We are free, but our freedom loves its neighbour as itself. And I was challenged by that for a while. What Does Galatians 5:13 Mean? Their main support then, as they thought Abraham, had two sons; but they stood, according to Scripture, on wholly different principles. He has set you free from the power of the flesh. If any of them believe in the Crucified, they were God's Israel. But in this he could glory. Then the apostle at once explains, as annexed to this, the real state of the case. "The scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. I cannot soil a life which God paid for with his own life. 13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. against such there is no law ( Galatians 5:23 ). Thus He lived and moved here below. Next he turns to direct exhortation, the chief salient points of which will call for but few words. beware lest you be consumed -- Destroyed. Can you give me, you know, a hundred dollars for this watch?" take heed that ye be not consumed one of another: The Galatians are warned earnestly and intently to view their predicament and to decide not to destroy each other spiritually. There is nothing that requires more the power of grace; for even the truth itself, if severed from grace, ceases to be the truth. Why did He do that? To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use the convenient, Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, , . If I am a Christian, I am responsible according to that position and privilege. If God loved us like that then the love of Christ constrains us. When He gave the promise to Abraham, He said, "I will give." Thus it was the ardour of love and grief; it was the earnestness of his purpose that could not bear in this instance to employ an intermediary. These words are used by him emphatically; for he did not merely say Bite, which denotes an angry person, but likewise, Devour, which denotes one who persists in wickedness. 3 Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. All of the law is fulfilled. So "cursed is the man that continues not in the whole law to do that which is written therein" ( Galatians 3:10 ). It went on to mean canvassing for political or public office, and it describes the man who wants office, not from any motives of service. To them, no doubt, it appeared as if they were zealous and sincere champions of unity. Why, that though there were "false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage," Paul did not give place by subjection even for an hour, "that the truth of the gospel might continue with them." But responsibility is always according to the relation in which one stands, and the measure of knowledge which each possesses, or ought to possess. All right, I'm still one of His sheep, you know. And this directly follows his censure of their observance of times and seasons. Dissension describes a society in which the very opposite is the case, where the members fly apart instead of coming together. They danced and laughed and sang his praises. You cannot go farther. I violated. But then he goes farther. Help us to express our faith in love every day by loving our neighbor as ourselves. "But neither Titus [he takes occasion to say parenthetically], being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised." The word Paul uses for goodness (agathosune, G19) is a peculiarly Bible word and does not occur in secular Greek ( Romans 15:14; Ephesians 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:11). The solemnities of Christ's judgment await men in the day of the Lord. Paul begins chapter 5 by stating flatly that Christ has set us free in order that we should be free. What! he does not say there shall be no flesh, nor any lust of the flesh in them if they walk spiritually; or that the flesh should not act and operate in them; or that they should do no sinful action; all which is only true of christ; and the contrary is to be found and observed in all true christians, though ever so spiritual; but that they But the liberty is not a liberty to indulge my flesh in anything that I may desire to do after the flesh. In my attitude towards life. This is the very evil which the Spirit of God so earnestly and energetically denounces here by the apostle Paul. And so, Paul is picking up, now, the same phrase. Later, and in a far fuller way now, the gospel was the blessed answer to this early grace. 236.]. Some would have received the inheritance because of promise, and others on the ground of law. Even as in a natural man there is something of this struggle (the convictions of his conscience and the corruption of his own heart strive with one another; his convictions would suppress his corruptions, and his corruptions silence his convictions), so in a renewed man, where there is something of a good principle, there is a struggle between the old nature and the new nature, the remainders of sin and the beginnings of grace; and this Christians must expect will be their exercise as long as they continue in this world. One of the encouragements, as we know, which God furnished to Abraham was, that he should have a seed like the sand of the sea, and like the stars of the sky. 5:1 Tell me this--you who want to be subject to the law, you listen to it being read to you, don't you? THE INTRODUCTION ( Galatians 1:1-10) 1. "They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision." "I through law am dead to law." Galatians 5:15 - John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible BUT IF YE BITE AND DEVOUR ONE ANOTHER,.. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.". All right, you know. Such is the only possible way in which blessing can be brought in, in order that such souls as we are should be blessed and maintained in it. It can mean the beneficent use of drugs by a doctor; but it can also mean poisoning, and it came to be very specially connected with the use of drugs for sorcery, of which the ancient world was full. Legal activity is but labouring in the fire for vanity; and if, alas! . This it is to which we are come now under Christianity. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." Now, there are two ways that I can be righteous. Up to the destruction of Jerusalem it was law; but now, under Christianity, Jerusalem, being rebellious and scorning promise like Ishmael, is cast out and has nothing. (3) c. Faith expressed in love is more significant than circumcision. