This chapter starts a new division in the epistle to the Galatians. Paul has been talking about Justification by faith and now he talks about Sanctification by the Spirit.
The final two chapters of Galatians are a portrait of the Spirit-filled life, of the believer’s implementing the life of faith under the control and in the energy of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit-filled life thereby becomes in itself a powerful testimony to the power of justification by faith.
The Judiazers promoted a ‘Do it Yourself’ Christianity by works. Paul says you need someone else to do it thru you – the Spirit.
The basic doctrinal error of the Judaizers was works righteousness, the same error that is the heart of every other man-made religious system.
Rather than looking on circumcision as God had given it—as a symbol of His covenant of promise (Gen. 17:9-10)—most Jews looked on it as having spiritual value in itself. To them it was not a reminder of God’s gracious and sovereign blessing but a means of humanly guaranteeing His favor. The Judaizers were saying, in effect, that faith in Jesus Christ, although important, was not sufficient for complete salvation. They taught that what Moses began in the Old Covenant and Christ added to in the New Covenant had to be finished and perfected by one’s own efforts—the centerpiece of which was circumcision.
You were saved by grace, but you live by the law; you fall from Grace.
Freedom in Christ
5:1 - It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.
The atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, perfect and complete though it was, cannot benefit a person who trusts in anything else, because that something else, whether circumcision or any other human act or effort, then stands between him and Christ.
3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.
“Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,” James says, “he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10). Because God’s standard is perfect righteousness, fulfillment of only part of the law falls short of His standard. Even if a person were somehow able to keep all of the law for all of his life, if he broke a commandment during his last minute on earth, he would forfeit salvation.
4 You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
A consequence of seeking to be justified by circumcision or any other form of the law, is that it causes a person to become severed from Christ and thereby become fallen from grace. Fallen is from ehpipt, which means to lose one’s grasp on something.
Paul is not dealing with the security of the believer but with the contrasting ways of grace and law, works and faith, as means of salvation. He is not teaching that a person who has once been justified can lose his righteous standing before God and become lost again by being circumcised or otherwise legalistic. The Bible knows nothing of becoming unjustified. Those “whom [God] predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (Rom. 8:30).
Paul’s primary point in this passage, as throughout the letter, is that law and grace cannot be mixed. As a means to salvation they are totally incompatible and mutually exclusive. To mix law with grace is to obliterate grace. For a believer to start living again under the law to merit salvation is, in fact, to reject salvation by grace. Contrary to the teaching of the Judaizers, to add circumcision and other works of the law to what Christ accomplished by grace is not to raise one’s spiritual level but to severely lower it. Legalism does not please God but offends Him. It does not bring a person closer to God but rather drives him away.
Applied to a believer, the principle of falling from grace has to do with a person who genuinely trusts in Christ for salvation but then outwardly reverts to a life of legalism, of living under external rituals, ceremonies, and traditions that he carries out in his own strength, instead of living with a spirit of obedience to Christ. He exchanges life by grace for life back under law, life by faith for life again by works, life in freedom for life back in bondage, life in the Spirit for life back in the flesh. It is a major matter of concern to God whether we live in outward obedience and submission to the externals of religion or in heart obedience and submission to the internals of righteousness.
Obviously true Christians will not reject the true way of salvation, but they confuse themselves and others when they try to live by works, because the mark of true discipleship is continuing obedience to Christ (John 8:31). The security of salvation from the divine side is guaranteed by God to His own (cf. v 10; Rom. 8:28-39; 11:29),
Romans 11:29 29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.
but from the human side it is manifested by perseverance in grace (see John 8:31; 15:4-9; Acts 11:23; 13:43; 14:21-22; Rom. 2:7; Heb. 2:1; 3:14; 4:14; 10:23; 1 John 2:19).
Paul is here calling for such perseverance in grace by the genuine believer. Contrary to justifying grace, sanctifying grace is interruptible. Living by the flesh interferes with living by the Spirit, and living by the flesh may even involve doing the right things for the wrong reasons or in the wrong way. For example, to worship God from the heart and for His own sake is to live by the Spirit. But to worship Him only outwardly or to impress others with our supposed spirituality is to live by the flesh. To witness to a person while trusting in God to convict and convert him is to live by the Spirit. Commentary by John McArthur
5 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
ANOTHER consequence of trusting in works is to be excluded from the righteousness for which the believer has hope, to forsake the true life of blessing God desires for His children. The Judaizers’ hope of righteousness was based on adding imperfect and worthless works of law in a vain attempt to complete the perfect and priceless work of Christ, which they assumed to be incomplete and imperfect.
