Standing in Freedom

When we embrace legalism, we take our eyes off what Christ has accomplished.

And perhaps a little bit of pride comes in if you manage to obey here and there a little bit, and all of a sudden you're better than someone else. And not only has it crippled you and brought you into slavery, but it's also made you proud, and your head has started to swell, and you've taken your eyes off Jesus. That's exactly what the churches in Galatia were doing, and it's why Paul wrote his letter to them. He wanted to remind them of the gospel and to reinforce to them that nothing could be added to it. This week on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. Derek Thomas has been taking us through the book of Galatians, reminding us as well to hold fast to the freedom that we have in Christ. Lesson 10, and we're in chapter 5, and I want us to look at the first 15 verses. And you'll recall from our previous lesson, we already alluded to verse 1 of chapter 5, For freedom Christ has set us free. And that's really where Paul has been going.

That was the GPS setting that Paul put in in chapter 1, verse 1. This is where he wanted us to go to, to see freedom. Sociologists will sometimes say that it's America's most prized value.

I remember last year being on Pikes Peak, 14,000 feet in elevation in Colorado, and it was the inspiration, that view was the inspiration, of course, for America the Beautiful. Freedom is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing.

It's a majestic thing, and we're to prize it and not to let it go. Perhaps some of you will immediately remember a line from Braveheart, Freedom! And that's what Galatians is when I first saw Braveheart and Mel Gibson painted blue and white.

Of course, this was in the 13th century, trying to be free from the oppressive English king, Edward Longshanks, and so on. But when Mel Gibson said that word, freedom, very dramatically, I thought, oh, Galatians. And that's the cry that's coming from the heart of the Apostle Paul.

And he's concerned for Christians in the church in Galatia, and especially tender Christians with tender consciences, because Judaizers are persecuting them. They're lording it over their consciences, and they're putting them back into slavery, and they are missing out on the joys and the blessedness of the freedom that Jesus has purchased for us. Well, you remember that Jesus said, If you abide in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free, and if the sun sets you free, then you are free indeed. We're free from the burden of having to justify ourselves. We're free from the burden of trying to win God's gracious favor. We're free from the oppressive burden of those who would judge us and impose upon our consciences laws, values that are man-made, or they're societal values, but they're not biblical values.

They're not God's values. So, let's explore this opening section of chapter 5, bearing in mind it's about freedom. First thing I want us to say is that freedom is threatened when we take it for granted. Freedom is threatened when we take it for granted, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and you notice that that's a command, by the way. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Don't take freedom for granted. Don't be guilty of beginning with the Spirit but ending with the flesh.

Don't develop a mentality that says, I came in by grace, but the rest of it is all entirely up to me and my efforts. The law, Paul says, is not of faith. The law is not of faith. The law is not friendly to faith. The law will crush you. The law will kill you. The law will put you back into a place of slavery again. You'll become like the children of Hagar rather than the children of Sarah. You'll become children of Mount Sinai rather than children of Mount Moriah and Jerusalem, the yoke of slavery.

And think about it, that yoke, that wooden thing that was clamped around your neck and a lock put on it, and you were drawn and pulled and pushed. It's not from God. Verse 8, this persuasion is not from Him who calls you. This legalism, it's not a God thing. Notice in verse 2, look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. We've seen the issue of obeying calendar days and weeks and months and so on. Now it's the issue of circumcision.

Legalism never ends. It's not just one thing. It's many things.

It's a multi-headed hydra, and each head has fangs ready to bite you in the neck and paralyze you, and poison you. It's not from God, verse 8. This persuasion is not from Him who calls you. There's a deep-seated default mechanism in the heart of every individual towards legalism, towards self-justification. We're hard-wired to think that we are saved by effort.

We are saved by human participation and obedience to God's law. The new perspective on the Apostle Paul suggests that this kind of legalism was not a part of intertestamental Judaism, but scholarship has since proven, I think otherwise, that it was systemic within intertestamental Judaism, that the very obedience to circumcision as a boundary marker was in itself seen as meritorious and gaining merit in the sight of God. It's interesting that Peter will say something similar in the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, a yoke that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear, and that's what legalism is. It's like a yoke of slavery. Law-keeping has no limits, and it'll say to you, it's not enough to do this.

