The Gospel brings Freedom from Legalism: Galatians 5:1-12

Welcome to Episode 5 in Series 2 in our study of the book of Galatians.

Recap and Background

Series 2, is Paul defending his gospel and explaining his gospel in considerable detail, in order to show that Christians cannot go back into Jewish legalism. He is responding to some false teaching that has come into the Galatian churches, which I have mentioned in many previous episodes - false teaching which said that Gentile Christians had to become Jewish by following the Jewish religious law, to become fully Christian. This is the battleground of the book of Galatians. Paul is forced to defend his gospel and explain very clearly how the gospel works to the Galatians, in order to try and regain their loyalty. He has had reports to suggest that they have given in to legalism; they have started adopting Jewish practices like the Jewish food laws, following Jewish Sabbaths and Jewish religious festivals, and for the men to become circumcised, even as adults, as a sign of Jewishness. These are the things that Paul has been contending with.

In these episodes in Series 2, we have seen him challenging this teaching in a number of ways. He tells the Galatians they have been ‘bewitched’, deceived by a false teaching and taken away from Jesus Christ. He pointed out in some of his teaching how the Law of Moses has been superseded by the gospel; it is no longer applicable -the Gentile Christians are being gathered into God’s family because they are joining the family of Abraham, the father of all true faith. He has been demonstrating the power of the gospel in all sorts of different ways.

This is the last episode where Paul deals with this issue. After this episode, we will find that he begins to explain much more specifically how Christians can live Godly and energetic Christian lives, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s Great Plea.

‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.’

Galatians 5:1, NIV

That is really a strong cry, isn’t it? You have been set free. What have they been set free from? Paul said they been set free from the ‘curse of the law’, Galatians 3: 13, the fact that the law condemns them to feel guilty and failing to follow God. They have been set free from the yoke of slavery to religious rules and regulations.

They have also been set free from the ‘elemental spiritual forces of the world,’ Galatians 4: 3. The spiritual powers of darkness want to keep them in bondage and Christ has set them free. Therefore, they must stand firm and not change their convictions.

I wonder whether you have ever had the experience of walking along a hillside high up, or along the coast of the sea, to a particular place which is prone to strong gusts of wind. As you are walking along, you suddenly encounter a really strong gust of wind which nearly knocks you off your feet. At that point you have to put your feet firmly in the ground. You have to lean forwards and stand your ground because it is so strong that it can literally push you backwards. I have had that experience on mountains and hills on many occasions; quite suddenly a very strong wind comes. That is the experience of the Galatians. A strong alternative teaching came and pushed them really hard to change their mind. People arrived in their churches, got in their meetings, took the place of teachers, opened up Old Testament bible verses and put tremendous pressure on the Galatians to change their thinking. They said ‘Paul is wrong! It is not just about Christ dying on the cross; it is about following the Jewish way of life.’ It was a tremendously strong pressure.

Paul said, they were going to have to stand firm. This is often the experience of Christians. Some false teaching comes and you can’t compromise with it. Paul makes no compromise with legalism whatsoever. There is no hint of compromise anywhere in the book of Galatians. He is confronting something that must be defeated. ‘Stand firm...and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery,’

Male Circumcision

In this next passage, Paul addresses one of the main features of this legalism. In the last episode, we looked at the need to follow the Jewish Sabbaths and Jewish religious feasts and festivals. That was one symptom of this legalism. We are now going to look at a very fundamental symptom which was the Jewish law relating to male circumcision.

‘Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.’

Galatians 5:2-6, NIV

Male circumcision was taking place in the Galatian churches because the Gentile believers, who had never practised circumcision in their culture, suddenly decided they wanted to adopt Judaism and the Jewish way of life. Paul was horrified.

The Jewish custom, based on the Law of Moses, was that every male child, every boy who was born into their community, on the eighth day of their life was circumcised, in their local synagogue, in their household, or somewhere in the local community. This was a religious event; it was a social event; it was a spiritual event; it was a family event; people were invited. Usually, after the circumcision, which would be conducted semi-privately, with the father and mother present, then there would be a social gathering. Even Jesus was circumcised. He grew up under the Law of Moses and in Luke 2: 21 it says, ‘On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.’ Circumcision was a very important part of Jewish life and often the time when the child was named formally. The family and friends and usually the local religious leader, the synagogue leader, or the rabbi would be called in to say prayers over the infant child as he was formally joining the Jewish faith through the act of circumcision. That is what was in the mind of the Jewish people and their practice.