In evangelizing to the Hindu’s in India, especially the Dalit’s, or lower caste, the non-people as it were, you could see it instantly in their eyes when you mentioned living with no hope for righteousness on their own or by living a ‘spotless’ life. For if they were to sin (a certainty) they know they would be bound to another life as the lowest of humans or possibly come back as an animal or insect.
We, that is, true believers, Paul says, through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness that is based on God’s grace.
Believers already possess the imputed righteousness of justification, but the yet-incomplete righteousness of total sanctification and glorification still awaits them. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. . . . The creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:18, 21). In this life, believers are still waiting for the completed and perfected righteousness that is yet to come.
Nothing that is either done or not done in the flesh, not even religious ceremony, makes any difference in one’s relationship to God. In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. The outward is totally unimportant and worthless, except as it genuinely reflects inner righteousness.
Life in the Spirit is not static and inactive, but it is faith working through love, not the flesh working through self-effort. Believers are “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). But their working is the product of their faith, not a substitute for it. They do not work for righteousness but out of righteousness, through the motivating power of love. In so doing they “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might” (Col. 1:10-11).
The person who lives by faith works under the internal compulsion of love and does not need the outward compulsion of law. Commentary by John McArthur
7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”
Paul warns that “the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2).
Legalism is never from God, because He chose believers “from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. And it was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:13-14).
Just as a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough, so a small amount of falsehood can corrupt the thinking and living of a large group of people.
“For want of a nail the shoe was lost,” wrote Benjamin Franklin; “for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; and for want of a rider the battle was lost.” Commentary by John McArthur
10 I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty.
The apostle had a similar word of encouragement for the Philippian church: “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For . . . you all are partakers of grace with me” (Phil. 1:6-7). The destiny of believers is secure. “They shall never perish,” Jesus said; “and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29). They will not reject their true salvation for a false one (John 10:4-5,14). They will both persevere and be preserved.
But that is not the destiny of ungodly teachers who lead the Lord’s people astray. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble,” Jesus said, “it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).
11 Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
False religion has always been and will continue to be the most aggressive and dominant persecutor of the church (cf. John 16:1-3; Rev 17:5-6). Satan fights God, and satanic religion fights the true faith.
The cross was a stumbling block to the Jews partly because they could not accept the idea of a suffering, much less crucified, Messiah. But it was even more an offense to them because it robbed them of their most distinctive outward signs of Jewishness, the Mosaic law and circumcision.
The cross is an offense to all man prides himself in;
· His morality – because it tells him his works cannot justify
· His Philosophy – because it’s appeal to faith and not reason
· To the culture – because it’s truths are revealed to babes
· To his sense of caste – because God chooses the poor and humble
· To his will – because it calls for an unconditional surrender
· To his pride = because it shows the exceeding sinfulness of a human heart
· AND, it is an offense to himself – because it tells me I must be born again
J. Vernon McGee
Life by the Spirit
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
When people choose to persist in a sin, they develop less and less control over it until eventually they forfeit any choice entirely. “Truly, truly,” Jesus said, “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34).
In the passage just quoted, Jesus gives the prescription for true freedom: “If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed” (v. 36). That is the great manifesto of Christianity and the theme of the Galatian letter: freedom in Jesus Christ. Christianity is liberation.
The apostle makes clear again (see 5:1) that freedom is at the very heart of the gospel and of godly living. It is not a side benefit or an adjunct to the Christian life. God has called all believers to freedom.
For Christians to submit to Old Testament rituals and regulations, represented for the Jews by circumcision, was to go back to spiritual bondage
Because the traditions and the revering of God’s law ran so deep in their minds, Paul’s relentless proclamation of Christian freedom was a stumbling block even to some sincere believing Jews. And it was total scandal to the hypocritical Judaizers who merely professed to believe in Christ. Jews believed the law was the only restraint that kept sin from running rampant and bringing God’s destruction of the earth. And apart from divine provision that was true. In light of man’s natural inclination to sin, the only way to prevent him from totally unleashing his worst passions was to establish a system of laws that set boundaries on behavior and that carried penalties severe enough to promote conformity out of fear. Commentary by John McArthur
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever[c] you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Just as Jesus Christ is the primary Person behind justification, the Holy Spirit is the primary Person behind sanctification. A believer can no more sanctify himself than he could have saved himself in the first place. He cannot live the Christian life by his own resources any more than he could have saved himself by his own resources.
It was given by God to reveal God’s holy standards and to make men despair of their own failing human efforts at pleasing Him, thus driving them to Jesus Christ, who alone by grace can make them acceptable to the Father.
