Imperishable Inheritance

Paul's letter to the Galatians is often seen as having three divisions: biography (chps. 1-2), theology (chps. 3-4), and finally ethics (chps. 5-6). We are starting to look at Paul's practical application of the previous four chapters. We begin to see more of Paul's robust theology of justification by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone, and Paul starts to unveil ideas such as life in the Spirit (5:18ff), the Law of Christ (6:2), and a redefinition of Israel (6:16).

"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." (vs. 1)

We have just finished looking at Paul's discourse at how Christians are not sons of Hagar and slavery but Isaac and promise. He continues with the theme of freedom by urging us not to revert to a "yoke of slavery." The Greek word for "yoke" is zugos which in this context is used as a figure of speech for law or obligation. Peter alluded to this at the Council of Jerusalem by stating: "Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?" (Acts 15:10). Peter was asking the council why an obligation to be circumcised should be passed on to Gentiles when it is not a necessary element of salvation.¹

Paul uses "yoke" to invoke images of the Mosaic Law. Paul is stating that if Christians are liberated from attempting to use the Law as a means of justification (cf. 3:13) why would one want to go back to that state of "slavery" and be a child of Hagar? The Jews of Paul's day often referred to the Mosaic Law as "the yoke of the commandments."² Paul was urging the Galatian Christians to not submit to this yoke taught by the Judaizers'they didn't need Christ plus Law, they needed Christ alone.

If circumcision was not an overly intrusive surgery, then why would Paul go to such lengths to defend the truth that they need not be circumcised? Paul was concerned foremost that the teaching ("yoke") of the Judaizers did two things: (1) distort Paul's doctrine of justification and (2) called into question the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work. The issue behind the circumcision is the human tendency to resort to a "works based" attempt for righteousness, and this is what has Paul so concerned for the Galatian Christians.

It should be noted that "freedom" is not to be interpreted as freedom as we understand it in a material, earthly sense. The freedom Paul describes is freedom (1) from the Mosaic Law³ and (2) freedom from the dominion of sin. Therefore Paul urges the Galatians to "keep standing firm" in the truth they had heard from him in the true Gospel.

"Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law." (vs. 2-3)

Remember Paul's statement back in chapter 2 verse 21: "if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly." The attempt of the Judaizers to add something to the Gospel, in this case circumcision, takes away from the work of Christ. To "receive circumcision" from the Judaizers is an acknowledgement that they are trusting in their own works and not Christ alone; therefore, Christ then becomes of not benefit to the Galatian Christians.

For Paul, to accept circumcision is to accept the Old Covenant demands of being in covenant with God. He also connects circumcision to the entirety of the Old Testament Law. If one wants to be circumcised then that are submitting themselves to attempting righteousness through all the Mosaic Law.⁴ Martin Luther comments on this passage:

"The same principle by which you are obliged to receive circumcision obliges you to accept the whole Law…You must give up either Christ or the righteousness of the Law. If you keep Christ, you are righteous in the sight of God. If you keep the Law, Christ is of no avail to you; then you are obligated to keep the whole Law."⁵

The horrible truth is that the Law is a curse, but the good news is that Christ has freed us from that curse (3:13). This is the essence of Christian liberty! So, if one is free why go back to a life of futility and slavery? Trust in Christ alone!

"You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace." (vs. 4)

To "fall from grace" is not to lose one's salvation as the Scriptures teach that once God has justified an individual he will persevere until the end through the work of the Holy Spirit (John 10:28-29; Rom 8:28-30; Eph 1:13-14; Phi 1:6; 1 Pet 1:3-7; 1 John 2:18-20). What Paul is saying is that if one attempts to conjure righteousness ("be justified") through works of the Law then they will be severed from Christ. They will no longer know grace, because they will have become enslaved all over again. Grace and works of the Law are antithetical ideas in the mind of Paul.

"For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love." (vs. 5-6)

Paul begins his discourse on the primacy of the Spirit not only in our justification but that the Spirit is the agent that will complete our salvation. The Spirit is received by faith alone and not through any external works. Because Christians have received this free gift we can look forward to the "hope of righteousness" which is what we look forward to on our judgment'that God will look at us and see the righteousness of Christ and not our own filthy rags of righteousness (Isa 64:6).

Paul then tells the Galatian Christians what truly matters: "faith working through love." In the Old Covenant community circumcision set apart God's people from the rest of the world, but "in Christ"⁶ that distinction is no longer valid. The only thing of importance is that one exhibits faith in the Messiah and love is a byproduct of our regeneration (5:14). Jesus explicitly tells His disciples that "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

"You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you." (vs. 7-8)
Paul exhibits another analogy from the athletics world by ascribing their salvation to running (cf. 1 Cor 9:24-27). Paul states that after he had shared with them the true Gospel they were doing well in their Christian faith, but someone had hindered the Galatian Christians from "obeying the truth." Paul is quick to set forth the truth that God did not teach them this truth, because God is the one "who calls you." This teaching of syncretizing faith and works is not of God therefore establishing that the teaching that the Galatians Christians had received from the Judaizers was not true.

"A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough." (vs. 9)

Paul invokes imagery of leaven that the Judaizers and Galatian Christians were familiar with: "'Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel" (Exo 12:15). Leaven was a symbol of unholiness to ancient Israelities. The teaching from the Judaizers is then likened to the unholiness of the leaven. As God commanded the Israelites to remove leaven from their household during the feast of unleavened bread, so to were the Galatians were to purge the teaching ("leaven") of the Judaizers (cf. 4:30). Paul also gives this admonition to the Corinthian church: "Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed" (1 Cor 5:7).

