In the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver is experiencing a construction boom. But there is growing concern that all the money being thrown around in the chase for skilled labour has led to an increase in drug use among construction workers. So construction companies and the construction workers union have introduced the most far-reaching drug-testing policy of its kind in Canada. A documentary this week on CBC radio One’s The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti explored the balance of civil liberties and public safety. In the interview, a safety officer explained his frustration that he was limited to enforce standards only on what he saw as workplace performance. He noted how workers would put on their equipment in the morning with a joint in their mouths, do drugs on their coffee breaks, often go offsite for lunch to do drugs and even when they were caught going drugs on site, from marijuana to cocaine, they were often just sent home for the day. The fear of stricter enforcement, is that an already short technical labour supply will move to an environment of less enforcement. (http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/)
Ours is a day of addiction, not only to alcohol and drugs but also to sexual passions, violence, and many other forms of bondage in which a person eventually becomes powerless to escape. When people choose to persist in a sin, they develop less and less control over it until eventually they forfeit any choice entirely. Fallen humanity is a slave to their sinful nature, an addict who cannot successfully control their sinful thoughts and actions even when they may want to. And ironically, the more one asserts a self-centered freedom, the more one becomes enslaved to sin.
Paul has already spoken of the “liberty which we have in Christ Jesus” (2:4) and presented an analogy illustrating the believer’s spiritual descent from Abraham’s wife Sarah, a “free woman” (4:21–31). He now declares:
Galatians 5:13a [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). (ESV)
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.
To what are we called: we are called to liberty. The Christian is free. Free from the guilt of sin because the believer has experienced God’s forgiveness. The believer is free from the penalty of sin because Christ died for the believer on the cross. And the believer is, through the Spirit, free from the power of sin in daily life. The believer is also free from the Law with its demands and threats (Wiersbe, Warren W.: The Bible Exposition Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996, c1989, S. Ga 5:13)
In Galatians 5:13b-15, Paul gives four purposes of God’s call to the freedom of loving Him: 1) To oppose the flesh, 2) To serve others, 3) To fulfill His moral law, and 4) To avoid harming others.
1) TO OPPOSE THE FLESH (GALATIANS 5:13B)
Galatians 5:13b [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). (ESV)
The Judaizers, and some of the immature Jewish believers, considered Paul to be antinomian, a lawless libertine. Because the opposite extremes of legalism and antinomianism are both man-centered, they have always been attractive to sinners. The legalist satisfies himself, and presumably God, by adhering to a strict external code of do’s and don’ts, which he imagines demonstrate his self-righteous suitability for heaven. The antinomian, on the other hand, satisfies himself by rejecting all codes and living completely according to his personal lusts and desires.
• Whereas legalism demands responsibility without freedom, license grants freedom without responsibility (Philip Graham Ryken: Galatians: Reformed Expository Commentary. P&R Press. 2005. p. 217).
Illustration: Someone has pictured legalism and libertinism as two parallel streams that run between earth and heaven. The stream of legalism is clear, sparkling, and pure; but its waters run so deep and furiously that no one can enter it without being drowned or smashed on the rocks of its harsh demands. The stream of libertinism, by contrast, is relatively quiet and still, and crossing it seems easy and attractive. But its waters are so contaminated with poisons and pollutants that to try to cross it is also certain death. Both streams are uncrossable and deadly, one because of impossible moral and spiritual demands, the other because of moral and spiritual filth.
But spanning those two deadly streams is the bridge of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the only passage from earth to heaven. The two streams lead to death because they are man’s ways. The gospel leads to life because it is God’s way.
Paul makes clear that the freedom of the gospel is not tolerance of self-indulgence. It is not a means for satisfying the desires of the flesh but for opposing them.