Through the law, “the Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Gal. 3:22). The law was never meant to be a savior, but only a tutor to lead men to the Savior (v. 24).
Although Bible study, prayer, worship, witnessing, and certain behavior standards are commanded of believers and are essential to faithful Christian living, spirituality cannot be measured by how often or how intensely we are involved in such things. To use them as measures of spirituality is to become entrapped in legalism, whose only significance is in the outward, the visible, the humanly measurable.
To live solely by a set of laws is to live by the flesh in self-righteousness and hypocrisy and to suppress the Spirit, who alone is able inwardly to produce works of true righteousness. Holiness comes only from the Holy Spirit. Holy living does not come from our performance for God but from His performance through us by His own Spirit.
The power for Christian living is entirely from the Holy Spirit, just as the power of salvation is entirely in Jesus Christ. But both in the justifying work of Christ and in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, man’s will is active and commitment is called for.
The believer who is led by the Holy Spirit must be willing to go where the Spirit guides him and do what the Spirit leads him to do. To claim surrender to the Holy Spirit but not be personally involved in God’s work is to call Jesus, “Lord, Lord,” and not do what He says (Luke 6:46).
The life walked by the Spirit is the Christlike life, the saturation of a believer’s thoughts with the truth, love, and glory of His Lord and the desire to be like Him in every way. It is to live in continual consciousness of His presence and will, letting “the word of Christ richly dwell within you” (Col. 3:16).
The flesh is that part of a believer that functions apart from and against the Spirit. It stands against the work of the Spirit in the believer’s new heart. The unsaved person often regrets the sinful things he does because of guilt and/or painful consequences, but he has no spiritual warfare going on within him, because he has only a fleshly nature and is devoid of the Spirit. The sinful things he does, though often disappointing and disgusting to him, are nevertheless consistent with his basic nature as an enemy of God (Rom. 5:10) and a child of His wrath (Eph. 2:3). He therefore has no real internal conflict beyond whatever conscience may remain in his sinful state.
It is only in the lives of believers that the Spirit can fight against the flesh, because it is only in believers that the Spirit dwells.
Only a believer can truthfully say, “I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind” (Rom. 7:22-23).
Believers do not always do what they wish to do. There are those moments in every Christian’s experience when the wishing is present but the doing is not. The Spirit often halts what our flesh desires, and the flesh often overrides the will that comes from the Spirit. It is no surprise that this frustrating conflict led Paul to exclaim, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24).
As sons of God and servants of Jesus Christ, believers “are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if [they] are living according to the flesh, [they] must die; but if by the Spirit [they] are putting to death the deeds of the body, [they] will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Rom. 8:12-14). “The Spirit also helps our weakness” when praying, Paul assures us; “for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (v. 26).
It is not a matter of “All of Him and none of us,” as the popular saying has it; and it is certainly not a matter of all of us and none of Him. It is the balance of our yieldedness and commitment with the Spirit’s guidance and power. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” Paul says; “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12). The mystery of this perfect and paradoxical balance cannot be fully understood or explained, but it can be fully experienced.
In his Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan describes Interpreter’s house, which Pilgrim entered during the course of his journey to the Celestial City. The parlor of the house was completely covered with dust, and when a man took a broom and started to sweep, he and the others in the room began to choke from the great clouds of dust that were stirred up. The more vigorously he swept, the more suffocating the dust became. Then Interpreter ordered a maid to sprinkle the room with water, with which the dust was quickly washed away. Interpreter explained to Pilgrim that the parlor represented the heart of an unsaved man, that the dust was original sin, the man with the broom was the law, and the maid with the water was the gospel. His point was that all the law can do with sin is to stir it up. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can wash it away.
To be led by the Spirit is the same as walking by Him (w. 16, 25) but carries additional emphasis on His leadership. We do not walk along with Him as an equal, but follow His leading as our sovereign, divine Guide. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God,” Paul says (Rom. 8:14).
No wonder Paul rejoiced that “what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4). Commentary by John McArthur
NIV Life Application Bible – Being led by the Holy Spirit involves the desire to hear, the readiness to obey God’s Word, and the sensitivity to discern between your feelings and his promptings, Live each day controlled and guided by the Holy Spirit. Then the words of Christ will be in your mind, the love of Christ will be behind your actions, and the power of Christ will help you control your selfish desires.
TABLE TALK QUESTIONS
1. How/when have you felt the relief of the freedom in Christ? Have you felt a time when that was a stumbling block to others?
2. What examples have you seen in others that are work oriented? What examples have you seen that are love oriented?
3. What is your evidence you’re being led by the Spirit?
