truths of Christianity--the Fatherhood of God, and the reconciliation wrought out by the atoning work of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God. Fully believing that God is a righteous Judge, we shall yet not feel towards Him as if He were a hard taskmaster or rigid lawgiver, but as the Infinite Being whose love first created us, and subsequently devised our redemption; we shall exercise an unreserved faith in the completeness of the sacrifice for sin which has been made by our Saviour, and the present forgiveness which has been obtained for us; and we shall rejoice in the glorious liberty of the children of God. But this sense of liberty will not degenerate into licentiousness and unrestrained self-indulgence. Because we are not under the law, but under grace, we shall see ourselves called to a higher and nobler type of holiness. We shall certainly not be without law to God. Our religion will be displayed, not in a punctilious attention to external rules, but in a life-giving spirit, which will penetrate into every department of action in relation to others. In daily society it will impart a kindliness, a charity, a justice, in cur estimate of the words and conduct of those around us; it will teach us a Divine tolerance and a modest humility. It will make the best of both worlds, not in the low commercial sense, which tries to strike a balance between the claims of secular expediency and devotion to the service of God, but in the spirit of the apostolic exhortation which bids men use this world as not abusing it. Spite of all the manifold temptations on the plea of piety, or on the plea of the necessary subordination of the individual to the society, it will firmly refuse to descend to a lower level of Christianity than that which Christ its Founder intended. It will uphold the banner of freedom by maintaining, alike in theory and in practice, that Christianity is not in its essence a system of doctrine or a code of precepts, but a life and a spirit, a communion with God in Christ, manifesting itself in the power of true godliness. (Canon Ince.)
Personal liberty of the Christian
The doctrine of St. Paul is not that a Christian man has a right to liberty in conduct, thought, and speech in and of himself, without regard to external circumstances, interests, organizations, and without reference to his own condition. Pauls conception of the rights and liberties of men stands on the philosophical ground underneath all those things. Rights and liberties belong to stages or states of condition. The inferior has not the right of the superior. A stupid man has not the right of an educated or intelligent man. He may have the legal rights; but the higher ones, that spring out of the condition of the soul, must stand on the conditions to which they belong. A. refined man has rights and joys that an unrefined man has not and cannot have, because he cannot understand them, does not want them, could not use them. Rights increase as the man increases--increases, that is, not merely in physical stature, or in skill of manual employment or material strength, but in character. So, as men work up higher and higher towards the Divine standard of character, their rights and liberties increase. The direct influence of Christ is to bring the human mind into its highest elements:. The power of the Divine nature upon the human soul is to lift it steadily away from animalism or from the flesh--the under-man--up through the realm of mere material wisdom and accomplishment, in the direction of soul-power, reason, rectitude--such reason and such rectitude as grow up under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. When love has permeated the whole man, he then has perfect liberty--liberty of thought, liberty of speech, liberty of conduct. A perfect Christian is the one and only creature that has absolute liberty unchecked by law, by institution, by foregoing thoughts of men, by public sentiment. Because a perfect man is in unison with the Divine soul, he has the whole liberty of God in himself, according to the measure of his manhood. But he has liberty to do only what he wants to do, and he wants to do nothing that is not within the bounds and benefit of a pure and true love. He becomes a law to himself; that is, he carries in himself that inspiration of love which is the mother of all good law. He is higher than any law. His will is with Gods will. He thinks what is true; he does what is benevolent. (H. W. Beecher.)
Christian liberty a trust
When a man is in slavery he is not his own master; he acts and lives under the direction of others, and the responsibility of life is in a greater or less degree shifted from him on to some one else. When a man becomes free, he assumes the duties of life, and recognizes that it rests only with himself whether those duties are performed or not. And so man living under the Christian covenant stands in a direct personal relation to God, a relation of trust. Gifted with freewill, he is answerable for his conduct; subjected no longer to the ordinances of the Mosaic Law, he claims the liberty of the gospel; but he dares not forget that there still is a law limiting and controlling the freedom which he enjoys, and that every action of his carries responsibility with it. The soul of the old law is enshrined and quickened in the body of the new. The spirit, not the letter, of Sinai is met with again in the Sermon on the Mount. All Christian duties are summed up there and enforced with the authority of One who taught not as the scribes and Pharisees, and who spake as never man spake (Mat_22:37-40). Our liberty is a limited one. No man can do as he likes. He has a Master in heaven whom he must serve. He is indeed set free by the death of Christ from the ordinances of the old covenant, and he is no longer a slave; but he has been placed in a society which is governed by laws eternal in their force, and the measure of the liberty he enjoys is the good of his own soul and the well-being of his brothers, for none of us liveth to him-self, and no man dieth to himself As Christian members in the commonwealth of Christ we possess, indeed, in its highest and holiest sense, the triple right of liberty, fraternity, equality; but the religion to which we belong is neither reactionary nor revolutionary, and our liberty must be controlled, our equality sanctified, and our fraternity blessed, by the Holy Spirit of God. (C. W. H. Kenrick, M. A.)
Stand fast
Brethren, I cannot be of any other faith than that which I preached nearly twenty-nine years ago on this platform. I am to-day what I was then. That which I preached here then I preach here now. You know the story of the boy who stood on the burning deck because his father said, Stand there, and he could not come away. Other boys, much wiser than he was, had gone and got out of the mischief. I am standing where I stood then; I cannot help it, so help me God. I know no more to-day than I knew when first I believed in Jesus as to this matter. I know by grace. Are ye saved through faith and that not of yourself--it is the gift of God? You shall leave this :Rock if you like; you may be able to swim; I cannot, and so I stop here; and when the crack of doom shall come I shall be here, God helping me, believing this self-same doctrine. There is something in our very adhesiveness and pertinacity which represents the spirit of the gospel. I am sure that steadfastness in these particular times has its value, and I urge you,, to it that the gospel which you have received, the gospel of the grace of God, you stand fast to as long as you live. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The secret of steadfastness
Standing on the shore of an estuary, one sees a boat riding in the tideway, when sea-weed and other things float by, over the self-same spot; and whether the tide ebbs or flows, whether it steals quietly in or comes on with the rush and roar of foaming billows, the boat always boldly shows its face to it; and turning its head to the current receives on its bows, to split them, the shock of waves. This, which to a child would seem strange, is due to the anchor that lies below the waters, and, grasping the solid ground with its iron arms, holds fast the boat. It seems no less wonderful to see a tree--no sturdy oak, but slender birch, or trembling aspen--standing erect away up on a mountain brow; where, exposed to the sweep of every storm, it has gallantly maintained its ground against the tempests that have laid in the dust the stateliest ornaments of the plain. But our wonder ceases so soon as we climb the height, and see wherein its great strength lies; how it has struck its roots down into the mountain, and wrapped them with many a strong twist and turn round and round the rock. (W. Arnot.)
.
Stand fast
1. In Christ to whom you have been brought.
2. In adherence to the doctrines which the gospel has set before you.
3. You will find your strength and dependence only in the grace of Christ.
4. In the service of your Master to the end. (J. Harding, M. A.)
The bounds of Christian freedom
When we speak of freedom, we are apt to think only of the removal of restraints. But though it is important to get rid of all needless restraints, it is much more important that we should possess and train the powers for which the absence of restraint is demanded. If there is no life, the removal of restraints will be of no use. If the life is feeble, and tied down by inward restraints like those of superstition or of fear, the removal of outward restraints will not set it free. But if there is vigorous life, it demands for its development a constantly expanding freedom: and this spiritual power has in itself both its proper energy and its proper bound. It is a tree which has an innate capacity of growth. Give it air and light; remove whatever confines and overshadows it. It may need pruning and guiding; but it can provide its own symmetry for itself. I do not propose to dwell verse by verse upon the passage (Gal_4:1-16) which I have taken for a starting point, but to illustrate and enforce its central principle. Wherever there is a just demand for freedom, it is because there exists a living power to be liberated; and this living power, if it be kept pure, contains in itself the true limit of its exercise. First, take the revival of Christian liberty at the time of the Reformation. Luthers first great treatise was Concerning Christian Liberty. The liberty he claims presupposes the establishment in the soul of the Divine life of faith. You do not work, he says again and again, so that you may live. Life comes first; works, afterwards. The fruit will never make the root or the sap, but the root and the sap ensure the fruit. But, since this Divine life of faith exists, he demands that it should be free from the fetters of the clerical system of the Middle Ages. But let us come to more commonplace examples of freedom; we shall still find that it is the growth of the inner life or capacity which determines and controls the external conditions. Take the familiar case of a boy who wants to leave school and go to sea. If his father is wise, he will watch carefully, and try to estimate the meaning of this wish. Is it mere unruliness or restlessness, or dislike of study? If so, he will give it no encouragement. But, if he finds the boy in his leisure moments reading about the sea, and haunting about the seashore, and studying intelligently the boats and sails and machinery, after a time he will begin to recognize in the boy such a bent as indicates a genuine call. And when this is so, he may assure himself that the freedom will not be abused. The boy will be free from the constraints of the shore life; but that very zest for seamanship which has won its freedom will be most likely to ensure the right use of that freedom. There is a fine expression in the speech in which Pericles contrasted the free system of Athenian life, the trustful spirit of liberty, with the narrower system of Sparta. It might be thought that, unless such constraints as those imposed at Sparta existed, each man would try to impose his own will or tastes upon others. But the contrary, Pericles declared, was the case at Athens; each man respected the feelings of his neighbour. The slavish system is that of mistrust. Mutual confidence is the offspring of freedom. We might illustrate this by the experience of two great English schools some sixty years ago. When Keate was head-master of Eton, his system of discipline was one of terrorism. He never took a boys word, and, on the suspicion of a fault, he flogged him. At the same period, Arnold was head-master at Rugby. He always believed a boy; and it was only on rare occasions, when the proof was indubitable, that he punished. It might have been supposed that, under the severer system, boys would be afraid to do wrong, and that they would take advantage of the more lenient system to deceive. The contrary was the case. At Eton, under Keate, it; was thought quite fair to deceive a master. At Rugby, boys said, It is a shame to tell Arnold a lie, he always believes you. Thus freedom and trustfulness beget the sense of responsibility. To conclude: We have spoken of freedom first as an inward and spiritual state, secondly as the removal of outward restraints. The first of these is the most important. To the attainment of this we must constantly attend, both for ourselves and for those on whom we have any influence. There are tyrannies which have nothing to do with physical restraints, and against these we must war incessantly. There is the tyranny of evil habits. How can he he thought free who is the slave of customs which he knows to be wrong? There is the tyranny of fashion and opinion, and again of prejudice and party spirit. How can he be free who acts only as others choose? There is the tyranny of ignorance. How can he be called free whose life is bounded by a narrow circle of ideas? Let us strive for the sublime liberty which belongs to those who fear God and hate evil. (Canon Fremantle.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv2, 7, 13, 16, 19, 22 Chapter 20
Chapter 20
SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED?
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Gal_5:2-6
SHALL the Galatians be circumcised, or shall they not? This is the decisive question. The denunciation with which Paul begins his letter, the narrative which follows, the profound argumentation, the tender entreaty of the last two chapters, all converge toward this crucial point. So far the Galatian Churches had been only dallying with Judaism. They have been tempted to the verge of apostasy; but they are not yet over the edge. Till they consent to be circumcised, they have not finally committed themselves; their freedom is not absolutely lost. The Apostle still hopes, despite his fears, that they will stand fast. The fatal step is eagerly pressed on them by the Judaisers, {Gal_6:12-13} whose persuasion the Galatians had so far entertained that they had begun to keep the Hebrew Sabbath and feast.- {Gal_4:10} If they yield to this further demand, the battle is lost; and this powerful Epistle, with all the Apostles previous labour spent upon them, has been in vain. To sever this section from the polemical in order to attach it to the practical part of the Epistle, as many commentators do, is to cut the nerve of the Apostles argument and reduce it to an abstract theological discussion.
This momentous question is brought forward with the greater emphasis and effect, because it has hitherto been kept out of sight. The allusion to Tit_2:1-5 has already indicated the supreme importance of the matter of circumcision. But the Apostle has delayed dealing with it formally and directly, until he is able to do so with the weight of the foregoing chapters to support his interdict. He has shattered the enemies position with his artillery of logic, he has assailed the hearts of his readers with all the force of his burning indignation and subduing pathos. Now he gathers up his strength for the final charge home, which must decide the battle.
1. Lo, I Paul tell you! When he begins thus, we feel that the decisive moment is at hand. Everything depends on the next few words. Paul stands like an archer with his bow drawn at full stretch and the arrow pointed to the mark. "Let others say what they may; this is what I tell you. If my word has any weight with you, give heed to this:-if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing."
Now his bolt is shot; we see what the Apostle has had in his mind all this time. Language cannot be more explicit. Some of his readers will have failed to catch the subtler points of his argument, or the finer tones of his voice of entreaty; but every one will understand this. The most "senseless" and volatile amongst the Galatians will surely be sobered by the terms of this warning. There is no escaping the dilemma. Legalism and Paulinism, the true and the false gospel, stand front to front, reduced to their barest form, and weighed each in the balance of its practical result. Christ-or Circumcision: which shall it be?