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? A final appeal to walk in the liberty of Jesus. Christianity is the only true democracy, because in a Christian state everyone would think as much of his neighbour as he does of himself. To Paul all that mattered was faith which works through love. Why they thought they were becoming more truly religious, more reverent in their value for Scripture. It is the widest word for goodness; it is defined as "virtue equipped at every point." Don't despise the chastening of the Lord. And this I say, that the covenant confirmed before by God unto Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, can not annul so that it should make the promise of none effect." "Unless," he says, "you solve the problem of living together you will make life impossible." It was exactly what Christ was on earth; and the expression of Christ is the prime call of the Christian. God reserves to Himself this great blessedness in the gospel; whereas under the law there was nothing of the kind. This kind of love is a trusting love. Promise was before the law, and flowed out of the grace of God. 5:16-21 I tell you, let your walk and conversation be dominated by the Spirit, and don't let the desires of the lower side of your nature have their way. or dogs to worry sheep is not strange; but for sheep to distress I would [wish that] they were even cut off which trouble you ( Galatians 5:12 ). "Have you been reading this book?" occasioned great contentions, and threatened them with divisions, Does not this make very light of it? He did not forget His people Israel; but He had always the glory of Christ before Him; and the moment we rise up to this blessed Seed of all blessing (the true Isaac, dead and risen really, as the son of Abraham was then in figure), the blessing of the Gentiles is secured in that one sole person, before the Jews are multiplied in their land under the new covenant, and possess the gate of their enemies. The truth is the distinctive boon and mark of Christendom. "This persuasion, this ideas that you have, they don't really come from God, from the One who called you. So, I think Paul could also have included here baptism or no baptism as far as the physical immersion in water. parties, and factions; and were attended with envy and malice, IF YOU RECEIVE CIRCUMCISION. After all, what God had at heart was the accomplishment of His own promise in grace. Men that have followed after my perverse teachings. Try and stay right on course. Witchcraft; this literally means the use of drugs. He saw that the tree was pleasant to look upon, it was tasty to eat and it would make him wise as God. This is indeed strong language for you who want to live after the flesh. Already "thy seed," the true Isaac, is given, and in that true seed the Gentiles are being blessed. Paul begins chapter 5 with a bold slogan of spiritual liberty: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.". Paul has in mind the issue of circumcision. the only system of earthly worship which had ever possessed God's sanction. No effort, no work on your part. church state should be destroyed and come to nothing, since love But in truth the Lord "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: to whom be glory for ever and ever. He specifies the fruits of the Spirit, or the renewed nature, which as Christians we are concerned to bring forth, Galatians 5:22; Galatians 5:23. Galatians 5 Galatians 5:7 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. devourthe substance by injuring, extortion, &c. (Hab 1:13; Mt 23:14; 2Co 11:20). If your navigational instruments are one degree off, and you take your heading and you start for Hawaii, by the time you've gone that distance, you'll miss Hawaii by two hundred and forty miles.Oh, by the time you get to Santa Barbara, you won't even notice anything. And here we may observe that as sin is called the work of the flesh, because the flesh, or corrupt nature, is the principle that moves and excites men to it, so grace is said to be the fruit of the Spirit, because it wholly proceeds from the Spirit, as the fruit does from the root: and whereas before the apostle had chiefly specified those works of the flesh which were not only hurtful to men themselves but tended to make them so to one another, so here he chiefly takes notice of those fruits of the Spirit which had a tendency to make Christians agreeable one to another, as well as easy to themselves; and this was very suitable to the caution or exhortation he had before given (Galatians 5:13; Galatians 5:13), that they should not use their liberty as an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love ( Galatians 5:6 ). Aristocracy means government by the best, but best is left to be defined. Nor this only. "Hey, that old nature, that old Chuck is dead. How little is man to be accounted of! It does not so much want the things for itself; it merely wants to take them from the other. How could it be otherwise with one persecuting at the moment that he was arrested, in hot deadly opposition to God's church up to his most unexpected call from heaven? This never can bring man to God any more than glory to God. It's just, you know, too difficult. There's nothing that you can add to what Jesus paid. "Yeah, but I had the right to do it." There you have in a figure the two parties that are still found on the earth: the law party symbolized by Ishmael, the child of flesh; and those that cling to the grace of God, who have their pattern in Isaac, the child of promise. All that the law can do, even when yielded by the might of the Spirit of God, is to force on a soul the consciousness of being dead before God. Galatians 2:1-21. AN OLD STORY AND A NEW MEANING ( Galatians 4:21-31 ; Galatians 5:1 ). The mind of the flesh is death.But if my life is dominated by the Spirit, then I have the mind of the Spirit. It is a grim illustration at which a polite society raises its eyebrows, but it would be intensely real to the Galatians who knew all about the priests of Cybele. 15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. But he proves more when he says that Abraham believed God; it was plainly not a question of law. Be led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. Alas! In his case the breach with man was evident; the association with heaven, and not Jerusalem, was too plain to be disputed or evaded. He said. When in the garden, or when on the cross, Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?" In other words, if the believer simply were one forgiven by grace, without having either life in Christ or the Holy Ghost dwelling in him, he might, perhaps, plead that he could not avoid sinning. They had so completely lost sight of the grace of Christ, the sweetness and the bloom of it, that he travailed again for them: his soul once more passed through that which had exercised him when they were converted.