GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
GALATIANS 5:1-3
In this third and final part of the letter, Paul urges Chrsitian living. Here in chapter 5 he exhorts the Galatians to stand firm in their faith (5:1-6). He warns about the “yeast” of Judaism (5:7-12), and he instructs about Christian liberty (5:13-18). He contrasts works of the law and fruits of the Spirit (5:19-26). In chapter 6 he continues along the same lines.
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5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. So stand firm, and do not let anyone put a yoke of slavery on you again. 2 Pay close attention! I, Paul, say to you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will not benefit you at all. 3 I bear witness again to every man who accepts circumcision: he is obligated to keep the whole law.
Christ set us free “for freedom.” This isn’t a social freedom, which everybody grabs and claims today but which has nothing to do with Christ or with Christian living. It isn’t a political freedom. It is freedom from any law or obligation regarding our eternal salvation. Christ set us free, free even from the law of Moses, by keeping it entirely and perfectly in our place, and by paying the penalty for all of our sins against that law, with his own innocent life.
Paul calls the law a yoke. At that time, a yoke was a wooden object (today they are often metal), like a bar with loops or binding ropes, that was set onto the neck of an animal and which directed its movement and life. A yoked animal, or team of animals, could pull an object like a plow or a wagon.
Peter called the yoke of the law “a yoke that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10). He also said, “But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 15:11). So our Lord Jesus, our Savior, has set us free from the guilt, shame and burden of sin as well as removing the record of sin from our lives. This means that the devil has no claim over us, death cannot contain us, and hell will never possess us. Nothing, no one and no thing, whether the law, the devil, sin, a demon, or an oppressive sinful human being, can ever accuse us or condemn us before God. Sin still frightens us because we are aware that when we sin, we break God’s will, and we would be subject to eternal suffering in hell were it not for Christ. But we have Christ, and therefore we are spared even from despair, although it is not wrong or bad to grieve over sin (this is the first part of repentance) as long as we grasp the forgiveness Christ offers to us and give us, for this is the second part of repentance. God himself proclaims: “In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you” (Isaiah 54:8).
We put our faith in Christ, and even our faith, John promises, “has overcome the world” (1 John 5:4). Luther said to his class: “Death is the most powerful and horrible thing in the world, and it lies conquered in our conscience through this freedom of the Spirit” (LW 27:5).
It’s easy to say words like “freedom over sin, death and the devil,” but it’s not very easy to apply this to your life. In fact, sin has such a hold over us that we shake in our sneakers as we smell the sulfur and the stink of hell drifting up, as if a crack in the ground is forming right at our feet, and we wouldn’t be at all surprised if a hole in the ground didn’t just claim us right where we’re standing or sitting right this very second and drag us down into the dungeons and torture pits of hell (Psalm 28:1), right into the lake of fire itself (Revelation 20:14-15).
But the hand of Christ is on us, the hand that assures us, “I love you. I forgive you. It’s going to be all right.” He gives us the greatness of his freedom, the freedom that removes our guilt and that drives our thanks and our Christian lives. The sin of Adam closes the lid on a man’s casket, or sets the cover down on the urn of his ashes, but the victory of Christ tears that cover off again. What went down into the grave frail, sinful, flawed, and dead, is brought up again strong, sinless, flawless, and eternally alive again. The introverted will be content and happy, not overwhelmed at all by the resurrection, but thrilled to be met by Jesus and by our closest friends, and not even minding the millions upon millions of other believers who will share eternity with us. The extroverted will likewise be happy, not the least little bit tempted to become the life of the party, not with Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, standing among us, the true and eternal center of attention and sincerely delighted to be with us at the wedding banquet of the Lamb.
Therefore, Paul says, don’t throw away this freedom for circumcision. To be circumcised is to step back into the yoke of slavery to the law, to say, “I’d rather be guilty and damned than be free and saved.” This is so very serious that Paul warns: If you do this, “Christ will not benefit you at all.” You’ll be obligated to keep the whole law of Moses, and not even Moses did that. If you wonder about that, ask the Book of Deuteronomy whether or not Moses was allowed to enter the Promised Land.
There was a law in the rules of Leviticus that said that if you tried to change your sacrifice, setting out an animal for the Lord, but then changing your mind and trying to swap it for a different animal, then both creatures had to be sacrificed (Leviticus 27:10). That was a pretty severe law. But we have Christ. There is no reason at all to try to exchange Jesus’s blood for anything else. Adding anything to Christ, even adding the Law of Moses, is like multiplying a number by zero. You come up with nothing at all. Even the original number is gone. Adding to Jesus erases all of the benefits of Jesus.
Cherish those benefits. The simplest and easiest way to remember them is to recite the last three lines of the Apostles’ Creed:
“I believe in the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothyl Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Galatians 5:1-3 The benefits of Christ