You've got to do that and that and that and that, and before long, your joy is gone, and your sense of who you are is gone. So, the first thing is that freedom is threatened when we take it for granted. You notice how he puts it in verse 9, a little leaven leavens the whole lump, just a little bit of legalism, and before long, it's infected the entire body and paralyzed it. And every morning then, we should remind ourselves that we are free in Christ, that Jesus has purchased us in order that we might be free from the yoke of bondage, free from man-made laws, free from laws that once had a place within the history of redemption but have no place now in terms of obedience to win the favor of God. So, freedom is threatened when you take it for granted. Secondly, freedom is threatened when you take your eyes off Jesus. Notice how he puts it in verse 2, look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. If you think that by being circumcised, you can win the favor of God, if you think that imposing circumcision on the Gentiles will somehow or other make them more acceptable, if only they dress like us, if only they look like us, if only they have the same interests as us, if only they conformed to our system of values, if only they voted like us. It's very subtle, isn't it?

And sometimes it's not subtle at all, and sometimes it's as crass as that. And Paul is saying, look, if you go down that road, you will take your eyes off Jesus. Christ will be of no value to you. All of a sudden you're looking at laws, you're looking at obedience, you're looking at conforming. You're trying to measure yourself by the standards of other people.

And perhaps a little bit of pride comes in if you manage to obey here and there a little bit, and all of a sudden you're better than someone else. And not only has it crippled you and brought you into slavery, but it's also made you proud, and your head has started to swell, and you've taken your eyes off Jesus. When I was a very young pastor—I've said this many times before, but I don't apologize for repeating it again today—I think it's the perfect lesson that Paul is actually teaching us here. I was a young preacher. I would visit these two sisters.

I was a third. She had died. I never actually met Miss Kathleen, but I met Miss Madge and Miss Anna, and when I first knew them, they were in their eighties, and they both lived to over a hundred, and I would visit them. They lived fairly close to the church, and I would visit them about once every couple of weeks, and it was usually a fairly lengthy visit, a couple of hours or more, and they would make a cup of tea, and there would always be cookies. And I was twenty-six, twenty-seven years old, and one day I'm feeling a little down and a little sorry for myself, and Miss Madge, who only had one eye, she had cancer, and her eye had been removed, and she had a prosthetic, and she looked at me with her good eye, and she said, young man, see no one in the picture but Jesus.

And you know, when I first heard it, I thought, well, that's a little sentimental, and I thanked them, and I didn't think anything more of it until I got into the car, and then it just kind of haunted me. And I doubt that a day has gone by since that I haven't thought about what she said, see no one in the picture but Jesus. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

And I think that's what Paul is saying here. When you go down this road of legalism, you're taking your eyes off Jesus. You're taking your eyes off what He has accomplished, of what He has bought, of what He has won for you.

So see Jesus. Remind yourself of what He has accomplished. Remind yourself of His perfect obedience.

Remind yourself of Him crucified upon a cross, dying, buried, risen, victorious, ascending to heaven, coming back again. Freedom is a beautiful thing because it's a Jesus thing, and Jesus is altogether beautiful. Freedom is threatened if you take it for granted. Freedom is threatened if you take your eyes off Jesus and what He has accomplished for you.

Freedom is threatened when guilt becomes the measurement of my justification, my sense of guilt, my sense of conviction of guilt becomes the measurement of my justification. Look at how he goes on to say, verse 3, "'I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.'" It doesn't stop with circumcision. It doesn't stop with one law. It's many laws.

Actually, it's unending because if you have to obey one, you have to obey it all, and you have to obey it all in all of its fullness. And he says in verse 4, if that's the direction that you're going, you are severed from Christ. No, Paul isn't saying that a true believer can fall from grace.