This declaration is no less authoritative and judicially threatening than the anathema of chap. 1. That former denouncement declared the false teachers severed from Christ. Those who yield to their persuasion, will be also "severed from Christ." They will fall into the same ditch as their blind leaders. The Judaisers have forfeited their part in Christ; they are false brethren, tares among the wheat, troublers and hinderers to the Church of God. And Gentile Christians who choose to be led astray by them must take the consequences. If they obey the "other gospel," Christs gospel is theirs no longer. If they rest their faith on circumcision, they have withdrawn it from His cross. Adopting the Mosaic regimen, they forego the benefits of Christs redemption. "Christ will profit you nothing." The sentence is negative, but no less fearful on that account. It is as though Christ should say, "Thou hast no part with Me."
Circumcision will cost the Galatian Christians all they possess in Jesus Christ. But is not this, some one will ask, an over-strained assertion? Is it consistent with Pauls professions and his policy in other instances? In Gal_5:6, and again in the last chapter, he declares that "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision nothing"; and yet here he makes it everything! The Apostles position is this. In itself the rite is valueless. It was the sacrament of the Old Covenant, which was brought to an end by the death of Christ. For the new Church of the Spirit, it is a matter of perfect indifference whether a man is circumcised or not. Paul had therefore circumcised Timothy, whose mother was a Jewess, {Act_16:1-3} though neither he nor his young disciple supposed that it was a religious necessity. It was done as a social convenience; "un-circumcision was nothing," and could in such a case be surrendered without prejudice. On the other hand, he refused to submit Titus to the same rite; for he was a pure Greek, and on him it could only have been imposed on religious grounds and as a passport to salvation. For this, and for no other reason, it was demanded by the Judaistic party. In this instance it was needful to show that "circumcision is nothing." The Galatians stood in the same position as Titus. Circumcision, if performed on them, must have denoted, not as in Timothys case, the fact of Jewish birth, but subjection to the Mosaic law. Regarded in this light, the question was one of life or death for the Pauline Churches. To yield to the Judaisers would be to surrender the principle of salvation by faith. The attempt of the legalist party was in effect to force Christianity into the grooves of Mosaism, to reduce the world-wide Church of the Spirit to a sect of moribund Judaism.
With what views, with what aim were the Galatians entertaining this Judaic "persuasion"? Was it to make them sons of God and heirs of His kingdom? This was the object with which "God sent forth His Son"; and the Spirit of sonship assured them that it was realised. {Gal_4:4-7} To adopt the former means to this end was to renounce the latter. In turning their eyes to this new bewitchment, they must be conscious that their attention was diverted from the Redeemers cross and their confidence in it weakened. {Gal_3:1} To be circumcised would be to rest their salvation formally and definitely on works of law, in place of the grace of God. The consequences of this Paul has shown in relating his discussion with Peter, in Gal_2:15-21. They would "make" themselves "transgressors"; they would "make Christs death of none effect." In the souls salvation Christ will be all, or nothing. If we trust Him, we must trust Him altogether. The Galatians had already admitted a suspicion of the power of His grace, which if cherished and acted on in the way proposed, must sever all communion between their souls and Him. Their circumcision would be "the sacrament of their excision from Christ" (Huxtable).
The tense of the verb is present. Pauls readers may be in the act of making this disastrous compliance. He bids them look for a moment at the depth of the gulf on whose brink they stand. "Stop!" he cries, "another step in that direction, and you have lost Christ."
And what will they get in exchange? They will saddle themselves with all the obligations of the Mosaic law (Gal_5:3). This probably was more than they bargained for. They wished to find a via media, some compromise between the new faith and the old, which would secure to them the benefits of Christ without His reproach, and the privileges of Judaism without its burdens. This at least was the policy of the Judaic teachers. {Gal_6:12-13} But it was a false and untenable position. "Circumcision verily profiteth, if thou art a doer of the law."; {Rom_2:25} otherwise it brings only condemnation. He who receives the sacrament of Mosaism, by doing so pledges himself to "keep and do" every one or its "ordinances, statutes, and judgments"-a yoke which, honest Peter said, "Neither we nor our fathers were able to bear". {Act_15:10} Let the Galatians read the law, and consider what they are going to undertake. He who goes with the Judaists a mile, will be compelled to go twain. They will not find themselves at liberty to pick and choose amongst the legal requirements. Their legalist teachers will not raise a finger to lighten the yoke, {Luk_11:46} when it is once fastened on their necks; nor will their own consciences acquit them of its responsibilities. This obligation Paul, himself a master in Jewish law, solemnly affirms: "I protest (I declare before God) to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to perform the whole law."
Now this is a proved impossibility. Whoever "sets up the law," he had avouched to Cephas, "makes himself a transgressor". {Gal_2:18} Nay, it was established of set purpose to "multiply transgressions," to deepen and sharpen the consciousness of sin. {Gal_3:19; Rom_3:20; Rom_4:15; Rom_5:20} Jewish believers in Christ, placed under its power by their birth, had thankfully found in the faith of Christ a refuge from its accusations. {Gal_2:16; Rom_7:24-25 - Rom_8:1-4} Surely the Galatians, knowing all this, will not be so foolish as to put themselves gratuitously under its power. To do this would be an insult to Christ, and an act of moral suicide. This further warning reinforces the first, and is uttered with equal solemnity. "I tell you, Christ will profit you nothing; and again I testify, the law will lay its full weight upon you." They will be left, without the help of Christ, to bear this tremendous burden.
This double threatening is blended into one in Gal_5:4. The pregnant force of Pauls Greek is untranslatable. Literally his words run, "You were nullified from Christ - κατηργηθητε απο ριστου - brought to nought (being severed) from Him, you that in law are seeking justification." He puts his assertion in the past (aorist) tense, stating that which ensues so soon as the principle of legal justification is endorsed. From that moment the Galatians cease to be Christians. In this sense they "are abolished," just as "the cross is" virtually "abolished" if the Apostle "preaches circumcision" (Gal_5:11), and "death is being abolished" under the reign of Christ. {1Co_15:26} He has said in Gal_5:2 that Christ will be made of none effect to them; now he adds that they "are made of none effect" in relation to Christ.
Their Christian standing is destroyed. The joyous experiences of their conversion, their share in Abrahams blessing, their Divine sonship witnessed to by the Holy Spirit mall this is nullified, cancelled at a stroke, if they are circumcised. The detachment of their faith "from Christ" is involved in the process of attaching it to Jewish ordinances, and brings spiritual destruction upon them. The root of the Christian life is faith in Him. Let that root be severed, let the branch no longer "abide in the vine" - it is dead already.
Cut off from Christ, they "have fallen from grace." Paul has already twice identified Christ and grace, in Gal_1:6 and Gal_2:21. The Divine mercies centre in Jesus Christ; and he who separates himself from Him, shuts these out of his soul. The verb here used by the Apostle (εξεπεσατε) is commonly applied {four times, e.g., in Acts 27} to a ship driven out of her course. Some such image seems to be in the writers mind in this passage. These racers made an excellent start, but they have stumbled; {ver. Gal_3:3} the vessel set out from harbour in gallant style, but she is drifting fast upon the rocks. This sentence is the exact opposite of stands in the grace, Rom_5:2 (Beet).
That he who "seeks justification in law has fallen from grace, " needs no proof after the powerful demonstration of Gal_2:14-21. The moralist claims quittance on the ground of his deservings. He pleads the quality of his "works," his punctual discharge of every stipulated duty, from circumcision onwards. "I fast twice a week," he tells his Divine Judge; "I tithe all my gains. I have kept all the commandments from my youth up." What can God expect more than this? But with these performances Grace has nothing to do. The man is not in its order. If he invokes its aid, it is as a make-weight, a supplement to the possible shortcomings in a virtue for the most part competent for itself. Now the grace of God is not to be set aside in this way; it refuses to be treated as a mere succedaneum of human virtue. Grace, like Christ, insists on being "all in all." "If salvation is by grace, it is no longer of works"; and "if of works, it is no more grace". {Rom_11:6} These two methods of justification imply different moral tempers, an opposite set and direction of the current of life. This question of circumcision brings the Galatians to the parting of the ways. Grace or Law-which of the two roads will they follow? Both they cannot. They may become Jewish proselytes; but they will cease to be Christians. Leaving behind them the light and joy of the heavenly Zion, they will find themselves wandering in the gloomy desolations of Sinai.
2. From this prospect the Apostle bids his readers turn to that which he himself beholds, and which they erewhile shared with him. Again he seems to say, "Be ye as I am, brethren"; {Gal_4:12} not in outward condition alone, but still more in inward experience and aspiration. "For we by the Spirit, on the ground of faith are awaiting the hope of righteousness" (Gal_5:5).
Look on this picture, and on that. Yonder are the Galatians, all in tumult about the legalistic proposals, debating which of the Hebrew feasts they shall celebrate and with what rites, absorbed in the details of Mosaic ceremony, all but persuaded to be circumcised and to settle their scruples out of hand by a blind submission to the Law. And here, on the other side, is Paul with the Church of the Spirit, walking in the righteousness of faith and the communion of the Holy Spirit, joyfully awaiting the Saviours final coming and the hope that is laid up in heaven. How vexed, how burdened, how narrow and puerile is the one condition of life; how large and lofty and secure the other. "We," says the Apostle, "are looking forwards, not backwards, to Christ and not to Moses."
Every word in this sentence is full of meaning. Faith carries an emphasis similar to that it has in Gal_2:16; Gal_3:22; and in Rom_4:16. Paul supports by contrast what he has just said: "Your share in the kingdom of grace is lost who seek a legal righteousness (Gal_5:4); it is by faith that we look for our heritage." Hope is clearly matter of hope, the future glory of the redeemed, described in Rom_8:18-25, Php_3:20-21, in both of which places there appears the remarkably compounded verb (απ εκ δεχομεθα) that concludes this verse. It implies an intent expectancy, sure of its object and satisfied with it. The hope is "righteousness hope"-the hope of the righteous-for it has in righteousness its warrant. The saying of Psa. 16, verified in Christs rising from the dead, contains its principle: "Thou wilt not leave my soul to death; nor suffer Thine holy one to see the pit." This was the secret "hope of Israel," {Act_23:6; Act_24:15; Act_26:6-8; comp. Joh_6:39-40; Joh_6:44} that grew up in the hearts of the men of faith, whose accomplishment is the crowning glory of the redemption of Christ. It is the goal of faith. Righteousness is the path that leads to it. The Galatians had been persuaded of this hope and embraced it; if they accept the "other gospel," with its phantom of a legal righteousness, their hope will perish.
The Apostle is always true to the order of thought here indicated. Faith saves from first to last. The present righteousness and future glory of the sons of God alike have their source in faith. The act of reliance by which the initial justification of the sinner was attained, now becomes the habit of the soul, the channel by which its life is fed, rooting itself ever more deeply into Christ and absorbing more completely the virtue of His death and heavenly life. Faith has its great ventures; it has also its seasons of endurance, its moods of quiet expectancy, its unweariable patience. It can wait as well as work. It rests upon the past, seeing in Christ crucified its "author"; then it looks on to the future, and claims Christ glorified for its "finisher." So faith prompts her sister Hope and points her to "the glory that shall be revealed." If faith fails, hope quickly dies. Unbelief is. the mother of despair. "Of faith," the Apostle says, "we look out!"
A second condition, inseparable from the first, marks the hope proper to the Christian righteousness. It is sustained "by the Spirit." The connection of faith and hope respectively with the gift of the Holy Spirit is marked very clearly by Paul in Eph_1:13-14 : "Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the earnest of our inheritance." The Holy Spirit seals the sons of God-"sons, then heirs". {Gal_4:6; Rom_8:15-17} This stamps on Christian hope a spiritual character. The conception which we form of it, the means by which it is pursued, the temper and attitude in which it is expected, are determined by the Holy Spirit who inspires it. This pure and celestial hope is therefore utterly removed from the selfish ambitions and the sensuous methods that distinguished the Judaistic movement. {Gal_4:3; Gal_4:9; Gal_6:12-14} "Men of worldly low design" like Pauls opponents in Galatia, had no right to entertain "the hope of righteousness." These matters are spiritually discerned; they are "the things of the Spirit, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him". {1Co_2:9-14}
If faith and hope are in sight, love cannot be far off. In the next verse it comes to claim its place beside the other two: "faith working through love." And so the blessed trio is complete, Fides, amor, spes: summa Christianismi (Bengel). Faith waits, but it also works; and love is its working energy. Love gives faith hands and feet; hope lends it wings. Love is the fire at its heart, the life-blood coursing in its veins; hope the light that gleams and dances in its eyes. Looking back to the Christ that hath been manifested, faith kindles into a boundless love; looking onward to the Christ that shall be revealed, it rises into an exultant hope.
