Gal 5:7–15 — Love, the Fulfillment of the Law

Review

We’re now turning to the third major section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The first major section is the apostle of gospel liberty, where Paul gives his credentials, his authority for his claim that the gospel he preaches is not from man, but it is from Christ himself. The second major section is in Galatians three and four, the doctrine of gospel liberty, that we are free from the law, in Christ because Christ has redeemed us from the law. And then we come now to the third major section, the life of gospel liberty. And the main point that Paul wants to make in this final section of Galatians, Galatians five through six, is stated for us in our text today, verse 13.

You were called to freedom, brothers. That’s the whole point of this letter, that we’re called to freedom. He’s explained that in the previous four chapters. But, he says, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but rather, through love, serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in the command to love your neighbor as yourself.

This is the main point that Paul wants to make in this section of the letter as he wraps things up, that we are called to freedom. We have this wonderful liberty in Christ But the purpose, the aim of gospel liberty from the curse of the law is not that we might indulge in the flesh, that we might live a licentious life of doing whatever we please, but rather that we might love one another even as was commanded in the Old Testament in Leviticus 19 verse 18. You shall love your neighbor as yourself, a commandment that was taken up on the lips of Jesus himself as he summarized the whole law in the two great commandments of love for God and love for neighbor.

Galatians 5:1–6: Two Religions

Just to get somewhat of the context as we run into our text, beginning in verses one through six, which we looked at last week, we could summarize verses one through six as Paul describing these two different religions, these antithetical religions. The religion of Judaism, which is a law-focused piety, and the religion of Christianity, which is a Christ-focused piety.

The Judaizers, who are creeping into the church and who are beginning to sway them away from the doctrine of the gospel and to teach them that they need to be circumcised and keep the law, is ultimately a law-focused piety. It is not all that different from non-Messianic Judaism, even though these particular Judaizers professed to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Their emphasis on the law and on the necessity of circumcision and keeping the law in order to be saved and right with God had eclipsed their faith in Christ to the point where They might as well have been the same as non-Messianic Jews.

And so Paul is making this contrast. He said there’s really only two options, either a law-focused piety or a Christ-focused piety. And the primary symbol that represented this Judaistic law-centered piety was circumcision. And that was the sign that the Judaizers were pushing and promoting and saying, you have to do this in order to be saved, in order to be right with God. They were not just teaching that we need to keep the law in the sense of the moral requirements of the law. They were saying we have to keep the entire Mosaic law in order to be saved, in order to be right with God.

And Paul is saying, look, if you go along with that teaching, if you listen to what the Judaizers are saying, then he says in verse four, you are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. If you think that you’re going to be justified, if you think you’re going to be counted as righteous in the sight of God by means of keeping the law, then you have abandoned Christ. It’s an either or. There’s only two options here. It’s either the law has a means of salvation, or Christ. And so Paul says, we are different. We are different from this Judaistic religion.

We follow the religion of God. A Christ-focused piety by the Spirit. He says in verse five and six, after describing the Judaistic religion that he’s saying we’re not following that, he says, but we, verse five, through the Spirit, by faith, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. That is, we wait for the hope that righteousness brings, the hope of the resurrection of the body, that righteousness, that is the righteousness of Christ, gives us. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. If circumcision is the primary symbol and driving focus and thrust of the law-focused piety of the religion of Judaism, what is the parallel for that in the New Covenant? What is the parallel focus for us?

I would say that it is baptism. Paul talks about baptism in Galatians 3. And verse 26, in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Galatians 3, 27. Baptism focuses upon Christ, our union with Christ, and how it’s in Christ that we are justified.

It’s in Christ that we are counted as righteous. Paul uses that language of in Christ in our text, verse six, for in Christ Jesus, in this new realm, not in the law, not in circumcision, but in Christ Jesus, which is symbolized and signed and sealed to us in baptism.

Neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. We talked about last week this fundamental doctrine, which is that we are reckoned as righteous in the sight of God, not by our works, but only by faith in Christ. The Bible teaches that we are justified by faith alone, not by works. And in fact, another way of putting that is that we’re justified by Christ alone. Faith is merely the instrument by which we receive and rest upon Christ.

However, the Bible also teaches that genuine saving faith is a faith that is alive. It’s a faith that expresses itself through love. The faith by which we receive Christ is a living faith that has been created in us by the work of the Holy Spirit, giving us a new heart, giving us new affections, giving us a love for Christ. And so genuine saving faith receives Christ and then produces the evidence that that faith is genuine by working, by expressing itself through love.