Aphormç (opportunity) was often used to indicate a central base from which all operations of a military campaign originated. In this context flesh does not refer to the physical body but to the sinful inclination of fallen humanity, the old self, whose supreme desire is to do its own will and to satisfy its sinful appetites. It is a synonym for sinful self-will. Paul’s declaration is that Christian freedom is not a base of operations from which the flesh is given opportunity to carry on its campaigns of sin freely and without consequence.
Christ does not give freedom to believers so they can do what they want but so they can, for the first time, do what God wants, because of love for Him. Within the bounds of their particular situations and abilities, even the most ungodly unbelievers are already free to do what they themselves want to do. They have more than ample opportunity to indulge the desires of the flesh, and it was hardly necessary for Christ to provide that sort of liberty.
But Paul’s point is immeasurably more important than that obvious truth. The great reality he declares here is that it is from sin, represented by the flesh, that the gospel saves believers. Whatever Christian freedom is, it is clearly not the right of believers to return to that from which Christ paid with His own life to save them:
1 Peter 2:16 [16]Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. (ESV)
Please turn to John 8
Many who want nothing to do with Christ, claim that they are free. They claim that they are free from rules and live as they please. By God’s standard, an action or inaction that violates His moral standard is sin.
In dealing with argument of freedom and slavery:
John 8:31-36 [31]So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, [32]and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." [33]They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ’You will become free’?" [34]Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. [35]The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. [36]So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (ESV)
Under the cloak of Christian liberty, some professed Christians claim they are free to get drunk, enjoy worldly amusements, feed their minds on smutty books, magazines, and movies, and live in almost unrestrained self-indulgence. But such a person gives strong evidence that they are not a Christian at all. Although a true believer may fall into serious sin, the renewed conscience and Christ’s own indwelling Spirit will not allow them to enjoy it for long. And a true believer surely will not continually try to justify sin as a legitimate expression of Christian freedom. The new nature hates sin and loves the righteousness of God. (Paul’s conflict over sin: Rom. 7:14–25).
Paul wrote to the Church at Rome:
Romans 13:14 [14]But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (ESV)
• To legitimately carry the name of Christ and to make provision for the flesh are contradictory and mutually exclusive.
The purpose of God’s call to the freedom of loving Him is: 1) To oppose the flesh (Galatians 5:13b), and
2) TO SERVE OTHERS (GALATIANS 5:13C)
Galatians 5:13c [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. (ESV)
Please turn to Luke 22
Second, Christian freedom takes believers to an even higher level than simply opposing the flesh. Positively, Christ frees His followers through love to serve one another. His freedom is the paradoxical freedom of loving subservience.
This was freedom at its deepest level, for it allowed people to submit voluntarily to slavery to one another (the Greek verb douleuete translated “serve” actually refers to the service of a slave). Serving in this way gives the believer deep joy (Barton, Bruce B.: Galatians. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House, 1994 (Life Application Bible Commentary), S. 174)
Romans 6:22 [22]But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. (ESV)
This teaching forms the very heart of Christianity, but it presents a paradox. We are freed from slavery to sin to become slaves to one another. Worldly people cannot understand this—joy in slavery? They don’t realize they are enslaved either to sin or to some religious system. People enslaved to sin are not free to live righteously. Love for other believers flows outward from what God has done in each believer’s heart. The Greek word for love (agape) refers to selfless, self-giving love. Christian freedom does not leave believers wandering through life without laws, rules, restraints, or guidelines. Instead, they freely live according to God’s standards and glorify God through loving service to others (Barton, Bruce B.: Galatians. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House, 1994 (Life Application Bible Commentary), S. 174).
Again Jesus is our great example. When the disciples bickered among themselves:
Luke 22:24-27 [24]A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. [25]And he said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. [26]But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. [27]For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves. (ESV)
• One of the most common excuses to service is that people claim to be too busy, or it is just not a good time. A time in the future is always pointed to.
• Consider the context that Jesus gave this teaching in Luke 22. He is celebrating the Passover with his Disciples for the last time, and He institutes the Lord’s Supper. What does he do before this? He fulfills a need and serves his disciples by washing their feet.