That's not his point. But what he is saying is that if this is the direction you're going, you might as well be severed from Christ because you're not looking to Him. And the measurement now of your justification is yourself, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.

You've forgotten grace. You've forgotten that salvation is a free gift, that we cannot earn it. For through the Spirit by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Our freedom is threatened when guilt becomes the measurement of my justification.

My performance becomes the measurement of my justification, my full performance, my flawless performance. The gospel is for sinners like David, who fell catastrophically, slept with Bathsheba, who became pregnant. And it led to a spiral of lies as he plummeted further and further into sin. And yet, David is God's son and heir because his justification isn't measured by the quality of his obedience but by his faith in God's promise. And freedom is threatened when the measurement of our justification is our obedience.

And then, fourthly, freedom is threatened when we think we can do as we please. And all of a sudden, Paul spins it around, yes, we are free, free to be what God intends us to be. But notice in verse 6, faith working through love. Faith works. Faith is, as Luther once said, a busy little thing. Faith wants to love Christ with all the heart and mind and soul and strength. Faith wants to do what God wants us to do. If you love me, keep my commandments.

But the motivation for keeping God's commandments is not that I might be justified. It's not that God would love me a little more. He loves me with infinite love. He has loved me from all eternity.

He loved me before I was ever born. He loved me and drew me to Christ. We are the called ones, as Paul says at the very beginning in chapter 1 of Galatians. He called us by His grace into union and fellowship and communion with Jesus Christ in order that we might, out of gratitude, as a way of thanksgiving, as a way of saying, this is the measurement of my love for you.

I give myself entirely to you. I am crucified with Christ, and our lives are consecrated then to a life of obedience, not in order to win God's favor, but because we are the favored ones. He says in verse 10, I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brother, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. And ouch, Paul really takes this metaphor to its ultimate conclusion. You know, these people with knives, if they want to circumcise you, then go the whole way and cut it all off, and horrible and graphic, and we don't want to think about it, but that's what Paul is saying, because it's not enough simply to say, obey this law, or that law, or that law. It's endless, and before you know it, you are enslaved, enslaved to law, and you cannot get free from it. Verse 13, you were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you're not consumed by one another. And all of a sudden, this letter that has been about legalism is now on the other side, and it's saying, our freedom is not that we might be antinomians. Our freedom is not that we can live as we please. When you love someone, you don't obey because it's a chore. You don't obey because it's an obligation.

You obey because you love that person, and you want to please that person. So there are swings and roundabouts of legalism and antinomianism, and it's an issue that's always before the church, and Paul is saying, the answer is always Jesus. Don't take your eyes off Jesus. Don't give up your freedom in Christ. Don't give up your freedom in Christ. That's why the Apostle Paul was so forceful in his admonition to these professing Christians.

Oh, you foolish Galatians, he said. We hear anger in Paul's voice there, don't we? But we also hear grief because he loved these brothers and sisters in Christ. This week on Renewing Your Mind, we have been pleased to feature Dr. Derek Thomas' series, No Other Gospel, Paul's letter to the Galatians. There is always a temptation to add something to our salvation. We want to feel as though we're playing at least a small role somehow in gaining God's favor by our good behavior. That's why understanding Galatians is important for each of us. Your study of this great book will be helped by Dr. Thomas' 14-part series, and we'll send it to you when you give a donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries.

You can make your request online at renewingyourmind.org, or you can call us with your gift at 800-435-4343. Here at Ligonier, we strive to establish you in the Word of God and to deepen your understanding of God. That's why we publish Table Talk magazine. Our hope is that Table Talk, through articles and daily Bible studies, will help you have your mind saturated with the Word of God.

You can take a look at the magazine and read some of the sample articles at tabletalkmagazine.com, and while you're there, you can click on the subscribe button in the upper right-hand corner. Next week, Dr. Stephen Nichols joins us to explain why we trust the Bible. It's sufficient for all of life, but a crucial question arises.

Will we accept its authority? Please join us again Monday for Renewing Your Mind. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you.