Well do keep a copy of the Scriptures in your hands and now turn in the New Testament please to Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Galatians chapter 5, as we continue with our exposition of Paul’s teaching in this important epistle.
Last week, you will remember we looked at chapter 4 verses 21 through 31 where Paul uses the story of Abraham’s wife, Sarah, and of his slave woman, Hagar, to expound a crucial contrast between Gospel freedom and legal slavery. If we embrace the Gospel of free grace that Paul preached, he says, we are children of the free woman and not children of spiritual slavery. We are free from the duties of the ceremonial law. We are free from sin’s mastery and Satan’s dominion. And we are free from condemnation before the judgment of God, accepted in Christ alone by His marvelous grace. We are free. And now here in chapter 5, notice in verse 1 Paul says, “Since Christ died to make us free, to secure this Gospel freedom, I want you now to stand firm in that freedom you have received. Don’t let false teachers place the terrible yoke of legal bondage back around your necks once more.” So here is Paul’s purpose in this part of the letter. Do you see it in chapter 5 verse 1? He wants to help the Galatians, he wants to help us stand firm in true Christian liberty. Galatians 5:1-12, our passage today, is about how to stand firm in Gospel freedom.
Paul builds his argument – notice this in the passage – in two steps, two stages. First of all, this is where we will spend the bulk of our time, in verses 2 through 6, he urges us to take care which path we choose. Take care which path we choose. Then in verses 7 through 12, take care which guides you follow. Take care which path you choose. Take care which guides you follow. Here’s how to stand firm in Christian freedom – take care which path you choose and take care which guides you follow. That’s our outline. As always, before we look at it together, we’re going to read God’s Word, first of all let’s pause and pray and ask for His help. Let us all pray.
O God, Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It is more precious than gold, sweeter than honey, and greatly to be desired. In keeping Your Word there is rich reward. Therefore, send us the Holy Spirit, we pray, to inspire these words before us, to illuminate our minds and hearts, and enable us to believe and obey it, for Your sake. Amen.
Galatians chapter 5 at the first verse. This is the Word of God:
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 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, brothers, 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!”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.
Take Care Which Path You Choose
Well let’s look first of all at the first six verses. Take care, Paul says, which path you choose. Take care which path you choose. In the book, Faithful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, the author is evaluating a series of fateful decisions made by world powers between May 1940 and December 1941. So in that one year period, a string of decisions that he argues essentially determined the outcome of the Second World War. Decisions like Britain’s, at that time quite uncertain determination to stay in the war in 1940, Germany’s decision to attack the Soviet Union, Japan and Italy’s expansion of their empire, America’s support for the Allied war effort, Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States and his resolve to obliterate the Jews, just to name a few of those fateful decisions. And there were a string of global consequences from each one of them, though at the time those decisions were made they were not in any case, by any means, obvious or inevitable, and yet they have world-spanning implications. There was a cascade of consequences that followed from those decisions.
In the opening six verses of Galatians chapter 5, the apostle Paul is making a similar argument actually about the spiritual choices facing the Galatian believers. He wants them, remember, in verse 1, to “stand firm” in the Gospel of free grace that he has taught them. And to help them stand firm, he is going to outline for us in this passage the enormous, damaging consequences that will follow upon their spiritual decisions, especially if they opt to follow the legalists who have been troubling them. He knows the Galatians are standing at a crossroads. The sign pointing down the path to the left reads, “Justification by Works.” It is the road of legalism. And the sign pointing down the right hand road says, “Justification by Faith Alone.” It is the Gospel road of free grace. And so far, tragically, the Galatians have been tempted to take the left turn down legalism lane. And Paul, as we have seen, is almost overcome with his concern for them as they take the wrong path. And so he is writing to them here to show them where “Legalism Lane” will eventually lead.
