Galatians 5
1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
“Know that to be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and fast, to be frugal and abstinent, and, lastly, to be magnanimous and brave; so to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave; and it usually happens that that people who cannot govern themselves, are delivered up to the sway of those whom they abhor, and made to submit to an involuntary servitude.” (Milton)
“The apostle having said, just before, ‘So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond woman, but of the free,’ immediately adds, ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.’ Hold fast your Christian profession; it brings spiritual liberty.” (Adam Clarke)— “‘and be not entangled again’— wrap not yourselves again.” (William Tyndale)— “‘with a yoke of bondage,’ that is servitude to the Jewish laws; see Acts 15:10. The sense is, do not again allow such a yoke to be put on you; do not again become slaves to any rites, and customs, and habits.” (Albert Barnes)
“When a man is in slavery he is not his own master; he acts and lives under the direction of others, and the responsibility of life is in a greater or less degree shifted from him on to some one else. When a man becomes free, he assumes the duties of life, and recognizes that it rests only with himself whether those duties are performed or not.” (C. W. H. Kenrick)
“The metaphor is taken from oxen put under a yoke, and implicated with it, from which they cannot disengage themselves: some of the members of this church had been Jews, who had formerly been under the yoke of the law, and seemed desirous to return to their former state of bondage, from which the apostle dissuades.” (John Gill)
“‘Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be a circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.’... “Circumcision is the sign of subjection to the Jewish ‘yoke’ - the economy of the law... He who is circumcised is circumcised as fearing the law: but he who fears the law distrusts the power of grace: and he who distrusts gains nothing from that which he distrusts.” (Vincent Word Studies)
Applied: “This passage may well serve as a criterion for all the religions. To teach that besides faith in Christ other devices like works, or the observance of rules, traditions, or ceremonies are necessary for the attainment of righteousness and everlasting life, is to make Christ and His salvation of no benefit to anybody.” (Martin Luther) But this argument has particular relevance to the Jewish religion. “He takes the example of circumcision, because it was the ground of all the service of the Law, and was chiefly urged by the false apostles.” (Geneva Study Bible)
And it must be understood of members of the Church who were being encourage to add circumcision to the ordinances. It was in the former days of the church in the wilderness a pledge to live by the rule of the law. That was the old meaning of circumcision— that you were accepting the law of Moses as your responsibility. “And that rule [or system of acceptance and/ or atonement] must be taken as a whole. You are committed to the practice of the whole Law, and in that way alone you must seek for justification.” (C. J. Ellicott)
He who performs it, as intended by the law, is debtor to do the whole law. “In N.T. mostly of one under moral obligation. So in the sense of sinner, Matthew 6:12; Luke 13:4. Comp. Romans 1:14; Romans 8:12.” (Vincent Word Studies) “For by circumcision he professes his dependence on his works for salvation.” (Justin Edwards) Nay, “‘Christ will be our sole Saviour, or none; he will not mingle his precious blood with our puddle stuff. Those that will look unto him must look off all things else, as the apostle’s word αφορωντες importeth, Hebrews 12:2.... Woe then to popish merit mongers.” (John Trapp)
As the hymn goes. “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. “‘For we,’ who believe in Christ, ‘through the Spirit, wait for’ — in sure confidence of attaining— ‘the hope of righteousness’— the righteousness we hope for, and full reward of it. This righteousness we receive of God through faith; and by faith we shall obtain the reward.” (John Wesley) “Faith in Jesus Christ is wrought by the Holy Spirit, by whom it is also nourished and maintained, who gives the pledge of its fulfillment, 2Co_1:22; Eph_1:14; Rom_3:11-23.
By this faith we not only possess the righteousness of Jesus Christ here in time, but we also have the certain hope of being justified on the great Day of Judgment. All those that remain in faith by the power of the Spirit are sure of their gracious acceptance by God at the final judgment.” (Paul Kretzmann)
“‘For in Jesus Christ’— in the religion which Christ came to establish.” (Albert Barnes)— “‘neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love’ —“Faith that evinces its existence by love to God, and benevolence to people. It is not a mere intellectual belief, but it is that which reaches the heart, and controls the affections. It is not a dead faith, but it is that which is operative, and which is seen in Christian kindness and affection. It is not mere belief of the truth, or mere orthodoxy, but it is that which produces trite attachment to [God and to] others.” (Albert Barnes)
Galatians 5:7 You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is.