But for adults to be circumcised was very unusual. This was an act that only really took place when Gentiles adopted the Jewish faith later on in life. Gentiles, in Galatia being circumcised meant essentially they were saying, ‘We want to become Jews; we want to adopt the whole lifestyle of being Jews’. That meant, as Paul says here, they had to obey the whole law; it was not just one action. They were now going to be following the whole Jewish law. It was a very big issue.

Paul saw it as, not just adopting the Jewish way of life, but abandoning Jesus Christ.

No longer was it faith in Jesus Christ that was the centre of their lives that made them the members of the church. Now they were saying, ‘We want to be members of the Jewish community, and we will have Jesus alongside at the same time, but we really want to be Jewish first.’ For Paul, this was a complete confusion, a complete misunderstanding and denial of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He then goes on to say what the marks of true Christianity are. It is not circumcision. In fact, he says, it doesn’t really matter as a Christian, whether you are circumcised or not; it doesn’t make any difference to your faith. If you are Jewish and circumcised, that is fine, and something to do with your heritage, but it is of no consequence; it is not required in Christianity whatsoever.

Four Required Elements of Christianity

What is required? The four elements required are: true faith in Jesus; the receiving of God’s righteousness; and the presence of the Holy Spirit. We see these things here in these verses: ‘through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.’ The activity of the Holy Spirit brings us to new birth through our faith in Jesus and our repentance from our sins. These are the things that really matter in the Christian life. What matters then is that we live out our faith, ‘The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love,’

Paul is really encouraging them to see that it is the inner changes in your life that matter, not following these external rules and regulations. You can see that he is totally hostile to what is happening, totally committed to defeating this deception that is leading the Galatian Christians astray.

Paul Concludes His Argument

‘You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!’

Galatians 5:7-12, NIV

Paul uses very strong language indeed. He is very hostile to what they are doing.

‘You were running a good race.’ He uses the analogy of running. Who has cut in to stop you running the race of the Christian faith? I find this a very powerful analogy because I enjoy running, and have done all my adult life. I run fairly slowly for fitness. When he talks about running a good race and the risk of stopping, I know what that feels like because when I am running, there are a number of reasons why I might stop running: The first one is, what happens if I meet some friends along the way? The temptation is to stop and to talk but then you stop running and you are unlikely to carry on. What happens if you feel tired? That is a real temptation when you are running. If I am running a race of say, five kilometres, I know the feeling that I get after one kilometre, which is that I am feeling too tired to do five, and it happens almost every time I do it. What happens if it is raining or the weather has turned against you? That is another big challenge. There are so many reasons to stop running. It is easy to be diverted or for things to come in and to stop you. The Jewish teachers were like people in a running race who are running alongside you, who come in, in front of you in order to stop you, or trip you, or slow you down.

The ancient Greek and Roman world knew about runners. They had their races and athletic events but they also had people who ran from place to place as postal delivery men. There was no postal service for the community; the army and the civil service had horsemen who rode from city to city and place to place, but this wasn’t available to ordinary people. If you wanted to post a letter you had to get a runner, or a delivery person, and usually it was a runner. It was very important for that runner to deliver the letter to the other person in the other city. They mustn’t be diverted; they mustn’t be robbed; they mustn’t be stopped; they needed to get to the end of the journey. Paul was thinking of these things when he wrote, ‘You were running a good race,’ but people had come in to stop them.

It is quite possible for Christians to start out with great energy but then after a period of time to lose that energy and lose focus. Perhaps they even lose the confidence in

their faith. This very often happens; over a number of years people’s faith diminishes, and they are not committing themselves to their faith in the same way. Paul was seeing that this was going to happen in Galatia.

He uses also the image of making bread and the yeast that spreads through the dough as you are making the bread - the power of yeast. Many of us have had this experience of seeing the dough and thinking: how is this going to turn into a loaf of bread? But the yeast, over a period of time, gradually causes it to rise as the yeast influences all parts of the dough so it changes and becomes bread. In the same negative way, legalism getting into the church has an influence right the way across the church. We notice this happens in churches in the modern age, in our own time. If there are particular rules and regulations that come into a church that are not based in the Bible, it can have a big effect on the energy of that church as people begin to get divided about something - maybe some food regulation or some clothing regulation that you can’t really justify from the Bible. People begin to think, ‘Shall I do that? Shan’t I do that?’ and the energy goes out of the church community.