These closing words are of no little theological importance. "They bridge over the gulf which seems to separate the language of Paul and James. Both assert a principle of practical energy, as opposed to a barren, inactive theory" (Lightfoot). Had the faith of Pauls readers been more practical, had they been of a diligent, enterprising spirit, "ready for every good word and work," they would not have felt, to the same degree, the spell of the Judaistic fascination. Idle hands, vain and restless minds, court temptation.
A manly, energetic faith will never play at ritualism or turn religion into a round of ceremonial, anesthetic exhibition. Loving and self-devoting faith in Christ is the one thing Paul covets to see in the Galatians. This is the working power of the gospel, the force that will lift and regenerate mankind. In comparison with this, questions of Church-order and forms of worship are "nothing." "The body is more than the raiment." Church organisation is a means to a certain end; and that end consists in the life of faith and love in Christian souls. Each man is worth to Christ and to His Church just so much as he possesses of this energy of the Spirit, just so much as he has of love to Christ and to men in Him. Other gifts and qualities, offices and orders of ministry, are but instruments for love to employ, machinery for love to energise.
The Apostle wishes it to be understood that he does not condemn circumcision on its own account, as though the opposite condition were in itself superior. If "circumcision does not avail anything, neither does uncircumcision." The Jew is no better or worse a Christian because he is circumcised; the Gentile no worse or better, because he is not. This difference in no way affects the mans spiritual standing or efficiency. Let the Galatians dismiss the whole question from their minds. "One thing is needful," to be filled with the Spirit of love. "Gods kingdom is not meat and drink"; it is not "days and seasons and years"; it is not circumcision, nor rubrics and vestments and priestly functions; it is "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." These are the true notes of the Church; "by love," said Christ, "all men will know that you are My disciples."
In these two sentences (Gal_5:5-6) the religion of Christ is summed up. Gal_5:5 gives us its statics; Gal_5:6 its dynamics. It is a condition, and an occupation; a grand outlook, and an intent pursuit; a Divine hope for the future, and a sovereign power for the present, with an infinite spring of energy in the love of Christ. The active and passive elements of the Christian life need to be justly balanced. Many of the errors of the Church have arisen from one-sidedness in this respect. Some do nothing but sit with folded hands till the Lord comes; others are too busy to think of His coining at all. So waiting degenerates into indolence; and serving into feverish hurry and anxiety, or mechanical routine. Let hope give calmness and dignity, buoyancy and brightness to our work; let work make our hope sober, reasonable, practical.
"These three abide-faith, hope, and love." They cannot change while God is God and mart is man. Forms of dogma and of worship have changed and must change. There is a perpetual "removing of the things that are shaken, as of things that are made"; but through all revolutions there "remain the things which are not shaken." To these let us rally. On these let us build. New questions thrust themselves to the front, touching matters as little essential to the Churchs life as that of circumcision in the Apostolic age. The evil is that we make so much of them. In the din of controversy we grow bewildered; our eyes are blinded with its dust; our souls chafed with its fretting. We lose the sense of proportion; we fail to see who are our true friends, and who our foes. We need to return to the simplicity that is in Christ. Let us "consider Him" - Christ incarnate, dying, risen, reigning, - till we are changed into the same image, till his life has wrought itself into ours. Then these questions of dispute will fall into their proper place. They will resolve themselves; or wait patiently for their solution. Loyalty to Jesus Christ is the only solvent of our controversies.
Will the Galatians be true to Christ? Or will they renounce their righteousness in Him for a legal status, morally worthless, and which will end in taking from them the hope of eternal life? They have nothing to gain, they have everything to lose in submitting to circumcision.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–26 1. Stand fast therefore. Compare Eph. 6:14; 2 Thess.…
1. Stand fast therefore. Compare Eph. 6:14; 2 Thess. 2:15. This verse is connected in meaning with the last chapter, where it is shown that the gospel is freedom, but the Mosaic law is the covenant of bondage. Hence Paul bids them to cling to their freedom in Christ, and not to be brought again under the yoke by being drawn under the Jewish law. Again. Once they had been under bondage to a heathen yoke (4:8); to accept the Jewish yoke would be a second bondage.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 7, 13, 19, 22 Gal_5:1. Stand fast in.—Stand up to, make your stand…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Gal_5:1. Stand fast in.—Stand up to, make your stand for. The liberty wherewith Christ has made as free.—As Christ has given you this liberty you are bound to stand fast in it. Be not entangled.—Implicated in a way which involves violence to true spontaneous life. The yoke of bondage.—Contrasted with the yoke of Christ, which is compatible with the fullest spiritual freedom.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gal_5:1
Christian Liberty—
I. Should be valued considering how it was obtained.—“The liberty where, with Christ hath made us free.” It is a liberty purchased at a great cost. Christ, the Son of God, became incarnated, suffered in a degree unparalleled and incomprehensible, and died the shameful and ignoble death of the crucified to win back the liberty man had forfeited by voluntary sin. The redemption of man was hopeless from himself, and but for the intervention of a competent Redeemer he was involved in utter and irretrievable bondage. Civil liberty, though the inalienable right of every man, has been secured as the result of great struggle and suffering. “With a great sum,” said the Roman captain to Paul, “obtained I this freedom;” and many since his day have had to pay dearly for the common rights of citizenship. But Christian liberty should be valued as the choicest privilege, remembering it was purchased by the suffering Christ, and that it has been defended through the ages by a noble army of martyrs.
II. Should remind us of the oppression from which it delivers.—“And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” The Galatians had been bondmen, enslaved by the worship of false and vile deities. If they rush into the snare of the legalists, they will be bondmen again, and their bondage will be the more oppressive now they have tasted the joys of freedom. Disobedience involves us in many entanglements. It is among the most potent of the energies of sin that it leads astray by blinding and blinds by leading astray; that the soul, like the strong champion of Israel, must have its eyes put out, when it would be bound with fetters of brass and condemned to grind in the prison-house (Jdg_16:21). Redemption from the slavery of sin should fill the heart with gratitude. A wealthy and kind Englishman once bought a poor negro for twenty pieces of gold. He presented him with a sum of money that he might buy a piece of land and furnish himself a home. “Am I really free? May I go whither I will?” cried the negro in the joy of his heart. “Well, let me be your slave, massa; you have redeemed me, and I owe all to you.” The gentleman took him into his service, and he never had a more faithful servant. How much more eagerly should we do homage and service to the divine Master, who Himself has made us free!
III. Should be rigorously maintained.—“Stand fast therefore.” The price of freedom is incessant vigilance; once gained it is a prize never to be lost, and no effort or sacrifice should be grudged in its defence. “As far as I am a Christian,” said Channing, “I am free. My religion lays on me not one chain. It does not hem me round with a mechanical ritual, does not enjoin forms, attitudes, and hours of prayer, does not descend to details of dress and food, does not put on me one outward badge. It teaches us to do good, but leaves us to devise for ourselves the means by which we may best serve mankind.” The spirit of Christian liberty is eternal. Jerusalem and Rome may strive to imprison it. They might as well seek to bind the winds of heaven. Its seat is the throne of Christ. It lives by the breath of His Spirit. Not to be courageous and faithful in its defence is disloyalty to Christ and treachery to our fellow-men.
Lessons.—
1. Christ is the true Emancipator of men.
2. Christian liberty does not violate but honours the law of love.
3. Liberty is best preserved by being consistently exercised.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSE
Gal_5:1. Freedom from Bondage.—
1. Every man by nature is a bondslave, being under the bondage of sin. The Jews were under bondage to the ceremonial law, involving great trouble, pain in the flesh, and great expense.
2. Jesus Christ by His obedience and death has purchased freedom and liberty to His Church—liberty not to do evil, nor from the yoke of new obedience, nor from the cross, nor from that obedience and reverence which inferiors owe to superiors; but from the dominion of sin, the tyranny of Satan, the curse and irritating power of the law, and from subjecting our consciences to the rites, doctrines, ceremonies, and laws of men in the matter of worship.
3. Though civil liberty be much desired, so ignorant are we of the worth of freedom from spiritual bondage that we can hardly be excited to seek after it, or made to stand to it when attained, but are in daily hazard of preferring our former bondage to our present liberty.—Fergusson.
Bondage and Liberty.
I. We are in bondage under sin.
II. We are subject to punishment.—Implying:
1. Bondage under Satan, who keeps unrepentant sinners in his snare.
2. Bondage under an evil conscience, which sits in the heart as accuser and judge, and lies like a wild beast at a man’s door ready to pluck out his throat.
3. Bondage under the wrath of God and fear of eternal death.
III. We are in bondage to the ceremonial law.—To feel this bondage is a step out of it; not to feel it is to be plunged into it.
IV. We have spiritual liberty by the grace of God.—
1. Christian liberty is a deliverance from misery.
(1) From the curse of the law for the breach thereof.
(2) From the obligation of the law whereby it binds us to perfect righteousness in our own persons.
(3) From the observance of the ceremonial law of Moses.
(4) From the tyranny and dominion of sin.
2. Christian liberty is freedom in good things.
(1) In the voluntary service of God.
(2) In the free use of all the creatures of God.
(3) Liberty to come to God and in prayer to be heard.
(4) To enter heaven.
V. Christ is the great Liberator.—He procured this liberty:
1. By the merit of His death. The price paid—His precious blood—shows the excellence of the blessing, and that it should be esteemed.
2. By the efficacy of His Spirit—assuring us of our adoption, and abating the strength and power of sin.
VI. We are to hold fast our liberty in the day of trial.—
1. We must labour that religion be not only in mind and memory, but rooted in the heart.
2. We must join with our religion the soundness of a good conscience.
3. We must pray for all things needful.—Perkins.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. The first grand principle contained in these words…
Gal 5:6
I. The first grand principle contained in these words is that faith working by love makes a Christian. (1) Religion is the harmony of the soul with God, and the conformity of the life to His law. (2) If we look backward from character and deed to motive, this harmony with God results from love becoming the ruling power of our lives. (3) The dominion of love to God in our hearts arises from faith.
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II. The Apostle’s words affirm that in comparison with the essential faith all externals are infinitely unimportant.
III. There is a constant tendency to exalt these unimportant externals into the place of faith.
IV. When an indifferent thing is made into an essential, it ceases to be indifferent, and must be fought against. Whenever parties or Churches insist on external rites as essential or elevate any of the subordinate means of grace into the place of the one bond which fastens our souls to Jesus and is the channel of grace as well as the bond of union, then it is time to arm for the defence of the spirituality of Christ’s kingdom and to resist the attempt to bind on free shoulders the iron yoke. Let men and parties do as they like so long as they do not turn their forms into essentials. But "in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love."
A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 207.
Faith.
I. Faith is the foundation of the whole spiritual building, whereby we are built on Christ Jesus. It is the root of the whole spiritual life of grace, the ground whereon the soul rests securely, the beginning of our spiritual existence. Faith goes even before love in thought, but not in deed. It goes before love in thought, for we love because we believe, not believe because we love. To faith which loves things seen fade from sight: things heard fall dull upon the ear; it will be unmoved by all outward things, for it has an inward sight, and an inward hearing, and an inward touch, whereby it beholds Christ dying on the cross for love of us, and in the shadow of His cross feels itself protected and healed. The cross is not far off, not over the seas, in the Holy Land, nor removed by length of time. Faith sees it close at hand, and clasps it, and loves it, and is crucified on it to Him.
II. Love is in all true faith, as light and warmth are in the ray of the sun. So soon as faith is kindled in the heart, there is the glow of love, and both come from the same Sun of righteousness pouring in faith and love together into the heart, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. With the increase of love, faith increaseth. But love liveth by good works. Love cannot live torpidly. Even in human love, love which never did deeds of love would grow dull and die. We love those most to whom we do most good. Love is perhaps increased more by doing than by receiving good, at least by doing good out of the love of God. "Faith worketh" (literally "inworketh"; the word means, worketh in the very soul itself) "by love."
E. B. Pusey, Sermons from Advent to Whitsuntide, vol. ii., p. 1.
References: Gal 5:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1553; vol. xxix., No. 1750; vol. xxii., No. 1280; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 251; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 92; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 8th series, p. 37; J. Clifford, The Dawn of Manhood, p. 152.
Gal 5:7
Spiritual Declension.
I. The first test to which we would bring the professing Christian who is anxious to determine whether he is ceasing to run well is that furnished by secret prayer and the study of God’s word. If any one is beginning to abbreviate the seasons of private devotion, reading a chapter or two less of the Bible, spending fewer moments in meditation, in self-examination, and in supplication for others and himself, and all not because he has less time at his disposal, but less will to devote to such occupations, let that man look at once to his state. He did run well; who has hindered him? But take other symptoms, equally decisive, though perhaps more easily overlooked. There is no feeling stronger in the genuine Christian than that of desire to promote God’s glory in the salvation of his fellow-men. But suppose him to become comparatively indifferent to the diffusion of the Gospel, who will say that there is no abatement of the running well? who will deny the spiritual declension?