The Christian life is likened to a race which must be finished. “You ran well’- Ye once had the faith that worked by love - ye were genuine, active, useful Christians.” (Adam Clarke)— but now that overrules which manifests in hatred and judgement, even persecution of the blessed remnant.
“‘Who did hinder you’— drive you back. The word used here ( ἀνακόπτω anakoptō) means properly to beat or drive back. Hence, it means to hinder, check, or retard’” (Albert Barnes)— “‘from obeying the truth.’... Ye could only be turned aside by your own consent...” (Adam Clarke) You have all become men pleasers, looking unto them alone for approval.
“This persuasion’; this idea that you must come under obligation to the Mosaic law ‘does not come from Him who calls you’” (Abbott’s NT) It is “opposed to the will of God...” (Adam Clarke) for you.
Works-based salvation is then likened unto leaven in a loaf of bread for holy use. It is a large part of the “the leaven [yeast] of the Pharisees and Sadducees” that Jesus warned His disciples about in Matthew 16:6-12, finally revealing that it was their doctrine which concerned Him. Perhaps the former is religious works and the latter is humanitarianism alone. “‘A little leaven leavens the whole lump.’ Though its component ingredients were the same as sweet dough, through fermentation it was liable to corruption and acidity. Thus it is opposed to the oil of the meat offering [in the law of Moses] which symbolized the Spirit of God. In the latter case the meal was made palatable by a mild and penetrating process, while leaven caused a fermenting disturbance of the mass.” (Kurtz)
“A little legalism, mixed with the Gospel, corrupts its purity. To add ordinances and works in the least degree to justification by faith, is to undermine 'the whole.’” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown) During the Passover, they must eat only unleavened cakes. Leaven causes the bread to rise and this bad doctrine causes the sinner’s breast to be rise, thinking he added the work. Eat in haste only and get out. Likewise, the wafers of Holy Communion contain no leaven.
“Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” (1 Corinthians 5:7) It may not be moral in nature, but it will lead to moral decay. “This disease is one which, like that fatal malady which leaves the cheek beautiful and the eye brilliant whilst it rapidly undermines the strength, may allow external appearances to continue specious and flattering, though the work of death is fast going on within.” (H. Melvill, B. D.)
“When visiting a gentleman in England, I observed a fine canary. Admiring his beauty, the gentleman replied, ‘Yes, he is beautiful, but he has lost; his voice. He used to be a fine singer, but I was in the habit of hanging his cage out of the window, the sparrows came around him with their incessant chirping, gradually he ceased to sing and learned their twitter, and now all that he can do is to twitter, twitter.’ Oh! how truly does this represent the case of many Christians; they used to delight to sing the songs of Zion, but they came into close association with those whose notes never rise so high, until at last, like the canary, they can do nothing but twitter, twitter.” (D. L. Moody)
“‘Yet I have confidence that’— after ye have read this— ‘ye will be no otherwise minded’ — than I am, and ye were.” (John Wesley)— “‘But he who troubles you shall bear his judgment.’ God should reward them according to their works.” (Matthew Poole) These false teachers shall be cast along with the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire for destruction.
Galatians 5:11 And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. 12 I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off! 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!
“‘And’ rather, ‘but I, brethren’—Another abrupt transition. We should naturally infer from this passage that St. Paul had at one time seemed to preach, or at least to permit, circumcision. Thus, in the Acts, we should gather, from the account of the conference at Jerusalem in Acts 15, that he did not insist strongly upon this point, and on taking Timothy with him upon his second missionary journey—the very journey in which he first visited Galatia—his first step was to have him circumcised. [It was a tradition based on the ancient oracle... and circumcision nor uncircumcised of the flesh mattered—
YET] It was only natural that the progress of time and of events should deepen the Apostle’s conviction of the radical antagonism between the ceremonial Judaism and Christianity. This he is now stating in the most emphatic manner, and he feels that he is open to a charge of something like inconsistency. The Galatians might say that he preached circumcision himself. His answer is, that if he really preached circumcision he would not be so persecuted...” (C. J. Ellicott)
“The grand reason why the Jews were so offended at his preaching Christ crucified, and so bitterly persecuted him for it, was, that it implied the abolition of the law [of Moses which made them the dispensers of God’s grace]...” (John Wesley) at the temple in Jerusalem, which is below. If he preached the, so called, gospel of the Judaisers, then “the offense of the cross has ceased.’ If I were to acknowledge circumcision the Jews would cease to persecute me; in fact they would love and praise me [for bringing congregants]. But their unionistic dreams cannot be realized without loss to the pure doctrine of the Cross. It would be too bad if the offense of the Cross were to cease." (Martin Luther) They, like Rome today, wanted world dominion in the realm of religion- perhaps, “one Jewish church”, in their creed. But Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” (John 4:21)
“‘I would they were even cut off which trouble you’— At first sight it seems as if the apostle was praying for the destruction of the false teachers who had perverted the Churches of Galatia... I believe the apostle never meant any such thing. As the persons who were breeding all this confusion in the Churches of Galatia were members of that Church, the apostle appears to me to be simply expressing his desire that they might be cut off or excommunicated from the Church." (Adam Clarke)— that the flesh might be destroyed but they saved.