Notice what he says about following the path of legalism. Verses 2 through 4. Where will it lead? Well first, if they accepted circumcision, he says, Christ would be of no advantage to them. Now the issue here isn’t circumcision itself per se. Circumcision in itself, in Paul’s view, is a thing indifferent. That’s why, for example, in Acts 16:3 he was willing to have Timothy circumcised so as to avoid giving offense to Jewish people as Timothy went about his ministry and engaged in Jewish evangelism. It’s not the mere act of circumcision that is at issue here. No, the problem rather for the Galatians is viewing the act of circumcision as a necessary work to be performed in order to secure right standing before God. If you do that, Paul says, Christ will be of no advantage to you. You are standing at the crossroads and you need to realize you can’t turn left and right at the same time. Either you can try to be saved by observing religious works of your own, like circumcision, or you can entrust your salvation wholly to Jesus Christ. But you just can’t do both. That’s his point.
And if you do decide to make the fateful turn down “Legalism Lane,” you’d better understand that you can’t pick and choose which laws you want to keep and which you are going to ignore. You see him make that point there in verse 3. Look at verse 3. “I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.” Now this is a really crucial point we all need to grasp, although I have to say it is actually a point that all legalists miss. Legalists, remember, they’re all about strict observance of the law, aren’t they? That’s what a legalist is – strict observance of the law. They believe God is going to accept them because of what they do. But here’s the thing. Deep down, every legalist is actually a secret antinomian. You may remember from last week what an antinomian is. “Anti” – “nomas,” against the law. An antinomian is someone who minimizes or undermines the proper role of God’s Law.
Now think about this. Do you see how legalists are actually secret antinomians? Here’s how it works. In order to be a legalist at all, you have to believe you can in fact keep the law sufficiently in order to impress God with your efforts. Now do you see the flaw in that belief? What is the problem with thinking that, “I can in fact secure eternal life based on my own law keeping”? Well it’s simply that the perfect obedience that God requires in His law is utterly beyond the reach of any sinner. There’s no way for me and no way for you to attain that unblemished righteousness that alone can meet the divine standard. None. It is altogether above and beyond us. And so what must I do if I have resolved to go down the legalistic path? If I want to rest my hope before God in my own moral and religious doings, the only option I have is to dumb down the demands of the law. I have to lower the standard. I have to tell myself, “God will be satisfied with mere behavioral conformity to the external standards, the external duties of His law.”
And that is the dirty little secret festering in the heart of every legalist that Paul is actually exposing for us here in verse 3. At a fundamental level, legalists don’t really understand the law of God at all in all its far reaching, exhaustive, spiritual meaning and implications, touching as it does my motives and my affections and every single aspect of my life inwardly and outwardly. A legalist thinks, like the rich young ruler – do you remember the rich young ruler came to Jesus asking what he must do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. And do you remember his reply? “All these I have kept since my youth. I’ve got law-keeping down.” A legalist thinks that obedience is a relatively easy thing. It’s a matter of mere outward conformity, of surface duty, and that’s all. And so the great irony – do you see it – the great irony is the legalists actually become the very thing they are most afraid of. They are closet antinomians. They destroy the real law of God in its comprehensive, exacting demands for perfect purity in every faculty of our humanity, in every sphere of our lives. And in its place, they assert a selective list of their own invention, quite attainable, their favored duties. And then having performed this law that they have made for themselves, they boast that they’ve actually kept God’s law and they rest their spiritual confidence now upon their own tragic self-deception.
No, no, Paul says to us. If you think you are saved by your baptism, if you think that you are saved by your many prayers, if you think that you are saved by your faithful church-going or your philanthropy or by the long list of things you don’t do, if you think your work will save you in any way, you are in the grip of this tragic deception. And the truth is, you have not even begun to accomplish that perfect obedience that alone can secure the divine favor, not even close. You are obliged, he says, to keep the whole Law, in all its comprehensive fullness. Nothing short of entire perfect and perpetual obedience from the inside out will do.