II. Note the dangers of the state which is thus described. We cannot but suppose that the Spirit is more displeased when neglected by one on whom He has effectually wrought, than when resisted by another with whom He has striven in vain. And the lukewarm man is useless to himself and to others: to himself, for such a religion as his will never save him; to others, for such a religion will not enable him to be instrumental in the saving of his fellow-men. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1561.
I. Christendom is full of Christians with no outstanding sin nor yet with one grace; whose whole life is one blank; with whom man finds no fault, and in whom God finds no fruit; who day by day are gaining nothing, and so are day by day losing everything; on whom nothing makes any impression, because they have become dulled to all; unpained, but it is the painlessness of a mortified wound; undisturbed, but it is a death-sleep; in repose, because Satan is no longer restless when he has entered into the house whence he was cast out, and has taken up his abode there.
II. Others, again, lose grace, in that they expose themselves to the temptations of pleasure, wherein they before lost it. Sin finds entrance more easily where it has found it before. The will is weakest there, temptation strongest. People do not mean to fall into the sin of which they have repented, but tinder catches any spark. The soul which knows sin may be kindled by anything which recalls the past sin. It is an awful gift to have recovered grace; it is a precious mercy of God to be again entrusted with that grace which we had before forfeited, but the more precious it is, the more carefully it is to be guarded. Carelessness before a fall may be ignorance, passion, infirmity of nature; carelessness after you have been restored from falling is sin against light: it is to reject the mercy of God in Christ.
III. Another frequent cause of forfeiting the grace of God is that people think that it will abide with them as a matter of course, and are not watchful to retain it; and so, as a matter of course, they lose it. It is part of love to be watchful, not to do what Christ forbids, to be alive to every wile of Satan which might even for a moment separate us from the love of Christ.
E. B. Pusey, Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 61.
References: Gal 5:7.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ix., p. 349; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 314; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 135. Gal 5:11.—J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 22; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 93. Gal 5:11-26.—Ibid., vol. iii., p. 80. Gal 5:12.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 375. Gal 5:13.—E. Johnson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 324; D. Burns, Ibid., vol. xxv., p. 88; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 56; W. G. Horder, Ibid., vol. xxxiii., p. 24. Gal 5:13-18.—Ibid., vol. vi., p. 243. Gal 5:14.—H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. vii., p. 131. Gal 5:14-16.—Ibid., vol. x., p. 186. Gal 5:15, Gal 5:16.—H. Scott-Holland, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 284; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 156; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 359. Gal 5:16—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty, vol. ii. p. 121; C. Kingsley, Village Sermons, p. 43; S. Pearson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 139; H. S. Paterson, Ibid., vol. xv., p. 309; Phillips Brooks, Sermons, p. 353. Gal 5:16, Gal 5:17.—E. White, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 157; C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 422; F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. i., p. 263; T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 54.
Gal 5:17
The Conflict of the Christian Life.
Observe:—
I. The nature of the conflict. The struggle of the watchful, ever-lusting flesh against the spirit is a matter of the commonest Christian experience. The sense of obligation rouses the spirit of revolt; the knowledge that a thing is forbidden makes us covet it the more. But is it not also a matter of Christian experience that the spirit lusteth against the flesh? Victories that have not been secured by many an hour of thought and watching have been made ours in a flush of enthusiasm. The revolt against command is checked by the passion for submission. They are not altogether sad words in our text, "Ye cannot do the things that ye would," for again and again, when men have resolved upon some wickedness, when they have silenced their scruples and put down conscience, even in the act of executing their sinful purpose, the unquenchable spirit has been known to speak, making them ashamed of their baseness and folly, sending them fleeing from their sin to their Saviour.
II. The purpose of the conflict. Our text is one of those passages on which much light has been thrown by the progress of Greek scholarship since the translation of the Bible into English. Almost all the best commentators are agreed that it should be rendered, not "so that ye cannot," but "in order that ye may not," do the things that ye would. The conjunction is one most forcibly expressive of design; the opposition between the flesh and the spirit is intended by God. He permits the flesh to lust against the spirit; He inspires the lust of the spirit against the flesh, in order that we may not do whatever we may wish, and simply because we wish it. The victory God is giving us is not of reason over natural temperament nor of heart over head; it is the victory of the spirit over the flesh. The new Divine nature, having subdued all lustfulness, reigns supreme by heart and head, by sanctity of thought and impulse, of passion and resolve.
A. Mackennal, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 264.
Gal 5:17
There are three senses in which these words may be taken (1) They may mean generally, There is a spirit in you ruling your whole mind and being; and to the sovereign power of that spirit you are in all things only a passive subject, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would; or (2) we may use them for humiliation and admonition. The nature which still remains in you is too strong to let you live up to all your higher aspirations: "so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Or (3) if you are a child of God, a Spirit, a Holy Ghost, is in you, and the Spirit is too active and too strong to suffer you to follow your own worst will, so that, though you wish it, you cannot do the things that you would. I believe the last to be the true construing.
I. No one who knows anything of human nature or of his own heart can doubt for a moment that the ninth article of our Church is thoroughly and literally true, and that "the infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated, whereby the lust of the flesh, called in the Greek phronema sarkos, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire of the flesh, is not subject to the law of God." The process of sanctification is not the extirpation of sin at all; it is the subjugation of sin. The Philistines are yet in the land, in their strongholds, though the land belong to the people of God.
II. The way to subdue sin is to introduce a master power. You will never actually destroy the wrong will; but you must neutralise it by another will. You must bring in and cultivate and enlarge the prohibitive and the preventive forces of the heart, till at last you would come to the state that "ye cannot do the things that ye would."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 212.
References: Gal 5:17.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 754; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 259; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 601; W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 360. Gal 5:18.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 252. Gal 5:20.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 10. Gal 5:22.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 94; vol. iv., p. 124; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1582; vol. xxx., No. 1782; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 313; vol. xxxvi., p. 309; J. N. Norton, The King’s Ferry Boat, p. 15.
Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23.
The Fruits of the Spirit.
I. Every tree is known by its fruit. And just so it is with us. The Bible often speaks about men as trees. Our root is the heart; the heart is the root of every man and of every man’s life; and according then to what the heart is will be the life. Now what is the fruit of the Spirit? It is the fruit of a heart that has been renewed by the Spirit of God. God does not begin at the outside, at the circumference, but with the heart. He makes the acts and deeds right by making the heart right; He makes and keeps the tongue right by making the heart right. There is the difference between man’s way and God’s. Man begins at the outside, and tries to work towards the centre; God begins at once in the centre and in the heart, and by changing the heart He changes the life; and so Christ’s word to Nicodemus is Christ’s word to every man, "Ye must be born again."
II. Notice that in this particular list the fruits of the Spirit are dispositions. Paul in this particular passage is not dealing with actions, with deeds, but with dispositions—love, joy, and so on, till you come to meekness and temperance—dispositions, not activities. Then, further, he is not telling us of all the dispositions that result from the indwelling of the Spirit of God in our breasts, but only of some of them. We are taken by the Apostle into a particular sphere of life, and are shown what the dispositions are belonging to that sphere. He is referring to the Galatian Churches as communities of men and women associated together in the profession of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is taking us into the sphere of Christian fellowship and Christian intercourse; and the dispositions which he names are the dispositions produced by the Spirit among Christian men and women in their social intercourse one with another, in their Church fellowship and Church life.
J. Culross, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 43.
The Fruit of the Spirit.
I. The Holy Spirit always clusters His work; one Christian virtue necessarily raises up another; there is no such thing as sanctification in a single point. But as one berry in a bunch of grapes cannot ripen but that the others ripen too, so it is with the Christian. Try to eradicate one sin of your character, and you will invariably find that in doing it you will weaken, if you do not pull up, another. Cultivate one good trait, and you will be surprised to find how many more seem to grow up, you scarcely know how, at its side. So that often this is the best way to carry on one’s own edification: to concentrate one’s prayers and self-discipline upon one particular point of attainment, not only because by that fixedness we shall best secure the growth and the attainment which we desire, but also because by cherishing that one excellence we shall promote all.
II. In the outer world, all the vicissitudes of the seasons and the weather go to make the harvest. Do you wonder in the spiritual husbandry, where such fruits as these have to be wrought, that there must be sometimes the bracing cold of a stern adversity, alternating with the warmer rays of summer hours? Can it be but that the sap of the Spirit shall be set free to flow by the winds which blow on us, and that we shall be cleansed by many a storm which is sent, for this very reason, to sweep over us? The wise man prayed that his soul might be subject to the changes of a moral atmosphere: "Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon our garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." And then—the far end of all"—Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 5th series, p. 26.
References: Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23.—J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ, 2nd series, p. 239; A. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit, pp. 13-113; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 164; Ibid., vol. xix., p. 169; Ibid., vol. xxix., p. 51. Gal 5:22-26.—Ibid., vol. vi., p. 83; R. W. Dale, Ibid., vol. xxxv., p. 116. Gal 5:24.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1239. Gal 5:25.—Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 262.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v7 Division 4. (Gal 5:7-26; Gal 6:1-18.)
Division 4. (Gal 5:7-26; Gal 6:1-18.)
The Practical Test of the Two Principles.
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1. The blessing could not be more complete, and they had experienced the joy and power of it. This causes him again to express his astonishment at their now refusing obedience to the truth. They had been running well. Who now was hindering them? It certainly did not come from God, this new persuasion. On the other hand, the power of evil was such that a little leaven would soon leaven the whole lump. Evil, in fact, makes continual demands. One departure from truth will necessitate many, in order that there may be perfect consistency. There can be no possible compromise in a path like this, but how great the folly of those who, having experienced the joy and power of divine grace, could now take up with that which was in its nature absolutely contrary! If he looks at them, he may well be disheartened; but in grace itself he had found his refuge. In the Lord he could have confidence that they would be none otherwise minded, and the troubler, whoever it might be, should bear his judgment. He sees easily that there was temptation enough indeed, in a certain sense, to adopt such a thing as circumcision, which would remove, as between Jews and Christians, the whole offence of the cross. The apostle puts it as a thing impossible rightly to cease, and we see the persecution of which he is thinking is on the part of the Jew; and we have seen, it was so distinctly in the history which the Acts has given us. It was to the Jew that the cross was a scandal -the sign, as he has already told us, of One upon whom the law put its curse, of a curse needed to be taken because of the condition of those under law. How impossible for the Jew to allow that the law had nothing but a curse for man, and that the very Saviour of men, to be that, must bear the curse! The cross was the complete condemnation of man before God. It was also complete deliverance for those who accepted the condemnation, but this was the destruction necessarily of all legal righteousness. "I would," he says, they would even cut themselves off which trouble you." He has no possible tolerance for that which was the destruction of Christian truth and principle; his love to the souls of men made him what people would call intolerant. But, in fact, while these men would uphold the law, the very thing that the law required from man was in practice set aside. The Galatians were finding it so. They had given up their true Christian liberty, and yet, after all, were not keeping the law, for all the law was fulfilled in one word, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." They had surely realized the power of divine grace in this way, but now the effect of their legal addition to the gospel was a total change in their awn spirit. They were, as he intimates, "biting and devouring one another." What use to talk about the law in such a state as that? They might well be afraid lest they should "be consumed one of another;" but this is the necessary effect of law ever. The law is claim, demand, and expects, therefore, a full ability on man’s part to meet the demand. The spirit of self-righteousness, which alone could take comfort in it on such a principle, has necessarily in it no tenderness, no recognition of one’s own infirmity and no compassion for the infirmity of others. The law itself had none and could have none. It was its business to condemn, and it did it well. If a man continued not "in all things written in the book of the law to do them," he was under the curse. How simple, that to accept the law, then, as that under which one was, would be the destruction of all tenderness, of the very spirit which the law really required.
2. There is indeed in man everywhere the flesh and the lust of the flesh, and for a soul that does not yet realize the true deliverance that God has for us, the perfectly natural remedy is to take up with the law. It is, in fact, no remedy, but the reverse. The remedy is to "walk in the Spirit," as he urges upon them here. "Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh," -not as some would read it now, ye shall have no flesh, nor even, ye shall have Bo lust of it. Lust is that which gives the flesh its character; that is to say, the craving of an unsatisfied heart away from God, and this, too, remains in the Christian, as is plain from what he urges here. "For the flesh," he says, "lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other." He does not say, as the common version puts it: "So that ye cannot do the things that ye would," but "So that ye should not." He will not think of an impossibility on the part of one who walks in the Spirit. To the Spirit, clearly, nothing can be impossibility. Still, the two remain here, as we have seen already in Romans, even in the delivered Christian; and just as in Romans, it is against the Spirit that the flesh lusts. He does not give us here the striving of self against self which was that of the man in the seventh chapter, as yet not delivered. He is not, therefore, as some imagine, speaking simply of what was a low state on the part of the Galatians. Granted that they were in a low state, but he puts it here as a general truth, and in language, as already said, which would apply to a man in the Spirit, a delivered man. Even so, flesh and Spirit are there with all their absolute opposition to one another, and the tendency is necessarily to hinder one doing the things he would. Some have put it as if it was the will of the flesh that the Spirit here hinders, but even in the conflict of the seventh of Romans, or rather, in the state of bondage which we find there, the captive, after all, assures himself that the things that he would are the things according to God. The apostle would not allow that the will away from God is a Christian state at all; but the flesh, nevertheless will seek to assert itself, and the only remedy for the soul is the way of the Spirit; that is, as we have seen, in occupation with Christ. With Him before our eyes, there is nothing for the lust of the flesh whatever, and moreover the heart that truly knows Him finds in Him a satisfaction and rest which delivers from the corruption that is in the world through lust; but then, "if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." The two things are in absolute and perfect contradiction one to another.
