Freedom to Love Galatians 5:1-15 at issue was nothing less than the future of the church at Galatia because unless the people returned to their freedom in Jesus and love for each other it would die a slow, painful, and ugly death as brothers and sisters in Christ feasted upon one another in hate.

Christ Has Set Us Free 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!

13 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. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Would you rather eat flesh of Men or Fruit of God?

Spirit and Flesh Galatians 5:16-26 The human problem is not that we do not know good, or that we are incapable of even desiring it. Our problem is that we cannot obtain it because we are mastered by our flesh instead of being lead by the Holy Spirit.

Walk by the Spirit 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Listen carefully now. This is utterly important for your life. Yet it is understood by so few. It is possible to undertake the most sacrificial acts and still not please God. Give away all your goods and your own life, too, and come to nothing in God’s eyes. It is possible to be eulogized by the world as the greatest philanthropist or the most devoted martyr and still not please God. Why? Because what pleases God is walking by the Spirit and being led by the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit! The great problem in Christian living is not learning the right things to do but how to do the right things. The problem is not to discover what love looks like but how to love by the Spirit. For Paul it is absolutely crucial that, if we came to life by the free and sovereign work of the Spirit, we will learn to walk by the free and sovereign work of the Spirit.

Regeneration is monergistic, God's work alone. Sanctification, the process by which we are made holy, is synergistic, God's work with us.

(Gal. 5:1) The Way of a Slave or the Freedom of a Child A slave tries to become acceptable to his master by presenting him valuable service; but the heir trusts that the inheritance of his father is his by virtue. A slave is never quite sure he has done enough to please his master. A son rests in the standing he has by virtue of his birth.

So in 5:1 Paul reminds the Christians that through Christ, God has adopted them into the freedom of a child. They don’t have to work to get into the family. They don’t have to put themselves in the position of slaves any more. Don’t do that, he says. Why do you want to treat God like an employer instead of a Father?

PRODIGAL SON We are like the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son in Lk 15:25–31. You recall how the father with overflowing grace received the broken, contrite, poverty-stricken younger son. The father didn’t make him a slave to earn his way back into favor.

But what was the response of the elder brother? He would not go into the feast. He answered liked the false teachers in Galatia: Hey, these many years I have SERVED you, and I never disobeyed your command …

The elder brother had the mindset of a slave. And as long as he insisted on treating the commandments of his father as a job description for slaves, he would be cut off from Christ.

Christ is at the feast with broken, forgiven sinners who have learned that their service is utterly inadequate. And he invites you to forsake the mindset of a slave and accept the gift of adoption. “To as many as received him to them gave the power to become children of God” (John 1:12).

5:2–3. Rabbis said that the law was a whole, and one had to keep all of it; rejecting any part of it was tantamount to rejecting the whole thing.

5:4. Although most Jews believed that they were born into the covenant by virtue of being Jewish, they recognized that one could be cut off from the covenant by disobey it. But because salvation is only by Christ, Paul declares that seeking it any other way leads to being “cut off”.

5:5–6. The heart which is acceptable to God is not one which depends on its works—whether right wing circumcision or left wing uncircumcision—but rather one which trusts so fully in God’s grace that the result is a life of love. Love is an essential part of the process of salvation. It is not optional whether you love one another. No one can say, “I am saved by faith regardless of whether I love people or not.” For the only faith which saves is “faith working through love”. Saving faith always gives rise to love and love gives evidence of genuine faith.

5:7–8. Ancient writers often compared the moral life to running a race. Paul here speaks of someone “cutting in”, which throws the runners off balance and perhaps out of the race.

5:11. If Paul were simply converting Gentiles to Judaism in the ordinary manner (circumcision for the men, baptism for both men and women), he would not be experiencing Jewish opposition—to which his opponents in Galatia have succumbed (6:12–13).

5:12. “cut off” could mean to cut themselves off from the community, but most think Paul is saying, “While trying to circumcise others, I hope the knife slips and they cut off themselves.”

5:13–14. Paul prefers this summary because this was the summary Jesus offered (Mk 12:31).

5:15. The ancients used the metaphor of being eaten by others as a grotesque description of inconceivable wickedness (cannibalism horrified ancient sensitivities even more than now).

The main point of the text is, “through love be servants of one another.” If you do this, you fulfill the whole law; if you don’t, you destroy yourselves. We are called in our freedom to desire and seek the happiness of others with the same zeal that we seek our own.

5:16. How do you allow the Spirit to control you? I want to try to show you that the answer is, you allow the Spirit to control you by keeping your heart happy in God. The Spirit reigns over the flesh in your life when you live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you and now is working everything together for your good.

How, then, do we walk by the Spirit? The answer is plain. We stop trying to fill the emptiness of our lives with a hundred pieces of world, and put our souls at rest in God. The Spirit will work the miracle of renewal in your life when you start meditating on his unspeakable promises day and night and resting in them.

5:17. “Flesh” is human weakness and mortality, and means the best (or worst) anyone can do in himself or herself. Because flesh has nothing in common with God’s power, one can be either a person of the Spirit (a Christian) or a person of the flesh (one who runs his or her own life without depending on God); one cannot have it both ways (5:16, 18).

5:18. Philosophers often said that the wise man needed no laws, because he would simply choose to do what was right by the law written in his heart; the Old Testament also speaks of the law’s being written in one’s heart, a benefit of the new covenant (Jer 31:31–34).

5:19–21. Paul sets up what your flesh is capable of (best).

5:22-23.The Spirit fights against sin not merely in defense but also in attack by producing in Christians the positive attributes of godly character, all of which are evident in Jesus in the Gospels. Love appears first because it is the greatest quality in that it most clearly reflects the character of God. Joy comes in at a close second, for in rejoicing in God's salvation. Christians show that their affections are rightly placed in God's will and his purpose. Peace is the product of God having reconciled sinners to himself, so that they are no longer his enemies, which should result in confidence and freedom in approaching God. Patience shows that Christians are following God's plan and timetable rather than their own. Kindness means showing goodness, generosity, and sympathy toward others. Goodness means working for the benefit of others, not oneself. Faithfulness means consistently doing what one says one will do. Gentleness is a quality Jesus attributes to himself in Matt. 11:29; it enables people to find rest in him and to encourage and strengthen others. Self-control is the discipline given by the Holy Spirit that allows Christians to resist the power of the flesh. Against such things there is no law, and therefore those who manifest them are fulfilling the law.

5:24. Paul nearly always uses verbs in the past tense for this death; one does not die to sin gradually by works, but one accepts one’s completed righteousness by faith and learns to live accordingly (5:19–23).

5:25. “walking by the Spirit” is something the Holy Spirit enables us to do by producing in us strong desires that accord with God’s will. This is what God said he would do in Ezekiel 36:26, 27: A new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you … I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. Thus when we “walk by the Spirit,” we experience the fulfillment of this prophecy. The Holy Spirit produces in us desires for God’s way that are stronger than our fleshly desires, and thus he causes us to walk in God’s statutes.

5:26. Paul returns (5:15) to a call to harmony. Eat the fruit of the spirit, not the flesh of circumcision.