And I hope you can see as we’ve worked through the book of Galatians together Paul is quite clear – you never, you never will manage that, and there are dire consequences if you try. He lists them for us in verse 4. Would you look at verse 4? Here’s what happens when you try to establish your righteousness before God and plead your own deadly doing instead of the obedience and blood of Jesus. Verse 4, “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.” Now hit the “pause” button there for a moment because this verse has troubled sensitive Christian consciences over the years, though it has done so in my judgment unnecessarily. People sometimes read this verse and worry that Paul is actually contradicting his teaching in other places in the Scriptures where he affirms eternal security. The Scriptures teach us, don’t they, that Christians, true Christians, having come to know Jesus Christ can never be lost. “He that began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” “Those whom He foreknew, He predestined, whom He predestined He called, whom He called He justified, and whom He justified these He also glorified.” Once you are a child of God you are His child forever. Praise the Lord that it is so.
So what do we do with what Paul is saying here? He talks about being severed from Christ and falling away from grace. Does that mean a person can truly and really come to know Jesus and then be cut off from Him? Can I lose my salvation or not, Paul? Well take another look at his language with me, would you? All he means when he says, “You have been severed from Christ and fallen from grace,” if you try to be saved by your own works, all he means is that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have Jesus and trust yourself. You can’t rest your hope for salvation on what you do and claim to rest on what Christ does. This is a binary situation. It’s one or the other. If you choose works, you are cut off from Christ. You have fallen away from the doctrine of salvation by grace alone in Christ alone and you have turned instead to works of your own.
In many ways, this whole section of the letter is pushing us to reckon with one really very basic, very important question. It is asking us, “What is a Christian? What is a Christian?” And Paul’s answer is that a Christian is not a very religious person who performs Christian religious activities and tries to live by a Christian moral code. To be sure, a Christian does all those things, but none of those things make her a Christian. She is a Christian by the grace of God alone. He is a Christian because he has been brought to trust in Jesus Christ alone. If you take the turn down “Legalism Lane,” you are turning to a different religion, Paul is saying. It’s one that masquerades as Christianity, it looks the part, but it is in fact a counterfeit.
Well okay, what if the Galatians were to pull back from legalism and they stopped listening to the false teachers in Galatia and they determined to take the right turn at the crossroads. If legalism is just counterfeit Christianity, what does the real thing look like, just so we can be clear? Paul tells us in a marvelous summary in verses 5 and 6 of the Christian life. Look at verses 5 and 6. “For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” It’s a remarkable summary of the whole Christian life from its beginning through its progress to its eternal destination. Paul tells us here the Spirit is the agent of our salvation, faith is the instrument, assurance is the fruit, and holiness is the evidence of authentic Christianity.
The Spirit is the Agent of Salvation
The Spirit is the agent, first of all. It is, Paul says in verse 5, “through the Spirit.” Here is the fundamental difference between the counterfeit and the real thing, between legalism and true Gospel peace. Legalism relies on our own efforts. Authentic Christianity is the gift of God by the Holy Spirit. To be blunt about it, Paul is saying God makes Christians. He saves us. We do not save ourselves. The Spirit is the agent.
Faith is the Instrument of Salvation
Secondly, faith is the instrument. Look again at verse 5. Instead of securing a right standing before God on the basis of our own work, our own religious effort, Paul says we receive that right standing by faith. The Spirit’s gift is justifying, saving faith. Faith looks not to our own works but to Christ’s work for us. It doesn’t trust anything in ourselves. It rests entirely on Him who did all and gave all and bore all for us. The Spirit is the agent. Faith is the instrument.