• He knows He is about to die, if there would be any time that it would seem that He could be excused from serving others it surely must be just before He knew he was about to die. What was the teaching that He wanted to emphasize for His disciples, one that we should remember each week when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper: Service.
o Christ epitomized the picture of the suffering servant of Isaiah (Isa. 42:1-9; 49:1-9; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12)
Paul in said that we should embody this servanthood as Christ did:
Philippians 2:5-7 [5]Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [6]who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7]but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (ESV)
• When Christ incarnates Himself in believers, He endows them with the same nature of servanthood He exemplified when, as the Son of God and Son of Man, He lived on earth as the Servant of God and the Servant of man.
• How can this service be rendered: By showing deep affection, self-sacrifice, tenderness, genuine empathy, readiness to render assistance, yearning to promote another’s welfare, spontaneous giving and forgiving (William Hendriksen. Galatians: New Testament Commentary. Baker Publishing House2002. p. 211).
o The question is: How this week are we going to show Christ through service?
How is the aspect of loving one another, relate to our flesh? We cannot love our neighbor without being in Christ. Our flesh (sinful human desires) takes our freedom in Christ and uses it to create insensitivity and disregard for our neighbor. We may show love at times and to a few, but it’s very difficult to maintain a loving attitude in our own strength. As Christians, we have two indispensable helps: (1) the Holy Spirit (He empowers us to grow in love for God and our neighbor), and (2) Christ’s compassion and forgiveness (when we fail to love and serve as we should, when we confess this sin to Christ and ask for His forgiveness and help, He forgives us and empowers us to serve others) (Barton, Bruce B.: Galatians. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House, 1994 (Life Application Bible Commentary), S. 175).
Illustration: Servanthood 625
Bruce Thielemann, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, told of a conversation with an active layman, who mentioned, “You preachers talk a lot about giving, but when you get right down to it, it all comes down to basin theology.”
Thielemann asked, “Basin theology? What’s that?”
The layman replied, “Remember what Pilate did when he had the chance to acquit Jesus? He called for a basin and washed his hands of the whole thing. But Jesus, the night before his death, called for a basin and proceeded to wash the feet of the disciples. It all comes down to basin theology: Which one will you use?” (Larson, Craig Brian: 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers & Writers. Grand Rapids, MI : Baker Books, 2002, S. 503)
The purpose of God’s call to the freedom of loving Him is: 1) To oppose the flesh (Galatians 5:13b), 2) TO SERVE OTHERS (GALATIANS 5:13C) AND
3) TO FULFILL GOD’S MORAL LAW (GALATIANS 5:14)
Galatians 5:14 [14]For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (ESV)
Third, Paul explains that Christian freedom is not license to ignore God’s desire for our holiness but is rather the opportunity to fulfill it. God’s nature has never changed, and neither have His standards of right and wrong. The ethical truths of the Old Testament Law are exactly the same as those of the New Testament gospel.
Jesus was asked what the greatest Old Testament principle was:
Matthew 22:36-40 [36]"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" [37]And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. [38]This is the great and first commandment. [39]And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [40]On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (ESV) (compare with Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18).
• God had always called His people to serve and obey Him because they love Him (John 14:15).
Paul echoes and expands on that truth in his letter to the Romans:
Romans 13:8-10 [8]Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. [9]For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." [10]Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (ESV)
• To “love your neighbor as yourself” solves every problem in human relations. If you love people (because you love Christ), you will not steal from them, lie about them, envy them, or try in any way to hurt them. Love in the heart is God’s (fulfillment for external) laws and threats (cf. Mt. 5:17)(Wiersbe, Warren W.: The Bible Exposition Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996, c1989, S. Ga 5:13)
Although a New Covenant Saint is not bound under the system of law as were Old Testament saints, when a Christian genuinely loves others they fulfill all the moral elements of the Mosaic law.