However, we also have to add a very important point, which is that we are not accepted before God based upon that love. Love is the fruit of faith, but we’re not accepted before God based upon that fruit. What’s the reason why that’s true? The obvious reason is that even though we’re born again, and even though we have saving faith in the Lord, And even though we do love, we don’t love perfectly. We still have that remaining corruption within us. We still struggle with ongoing sin. We do not love our neighbor as ourselves, as we ought to.

If we’re a genuine believer, there will be evidence of love, of repenting of sin, of trying to please the Lord. But it’s not perfect in this life. And so our confidence, the basis of our assurance that we are accepted before God is not the fruit of faith, it’s faith itself resting in Christ himself and what he has done for us. Faith is the instrument by which we receive Christ and his righteousness. But that instrument is never alone. It always produces love. It expresses itself through love.

Exposition

Galatians 5:7–8: The Battle for the Mind

Now in verses seven through 15, Paul is continuing his call to the Galatian Christians to bring them back from the brink. They were beginning to go along with what the Judaizers are saying. They were tempted to listen to them, and he’s making his appeal to them. Don’t listen to what they’re saying. Verses seven and eight, he says, you are running Referring back to when they first came to know the Lord, when he first preached the gospel to them, and they were converted, they had a good start, but he says, who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. This persuasive rhetoric that you’re hearing from the Judaizers, that you have to be circumcised and keep the law in order to be saved, it sounds persuasive, but it’s not from Christ. It’s not from him who calls you.

I think it’s interesting that Paul here focuses upon the Christian life in terms of the mind. He doesn’t just simply talk about how we need to love one another and walk in the spirit. He goes back to the mind as the driving engine of the Christian life. There’s a battle for the mind going on.

There’s a danger of being persuaded from another source other than Christ and his gospel. And so we need to make sure that we don’t just simply go right to all of the do’s and don’ts of the Christian life, and, oh yes, I know I need to love my neighbor, and I need to love God, and I need to more and more walk in the Spirit. If we do that without thinking about, first of all, where our minds are at, that we need to set our minds on the truths of the gospel, and be aware of the fact that there are other deceptive ideas out there. There are false gospels that are very persuasive, that sound very compelling.

Consider, for example, an encounter with a Mormon. Mormons can sound persuasive and appear clean, respectable, kind, and devoted to strong families. Those admirable qualities can make their religion seem enticing and lead someone to consider joining it. In this way, people can fall prey to false gospels.

When the Judaizers came into the Church of Galatia, from our point of view, it just seems obvious that circumcision is not necessary. But if you put yourself in their shoes, just think about how it would have felt to a former pagan who grew up in the world of sexual immorality and idolatry and is now being told that There’s this wonderful thing that you can do, which is you can be circumcised and keep the Mosaic law, which the Jews have been doing for thousands of years. And this is a wonderful way to be a hedge to keep yourself from the pollutions of Gentile idolatry and paganism. Your former way of life that you used to live in where you’re just running after the passions of the flesh can be corralled and corrected and hedged in by the law. And by keeping all of these, even the clean and unclean food distinctions is a useful way of disciplining yourself. And it’s as it were like going to the gym and having a spiritual workout. Because it’s not easy to only eat clean food, but if you do that, that can really help you to be a better person. And so just like the Mormon religion, it seems good.

You look at the Jewish people, they seem so upstanding and righteous. They’re not defiled by all the idolatry and sexual sin of the pagan world. And so the Judaizers are coming in to the Galatian Christians, these new baby Christians who just came to know the Lord and saying, you need to keep the law.

This is what will help you. This is what will keep you pure. And so there’s a dangerous persuasion. And Paul here is saying, listen to the gospel. Listen to the one who calls you. Don’t listen to this other persuasion that is trying to get your affections and your minds away from Christ and what he has done toward this other law-focused piety.

And it’s hard, it’s hard to do this because this goes against our natural ingrained assumption that you have to be good in order to get God’s favor. That’s just a natural assumption that we all have. We all have this assumption. And even as believers in the Lord who know that we’re saved by faith alone and by what Christ has done alone, we easily fall into this feeling that I have to be a good person, I have to do right and do good things in order to get God’s favor. It’s a natural thing to think and it’s so easy to fall into that.

And so Paul is saying, you began well when you first came to know the Lord and you first believed in the gospel. Who is it now that has hindered you from obeying the truth, from following the gospel and listening to what the gospel says? This persuasion, though it is attractive and though it fits in with your natural assumptions that you have to be good in order to be pleasing with God, this persuasion is not really from Christ. It’s not really from the one who calls you.

