If all of Galatians could be boiled down into just a couple of verses, these would be the ones. Everything Paul wants to say is here.
You have freedom…here is what you do with it and what you don’t do with it.
This is the text from Galatians 5:13-15…”13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!“
He begins with the blanket statement that the Galatians have been called to freedom…and hopefully they have read and heard enough from Paul at this point to know what that means. The law can’t save you. Circumcision can’t make you right in God’s eyes. The false teachers with their false gospel aren’t you leading you anywhere you want to go. Only faith in Christ will justify you before God. This then is freedom…not locked into law but into faith.
The phrase’ for you’ at the very beginning of vs 13 sets the Galatians in opposition to the false teachers who had been troubling them. They were doing that…you do this.
Gospel liberty consists of three things…freedom from law…freedom from sin…freedom from fear.
Freedom from law we have already touched on. Freedom from sin means that we are liberating from the enslaving power of sin and the eternal penalty that comes with that. Through faith we are justified by being declared righteous by God .which removes the penalty for sin. We are continually to be sanctified (made holy) through the ongong work of the Holy Spirit in our lives which frees us from the power of sin.
Since we have such freedom, how should we juse it? Paul begins by saying that in no way should we use it as an opportunity for the flesh to do what it wants. The idea of ‘opportunity’ is an interesting one as the Greek term means ‘a base of operations’. In other words, Paul is saying that our freedom in Christ should not be used as a base of operations from which the flesh can do whatever it wants. Freedom in Christ means freedom FROM sin, not freedom TO sin. Paul writes about this more in Romans 6 because there were people who thought that since we are save by faith, that means we can go and do whatever we want…after all, we are already saved. The short answer from Paul on that is if that is your perspective, then you don’t underestand the gospel.
We all know from experience that the flesh will surely for opportunities if given the chance…but Paul is clear that our spiritual freedom is not to be used for selfish ends.
What then? Our liberty is to be used as an opportunity to serve others. This is THE purpose of our freedom on Christ. Everything else comes from this. Just as we are free FROM sin we are also free TO serve.
Perhaps another way to look at it is that if we are going to be slaves, let it be to one another and not the flesh or the law.
And if they really still want to go back to the law? Here is what the law is in its entirety…love your neighbor as yourself… The law itself was never meant to be wholly external such as with circumcision. Oh, and when Paul uses the term fulfilled’ the term actually means ‘complied with’. If the Galatians truly wanted to comply with the law, they would focus on loving others and not on mutilating themselves.
Of course the opposite of loving your neighbor as yourself is found in the imagery that Paul presents of biting/devouring/consuming one another. Note the progression…partisan hatred for mutual injury.
What are the consequences of not loving one another? Dissension…gossip…tearing one another apart with words, often behind someone’s back…such will be inevitably destructive to any Christian community.
Use freedom for serving and not for yourself
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