The works of the flesh are now enumerated, and we must remember that if the flesh be in the Christian, he can never promise himself that they will not be found in their full dreadful character, if once there be license given to it. The apostle has no idea of a modified flesh in a Christian. There are doubtless very different characters of it, but a close brotherhood in the family of sin. The apostle puts them together in that way, -"Murder, drunkenness, revellings and such like," very different in the extent of the evil, but if the soul’s anchorage be lost there is no possibility of telling how far it will drift. It is only the power of the Spirit that can control the flesh; and He controls it by leading us, as we have seen, in another way; but the Spirit, while the full expression of divine grace towards us, nevertheless requires the most complete subjection to Himself. God must be God. It is no grace that will tolerate any forgetfulness of this. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law but under grace." Grace is not toleration in any wise, and the Spirit of God can only lead those who are in full subjection in desire, at least, to Him. It is here that we need. to be able so fully to say: "Search me, O God, and try me," to have our feet in the blessed hands of One who cleanses after His own mind as to cleansing. Of the whole category of sin here, it is said, "They that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." That is the road to death from which the Spirit of God takes a man, not leaves him upon it.
3. The fruit of the Spirit is now brought before us. Here, too, is a brotherhood of graces. "Fruit" the apostle calls it. The flesh has its works. He will not give that the name of "fruit," and here it is not, in fact, of work that he is speaking, but of an inward temper, the development of the divine nature, which, therefore, is in unity and peace all through. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-government, against such there is no law." Thus, that which the law could give no power to fulfil, is found by thus walking in the Spirit, and "they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts:" that is to say, they have accepted the cross of Christ as that which is for them the judgment of it all and their separation from it. How perfect, in fact, is the judgment of self which the cross truly apprehended gives. It is not merely the judgment of this or that about us, but the complete removal of the man in the flesh, in order that Christ may fill all the scene for us. The knowledge of the new man is that "Christ is all and in all." Thus, it is not a process, as he puts it here, this crucifixion: it is a thing accomplished. We may have to learn by degrees what it means. The light grows brighter upon the path as we walk in it, and we discern more clearly, no doubt, that which suits God. Thus, there is growth in apprehension as to detail, but as to principle, the thing is done at the start. It is Christ, not self that we have put on, and it is that which suits Him that we follow. As it is put in Colossians, we are to "do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus," that is to say, as representing Him upon earth; and that means, assuredly, that from the start the flesh is crucified for us. The cross stands at the beginning of the Christian path, and the Galatians here had the Spirit. He does not question it. They were alive in the Spirit. If so, he says, let the walk be in the Spirit also, "let us not be desirous of vain glory" which the law, if man could keep it, could not but promote, the effect necessarily following; but as to others there would be a spirit of intolerance and not of love; "provoking one another," he says here, "envying one another."
4. We see that he is occupied throughout here, with the practical test; a powerful method of appeal, surely, to those who had, in fact, known the blessedness which the gospel could give; far as they might now be departing from it. The law might require love indeed and did; but it could not produce it, could not even encourage such a spirit in those that followed it. You will never find the legal mind tender really of others. The apostle, therefore, presses it upon them here, that if they were, in fact, spiritual, that would be seen in their behaviour. If one were overtaken in a fault, they would restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, the very opposite of the spirit engendered by the principle which they had taken up. They would consider themselves lest they also should be tempted; but for a mart under law, it does not do to consider himself after that fashion; it would work discouragement and despair. On the other hand, he must assure himself under law of his competence to fulfil the commandment, and therefore he must exact from others the fulfilment; assured of their competence no less than his. Spirituality, in fact, may be claimed by those who act in a very opposite spirit to this. That is what he rebukes here. He does not mean to affirm their spirituality. He does not mean that a man has to look at himself and ask whether he is spiritual, before he can realize ability to restore another. The spirit of meekness is the very opposite of such fancied spirituality. The spiritual man is too near Christ to believe in himself; to walk in that presence has, as its surest mark, the spirit of lowliness; and if the Spirit of God bear witness in our souls in a practical way, it will not be to puff us up with the idea of Christ-likeness, but, on the contrary, to point out to us where we are unlike Him; yet here there is no spirit of discouragement or despair engendered. If we have once learned the true judgment of ourselves before God as the cross gives it to us, we shall not expect to find anything in ourselves, and therefore shall not be disappointed; yet our resource is at hand, our strength is in Another "In Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and we are filled up in Him." There can be no want then to us, and there can be no self-confidence in those whose habitual resort is to this fountain of supply. The spirit of meekness, therefore, will go with true spirituality. Let them show it, he urges, in that way. Let them "bear one another’s burdens," so they would fulfil the law of Christ, who Himself assuredly was the great burden Bearer. On the other hand, if a man thought himself to be something when nothing (when did he ever think himself to be something without being nothing?) he would deceive himself. He adds now a word against those who were, in contradiction to his own principle, building upon another man’s foundations, and indeed, rather destroying those foundations, than building upon them. "Let every man," he says, "approve his own work and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another." In the end, every one would bear his own burden.* Every Christian must at last take up his own responsibility before God, as we know. Every one must give account of himself to God. It will be the triumph of divine grace to be able to do it after the fashion in which we shall do it; and yet, nevertheless, there is enough in the thought for the utmost seriousness.
{*These are two different words in the original.}
5. He enters now upon the subject, which this opens, of divine government, a thing which is not, as we know, in the slightest contradiction with divine grace. These are things which are sometimes put as if in some sense contrary to one another; but, on the other hand, the government of God for us is expressly a Father’s government, while it is, none the less, that of One who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man’s work. This is, of course, a thing of the present, not of the future. The future judgment, whether with regard to saint or sinner, is in the hands of Christ. "God hath committed all judgment to Him because He is the Son of Man," but there is a government which is, none the less, the government of grace, because it is one absolutely intolerant of evil. We may repeat again that the toleration of evil is never grace. It would be a perversion of the very thought of grace to imagine this. "Be not deceived," he says, therefore, "God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption and he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." These are principles of absolute necessity. Nothing can alter them. If a man sows a certain seed, he knows, or he should know, that he can get of that seed nothing but what is proper to it. If a man sows to his flesh, he sows, in fact, the corruption which he reaps. The very principle of self-will which must, of necessity, be in it, is a principle which is essentially that of sin. Every form of sin will come under this, and God may allow, in fact, such seed to come to harvest, in order that we may recognize its character, as we otherwise would not do. In the opposite way to that of the man who, bearing good seed, goes forth even weeping, but returns with joy, a man in this way may sow his seed rejoicing, but it will be the return that will be sorrowful. It does not follow that God cannot come in and deliver us from what would otherwise be the necessary fruit of such sowing, if only there be the true self-judgment of it in the soul; for to a Christian, the reaping of it is but in order to self-judgment, and if we will judge it first, there may be no need of reaping at all. Judge it first or last we surely must, or the thing will develop for what it is and be manifest, not to ourselves alone it may be, but to others also. On the other hand, "He that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Blessed and wonderful reaping! The life is looked at here, of course, in its practical character, in its fruits and activities. The life itself, the life which produces this, is no matter of reaping at all, it is what we must have to be Christians. Nevertheless, we can reap it as a practical thing, and the witness of it is that, even though reaped here upon earth, it is something which has eternity in it. All that which in us here is the fruit of the divine work has necessarily its link with eternity. It is for eternity that we are preparing. There is not even just that sharp division between the present and the future for us which we are apt so to imagine. It is eternity that God has before Him, it is the things eternal with which we are conversant day by day. It is eternity, therefore, that imprints its character upon the present. It is the life everlasting which we live practically now, and let us not then, says the apostle, be "weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not." The path is through a world of trial, and therefore, though in itself all well doing has its own delight, yet the opposition to it from the world through which we pass will surely give us need of such an encouragement as this. "As we have, therefore, opportunity, let us do good unto all men, but especially," he adds, "unto them who are of the household of faith." This ends very much the practical test which he has been making of the two principles which we have seen in opposition all the way through the epistle. All the way through it is a controversy, and one from which we need not expect to escape while we are here. God’s principles lead into conflict, and, alas, not merely with the men of the world, but, it may be, as here, with the children of God themselves.
6. In the earnestness of his desire for them, the apostle, contrary to his wont, has penned all this epistle with his own hand. His custom was simply to put a salutation from his hand at the end; but in this case, he could not, as it were, trust another, or was not free to dictate to another the things that were in his heart. It was not with him, as with those of whom he was writing, a fair show in the flesh that he was making. He was not wanting followers, nor, as they, to escape persecution for the cross of Christ. He charges them openly with this. They did not keep the law, they could not but be conscious of that. Their desire to have others circumcised was simply that they might glory in their flesh. For him all that was ended. The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ had closed for him the whole scene here; and in it the world it was that was crucified, and be himself to the world. The character of the world was thus stamped upon it. The cross was for him a shadow resting upon it. If it had judged and cast out Christ, he who was identified with Christ before God, and had learned to identify himself thus, was one whom they had crucified.
7. Christ was beyond it all. He had seen Him, Head of a new creation; in Him circumcision availed nothing now, nor uncircumcision. These had nothing to do with new creation. They belonged to the world, to the fallen world. The Christian walk was outside them altogether, not after the Jewish pattern of legality nor the Gentile pattern of lawlessness. There was a new rule, -a rule which made a man "a pilgrim and a stranger" here, the rule of belonging to this other scene in which already the glory of Christ was displayed. In the light of that he walked, and for such as do so he desires and pronounces upon them "peace and mercy," (mercy of which they still had need) "and upon the Israel of God" -the true Israelite,* not the fleshly one. Here then, the matter rested for him. None need trouble him more. He bore already in his body the "brands of the Lord Jesus," the brands of trials and sufferings undergone for Christ and which marked him as the bondman of Christ in the joyful apprehension of the love that had been shown. He closes with the constant benediction that was in his heart: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."
{*That is, the natural descendants of Abraham who were also spiritual. -S.R.}
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv6, 16, 22
Galatians
WHAT MAKES A CHRISTIAN: CIRCUMCISION OR FAITH?
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Gal 5:6
It is a very singular instance of imaginative misreading of plain facts that the primitive Church should be held up as a pattern Church. The early communities had apostolic teaching; but beyond that, they seem to have been in no respect above, and in many respects below, the level of subsequent ages. If we may judge of their morality by the exhortations and dehortations which they received from the Apostle, Corinth and Thessalonica were but beginners in holiness. If we may judge of their intelligence by the errors into which they were in danger of falling, these first congregations had indeed need that one should teach them which were the first principles of the oracles of God. It could not be otherwise. They were but just rescued from heathenism, and we need not wonder if their spirits long bore the scars of their former bondage. If we wish to know what the apostolic churches were like, we have but to look at the communities gathered by modern missionaries. The same infantile simplicity, the same partial apprehensions of the truth, the same danger of being led astray by the low morality of their heathen kindred, the same openness to strange heresy, the same danger of blending the old with the new, in opinion and in practice, beset both.
The history of the first theological difference in the early churches is a striking confutation of the dream that they were perfect, and a striking illustration of the dangers to which they were exposed from the attempt, so natural to us all, to put new wine into old bottles. The Jewish and the Gentile elements did not coalesce. The point round which the strife was waged was not whether Gentiles might come into the Church. That was conceded by the fiercest Judaisers. But it was whether they could come in as Gentiles, without first being incorporated into the Jewish nation by circumcision, and whether they could remain in as Gentiles, without conforming to Jewish ceremonial and law.
Those who said ‘No’ _were_ members of the Christian communities, and, being so, they still insisted that Judaism was to be eternal. They demanded that the patched and stiff leathern bottle, which had no elasticity or pliability, should still contain the quick fermenting new wine of the kingdom. And certainly, if ever man had excuse for clinging to what was old and formal, these Judaising Christians held it. They held by a law written with God’s own finger, by ordinances awful by reason of divine appointment, venerable by reason of the generations to which they had been of absolute authority, commended by the very example of Christ Himself. Every motive which can bind heart and conscience to the reverence and the practice of the traditions of the Fathers, bound them to the Law and the ordinances which had been Israel’s treasure from Abraham to Jesus.
Those who said ‘Yes’ were mostly Gentiles, headed and inspired by a Hebrew of the Hebrews. They believed that Judaism was preparatory, and that its work was done. For those among themselves who were Jews, they were willing that its laws should still be obligatory; but they fought against the attempt to compel all Gentile converts to enter Christ’s kingdom through the gate of circumcision.