It only took a little bit of bad theology to corrupt the "whole lump" of good teaching. It is no wonder that Paul warns Titus (and Timothy in all the pastoral epistles) to hold "fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict" (Tit 1:9; cf. Eph 4:14; 1 Tim 4:6).

"I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt no other view; but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is. But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished." (vs. 10-11)

Paul's confidence in the Galatians comes through in this passage. He has confidence that they will "adopt no other view" thereby admonishing them to remember the true Gospel that he delivered to them. He makes an allusion that there was a ring leader of the Judaizers,⁷ and that he will receive his proper judgment and his teaching will come to an end.

Paul makes a reference that the Judaizers convinced the Galatian Christians that Paul preached circumcision as a necessary element of the Gospel,⁸ but if Paul was preaching that Gospel why is he being persecuted? The answer to the rhetorical question is that Paul is not preaching circumcision as a necessary element of the Gospel'Paul was teaching justification by faith alone, and this is the very reason he was so persecuted.

The truth that Christ is received by faith alone is actually an offense to the world. If Paul were to preach faith plus works then the stumbling block of the cross would be removed, but the Gospel is indeed a stumbling block to both the Jews and the Gentiles due to the radical nature of trust and faith in the Christ and His Gospel (cf. 1 Cor 1:23). The cross is a stumbling block, because it is antithetical to everything we know as depraved human beings. Humans naturally hate to be told that they need to go to the bloody cross for forgiveness and a righteousness that they cannot create on their own merit.

"I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves." (vs. 12)

Paul then gives a rather unflattering (and admittedly vulgar) remark considering the Judaizers. He wishes that they would just mutilate themselves by cutting off not just the foreskin but the whole of the male genitalia. This is quite a stern comment made by Paul. He is essentially ascribing, in the most straightforward manner possible, that circumcision avails them nothing. To be in this physical condition (a eunuch) is to be cut off from fellowship with God in Old Covenant Israel (Deut 23:1) as was the condition of the Ethiopian eunuch that Phillip shared the Gospel with in Acts 8 (vs. 26ff).

Questions for Application

1. Do you ever attempt to add more to the Gospel than is necessary? Are you guilty as were the Galatian Christians and Judaizers?
2. Have you ever felt 'severed from Christ" by pursuing righteousness through your own works?
3. Do you trust in the Spirit and Christ's atoning sacrifice alone for your justification?
4. What would you think if you were told that you were to keep the whole Law, and how does it make you feel that 'in Christ" this isn't necessary?

1. This is the whole point of Galatians. Due to the fact that the Council of Jerusalem is not explicitly referenced in this letter, particularly in chapter 2, leads me to believe this was the earliest of Paul's letters written before the Council. This fits in with the Southern Galatian theory of authorship. See F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) pg. 8ff. [Back]
2. Phillip Graham Ryken. Galatians (New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2005), pg. 196. [Back]
3. Phillip Graham Ryken (Ibid. pg. 195) states (emphasis added): 'Another way to say all this is that Christ has freed us from the law, which is one of Paul's primary concerns throughout Galatians. Christ has not set us free from the moral law, which is God's eternal will for his people, but from the law that leads to sin and death.' This argument begs the question and does not fit in with Paul's description of freedom from the Mosaic Law.
   
   This argument rests on a couple of presuppositions: (1) that the Mosaic Law can be broken into moral, civil, and ceremonial distinctions often referred to as the threefold division of the law, (2) that the Decalogue (10 Commandments) is the eternal 'moral law' of God, and (3) that the Decalogue, as codified at Sinai, continues to be binding on Christian believers in the New Covenant. It should be noted that no writer of the Old or New Testament Scriptures saw the Law as divided into such distinctions as moral, civil, and ceremonial. The law (nomos) is always seen as a complete entity that rises and falls together. I also believe that eternal moral law of God is not the Decalogue as delivered at Sinai. The eternal moral law of God is expressed in natural law (Rom 2:14-15), Mosaic Law, and the Law of Christ which Paul is about to explain in this very book (6:2).
   
   This interpretation, I believe, does not pass the litmus test put forward by Paul in this work. He is stating that we are free from the total reign of the Mosaic Law in the Christian's life. The relation of Law to the Christian is different than the Israelites had to the Mosaic Law. The Israelites looked to the Mosaic Law as a sign of material blessing in the land of Canaan. It was never intended to be source of salvation although the Israelites may have misconstrued it in such a way. See Mark W. Karlberg's Covenant Theology in Reformed Perspective (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000) pg. 213.
   I am more persuaded by the argument put forward by Fred Zaspel in New Covenant Theology: Defined, Document, and Defended (Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2002) pg. 136:

   "Paul's stern opposition of the Judaizers at Galatia is summed up in the words of Galatians 5:1...His whole argument rested on the fact that since Jesus Christ came, the law of Moses has not been left intact; indeed, that old 'yoke' should be thrown off. The changes effected by the coming of Christ are significant and wide-sweeping, and as a result the old requirements of Sabbath keeping (4:10) and circumcision (6:12) must be reevaluated in light of him."

   [Back]

4. To be noted that Paul doesn't not see a threefold division of the Law. [Back]
5. Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 1535, trans. And ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, in Luther's Works (St. Louis: Concordia, 1963), 27:15, 17 (Quoted in Ryken's Galatians). [Back]
6. This is the doctrine of Union with Christ. It is a very engaging doctrine to study, and it opens up the whole of God's redemptive plan. I encourage you to examine what the New Testament has to say about this wonderful truth! [Back]
7. Ryken, pg. 210. [Back]
8. F.F. Bruce, pg. 236. [Back]