Declaration of Freedom

Series on Galatians

III The Apostolic Applications

C The Yearning for Freedom

Text: 5:13-15

Introduction

The whole message of Galatians is encapsulated in these verses, and it is: Jesus makes you free to do His will. The poet Robert Frost caught the essence of it when he said, “You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.” Freedom is a confusing topic because people mean different things by freedom. One of the biggest myths and misunderstandings of freedom is that you are totally free. The folk singer Bob Dylan wrote, “No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.” There is always a “harness” or a limitation on freedom. For us mere humans there is a harness from which we can be loosed, the harness of sin and death. There is also a harness from which we cannot be loosed, and it is the harness of creature-hood. We are bound by space, and bound by time, and bound by a thousand other limitations of being created. God is uncreated and therefore He is bound by nothing but His own nature so that he is infinite eternal and unchangeable. So we read in Daniel 4:35, All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?” Contrariwise our hands are held back by Him and we cannot do as we please. But we are deceived because we mistake our free will for absolute freedom. Our free wills are bound by our circumstances, our dispositions, and by God. The net result is that we fail to understand that true freedom is found in service because true freedom is fulfilling your character and destiny, and our character is made to serve our creator. Thus the Apostle sets before us his analysis of the freedom with which Christ has freed us in these verses. We learn that freedom is conveyed, constrained, and commanded.

I Freedom is Conveyed

Here Paul writes in verse 13, You, my brothers, were called to be free. In Galatians 5:1 Paul wrote, 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. Paul is talking about the freedom which is a gift. The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once wrote, “You can have peace, or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.” In a broken world where totalitarian aspirations are often achieved and where wars and rumors of wars abound, that quote pretty much describes our situation. However there is a place where we can find peace and freedom together and that is in Jesus Christ. Jesus says in John 8:34-36, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. And then in John 14:27 he tells his disciples, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. Note that in both of these places Jesus is talking about a gift. Peace is a gift and freedom is a gift as Paul describes it in 3:18, For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. God gave us the inheritance through the death of his only begotten Son. In Jesus we are forgiven, justified, cleansed, adopted and made joint heirs. Here is both the greatest blessing and the greatest challenge. Many have emphasized justification by grace through faith to the point where it seems to undermine Christian ethics. “Be a sinner and sin boldly!” “Let your sins be strong!” “Sin bravely!” are striking words from Martin Luther that are perhaps the most frequently quoted against him. The choice of words is unfortunate because even Luther did not believe for a moment that being forgiven and justified freely meant you could do anything you want. Luther meant that the more we sin, the more we recognize that Christ’s forgiving love is greater than all our sin. Luther followed Paul who after giving the clearest possible explanation of free grace in his letter to the Romans says in Romans 6:1 and 2, What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? The point is, simply, that sinful human nature will jump at any opportunity to escape the yoke of obedience. Let us remember that Jesus came to take the yoke off, but replace it with another, and he describes it in Matthew 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. True freedom is a gift from God, but it is a gift with constraints.

II Freedom is Constrained

Paul continues in verse 13 saying you may have freedom in Christ, But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. One commentator writes, “The Christian religion resembles a narrow bridge over a place where two polluted streams meet: one is called legalism, the other libertinism. The believer must not lose his balance, lest he tumble into the refined faults of Judaism on the one side, or into the gross vices of paganism on the other.” We tend to divide sins into two categories, vulgar and nice. White collar crime and all the avarice associated with it is nice. Gossip is nice, Religious prejudice is nice. However, serial murderers and prostitutes and dope dealers are vulgar. Most of Jesus dealings were with the religious leaders of Israel, the Scribes, Pharisees and Saducees. Listen to how Jesus speaks to them in Matthew 23:13-15, Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. In a nutshell these people were still in bondage and oppressing their own people. On the other hand there is always the danger that people freed from one tyrant will fall prey to another. New Christians, who realize that their spiritual freedom has delivered them from bondage to law, may foolishly rush into a new servitude—bondage to their own flesh. This was a severe temptation in the Graeco-Roman culture of the first century. Paul had to consistently warn against the common sins of pagan culture. He describes them in his assessment of the Gentile world in Romans 1:28–32, Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Freedom is a package deal, it comes with responsibilities and consequences. The constraint on freedom is that we can only find it in obedience to God. The tragic irony of the Galatians’ situation was that the more they came under bondage to keep the ordinances of the law, the more they violated the basic moral standard of the law: love your neighbor as yourself. Paradoxical as it may seem, that standard is only fulfilled in the lives of those who resist slavery under the law and serve as slaves in love to others.

III Freedom is Commanded

Paul informs us that freedom is commanded in verses 14 and 15, The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. Much of what Paul has written creates a bad impression of law. This is necessarily so because there are two uses for the law, a good use and a bad one. To use the law as a guide for consecration, sanctification and obedience is very good and Paul says in Romans 7 that the law. in this sense, is holy, just and good. This is the sense that David reveals in Psalm 119: 9-16, How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, O Lord; teach me your decrees. With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word. Most of us fret when laws get in our way, like speeding laws and similar ordinances. We recognize that we are not friends with the law unless it serves our needs and our pleasure. But we need to love the law as an expression of the character of God whom we aspire to be like. It is the bad use of the law that Paul combats in Galatians and this is very different. It is using the law to justify ourselves. It is saying that if we are “law-abiding” then we shall be saved. The problem is that none of us is or can be “law-abiding” in God’s sight. In His sight, “All our righteousnesses are filthy rags.” But we must not throw out the law because once we are justified by grace through faith we need the law to convict us and guide us. This is especially true because ours is a day that cries for liberation. Men, women, and even children are demanding more freedom to do as they please. In the name of personal rights, authority is flouted and restrictions are resisted. Like the Israelites in the days of the judges, sinful people want to do what is right in their own eyes. Fallen man is a slave to his sinful nature, an addict who cannot successfully control his sinful thoughts and actions even when he may want to. Thus we read in John 8:34, Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” Thus we could possibly sum up this passage in three movements: Don’t be a slave to the law; don’t be a slave to sin; do be a slave to Jesus.