Galatians 5:13 Commentary and Bible Study

Having urged them to hold onto liberty (Galatians 5:1), and warned them of the things that threaten it, Paul must also correct an entirely different and opposite problem: the abuse of liberty. He had up till now focused his attention on legalism, on the false teaching that urged the Galatians to return to dependence on the law and on works righteousness, but that was not the only danger that the Galatians faced; they could also fall to the opposite problem: the abuse of grace to encourage sin. The Galatians must be warned against this possibility because Satan is happy to see a person succumb to either extreme – legalism or antinomianism – if he can keep them from walking in the truth. Though the two extremes might seem far apart, there is no great difficulty in getting straight from one to the other, for legalism concerns itself with external righteousness and relaxes its scrutiny of the heart, allowing all sorts of deceit and compromise to come in. The gospel sets men and women free from bondage to the law by releasing them from the obligation to keep the law in order to be justified. But the law remains God’s standard for every Christian and continues to define righteousness. Every believer is called to liberty but that call would not be safe if it was not accompanied by a new nature which gladly obeys God, for God does not give us the keys to the house, as it were, until he is convinced that we will not take advantage of his kindness. Paul’s warning is necessary not because Christians lack a new nature, but because of the continuing presence of the old fallen nature also, and it is from here that the danger arises. This warning was also necessary because the Judaizers accused Paul of encouraging lawlessness by his doctrine of justification by faith and said that this teaching removes all proper restraint against sin. It is to be expected that the world should bring this charge since it naturally sees the freedom that faith brings as an opportunity to sin. Christians must prove it to be otherwise and show the world that God has given his children freedom, but that he has also put it into their hearts to use this freedom for good and not for evil.The truth is that there is no better foundation for a sanctified life than the freedom that is in Christ. While we are under the law, the devil continues to stir up our sinful natures and produce disobedience in us leading to death. Sin takes advantage of the fact that we are under the law to produce acts of rebellion against God’s authority over us. The law produces only fears in the heart of the sinner, a sense of failure, and resentment that anyone, even God, should rule over us. We stand already condemned by the law on account of past sin; how then can we begin to obey God and to please him when we know that due to past sins we are under his condemnation, so that all prospect of success is futile? His standards tower unattainably above us. Only when we are set free from the law as a means of gaining life can we please God. Grace gives us hope and a realisation of God’s favour without which no one can begin to please him. ‘But by love serve one another’. Here is how our liberty should be exercised. Love does not serve the flesh but it serves others, thinking of their needs, of their good. Love is the perfect grace to operate in the realm of liberty. It does not need anyone to check up on it, to force it, for it comes spontaneously from the heart. Though it does not aim primarily at its own pleasure, it causes as much pleasure in the giver as in the receiver. Heaven will be full of love and love will teach every heart how to make use of freedom.