“For you, brethren,”— fellow partakers of the True Unleavened Bread from Heaven— “have been called to liberty— “freedom from Jewish ceremonies,” and from the condemning power of the commandments of God— “‘only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh,’ as a pretext for the indulgence of fleshly lusts. The apostle is careful to distinguish between true Christian liberty from the bondage of Judaism and Antinomian licentiousness.” (Justin Edwards) “There is a charm in the very sound of liberty; it awakens many grateful recollections. But the word is employed in various acceptations. Civil liberty is that freedom which is our birthright as men. Spiritual liberty is that freedom, which belongs to us, not as men, but as Christians.”(Essex Congregational Remembrancer)— “‘but through love serve one another’... strive to promote each other‘s [eternal] welfare.” (Albert Barnes)
“For all the law”— all the second table — ‘is fulfilled in one word,’ one saying, ‘even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Leviticus 19:18b) The Scripture often appropriateth the law to the second table, as Romans 13:8; Ephesians 6:2, etc. [‘If any one say, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?’-1 John 4:20] A man must exercise the first table in the second, the duties of his general calling in his particular calling. In the first commandment, saith Luther, the keeping of all the laws is enjoined... Neither can any one love his neighbour as himself, but he that loves God above all.” (John Trapp)
And you can’t love properly without true religion found at the cross. “Mr. Calvin observeth well, that the apostle here mentioneth love to men as the fulfilling of the law, in opposition to the false teachers; who made the fulfilling of the law to lie in the observance of the ceremonies of the law, whereas the great thing which the law of God requireth is ‘love, out of a pure heart, good conscience, and faith unfeigned.’ So that he who believeth with a faith unfeigned, and, out of that principle, with a pure heart and a good conscience, loveth his neighbour as himself, shall be by God accounted to have fulfilled the law; for love is the end of the law.” (Matthew Poole)—
“‘But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!’ You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people,’ I am Yahweh.” (Leviticus 19:18a) “Happy would it be, if Christians, instead of biting and devouring one another... , would set themselves against sin in themselves, and in the places where they live...” (Matthew Henry) practicing “private home religion” (J. C. Ryle), getting the beam out of their own eye so that their vision would be good to take the splinter out of their neighbor’s, by a proper interpretation and practice of the Word.
Galatians 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
“LOVE is the guard of Christian freedom. The Holy Spirit is its guide. These principles accomplish what the law could never do. It withheld liberty, and yet did not give purity.” (Expositor’s Bible) Be aware that we two natures now. “That old nature is so corrupt, so vile, that it can never be sanctified, and the new nature is so pure, so holy, that it does not need to be sanctified. So there is no mention in Scripture of the sanctification of the old nature. What is it then that needs to be sanctified? It is the man himself, and he is sanctified as he learns to walk in accordance with the dictates of the new nature [according to the Word]. He is directed by the Holy Spirit of God, for the believer is not only born of the Spirit [and Word] but indwelt by the Spirit.” (Harry Ironside) So the way we triumph over carnal desires is not by putting ourselves under the law, but by allowing God's Spirit to direct our lives. Wait on the Spirit, as Pentecost, and allow Him to guide you.
“This I say then, ‘Walk in the Spirit’: cp. 2 Corinthians 12:18; Romans 8:4. Allow the Spirit to choose your steps.” (Jospeh Beets) “Get back that Spirit of God which you have grieved and lost; take up that spiritual religion which you have abandoned...” (Adam Clarke) by study of the Word of God and prayer, even partaking of the our ordinances.