The fight was stubborn and bitter. I suppose it is harder to abolish forms than to change opinions. Ceremonies stand long after the thought which they express has fled, as a dead king may sit on his throne stiff and stark in his golden mantle, and no one come near enough to see that the light is gone out of his eyes, and the will departed from the hand that still clutches the sceptre. All through Paul’s life he was dogged and tormented by this controversy. There was a deep gulf between the churches he planted and this reactionary section of the Christian community. Its emissaries were continually following in his footsteps. As he bitterly reproaches them, they entered upon another man’s line of things made ready to their hand, not caring to plant churches of circumcised Gentiles themselves, but starting up behind him as soon as his back was turned, and spoiling his work.
This Epistle is the memorial of that foot-to-foot feud. It is of perennial use, as the tendencies against which it is directed are constant in human nature. Men are ever apt to confound form and substance, to crave material embodiments of spiritual realities, to elevate outward means into the place of the inward and real, to which all the outward is but subsidiary. In every period of strife between the two great opponents, this letter has been the stronghold of those who fight for the spiritual conception of religion. With it Luther waged his warfare, and in this day, too, its words are precious.
My text contains Paul’s condensed statement of his whole position in the controversy. It tells us what he fought for, and why he fought, against the attempt to suspend union to Christ on an outward rite.
I. The first grand principle contained in these words is that faith working by love makes a Christian.
The antithesis of our text appears in somewhat varied forms in two other places in the Apostle’s writings. To the Corinthians he says, ‘Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.’ His last word to the Galatians--the gathering up into one strong sentence of his whole letter--is, ‘In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.’
Now, all these assertions embody substantially the same opposition between the conception of Christianity as depending upon a ceremonial rite, and as being a spiritual change. And the variations in the second member of the contrast throw light on each other. In one, the essential thing is regarded from the divine side as being not a rite performed on the body, but a new nature, the result of a supernatural regeneration. In another, the essential thing is set forth as being not an outward act, but an inward principle, which produces appropriate effects on the whole being. In yet another the essential thing is conceived as being not a mere ceremonial, but practical obedience, the consequence of the active principle of faith, and the sign of the new life. There is an evident sequence in the three sayings. They begin with the deepest, the divine act of a new creation--and end with the outermost, the last result and object of both the others--deeds of conformity to God’s law.
This one process in its triple aspects, says Paul, constitutes a man a Christian. What correspondence is there between it, in any of its parts, and a carnal ordinance? They belong to wholly different categories, and it is the most preposterous confusion to try to mix them up together. Are we to tack on to the solemn powers and qualities, which unite the soul to Christ, this beggarly addition that the Judaisers desire, and to say, the essentials of Christianity are a new creature, faith, obedience--and circumcision? That is, indeed, sewing old cloth on a new garment, and huddling together in grotesque chaos things which are utterly diverse. It is as absurd bathos as to say the essentials of a judge are integrity, learning, patience--and an ermine robe!
There would be less danger of being entangled in false notions of the sort which devastated Galatia and have afflicted the Church ever since, if people would put a little more distinctly before their own minds what they mean by ‘religion’; what sort of man they intend when they talk about ‘a Christian.’ A clear notion of the thing to be produced would thin away a wonderful deal of mist as to the way of producing it. So then, beginning at the surface, in order to work inward, my first remark is that religion is the harmony of the soul with God, and the conformity of the life to His law.
The loftiest purpose of God, in all His dealings, is to make us like Himself; and the end of all religion is the complete accomplishment of that purpose. There is no religion without these elements--consciousness of kindred with God, recognition of Him as the sum of all excellence and beauty, and of His will as unconditionally binding upon us, aspiration and effort after a full accord of heart and soul with Him and with His law, and humble confidence that that sovereign beauty will be ours. ‘Be ye imitators of God as dear children’ is the pure and comprehensive dictate which expresses the aim of all devout men. ‘To keep His commandments’ goes deeper than the mere external deeds. Were it not so, Paul’s grand words would shrink to a very poor conception of religion, which would then have its shrine and sphere removed from the sacred recesses of the inmost spirit to the dusty Babel of the market-place and the streets. But with that due and necessary extension of the words which results from the very nature of the case, that obedience must be the obedience of a man, and not of his deeds only, and must include the submission of the will and the prostration of the whole nature before Him; they teach a truth which, fully received and carried out, clears away whole mountains of theoretical confusion and practical error. Religion is no dry morality; no slavish, punctilious conforming of actions to a hard law. Religion is not right thinking alone, nor right emotion alone, nor right action alone. Religion is still less the semblance of these in formal profession, or simulated feeling, or apparent rectitude. Religion is not nominal connection with the Christian community, nor participation in its ordinances and its worship. But to be godly is to be godlike. The full accord of all the soul with His character, in whom, as their native home, dwell ‘whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,’ and the full glad conformity of the will to His sovereign will, who is the life of our lives--this, and nothing shallower, nothing narrower, is religion in its perfection; and the measure in which we have attained to this harmony with God, is the measure in which we are Christians. As two stringed instruments may be so tuned to one keynote that, if you strike the one, a faint ethereal echo is heard from the other, which blends undistinguishably with its parent sound; so, drawing near to God, and brought into unison with His mind and will, our responsive spirits vibrate in accord with His, and give forth tones, low and thin indeed, but still repeating the mighty music of heaven. ‘Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.’
But our text tells us, further, that if we look backwards from character and deed to motive, this harmony with God results from love becoming the ruling power of our lives. The imitation of the object of worship has always been felt to be the highest form of worship. Many an ancient teacher, besides the Stoic philosopher, has said, ‘He who copies the gods worships them adequately.’ One of the prophets lays it down as a standing rule, ‘The people will walk every one in the name of his God.’ But it is only in the Christian attitude towards God that the motive power is found which makes such imitation more than an impossible duty, even as it is only in the revealed character of God that a pattern is found, to imitate which is to be perfect. Everywhere besides, harmony with the gods meant discord with conscience and flagrant outrages of the commonest moralities. Everywhere else, the task of copying them was one lightened by no clear confidence in their love, and by no happy consciousness of our own. But for us, the love revealed is the perfect law, and the love evoked is the fulfilling of the law.
And this is the might and nobleness of the Christian love to God; that it is no idle emotion or lazy rapture, no vague sentiment, but the root of all practical goodness, of all strenuous effort, of all virtue, and of all praise. That strong tide is meant to drive the busy wheels of life and to bear precious freightage on its bosom; not to flow away in profitless foam. Love is the fruitful mother of bright children, as our great moralist-poet learned when he painted her in the House of Holiness:
‘A multitude of babes about her hung, Playing their sport that joyed her to behold.’
Her sons are Strength and Justice, and Self-control and Firmness, and Courage and Patience, and many more besides; and her daughters are Pity with her sad eyes, and Gentleness with her silvery voice, and Mercy whose sweet face makes sunshine in the shade of death, and Humility all unconscious of her loveliness; and linked hand in hand with these, all the radiant band of sisters that men call Virtues and Graces. These will dwell in our hearts, if Love their mighty mother be there. If we are without her, we shall be without them.
There is discord between man and God which can only be removed by the sweet commerce of love, established between earth and heaven. God’s love has come to us. When ours springs responsive to Him, then the schism is ended, and the wandering child forgets his rebellion, as he lays his aching head on the father’s bosom, and feels the beating of the father’s heart. Our souls by reason of sin are ‘like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.’ Love’s master hand laid upon them restores to them their part in ‘the fair music that all creatures make to their great Lord,’ and brings us into such accord with God that ‘We on earth with undiscording voice May rightly answer’ even the awful harmonies of His lips. The essential of religion is concord with God, and the power which makes that concord is love to God.
But this text leads to a still further consideration, namely, the dominion of love to God in our hearts arises from faith.
We thus reach the last link, or rather the staple, of the chain from which all hangs. Religion is harmony with God; that harmony is produced by love; and that love is produced by faith. Therefore the fundamental of all Christianity in the soul is faith. Would this sound any fresher and more obvious if we varied the language, and said that to be religious we must be like God, that to be like Him we must love Him, and that to love Him we must be sure that He loves us? Surely that is too plain to need enlarging on.
And is it not true that faith must precede our love to God, and affords the only possible basis on which that can be built? How can we love Him so long as we are in doubt of His heart, or misconceive His character, as if it were only power and wisdom, or awful severity? Men cannot love an unseen person at all, without some very special token of his personal affection for them. The history of all religions shows that where the gods have been thought of as unloving, the worshippers have been heartless too. It is only when we know and believe the love that God hath to us, that we come to cherish any corresponding emotion to Him. Our love is secondary, His is primary; ours is reflection, His the original beam; ours is echo, His the mother-tone. Heaven must bend to earth before earth can rise to heaven. The skies must open and drop down love, ere love can spring in the fruitful fields. And it is only when we look with true trust to that great unveiling of the heart of God which is in Jesus Christ, only when we can say, ‘Herein is love--that He gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins,’ that our hearts are melted, and all their snows are dissolved into sweet waters, which, freed from their icy chains, can flow with music in their ripple and fruitfulness along their course, through our otherwise silent and barren lives. Faith in Christ is the only possible basis for active love to God.
And this thought presents the point of contact between the teaching of Paul and John. The one dwells on faith, the other on love, but he who insists most on the former declares that it produces its effects on character by the latter; and he who insists most on the latter is forward to proclaim that it owes its very existence to the former.
It presents also the point of contact between Paul and James. The one speaks of the essential of Christianity as faith, the other as works. They are only striking the stream at different points, one at the fountain-head, one far down its course among the haunts of men. They both preach that faith must be ‘faith that worketh,’ not a barren assent to a dogma, but a living trust that brings forth fruits in the life. Paul believes as much as James that faith without works is dead, and demands the keeping of the commandments as indispensable to all true Christianity. James believes as much as Paul that works without faith are of none effect. So all three of these great teachers of the Church are represented in this text, to which each of them might seem to have contributed a word embodying his characteristic type of doctrine. The threefold rays into which the prism parts the white light blend again here, where faith, love, and work are all united in the comprehensive saying, ‘In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.’
The sum of the whole matter is this--He who is one in will and heart with God is a Christian. He who loves God is one in will and heart with Him. He who trusts Christ loves God. That is Christianity in its ultimate purpose and result. That is Christianity in its means and working forces. That is Christianity in its starting-point and foundation.
II. But we have to consider also the negative side of the Apostle’s words. They affirm that in comparison with the essential--faith, all externals are infinitely unimportant.
Paul’s habit was always to settle questions by the widest principles he could bring to bear upon them--which one may notice in passing is the very opposite to the method that has been in favour with many Church teachers and guides since, who have preferred to live from hand to mouth, and to dispose of difficulties by the narrowest considerations that would avail to quiet them. In our text the question in hand is settled on a ground which covers a great deal more than the existing dispute. Circumcision is regarded as one of a whole class--namely, the class of outward rites and observances; and the contrast drawn between it and faith extends to all the class to which it belongs. It is not said to be powerless because it is an Old Testament rite, but because it is a rite. Its impotence lies in the very nature which it has in common with all external institutions, whether they be of the Old Testament or of the New, whether they be enjoined of God or invented by men. To them all the same characteristic cleaves. Compared with faith they are of no avail. Not that they are absolutely useless. They have their place, but ‘_in Christ Jesus_’ they are nothing. Union to Him depends on quite another order of facts, which may or may not exist along with circumcision, or with baptism, or with the Lord’s Supper. However important these may be, they have no place among the things which bind a soul to its Saviour. They may be helps to these things, but nothing more. The rite does not ensure the faith, else the antithesis of our text were unmeaning. The rite does not stand in the place of faith, or the contrast implied were absurd. But the two belong to totally different orders of things, which may co-exist indeed, but may also be found separately; the one is the indispensable spiritual experience which makes us Christians, the other belongs to a class of material institutions which are much as helps to, but nothing as substitutes or equivalents for, faith.
Keep firm hold of the positive principle with which we have been dealing in the former part of this sermon, and all forms and externals fall as a matter of course into their proper place. If religion be the loving devotion of the soul to God, resting upon reasonable faith, then all besides is, at the most, a means which may further it. If loving trust which apprehends the truth, and cleaves to the Person, revealed to us in the Gospel, be the link which binds men to God, then the only way by which these externals can be ‘means of grace’ is by their aiding us to understand better and to feel more the truth as it is in Jesus, and to cleave closer to Him who is the truth. Do they enlighten the understanding? Do they engrave deeper the loved face carven on the tablets of memory, which the attrition of worldly cares is ever obliterating, and the lichens of worldly thoughts ever filling up? Do they clear out the rubbish from the channels of the heart, that the cleansing stream may flow through them? Do they, through the senses, minister to the soul its own proper food of clear thought, vivid impressions, loving affections, trustful obedience? Do they bring Christ to us, and us to Him, in the only way in which approach is possible--through the occupation of mind and heart and will with His great perfectness? Then they are means of grace, precious and helpful, the gifts of His love, the tokens of His wise knowledge of our weakness, the signs of His condescension, in that He stoops to trust some portion of our remembrance of Him to the ministry of sense. But in comparison with that faith which they cannot plant, though they may strengthen it, they are nothing; and in the matter of uniting the soul to God and making men ‘religious,’ they are of no avail at all.