Galatians 5:9–10: Getting Rid of the Leaven

And then he goes on to say, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And he’s using this analogy of a lump of dough and all it takes is a little tiny bit of leaven to leaven the whole lump and to make the bread rise. And he’s pointing out here that there is a social dimension to this whole issue of resisting legalism and pursuing the truth of the gospel. There’s a social dimension here to it.

The little 11 here is referring to these false teachers who have crept into the church. We don’t know exactly how many there were, but we could imagine there may be one or two, not a huge number, who are coming in from the outside and who are saying to these baby Christians, don’t listen to Paul. His gospel is for man, it’s not the true gospel. We have the true gospel.

And so there’s this social dimension to legalism. Legalism is always a social phenomenon. That is what legalism is fundamentally. It’s not just simply in your own mind thinking, I have to be good in order to be accepted before God. It’s that I have to be good as the group that I’m in also perceives it. And the group uses judgment and shame to keep you into their way of thinking about how you should be good. Of course, legalistic groups, they always base their judgment and their shame and their legalistic pressure, this social pressure, they always base it on what? Not on the heart, not on how are you doing in your personal walk with God, they always base it on external things. External things that you can see and that you can go, oh, that person over there is doing something I don’t like.

But without any concern for the heart, So Paul is saying here, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Be careful because there is a social contagion that is happening in the congregation. The more you give credence to this legalistic doctrine that we are accepted before God based upon our works and not on the work of Christ. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord, however, he says in verse 10, that you will take no other view. And the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

So he’s implying that maybe it’s a small number. I think he says singular here, but I don’t think he means there’s only one person, because in the next couple of verses, he talks about it in the plural. For example, in verse 12, he says, I wish those who are unsettling you would emasculate themselves. But it’s clearly not a huge number. There are these teachers who are coming into the church, maybe one or two or three, but he’s saying, I’m confident in the Lord that you will listen to the true gospel that I, as an apostle of Christ, am communicating to you.

And that the one who is troubling you, or those who are troubling you, will bear the penalty. What penalty is that? It could be the penalty of excommunication, where the church, through the elders, gathers together and says, this person is no longer to be viewed as a brother in Christ and set aside from the church. The problem with that is that these Judaizers, they’re outsiders anyway. They’re not really members of the church. They’re simply coming in and trying to draw away disciples after themselves.

I think the penalty that Paul is referring to there is the penalty that he referred to back at the beginning of the letter. You remember back in Galatians 1 when he said, this is in Galatians 1 and verses six through nine, he said, I’m astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

That is this false gospel that the Judaizers are teaching. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. That’s the same concept that he’s referring to here in our text, those who trouble you, those who unsettle you. There are some who want to, who are trying to distort the gospel of Christ.

But then he says, even if we, who are an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. That is, let him be eternally condemned. That is the penalty that Paul is referring to here. The one who is troubling you will bear the penalty. He will be eternally condemned, whoever he is, because he’s denying the gospel. He’s undercutting the foundational gospel of Christ, that we are accepted before God on the basis of what Christ has done, not on the basis of what we do.

Galatians 5:11–12: “If I Still Preach Circumcision”

Then in verses 11 through 12, he says, Before Paul was converted, Paul was insisting on circumcision as necessary for salvation. He was preaching it, he wasn’t just simply saying it’s a good idea, he was preaching circumcision. He was preaching the gospel, quote unquote, of circumcision. That you have to be circumcised as necessary for salvation.

And of course, circumcision being viewed there as a symbol of committing yourself to keeping the law. Clearly Paul no longer preaches that. He used to before he was converted and called to be an apostle on the road to Damascus when the Lord wonderfully changed him and gave him faith in Christ and commissioned him to be an apostle. He used to teach that, but now he no longer does.

And so he says, if I still preach that, then why am I being persecuted for the gospel that I proclaim? Paul was persecuted by his fellow Jews, his comrades in the Jewish religion. Who before he was one of them, he was promoting Judaism and promoting the law, and he was even so extreme in his zeal for the Jewish religion and the law-centered piety that he was even persecuting Christians. He was even rounding up Christians and carrying them off to jail. Some of them he even put to death or participated in that. But now, now that he has had this radical change from the law to Christ, and now that he’s become a Christian, he is being persecuted by those former people that he used to be comrades with in promoting Judaism. He is still being persecuted for the cross of Christ.

So it’s a false accusation that he preaches circumcision. Apparently the Judaizers were using that as one of their arguments. They were probably saying to the Galatians, hey, did you know that Paul himself preaches circumcision? And that would be another argument for why they should be circumcised.

But Paul says, yes, I did, but no longer. And you can tell that from the fact that I myself am now being harassed by the Jews because of my newfound faith in Christ. In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. If he was no longer being persecuted, the offense of the cross is that it’s by Christ and the cross alone that we are right with God, not by means of keeping the law.