Assurance is the Fruit of Real Christianity
Thirdly, Paul says assurance is the fruit of real Christianity. If you expect the final verdict on the day of judgment to be delivered based on your best efforts, well then you really can’t face the future with much assurance at all. Can you? You’ll always have the nagging fear that, “Maybe I’ve not done enough. I’ve not been good enough. I’ve not prayed enough. I’ve not served enough. I’ve not given enough.” On his own terms, a legalist has no right at all to assurance. Oh, but how different authentic Christianity really is. Look how Paul puts it as he thinks about the future. Through the Spirit, by faith, “we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” He’s not at all worried about the final verdict, is he? He is counted righteous in Christ with Christ’s righteousness reckoned to his account, proclaimed by the grace of God in the moment he trusted Jesus. And one day that verdict passed over him in that moment of his conversion will be publicly proclaimed in the ears of every creature under heaven before the judgment seat of God at the end of the age. And so for Paul, for every real Christian, judgment day is a day to be hoped for eagerly, not a day to fear and shrink from because we are secure in Christ and His righteousness is ours. The Spirit is the agent. Faith is the instrument. Assurance is the fruit.
Holiness is the Evidence of Authentic Christianity
Finally, Paul says, holiness is the evidence of authentic Christianity. Look at verse 6. “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” Real holiness isn’t a matter of outward conformity to Mosaic legal demands like circumcision. Practical holiness, rather, is the fruit of faith that rests on Jesus Christ, receives His pardon as a free gift, and that gracious gift generates wonder, love and praise in our hearts. It makes us love Him, seeing how deeply and warmly and freely and fully we are loved by Him. And our love to Him propels us to love one another. And that, Paul says, is the fulfillment of the Law. You remember how our Savior summarized the Ten Commandments. Matthew 22:37 – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Paul says the same thing a little later on in our chapter in verse 14. “The whole law is fulfilled in one word – you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
You remember the great fear of the legalists. What are they most afraid of? They are afraid that too strong an emphasis on free grace will result in lawlessness. They worry that the Gospel of grace that Paul preaches will produce a lack of concern for practical holiness. But the truth is, they could not be more wrong. Could they? Free grace, Paul is showing us right here and will show us in the remainder of the letter ever more clearly, is that actually the only way to begin to experience that love that alone begins to keep the law is by grace alone. It is not natural to any of us. It is the work of the Spirit that produces faith, that rests on Christ, that responds to His great love with renewed love of our own, not in order to earn God’s favor but because we have received His favor freely as a gift, and gripped by that we want to serve Him and honor Him and live for Him.
Alright, maybe as you look at your own heart this morning you have to admit that, truthfully, your Christianity actually is rather cold and formal. It consists only in you doing your duty. And you rest what hopes you have on being good and religious and surely that will be enough for God. But deep down, you’re really not that sure. You lack assurance, and if you’re honest as you assess your own heart, you feel very little love for Christ or for His people. You’re just busy pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, doing the best you can, and oh what a drudgery it all is. Well Paul says it doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can turn back from your journey down “Legalism Lane.” That’s the road you’ve been on this whole time. Maybe you didn’t realize it. There is still time to turn back. Repent of your misplaced trust in your own deadly doing. Stop trying to impress God, stop it. Stop trying to meet His standard in order to win His approval. It just can’t be done. All your righteousness is filthy rags. Instead, today, you need to abandon yourself to the care and keeping of Jesus Christ.
Would you do that today? You need to go to Him and say with Bonar, “Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul. Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole. Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God. Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load. Thy work alone, O Christ, can ease this weight of sin. Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within. Thy love to me, O God, not mine, O Lord, to Thee, can rid me of this dark unrest and set my spirit free.” Go to Him. Would you go to Him and ask Him to do for you what you cannot be and do for yourself? Ask Him to pardon you and cleanse you and clothe you in the righteousness of Christ and reconcile you to Himself. Ask Him to put His Spirit in your heart and to fill you with the knowledge that trusting in Jesus your sins are forgiven and eternity now holds no fear but only the prospect of joy in the presence of God forever. Ask Him to cause that love that is faith’s great evidence to well up within you and find expression and growing, happy obedience to His commandments as you turn from everything else to Jesus. Will you ask Him to make you a real Christian at last? Ask Him. He will do it.
Please understand, if you take the left fork on the road and you turn down “Legalism Lane,” there are only dead-ends and disastrous consequences ahead. But why in the world would you go that way when everything you need, everything, is available to you for free in Jesus Christ? And so that’s the first point.