Paul is very concerned. He wants to root out legalism completely so that it doesn’t take effect anywhere in the church. He doesn’t want anybody to be circumcised; he doesn’t want anyone to feel they have to obey the Jewish Sabbath; he doesn’t want anyone to change their diet so that they adopt Jewish food laws; because this is going to be destructive to the energy and the faith of the church in the Galatian province.

His final condemnation of his opponents is really severe. He says of these agitators, ‘I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!’ - be castrated!

That is a real insult to them and a really strong way of speaking. Paul is using extreme language to say that he doesn’t want their influence anywhere near his churches.

So, when the Galatians read these words they must have been shocked! Here was Paul, who was so kind to them and so friendly when he was there, but now he was speaking so forthrightly, and challenging them so clearly to not change their faith and compromise with the Jewish teachers.

This is a pretty shocking book. It is a pretty shocking passage but we see the passion in the heart of Paul for the Christian gospel and that is really worth us understanding, because it will help us in our own faith.

Reflections

Taking a step back from this episode, and from all the episodes we have done in Series 2, which have all been around the same theme – Paul defining the true gospel, defining legalism and explaining why the Galatian Christians must not go down that road, I want to highlight the fact that Paul says, 5: 11, that the gospel, the cross, is an offense. He speaks of ‘the offence of the cross’. It was an offence to the Jewish legalists but this is a more general truth about the gospel. The gospel in any culture will cause conflict with aspects of that culture and become offensive to some people.

We can think of many different examples around the world. If we think of countries influenced by communism like China or North Korea, we know that the gospel is an offence to the state authorities in those countries because the gospel proclaims the existence of a God whom the state authorities deny. We know that the gospel is a challenge in countries which adopt Hinduism as a main religion, such as India, because the gospel speaks of one God, not many gods. We know that the gospel is an offence and a challenge in Islamic societies because the gospel proclaims Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and not just as a prophet as proclaimed in the Quran. We know that the gospel is an offence in some Western secular countries where the gospel proclaims, for example, different values of sexual morality than are practiced in those cultures. So, wherever we look in the world, if the gospel is truly proclaimed, there will be points of conflict and tension with those cultures. It is inevitable.

Paul expected that inevitability. Here, in the Galatian churches, one of those points of offence has been identified. Paul is saying that Christianity is breaking away from Judaism. It is not just a branch of Judaism; it is a new faith, based on the work of Jesus Christ. You cannot bring the laws of Judaism in alongside the gospel of Jesus Christ. The cross is an offence.

One of the reasons also that the cross can be an offence is, that it is in the nature of many religions and many religious traditions in the world, to believe that we can contribute something to our salvation. This is to some extent what is behind this issue here in Galatians. Paul preaches clearly, that we can’t contribute anything. We are saved purely on the basis of the finished work of Christ. He achieved our salvation for us. All we have to do is to repent, believe and trust him for salvation.

That is incredible. Very hard to believe - very offensive to some people.

The second application I want to make is about running the race consistently. ‘You were running a good race.’ says Paul, ‘but someone has cut in and stopped you running’. When we enter into the Christian life, it is good to think of the Christian journey rather like running a marathon, a long distance run. All the way through our life, we are going to need the energy to maintain our faith and be strong in our convictions. It is no good just starting well and then fading out along the way. That was the risk of these churches here - they were literally going to fade out because they were going to lose touch with the gospel altogether.

One of the things that I have learned from running for many years is that, if I am going to run a longer distance, I don’t start too fast; start steadily, be consistent and then you are more likely to get to the end of the race. Maybe the Galatians were really enthusiastic at the beginning when they believed but they didn’t think about their faith enough. We need to think about our faith clearly and use passages, like the book of Galatians, to help us work out what the gospel truly is and how we should live it.

My final point of reflection is a warning from Paul. Those who change the Christian gospel, according to Paul, will be judged by God, and we need to be very, very careful that we do not change the message of the New Testament and the preaching of the gospel as it comes down to us from the Apostles. We need to be faithful. So, if we are leaders, pastors, or teachers listening to this episode, let us take notice of that point and always be faithful to preach the gospel accurately.

In the next episode, we find out much more about what it is that really energises us to live the Christian life. If it is not following rules and regulations, what is it? What is the power? What is the source of change within us that makes us more and more like Christ?