And such thoughts as these have a very wide sweep, as well as a very deep influence. Religion is the devotion of the soul to God. Then _everything_ besides is not religion, but at most a means to it. That is true about all Christian ordinances. Baptism is spoken about by Paul in terms which plainly show that he regarded it as ‘nothing’ in the same sense, and under the same limitations, as he thought that circumcision was nothing. ‘I baptized some of you,’ says he to the Corinthians; ‘I scarcely remember whom, or how many. I have far more important work to do--to preach the Gospel.’ It is true about all acts and forms of Christian worship. These are not religion, but means to it. Their only value and their only test is--Do they help men to know and feel Christ and His truth? It is true about laws of life, and many points of conventional morality. Remember the grand freedom with which the same Apostle dealt with questions about meats offered to idols, and the observance of days and seasons. The same principle guided him there too, and he relegated the whole question back to its proper place with, ‘Meat commendeth us not to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse.’ ‘He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.’ It is true, though less obviously and simply, about subordinate doctrines. It is true about the mere intellectual grasp of the fundamental truths of God’s revelation. These, and the belief of these, are not Christianity, they are helps towards it.
The separation is broad and deep. On one side are all externals, rites, ceremonies, politics, Church arrangements, forms of worship, modes of life, practices of morality, doctrines, and creeds--all which are externals to the soul: on the other is faith working through love, the inmost attitude and deepest emotion of the soul. The great heap is fuel. The flame is loving faith. The only worth of the fuel is to feed the flame. Otherwise it is of no avail, but lies dead and cold, a mass of blackness. We are joined to God by faith. Whatever strengthens that faith is precious as a help, but is worthless as a substitute.
III. There is a constant tendency to exalt these unimportant externals into the place of faith.
The whole purpose of the Gospel may be described to be our deliverance from the dominion of sense, and the transference of the centre of our life to the unseen world. This end is no doubt partly accomplished by the help of sense. So long as men have bodily organisations, there will be need for outward helps. Men’s indolence, and men’s sense-ridden natures, will take symbols for royalties, bank-notes for wealth. The eye will be tempted to stay on the rich colours of the glowing glass, instead of passing through them to heaven’s light beyond. To make the senses a ladder for the soul to climb to heaven by, will be perilously likely to end in the soul going down the ladder instead of up. Forms are sure to encroach, to overlay the truth that lies at their root, to become dimly intelligible, or quite unmeaning, and to constitute at last the end instead of the means. Is it not then wise to minimise these potent and dangerous allies? Is it not needful to use them with the remembrance that a minute quantity may strengthen, but an overdose will kill--ay, and that the minute quantity may kill too? Christ instituted two outward rites. There could not have been fewer if there was to be an outward community at all, and they could not have been simpler; but look at the portentous outgrowth of superstition, and the unnumbered evils, religious, moral, social, and even political, which have come from the invincible tendency of human nature to corrupt forms, even when the forms are the sweet and simple ones of Christ’s own appointment. What a lesson the history of the Lord’s Supper, and its gradual change from the domestic memorial of the dying love of our Lord to the ‘tremendous sacrifice,’ reads us as to the dangerous ally which spiritual religion--and there is no other religion than spiritual--enlists when it seeks the help of external rites!
But remember that this danger of converting religion into outward actions has its root in us all, and is not annihilated by our rejection of an elaborate ceremonial. There is much significance in the double negation of my text, ‘Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision.’ If the Judaisers were tempted to insist on the former, as indispensable, their antagonists were as much tempted to insist on the latter. The one were saying, ‘A man cannot be a Christian unless he be circumcised.’ The other would be in danger of replying, ‘He cannot be a Christian if he is.’ There may be as much formalism in protesting against forms as in using them. Extremes meet; and an unspiritual Quaker, for instance, is at bottom of the same way of thinking as an unspiritual Roman Catholic. They agree in their belief that certain outward acts are essential to worship, and even to religion. They only differ as to what these acts are. The Judaiser who says, ‘You must be circumcised,’ and his antagonist who says, ‘You must be uncircumcised,’ are really in the same boat.
And this is especially needful to be kept in mind by those who, like the most of us, hold fast by the free and spiritual conception of Christianity. That freedom we may turn into a bondage, and that spirituality into a form, if we confound it with the essentials of Christianity, and deny the possibility of the life being developed except in conjunction with it. My text has a double edge. Let us use it against all this Judaising which is going on round about us, and against all the tendency to it in our own hearts. The one edge smites the former, the other edge the latter. Circumcision is nothing, as most of us are forward to proclaim. But, also, remember, when we are tempted to trust in our freedom, and to fancy that in itself it is good, _uncircumcision is nothing_. You are no more a Christian for your rejection of forms than another man is for his holding them. Your negation no more unites you to Christ than does his affirmation. One thing alone does that,--faith which worketh by love, against which sense ever wars, both by tempting some of us to place religion in outward acts and ceremonies, and by tempting others of us to place it in rejecting the forms which our brethren abuse.
IV. When an indifferent thing is made into an essential, it ceases to be indifferent, and must be fought against.
Paul proclaimed that circumcision and uncircumcision were alike unavailing. A man might be a good Christian either way. They were not unimportant in all respects, but in regard to being united to Christ, it did not matter which side one took. And, in accordance with this noble freedom, he for himself practised Jewish rites; and, when he thought it might conciliate prejudice without betraying principle, had Timothy circumcised. But when it came to be maintained as a principle that Gentiles _must_ be circumcised, the time for conciliation was past. The other side had made further concession impossible. The Apostle had no objection to circumcision. What he objected to was its being forced upon all as a necessary preliminary to entering the Church. And as soon as the opposite party took that ground, then there was nothing for it but to fight against them to the last. They had turned an indifferent thing into an essential, and he could no longer treat it as indifferent.
So whenever parties or Churches insist on external rites as essential, or elevate any of the subordinate means of grace into the place of the one bond which fastens our souls to Jesus, and is the channel of grace as well as the bond of union, then it is time to arm for the defence of the spirituality of Christ’s kingdom, and to resist the attempt to bind on free shoulders the iron yoke. Let men and parties do as they like, so long as they do not turn their forms into essentials. In broad freedom of speech and spirit, which holds by the one central principle too firmly to be much troubled about subordinate matters--in tolerance of diversities, which does not spring from indifference, but from the very clearness of our perception of, and from the very fervour of our adherence to, the one essential of the Christian life--let us take for our guide the large, calm, lofty thoughts which this text sets forth before us. Let us thankfully believe that men may love Jesus, and be fed from His fulness, whether they be on one side of this undying controversy or on the other. Let us watch jealously the tendencies in our own hearts to trust in our forms or in our freedom. And whensoever or wheresoever these subordinates are made into things essential, and the ordinances of Christ’s Church are elevated into the place which belongs to loving trust in Christ’s love, then let _our_ voices at least be heard on the side of that mighty truth that ‘in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Nature of Christian Liberty
The Nature of Christian Liberty
1-12. The futility of seeking justification by attempting to comply with the demands of the Mosaic Law; the inconsistency of works and faith as methods of salvation.
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Paraphrase. '(1) Since Christ has freed us from the necessity of obeying these legal demands and customs, let us consistently maintain and use our liberty. (2) To receive circumcision as necessary to salvation is to renounce allegiance to Christ, (3) since submission to this rite commits one to the observance of the whole legal system. (4) In taking such a step you would be repudiating the free grace of God; (5) for it is through the operation of the Holy Spirit, not through symbols in our flesh, and in consequence of our faith in Christ and not of works we perform, that we hope for justification before God. (6) Circumcision is wholly unimportant; the only condition of salvation is a faith which evinces its vital power in love. (7) You were making good progress in the Christian life; who has misled you into disloyalty to the gospel? (8) This teaching by which you have been led astray is not of God; (9) and though it has so far done only a little mischief, it will spread like leaven. (10) I have good hope, however, that you will now heed my exhortation; but the leader of this sedition will receive a heavy punishment. (11) As for the accusation that I myself sometimes commend circumcision, were that the case would the Jews still persecute me? If that were true I should no longer be giving them offence through my preaching of the crucified Christ as the author of salvation. (12) But enough! I wish that these men who are perverting your faith by insisting upon circumcision would mutilate themselves completely.'
1. Connected closely with preceding section.
Bondage] to legal observances. Christ hath made us free] by fulfilling the Law, and so teaching us to obey it, not in the letter but in the spirit, which we shall do best by living by faith in Him, and having the same mind in us as was also in Him cp. Mat_5:17-48.
2. Be circumcised] RV 'Receive circumcision' as essential to salvation. Christ.. profit.. nothing] because you thereby reject Him as sole and sufficient Saviour.
3. Circumcision is the sign of the system of which it is a part, and its practice indicates that a complete observance of all the Law's requirements is obligatory.
4. Christ is become, etc.] RV 'Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified,' etc. By resorting to the Law for salvation, as if Christ were not sufficient, you are no longer Christ's people. Fallen, etc.] fallen down from the higher plane of grace upon the lower plane of Law. To us now the bondage of the Law has little meaning; but if we come into bondage to sin, we fall from grace as surely as did the Galatians. Christ has given us power to keep from the love of sin and to resist its power; He has liberated us from its bondage and given us the liberty of the Spirit; and it is ours to maintain that liberty, and not to return to the works of the flesh, which bring us to slavery.
5. The true mode of salvation, viz. by the agency of the Spirit, on condition of faith alone.
6. Availeth] for salvation. Faith which worketh] an active, energetic faith: cp. Jam_2:14-26.
7. Run well] before the Judaisers misled you. Who did hinder] a rhetorical question.
8. Cometh] RV 'came' This dissuasion from loyalty to Christ to which you have yielded does not emanate from God, but is contrary to His will.
9. A little leaven] It would seem that only a few of the Galatian converts were affected by the false teaching; but their influence would soon prove farreaching and pernicious: cp. 1Co_15:33; Leaven is always used in NT. as a symbol of influence. Our Lord uses it to illustrate the influence of the kingdom of God (Mar_8:15 and parallels). St. Paul uses it to describe the penetrating and poisonous power of evil influence: cp. 1Co_5:6-7, 1Co_5:8.
10. The Apostle now adopts a more hopeful tone, and turns from reproof to encouragement. None otherwise minded] than as I have taught you.
11. Then is the offence of the cross ceased] RV 'then has the stumbling-block of the cross been done away.' The Judaisers who had 'troubled' the Galatians had evidently brought against the Apostle the charge that he still preached circumcision himself, although he had dispensed with it in the case of the Galatians. The accusation may have been based on the fact mentioned in Act_16:3, that on his second visit to Galatia he had circumcised Timothy at Lystra: see on Gal_2:3. He shows that this accusation is inconsistent with the other charge of abolishing the Law, for which they constantly attacked him. If he preached circumcision, why did they persecute him?
12. Were even cut off] RV 'would even cut themselves off,' RM 'would even mutilate themselves'; i.e. would even go beyond circumcision, like the priests of Cybele, whom the Galatians had formerly worshipped. A bitterly satirical wish. The Apostle was evidently carried away by his righteous wrath at the bitterness of the Judaisers.
13-15. Freedom from the requirements of the Law does not mean disobedience to its spirit, which is that of love to others.
Paraphrase. '(13) Cling, then, to your freedom from legal rules and customs; but remember that freedom means not licence, but loving service. (14) For love is the essence of God's Law, (15) whereas mutual backbiting and hatred can only end in the destruction of one another's spiritual life.'
13. A caution against an easy and common misunderstanding of Christian freedom: cp. Rom_6:15.
14. The real moral substance of the Mosaic Law was the gospel principle of love: cp. Mat_22:40; Rom_13:10.
15. Bite and devour] in party strife. Consumed] as respects your personal and collective Christian life.
16-26. The spiritual and the carnal life contrasted.
Paraphrase. '(16) In the life which is fostered by the Spirit you will find your true safety against the evils of which I am warning you. (17) For between the pure aspirations of the Spirit and the sinful impulses of the flesh there is a sharp, irrepressible conflict. (18) If you live under the influence of the Spirit of God, you have no need to seek the guidance of law. (19-20) Contrast the sins which spring from the carnal impulses (21-24) with the virtues which spring from the Spirit's guidance. The former exclude from God's kingdom; the Christian must abjure them; but the latter are not condemned by any law. (25) If, then, we possess the Spirit in our hearts, let our outward action be under His guidance, and (26) let us avoid factious boasting and all attempts to incite others to rivalry and jealousy.'
16. The Spirit] the sanctifying Spirit of God. Shall not fulfil] because the Spirit and the flesh are contrary principles. The flesh] a general name for the sinful impulses.