Take Care Which Guides You Follow
Very quickly we can deal with the second one. The first is – take care which path you choose. The second is – if you are going to stand firm in Christian freedom, take care which guides you follow. Look at verses 7 through 12. Take care which guides you follow. You see, the Galatians have gotten themselves into this mess largely because they have been following the wrong guides. They were led down “Legalism Lane.” Verse 7, “You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you.” It’s not God who has led you into these new convictions. You’ve been hindered by others from following the truth as you should. How careful we need to be about who we listen to, about which books we read, about which ministries we follow. Because, verse 9, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” Error is dangerous. It spreads. It’s like yeast in the dough. It doesn’t look like much, nothing has changed, but after a few hours proofing, the yeast have permeated the whole batch and you can see its effects. Error, Paul is saying, is living and insidious and toxic. Do not indulge it.
Here’s why. Notice the destiny of those who embrace and teach these errors 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.” He is confident the Galatians are going to turn back from legalism, but he has no such confidence about those who are peddling that terrible error. One reason he tells them, “You can trust my ministry,” in verse 11 rather than the unreliable guides of the legalists, is that Paul is still preaching the offense of the cross. He is being persecuted for it. One way to identify false teaching and false teachers – What is there of the offense of the cross? Are they preaching Christ and Him crucified as the sole grounds of your hope and salvation before God? Paul was preaching the free grace of God that flows from the cross of Christ and it was an offense to the legalists who persecuted him. Never trust a ministry that omits the offense of the cross and minimizes the work of Christ.
And then having said all that, Paul delivers – and here’s where we’re stopping – his most well-known punchline. You see it in verse 12. It really sounds like he’s finally lost the plot, doesn’t it? The pot has finally boiled over. This is a nuclear reactor meltdown. Verse 12, “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” I wish those who love circumcision so very much would just go ahead and finish the job. That’s his point. And it sounds as if at first glance like a temper tantrum. That’s actually not what it is. Paul is deadly serious. Remember in the Law of Moses, the law these false teachers so loved and insisted upon, those who have been emasculated were not allowed into the fellowship of the congregation of Israel. And you see what Paul is really saying. Those who preach salvation by law keeping, salvation by circumcision, they’re actually cut off from the congregation of God’s people. Their circumcision is not a sign of righteousness; it is a sign of self-righteousness, which is no righteousness at all. And so in Paul’s judgment, their religious badge might as well be emasculation rather than circumcision because the real consequences of their error is to leave them cut off, severed from Christ, fallen from grace, outside the camp of the redeemed of the Lord forever.
I don’t suppose there could be any more solemn possibility than that. And so look, you have a choice here today. Don’t you? Maybe you are standing at that same crossroads yourself. I hope you can see the choice. It’s really very stark. You can trust yourself, your law keeping, your religious effort, your moral works. You can do that. You do need to know where that path leads you. You will be cut off, severed from Christ, and outside the congregation of His people. Or, you can take the right fork and trust yourself to Jesus Christ alone. He was cut off, remember, outside the camp, Himself severed from fellowship with God. He was made to bear all the fury of the wrath and curse of God at the cross. He bore all the judgment we deserve that we might be accepted for free by His grace. These are your choices, your only choices. You can keep on traveling down “Legalism Lane” or today, right now, as God calls to you in His Word, you can come back and trust yourself to Jesus, rest on Jesus. Which is it going to be?
Let’s pray together.
Our God and Father, our hearts are such well-practiced, legalistic animals, always asserting our own righteousness, always judging others and acquitting ourselves. Here before You as Your Word rebukes us, we bow down and ask for Your forgiveness. We pray for one another as we pray for our own hearts. O God, have mercy upon us, the sinner. Restore us to Yourself. Grant that we may not ever take “Legalism Lane” and end up in the dreadful destination that it takes all who follow it. Instead, may it be that everyone here, everyone who hears these words, might now and always rest wholly on Jesus’ blood and righteousness. For we ask it in His holy name, amen.