Trust in Jesus and His blood alone, not in the blood of bulls and goats.— “and fulfil not the lusts of the flesh.” (William Tyndale Translation) “It is not by philosophy; it is not by mere resolutions to resist them; it is not by the force of education and laws; it is only by admitting into our souls the influence of [the Christian] religion, and yielding ourselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God.” (Albert Barnes)
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
“The Spirit and the [desires of the] flesh are opposites... Each is bent on destroying the ascendency of the other. Their cravings and tendencies stand opposed at every point. Where the former rules, the latter must succumb.” (Expositor’s Bible)
“What can a man see in the [mysterious] Shulamite [woman], but as the appearance of two armies? (Song of Solomon 6:13– ‘Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon you!] These maintain civil broils within her, as the two babes did in Rebecea’s womb. All was jolly quiet at Ephesus, till Paul came thither; but then there arose no small stir about that way, Acts 19:23.—So is there in the good soul.” (John Trapp)
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
“The Holy Spirit and all that is right in (the religion of) Christians oppose the indulgence of sinful desires.“ (Justin Edwards) So fill yourselves with right thinking and yield thereto... and “the whole carnal mind will be destroyed; and then, not only carnal ordinances will be abandoned, but also the works and propensities of the flesh.” (Adam Clarke)
Destroy not the leaven in the old loaf, but eat the new lump. “The best way to keep tares out of a bushel is to fill it with wheat.” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown) “Set the Spirit, as Pharaoh did Joseph, upon the chief chariot of your hearts, and let all be at his beck and check.” (John Trapp)
Galatians 5:
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Christ’s people are doers of the Commandments of God— the heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Those that are not Christ’s are described as unfruitful hearers of the Law, that moral code— the heirs of destruction. Now the Galatians get a truth check for the old nature must be “kept down, and not permitted to ripen its bitter fruit. Its nature and tendencies are unchanged, unchangeable, but it is checked.” (John Milne)
“‘Now the works of the flesh’; those to which corrupt human nature prompts, and when not restrained, produces." (Justin Edwards)—"which are: fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
“And these sins will shut men out of heaven. Yet what numbers, calling themselves Christians, live in these, and say they hope for heaven!“ (Matthew Henry)
“‘But the fruit of the Spirit’; that which He produces in those who follow His guidance: ‘is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” — no teaching other than Jesus and Him crucified. Not even the moral code must be posted on the walls where these traits flow. They are written on the heart, where a better type of circumcision has occurred.
“And they that are Christ's —The oldest manuscripts read, ‘They that are of Christ Jesus’; they that belong to Christ Jesus; being ‘led by (His) Spirit’ (Galatians 5:18). — ‘have crucified the flesh’— They nailed it to the cross [with the handwriting of the Jewish ceremonial law], once for all when they became Christ‘s, on believing and being baptized (Romans 6:3, Romans 6:4): they keep it now in a state of crucifixion (Romans 6:6): so that the Spirit can produce in them, comparatively uninterrupted by it, ‘the fruit of the Spirit’.... We are to be executioners, dealing cruelly with the body of sin, which has caused the acting of all cruelties on Christ‘s body.— ‘with the affections’ — ...with its passions. Thus they are dead to the law‘s condemning power..?! .” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown)
“‘If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.’ “If the Spirit of God lives in us, let Him govern our actions... By the ‘live’ is here meant the inward power and by the ‘walk’ the outward actions [to which we are called]. The metaphorical use of the word ‘walk’, which frequently occurs, describes works as evidences of the spiritual life.” (John Calvin)
“The life which the Spirit quickens needs human co-operation, an active effort on the part of the Christian, to realise it completely in practice.” (C. J. Ellicott) “‘Let us not become conceited, desirous of vain glory—a branch of pride which makes men refer all they have or can do to show their own private glory and advancement... It is found: 1. In the world. 2. In a Church where men make a great show of piety to be praised of men, but not at home to be praised of God.” (J. W. Burns)
“Love of vainglory is a common vice the whole world through, in all conditions. No village so small but there be one or two peasants therein, that will fain be taken for wiser and better than the rest. It is so pleasant to be pointed at with the finger and hear it said: ‘See, there is a man that is fit for anything!’ This vice is common, yet nowhere does it such harm as to those who fulfil a spiritual function and service in the Church.” (Martin Luther)
“Whoever seeks the praises of men seeks a vain thing. He pursues a bubble, swollen by wind, but void of all substance... ‘provoking one another.’ To broils, lawsuits, and other contests. The thirst for praise and eminence gives birth to these rivalries and to envy: while Pompey will not brook an equal, nor Caesar a superior.” (Lapide's Commentary)
“Only in the Spirit of God can we reproduce, even in small measure, the beautiful character of Christ.” (F. B. Hole)