Then in verse 12, he says, I wish those who are troubling you would, and there’s different ways of translating it, I wish that they would be cut off. Others translate it as, I wish that they would emasculate or mutilate themselves, meaning to make eunuchs of themselves. Almost all the modern English versions translate it that way. I wish that they would emasculate themselves or mutilate themselves. In other words, go the whole way. Not just focus on circumcision, but the whole thing. And it’s somewhat a shocking statement. I’m not 100% sure that’s the correct translation because the word themselves is not there in Greek.

It could be translated as, I wish that those who are troubling you would be cut off. And so that just would mean that they would be cut off from the church. They would stop bothering the church and they would go away and no longer trouble the church.

It is possible, though, the word cut off is used many times, even in the New Testament, to refer to cutting off some part of your body. Remember Peter cut off the ear of the servant’s high priest? That’s the same word, cut off. Jesus says, cut off your hand, cut off your feet, rather than allow yourself to be stumbled into sin. The word cut off does seem to have this very somewhat gruesome feel to it, and that’s the way it’s often used in the New Testament. But the thing that doesn’t fit to me is that the word themselves has to be added. It doesn’t say that they would cut themselves. It says that they would be cut off, that they would be separate, and that they would leave the church.

Galatians 5:13–14: Through Love, Serve One Another

I think that’s the best translation of it. And then we come to the climactic statement here in verses 13 through 15. For 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.

Galatians 5:15: Biting and Devouring One Another

But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. That last verse there, if you bite and devour one another, it tells you that something is going on in this church. Ever since the Judaizers came in and began to have this persuasion to make them tempted to go, to abandon Christ and to go towards this Jewish, Judaistic way of relating to God based upon circumcision and the law, something has happened within the congregation. The congregation has become full of infighting and arguing and biting and devouring one another rather than being focused upon love.

Legalists often do this. You see this even today. You see churches that are really highly legalistic and fundamentalistic and very much focused on all that social matters I was talking about of judging each other based on external things. What often happens is that they devolve into infighting. It can happen in different ways. It can happen over people having different opinions about these external things. It can happen over each person trying to outdo the other and being a better legalist than the other. You think you’re strict, I’m even stricter than you.

And it becomes this pride and envy and it leads into great, it just breeds this devouring life within the congregation. Paul says that if you follow the gospel, if you follow this wonderful reality of our liberty in Christ, and that we are accepted before God based upon the work of Christ, plus nothing, not based on anything that you do, but simply a gift that you receive by faith, then that will express itself in love. And that will lead to the opposite kinds of behaviors within the congregation, not fighting and arguing and trying to outdo each other and being stricter than one another, being a harder legalist than your neighbor, but rather it’s going to lead to love. Where you love one another and you grow together in the Lord, resting in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Application

The Inner Logic of Liberty and Love

Interesting logic, isn’t there? Interesting logic here that liberty and love go together. It’s somewhat odd. Because you would think that liberty would lead to just people doing whatever they want, living as they please. I’m not under the law, I’m free from the law, I can sin as much as I want, God will forgive me. And it would just lead to more sin. But Paul says there is actually an interesting logical connection between gospel liberty, true gospel liberty, which is not intended for license, it’s not intended to give you the freedom to do as you please, but true gospel liberty in Christ by the Spirit leads to love. Why is that? It’s because when you understand that you are accepted before God based upon what Christ has done and not based upon your own works. When you’re truly resting in that, when that reality has gripped your heart, when it’s become a persuasion, like Paul talks about there, this false persuasion, the legalism, but there’s also the possibility of a genuine persuasion where the gospel has deeply rooted itself into your conscience and your heart and your mind, that you know that you’re accepted before God based upon the work of Christ, that you’re righteous in the sight of God because Christ has credited you with his righteousness.

Then you no longer have to have this either fear of what other people will think about you, nor do you need to justify yourself in the eyes of others. And then you’re free to do what? You’re free to love. You’re free to love one another.

What does it mean to love one another? It means to speak or to seek the spiritual good of the other person. Love in modern society means just tolerance. It means just affirming whatever somebody wants and feels. That’s not what the Bible, that’s not how the Bible defines love. Love is always defined in connection with the first commandment of love for God.

Remember Jesus said, love God and love your neighbor. And those two are intertwined, interconnected. You cannot properly love your neighbor if you’re not loving God. And you can’t properly love God if you’re not loving your neighbor. Those two go hand in hand. And so therefore it means that to love one another is to serve others in the desire for their spiritual good, to seek their spiritual good.