Even under the Old Covenant of law, God has always demanded heart service, not mere lip service (Deut. 11:13; Josh. 24:23; 1 Kings 8:58; cf. Isa. 29:13). The inner motive of love has always been the only acceptable motivation for serving God or others.
Quote: In understanding the new reality in Christ with the law, Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) explained it in this way:
“What is God’s law now? It is not above a Christian-it is under Christian. Some men hold God’s law like a rod, in terror, over Christians, and say, “If you sin you will be punished with it.” It is not so. The law is under a Christian; it is for him to walk on, to be his guide, His rule, his pattern.” We are not under the law, but under grace.” Law is the road which guides us, not the rod which drives us, nor the spirit which actuates us (C.H. Spurgeon. The New Park Street Pulpit. Pilgrim Publications 1975. p. 2:124.)
In the preceding three principles Paul deals with Christian freedom in regard to self, others, and God. True liberty in loving, produces self-control, service to others, and obedience to God. Every relationship is harmonized in Christian freedom.
The purpose of God’s call to the freedom of loving Him is: 1) To oppose the flesh (Galatians 5:13b), 2) TO SERVE OTHERS (GALATIANS 5:13C) 3) TO FULFILL GOD’S MORAL LAW (GALATIANS 5:14) AND FINALLY:
4) TO AVOID HARMING OTHERS (GALATIANS 5:15)
Galatians 5:15 [15]But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. (ESV)
The fourth purpose of Christian freedom is the reverse side of the second. Reemphasizing the need for Christians to use their freedom to serve each other (see v. 13), Paul here stresses the negative side of that truth-in the form of a warning about what happens when believers do not love and serve each other. They become destructive and bite and devour one another. Those two words speak of wild animals engaged in the fury of a deadly struggle.
Paul used the present tense in these verbs, indicating that these problems were occurring as he wrote. Such conflict threatenes to tear the church apart. The verbs increase in intensity—daknete (biting, or striking like a snake), then katesthiete (devouring, destroying), leading to the real danger of analothete (consuming, annihilating) each other (Barton, Bruce B.: Galatians. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House, 1994 (Life Application Bible Commentary), S. 175).
Please turn to Romans 14
Even the world knows that personal freedom cannot be unlimited. The most libertarian societies of history have been forced to recognize that they could not survive if each individual had the right to run roughshod over others while gratifying their own whims and fulfilling their own ambitions. Anarchy is obviously destructive, and one person’s rights are necessarily restricted by the fights of others.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul counsels believers who are spiritually strong to avoid such conflict and:
Romans 14:1-3 [14:1]As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. [2]One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. [3]Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. (ESV)
-We will look at verse 14 in a minute:
• Many early Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, were so contemptuous and fearful of idolatry that they abstained from eating any meat at all, lest they inadvertently eat some that had been offered in a pagan ceremony and then sold in the pagan priests’ market. Because pork was ritually unclean under the Mosaic law, many Jewish believers could not bring themselves to eat it no matter what its market source.
More mature believers realized with Paul that:
Romans 14:14 [14]I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. (ESV)
• The issue is not a matter of intrinsic evil but of conscience. A believer should never go against their consciences, even if it is immature; and other believers should never encourage another to do so or criticize them for his convictions.
• Likewise, the immature believer should not self-righteously condemn those who feel free to eat any food they desire. In either case:
Romans 14:15 [15]For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. (ESV)
As Paul has already explained (Gal. 5:6, 13), the ruling principle of Christian freedom is always love. The believer with an unnecessarily strict conscience and the one with a freed conscience are to lovingly accept and serve one another in Christ. Otherwise, they will be just like the most ungodly, self-centered pagans who bite and devour one another and end up being consumed by one another. Lovelessness is utterly destructive.
So we are called to freedom, the freedom of love that walks the bridge over legalism and license.
(Format Note: Outline & Some Base Commentary from: MacArthur, J. (1996, c1987). Galatians. Includes indexes. (143). Chicago: Moody Press.)