17. The carnal desires are opposed to the Spirit, and the impulses from the Spirit are contrary to these desires.
18. Not under the law] Those who live under the guidance of the Spirit of God are in no need of the Law. They do what is right not because the Law commands it, or because the Law penalises wrong-doing, but because they live under the influence of Christ and have His Spirit in them; e.g. they refrain from injuring others not because the Law says 'Thou shalt not kill,' but because they love their neighbours in the Spirit of Christ. And so, for the ideal Christian who is perfectly changed into Christ's likeness, the Law might just as well not exist, for he has no need of it.
19-21. Works of the flesh include not merely carnal sins, such as the first three in the list, but evil passions like strife and jealousy and their social effects, such as factions and divisions.
22, 23. Against such (virtues) there is no law] hence there can be no condemnation for those who possess them. But even the Law condemns the works of the flesh.
24. Have crucified] in the act of uniting themselves to Christ by faith: cp. Gal_2:20; Rom_6:2.
25. The inner life should rule the outer life.
26. Vainglory] indulging in rivalry and jealousy. Provoking] to strifes of opinion. Envying] cherishing grudges.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1–26 For freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast…
For freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage. [This verse continues the thought of the last chapter, and forms a connecting link between it and this section. It means that Christ made us free, not incidentally, but with the very design that we should cherish and enjoy our freedom, and we should therefore stand fast in it, and not return to bondage.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 18, 22 no effect
no effect
grace
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no effect i.e. of no experimental effect: the sense of liberty is lost. Gal 2:21; Col 1:23.
grace Grace (in salvation). Eph 1:6; Eph 1:7; Rom 3:24. (See Scofield "Gal 1:6"), See Scofield "Joh 1:17".
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1
III. THE WALK OF THE JUSTIFIED BELIEVER,
AS NOT UNDER THE LAW, BUT UNDER GRACE
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CHAPTER 5
1. Stand fast! Be not entangled! (Gal 5:1-6)
2. Exhortations and the law of love. (Gal 5:7-15)
3. Flesh and Spirit. (Gal 5:16-21)
4. The Fruit of the Spirit. (Gal 5:22-26)
The first exhortation is to maintain, by faith, the liberty which is found in Christ, to stand fast in that liberty where with Christ has made the believer free and not to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. The believer has perfect liberty in Christ; he is absolutely dead to the law and the law is not to be used by him in any way. But Gal 5:13, where the apostle speaks again of this liberty, must be brought in connection with the opening statement of this chapter. “For, brethren, ye have been called into liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” The liberty the believer has in Christ is to be used for holiness. When God redeems from the curse of the law it is a redemption unto holiness, to live a righteous and holy life; the holy Spirit indwelling the believer does not give license to live after the flesh.
But as being in Christ, dead to the law, if they become circumcised Christ would profit them nothing and they were bound to fulfill the whole law. Going back to the law for righteousness, they had fallen from grace. This is the only time “fallen from grace” is used in the Bible. It has been strangely misapplied by a certain system of theology to deny the security of the believer in Christ. It is generally used to describe a Christian who has fallen in sin and, as it is claimed, lost his relationship as a child of God and is, therefore, once more under judgment. Falling from grace does not mean this; it means to give up the grace of the gospel in order to satisfy the requirements of the law. To go back under the law and its bondage is falling from grace. Gal 5:5 does not mean that a believer hopes for righteousness; he possesses righteousness by faith. Indwelt by the Spirit, the believer waits not for righteousness, but for the hope of righteousness by faith. And the hope of righteousness is the coming glory, when all those who are saved by grace will be glorified and be like Christ.
Then the earnest pleadings and warnings. They had run well; who hindered them? It was Satan who had led them astray. Once more leaven is used. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Even so it is today in Christendom. The leaven of a perverted gospel has well nigh leavened everything. He was deeply concerned about the spiritual condition of these Galatian Christians. But while he was in doubt about them and he was overwhelmed with grief because they abandoned grace, his heart, after all, was also in peace about them. “I have confidence in you through the Lord that ye will be now otherwise minded.” He cast them as his burden upon the Lord and he knew the Lord, who loveth His own, would after all bring it about that they would surely not be otherwise minded.
He who troubled them and bewitched them with that spurious gospel, whosoever he would be, would bear his judgment; and he wishes that these troublers were cut off. “And I, brethren, if I preach yet circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then is the offence of the cross ceased.” He had probably been charged by some of endorsing circumcision and preaching it. If such were the case, what further excuse was there for the Jews to persecute him? If he were still preaching circumcision the offence of the cross would have been done away. Circumcision stands for the religion of the natural man. The religious spirit of the natural man is always in opposition to the true gospel. Difficulties will cease and the world will even applaud the preaching if the religion of the flesh, the “do-religion” -- “observe” -- “keep” -- “reform”, etc., is proclaimed. Of this we see much today. The true gospel of grace, proclaimed upon the finished work of Christ, with nothing to do and nothing to pay, is still the same stumbling-block.
The believer possesses in Christ true liberty (Gal 5:13); a liberty, as already stated, not to sin, but to walk and serve God in holiness. It is the liberty of the new nature, the divine nature, which gives power over sin. The law seeks to constrain the old nature, which is impossible; but it is the mighty constraint of love, given by the Holy Spirit. And that love is the fulfillment of the law. The law, as a rule, for the believer’s life is, therefore, not needed. The gospel of grace sets the believer free and makes him happy in the assurance of God’s love and his own salvation; and the Holy Spirit is there. Under His guidance and power, walking in the Spirit, the lust of the flesh will not be fulfilled. And the believer, walking thus, has the blessed assurance that sin shall not have dominion over him. “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14). The law had not the power to do this, but grace has delivered us from the law of sin and death (Rom 8:1-4).
In the preceding part of the Epistle he had set forth Christian justification by faith, in contrast with works of the law. He here shows that God produces holiness. Instead of exacting it, as did the law with regard to human righteousness, from the nature which loves sin, He produces it in the human heart, as wrought by the Spirit.
“This life, produced in us by the operation of the Holy Spirit through the word, is led by the Spirit who is given to believers; its rule is also in the word. Its fruit is the fruit of the Spirit. The Christian walk is the manifestation of this new life, of Christ our life, in the midst of the world. If we follow this path--Christ Himself--if we walk in His steps, we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. It is thus sin is avoided, not by taking the law to compel man to do what he does not like; the law has no power to compel the flesh to obey, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be. The new life loves to obey, loves holiness, and Christ is its strength and wisdom by the Holy Spirit. The flesh is indeed there; it lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit lusts against the flesh, to prevent man from walking as he would. But if we walk in the Spirit, we are not under the law.” (Notes on Galatians--J. N. Darby)
The works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit are given in Gal 5:19-23. In a more literal rendering, the works of the flesh, sixteen in number, are as follows: Fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strifes, jealousies, angers, contentions, disputes, factions, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revels and things like these. Such is the old nature of man and such the fruit it bears. They that do such things, living according to the flesh, shall not inherit God’s kingdom. And only the power of the Spirit of God can deliver from the outworking of this fallen nature, the flesh, which is still in the believer. The Holy Spirit is in the child of God to manifest this power, but it means subjection to Himself.
The Spirit also produces His own blessed fruit in the life of the believer. The first three parts: Love, joy and peace. These give the blessed consciousness the believer has in his heart of his relationship to God, which consciousness comes through the Spirit. The other six parts: “long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control,” witness in the believer’s walk to the fact that the love, the joy and peace of God are realities in the soul. The believer who walks according to the Spirit manifests in his walk the fruit of the indwelling Spirit and against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh and its lusts. They have accepted the sentence of the cross which has put the old man with its lusts into the place of death. God declares us as dead with Christ and looks upon us thus (Col 3:3). And this great truth must be lived. The believer lives in the Spirit and is called upon to walk in the Spirit so that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in him. “Let us not be desirous of vain-glory (the law fosters such a spirit, but grace humbles), provoking one another, envying one another”--which is the sad effect of vain-glory, provocation and envy.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 11, 16, 22 Christian Liberty an incentive to Holiness of Life.
Christian Liberty an incentive to Holiness of Life.
Christian liberty opposed to legal bondage:
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v. 1. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
v. 2. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
v. 3. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law.
v. 4. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the Law; ye are fallen from grace.
The concluding verse of chapter 4 is incidentally the transition to the hortatory part of the epistle. Because the Christians are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free, because they are no longer under the Law, but under grace, therefore they should remember: Unto freedom Christ has liberated us. Stand firmly, then, and be not held again in the yoke of bondage. Christ has redeemed us from the servitude of the Law by fulfilling the Law in our stead; the Law, therefore, as such has no power over us as believers, since we are not under the Law, but under grace, Rom 6:14. Ours is the true freedom of the children of God, who are not under the restraint of injunctions and prohibitions, but find their greatest joy in showing their appreciation of the liberty which has been given them by a life in accordance with the will of the Lord. The Gospel freedom in no way imposes upon us restrictions, since it is a gift unto faith. But since it is such a great blessing, a blessing, moreover, which men are ever endeavoring to take from us by every form of persecution, therefore it is necessary that we stand firm and unmovable lest someone ensnare us by enticing and plausible arguments and bring us into subjection again under the yoke of the Law.
With solemn emphasis Paul calls to the Galatians: Behold, I, Paul, say to you that, if you are circumcised, Christ will benefit you nothing. That was one of the objects of the Judaizing teachers, to introduce all the forms and ceremonies of the Jewish law into the Galatian congregations as obligatory and binding also under the new dispensation. And so the former sacrament of circumcision, now a mere rite and in itself pertaining to things indifferent, became a very serious matter indeed. To the Galatians that gave heed to the words of the false teachers and believed the rite essential for salvation, it was anything but a thing indifferent. They were placing their trust in a ceremony which Christ had abrogated by His fulfilling the Law; they sought righteousness and salvation in circumcision, and therefore rejected the merit of Christ. As a mere hygienic custom Paul would not have thought of rejecting the act of circumcision, but as a religious ceremony necessary for salvation he did reject it, most emphatically, telling the Galatians that under those circumstances the work of Christ no longer had any value for them.
And not only that, but, as Paul writes: I testify again to every person that is circumcised (namely, with the intention just indicated) that he is a debtor to the whole Law. The work and merit of Christ, on the one hand, and man’s own fulfillment of the Law, on the other, mutually exclude each other. If a man believed circumcision necessary for salvation, he thereby placed himself under the Law as a whole, laying himself under the obligation of fulfilling all its precepts, ordinances, and injunctions. He cannot evade the issue by stating that he wishes to accept only this one point; it is either all or nothing. All that are of the works of the Law are under the curse, chap. 3:14.
The consequence is: You are separated from Christ, as many as are justified by the Law; you are fallen away from grace. Paul uses strong language, but intentionally so. He applies the figure of a severance from the source of life and power, by which the severed members are made subject to death and destruction. By their course of seeking the righteousness before God by means of circumcision they had severed the connection, the fellowship, the union with Christ. Their sincere opinion as to being justified through the Law would avail them nothing; by this very means instead they had fallen away from grace, they had spoiled their own chance of salvation. "If you hold that by the observance of the Law you merit to be accounted righteous before God, Christ will profit you nothing; for what need of Christ have those who hold that they are righteous by their own observance of the Law? God has set forth Christ with the promise that on account of this Mediator, and not on account of our righteousness, He wishes to be propitious to us."
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul applies the allegory by reminding the believers to use their liberty in Christ because all the law is fulfilled in loving neighbors as ourselves.
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For freedom Christ has set us free
"It is so that we can be free that Christ has set us free." It is implied that Christ sets believers free from the old covenant. Here freedom from the old covenant is a metaphor for not being obligated to obey it. AT: "Christ has set us free from the old covenant so that we might be free" or "Christ has set us free so that we might live as free poeple" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information and Metaphor)
Stand firm
Standing firm here represents being determined not to change. How they are not to change can be stated clearly. AT: "Do not give in to the arguments of people who teach something else" or "Be determined to stay free" (See: Metaphor and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
if you let yourselves be circumcised
Paul is using circumcision as a metonym for Judaism. AT: "if you turn to the Jewish religion" (See: Metonymy)
do not again be put under the control of a yoke of slavery
Here being under control of a yoke of slavery represents being obligated to obey the law. AT: "do not live like one who is under the control of a yoke of slavery to the law" (See: Metaphor and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
free
Christ
yoke
Paul
circumcise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–26 5:1 Paul succinctly summarizes his message to the Galatians,…
5:1 Paul succinctly summarizes his message to the Galatians, decrying their foolish behavior and offering a positive alternative—freedom. • So Christ has truly set us free: Christians are free to walk by faith in Christ alone (cp. Rom 8). • don’t get tied up (literally don’t take on a yoke): In Judaism, it was a duty and an honor to “take the yoke of the law.” God’s children in Christ are not called to bear this heavy burden (see Luke 11:46; Acts 15:10); instead, they enjoy Christ’s yoke of freedom (Matt 11:28-30).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.