And that may not always be just simply affirming whatever they want. It may mean calling them to repentance and to acknowledging God and living for Him. But here’s this wonderful thing, is that the doctrine of gospel liberty is not intended for license, it’s not intended to just give you the freedom to live unchecked and to indulge in the flesh. The doctrine of gospel liberty, the purpose of it, the aim of it, is that it would be faith working itself out and expressing itself through love. The Belgic Confession has a wonderful statement on this. It’s in Belgic Confession Article 24.

It says, far from making people cold toward living in a pious and holy way, this justifying faith, quite to the contrary, so works within them that apart from it, they will never do a thing out of love for God, but only out of love for themselves and fear of being condemned. Justifying faith works within us so that we are able to love God and love our neighbor. If we don’t have that justifying faith, if we’re not resting in Christ and what he has done, we will only think about ourselves and we’ll be afraid either in the sight of God that we’re not good enough for God’s favor or we’ll be afraid of being judged by our fellow neighbor and being condemned by others. But once we are free from that condemnation, whether the condemnation of God or our neighbor, once we’re free from the judgment of man and what others think, and we no longer need to justify ourselves and make ourselves look better than we really are, then we’re free to love others. We’re free to actually Think about their spiritual good and seek what is best for them spiritually in their relationship with the Lord. We’re free to serve one another in love.

It’s a wonderful thing, the way the Apostle Paul brings this out. And he’s mentioning this specifically because of the problems that are going on in the congregation. The congregation has become toxic because of their legalism, because of their persuasion, being persuaded by the legalistic view. And he’s calling them to understand, to be established in their liberty in Christ. That’s why he said at the very beginning of this chapter, chapter five, verse one, that Christ has set us free, so stand firm in that freedom. Be convinced of it, be rooted and grounded in it.

Isn’t that a wonderful thing? Sometimes people think that it’s dangerous to focus too much upon our liberty in Christ and the assurance that we have in Christ. This was essentially the conflict at the time of the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church was saying to the Protestants, to Martin Luther and the Reformers, it’s wrong to encourage people to have assurance. It’s wrong to encourage them that they can know that they are accepted before God. Because of what Christ has done and not because of their own works. Because if you do that, it’s going to let people free to sin. It’s going to give them license. It’s going to lift the floodgates. And people are just going to go out and do whatever they want.

But the apostle Paul and the reformers themselves following Paul says, no, it’s very important to have assurance. It’s very important to be rooted and grounded in your assurance in Christ. Stand fast in that freedom. Stand firm in it. You. You need to be convinced of it. Let the truths of the gospel, let the promises of the gospel make their way into your heart so that you are established in this.

So that you’re completely confident of who you are in the sight of God because you’re in Christ. Your identity, your being, your whole life is defined by who you are in Christ. It’s not defined based upon you and what you’re doing. So stand in that reality, stand in that assurance of your gospel liberty in Christ.

Only, he says, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but rather, through love, serve one another, as faith expresses itself through love. It’s a wonderful passage of scripture that helps us to understand the gospel way of sanctification, the gospel way of growing in holiness and obedience to the Lord. Not the law-centered, legalistic way that the Judaizers are teaching, but the gospel way of being rooted in Christ, and then out of that rooted assurance in Christ, loving one another because we’re free. We’re free to love one another, to care for one another, to seek one another’s spiritual good. We don’t need to justify ourselves. We’re free to love each other and to care for one another in Christ.

Doctrine

The Law of Christ as a Rule of Life

This is what some of the Scottish Presbyterians who are part of the Merrow tradition, based upon that book, The Merrow of Modern Divinity. This is back in the 1700s. They said that we are not under the law by which we are justified or condemned. We’re not under the law as a means of salvation. We’re delivered from the law as a covenant of works. But we are under the law in Christ.

The moral dimension of the law, summarized in the double love command, to love God and love your neighbor, continues as a rule of life as that moral requirement of the law is given to us from the hand of Christ. And Paul himself uses that language later on. We’ll come to it in a few weeks, but in Galatians chapter six, verse two, he says, bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. The law of Christ is The double love command, love for God and love for neighbor, and of course the double love command can be fleshed out into more detail. Love for God is explained in the first four commandments. Love for neighbor is explained in the last six commandments. The moral dimension of the law, summarized in the double love commandment, continues as a rule of life for the believer, and it comes to us from the hand of Christ.

It is the law of Christ. Christ’s law is not entirely different from the Mosaic law. He quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, which commands us to love God with the whole heart, and Leviticus 19:18, which commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Christ elevates these two verses and gives them to his disciples as the moral law from his own hand, directing us to walk in a way that pleases the Lord. Such obedience is possible only because it is rooted and grounded in the gospel liberty we have in Christ.